by May Burnett
If George instead of James had learnt of their cousin’s deception, his main worry would have been preserving the family name. It would have gone ill for the impostor in their midst. Strange how much his own priorities differed; James could not feel any real anger against Charlotte, and was determined to protect her despite her questionable tactics.
Telling his mother the truth was not an option. She was already prejudiced against the real Belinda, for no reason he could see. Her reaction to learning how she had been fooled would be unpredictable, and probably disastrous. For the time being, it was better to leave her in ignorance.
Item two – Charlotte’s scoundrel of a husband. If Conway was smart, he might pre-emptively discredit anything Charlotte might say about him by ruining her first. He had to be neutralized as soon as possible.
James fleetingly thought of challenging Conway to a duel, but that was a last resort, if all else failed. A popular member of the ton had more subtle means at his disposal. Not that the idea of Charlotte being a widow was at all unattractive …
Item three – the vexed inheritance issue. It could wait a bit longer, he decided, until Conway was dealt with. He had been about to suggest to his cousin that she immediately employ a solicitor of her own, relieving the clearly incompetent firm of Phimes and Ffolliott. Now, however, this course seemed fraught with danger, as Charlotte would be misrepresenting herself under a false name to people in legal professions – probably not a safe course of action.
James gave instructions for the Phaeton to be prepared for his afternoon outing. At least life was not boring at the moment.
His valet Jouvin had been with him for three years, an extremely shrewd and experienced man in his late forties. James had reason to trust his discretion. He decided to make use of Jouvin’s extensive network of acquaintances among the servants of the ton.
“I had a strange experience last night”, he explained to his valet. “There was a man, Peter Conway, that I ran across at the Sefton ball. Seemed a very ordinary fellow, a bit older than my brother George. Another guest told me that he was courting a rich young lady, but supposedly he already had a wife living in the provinces.”
“These things happen all the time, Sir.”
“Well, I don’t like it if the girls I grew up with are fooled by that sort of scoundrel. I want to do something about this man Conway, made a bet that I could queer his pitch. Would you be able to find out who he is, and which lady he is courting? You can bribe the information out of your friends at my expense, if necessary.”
Jouvin seemed a trifle surprised at this unusual order, but saw no particular difficulty and readily agreed to try his hand at detection. “Maybe you could consult Debrett’s peerage to see if the Conway family is mentioned,” he helpfully suggested to his master. “It cannot be one of the premier families, like your own, Sir, or I would already have heard of it.”
“I don’t have a copy here …. I’ll check the one in my club’s library,” James decided. “That will be all for now, Jouvin. Please attend to that new matter as quickly as possible.”
“Very good, Sir.”
As James drew up in front of his brother’s house with his phaeton, a servant emerged, bearing the message that his mother urgently wished to speak to him. Reluctantly James entrusted his team to the man, who promised to walk them while he was inside.
“Hello, Mother – I cannot keep the horses waiting long,” he greeted his parent, who received him in her boudoir, still not completely dressed.
“This will not take long. James, I have noticed yesterday that you and Belinda are showing a decided partiality for each other’s company. It will not do. She needs to marry, and you are too young and her first cousin. In other families this might be tolerated, but I simply will not have it. Keep your distance from Belinda.”
“Just why are you so set against her?” James enquired.
Lady Amberley hesitated for a moment, turning one of her rings on her hand back and forth. “Her father was an evil man. She reminds me of him every time I look at her.”
“Evil?” Good and evil were words that belonged to church services, not into a modern drawing room. “That is hardly his daughter’s fault. From what Belinda tells us, she hardly ever got to see him.”
His mother frowned. “There you go again, taking her part. I am glad that at least George is safely married -“
James was losing patience. “Ah, so that is why you never invited her before, in fact never even mentioned her to us!”
He had rarely seen his mother so furious. Though she did not raise her voice, it trembled with intensity. “James, I will not have you second-guessing or criticising me. You will do as I wish in this matter.”
“You yourself asked me to squire my cousin around, Mother, just a few days ago. I was reluctant then, but Belinda clearly needs friends here in London, and in our family. You can console yourself with my assurance that a marriage between her and me seems most unlikely at this point. Now I really need to return to my horses. Is Belinda ready?”
“I suppose so. My maid tells me she was in the salon earlier on, looking at the posies she has received from yesterday’s dancing partners. At least ten; she seems to be successful enough.”
“Then you need have no worry. I did not send her any flowers myself. I’ll see if I can find her, then. Good-bye, Mother.”
Though outwardly calm, James was troubled by the confrontation. When his mother ever found out about Charlotte’s deception, and the fact that he did not inform her as soon as he had learned the truth, she might never forgive him.
By the time he arrived downstairs in the front hall, Charlotte was waiting for him. She was clad in a charming new green redingote, suitable for the cool and somewhat windy weather.
After greeting him in a subdued voice, she followed him out and climbed the phaeton. They set off in the direction of Hyde Park.
“Did my mother warn you that we were getting too friendly?” James enquired.
“Yes, before we even went to bed last night, and in no uncertain terms. I assured her that I have no designs on you.”
“More’s the pity,” he said in a mournful voice.
“Will you stop joking about this! Before coming here and knowing you all, I did not feel particularly guilty, but now I am more and more eager to shake the dust of London from my feet and return to Yorkshire.”
“I suspect that you and Belinda did not realize just how risky this deception is, not only for you, but for my own family.”
“As soon as we have the inheritance sorted out, we can pay your mother back for all these dresses and hats and other outlays.”
“That is the least of it,” James said, with some exasperation. “We don’t care about the money. In the ton, it is essential not to be made a laughing stock – not to lose face, as the Chinese call it. If it became known that my mother introduced an impostor to half the ton at last night’s ball, she would be thoroughly humiliated.”
“Oh,” Charlotte said, in a small voice. “I had not thought about that.”
“No, you don’t really know enough about society and its rules. That is partly mother’s fault for ignoring you so long – I gather because she hated your father.”
“She isn’t the only one. He was not a good person, I fear. He could be very charming if he wanted, however. I wonder what happened to make her see through him.”
“That’s immaterial now. Mother tells me that you remind her of your father – that blond hair, no doubt. It is yet another thing she would hold against you if your deception is found out. Neither we nor you can afford for you to be exposed.”
“Should I leave right away? I could make up some urgent message recalling me to Yorkshire.”
“In the absence of any known relatives of Belinda’s, this would be difficult. Problems with the estate would not weigh with my mother, as she considers that to be men’s work, to be sorted out by your future husband.”
“I have found husbands to be entirely useless s
o far. Even Belinda’s is only interested in his medical practice, instead of helping with the estate. He says he was not brought up to it and I am doing a better job than he could.”
“Tell me more about him and Belinda.”
“Richard is a sweet and kind man, just right for Belinda, who can be somewhat acerbic. She looks rather like me, the same blond hair and blue eyes, but is an inch shorter and built a bit more delicately. Until she was sixteen she was quite healthy. Mother – her mother, I mean – never knew about the blindness, thank God. It started gradually and got much worse in the second year. We consulted several doctors in Yorkshire and even travelled to Edinburgh to meet a noted specialist, but there was absolutely nothing they could do. Now she has reached the stage where she can only distinguish light and dark and very big shadowy objects.”
“What about reading and writing? Mother said she had written to her on occasion.”
“Only twice since mother’s death, and they were not exactly pleasant letters. When Belinda’s sight got too bad, I would read to her, - Richard does it now, mostly, - and I write her letters at her dictation. She can still write when she tries, but the lines have a habit of wandering all over the page; and she does not know when to dip the pen into the ink. She does better with a pencil.”
“How did she meet Richard?”
“Richard took over the medical practice in the nearby town when old Dr. Bentham retired. As soon as he and Belinda met – two years ago now – they became very close. Richard was hesitant to propose, as his family has no pretensions to gentility. His father is a successful ironmonger, who could afford to send him to study medicine in Edinburgh. He has two brothers. The family live in York.”
“If he thought the match so unequal, how did they end up married?”
“When I saw that they were pining for each other, I talked severely to both of them and got them to admit their feelings and hopes to each other. A few months later Belinda reached her majority, and the mourning period for father ended about the same time. The banns were read in the local church. Their marriage was celebrated with all due formality, though only in a small local circle.”
“And why didn’t Belinda inform my mother that she was now a married lady?”
“She thought of it, but not having heard from her godmother for years, it was not a priority. Besides, Richard did not want to bring the marriage to her relatives’ attention. He has an irrational fear that they could be torn apart.”
“How would we have done that, pray?”
“As a doctor he has seen cases where blindness was taken to be the same as madness. Belinda is one of the smartest and sanest people I know, but apparently that might not necessarily protect her.”
James shook his head. “Very melodramatic. Mother and George – once they learn the truth about Belinda – will not be pleased at the connection with an ironmonger’s family, I fear, but they would never try to undo a marriage for such a paltry reason. However, that is all water under the bridge now. Our most urgent problem is your own husband.”
“I wish I had never met him,” Charlotte said vehemently. She had lain awake for most of the hours after the ball, going over her memories of her brief marriage. “I was an idiot, barely seventeen, and father pressed me to accept him – I think he wanted me settled. That was before Belinda’s sight got so weak that he was glad enough to have me back home, looking after her interests. I like to think that mother would have prevented the marriage, had she still been alive.”
“Where did you meet Conway?”
“At an assembly in York. Belinda was still too young to go out in society. Just as well, or Peter would probably have set his sights on her. Conway was a lieutenant in the 14th Foot at the time; the uniform was part of the attraction. The regiment was stationed at York for some nine months, but has left long since.”
“You met him as Charlotte Mercer?”
“Yes. Technically I am not illegitimate, as my mother was married to another actor when she had me – one of those marriages where both are free to pursue other interests, I gather. If I had not looked so much like Sir Rudolph, she might even have kept me around.”
“How did you end up living with Belinda?”
“I know it is quite unusual, and considered rather shocking. But father was already a disreputable sort, anyway. Shortly after he had married your aunt Amelia, my mother dumped me at the Manor, a toddler between two and three years old. It must have been a nasty shock to a young wife, pregnant with her own first child.”
“What happened?”
“Well, father was absent at the time, gaming with the Regent’s set as usual. Not that George was the regent as yet, and far less fat …. Lady Yardley could see from my looks that I was indeed her husband’s daughter, and took me up to the nursery. From that day on I was treated and brought up as a daughter of the house, and have been Belinda’s older sister since the day she was born. Amelia Yardley is the only mother I remember. She was – er - very unlike your own mother.”
“She must have been. I cannot imagine mother doing anything so unselfish for the sake of her husband’s by-blow. Still, you retained your original last name?”
“Yes, in the neighbourhood everyone was told that I was a young relative of Sir Rudolph’s, come to live with him for family reasons. However, because of the strong resemblance between him, Belinda and me, everyone soon guessed the truth. For your aunt’s sake the fiction was accepted - she was far more popular than father.”
“I don’t wonder. I wish I had known my aunt Amelia. Mother never learned about your existence, it would seem.”
“No, and now that I have met her, I understand why she was never told. Apparently your mother rather bullied mine during their childhood. I do wonder if it is partly for my sake that mother never came to London in her later years.”
“Let’s go back to Conway and your marriage.” James filed away all this information, but they were getting too far from the point. “What do you know about him and his family? Where did he live before he was stationed in York? How did he court you?”
“The usual way. Flattery, flowers, dancing at the local meetings, soulful looks, pressing my hand … I was too young and inexperienced to see through him, and took his professions of love at face value. Father at least should have been more careful, but after mother’s death he seemed desirous of settling me, and Belinda, as soon as possible. I suspect he was thinking of remarriage himself at the time. When Peter applied to him for my hand, he gave him a dowry of five thousand guineas. Without that cursed dowry, I doubt the marriage would ever have taken place. And we could certainly use the money now.”
“So you were soon married?”
“Yes, quite respectably, from Brinkley Manor, then for some months I lived with Peter in his lodgings in York.”
James had to suppress a twinge of hot jealousy at the thought. “How did that work out?”
“Not too well. I think he did not like having someone hanging about and seeing what he was up to at all hours. Our relations quickly deteriorated. I resented the way he took me for granted and as soon as the ring was on my finger, all pretence of love and caring immediately ceased.”
“The bounder,” James murmured under his breath.
“Eventually he told me he had to travel to Cornwall and recommended that I spend the time of his absence with Belinda, left all alone at the manor, just as her eye problems were beginning to worsen. I was glad enough to comply. It turned out he had sold his commission without telling me, and he simply never came back, or even wrote.”
“What did your father do about that?”
“He was not pleased, but as I said, by then he was glad that I was there for Belinda. Not that he himself was home more than maybe a week or two in the year.”
“It strikes me,” James commented, “that your story has a shocking lack of trustworthy male characters in it.”
“Well, Richard is trustworthy enough, just unwilling to take on a neglected estate and Belinda’s fami
ly. After Belinda, all his passion belongs to medicine and science.”
James kept his reflections about the absent Richard to himself. “You never told me his last name.”
“Richard Seymour. Belinda is Mrs. Seymour now.”
“And you are Mrs. Peter Conway.”
“I try to forget that fact as much as I can.”
“We need to gather information about your husband and what he is up to. Where was his regiment stationed before?”
“Somersetshire, I believe.”
“That should not be too hard to check. Do you know where Conway was born?”
“He never spoke much about his early life, in fact now I think back on it, he was quite evasive on the subject. Somehow I received the impression that he grew up in the south - Sussex? – maybe Kent – not too far from London, at any rate.”
“Did any of his relatives attend your wedding?”
“No, he claimed to be an orphan without any relatives.”
“Hmm. And how old is he?”
“In 1811, when we were married, he claimed to be twenty-seven. That would make him thirty-three or thirty-four now.”
“But of course, we cannot believe anything he told you, not even his age.”
“Right.”
They fell into a gloomy silence as the phaeton tooled along the park. A few isolated drops of rain were beginning to fall.
“I think the rain is about to get heavier,” Charlotte remarked, “Maybe we had better go back.”
“Yes, I dare say you are right.” James deftly turned the greys around. The horses did not seem to mind the drops of rain, so far. With this cool weather, at least there was little chance of a thunderstorm; that could make them panic, and he did not want to risk Charlotte’s safety. For a minute both looked at the animals in silence.
“Keeping a pair of beautiful horses here in the city must be quite expensive,” Charlotte remarked.