‘Of course you should. Think how often we have ridden together across the marsh at Cley.’
‘I wish we were there,’ she said. She was not sure which she missed the more, the brown-green landscape she had come to love, or the constant sound of the sea.
Hurrying upstairs to change into her riding habit, she wondered if she ought to ask permission of the Duchess, but as usual that lady and Mrs Winterton were both out. She found herself wishing as she so often did, that Miss Skinner would come back from Cambridge, but her sister-in-law was far from well, and she kept writing to say she must stay longer.
‘Riding with his lordship?’ asked Tench, surprised, and then: ‘Well, and why not, since the young ladies don’t think to take you. Enjoy yourself, my honey, and get some colour into those cheeks of yours.’
‘Why, thank you, Tench!’ She was surprised and touched by the unexpected endearment.
‘Never you forget, miss,’ said Tench, her voice slightly muffled as she pulled on the heavy serge habit, ‘that you’ve more friends in this house than you know of. We was drinking your health in the hall only last night. “A young lady as is a young lady,” was what Mr Sims called you.’
‘Oh, Tench, thank you!’
‘That’s just it,’ said Tench. ‘Please, and thank you, as if we was people too. There,’ she handed whip and gloves, ‘off you go and enjoy yourself. You’ll come to no harm with his lordship, that’s for sure.’
Caroline found Blakeney and Tremadoc awaiting her in the hall, and Tremadoc announced that he had decided to join them. ‘My mother keeps lecturing me about fresh air and exercise,’ he confided. ‘In the normal way I cannot be bothered with it. The movement of a horse is not conducive to composition, I find. But in such company, I am sure my muse must find me.’
‘Your what?’ asked Blakeney.
It was the hour for fashionable exercise and Hyde Park was crowded with riders and carriages. Caroline, who had been nervous in Piccadilly on Blakeney’s frisky mare, Zoe, soon found herself impatient at the dawdling, social pace of the crowd. ‘Can one never gallop?’ she asked Blakeney.
‘Not in the park! But if this weather holds, we could make up a party and go to Richmond, where admission is limited, and one can gallop to one’s heart’s content.’
‘And pick primroses?’
‘Anything you wish.’ He looked past her. ‘There are the girls. Perhaps we should join them.’
Charlotte and Amelia were accompanied by Mattingley, Gaston and a tall, heavy-faced young man Caroline had not met before. No introductions were made as the two parties coalesced, but Caroline presently found herself riding beside the stranger, a little behind the rest of the party.
‘You’re the adopted sister, of course.’ The young man edged his horse a little closer to speak confidentially. ‘Miss Court? Something like that. I’m Ffether.’ He spoke with the absolute confidence of one who expects to be known. ‘I wish you will tell me what Lady Charlotte thinks she is playing at.’
‘Lady Charlotte? Playing? I do not understand you, sir.’
‘“My lord,”’ he corrected. ‘Don’t play the miss with me, miss. Everybody who is anybody knows that it has been a settled thing between the Duke and my pa ever since they met at Woburn last autumn. Why else would the Duke have dragged that whey-faced Amelia to town, if he had not known Lady Charlotte was already spoken for? And now she chooses to give me the go-by and cast out her lures at Mattingley, of all people.’
‘Mr Mattingley is a great friend of the family,’ said Caroline.
He threw back his head and roared with laughter, drawing glances of disapproval from several nearby carriages. ‘That’s rich,’ he crowed. ‘That’s damned rich! Friend of the family. I like that, Miss Court. Setting up as a wit, are you, being so plain? Not stupid, I can see that, so I shall trust you with a message for my Charlotte. Tell her, I shall expect prettier behaviour from her at the opera tonight, or it’s all off between us, whatever my pa may say. As for hers, he can go hang. Never did much like the stable, come to that. One of the Villiers girls was looking very fetching at me last night at the play. And you can tell Charlotte I said so,’ he concluded, setting spurs to his horse and suddenly leaving her alone.
They had fallen a little behind the rest of the party as he talked and Caroline spoke an encouraging word to Zoe and dug in her heels to urge her forward.
‘All alone, Miss Thorpe?’ said a friendly voice, and she turned to see a stranger edging a neat bay up beside her. ‘My friend the Duchess would not like that, I am sure, so you must just let me keep you company until we can re-join your party.’
‘You’re very kind.’ She smiled at him, liking what she saw. A phrase of Blakeney’s, ‘complete to a shade,’ floated through her mind. ‘But…’ she coloured. ‘I don’t…’
‘Know me,’ he finished for her. ‘Never mind, everyone else does, and I promise you, it will do you no harm to be seen in my company.’
‘Oh, I’m sure of that,’ she said warmly. ‘You’re so,’ she looked in vain for a word, and concluded, blushing harder than ever, with ‘exquisite.’
‘You care about words, Miss Thorpe?’ His smile was more friendly still. ‘Well, I care about clothes. And appearances in general,’ he went on, ‘and if I were you, I would bring my own groom when riding here in the Park.’
‘But I haven’t got one,’ she told him, surprised into frankness.
‘Oh dear me,’ he said. ‘I must speak to the Duchess. Or, perhaps to the Duke? It’s a bold man speaks to the Duke, but in a good cause, I am a bold man.’
‘I’m sure you are.’ She saw that the others had paused at last to wait for them.
Charlotte was looking miffed, but greeted Caroline’s companion warmly. ‘Mr Brummell! When did you get into town?’
‘Just yesterday,’ he told her. ‘Brighton smelled so strongly of the sea I could stand it no longer. Besides, all the talk was of a French invasion. A dead bore. And I am glad I came, now that I find my friends are back at Chevenham House. Will I see you at the opera tonight?’
‘Yes, indeed. We are all going, I believe.’
‘The inimitable Grassini?’ he asked. ‘It will be your first visit to the opera, Miss Thorpe?’
‘To any theatre,’ she told him. ‘I am so excited I do not know how I shall get through the afternoon. Though to tell truth, I do not understand much about music.’
‘I doubt if you will find that matters much.’ He smiled, bowed and left them.
‘Where did you meet Mr Brummell?’ Charlotte asked Caroline after they had parted with the young men and turned for home.
‘I never had. Was it not kind of him to come to my rescue when I got left behind?’
‘And you let him speak to you? A complete stranger! Caroline, I wish you will try for a little conduct. First to monopolise Lord Ffether, and then to talk to any stranger who comes up to you! I am afraid I must tell Mamma of this.’
‘Do,’ said Caroline, goaded beyond endurance, ‘but first I must give you a message from Lord Ffether. He stayed behind with me in order to send it. He says,’ she crimsoned, realising as she spoke just how rude the message was, ‘he says he hopes you will be kinder to him at the opera than you were last night at the play.’
‘Only I imagine that was not just how he put it,’ said Charlotte sharply. ‘I know Lord Ffether’s charming ways. Well, I will show him what I think of him and his message.’
‘The Duke will be angry,’ said Caroline, suddenly sorry for Charlotte.
‘The Duke won’t be there. He detests the opera; even darling Frances can’t get him there.’
‘But someone will tell him.’
‘So much the better. It will give me a chance to tell him what I think of his arrangements for me. Just because our estates march, he thinks Ffether the perfect match, without so much as consulting me. Well,’ she admitted, ‘it did not seem so bad when he spoke of it at Cley, but now I’m in town, with the world at my feet, why should I be bound by
two old cronies’ arrangements over a bottle of port?’
The Duchess had taken two adjoining boxes at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket, for the opera season, and Caroline, tucked inconspicuously at the back of the one farther from the stage, soon understood what Mr Brummell had meant when he said it would not matter much that she knew nothing about music. The prima donna was not the famous new Italian, Madame Grassini, but the English singer Mrs Billington as Iñez de Castro in an opera written for her by Bianchi. From the loud comments of the young men who stood behind the ladies’ chairs, Caroline learned that the Grassini was thought to be the better singer of the rival primas, but Mrs Billington the more beautiful.
‘That’s what Prinney thinks, anyway,’ she heard Gaston say, with emphasis.
Unfortunately, she was sitting behind Charlotte, who had her hair dressed high, so she had not much chance of deciding about Mrs Billington’s attractions. When she could hear it, she could not understand the Italian of the opera, and when she asked Tremadoc, in the interval, what it was about, he shrugged his shoulders and said it was just a deal of Italian nonsense, not worth bothering with. ‘I am thinking of writing an ode to Mrs Billington,’ he told her. ‘How do you think it should begin?’ And then, before she had time to open her mouth. ‘I had thought of:
‘“Sound, Muse, sound out thy hectic strain
Billington’s on our stage again—”
‘Or perhaps something a shade more heroic?
‘“Oh, Muses nine, fair company
Deign now to hand your lyre to me.”
‘Miss Thorpe,’ he said, ‘what are you doing?’
‘I was afraid I was going to sneeze,’ she said meekly, taking from her mouth the handkerchief with which she had been stifling irrepressible laughter.
‘Overwhelmed by the majesty of his verse?’ suggested Mattingley’s amused voice behind her. ‘Your mother is signalling to you across the house, Tremadoc. I think perhaps she wishes you to join her in her box. A very obedient son,’ he went on, when Tremadoc had sighed gustily and left them, ‘I hope his mamma is not too surprised to see him.’
‘You mean you made it up?’
‘I thought if I did not rescue you, you might disgrace yourself, Miss Thorpe.’
‘I was close to it,’ she admitted, looking anxiously to the front of the box, where Charlotte had her shoulder ostentatiously turned to Lord Ffether and was listening with exaggerated interest to something Gaston was saying to her.
‘A striking young man, that.’ He had followed the direction of her glance. ‘And dangerous, I think. I am glad to see that he does not play off his charms on you.’
‘Oh, I’m quite beneath his touch,’ she said, and received one of his enigmatic smiles.
She rather hoped that he might decide to squire her to the carriage, having heard the long-crowded wait in the crush room vividly described by Charlotte, who had been taken to the opera the year before. But he returned to the Duchess’ box after the interval and, to her surprise, Tremadoc squeezed in beside her just as the curtain rose for the last act. He had received a resounding scold from his mother for paying attention to that ‘little nobody of a Miss Thorpe,’ and it had suddenly roused him to a declaration of independence.
‘I shall see you out,’ he told Caroline in masterful tones when the curtain fell at last, and regaled her, during the long wait until their carriage was called, with various new first lines for his ode to Mrs Billington.
Chapter Seven
Charles Mattingley paid an early call on the Duchess next day, and found her still in the hands of her hairdresser. ‘Exquisite,’ he approved. ‘Only you could carry off such a style. But I was hoping for a word with you before you are quite thronged with morning callers.’
‘You certainly came early enough.’ She nodded dismissal to her maid and the hairdresser. ‘Dear Charles.’ She held out her hand to him. ‘It’s always good to see you. Don’t tell me, though, that you have come to read me a lecture about my losses at play. Surely that is the Duke’s prerogative?’
‘You’re dipped again?’ he asked with quick sympathy. ‘I’m sorry to hear it. I wish I could persuade you to play for lower stakes.’
‘And let the whole world say the Duchess of Cley cries craven? I thank you, no. The Duke told me, when we married, that he would go his way, and I mine. His way is expensive. Why should not mine be? After all…’ She stopped short of reminding him that a great deal of their money had originally been hers.
‘It’s a hard life for a woman.’ He raised her hand to his lips. ‘In a way, that is what I have come to talk to you about.’
‘About women’s lives?’
‘Yes. You asked me to have an eye to your little protégé, Miss Thorpe.’
‘And most assiduously you have done so. Frances was twitting me about it only last night.’
‘I wish Mrs Winterton would mind her own business.’
‘Well,’ said the Duchess. ‘You could say that Caroline Thorpe is Frances’ business.’
‘Mrs Winterton hardly behaves as if she were. Anyone seeing you three together would think you were the child’s mother, not she.’
‘I almost feel as if I were. She’s a most unusual creature, Charles. I love her very much. And Frances takes her part with the Duke, which is the great thing. But for her, I really think he would have left Caroline to moulder at Cley this winter, and then lord knows what would have become of her.’
‘Well, what is to become of her?’ he asked. ‘Maria,’ he did not often use her Christian name, ‘I do urge that you persuade the Duke to tell those children who they are.’
‘Children? You mean Gaston and Caroline? He won’t, my dear. He absolutely refuses. He says when they are engaged to be married will be quite time enough.’
‘But suppose they should engage themselves to the wrong people?’
‘The wrong people?’ She thought about it. ‘You cannot be imagining that Blakeney would be such a fool! Besides, they have grown up together: brother and sister. And the same is true, even more so, of Gaston and my girls. Besides, he is much too well aware of what he owes us to step at all out of line there.’
‘I do hope you are right,’ he said as her next caller was announced.
He took his leave soon after, saying with one of his half smiles that he proposed to give the younger party a look in.
‘And make sure they are behaving themselves?’ teased the Duchess.
But he had made her a little anxious, and she seized a moment when she and Frances Winterton were changing for dinner to dismiss both their maids and raise the subject with her.
Frances responded with a peal of sardonic laughter. ‘Blakeney and my poor little mouse? I never heard such nonsense in my life. Oh, he’s kind to her. Your Blakeney is kind to everyone, Maria. But you know as well as I do how high the Duke looks for him. Between ourselves, I think he has set his heart on the Princess Charlotte. And, you know, our Blakeney would make an admirable consort.’
‘That little hoyden?’ asked the Duchess. ‘I trust the Duke will think again. But you are right, as always, dearest Frances. Raised with such ideas, Blakeney would never think for a moment of your poor little Caroline.’
‘Not so poor as all that,’ said Frances, tartly for her. ‘Have you not noticed, Maria my darling, that my little Caroline is having quite a success?’
‘Young Tremadoc? Well, it would not be a bad match for her, if his mother would give her consent.’
‘Which she never would,’ said Frances. ‘You know what airs that woman has given herself since you borrowed all that money from her husband.’
‘I wish he was alive now,’ said the Duchess.
‘To lend you more?’ Frances laughed. ‘Maria, there is Gaston to think about as well as Caroline. That’s a dangerous young man, I think.’
‘Ah, poor Gaston,’ sighed the Duchess. ‘He really is a problem. I can understand the Duke’s reluctance to tell him he is the son of a mere French gouvernante. But I am afraid
he has filled himself with ideas about some very elegant bar sinister indeed.’
‘Did you see him studying the Comte d’Artois, when he came to Cley? I could swear he was looking for a royal likeness. It’s no wonder the Duke does not much look forward to telling him the truth. Oh well,’ she concluded comfortably, ‘if the news from Europe gets much worse, I have no doubt he will be sent abroad on some expedition or other with his regiment, and I won’t say I shan’t breathe a sigh of relief. He’s trouble, that Gaston. If I were you, I believe I would keep an eye on Charlotte and Amelia. Have you noticed that he is dividing his attentions between the two of them?’
‘And so much the safer. Besides, they know what is to be expected of them.’ The Duchess dismissed the subject.
Downstairs, Charlotte and Amelia were quarrelling. ‘It’s not fair,’ said Amelia. ‘You’ve got Lord Ffether. Leave Gaston to me.’
‘You’re welcome to Ffether if you want him,’ said Charlotte. ‘I find him a dead bore.’
‘All very fine to say I can have him. You know perfectly well it’s not you he wants, it’s Papa’s eldest daughter. Oh dear, I wish I was Caroline, able to marry whomever I liked.’
‘Yes, but who’ll ask her? With no family, no fortune and precious little countenance.’
‘Tremadoc seems devoted enough.’
‘She listens when he spouts that poetry of his. But his mother would never allow it, on the make as she is. I have no doubt the old harridan hopes Tremadoc is dangling after me.’ She eyed herself lovingly in the glass. ‘But, naturally, he knows that even you are quite above his touch.’
‘Thank you for that “even”!’ Amelia flounced out of the room.
Frances Winterton really intended, after that slightly disquieting conversation with the Duchess, to send for Caroline and drop a word of warning in her ear. But how difficult it would be to do, granted the Duke’s absolute refusal to let Caroline or Gaston be told the truth about their birth. She put it off from day to day, and was soon distracted by the growing rumours that the King, who had been suffering grievously from gout, was going mad again, as he had in 1788. The leaders of the Whig party had been in high hopes, then, that their good friend the Prince of Wales would become Regent and bring them back to power at last. Now they discussed each new rumour with apparent concern and well concealed excitement. The King had taken to appearing in the oddest of uniforms: he had been to the play dressed as an admiral and received Sir Charles Poole in an out-dated uniform of Lord Howe’s time. The daily bulletins from the Queen’s House spoke of his condition as unchanged, but Sir Lucas Pepys and Doctor Reynolds, who had been added to the physicians already attending him, could only say that, ‘His Majesty has had several hours sleep, and seems refreshed by it.’
The Lost Garden (The Purchas Family Series Book 5) Page 11