Caroline looked at Maria. “Talk of the devil.”
“Indeed,” said the girl. “But we must face her sooner or later, so it might as well be now.” She stood, arranging her skirts as she did so.
Her hostess considered this for a moment and then nodded. “Please bring Lady Templemore up to the drawing room.”
The butler gave a slight bow and left.
“Perhaps you’d better stay here.” Caroline stood to remove her painting apron and check her appearance in the glass above the chimneypiece.
“No,” said Maria. “This is my battle, not yours. I’ll see her.”
“Well, you’re not going in there alone,” said Caroline, and the two women walked across the gallery together to face the enemy. The green marble columns that linked the balustrade of the staircase with the decorated plaster ceiling seemed to lend a certain formality to their progress—as if we’re going into court, thought Maria.
Lady Templemore was already sitting on a damask Louis XV bergère when Caroline walked into the room. She looked rather stately and, somehow, very much alone, which gave Caroline a slight twinge of guilt. “Can I offer you anything?” she said, as pleasantly as she could manage.
“My daughter,” said Lady Templemore, without a trace of a smile.
At that moment, Maria entered. She had stopped by a looking glass on the gallery to tidy her hair before she faced her parent’s stern gaze. “Here I am, Mama.”
“I’ve come to take you home.”
“No, Mama.” She was as definite as she knew how to be.
The words were unexpected, even shocking. It had never occurred to Lady Templemore that she could not reclaim her own child when she wanted. For a moment nobody said anything.
Lady Templemore was the first to break the silence. “My dear—”
“No, Mama. I am not coming home. Not yet, at any rate.”
Corinne Templemore struggled to maintain her equilibrium. “But if word leaks out—which it is bound to—what will people think?”
Maria was very calm. Lady Brockenhurst’s opinion of her was rising by the minute. “They will think I am staying with the aunt of my fiancé, which they will find perfectly normal. Soon, however, we will announce that the marriage will not now take place. And that I am going to be married instead to a Mr. Charles Pope. This they will find very interesting indeed, and they will no doubt discuss it a great deal. Who is this Mr. Pope, they will say, and that will keep them happy until there is news of an elopement or some great man in the City fails, and then they will talk about that and we will fade away into the background and get on with our lives.” She was sitting on a sofa, and as she finished speaking she clasped her hands with resolve and let them rest in her lap.
Lady Templemore stared at her daughter, or rather at the faery changeling that had stolen her true daughter and was now sitting in her place. But she did not answer. Instead she turned to Lady Brockenhurst. “You’ve done this,” she said. “You have corrupted my child.”
“I do hope so,” said Lady Brockenhurst, “if this is the result.”
But Corinne Templemore had not finished. “Why are you doing this? Are you jealous of me? I have living children, while your son is dead? Is that it?” Her calm, even pleasant, voice as she spoke was, if anything, more startling than if she had shouted and torn out her hair by its roots.
It took a moment for Caroline Brockenhurst to catch her breath. At last she spoke. “Corinne—,” she said, but Lady Templemore silenced her with a gesture of her open hand.
“Please. My Christian name is only for the use of my friends.”
“Mama,” Maria said. “We must not be at odds, like ruffians fighting in the street.”
“I should prefer to be attacked by a ruffian than by my own daughter.”
Maria stood. She needed to use this moment to move things forward. Otherwise she and her mother would be caught in a dead end. “Please, Mama,” she said as reasonably as she could, “I will not come home until you have had time to accept that your plans for me to marry John Bellasis will not come to fruition. When you are able to grasp this fact, I’m sure we can soon repair matters between us.”
“So that you can marry Mr. Pope?” Her mother’s tone was not encouraging.
“Yes, Mama.” Maria sighed. “But even there, things are not perhaps quite as bad as you think.” She glanced at Caroline in the hope that her hostess would take over the argument. She was not sure how much, or how little, she should say.
Lady Brockenhurst nodded. “Maria is right. Mr. Pope is less obscure than he might at first have appeared.”
Lady Templemore looked at her. “Oh?” she said.
“It seems that his father was the son of an earl.”
There was a silence as Corinne absorbed these surprising words. Then, when she had thought for a moment, she spoke. “Was the father illegitimate? Or is Mr. Pope himself a bastard? Since clearly there can be no third explanation for your statement, if it is true.”
Lady Brockenhurst took a deep breath. She was not quite ready to play all her cards. “I might remind you that, fifteen years ago, the illegitimate son of the Duke of Norfolk married the daughter of the Earl of Albemarle, and today they are welcomed everywhere.”
“And you think because the Stephensons have gotten away with it, Charles Pope would, too?” Lady Templemore did not sound as if she agreed.
“But why wouldn’t he?” Caroline’s voice was as soft and as pleading as Maria had ever heard it. The woman was begging, and of course Maria knew why.
But Corinne Templemore was unrepentant. “For a start, because the Duke brought up Henry Stephenson as his son and he was recognized as such from his birth. And secondly, because I am not aware that Lady Mary Keppel broke off an engagement to an earl in order to marry him. Your meddling has cheated my daughter of a position that would have allowed her to do some good in the world. I hope you’re proud of yourself.”
“I think I could also do good if I were married to Charles.” Maria was growing irritated with her mother’s intransigence.
At this, the Countess of Templemore finally got to her feet. Caroline was forced to admit there was something impressive in the woman’s stance; well dressed, her back as straight as a poker, she was unbendingly severe and all the more imposing for that. “Then you must manage it without your mother’s help, my dear, for I will have no more of you. I’ll send Ryan around with your things as soon as I get back. You are welcome to keep her on as your maid, but it must be at your own expense. Otherwise, I will give her notice. I’ll ask Mr. Smyth at Hoare’s to write and explain your income under your father’s trust, my dear, and in future you will communicate with him but not with me. Henceforth, I cast you off. You are adrift and you must sail your own barque. As for you,” she turned to Caroline, hatred shining from her eyes, “you have stolen my daughter and ruined my life. I curse you for it.” With that, she swept out of the room and down the great staircase, leaving Maria and Lady Brockenhurst alone and silent.
Susan Trenchard couldn’t tell precisely what her mood was. Sometimes she felt hopeful, as if her life were about to change for the better. Sometimes things seemed darker, as if she were trembling on the brink of an abyss.
She had told John she thought she was pregnant the last time she’d gone around to Albany. She spoke almost as soon as they had climbed the stairs to reach his little drawing room. He was puzzled as he listened, surprised even, although not at first hostile. “I thought you were unable to conceive,” he said. “I thought that was the whole point.”
It was an odd choice of phrase. “What does that mean? The whole point?”
He covered himself by ignoring her question. “I suppose you’re sure?”
“Quite sure. Although I haven’t had it confirmed by a doctor.”
He nodded. “Perhaps you should. Do you have one you can trust?”
She looked at him. “I’m a married woman. Why do I need one I can ‘trust’?”
“True enoug
h. But go to a doctor who’ll know what to do.” Again, his wording was odd, but she could see he was distracted. She knew her mother-in-law’s maid had just walked away when she arrived, and Susan could only suppose he’d learned something, presumably about the mysterious Mr. Pope, which was taking up his attention.
At any rate, they’d made the decision that Susan would arrange an appointment on a certain day to see her physician, and she would then report back to his rooms where he would be waiting for her. Except now she was here, he was nowhere to be seen. His silent servant had let her in, and she’d been shown to a chair in the sitting room where she’d waited, crouched over a meager fire. The master had kept an appointment in St. James’s, and it must have run longer than he expected. But he would be back shortly. How long was shortly? The servant couldn’t tell and nor could she, since she’d been waiting for almost an hour.
John’s absence gave Susan time to review her situation. Did she hope they would marry and she would be rescued from the dreariness of the Trenchard household? In her dreams, yes; but now that the first flush of infatuation had passed, she was too clever a woman to believe she was the chosen candidate to be the next Countess of Brockenhurst. A merchant’s divorced daughter? She would not fit easily into the history of the Bellasis dynasty. And anyway, how long would a divorce take? Could they find a tame Member of Parliament to usher through a private bill dissolving her marriage, and would it be in time for them to wed before the baby was born? Almost certainly not.
What, then, did she want? To be John’s mistress in perpetuity? To take a house somewhere and bring up the child as his? Once his uncle was dead, there would be plenty of money for this sort of arrangement, and yet… and yet… Susan was not certain it would suit her, to live outside the boundaries of Society, even the dull and ordinary level of Society that she had succeeded in penetrating. But could she stand to stay with Oliver, and would she even have that option? Oliver Trenchard might not be a genius, but he would know the child was not his. They hadn’t made love for months. There was a certain irony in the realization that for years she had lived as a barren woman, pitied on every side, when she had not been barren at all. The fault must have been Oliver’s, but of course he would not see matters in that light. Maybe to accept the post as John’s kept woman was the best choice available. Finally, the door opened.
“Well?” John said as he entered the room.
“I’ve been waiting for the best part of an hour.”
“And now I am back. What happened?”
She nodded, knowing perfectly well that there was no point in even trying to make John Bellasis feel guilty. “I’ve done what you asked. I’ve seen a doctor and I am pregnant. Three months or more.”
He took off his hat and threw it down impatiently. “But will he see to it? Or has he done so already?”
His words cut her like a knife. Will he see to it? In all her thoughts, Susan had included the child as part of her calculations. Not once had she entertained the notion that she might get rid of it. She’d waited ten years to become pregnant, and now that she was, John wanted her to risk her life, to flush it out and away? Indeed, he did not even appear to understand there was an issue to be discussed.
She shook her head impatiently. “Of course not!” Then she paused, staying silent until she could breathe more easily. “I don’t want to be rid of it. Did you think that I would? Have you no feelings for the child?”
John looked at her, seemingly puzzled. “Why would I have feelings?”
“Because you’re the father.”
“Who says? What proof do I have? You fell into bed with me at the first opportunity. Am I to take from your behavior that you’re a new Madame Walewska, untouched and pure until you caught the eye of the Emperor?” He laughed harshly as he poured himself some brandy from a waiting decanter and threw it down his throat.
“You know it’s yours.”
“I don’t know anything.” He filled his glass again. “This is your problem, not mine. I will, as a friend, pay for you to solve it, but if you refuse, then that is the end of my responsibility.” He dropped into a chair.
Susan looked at him. For a second, her rage was so great that she felt as if she had swallowed fire, but she knew enough to keep control of her feelings. If she shouted, she would get nothing from him. But might there still not be a way to bring him around, if she played her hand carefully?
“Are you quite well?” she said, moving away from the subject. “You seem preoccupied.”
He looked at her, surprised by the gentleness in her tone. “Do you care?”
Susan was nothing if not resourceful. “John, I can’t answer for you,” she smiled winningly, “but I have been in love with you for many months. Your happiness means more to me than anything else on earth. Of course I care.” Even as she spoke the words, she marveled at her own dishonesty. But she could see they’d had an effect. How weak men were. Like dogs, one pat and they’re yours for life. “Now won’t you tell me what’s the matter?”
He sighed, leaning back, putting his hands behind his head. “Only that I’ve lost everything.”
“It can’t be as bad as all that.”
“Can’t it? I have nothing. I am nothing. I will always be nothing.” He stood and walked to the window. His rooms looked over the courtyard in front of the building, and he stared down at the activity below, at the people hurrying about their daily lives, while his life seemed to have vanished in a puff of smoke.
Susan was beginning to understand that she was dealing with something more than petulance. “What has happened?” she said.
“I’ve discovered that I will not, after all, be the next Earl of Brockenhurst. I will not inherit my uncle’s fortune. Or Lymington Park. Or Brockenhurst House. Or any of it. I am heir to nothing.” He did not care that she knew. Anne and James Trenchard would have seen Sophia’s papers by now, and sooner or later they would have them looked into. They must, and when they did they would learn the truth and publish it for the whole world to read.
“I don’t understand.” This extraordinary revelation had for the moment taken Susan’s mind off her own predicament.
“That man, Charles Pope, is the heir. My nemesis. It seems he is the grandson of my uncle and aunt.”
“Isn’t he supposed to be the son of my father-in-law? That’s what you told me before.”
“That’s what I thought before. But he’s not. He is my cousin Edmund’s son.”
“But then why has he not been recognized as such? Why does he bear the name Pope? Shouldn’t he be… what is the courtesy title?”
“Viscount Bellasis.”
“Very well. Why isn’t he Viscount Bellasis?”
“He is.” John laughed, but the sound was harsh. “He just doesn’t know it.”
“Why not?”
“They all thought he was illegitimate. That was why he was put away, given a false name, brought up far from London.”
Susan was genuinely interested. Her mind was working like one of the new railway engines. “When did they find out the truth?”
“I found out the truth. They don’t know it yet. There was a marriage between Edmund and the Trenchards’ daughter. In Brussels. Before Waterloo. But they think it was false. They think it was a trick to seduce her.”
Susan blinked. So many revelations at once. Oliver’s sister, Sophia, of sacred memory in that household, had been seduced. Except, no, she had not. At least, not without a wedding first. It was almost too much to take in. “So you say they don’t yet know the truth?”
“I don’t believe so. You see, I had a friend of mine look into the marriage, and it was legal.” He pulled a sheaf of papers from his inner pocket. “They think the clergyman who presided at the ceremony was in reality a soldier, and so it wasn’t valid. When the facts are that he was a soldier, and an Anglican priest as well. And I have the proof right here.”
“I’m impressed you haven’t burned the papers. If they don’t yet know.”
At this, he laughed again. “Don’t be. I would have done, but there’s no point. I only have copies of the proof of the marriage. They have the originals.”
“But if they haven’t seen your friend’s evidence—”
“They’ll find out the truth. They’re bound to.”
And now Susan saw her chance. Far from his loss ruining her hopes, she realized almost at once that it gave her a real option for the future. A realistic ambition. “John,” she said carefully. “If all this is true and the title is gone—”
“And the money.”
She nodded. “And the money. Then why shouldn’t we marry? I know you would not have chosen me if you’d been the head of your family, but now you will be the son of a younger son. It’s not so much. I can divorce Oliver and go to my father. He has money of his own, lots of it, and I’m an only child. I’ll inherit everything. We could have a good life together. We’d be comfortable. We could have more children. You might take up a commission in the army, or we could buy land. There may be better-bred women on offer, but few who could provide for you as well as I can.” She paused. She had made what sounded to her own ears like a good case. She would have a husband in Society, and he would have the means to live like a gentleman. Surely, given his situation, he had nothing to lose and everything to gain?
John stared at her for what seemed like an age.
Then he threw back his head and laughed. Except he didn’t just laugh. He roared with laughter. He laughed until the tears rolled down his cheeks. Then he stopped and turned to face her. “Do you imagine that I, John Bellasis, the grandson of the Earl of Brockenhurst, whose ancestors fought in the Crusades and on almost every major European battlefield since, would ever—” He stared at her with malice, his eyes as hard and cold as stone. “Do you seriously imagine that I would ever marry the divorced daughter of a dirty tradesman?”
Susan recoiled with a gasp, as if she had been drenched with icy water. He had started to laugh again now, almost hysterically. As if all his own misery at his fall were finding its expression in his cruel, savage humor.
Julian Fellowes's Belgravia Page 33