‘Yes.’
‘And did you speak to the clergyman yourself?’ I asked, though I knew it was a vain hope.
‘No. I did not need to,’ she said. ‘He told me that everything was arranged and I believed him. He is a good man, he loves me. I know he does.’
‘If he was a good man, he would not have deserted you,’ I said gently.
‘He didn’t desert me. He had to go away for a while because his benefactress was ill, and then he was going to find a house for us to live in when we were married. He promised me he would come back soon, but it has been two months and I am dreadfully worried,’ she said, looking at me with sick apprehension. ‘I think something must have happened to him.’
‘It is possible,’ I said, more to soothe her pride than for any other reason. ‘If you give me his name, I will make enquiries and find out what has become of him.’
She did not want to do so, for I could tell that she was afraid of what I would say to him when I found him, but at last, reluctantly, she gave in.
‘His name is Willoughby,’ she said.
I stared at her, aghast. Willoughby! She could not have given me any name that would have shocked me more.
But then, as I thought over the matter, I realized it must be another Willoughby. The man I knew might be shallow and frivolous but he was at least a gentleman; he could surely not be so base as to leave a sixteen-year-old girl alone in London whilst she was carrying his child, and then go to Barton and make love to another young woman without a care in the world. No, it was impossible.
‘What is his Christian name?’ I asked.
‘John,’ she said. ‘Here, I have a sketch of him.’
She raised herself on her elbow and opened a small book which lay beside her. She turned the pages until she came to the sketch of a young man. It was poorly executed, but the likeness was unmistakable.
I shook my head in dismay.
‘Do you know him? ’ she asked.
‘I am sorry to say that I do.’
I did not want to hurt her, but I knew that she had to be told. As gently as I could, I told her that I had spent the last few weeks in company with him, that he had been happy and care-free, and that he had never once mentioned her, nor thought about her, for he had been courting another.
‘No! It cannot be true!’ she said, falling back on the sofa.
‘It gives me great pain to say it, Eliza, but I am afraid it is so,’ I said.
‘I do not believe it!’ she said, rallying.
‘Then you must ask Sir John Middleton,’ I said. ‘You have paper on your table. Write to him and ask him if he knows a man named Willoughby.’
‘I never suspected ...’ she said, ashen. She looked at the paper and then said, ‘No, I will not write. I know you to be honest. If you say it is so, then it must be so. But Willoughby. To have abandoned me, promising to return, and then to leave and never to think of me again? Do I mean so little to him, and his child, too?’ she asked, as fresh tears began to fall.
‘Hush,’ I said. ‘You are with friends now.’
I knew that friendship could do little to alleviate her suffering, but what it could do would not be wanting.
‘He is not the man I thought he was,’ she said, drying her tears. ‘And I? What am I? I am not the person I thought I was, either, for I thought I was a dearly loved woman who eloped with her fiancé, but instead I am a dupe. And yet I love him still. Oh! I have been so wrong. I cannot bear it.’
She covered her face with her hands, and I put her head on my shoulder whilst she wept until she could weep no more.
‘Never fear, you are not alone,’ I told her. ‘As soon as your lying-in period is over, I will take you to the country. There you can grow strong and happy again.’
‘Strong, perhaps, but I do not believe I will ever be happy again,’ she said sorrowfully.
I made allowances for her circumstances and her condition, and soothed her and talked of pleasanter things. But she did not listen to me. Her mind was still in the past, with Willoughby.
Friday 28 October
I have found a nurse for Eliza, and hired a maid and a manservant to look after her, and installed her in more elegant lodgings, but now the only thing I can do for her is to sit with her and cheer her until her child is born, for her time is very near. She does not complain, though I can see that she is in discomfort, and she has begun to show an interest in her life after her child is born, for I tempt her with thoughts of her own establishment in the country, where she and her child can be together.
Wednesday 2 November
My feelings are all confusion, for Eliza has had her child, a girl, as like her mother as it is possible for a newborn baby to be. I am thankful for her safe delivery, and full of tenderness when I look at the child, but I am conscious of feelings of guilt as well, for I should have protected her from such a fate.
However, there will be no debtor’s prison for her, no consumption, no early death. I will make it my business to see that she is well cared for. I am convinced that she is young enough to regain her spirits and that, in time, she will be happy again.
Friday 4 November
Having seen Eliza through her ordeal, my thoughts turned to her seducer, and I went in search of Willoughby. I was about to board the stage and travel back to Barton when a chance remark from an acquaintance told me that he was in town.
‘Saw him at my club last night,’ said Gates.
‘Thank you, you have spared me a journey, and an embarrassing scene at the end of it,’ I said, for I had not been looking forward to confronting Willoughby at Barton, where it would worry my friends and neighbours. ‘Is he staying at the club?’
‘No, he is in lodgings.’
‘Do you happen to have his direction?’
He gave me the address and I went there straight away. Willoughby was out, but I said I would wait and the landlady let me in. I sat and waited an hour for him. He entered in high good humour, looking as handsome as ever, and with not a care in the world.
‘What, Brandon? I never thought to find you here. I thought you were attending to urgent business,’ he said impudently. ‘Well, what is it then? You must have some reason for coming here, and I cannot suppose it is for the pleasure of my company. You never struck me as a man who courted pleasure! Indeed, the last time I saw you, you were doing everything in your power to avoid it.’
I took my glove and slapped his face. He looked startled, and his hand went to his cheek, and then he laughed.
‘What! Are you calling me out! I cannot believe it. For laughing at you? No, that is impossible. For what then? I have done nothing — unless you wish to call me out for taking Miss Marianne for a drive when you were called away?’
‘I am not here about Miss Marianne, though, God knows, if I were her brother, I would be tempted to give you a thrashing, ’ I said. ‘I am here about Eliza Williams.’
‘Eliza Williams?’ he asked incredulously, and then something wary entered his eye and the smile left his face. ‘I know no one of that name.’
‘Then let me refresh your memory. She is the young girl you met in Bath, and then seduced and abandoned,’ I said.
‘Oh, hardly that. She took no seducing — ’ He stopped as he realized that he had admitted to knowing her, but then he shrugged and went on, ‘And as for abandoning her, I did no such thing.’
‘You left her alone in a strange city where she had no friends,’ I said, restraining the impulse to knock him down. ‘The very circumstances that should have aroused your compassion instead aroused your cruelty. She was an orphan, with no one to protect her, and so you used her as you pleased.’