by Mary Nichols
‘Come about? What do you mean by that? Have you not been well provided for?’
‘Yes, Aunt,’ Georgiana said, determined to remain calm. ‘Papa left the house and farm and all the horses to me. It is up to me to make a living for both of us from it. I am saving hard to give Felicity a Season and a dowry, but when everyone thought the war had ended last year the demand for horses fell. Not that I liked the thought of any of our horses being killed, but...’
‘Child! You are surely not trying to run a commercial undertaking?’ There was horror and disbelief in her voice.
‘Of course I am. How else can we live? Papa taught me how. Ever since I was big enough to totter to the stables and sit in a saddle, he had me by his side and talked to me about what he was doing. He has made me into a good judge of horseflesh. Felicity manages the house and I look after everything out of doors. We have been doing it for twelve months now.’
‘Good heavens!’ was all Mrs Bertram could manage, and again, after a pause, ‘Good heavens!’
‘I am going to breed racehorses,’ Georgie said. ‘With the end of the war and so many of the officers coming home, they will be looking for recreation, and as most are very fond of a wager I think racing will take an upturn. Papa thought so, for he was far-seeing enough to keep Grecian Warrior instead of selling him when he could easily have done so and he bought a couple of good brood mares. You met Royal Lady, didn’t you? Warrior Princess is her fifth foal.’
Mrs Bertram seemed to be beyond words. She sat and stared at her niece as if she had gone mad.
‘We are managing very well,’ Felicity said in defence of her sister. ‘Georgie knows what she is doing.’
‘Give me leave to doubt that,’ Mrs Bertram said. ‘She cannot know that she is condemning you both to a reputation for being eccentric or she would not countenance such a life. Eccentric women do not make good marriages - in fact they rarely marry at all unless it be to someone equally touched in the attic. I should have thought that you, Georgie, were old enough and sensible enough to realise that.’
‘What else could we do?’ Georgie asked.
‘Sell up. Buy an annuity and live in gentility...’
‘Sell Rowan Park?’ Georgie exclaimed. ‘We could not do that. Papa would turn in his grave...’
‘It is a pity my brother could not see he had a couple of females on his hands and not boys,’ Mrs Bertram said with some asperity. ‘He always did treat you more like a son than a daughter, Georgiana. I warned him years ago but he would not listen. He said you would go on very well and there was sure to be a sensible, well set up young fellow who would appreciate your abilities.’ She paused but did not give either girl an opportunity to reply before going on. ‘He was as blinkered as one of his precious horses over the pair of you. Now we must do something about it. You will put yourself in my hands.’ She sighed heavily and made room on the cluttered side-table for her cup and saucer. ‘I shall do what I can for you, though I think it may be too late for you, Georgiana.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ Felicity cried. ‘Georgie is a wonderful sister to me, so capable and caring, and she will make an admirable wife for someone.’
‘We’ll see,’ their aunt said, though there was doubt in her tone. ‘If you wish to keep Rowan Park, Georgie, we shall have to find some gentleman interested enough to take that as a dowry. A more mature gentleman, obviously.’
‘Some old bufflehead!’ exclaimed Georgie. ‘I would as lief remain single.’
‘And how much longer do you think you can go on before the whole place goes to rack and ruin?’
‘It won’t,’ Georgie said stubbornly.
‘Oh? You have buyers and sellers beating a path to your door?’
‘No, not exactly, but there have been a few. We have to give them time to become used to the idea...’
‘That a woman can run a business? Never! Anyone who did arrive could only be coming to gape or gull you into bad bargains. You are not so lacking in wit that you cannot see that, surely?’
‘Then they will have their come-uppance, for I know a good horse from a bad one, so you need have no fear I shall be gulled,’ Georgie said, and though it was no less than the truth it did not stop her from recognising the accuracy of her aunt’s assurance that men would not do business with a female. Those that had put in an appearance had come out of curiosity or to try and cheat her, but when they’d found they could not they’d gone away empty-handed. It might have given her a sense of satisfaction, if it had not also meant that business was lost.
‘Late in the Season as it is, you will come back to London with me, the pair of you, and I will endeavour to introduce you to all the eligibles,’ her aunt said. ‘Henry has been gone a year now and you have mourned long enough.’
‘I cannot be spared from here,’ Georgie told her, though she recognised that her aunt was right. Tucked away on the borders of Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire, seeing no company but each other, she and her sister were becoming almost bucolic, and though she did not mind that for herself it was wrong for Felicity. She had been mothering her sister ever since their mother died many years before and she was determined, now that Papa had also passed away, that she would be a father to her too. And that meant giving her a Season and doing her best to find her a husband. She had decided on that before their aunt’s arrival; all Mrs Bertram had done was to bring the decision forward. ‘But of course Felicity must go, if she would like to. I am very grateful to you for offering to sponsor her, for I could not have done it before next year at the earliest. Neither do I have your contacts; you can open doors I never could.’
‘I should like that above everything,’ Felicity said, trying to keep the eagerness from her voice for her sister’s sake. ‘But I do not want to leave you here alone.’
‘I shan’t be alone. There are servants and outside staff and more than enough to keep me occupied. And there is the new filly...’
‘A filly?’ Felicity asked eagerly. ‘Oh, how wonderful! Did you have any trouble?’
‘None at all; it came away as sweet as a nut.’
‘Georgiana!’ cried Mrs Bertram, shocked to the core. ‘How can you mention such... such delicate matters in the withdrawing room?’
Georgie laughed. ‘It is hardly a delicate matter, Aunt, which is why I wear old clothes for it.’ She turned to Felicity. ‘She is a little beauty. I’m going to call her Warrior Princess.’
Felicity clapped her hands and nothing else would do but that she must go immediately to the stables and behold the paragon so their aunt temporarily gave up trying to talk sense into them. She returned to the subject at dinner, by which time she had been shown to her room by Fanny, changed her gown, inspected the house and viewed the grounds from an upstairs window.
Beyond an extensive stable-block, whose roof was almost immediately below her window, there were two or three large paddocks in which upwards of thirty horses grazed and beyond that a few farm fields, in one of which the haymakers were busy with their scythes. In the other direction, alongside a copse of trees, was a private gallop, where she could see a couple of stable-lads exercising horses. She had not realised until today how large her brother’s stud was, nor how much there was to do in the managing of it, and she was filled with admiration for her elder niece. Not that it made any difference to her disapproval or her determination to do something about both girls. It was her duty and Harriet Bertram had never been one to shirk her duty.
‘I must return to London as soon as maybe,’ she told the girls over the fish, which was surprisingly well-cooked, though Harriet found herself wondering how close it had been to the bran-mash. ‘Your uncle Edward will be home soon and I must make sure everything is as it should be before he arrives, so I suggest you pack your bags and we will go tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow! I cannot possibly leave so soon,’ Georgie said. ‘You had best go without me and I will follow when the haymaking is done and I am assured Warrior Princess is doing well.’
No amount of a
rguing would budge her and their aunt gave in. Felicity and Mrs Bertram would post to London, in the lady’s carriage, and Georgie would follow a week later in Sir Henry’s travelling coach, with a groom driving and Fanny as maid and chaperon. It was not, in Harriet’s opinion, an ideal solution but it was the only one Georgiana would agree to, and that young lady was far too self-willed for her own good. Harriet blamed Henry, who, while acknowledging that he could not produce a living son - there had been two stillbirths between Georgie and Felicity, both boys - would not deny himself the pleasure of bringing one up, and Georgie had been turned into a hoyden as a result. A very capable hoyden, but a hoyden none the less.
‘I will undertake to fit you both up with clothes,’ their aunt said. ‘And I’ll give a ball. The Season is half over so it will have to be at the end, and by then you will perhaps have made your mark on Society, that is if I can prevail upon Lady Hereward to invite you to her ball next week and Mrs Sopwithy to include you in one of her routs. Then there is Almack’s and perhaps, if you are lucky, a drawing-room. It is fortunate that so many young men are returning from the Continent for I declare every eligible in town must already have been spoken for long ago.’
She murmured on in like vein throughout the remove of mutton and braised sweetmeats and the fruit flan that followed them, and Georgie, who was made to feel that their deficiencies were all her fault, was glad to escape and return to the stables, once more clad in boots and breeches, leaving Felicity to complete the arrangements with their aunt over the teacups.
Georgie loved horses with a passion which could only be matched by her father’s and had often sat up all night with a sick animal or a mare that was foaling. She had watched stallions at stud and cared for mares in foal right through until the time of the birth, a fact which horrified her aunt. She could break and train a new horse and was an excellent rider, liking nothing better than to feel the wind in her hair as she put a horse through its paces on the gallops. Dawson, the stable-master, and the other outside staff were used to her and would have died for her right to continue her father’s work; they cared little for convention and knew nothing of the ways of London Society. If the Rowan Park stud was sunk then so were they and none fancied being among the ranks of the unemployed, swollen by returning soldiers.
Today Georgie had helped a new filly enter the world and she was as proud as if it had been a daughter of her own. She acknowledged, with a wry smile, that horses were likely to be the only children she would have; at twenty-six she was already firmly on the shelf. No man would look twice at her. For a start, her complexion lacked the pale fragility that was fashionable and she was too tall, overtopping her sister by a head. She was also the equal of any male when it came to horsemanship and there were few who excelled her; it was enough to deter any man from offering for her.
She sighed as she knelt to fondle the new filly, drawing a neigh of protest from its mother. If she could not have a husband and family of her own, then she would make sure of being a success in her chosen sphere. She would be the best horse-breeder in England. And she would make sure that Felicity wanted for nothing. A husband for her sister before the year was out would be her goal.
Felicity herself did not disagree. She loved Georgie and was no more selfish than any other young lady who had been cosseted since birth and it never occurred to her that her sister might not be entirely happy with the way their lives were shaping, for she never complained. As far as Felicity was concerned, Georgie preferred horses to people and liked nothing better than mucking out a stable dressed in breeches. Her sister did not, as far as Felicity knew, hanker for a husband and a family of her own. Having explained this to her horrified aunt, she gave herself up to the enjoyment of planning her wardrobe and looking forward eagerly to all the social occasions Mrs Bertram could devise for her.
‘There are some exceedingly handsome officers in my husband’s regiment,’ Mrs Bertram told her as they journeyed towards the capital the following day. ‘Some I am well-acquainted with, for they have been close to my husband, the colonel; others I do not know so well but I shall contrive to learn all I can about them. They will need to be well up in the stirrups, of course; that goes without saying.’
‘It doesn’t matter about being rich, Aunt,’ Felicity said. ‘So long as I love him.’
‘Love him!’ exclaimed her aunt. ‘What foolishness is this? We will find someone suitable, from a good family with an independent income and a title if possible, and if all goes well and he offers and you accept, then you can think about love. Ten to one that will not come until after the wedding, so you may set your mind at rest on that score.’
‘Did you love Uncle Edward when you married him?’
‘No, of course not, but he was agreeable and kind and we came to depend on each other. I would not change him for the world.’
‘And Mama and Papa?’
‘The same.’
‘Oh. Do you suppose Georgie knows that?’
‘Of course she does; your sister is not a ninnyhammer, for all her cork-brained ways.’
‘Could you not find someone for her too? I should not like to think she was left to be an ape-leader; she is not like that at all, you know. She pretends to be hard because she doesn’t like anyone to know how soft she really is, but I have seen her cry over an injured horse and when old Bucephalus had to be put down she mourned for weeks.’
‘Horses!’ expostulated Mrs Bertram. ‘Horses are not people.’
Felicity, who had often been constrained to say the same thing, made no comment on that. Instead she continued to extol her sister’s virtues. ‘She is very pretty, you know, when she takes the trouble to dress and arrange her hair.’
‘Then why she did not make the effort long before this I cannot conceive.’ Mrs Bertram sighed heavily. ‘I blame my brother-in-law...’
‘I don’t suppose Papa even noticed how she looked.’
‘No, I do not suppose he did.’ Mrs Bertram sighed again. ‘If only I had not been out of the country.
‘Aunt, I doubt it would have made any difference, Papa did not take kindly to criticism.’
Her aunt laughed. ‘Of that I am persuaded. Now, let us talk about you...’
Felicity was only too happy to comply and the remainder of the journey passed pleasantly, and the following afternoon, after an overnight stay in St Albans, they arrived at Mrs Bertram’s modest villa in Holles Street.
London was celebrating the defeat of Napoleon and there were flags and bunting everywhere and everyone laughing and joyous. Ballad-sellers were doing a roaring trade and returning troops were clapped on the shoulders and told what valiant men they were, though the soldiers themselves, deprived of their livelihood, if so dangerous a calling could be so named, were not so happy. Glad enough to have returned alive, though many were missing limbs, they had to find civilian jobs or resort to thieving or begging and already many were on the streets with their hats in their hands. Most of the officers who had returned had gone back to their homes to be received into loving families; some might be low in the stirrups, but they would find other occupations, or service in other theatres of war. It was different for them.
All the same, Major the Honourable Richard Baverstock, son of Viscount Dullingham, had not yet returned home to Cambridgeshire. Before he faced his father, he intended to have a little fun; in fact he intended to have a lot of fun. And he was doing it in the company of his friend, Captain John Melford. They had only just arrived in England, being among the first to return on account of slight wounds, but already they were amusing themselves sparring at the Fives Court in Martin Street, mixing with the noisy crowds who frequented the Cockpit Royal and laying bets on a couple of fighting cocks.
They had been to Astley’s Amphitheatre to watch a troop of wire-walkers and a dancing bear and had danced the night away at Ranelagh Gardens where the aristocracy rubbed shoulders with the proletariat and where they had enjoyed the company of a couple of delightful bits of muslin. Both handsome an
d well set up, they had soon learned how to deport themselves and dress in the latest mode and were, as a consequence, greatly in demand among mamas organising social occasions for their daughters. They had been taking full advantage of the fact, flirting with the young ladies but never losing their hearts.
Sometimes Richard wondered if he still had a heart to lose. He had seen some gruesome sights in the eight years he had been a soldier; he had seen good friends killed and maimed, and priceless treasures looted. He had seen barbarity and compassion, bravery and cowardice in equal measure and he had watched Maria bleed to death in his arms and wept for her and his own inadequacy. Determined to put it all from his mind, he was, a few days after Felicity’s arrival in the capital, out on Hampstead Heath cheering on his jockey in a private race.
It was a foolish wager and he would not have made it if John had not bet so heavily on that card game at Watier’s. His friend had been somewhat disguised at the time and the more he’d lost, the more reckless he’d become. Richard, who had pulled out long before, had tried unsuccessfully to ]ever him away, but he would have none of it. ‘My luck will change,’ he’d kept saying. In the end he’d lost everything of value on his person and the heap of paper vowels beside Lord Barber’s elbow had borne witness to the fact that his luck had not changed and if he continued he would have nothing left at his bank either. He’d been writing yet another voucher when Lord Barbour had put a hand over it. ‘No more vowels.’
‘I have no more money or valuables on me,’ the young man said. ‘You must allow me to continue. These will be honoured.’ He turned to Richard, who stood behind his chair. ‘You’ll vouch for that, won’t you, old friend?’
Richard agreed, for what else could he do? But it meant that he might be called upon to make up any deficit.
‘No more vowels,’ his lordship insisted.
‘My hunter, then. It’s a prime animal.’
‘That old nag against this?’ He indicated the heap of money, the rings, pins, fobs and the scraps of paper and laughed. ‘Do you take me for a fool?’ It was then that he looked up at Richard. ‘I’ll take your stallion, though.’