Love & Folly

by Sheila Simonson

  "Does Barney have news of the divorce bill?" she asked, for Tom's letter had come from town. "Anne sent an account of the queen's triumphal entry into London, with Alderman Wood at her side, forsooth, and the Mob pulling her carriage through the City. What a scene!"

  Tom shrugged. "Someone is advising the queen shrewdly."

  "Brougham?"

  "I daresay. Barney writes of disaffection among the Guards. One regiment wore the queen's colours on duty. The government are fools to pursue the bill. All the discontented factions in the country have taken up the queen's cause. It's a focus for them."

  "Should you not rejoice?"

  "The whole business is a waste of time," he said irritably. "I feel no urge to defend the queen's hypothetical honour. If I thought the Opposition would gain a leader from the trial I'd accept the prospect, but such sordid revelations as we're bound to hear can only throw up a storm of muck."

  "Will the streets be safe for the levee?"

  He frowned. "The Mob resent Prinny's extravagance and there may be demonstrations. However, the mood in town seems good-natured enough at the moment."

  "And your reputation as a Radical will insure our safety."

  "Do you dislike my opinions, Elizabeth?"

  "No, I'm with you." She glanced at him. He slouched in his corner of the sofa, brooding. "Perhaps the Mob will take our horses from the shafts and pull us to Carlton House in triumph."

  He met her eyes and his mouth relaxed in a smile. "Your sisters would relish that."

  17

  The morning of the levee dawned clear and warm. Maggie and Jean rose well before the chambermaid entered with their hot water. Maggie could scarcely contain her impatience. Jean dawdled. Even so, they reached the breakfast table so early Clanross was still drinking coffee.

  His friend, Colonel Falk, who had come up to town again on legal business, was reading The Times. He set it aside and both men rose as the girls entered.

  Clanross inspected them. "You look as if you may be able to withstand the rigours of the day."

  Jean made a face and took the chair he held for her. Waite, the butler, summoned by some obscure instinct, had come in. He held a chair for Maggie. Colonel Falk gave them an abstracted smile and returned to his newspaper.

  When the girls had been served and their tea poured, Maggie said, "I shall wear your brooch today, Clanross."

  "I'm honoured, my lady." He smiled at her. "Have you got the hang of walking about with a train yet? Devilish contraptions, trains. I tripped on mine and nearly fell at Black Rod's feet during the opening of Parliament."

  "They've done away with hoops," Jean offered around a bite of toast. "Elizabeth said hers caught on a whatnot table and knocked an ormolu vase to the floor. It fell at the Princess Sophia's feet. Lizzie was mortified."

  "Not for long, I'll wager." Clanross took a sip of coffee. He drank it black and sugarless, a barbarism Maggie had found fascinating when she first saw it. She had tried black coffee once.

  She sipped her sweet bohea. "Johnny means to make his bow, too, you know."

  "So I've heard," Clanross said gravely.

  Colonel Falk set the paper down. "Will Dyott have to wear a train and ostrich plumes, too?"

  Maggie knew when she was being twitted. She took a dignified sip of tea. "When Clanross was presented to his majesty at the pavilion he only had to wear knee breeches."

  The colonel's eyebrows twisted. "I wish I might have seen him."

  Clanross grinned.

  Maggie tried to explain through a fit of giggles that Clanross had been otherwise conventionally attired. "Were you presented, sir?"

  "Only to Bungy Louie."

  Clanross looked at his friend with raised eyehrows.

  "The king of the French, I should say. He was on his way to Paris, so it was a hasty affair, lasted a mere three hours."

  Jean had been spreading marmalade on her toast. She paused with the knife in midair. "Three hours!"

  "Waiting," Colonel Falk explained. "The audience itself lasted five minutes."

  A blob of the compote dropped onto the cloth. Jean daubed at it with her napkin. "I hope we need not stand about for three hours waiting."

  "I daresay you must," Clanross said sympathetically. "However, I'm told Canton House is full of remarkable objets d'art and there will be a great many other people to quiz."

  "All the ladies will be dressed alike," Jean said gloomily. "White with blue trains and ostrich plumes. Tedious."

  "Don't balk at the gate, Jean. Elizabeth will disinherit you." Clanross spoke with fervour.

  Jean wrinkled her nose. "Oh, I'll go through with it. But it seems a dreadful waste of time."

  Colonel Falk looked up from his paper. "Ah, there you are, Dyott. I hear you mean to kiss our noble monarch's hand."

  "Um, yes." Johnny blinked sleepily from the door way. Maggie smiled at him and he smiled back.

  "What news, sir?" He poured himself a cup of tea.

  "Macassar oil." Colonel Falk was rereading an article on the front page of The Times.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Rowland and Son announce the import of a limited supply of macassar oil. Patrons may purchase it at two shillings the vial. It is said to be efficacious in the prevention of baldness."

  Johnny blinked again.

  Maggie grinned. The front page of The Times ran a great many advertisements.

  Jean chewed her toast. "I don't believe you'll be needing macassar oil, sir." That was rather rude. Colonel Falk wore his hair longer than the mode decreed.

  He rose. "Ah, but I may tear out my flowing tresses any day now."

  Clanross chuckled. "Will the Ffoukes sign soon?"

  "I hope so." Falk made his excuses and left.

  "Why was he presented to King Lewis?" Maggie asked. She spooned a second serving of buttered eggs from the chafing dish.

  Clanross rose, too. "It was after Waterloo."

  Maggie resumed her seat. "Did Colonel Falk take part in that battle?"

  Clanross's eyes widened. "'Oh heavens, die two months ago and not forgotten yet?'"

  Johnny had gone red. "Colonel Falk is a hero of Waterloo, Maggie. King Lewis made him a chevalier of France."

  "Oh," Maggie said humbly. "I didn't know."

  "If Richard felt the need to defend his honour, Johnny, he would do so himself."

  Johnny lowered his eyes to his plate.

  Clanross went on mildly. "He wears his forelock long to hide a scar. Not a subject for levity." He also departed.

  Jean scowled after him. "How was I to know?"

  Johnny glanced at the paper. "Good God, the Guards have mutinied!" He picked it up and read rapidly. "No, it is not so bad. One battalion only and they have been marched off to Plymouth."

  "Shall we be safe?" Maggie's toast tasted dry. Since they had returned to town, she had wakened twice in the night to the sound of windows breaking. Lord Harrowby's house had been assailed four times since the queen's return to London. Their house had not been touched.

  Johnny set the paper aside. "I daresay it's a great fuss over nothing. Don't worry, Marguerite."

  The secret name reassured her. Even so, as they set out for Carlton House in the new carriage, her apprehension rose and the headache nibbled.

  Bond Street was heavy with vehicles. As they crossed Piccadilly, the traffic afoot increased. The completed portion of Regent Street that led down to Canton House was lined with troops. What if the impassive faces beneath shakoes and helmets concealed minds aflame with resentment? Would they not make their first attack on the line of glittering carriages they were drawn up to protect?

  It was hot in the carriage. Elizabeth, perspiring beneath her bandeau and plumes, refused to have the shades drawn. Jean looked bored. Johnny sat beside Maggie in the facing seat and made easy small talk. She was grateful to him but she answered him at random.

  The coachman inched the carriage forward. Johnny and Elizabeth bantered. Jean yawned. At long last they drew up before the
colonnaded palace and the footman threw open the door. Maggie was the first to descend.

  Once they entered the antechamber, in line with hundreds of sweating notables, the waiting began again. However, as Clanross had promised, there was a great deal to see and Maggie's headache receded.

  Among the fashionables milling about in the first antechamber, Elizabeth sought out Bella Conway-Gore, who was firing off a young sister that Season. Miss Haverford was shy and rabbit-faced, so Maggie and Johnny were kind to her for awhile as Bella and Elizabeth raked the company for old friends. Jean looked cool--quite a feat in a crowded room on a warm day--and said nothing. It was as if she weren't really present. Her spirit had soared elsewhere, Maggie supposed.

  The second antechamber, equally crammed with gilt chairs, porcelain bric-a-brac, and fashionable people, was even hotter than the first. No one sat in the chairs. Maggie plied her white crepe fan and hoped her face was not red as a beetroot.

  Finally they reached the rose satin withdrawing room, a perfect cube full of royalty and their attendants in magnificent array. The king's equerries wore splendid laced uniforms. Elizabeth pointed out the upright figure of Lord Uxbridge. He was quite old, fifty at least, but he was the handsomest man Maggie had ever seen. It was said he would be Lord High Steward at the coronation, if the coronation ever took place. The king meant to dispose of his turbulent helpmeet first.

  Elizabeth did not point out the Marchioness of Conyngham, the king's current favourite, but Maggie had no trouble deciding who the fat lady was. The royal mistress was behung with precious stones, attended by a bevy of hangers-on, and clearly in the king's good graces. From time to time he cast her a look both rogueish and soulful.

  "Chacun à son go�t," Jean hissed, elbowing her twin. Perhaps Jean was not so far away after all. Maggie hid a smile behind her fan, but the king's ponderous infatuation embarrassed her. It was one thing for beautiful young people like Owen and Jean to exchange speaking glances in publick, quite another for very fat personages in their sixties, however magnificent.

  The king was magnificent. As Elizabeth approached the presence, Maggie heard, "Lady Clanross, Lady Jean and Lady Margaret Conway, Mr. Dyott." Then she was making her curtsey, deep and correct. She didn't wobble as she rose or step on Jean's train. The royal palm was hot and moist.

  George IV, whom Maggie still thought of as Prinny, said something affable about remembering her mother, smiled kindly when she contrived to utter a strangled phrase, and turned to Johnny, who was right behind her and whose presence, Maggie was sure, had given her the confidence to bring herself off without disgracing her name. She passed on down the line without being able to distinguish one royal princess from the next. Finally the four of them escaped, and the ladies looped their trains once more over their left arms, which made walking easier. Johnny's chapeau bras was, miraculously, still tucked beneath his arm. He had been sure he would drop it.

  "Thank heavens that's over," Jean muttered, fanning herself vigourously.

  "Let's have a peep at the conservatory," Elizabeth suggested. "I doubt we'll have another chance. The king surrounds himself with Tories of the deepest dye." She led the way.

  Maggie thought the gothick depths of the conservatory wonderful. In spite of the presence of several hundred of the king's guests among the towering pillars, it was a cool room, a refuge. The delicate fan vaulting of the ceiling seemed to touch the sky. Like the nave of a cathedral--not Lincoln, which was too red and real--but some phantasy cathedral. Their voices were lost in the vastness. Johnny smiled at her. Maggie smiled back.

  When they had stayed a decent interval Elizabeth said they might leave. Johnny escorted them smoothly through the crowds of chattering women and uncomfortable men in knee breeches. From time to time Elizabeth stopped to speak to an acquaintance. The king's servants wore powder and the elaborate livery his majesty had designed himself. They were haughty as archdukes, every one of them. Under the murmur of voices one could hear the strains of a superb orchestra playing, though Maggie never saw the musicians. Perhaps they hung in the air like Prospero's musicians in The Tempest.

  As their carriage swayed into motion at last and a faint breeze wafted through the open windows, Elizabeth pulled off the heavy ostrich-plume headdress. She shoved her damp hair from her brow and smiled at Maggie. "Had enough of magnificence?"

  "It was magnificent, wasn't it?" Maggie considered. "My feet hurt."

  Elizabeth laughed. Jean was yawning again. Johnny touched Maggie's gloved hand briefly with his own.

  * * * *

  "Ready, Elizabeth?" Tom stuck his head through the doorway from his dressing room.

  "In a minute." Elizabeth glowered at her reflection in the glass. She was wearing an eau de Nile ball gown with the heavy gold parure Tom had bought her in Italy. She would have preferred the peach-coloured satin Mme. Thérèse had finished only the day before, but she had decided the colour clashed with the twins' pesky hair. They were making their debut at Almack's at last and she had cast herself in the role of foil--she meant to set them off, not to extinguish them.

  Well, she could consult Anne. They were dining with Lady Anne and Featherstonehaugh en famille before setting off for the Assembly Rooms. If Anne thought the peach would clash, Elizabeth would save it until the girls were safely launched. For tonight, the green would have to do.

  "The stole, Dobbins." She wondered if Nile green made her skin look muddy. Perhaps the mirror needed to be resilvered.

  Dobbins disposed the wrap about Elizabeth's shoulders and gave a brisk nod. That was as close to approval as Dobbins got these days.

  Elizabeth gave the maid a relieved smile and whisked from the room.

  "Why the devil are you skulking about in that rig?" For a moment Elizabeth thought Tom was referring to her gown. Then she caught sight of Colonel Falk and gaped.

  He stood by the door of the green guest chamber looking sheepish. He was wearing dress regimentals, a foreign order, and several medals. In the soft light from the hall sconces, he looked quite dashing. In fact, the transformation made Elizabeth blink. The black sling was nowhere to be seen.

  He scowled at Tom. "You know very well it's not possible to skulk in scarlet. I'm going to dinner."

  "I didn't suppose you were mounting guard at the Tower." Tom's eyes narrowed. "It's the eighteenth, isn't it? Regimental dinner?"

  "Just so."

  "And you mean to walk."

  "I fancy I can totter as far as Stephens' Hotel without collapsing. It's in Bond Street."

  "For Godsake, man, they read the Riot Act in Old Bond Street yesterday. Are you trying to provoke an incident?"

  "I'm trying to go to dinner," Falk said coolly. "Lady Clanross." He inclined his head.

  "Sir," she murmured, still fascinated by the alteration in his appearance. In that kind light, he looked Johnny's age, though he was Tom's.

  Tom sniffed. "You reek of camphor."

  Falk clucked his tongued "Your footman aired it."

  "But you haven't worn it in five years."

  "True."

  "Then why now?"

  Johnny Dyott's door opened. He emerged, resplendent in his evening rig, stopped dead, and stared at the colonel, too.

  "I'm damned if I'm going to let you go off into a riot dressed like a target," Tom muttered.

  "Let me?" Falk's eyes flashed. He touched the hilt of his dress sword with his good hand. "'By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!'"

  "Fire-eater." Tom began to laugh. "That's an abominable pun. The carriage is outside. Johnny and I will escort you--into the hotel, if necessary. Richard is bound for a regimental dinner, Johnny. Are you with me?"

  "Certainly."

  Elizabeth caught a flash of white and turned in time to see her sisters enter the hallway in their ball gowns. They stared, too. They looked like astonished bonbons.

  "You're damned officious, Tom."

  "Better officious than mad."

  "We cannot be expected to disappear from sig
ht because our existence provokes the Mob," Falk said softly. "Not all of us can emigrate to Upper Canada."

  Tom drew a sharp breath.

  "It isn't the solution, Tom. I'm sorry."

  "I know," Tom muttered. "Elizabeth, I beg your pardon for the delay. I'll return as soon as may be."

  It was not the moment to point out that Anne's dinner would be burnt.

  By the time Elizabeth heard the carriage returning she was pacing the floor of the crimson salon where she and the twins had taken refuge. Almack's closed its doors to newcomers at eleven. It was a quarter of nine and Anne did not believe in hasty meals. Fortunately Berkeley Square was closer to King Street than Grosvenor Square.

  "We'll be late," Maggie said for the dozenth time.

  "My skirts are getting crumpled," Jean complained. At that point the carriage drew up and Elizabeth heard Waite move to the door. Almost at once Tom stuck his head in the salon. "Shall we go?" His hair was rumpled and his cravat wanted straightening but he was still in one piece.

  Elizabeth let out a long sigh. "By all means."

  They heard the saga of Stephens' Hotel on the way to Anne's. Johnny had narrowly escaped being hit with a rotten orange as he and Tom walked Colonel Falk to the hotel entrance, but the real delay came because so many surviving Waterloo officers had decided to at tend regimental dinners at the same time in the same place. Their equipages blocked the street.

  "How will Colonel Falk get back?"

  Tom shrugged. "Walk. As he meant to in the first place. I'm starting at shadows these days. Richard pointed out that the nation is in a parlous state if army officers have to be escorted about their lawful business by gentlemen-bodyguards in evening dress. I feel sure Johnny and I will figure largely in the next satire. Here we are at last. I hope Lady Anne will forgive me."

  "I daresay she will in a year or two." Elizabeth straightened his cravat. "It might take me longer."

  He laughed. Ho ho.

  * * * *

  Except for the waltzes, Jean's card was full. She was chagrined to discover that had power to please her. Her triumph would have no lasting significance, of course, but she could not deny a twinge of satisfaction.