The Woman In The Lake: Can she escape the shadows of the past?

She rang the bell, then started folding and tidying away my clothes. Over the back of a chair I saw the golden gown that Eustace had given me the previous night. It was exceedingly pretty, with silver thread woven through the silk, and a soft, shimmering appearance. I had seen it as a peace offering, which had been foolish of me. It was not peace Eustace wanted, except perhaps from the torment of both hating and desiring me.

He had presented the gown to me with a great flourish, just as Constance had been dressing me for dinner. It had been an odd business, for Eustace never normally gave me clothes, having a very masculine inability to judge my size. I could see at once, simply looking at it, that the gown was too large for me. Not only that, but the silk weave was of too thick and heavy a style for the summer.

‘How beautiful it is, my dear,’ I said. ‘But tonight is so very hot, don’t you think? I would rather save such an elegant gown for the winter balls—’

I got no further, for Eustace swept every item from the surface of my dressing table. Powder clouded the air, brushes and combs flew, my pearls clattered to the floor. Constance hurried forward to try to pick them up and he turned on her.

‘Get out, girl!’

She ran.

But not I. Eustace never let me run. He smiled at me, that madman’s smile, and then he struck me. I had learned not to try to defend myself. It only made him more determined. I stood and waited. I absented myself from my body.

‘Ungrateful jade,’ my husband said. My petticoats were flimsy and they ripped all too easily beneath his grasp. One careless swipe of his hand and I fell like a broken marionette.

I watched with detachment as he raped me. It was over very quickly. Small mercies.

Eustace heaved himself up and stood panting over me. I thought he might kick me as I lay there. I wanted to close my eyes against the threat but I did not, and after a moment he walked away, weaving across the room like a drunkard, leaving the door swinging wide so the entire household might see the fate of an unappreciative wife.

‘My lady?’

Constance was watching me. She had seen me staring at the gown, reliving the memory.

‘I’ll take it away, milady.’ She seemed eager. ‘You won’t be wanting to look at it again, I daresay, after what happened.’

I disliked her imagining that she knew how I felt, but for all that, she was right; I did not want to look on it and be reminded of Eustace’s cruelty.

‘By all means,’ I said. Then, reminding her that it was my decision alone: ‘Wrap it up and put it away. I may want to have it altered someday.’

Constance looked taken aback. ‘You wouldn’t wear it, surely? Not now!’

I wondered if she had thought I would give it to her. I had given her small items before: gloves, shawls, articles for which I had no further use, even an old cloak once, and a worn out spencer. It was the prerogative of a lady’s maid, after all, to take her mistress’s cast-offs. A gown was a different matter, however, especially one as costly as this. I had seen the look in her eyes as she had watched me unwrap it. There had been envy there and wistfulness. Well, she would not gain by my injuries.

‘Who knows?’ I said. ‘Perhaps I may, one day.’

‘Very well, milady.’ Her lips pursed and she looked censorious. It amused me, little Constance Lawrence disapproving of me. She waited for me to give her direction on whether I would get dressed, take breakfast in my room or call for paper and ink to write to my brother as Dr Baird had suggested. I could not decide. The shades were down in my mind, shuttering me in, trapping me. I was too tired to move, too tired to think.

‘Cover the mirrors,’ I said abruptly. I did not want to see my reflection and the devastation that Eustace had wrought on me.

She opened a drawer and took out the drapes, moving from one gilt mirror to the next, arranging them over the glass as though the house had suffered a bereavement. I stood up, moving stiffly, and crossed to the chair where the golden gown lay. Like me it looked crumpled and disjointed.

I took it up in my hands. The silk felt very soft. I wanted to hold it close to me.

The strangest thing happened then. It felt as though a spark had been lit deep inside me and started to burn. I clutched the gown tightly and it fostered the light, feeding it, stoking it to a blaze. It gave me strength and cleared my mind. I knew then that there was nothing to be gained from writing to George or seeking reconciliation with Eustace, nothing but further grief and pain.

‘Eustace must die…’

The words rippled through my mind like a gentle wave over sand. My fingers tightened on the golden cloth and the idea took root immovably in my mind. It happened so quickly, so easily. One moment I was standing there broken, at a loss, and the next I was fired with determination.

A widow had by far a better deal than a wife. Therefore Eustace must die. It was as simple as that. I might wait for providence to assist me, I supposed, but that was an uncertain business. It might take years. Eustace might drink himself to death or be trampled by one of his racehorses, but I could not wait. I needed to take action.

I had no idea how my husband’s murder might be achieved but I knew I would think of something.

Chapter 3

Constance

London, Late Spring 1763

I had never liked Lady Gerard. Over time, I grew to hate her.

The hatred began the day she would not give me the golden gown. I had not anticipated that she would wish to keep it, not when it had provoked so vile a scene between her and his lordship. Perhaps that had been naïve of me for she was never generous. While other maids were well rewarded by their grateful mistresses, I received very little but complaint. Many times I sat late into the night, mending her clothes so meticulously until the candle smoke stung my eyes and my vision blurred, only for her to decide the following day that the stitches were too large and I must unpick them and start again. She was an ingrate.

Lord and Lady Gerard had no money. The household lived on promise alone. Lord G was always in debt, or drunk, or both, lurching from one unhappy scandal to the next, from one syphilitic-ridden mistress to another. He and Lady Gerard could not bear one another. It only astonished me that they had thought to marry in the first place.

Don’t misunderstand me. I hated him too. He was forever angry, violent and unhappy as though driven by devils. It was Lord G who had appointed me her ladyship’s maid two years before and she had accepted without a demur. No doubt she was pleased that I was small and dark and plain beside her fair, glowing prettiness. Lord G might hate her but there were many men about Town who did not. Not one of them looked at me when she was by, and that flattered her vanity.

What she did not know was that I might be her maid but I was Lord Gerard’s spy as well. In that sense I was as contemptible as a whore, bought and paid for. I had to please him. My life depended on it.

Early that morning, before he left for Paris, Lord G called me to his study. He was dressed for travelling, pacing the room as though he were anxious to be off which, given the violent row he had had with his wife the previous night, hardly surprised me.

‘Lawrence,’ he said, on seeing me. ‘I have a task for you.’

It was not the first time.

‘Yes, my lord?’ I cast my gaze meekly on the floor the way he liked me to do.

‘The golden gown I gave my wife last night.’ He was standing directly in front of me. I could see his boots, highly polished, against the colourful pattern of the carpet. ‘I want you to destroy it.’

I knew better than to question Lord G, no matter what it was he demanded of me. I knew better than to speculate on why he acted as he did. I kept my mind blank and my voice quiet.

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘You must do as I say. It is imperative.’ He took my chin in his hand and forced my face up so that I met his eyes. They were fierce, as was the frown between his brows. He looked very angry but then I had never known him otherwise.

‘Yes, my lord,’ I repeated.

His hand tightened about my jaw. ‘And no one must know. Do you understand?’ He gave me a little shake. My teeth chattered.

I could not have spoken had I wished, but he must have read my acquiescence in my eyes for he nodded and released me. My chin felt bruised, registering the imprint of his fingers. ‘Good girl.’ He moved away from me; turned back. ‘Your family are all well, I hope?’

I felt a chill. Here was the reminder, the threat, to ram home the need for me to obey. ‘They are all very well, thank you, my lord.’

‘Good.’ His look was sharp, matching his tone. ‘Make sure you keep it that way. We would not wish the authorities to enquire too closely into your father’s business, would we?’

I felt a flash of hatred. ‘No, my lord.’

He nodded. ‘Off you go then, Lawrence. Oh—’ His voice stopped me at the door. ‘Be sure to write to me with the details of how Lady Gerard progresses.’