by Janet Todd
He had lost some of his allure with absence. Perhaps they were simply tired of each other, or perhaps he had found a replacement. Jack Fortuny was often with him: she would enquire.
She was pleased at the draft from Reeve & Reeve but dissatisfied that it was not bigger. How did a woman make money for herself? How did a man? Sometimes, as now, she chafed at the constraints of her sex. A man with half her energy and skill could make a figure in the world. Look at Charles Vernon. Men grew rich moving money round in bonds or shares; some sneered at them, but only behind their backs. Might she borrow and try her hand? Poor Henriette was rumoured to have lost money in overseas speculation at the Palais-Royal. There had been, and still was, more leeway in France. Here in London she would have to work with a man – Jack Fortuny, perhaps. But no, nothing out of the common way took; in England there was but one way for a woman to flourish.
Several acquaintances had only just arrived in town from the country and it was a good time for balls, concerts and the theatre, as well as gaming. The Prince of Wales was at Carlton House with his usual gay set but Lady Susan had sufficient self-control largely to avoid his circle – the sums of money won and lost there were quite beyond her. Yet there was some overlap and in the past she’d enjoyed occasionally being at Carlton House, usually with Lord Gamestone, who affected to be bored by the Prince but lost no opportunity of attending him.
Not long before the two weeks were up Lady Susan was at Lord Cawton’s tables. Jack Fortuny was there. He was losing just enough to make himself credible to those who sometimes doubted his character. She was glad to see him.
‘Lovelier than ever, but perhaps a little thinner?’
‘Possibly so, Jack, the country is wearying.’
‘It has been a desert here without you, Lady Susan. You cannot surely be going to leave us again so soon.’
She sighed. ‘I wish it were not necessary, but you understand …’
‘I believe I do. And I’m sorry. You go to Langford with the Manwarings, I think. You will miss this.’ Without quite smiling he gestured round the room with its bunches of candles, deep shadowy corners and bright central bustle.
‘You know everything, Jack. And, yes, I will. Play keeps the spirits lively. It has become, I own it, something of a passion.’
‘That would be a pity if true,’ he replied, ‘a business, a fascination, not a passion. Cards are pieces of paper after all. But I fancy what you call passion has not entirely conquered you. Not like some ladies.’ He looked over at the elderly Countess of Glint. She was famous for the size of her jointure, which she managed to lose long before it was paid each year by a family who begrudged every farthing and waited hungrily for her death. The central candles on her table cruelly displayed the wrinkles beneath the rouge and caught the pursed lips and glistening eyes below the hooded brows. Lady Susan looked at her, then turned away.
‘The good countess avoids some vices. There are women who pay in counterfeit coinage or in more intimate ways. I’m told some gambling mothers find their newborn marked by the five of clubs.’ Jack Fortuny gave a staccato laugh. ‘But none of this is near your case, madam.’
They smiled at each other; they seemed conspirators without a plot. Then he was called away. Lady Susan moved slowly back to the table to re-join the game.
Why had Jack Fortuny talked so seriously? Usually they enjoyed badinage. The exchange again brought up unwonted memories – dwelling in the past was becoming a bad habit. To herself she had sometimes called her love of cards an obsession, but Jack was right, it was not quite that. When small she had found Hoyle’s Games in her father’s lodgings in France. She’d read the book understanding little but intrigued by the alien terms and magical diagrams. When even younger, she’d watched the excitement on her mother’s face as she looked at her cards and the players. It was one of the few memories she had of this woman who had otherwise shrivelled in her mind to a sense of silk and scent, a flushed face near hers with eyes switched elsewhere.
At Lord Cawton’s house the bank never rotated and everyone, including herself, saw how his lordship grew richer and richer. Yet even in his saloon she had a sense of winning and went on. Here she knew she resembled her father. He had played brelan at Versailles, a cruel game that forced stronger men than he up and up to greater chance before they came crashing down. But he too, when she last saw him so many years before, told her only of the moments of winning.
This time she won a little, then lost a little. Then the games were over. The bank was counting its winnings, and the servants were putting out the candles, now surrounded with wide wax skirts. The daylight was pushing through slits in the heavy curtains. Lady Susan had paid for her pleasures. She had pitted her wits and desire against a mystery at the heart of a game, the chance to overcome chance. It had been exhilarating.
Jack Fortuny had left before her. Their parting had been affectionate but brief; she had been too engrossed. She knew he understood.
Lady Glint sidled up to her in her waddling gate.
‘I see you are back, ma’am.’
‘Indeed I am. It’s a pleasure to meet you here – as always. I trust your luck has changed.’
The elderly eyes were steely. ‘We have heard of your sad loss, Lady Susan, but if you want to know what I really think …’ she put her velvet-covered arm on Lady Susan’s shoulder.
‘Perhaps not,’ replied Lady Susan. ‘As you know I pay such small attention to gossip.’
They smiled at each other, nodded heads and passed on. Lady Susan had a whiff of too much scent on old flesh.
In their lodgings in Henrietta Street Frederica had been asleep for many hours. But her mother was too alert even to lie down. So she sat on the sofa to write to Alicia Johnson.
She was careful not to be very explicit, though the two women were frank when they met. She trusted Alicia completely but suspected her of carelessness at home, of leaving her letters around for her husband to see. Otherwise it was difficult to explain the progress of his dislike. Once in liquor he had been over-attentive, after which he’d greeted her stiffly. Now he denied her the house. Alicia said it was her reputation for gambling – he thought only men should lay high bets; Lady Susan suspected it was due to Mr Johnson’s perusal of one of her own indiscreet notes.
Alicia Johnson criticised her husband, yet would not take him to task for prying – she even denied he did it. Lady Susan knew full well that, since their schooldays, Alicia had never loved anyone as much as she had Lady Susan but, for all her mockery of Mr Johnson, she had a residual respect for her elderly, shambling and shrewd spouse. The marriage had been childless – whose fault she didn’t know – but Alicia was grateful that her husband didn’t lay it to her charge; having married a younger wife, he had had hopes. In most areas of life Alicia was more tolerant than her lovelier friend.
The day before Lady Susan and Frederica were due to leave town, the Johnsons at last came from the country. The two women were quickly together for, as soon as her husband hobbled into his chair and out to Brooke’s, Mrs Johnson sent a message to invite her friend to take tea. She wanted to see her desperately – and let her admire the drawing room in Edward Street, newly furnished and decorated while they were away. All that ghastly gold damask has gone, she had written, Mr Johnson has no taste.
‘I would have been here days ago, my dear, if I could. You know I loathe the country and besides you were in town and I have hated losing any precious minute.’
Their talk was general. The new furnishings, the Sheraton-style cabinets, the cotton and damask wall hangings with matching curtains, all suitably admired, the chronic ill health of Mr Johnson – he had been told he had a sciatica now as well as gout – all too slight to take him to Bath for the cure and out of his lady’s way. Mr Johnson was not a bad man, she told Lady Susan, but he talked inconsequentially. ‘He has not mastered the art of telling – as we have, my dear.’
They did the miseries of Norfolk and the difficulties Lady Susan was having with an
unmanageable daughter. Then they talked of Lord Gamestone; Alicia had thought him a fine catch for her beautiful friend – discreet as well as rich and generous. She was sorry to hear the affair was ending. Finally they turned to their old schoolfellow Charlotte Manwaring.
‘Yes, poor thing,’ Mrs Johnson sighed. ‘Her cousin Jane Dawlish is with her at Langford too, I think. She’s a more knowing sort of body than our dear friend.’
‘Are you warning me?’ smiled Lady Susan. ‘It hardly matters whether I like some hanger-on or other. I don’t notice them.’
‘Of course not. But they will notice you, Susan, and all your doings.’ She paused and gave her friend a quizzical look. ‘She will not be your friend if there’s someone there whom you do come to like and who may like you.’
‘You must mean the husband – or do you mean the daughter’s lover? Wouldn’t he be too young, even for me?’
‘I certainly do not mean poor Sir James. Though he’s a bit of a favourite of mine – he’s so easily wheedled. I knew his mother, a large, dominating, sharp-talking woman who kept him on her apron strings. The son’s a fool, a harmless fool. He called here once when you were in Norfolk. Mr Johnson encouraged him though he found him a rattle. He’s keen he should make love to the plain Manwaring girl. He had so little success marrying off the mother – you know, he still won’t see her – that he hopes he can do better with the daughter. In truth he would be a good catch.’
She paused again and Lady Susan waited.
‘But no, I did not mean Sir James. There’s another man in residence as well, the master of the house. If you want to have a long stay there and keep – or, dare I say, recoup – your reputation, beware of Mr Manwaring. By all accounts he’s a charmer and has a roving eye. Poor Charlotte was a lot prettier when she caught him.’
Lady Susan raised her eyes at this.
‘Oh yes, she had her moment of prettiness. You didn’t see her then. She’d already grown a little thinner and she always had a sweet smile. Anyway Manwaring must have thought so. Besides, he was horribly poor and she was an heiress. But now – he’s not only handsome but prosperously sleek on her money they say. Mr Johnson tied up some of the estate and made sure that after her death it went to a male relative, but he couldn’t prevent Manwaring getting his hands on the bulk of the income while she lived.’
‘Well, what can he or anyone else fear from a poor widow like myself?’ said Lady Susan tossing her shining curls and feeling them pleasantly cascading on her neck.
‘My dear, you charm everyone from the butcher to the prince.’
‘Oh, Prinney. That was never real, you know.’
‘I didn’t know since you never denied it.’
‘Why do so? It hardly wounds one’s reputation, and Frederick heard nothing. Never deny anything seems the best policy.’
‘I suspect Frederick heard nothing of anything. He was dazzled by the light from your eyes.’
‘Yes, but my eyes were not in Norfolk, and there was gossip which someone I think took the trouble to pass on.’
‘Surely not, or he would have spoken to you.’
‘No,’ said Lady Susan, ‘there’s the joy of it, he would not.’
For a fleeting moment she thought of Frederick with regret, but then her current predicament flashed through her mind. It was his fault that she was now poor. She thought of the bill of credit; perhaps he had somehow salted a little away for her use if things went wrong.
‘Do they have tables at Langford? Charlotte said they lived quietly.’
‘No, I think not, and that will be just as well for you.’ Alicia Johnson distrusted her friend’s liking for play. ‘She lives quietly I don’t doubt, but I think with some encouragement her husband might prefer a little more company. They are fairly close to Southampton, I think. Some interest from you would surely make them get up the occasional party. But do be careful. Charlotte is mild but not altogether stupid. She and her sister could be difficult enemies. And she adores Manwaring.’
‘I’m not sure how I shall live without playing,’ said Lady Susan pensively. ‘I have had two months already in the country with only piquet with Barton for amusement.’
‘Perhaps there will be other matters to excite you, Susan.’
‘You are harping on that again, but I assure you there’s no danger from me. I have quite other concerns. You know that I am taking my daughter with me?’
Frederica was up early on the day they were to leave. Despite her anxiety she had slept well and couldn’t help feeling excited at the prospect of a journey into a new part of the world. She’d heard there was a daughter at Langford. Older girls like the Hobarts back in Norfolk scorned younger ones. But perhaps Mary, being on her own, would be different, and they’d become friends.
The smart black Manwaring coach drew up in Henrietta Street at a time when Mrs Stott was away from home and her frightened maid lurked in the back of the house. Lady Susan and Frederica entered and sat comfortably with Barton in the soft upholstery while Jeffrey loaded their boxes behind. In Winchester they alighted at the Wykeham Arms to refresh themselves, then proceeded onwards.
They hardly spoke. Each was wrapped in her own thoughts. The least satisfied was Barton, who disliked having to leave London and enter a household where she would simply be one lady’s maid among others.
Soon they turned into a drive through great wrought-iron gates, new by the look of them. Money, Lady Susan registered contentedly.
As they drove along the drive, Frederica could see through the avenue of limes clumps of artfully positioned trees which would shed dappled light when the sun shone through them – it was now almost dusk. She felt the calm twilight and her memories of Someyton became acute, perhaps in part because she saw wisps of smoke rising from a bonfire behind the empty trees and smelt it carried on the wind; she felt herself back in the Norfolk country where she belonged. Lady Susan looked on the avenue with indifference, though noting the trees were a touch overgrown, not quite in keeping with the smart gates. The shrubbery, she supposed, would be behind the building: one needed a shrubbery to walk in and be seen from the house without being in the glare of the sun or in danger of getting too wet from an inconvenient shower. Keeping a suitably complaisant expression on her face, Barton felt increasingly morose as the distance from London crept on and on.
Langford had been in Charlotte Manwaring’s family for generations and, when they saw it, the house impressed each of them in a different way. Part Jacobean with an additional later wing sensitively constructed to fit with the old timber and brick structure, it was large but with an air of comfort. Several great windows argued the wealth of its original possessors. Lady Susan observed the costliness of the addition and regretted that the whole was not in that style, while Frederica delighted in the old-fashioned look – though a little frightened by the grandeur so different from the cottagey charm of Someyton. No shrubbery appeared but to the east, jutting beyond the edge of the house, was one side of a knot garden, backed with hedges of yew and thorn.
As the carriage drew up the Manwarings came out from their carved doorway to meet them. Lady Susan paid immediate attention to Charlotte Manwaring, then smiled as she was introduced to her sharp-featured cousin, Miss Dawlish. Miss Manwaring was then presented. Tall and thin, Mary was done up in a great deal more finery than suited the country, observed Lady Susan. She and Frederica in their sober mourning outfits must show to good advantage. A young man then stepped forward. This must be Sir James.
He was wiggling with excitement, like a great puppy wagging a tail. He too was tall, very fair and well made, with a pasty, unformed face and fleshier lips than suited his other features; his nose twitched. He was supposedly over-age; yet he looked younger. He asked at once about the journey and immediately described his own, the details punctuated by sudden high-pitched laughs.
He was cut short as the master of the house joined the group, ‘My husband, Mr Manwaring,’ said Charlotte with such obvious pride that Lady Susan gratifi
ed her by smiling warmly at her before moving her eyes to the man himself.
He was of medium height and did not seem remarkable, for where he stood he was caught in the light from the house which spread out into the thickening dusk. But, when they all turned to enter, Lady Susan was at once struck by his face, his dark-blue sparkling eyes beneath the shock of vigorous dark hair and thick eyebrows. He had an intimate look that promised pleasure, a mischievous bold sensual glance.
She saw the point of Alicia’s warning. Of course she could have him – that was clear almost at once – he was ripe for the taking, embedded as he was in this house of ill-favoured females. But it would be unwise to indulge in more than the lightest flirtation. She would half play the widow. Yet she was glad she had invested in the more expensive ornaments for her dress and hair.
The rooms assigned to her were light blue, coincidentally in the same shade she’d favoured in her private apartment in the London house. Despite the age of the main part of Langford these had been done out in the most modern manner. In her dressing room, there was a walnut dressing table surmounted by a triple glass, the two side ones folding so that she could see the front, side and back of her head. The middle glass tilted as well. It was most ingenious – and useful for a lady who had to make an effect. There were little drawers in the table, with compartments for cosmetics, and a Chelsea porcelain lattice basket for hair ornaments. A subtle smell of incense filled the rooms. Lady Susan was pleased.