Helen Dickson - An Innocent Proposal

Louisa’s face turned pale. “That may be, but what is the point in going when you have nothing to gamble with? You have nothing left to cover your bet if you should lose. James, we can’t let Bierlow go.”

“If it comes down to it we’ll have to,” he replied, not sharing Louisa’s fondness of the family home. Anger at himself coiled within him, which he turned momentarily towards his sister. “Bierlow is the only thing left that would be worth money in the sums I need. You would have to come up to London and live with me.”

“No, James,” Louisa replied sharply, his airy tone whipping up her anger, unleashed irritation flooding through her. James had always been selfish—selfish and unthinking in his impulsiveness, in his assumption that what he did was all that mattered, forcing her to adjust her life to his. “I couldn’t.”

“You’ll have to. There’s nothing else for it.”

Louisa fell silent. James was becoming irritable and soon he would become more angry. How well she knew his moods, she thought miserably. An inexplicable weariness and pain lay heavy on her heart, the deepest, cruellest pain she would ever know. Despite James’s willingness to sell Bierlow Hall, it would tear her apart if she had to leave her beloved home. She would fight tooth and nail to hold onto it. Ever since their father had died, leaving them in dire straits, she had come up against so many obstacles, just managing to surmount them, and almost wearing herself out into the bargain, but this seemed to be just one obstacle too many.

No greater crisis had ever confronted her.

With his head pounding with a frightful hangover, after having spent most of the night trying to obliterate what he had done in a bottle of brandy, James Fraser rose the following morning from the bed in which he had fallen into a dissolute, drunken slumber in the certain knowledge that ruination was staring him in the face, unable to see how he could survive it. He surveyed bleakly what the remainder of his life would be like and it was not pleasant. It was not only himself who would suffer as a consequence of his recklessness at the card tables, but his sister also, and in that he could not defend himself.

When he entered the breakfast room Louisa was there already, looking unnaturally calm, her face pale through worry and lack of sleep. There was only a slight resemblance between brother and sister. Both were fair, but there the resemblance ended. Louisa was like a piece of thistledown with a finely structured face, whereas James was six feet and stockily built, with a strong square chin and grey-blue eyes.

Louisa was shocked by her brother’s appearance. Last night had aged him ten years. He looked thoroughly broken, his handsome face creased with deep lines of anxiety, his clothes and hair dishevelled.

“Dear God, Louisa! How could I have done it? We are in the devil of a fix. We are ruined. Quite ruined.” He threw himself down in a chair, staring with a stricken look out of bloodshot eyes at his sister. “What’s to be done? How are we to be saved?” he cried, looking at Louisa as if she knew the answer.

The appeal in his voice went straight to her heart. Without thinking of how they could save themselves, she went to her brother and put her arms round him. Her eyes were soft and tender and she spoke impulsively, lowering her cheek to his.

“We’ll think of a way, James. Something will come up, you’ll see.” she said, but she knew in that moment that there was not even the suspicion of a hope that something would happen to save them.

Later Louisa left the house to walk the short distance to Fleet Street to pay a visit to Mr Brewster’s second-hand bookshop, in the hope of obtaining for a few pence a book by William Collins of sentimental lyric poetry, a style that Mr Collins and others had first made fashionable in the 1740s. She was also glad of the opportunity to be out in the fresh air and to be alone for a while so that she might think.

She wanted nothing more than to return home to Bierlow and forget she had ever come up to London. But she couldn’t leave now. She did not trust her brother not to make matters worse—if they could be worse—and she was dreadfully afraid that he would become suicidal. Their situation was quite desperate, and, not possessing a plethora of relations they could turn to in order to bail them out, she knew that it would require all their brains and ingenuity if they were to survive.

After the death of their parents, James had selfishly taken himself off to London, preferring to live there rather than bury himself in the country, where he bemoaned the fact that there was nothing to do other than fish and hunt—which he could no longer do anyway, having sold all but three of his father’s horses. Two of these he had taken to London to pull his carriage and the other, an ageing mare, Louisa kept for domestic purposes.

She had soon learned that where James was concerned her own wishes were not to be consulted, and she had been forced by circumstances to live in genteel poverty, to be the keeper of Bierlow Hall and to put all her youthful energies and her loneliness into their home, where she was responsible for all the household matters and the staff—of which only two old retainers and a housemaid remained, the only three they could afford.

Mrs Marsh had taken over the duty of cook as well as housekeeper. Her husband, whose health was ailing, managed the stabling of the one horse and the kitchen garden and did odd repair jobs about the house, anything else being too much for him.

Over the years, as the money had dwindled, the old house had fallen into a sorry state of neglect. The curtains were faded and chairs and carpets threadbare. Windows were broken and the roof needed mending, and the garden was overgrown with a wild tangle of weeds. Life was a constant struggle and Louisa fought a never-ending battle with tradesmen and shopkeepers alike, stripping the house of several valuables which were not of sentimental worth and pieces of furniture to pay them.

All this had caused something to harden inside Louisa, to die, even. The lessons since her parents’ demise had been hard and she had learned them well, knowing she could expect little support from James as he went on his merry way unhindered. She had learned to deal with relentless adversity, to hide her disappointment in her brother and her fear for the future, and to hold her head high. And because of the time she spent alone at Bierlow Hall, making decisions and being responsible for others, she had acquired an independence of attitude and spirit.

But, despite James’s neglect of duty, Louisa understood him and loved him well, and would forgive him almost anything. Whenever he came down to Bierlow Hall to placate her, he would leave her a little money he had won at the tables, promising her that the day would soon come when he would make his fortune and bring her to London and find her a husband who would be worthy of her, before rushing off back to town.

Louisa would listen calmly, knowing this would never happen, and was resigned to remain at Bierlow Hall in semi-isolation for ever. The only luxury she permitted herself was her books, for it was only in these that she could find solace and escape from the daily concern of money.

Fleet Street, with its bookshops, printing establishments and coffee-houses, was a popular area for writers and poets. As always, it was crowded with journalists and salesmen, with newsboys running up and down carrying the latest broadsheets. Louisa kept close to the wall, for often it was difficult to walk in the streets, congested with draymen, hackneys and other hazards, without fear of injury.

She had come here once before when she had been in London and she remembered how she had loved the bustle of the busy street. Finding herself in front of Mr Brewster’s shop, the familiar sign above the door framed in iron and hanging out on a long bracket, vying with all the others along the street—and it was not unheard of for any one of them to fall down, to the danger of pedestrians—she entered the shop, where the smell of ink, paper and leather-bound books assailing her nostrils was surprisingly pleasant.