The Love Knot Read online

  ‘Yes, she has a baby son – John Edward. He was born here in a snowstorm, and is now, I am happy to say, a big bonny baby of some weeks, albeit that his father has still not arrived to see him.’

  Gabriel Chantry stared ahead with what Leonie saw was an almost ferocious longing at Mercy’s thin form, which even he must have recognized was in pitifully sharp contrast to Dorinda’s slender, but rounded, silhouette.

  ‘Is Mr Brancaster abroad, then?’ Leonie asked in some surprise.

  The look in the kind, deep, dark eyes that were turned on her said everything.

  ‘No, Mr Brancaster is not abroad, Miss Lynch. Mr Brancaster is still hunting.’

  For all that Brindells was so cosy, and so charmingly decorated, and Mercy so sweet and kind, Leonie could not wait to follow Dorinda into the motor car and return to Shepworth Place.

  Dorinda was speakingly silent, most unusually for her, on the drive back. Knowing people just a little in her short lifetime, Leonie made sure that she asked no questions, realizing that her young hostess must have learned more from Mercy Brancaster on their walk than perhaps even she would have wished to know.

  So, when they arrived back at Shepworth, there was nothing for them both to do except part company in the hall, to meet again in the library before dinner.

  ‘I am so glad that there is just the two of us,’ Dorinda confided as they sat in front of the fire in evening dress sipping warming cordials, because Shepworth was so large that even the newly installed heating was insufficient when the weather, spring or no, was still so cold. ‘It means,’ she went on, ‘that we can talk at length, with no regard to anyone else, about this terrible question of Mrs Brancaster.’

  Leonie could not help feeling a kind of pent up excitement as soon as Dorinda said ‘terrible’, for she knew at once that it must mean that Mercy Brancaster was now in need of just such compassion as she herself had shown towards the poor starving mannequin.

  It was not that Leonie wanted Mercy in any way to be some sort of suffering heroine from a tragic tale, it was just that seeing that she looked so terribly thin, and that even her voice had sounded lacklustre, and hearing from Mr Chantry (who was clearly passionately in love with her) that Mr Brancaster had not yet even bothered to visit his son and heir – well, it was all too terrible not to be fascinating.

  ‘You know that sometimes it is very much easier for people, if they are unhappy, to confide in a complete stranger than to talk to a friend?’

  Leonie nodded, and then said ‘Yes’ as an added encouragement.

  ‘Well, my dear, she did confide in me, and I almost wish that she had not. This is the sort of tale that would make a penny dreadful, if not a twopenny or threepenny dreadful. A housemaid’s read of a tale, believe me.’

  Dorinda paused as one of the footmen came in and fed the library fire with coal. She waited to hear the door close behind him before beginning again.

  ‘I shall begin at the beginning. First and foremost, it seems that your poor friend Mrs Brancaster made the mistake of her life, a young girl’s mistake.’ She paused, breathing in and out quite rapidly to add drama to what she was about to say. ‘My dear – she only went and married for love!’

  Leonie stared at Dorinda, not quite comprehending the significance of this, nor indeed why there was such a look of amazed shock in Dorinda’s eyes.

  ‘But – do not most people nowadays marry for love?’

  Dorinda shook her head. ‘Whoever gave you such strange ideas, Leonie? No, no, no. You must never marry for love. It is the most shocking, and perhaps the most stupid, thing that a woman can do. A woman must always marry to better herself.’

  ‘And a man?’

  ‘He must marry to better her too!’

  Leonie laughed, but Dorinda only managed a smile, probably because she was still so shocked by what Mrs Brancaster had told her earlier.

  ‘You see,’ she went on, ‘your poor friend married for love, and being young and inexperienced in the ways of the world she imagined that her husband, despite being so much older, was marrying her for the same reason.’

  She paused again, trying to think logically.

  ‘Which, it seems, he very nearly was, until the hunting season was upon them and she, thinking to be kind (such a weakness in women, I find), sent him off to his hunting box while she set about redecorating and furnishing Brindells in the appropriate manner – which we have to agree she has achieved magnificently with the help of that charming antiquarian. But since then, despite the birth of the baby, Mr Brancaster has not returned to her side, except over Christmas.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Chantry told me that Mr Brancaster has never seen his baby son. It seems heartless to a degree.’

  ‘It is tales such as hers that make me thankful that I did not marry my Mr L for anything except respectability and enormous wealth. If you marry a man for his money you both know exactly where you are. But then of course not everyone is as kind and generous as Mr L. Very few, as I know to my cost.’

  ‘But your first husband, Mr Montgomery, whom you helped to nurse so devotedly when we met at Sister Angela’s – were you not in love with him?’

  This time Dorinda did laugh, and quite heartily.

  ‘Oh, Leonie, my dear! If only you could see the expression on your face. No, no, no, my dear, no woman could really love Mr Montgomery – he was far too selfish. Until it was too late, of course, and then he was very tearful and sorry and destroyed himself with drink. You can’t love a man like that. I took pity on him, the way he had taken pity on me.

  ‘He rescued me, you see, from my mother’s boarding house and a life of penury, scrubbing floors and sewing cheap clothes and so on, and in return I nursed him until – as you would say – he was gathered. It was the least I could do. But love him? No-one could love Mr Montgomery, for he loved himself far too much. Loving yourself is like feeling sorry for yourself – there is nothing left for anyone else to do! But to return to Mrs Brancaster––’

  ‘Which we must, if we are to help her at all.’

  Dorinda stood up, a magnificent sight in her close fitting deep plum evening dress, her white throat encircled with pearls, and her hair decorated with a little lace cap of them too. She wore her clothes, and her brilliant jewels, as if she was oblivious of them, which was why, Leonie decided, they looked so perfect on her. Had she been aware, as all too many women were, of her finery and her riches, they would have instantly become cheapened and looked tawdry.

  ‘Mr Brancaster has obviously a great interest in hunting, but of course as we both know that is usually not the only interest that takes a gentleman up to his hunting box in the middle of winter.’ Dorinda poured them both another glass of cordial and returned to her seat by the fire.

  ‘Lady Cardigan and Skittles have quite set the tone for activities in Leicestershire, and elsewhere. Not that I approve of such ladies, but on the other hand, my dear Leonie, for me of all people to disapprove of them would be hypocritical, to say the least. It seems to me that very often women such as Lady Cardigan and her like can help many another woman safeguard her marriage, if not save her life, given that wives so often become worn out with child bearing, and so on. Well, you are a nurse, my dear Leonie, you will understand, and all too well, exactly what I mean. Men do need women who don’t have babies, n’est ce pas?’

  Leonie nodded. There was much that she was still not too sure about in life, but she had always known quite enough to keep herself from falling into the kinds of errors that she had all too often seen other girls make. Above all, Leonie did not want to be like her mother. She still went to sleep at night praying that God would make sure that, whatever happened, she did not make her mother’s mistake and fall in love with some man who would promise her everything and leave her dead in childbirth, as she had so often heard Mrs Lynch say dramatically of some poor girl.

  ‘It is very hard for women, is it not?’ Leonie said, deciding to bring about a slight change in the subject under discussion. ‘It is very ha
rd for them to marry without love, and yet, from what you are saying, it is equally hard for them to marry for love.’

  Dorinda held up her large diamond ring – the same that her darling Mr L had commissioned Tarleton to make from what she still called her ‘napkin diamond’ – and moved it slightly to and fro so that the newly installed electric lighting caught at its many facets.

  ‘Of the two, the first – to marry without love – is by far the preferable. After all, if you marry for – let us say practical reasons, there can be no disappointment. There is boredom, and sometimes there is no security, but there is no real disappointment. No, of the two, my dear, I should always plump for the first. Alas, it is now far too late for poor Mrs Brancaster to turn back, and so I would say that the best we can do is to help her extricate herself from the situation in which she has found herself. She knows all, and it just cannot be allowed to continue.’

  ‘What cannot be allowed to continue?’

  ‘Why, her husband’s liaison.’

  ‘What can she do to help herself? What can anyone do in such a situation? Divorce for a woman in her circumstances is, after all, unthinkable.’

  ‘Naturally, you are quite right. Divorce would put her in the wrong – women are always put in the wrong by divorce. The next choice open to her is to be frank with Mr Brancaster, but that – in my experience, which is slender – never does any good. It is usually quite fatal to face a man with his infidelities, unless you are an heiress, or he is an American. Englishmen are too used to having their own way. No, I have advised her most strongly to face this woman down. As it happens, she is in a unique position. Unlike most wives, she can blackmail the lady.’

  Leonie was shocked, too shocked at first to remember to ask the name of the lady.

  ‘Blackmail?’

  Growing up in God-fearing Eastgate Street she had never even heard anyone mention the word. Dorinda saw the shock on her face, and continued, ‘Oh yes, my dear Leonie, I know it is not a nice word, but then there are boundaries and there are boundaries, and this lady has gone too far. It is an unwritten rule in Society. When a man marries for the first time his mistress gives up her affair with him. That is the rule. One backs down, one bows out, it is just how it is.’

  By now Leonie was feeling less shocked and more curious. Who was this lady? Who could possibly have so fascinated Mr Brancaster that he had continued to have an affair with her after marriage, and during his young wife’s pregnancy? Dorinda must have felt the weight of her friend’s curiosity because she turned her magnificent blue orbs on Leonie, and sighed.

  ‘Do you know I have never been more shocked since my mother informed me of the exact nature of the marriage act on the eve of my wedding to Mr Montgomery? But, as I say, Mrs Brancaster can at least blackmail the wretched lady. She can threaten to go and tell her father, and that will certainly put a stop to the whole horrid business and bring the wretched man back to her side.’

  ‘But why would Mrs Brancaster’s father be interested in hearing about Mr Brancaster’s petite amour? I mean to say? As I understand it fathers are never interested in daughters once they marry, just thankful that they are no longer a burden on their incomes. Why would Lord Duffane be interested?’

  ‘Why? For the very good reason that it is Lord Duffane’s wife who is having an affair with Mr Brancaster!’

  Leonie opened her mouth to say something, and then closed it again. She had not been so intimate with Mercy Brancaster before her marriage that she had any idea of how or why such a situation should come about. Her mind raced as she tried to remember what kind of woman the stepmother was meant to have been.

  And then she did remember that, as they sat together keeping watch over the poor dying young mannequin, Mercy had spoken now and then about her beautiful stepmother, in tones of such reverence and admiration that it did not now seem possible that the same woman could be carrying on, as she seemingly was, with her stepdaughter’s husband.

  ‘Forgive me, but is Mrs Brancaster quite sure of all this?’

  The expression in Dorinda’s large, sapphire blue eyes was suddenly and unusually sombre.

  ‘Oh yes, alas, she is more than sure. She has been told on the best authority of the liaison between the two wretches. It has been, as it were, verified.’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘Lord Marcus Stanton, the brother of the lady in question.’

  Mercy had not been looking forward to a visit from Lord Marcus. She did not feel that he would approve of the work that had been carried out at Brindells, and that he would not see the point of oak and rush matting and pewter in the kitchens and her informal sitting room, albeit that it was actually perfectly fitting in a house of such age. She felt that he would be looking for gilt and chandeliers, for everything that he liked and was used to living with, as older people seemed so often to do.

  And then, too, she realized, she did not like her step-uncle anymore. She did not like his ruby red lips that seemed to be set in his whitened, bloodless face in such a way as to startle the onlooker into watching only his mouth when he spoke. She did not like his habit of settling himself into her father’s London house at the start of the Season and staying there for its duration. But since she was alone with the baby at Brindells, and there was no prospect of other visitors, least of all her husband, it was quite impossible for her to refuse to entertain him, and he knew it.

  ‘My dear little Mercy!’

  He arrived not by motor car but in a hired trap from the station, much wearied and covered in dust and smuts from the journey. This was a happy circumstance, since it meant that he could be shown to his room and not expected to reappear until drinks before dinner, which nowadays Mercy held in the hall in front of a roaring log fire.

  ‘There are so many changes at Brindells that quite honestly, my dear, I am convinced there will be little or nothing I will recognize from before John’s marriage to you, when, as you know, I used to come here a great deal.’

  Mercy nodded and smiled, and one of her two footmen in their country tweed offered Lord Marcus a tray with the usual array of drinks. With a look first at the tray and then at the footman, and then back to the tray, he started to laugh.

  ‘I am afraid, my dear, these are what we call at the club ladies’ drinks,’ he said, laughing heartily at his own joke – if that was what it was meant to be.

  Then he took one drink and poured it into another, and poured a third into the same glass, making Mercy blush with embarrassment at his lack of manners.

  ‘That is better.’

  He ignored the settles in front of the fire and instead sat himself in a large chair so far away from the fireplace that Mercy had to draw up a footstool in order to hear him speak.

  For a good few minutes there was nothing to which she could respond, since all Lord Marcus did was to sip at his drink, loudly, and breathe out, equally loudly, which Mercy was quite happy to allow him to do while she herself wondered for perhaps the thousandth time what it was exactly that had brought him in almost unseemly haste to Brindells to see her.

  It had to be something of great importance or he would not have bothered to travel so far from his usual stamping grounds in London, particularly at the end of a long, cold winter.

  ‘Mercy my dear, after dinner we must have a talk. It is vital that we reach some sort of understanding.’ He stopped, having obviously rehearsed what he had to say to a certain point, but not beyond. ‘But let us have dinner first.’

  Mercy did not want to eat the dinner, but she had to. She had to cut it up and swallow it, and pretend to appreciate it, both for the cook’s sake and for her own. It was vital, and she knew it, that she did not show her fear of whatever Lord Marcus was to say to her.

  So she cut and swallowed, and drank her wine, and nodded and laughed at the same old anecdotes (he did not seem to change those any more frequently than he changed his collars) until at last she could withdraw and leave him to his port, and eventually he joined her in the drawing room where
she sat in front of the fire pretending to be absorbed in her tapestry.

  ‘Well, my dear,’ he said at last, obviously having had time to think out his approach in the dining room. ‘How very splendid it is that you have given birth to a son and heir, and how thrilled John is with you, as I am sure he has told you.’

  ‘He has written to congratulate me, yes, and Garrards sent John Edward a silver rattle from his father.’

  Mercy threaded her needle through her tapestry, determined not to show her step-uncle the depths of her feelings.

  ‘A fine strapping young fellow he is too, I hear.’

  ‘Yes, he is very well, thank God. And doing all that he should.’

  Mercy’s protective feelings towards John Edward were also well concealed, for she had already worked out that should she show the slightest vulnerability in her attitude towards her baby, he might well be taken from her by his still absent father.

  She was not so young and stupid that she had not heard of vengeful husbands taking their offspring from their wives and then declaring those same wives insane. Mercy well remembered that it had happened to a young woman living near to her father’s Cordel estate, and of course the poor young wife subsequently did actually lose her reason, from the shock of being consigned to an asylum, where she eventually committed suicide. Within months her poor baby, too, had died in the charge of a drunken slut of a nurse who was quite unfit to look after other people’s babies.

  With this to the front of her mind Mercy smiled briefly across at Lord Marcus, outwardly all serenity.

  ‘That is good, that is good.’ Her calm, together with the port, seemed to have induced great enthusiasm in Lord Marcus, and having licked his lips, a most unattractive habit, he continued, ‘So all is well, as they say.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Except I would like to see my husband sometime!’

  Mercy laughed, mocking herself, knowing it would lead her step-uncle into gossip, and knowing also that it took very little to induce him to talk.

  ‘Now, Mercy, my dear,’ he began again. ‘I want you to understand that I think, we all think, that you are a very good person indeed.’