The Spider's Touch

by Patricia Wynn

  James Henry discreetly cleared his throat. He leaned forward to add, with a grave courtesy, “What his lordship means to suggest is that, by using his name, you will get the credit you require until you have time to make the appropriate arrangements with your bankers.”

  “What?” Harrowby glanced up from the bite of eel on his fork. His innocent gaze met James Henry’s, and something he saw there caused him to say with a touch of alarm, “Oh—yes. Just so. Can’t have you running up too many debts now, can we? Word of that gets around, and you’ll never be invited to sit in on a decent card game. Have to be good for your debts of honour, don’t y’ know. The play at Court is rather deep these days. Odds fish, but it is! You can’t sit to play at Hazard without two hundred guineas in your pocket at least.”

  “I’ll be going to Court soon, shall I?” Dudley asked. “How quick before I get a place?”

  Several pairs of startled eyes turned his way. Even his mother stared—though she was just taken aback by the stupidity of his blunder. Hester, who relished most anything that embarrassed her aunt, hid her amusement with a touch of her napkin to her lips.

  James Henry caught her movement out the corner of his eye and turned in time to catch her smile. He quirked an eyebrow, conveying his understanding to her, if to no one else. Hester fought a rush of chagrin, which she suffered whenever they shared a thought, for she had lied to James Henry about the highwayman Blue Satan, afraid that he would betray St. Mars. And with that lie between them she could not be at ease with his friendship.

  Mrs. Mayfield broke into the silence with an embarrassed laugh. “A place at Court! Why, you silly boy, one would think that they grew on trees! They are not so easily come by, I assure you! Nobody comes by a place without they have a very influential person as patron.”

  “But you said—”

  Dudley tried to speak, but his mother did not give him time to finish. “You will see how it’s done, after you’ve been at Court awhile. And you could not do better than to watch how your brother-in-law comports himself. Why there is not a prettier gentleman at his Majesty’s Court than my Lord Hawkhurst, and so I always say.”

  As Harrowby preened himself, she continued, “Then, once you have got the lie of the land, so to speak, and you have got someone to take an interest in your advancement—a relation, perhaps, for it is always in a gentleman’s best interest to see that his family and his wife’s family gets ahead—then, perhaps this generous person will see what his Majesty can do for you.”

  Throughout this speech, Mrs. Mayfield had kept one eye on Harrowby to see if her ramblings suggested anything to him. So far, they had produced nothing except an approving expression, so she pushed on.

  “Of course, this person would have to have the King’s ear. He would have to be a peer with a great estate, else why would his Majesty care about pleasing him?”

  As her hints grew broader, Hester reminded herself that she must not let her aunt’s vulgarity get under her skin. There was no one likely to notice it, except James Henry, who must already have seen Mrs. Mayfield for what she was. She avoided meeting his gaze again, however, for fear of losing restraint.

  Mrs. Mayfield had almost exhausted her circumlocutions before the light of an idea brightened Harrowby’s face.

  “I’ll tell you who’s important enough to get you a place with his Majesty, Mayfield,” he said. “Me!”

  “Oh, my lord!” Mrs. Mayfield erupted in raptures, though the energy she had spent getting through to him made them shorter than they otherwise would have been. “You must make your thanks to Lord Hawkhurst now, Mayfield. How fortunate you are to have such a generous brother-in-law!”

  Prompted by his mother, Dudley thanked Harrowby, though he seemed confused by what had just transpired. If he had any guile, Hester decided, it was not as practised as his mother’s.

  “And what else do you think, my dear?” his happy mama added. “A particular friend of my lord’s has presented me to his sister, and she has agreed to help you find a good wife.”

  “A wife!” Dudley looked horrified. “I never said I wanted a wife!”

  “Don’t mean to get leg-shackled, hey?” Harrowby gave a sympathetic laugh. “Not ready for the old ball and chain yet?”

  “No!”

  “Well, I’d advise you to take cover if that’s the case! When it comes to marriage, your mother has more tricks up her sleeve than a comb has teeth. Zounds! But I ought to know!” Harrowby accompanied this witticism with such a loud shout of laughter as to make Hester jump.

  At least, James Henry had cause to squirm for his relatives, and not only she.

  But Isabella seemed to think her husband’s joke very jolly indeed, and Mrs. Mayfield wagged her finger at him coyly. “Fie, my lord! You know you was head-over-heels in love with my Isabella. And if it wouldn’t make me blush like a cherry, I could tell a thing or two about your lordship’s courtship of her. But you gentlemen all pretend that you never wish to be wed!”

  Harrowby winked grotesquely at his brother-in-law, and said, “Your sister is a saucy baggage, who never ceases to plague me o’ nights. I haven’t had a full night’s sleep since I fell into parson’s mousetrap.”

  Isabella and her mother laughed uproariously. None of this banter served to soothe Dudley’s horror, though it did divert him long enough to plant the hope that this talk of his own upcoming nuptials was nothing but a bad joke. His expression wavered between terrified doubt and headstrong resentment.

  Hester smothered the sigh that a more intimate knowledge of her family inevitably provoked. Her impression of Dudley was no more favourable now than it had been on first acquaintance, formed during her brief stay at Mayfield Park before she had traveled with her aunt and Isabella to London. He had been raised with no sense or taste, and she doubted he had the personal qualities to benefit from good instruction if he had received it. At home he thought only of his pleasure in riding and shooting with his cronies, who were no more intelligent or sensible than he. Like Isabella, he had a cheerful temperament if everything went his way. He only seemed to differ from her in his propensity to sulk whenever things did not. Although she could sympathize with his resentment over his mother’s manoeuvrings, she also knew that his main objection to marriage was likely to be the threat it posed to his pleasure.

  She could only imagine the resentment James Henry must feel on knowing that a part of his father’s estate was to be wasted on an undeserving oaf like Dudley Mayfield.

  * * * *

  Harrowby was not immediately able to take Dudley under his wing, for the next day, he had to attend the interment of the Earl of Halifax in Westminster Abbey. Without a day to lose, Mrs. Mayfield decided to take it upon herself to improve her son’s appearance by taking him to visit some of the shops in the City. Dudley would rather have amused himself by going to see a public execution, but since the hangings for this term—six men and a woman—had already been carried out, he consented to accompany his mother after dinner.

  Isabella was promised to Madame Schulenberg at four o’clock. Hester was to accompany her, for Isabella had refused to set foot in the Palace again without her cousin’s support. Her last experience at a drawing-room given by the Princess of Wales had been a disaster. That evening the King had made one of his rare appearances and had addressed Isabella in French. Weak in any language but her own, she had become so tongue-tied as to embarrass both herself and the King. She had no more understood his German accent than she had been able to reply, so she still did not know if her panicked, “oui,” had been an appropriate response. The King had quickly recognized her dilemma, which was common to most of his courtiers, and with an inclination of his head had dismissed her. But Isabella had vowed never to be caught in the Palace without her own interpreter again.

  Mrs. Mayfield was piqued at having to forego a visit with the King’s mistress, but her ambitions for Dudley gave her no choice. After sharing her resentment that Lord Halifax had chosen that day to be buried, when Harrowby might
have taken his brother into London, she set off, but not before drawing Hester out into the hall to speak to her alone.

  With a talon-like grip on her niece’s arm, she said, “Hester, see if you can discover how much it will take to win Madame Schulenberg’s influence for Mayfield.”

  “I thought Lord Hawkhurst agreed to speak to the King for Dudley.”

  “Yes, he did. So you know of intent, and there is no cause for you to refuse me, Dame Right.”

  “I only meant that it might be better for my lord to speak to Herr Bothmar or Herr Bernstorff instead.”

  Mrs. Mayfield dismissed this idiotic notion with a laugh that was meant to express her fondness for her son-in-law. “That will never work, and I shall tell you why. Dear Lord Hawkhurst is so congenial, he is likely to let Mr. Bothmar put him off. That gentleman is besieged night and day with requests for posts, and those are from people who are much more ruthless than Isabella’s husband. A simple request will never do the trick, even from an earl, when so many others are paying dearly for the privilege. I have heard a clear three thousand may be required, either to La Schulenberg or to Madame Kielmansegge.

  “Besides,” she went on, “Hawkhurst will be happier if we can tell him how it is to be done without he bestirs himself too much. So I want you to bring it up with her today.”

  Hester did not even try to hide her dismay. “Aunt, I fail to see how I, a mere dependent, can raise such a sensitive subject. Wouldn’t it be more suitable for Isabella to introduce it?”

  The expression on Mrs. Mayfield’s face reflected the continuous battle that raged inside her. She could never bring herself to admit that her daughter did not have the brains to undertake the mission, yet she was determined to keep Hester in her place.

  After a few more seconds’ struggle, she finally said, “My daughter, the Countess, must never appear to doubt her husband’s ability to pull it off. She must remain above such things.

  “But you, Hester—you will be expected to contrive for the advancement of your family. Why, I am sure Mrs. Jamison will not help us to find a rich wife for Mayfield without we send her a good haunch of venison—if not the whole beast. Such manoeuvrings must fall to the dependents of the great, else where would the money come from to feed us all?”

  With that pointed reminder of the fate that might yet be Hester’s if she failed to fulfill her duties, Mrs. Mayfield left her standing in the hall.

  They would not leave to call on Madame Schulenberg until half past three, but Hester doubted she would have enough time to gather her wits for such an enterprise. How did one go about proposing a bribe?

  In the hope that a quiet place would be more conducive to scheming, she left the hall with its marble staircase and headed to a comfortable closet on the first floor, where some of Lord Hawkhurst’s books had been shelved. She had noticed that Harrowby never bothered to enjoy them, and it was unlikely that any of her relatives ever would. She could count on this room’s being empty most days, which made it almost hers.

  She still could not reconcile herself to her change in circumstances, which had been brought about by Isabella’s marriage. In every direction she turned, she saw splendour—marble columns and floors, furniture in satin and gilt, great paintings by the masters, and ceilings on which the plaster had been carved by Gibbons himself. She was surrounded by beauty, clothed in gowns she had never dreamed of—even if most of them had been Isabella’s—and introduced to some of the most powerful people in England.

  It all tasted bitter, though, because it rightfully belonged to St. Mars. And she did not even know where he was.

  She was on the point of entering the smallish room when James Henry surprised her, coming out of it. Nearly colliding with her, he looked almost as disconcerted as she felt.

  “Mrs. Kean, I was looking for you. May I beg a moment of your time?”

  “Certainly, sir.” She was taken aback to discover that he must have observed her habits, else he would never have known to look for her here.

  He stood aside and let her pass, with that unconscious grace that reminded her of his brother.

  “Is there something I can help you with?” she said, turning to face him. She was uncomfortably aware of being in a small space with him alone.

  “Yes. I should like your opinion of a gentleman you may have met, a Captain Potter.”

  Hester was puzzled by the request, but she answered, “I hardly know him at all. Merely that he is a friend of Lord Lovett’s and Sir Humphrey Cove’s.” She remembered Captain Potter from the night of Isabella’s drawing-room, a man with a frowning disposition, which, in view of the frivolous nature of his hosts, he had tried to overcome. “Lord Lovett brought him once to this house. But I have never been in conversation with him. Why do you ask?”

  Disappointment laid a crease in James Henry’s brow. “Colonel Potter has asked his lordship to engage him as his secretary. Lord Lovett recommended him to my lord’s notice, but that is all I know about him. I hoped you might have formed an opinion of his character. But you have never spoken to him? Never heard anything said about him?”

  Hester shook her head. “The only time I saw him, he was very intent on speaking to my lord. But I did not overhear their conversation.”

  “You truly heard nothing?” he asked, searching her face. Then, realizing that he had as much as accused her of eavesdropping, he had the grace to laugh. “Pray forgive me. I did not mean that the way it sounded. I simply hoped you might have overheard something that could help.”

  She smiled. “No, but if it was employment he wanted, I doubt that his conversation was very revealing. Does his interest trouble you for any particular reason?”

  He began a denial, but after seeing her skeptical gaze, he sighed, and said, “Yes, it does. Did you hear of the trouble in the Foot-Guards?”

  “Yes, Sir Humphrey brought us the news. He saw them burning their shirts when he was on his way here. And I read in the news-sheets that some of the soldiers threw their flaming shirts into the garden at the Palace and over the fence at Marlborough House.”

  James Henry gave her a sober look. “Unfortunately, that was not all. The news-sheets did not report the worst, but it is known in the street. While they were rioting, those soldiers were shouting Jacobite slogans. They called for the Pretender and the Duke of Ormonde and would not disperse until Ormonde appeared and promised them that the shirts would be replaced.”

  Hester understood his unease. “Colonel Potter was here with us that evening. Sir Humphrey thought he would want to know about the riot, so he could help control the men. I cannot say that the Colonel showed much concern. In fact, he only left because my lord urged him to do it. Do you think he lacks good judgement, or a proper sense of responsibility?”

  James Henry shook his head. “No, my fears are much greater than that. The Whigs are saying that the Foot-Guards are rife with Jacobites. They say the former ministry put adherents of the Pretender in the Guards so they would turn against King George when the Pretender comes. And there is evidence that this true. At some of the riots this past month, members of the Life-Guards have been heard cheering for James Stuart.”

  He looked at Hester, and his expression was very serious. “Whether Colonel Potter is a Jacobite or not, I must protect this house from any hint of treason. Mr. Walpole is gathering evidence, some of which may be true, but some which is surely to be exaggerated. It is my duty to warn Lord Hawkhurst, for he must never be believed to harbour any Jacobite sentiments.”

  Hester wondered if James Henry knew that his own father had been a Jacobite. He must have known something about the former Lord Hawkhurst’s sympathies. But St. Mars had sacrificed his own good name to preserve his father from the taint of treason. And his older son would do no less to save the Hawkhurst estates from attainder

  She said, “I would not like to ruin anyone’s chance at a livelihood, unless reasonably sure that he does not deserve it. But for the sake of this house, I will promise to discover what I can about C
olonel Potter and his loyalties, however little that is likely to be.”

  He thanked her, and since he had no excuse to linger, he left her alone.

  Hester found that her appetite for reading had vanished. She could not think of the welfare of this house without thinking of St. Mars. If he was not here to protect his estate, then she could do no better than to help James Henry preserve it for him.

  She had not given up on the idea that Gideon Fitzsimmons would one day return as the Earl of Hawkhurst, as was his right.

  * * * *

  At the Palace that evening, they were conducted to the private sitting room where, it was said, the King supped with his mistress every night. The guard passed them through the Tudor Gate, and a servant led them through the courtyard to Madame Schulenberg’s apartments at the back of the ground floor, overlooking the garden. Since this was the first visit Isabella had paid to La Schulenberg, Hester had not known what kind of reception to expect from a lady who, many said, was the queen of England in everything but name. But neither she nor Isabella was prepared for the scene that greeted them.

  Neither was the guard, who was accustomed to escorting visitors directly in, when the King’s mistress expected them, else he might have asked them to wait outside. He opened the door t without knocking and halted in his tracks.

  Madame Schulenberg reclined on a sofa, surrounded by a handful of ladies, who were trying to stem her weeping. They moved about her like anxious bees, dabbing at her face with wet handkerchiefs and holding hartshorn beneath her nose. German phrases issued from her mouth in wails. Hester did not need to understand the words to know that the King’s mistress was very upset.

  The opening of the door took her ladies by surprise. They turned as one body, but their alarm soon changed to relief. They must have been working over their mistress for many minutes with no success, for they almost seemed grateful for the distraction.