I spoke as I read my notes, impassively and with little interest in my subject. “Nothing so exclusive. He enjoys variety in his private entertainments. Unfortunately, he has been indiscreet and has earned himself an unflattering reputation in respectable circles as, forgive me, a brothel hound.” I looked over at her shocked face. “Did you never wonder why he resorted to Mrs Trencher’s academy to find a wife?”
The girl was angry now, not with Mr Fields, as she should have been, but with me, the bearer of this sordid news.
“Many men stray,” she said coldly.
“That is true, and if you are philosophical about it, then by all means, marry the man.”
I watched in cold satisfaction as her jaw dropped. Miss Lydia’s expression then shifted three times over—from shock, to rage, to something close to fear. My heart sank.
“Is there by chance some urgency to the matter of your marrying this man?” I asked gravely. Her silence and the wildness in her eyes told me all I needed to know. “If so, then we must strike a bargain that is as comfortable for you as possible.”
“You will help me?”
“That is why I came. I am your legal guardian. I am required to protect your interests.”
“I do not want to live with his mother,” she said, swiping at an angry tear that coursed down her cheek.
“A wise demand.”
“Frederick might give up his-his?—”
“Possible but unlikely. What you should know is this: you will need to be faithful to him until you have produced at least two or three children that resemble him in likeness. After that, you need not adhere so strictly to convention.”
Lydia Bennet, who thought herself a worldly woman, was perhaps too young to understand me, and so I said, “Have you never heard the expression what is good for the gander, is good for the goose? There are marriages aplenty in which spouses have their private loves while pretending devotion to one another. This is perhaps an unhappy way to live, and you must decide for yourself whether a compromised existence is worth the risk.”
“What risk do you mean?”
Mr Fields was reportedly pleasant in manner, beginning to bald, and tending to soft habits, but he was privately lewd and indiscriminate. I sincerely hoped he did not turn out to be privately cruel as well.
“Your husband has the legal right to beat you, and it is not too uncommon for a woman to die under mysterious circumstances after an infidelity comes to light. Some women are afraid of the men they have married and ignore what they do not want to know out of an instinct of self-preservation. In the event the husband is not physically violent, there are also wives aplenty who exact their revenge for unfaithfulness, not by means of cuckolding him, but by the habit of acquisitiveness.”
Again, she looked at me in confusion.
“You make him pay for his infidelity by liberally overspending. Guilt is usually sufficient cause to make a weak man generous.” By now, I felt truly sorry for the girl, for she had no hope of a truly felicitous match, and I had just outlined the bleak possibilities and choices available to her.
“We have in our favour that he is nearing the age of forty and has not yet secured a marriageable lady. He is, in fact, in such poor odour in proper circles in the Midlands that he has come to Bath to see Mrs Trencher. I believe we can leverage a better settlement for your children at the very least because he wants to be married as soon as may be, and perhaps we can even secure acommitment to see his mother settled somewhere other than your house.Thatrequirement might cost you in pin money, however, for he is not rich and would find her support a strain on his purse.”
“Then he can curb his other spending habits,” she said bitterly.
“My sentiments precisely.” I then spoke carefully and with genuine concern over the principal difficulty which I suspected the girl faced. “Is Mr Fields aware of the consequence of having anticipated his vows, Miss Lydia?”
She lowered her eyes to the table and shook her head.
“How was he given such free access to you?”
“Mrs Trencher sometimes has a headache when the gentlemen visit.”
I closed my eyes to subdue my rage and paused before speaking. “You are but sixteen years old, and yet you face a truly testing time. You might be better served to receive a little education on the ways of the world, for though you believe yourself to be sly, you are a mere babe.
“Mrs Trencher, who has convinced you she is your ally, will profit from your marriage. She receives a bounty of one hundred pounds from the bride’s family and twice that from the groom. Your compromise was nearly assured when you enrolled here because it is inher best interest to force a match. Do you not see? This academy is little more than a bawdy house with the thinnest veneer of respectability, and you are nothing but a pawn. If that does not enrage you, it should, and I hope you never listen to that woman’s advice again.”
Tears poured out her eyes, and yet I did not spare her the rest of my homily. “I wish you had not made such an uncomfortable bed to lie in, but lie in it you must. My advice to you is never again to let rage be your master, to forgo your propensity to attract attention by shocking your audience, and to turn your back on childish rebellion. Those tendencies, which you thought were essential to your nature and constituted your charm, have put you at the mercy of a man who is not suitable but will have to suit nonetheless.”
“If they had only let me elope with the man I wished to marry, I would not be in this horrible situation!” she cried.
I had anticipated this bit of resistance and pulled another piece of paper from my pocket. “You refer to Mr Carrington, I believe.” This man was the rake who nearly ruined the girl months ago. “Perhaps you should know he is also known as Johnson, Wilson, and Tilton, depending on which county he visits, has been married three times, is wanted by the law for bigamy and for fraud, and is actively hunted by Lord Arvis for ruininghis daughter. My bet is on Arvis, who will find him before long and shoot him.”
“No. That cannot be the same man!”
