‘I have the same nose, little mulatta . . . but mine sniffs out a woman who’s sold herself.’

From the journals of George Benham

(Marked by George Benham as: NOT INTENDED FOR PUBLICATION)

It always suits Meg to have a companion, and what suits Meg always suits everyone else. Her newest one is always at her side. Sitting in my library, attending my wife. For all the acres of difference between them, they are as like as two peas. Stubborn, changeable, quick. Even the girl’s challenging, questioning manner is so very like Marguerite’s when I first met her. They almost begin to look alike. Perhaps a trick of the light. I surprise them in the hallways, heads bent together, and then they fly apart and both stare. She is a distraction for my wife, at least. One can only hope this will temper Meg’s constant need to be a distraction to herself. She blames me for the last one, as she blames me for everything. But what did I do, other than pluck the lad out of his circumstances, give him a life that exceeded them? There’s no crime in that. Nor can a man be expected to continue to employ a footman who once cuddled his own wife on his lap.

My wife. My first act as a husband was to disappoint her. I remember how she settled herself on the bed and stopped to take a swallow of laudanum and brandy, a concoction I’d made for her, thinking it would soothe her nerves. ‘It is all your brother ’s money?’ she said. Yes, I told her, most of it. She’d thought me wealthy because I lived at Longreach. But England’s second sons share the elders’ blood, not their fortunes. By dint of primogeniture I am Percy’s second in every way, and not just the speed of our respective occupation and vacation of dear Mama’s womb.

It is for Marguerite’s own good that I ask the girl to keep an eye, though no one is less likely to recognize her own good than Marguerite. I married her knowing I made myself more caretaker than husband. That suited me. Marriage as self-flagellation. A perfect irony. The counter-weight on the scale. Marriage as redemption for my sins. Let marriage stay my hand, I thought.

I remind myself of Johnson: A man should be careful never to tell tales of himself to his own disadvantage. People may be amused and laugh at the time, but they will be remembered and brought out against him upon some subsequent occasion.

Reputation is everything.

I confess only to God.

I reminded the girl I want a record of everything. Who visits and who writes and who is written to. To whom Meg pays calls. How much laudanum, how often. Told her it is on this condition she stays on. When she asked how she’d manage for ink, I told her to dip her pen at my wife’s own inkwells, if she had to. Made her startle like a pigeon. She’ll do it, of course. No other choice.