The English Bride

by Joan Wolf

  "They are small and black—just like a snake's. Never trust anyone with small eyes, Augustus."

  He smiled. "I will remember that advice, Mama."

  She said abruptly, "Your father was very proud that you stayed in Jura and fought against the French."

  The Prince's eyes dropped to the tip of his well-polished boots. "My only regret is that I was not able to see him before he died," he said.

  Her voice took on a note of indignation. "It was such a shock to me. One moment he was sitting and talking to me, and the next he was lying on the floor, dead."

  "At least he did not suffer, Mama."

  "I was the one who suffered, Augustus. I was the one left all alone in a foreign land. I never wanted to come to England. It was your father's idea. So ridiculous—just because an aunt of his was married to an English lord. I thought we should go to Venice, but your father insisted that we must be out of the way of Napoleon."

  "Papa was looking to the future," the Prince said. "Did you know that directly after Austerlitz, he transferred most of the family's wealth into English banks? Because he did that, we are in a much better position to rebuild than are many of the other smaller states."

  "Your father's funeral was very plain," the princess said.

  There was a fractional pause as her son adjusted to this abrupt change in topic. Then he replied, "I understood that the Prince Regent himself attended."

  "That fat prince came, yes. But who is he, Augustus? His family comes from some little German state called Hanover. All the princes of Italy would have attended if your father had died in Jura."

  "I am certain that Papa would have liked to see Jura again before he died, Mama." The Prince's voice was quiet.

  In contrast, her own voice became louder. "Another thing, Augustus. That coronation of yours. You did it too quickly. There was hardly anybody there!"

  "I did write and ask you to come, Mama."

  She touched her hand to her throat. "You expected me to travel halfway across Europe for a ceremony in front of only a few hundred people?"

  He had explained to her in several letters that it had not been feasible, in a recently liberated Jura, to stage a lavish coronation. He said now, "The wedding will be as grand as we can make it, Mama."

  She brightened. "That is good."

  When the Prince alighted from his carriage in front of Beaufort House, his attention was drawn by the sight of a girl and a very large dog playing in the park that lay in the center of the square. As he watched, the girl threw a stick and the dog chased after it enthusiastically. The Prince smiled and said to the footman who had opened the front door for him, "I am going to join Lady Charity for a few moments."

  The footman bowed and the Prince crossed the street, opened the wrought iron gate and entered the little park. Hero immediately lumbered up and pushed his immense head under the Prince's hand to be petted. The Prince obliged.

  "This animal is almost twice your size," he said to Charity as she came up beside him. "You should have one of those little lap dogs for a pet, not this massive Newfoundland."

  Charity looked horrified. "I can't abide those pampered yippy little things. They're not dogs; they're . . . spoiled babies."

  The Prince grinned and put out his hand for the stick she had been throwing. She gave it to him and he tossed it to the far end of the park, much farther than she had. They watched in companionable silence as the great furry brown mass that was Hero went charging after it. He brought the stick straight back to the Prince, who threw it again.

  As Hero galloped off, Charity said, "I feel I should warn you that you are in Lydia's black books, Prince."

  He looked down at her in surprise. "Why?"

  Charity shook her head in mock disbelief. Their early-morning rides had made them quite comfortable with each other so she was able to say ominously, "You didn't tell her about the Regent's reception."

  Hero returned, plopped down in front of them and dropped his stick at the Prince's feet. The Prince said to Charity, "The Regent said he would send an invitation."

  "The invitation came today." She crossed her arms over the front of her pale pink muslin dress. "However, Lydia has discovered that you knew about the reception days ago."

  "Yes." He gave her a puzzled look. "Was I supposed to tell your sister before the invitation came?"

  Charity gave a greatly exaggerated sigh. "Prince, you are hopeless. Now there is not enough time for Lydia to have a new dress made."

  He bent, picked up the stick, and threw it again. Hero arose and went after it gamely. "I suppose I am hopeless." He did not sound at all dismayed by this probability. "I never gave a single thought to dresses."

  Charity waved her hand in perfect imitation of a gesture that the Prince had seen Lydia make and said, in perfect imitation of her sister's voice, "In civilized society, costume is of great importance. You must remember that you are not living in a cave any longer, Prince."

  He ran impatient fingers through his too long blond hair. The look in his gray eyes was rueful. "That is true. The niceties of civilized society are not something I have been concerned with for quite some time."

  "Don't worry about it," Charity advised in her own voice. "Lydia can wear one of the dozens of new dresses she has had made to take to Jura."

  The Prince said, "The Regent has graciously put a ship of the Royal Navy at our disposal. I hope there will be enough room on board for all your sister's dresses."

  Charity laughed. As Hero returned, she took the stick from him, patted his head, and said, "That's enough. It's warm and I don't want him to get overheated."

  Neither of them made a move toward the gate, and the Prince said to Charity, "You were included in the Regent's invitation. I hope you have something to wear."

  Charity looked up at him in surprise. The afternoon sun brought out the gold strands in her hair, and, looking into her large eyes, the Prince thought that if the size of one's eyes was the test of trustworthiness, as his mother seemed to believe, then Charity must be the most trustworthy person he knew.

  "How did you know I was included in the invitation?" she demanded.

  He smiled. "I know because I asked the Regent to include you."

  She tilted her head in puzzled inquiry. "Why?"

  "I wanted to make sure that there would be at least one lady present whom I could talk to," he replied.

  Her face lit like a candle as she smiled up at him with unreserved pleasure.

  Hero saw a squirrel and chased after it.

  The Prince sighed. "I suppose I must be brave and face your sister's anger."

  "She won't yell at you or anything, Prince," Charity said reassuringly. "She'll just be disapproving." Her face took on a gloomy look. "She's good at that."

  He laughed and turned toward the park gate. "Tomorrow morning?" he asked over his shoulder.

  She nodded in vigorous agreement and knelt to pet her dog.

  6

  The Earl of Beaufort and his family arrived in Brighton the afternoon of the day of the Regent's reception. They had been invited to stay at the Royal Pavilion itself and Charity was the only family member unimpressed by this great honor. She gloomily foresaw hours of sitting in the company of her mother and sister, which almost made her wish that the Regent hadn't included her in his invitation.

  On the other hand, Augustus had gone out of his way to make certain of her attendance and she didn’t want to disappoint him. So, with heroic stoicism, she resigned herself to long stretches of what she knew would be unrelieved boredom.

  Charity did not get along with her mother and her sister. When she was younger she had often been bewildered by this fact. To her mind, the things she did were perfectly rational. She truly did not understand why her mother kept throwing up her hands and pronouncing her to be "impossible."

  As she had grown older, however, it had become clearer to her that she and the other two females in the family inhabited different planes of existence. If something interested them, it was
certain to bore her, and if it interested her, it was certain to bore them. Being a practical sort of girl, Charity had decided that the best way to deal with this conflict was to keep as far away from her mother and sister as she possibly could. This was a solution that seemed to please them as well.

  The important people in Charity's life had been her father and her grandmother. Listening to the princess's stories of life in Jura had been one of the delights of Charity's childhood; her young imagination had been spellbound by the images her grandmother wove of this faraway country with its towering mountains and magnificent horses.

  For his part, her father had recognized and nurtured his younger daughter's curious mind. He had made certain that she always had a well-educated governess to teach her, and he had opened his library to her with virtually no restrictions. Her mother would have fainted if she had known about some of the books Charity was reading on those long winter afternoons curled up in front of the fire in her father's library while he worked at his desk.

  There was one other person who had made an indelible impression upon Charity's young life, and this was the Prince. Over and over Princess Mariana would tell her granddaughter stories about Augustus, of how at the age of seventeen he had refused to flee from the French, choosing instead to hide in the mountains with a band of companions and carry on the war from there. Augustus was braver than a lion, the princess would say. Augustus was honorable. Augustus was loyal. Augustus was a brilliant tactician. Augustus was perfect.

  Not unnaturally, over the years the Prince had become the impossible standard by which Charity judged other men. Augustus would never do that, she would think when someone (her brother usually) did something she disapproved of. Augustus would not get sent down from school for a stupid prank. Augustus would not get so drunk at night that he couldn't get up in the morning. Augustus was fighting for his country, she would think. Augustus was a hero.

  She had both longed and dreaded to meet him. What she had blurted out so rudely when first she saw him had been the simple truth: She had been terribly afraid that his fleshly reality would disappoint her. But to see him standing there in her mother's drawing room, so tall and slim, with a firm mouth and clear gray eyes that looked directly into hers . . . the relief had been enormous.

  She would do anything for him, which is how one July afternoon she came to be alighting from her father's carriage in front of the entrance to the Prince Regent's famous Pavilion in the English seaside town of Brighton.

  As she stood waiting for her mother and sister, she stared in wonderment at the edifice before her. For a moment she thought that the carriage must have taken a wrong turn and driven into some strange eastern kingdom, so gorgeous and fantastical was the building. A succession of domes and minarets, placed at every angle of the structure, formed the astonishing roofline, and in front of each of the wings was an open arcade composed of arches, separated by octagonal columns and ornamented by trelliswork.

  Charity stared at the great onion-shaped dome that formed the central part of the roof and whispered to her father, "Is it Russian?"

  "Russian or Indian or Chinese or some such thing," he replied. "The Regent's architectural preferences are deuced odd."

  "Whatever it is, it's amazing," Charity said, her eyes still glued to the dome.

  Her mother said, "Straighten your hat, Charity." Without moving her eyes, Charity lifted her hands to her straw bonnet and settled it more firmly on her head.

  Their arrival evidently had been noticed by the Pavilion staff, for the front door opened and a row of lackeys came parading out, moving toward the carriage to carry in the baggage. One of the servants invited the guests to come with him, and Charity, her father, mother, sister, brother, and grandmother all passed through the door of the Pavilion into an octagonal vestibule, which had a Chinese lantern suspended from the center of a tent-like roof. The Debritts followed the footmen through the palace until they arrived at a large circular salon, where they were requested to wait for the Regent.

  The salon had a huge domed ceiling painted to represent a cloud-speckled sky, and Charity's gaze moved slowly from the ceiling to circle the rest of the room.

  "It looks as if the Regent likes Chinese things as much as you do, Mama," she said as she regarded the wallpaper panels, which featured a delicate Chinese design of infinitely fragile-looking trees on a pale gold background.

  Lydia stared at the curved and backless Chinese sofa, which stood as an island in the midst of an immense expanse of polished wood floor. "There is no place to sit," she complained, looking around the huge room, whose chief furniture was a series of Chinese tables and cabinets set against the walls.

  "This is a reception room, Lydia," Princess Mariana said. "That means it is a room in which one receives people. It is not a room in which one sits to entertain them."

  "The Regent could receive an army in here," Charity said, looking at the three immense crystal chandeliers that hung from the dome. Her mother was just about to reply when the Regent himself came in the doorway.

  The three ladies sank into deep curtseys and the earl and his son bowed. The Regent came across the polished floor to greet his guests, making a genial comment about Lydia's upcoming nuptials.

  At this point in his life, the future George IV was almost as fat as Princess Caterina claimed him to be. His stomach protruded before him and his jowls sat in folds around the fashionable high neckcloth he wore under his bright blue coat. His hair was carefully brushed into the flyaway look currently popular among the Corinthian set. Charity looked at his coat and his hair and his brightly colored waistcoat and immediately thought, Augustus would never let himself look like such a cake.

  After chatting amiably for a few moments, the Regent said, "Prince Augustus, his mother, Princess Caterina, and his cousin Count Adamov have already arrived. I will have you shown to your rooms, as I am certain the ladies will want to rest before the exertions of the evening. If you wish some refreshment you have only to ask."

  Everyone bowed and curtseyed again, and the Debritt family followed a servant up the staircase to the elegantly furnished bedrooms that had been assigned to them. Charity immediately went to the window of her room and looked out, hoping to see the sea. But her window opened to the east, onto the lawn and the low wall that separated the palace from the Pavilion Parade. She was still standing there, watching the well-dressed members of the ton stroll up and down the aptly named street, when her mother came in.

  "I have ordered some tea, Charity. It is to be served in the small anteroom just along the corridor here. You may join us."

  Charity stifled a sigh. "Very well, Mama. I will be along in a moment."

  "Make certain that your dress for tonight is unpacked and hung to get out the wrinkles."

  "Yes, Mama."

  Her mother looked at her with the expression of suppressed annoyance that Charity was so familiar with.

  What does she want me to say? Charity thought with baffled impatience. For a moment mother and daughter stared at each other. Then Lady Beaufort turned and went out of the room, leaving the scent of her perfume to float in the air.

  Charity's dress for the Regent's dinner was a simple gown of white muslin worn over a pale pink satin slip. The high waist was encircled by a pink ribbon, and narrow pink trim decorated the hem. A single strand of pearls and pearl button earrings comprised her jewelry. The scooped neckline of her dress was modest, her satin slippers were pink, and her high kid gloves white. Lady Beaufort had sent her own maid to braid Charity's hair in a coronet on top of her head, encircled with pale pink roses.

  Charity regarded herself in the gilt-framed pier glass that was one of the amenities of her room, and smiled with delight. Her dress might be simple, but it was appropriate for a young lady, not a child, and she thought she looked rather nice. I wonder what Augustus will think of me, she thought as she turned from one side to the other, examining herself. She liked the way the gown rippled around her slender figure.

 
Someone knocked on her door. She called, "Yes," and it opened to reveal her father, dressed in the black coat and knee breeches of formal evening wear. "Everyone is in the anteroom waiting to go down. Are you ready?"

  "Yes, I am." Charity stepped forward into the light from the window. "How do I look, Papa?"

  "You look lovely, my dear," he said warmly.

  She smiled. "You look lovely too, Papa."

  He laughed and offered her his arm, escorting her along the corridor to the small salon where the rest of her family awaited her.

  The minute Charity stepped into the room and saw Lydia, her pleasure in her own appearance vanished. No one in their right mind would look at her with Lydia in the room, she thought. Her sister wore green silk, the exact shade of her eyes, and the lustrous blackness of her hair contrasted dramatically with the flawless white of her skin.

  Lydia is certainly showing her bosoms, Charity thought as she regarded her sister's deep neckline and the cleavage it revealed. Her own modest neckline and the pretty pink trim on her dress suddenly screamed not yet out. Augustus would never want to talk to her tonight when he could talk to Lydia, she thought gloomily.

  Princess Mariana said, "How pretty you look, Charity."

  "Thank you, Grandmama," she replied. Then, heroically, "You look beautiful, Lydia."

  Her sister smiled radiantly. "Thank you, Charity. Are we ready to go downstairs now, Mama?"

  "I believe so," the countess replied.

  Harry, who was dressed in evening clothes like his father, bent and whispered in Charity's ear, "This is going to be the most colossal bore."

  She managed a travesty of a smile, but all the while she was thinking dismally, Augustus will fall in love with Lydia. I wish I hadn't come.

  As Harry predicted, the evening seemed interminable. It began with a long reception line in the Chinese Salon, where the Regent greeted each of his guests and introduced them to the Prince and Lydia. After the Regent’s two guests of honor came: Princess Caterina, the Prince's mother; Princess Mariana, the Prince's great-aunt; the Earl and Countess of Beaufort, the bride's parents; Count Adamov, the Prince's cousin; Lord Stepfield, the bride's brother; and finally Charity, the bride's sister.