Her Heart for a Compass

by Sarah Ferguson

  Little Cecil had her first birthday in February. I enclose a sketch of her. I look forward to her becoming acquainted with her aunt Margaret at some point, though I am not sure, in all honesty, that I have grounds for optimism. Instead, I pray you will treat this letter as a fresh start between us, and write back.

  With love,

  Your sister,

  Victoria

  Donald Cameron of Lochiel to Lady Margaret

  Paris, 24 April 1867

  Dear Margaret,

  Forgive this hasty scrawl, but I have just finished reading your compendium of children’s tales and wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed them. I took the liberty of reading the one about the flower girl to my hostess’s daughter, Emily, who is nine. I must confess that I expected some sort of benevolent lady to appear in your story just at the right time to purchase the fur-lined boots the child dreamed of, but I was informed in no uncertain terms by my audience that this would have been far too unlikely! The wicked aunt was, in her opinion, much more believable.

  I went up significantly in her estimation when I told Emily that the story had been written by a friend of mine. You simply must have these published; they deserve to be read more widely. I do agree with you that they should be illustrated and, alas, I am forced also to agree with you that your own drawings—well, let us say they do not do your words justice!

  My host is calling me. We are to visit the great exhibition. I will write more fully when I return, for I know you will be anxious to hear all the details. Rest assured, I shall make a point of seeking out the strangest and most outlandish exhibits for your delectation and delight.

  With very best wishes as always,

  Donald

  Lady Margaret to Donald Cameron of Lochiel

  Powerscourt, County Wicklow, 1 June 1867

  Dear Donald,

  It is five months to the day since you first wrote to me in exile here. I counted the number of letters which have passed between us since and the total is rather astonishing. Isn’t it odd, to become so well acquainted with a person and yet to have no prospect of furthering that acquaintance in person? No, do not fear I am becoming maudlin, only wistful, my dear friend—is it too presumptuous of me to call you that?

  Breda, who was my maid, is now teaching at Enniskerry School which is set to join the national school system once Lord Powerscourt has made the requested improvements the board require for entry. Mr. Doherty is to be retained as schoolmaster, thankfully, and Breda has been promised some formal training, much to her mother’s joy—I think I told you that Mrs. Murphy was a schoolmistress before she was married? I am not sure whether all this upheaval will mean that my days at the school are numbered, but I have been assured my services remain most welcome at the infants’ school.

  It is at this point in my letters that I usually tell you that life at Powerscourt otherwise continues as usual, but that is not so! We are to have a rare visitor! Mr. Lewis Strange Wingfield, black sheep, bad penny, fop, as his elder brother variously refers to him, is to grace us with his (hopefully colourful) presence. He comes to us at a time when Lord Powerscourt is guaranteed to be absent. His lordship is once again abroad on one of his buying trips, so be warned, Donald, your services may yet be requested in the quest for a particularly elusive stag’s head. Julia is much put-out at having to play the hostess to this renegade youngest son and has warned me several times to beware of him. She has failed to enlighten me as to why I should be cautious of cultivating him, merely pursing her lips and informing me that he is “the antithesis of what the son of a viscount should be.” You will not be surprised to know that this intrigues me greatly. I have hopes that Mr. Lewis Strange Wingfield will live up to his middle name (in the interesting sense of the word, and not the odd sense, needless to say). If he does, I shall make the most of his company—and ignore Julia’s qualms about my reputation suffering for, as you well know, I cannot lose what I do not have!

  There, now I have most likely alarmed you thoroughly, but you must not fret, I have not reached the grand old age of almost twenty-one without being able to take care of myself.

  Margaret

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  June 1867

  Margaret had remained behind as usual to help put the classroom to rights before leaving the infant school to head back to Powerscourt. A young man was leaning nonchalantly against the wall of the playground when she emerged, but he straightened up when he saw her, making a flourishing bow.

  “Lady Margaret Scott, I presume?”

  She knew immediately who he must be. “The very same,” she said, dropping a small curtsy. “The Honourable Lewis Strange Wingfield, I presume? Lord Powerscourt’s youngest brother. We have been expecting you.”

  “Please, I beg of you, drop the honourable. My title is neither welcome nor particularly accurate. I am considered the theatrical youngest brother, a description I much prefer. Now, it has been a long-held ambition of mine to walk a teacher home from school, rather than the other way round. May I have the honour?” He offered his arm, but seeing her hesitation immediately withdrew it. “Ah, I see my reputation precedes me.”

  “I prefer to make my own mind up about people,” Margaret said. “Having said that, you must admit this is an unconventional way to be introduced. I’m not sure Julia would approve. Does she even know you are here?”

  “Julia doesn’t approve of me, full stop. However, she did, admittedly most reluctantly, divulge your whereabouts once I had assured her I would be on my very best behaviour.”

  Margaret bit back a laugh. “I have been trying to discover from her why I should be wary of you, but to no avail.”

  “Come—my brother must have said something. Did he call me a fop?”

  “He did. And Julia said that you are not what you ought to be,” she risked.

  Lewis gave a snort of laughter. “That, I will admit freely, is perfectly true. Though the same thing, I understand, could be said of you, if you don’t mind my saying so. But I can see from your expression that you do. Ought I not to have mentioned it?”

  Margaret put her hand to her heated cheeks, shaking her head. “What have you heard about me?”

  “Enough to whet my appetite.”

  She eyed him narrowly, her amusement tempered with wariness. “Are you always so—so forthright with people you have just met?”

  “No, only those who interest me. I am the epitome of Victorian reserve and good manners with bores.”

  She couldn’t help it—Margaret gave a peal of laughter. “I am flattered,” she said, tucking her hand into his arm.

  “And I am vastly relieved. I have high hopes of you, Lady Margaret. I do hate to be disappointed, but I am aware—as my brother will attest—that I am not everyone’s cup of tea. Talking of which, I am thirsty after my walk. Shall we take some refreshment at the Leicester Arms before we return to Powerscourt?”

  “A cup of tea would be most welcome, Mr. Wingfield.”

  “Lewis, please, since I am quite determined we are to be friends, and I was rather thinking of a glass of strong porter.”

  “I can’t go into a tavern and sup ale!”

  “No? Well then, go and sit down by the river and I’ll bring a jug out. There’s a lovely spot. . . .”

  “I know it. You go and purchase our ale, then, and I will see you there.”

  It was five minutes later when he emerged, and Margaret had settled herself on the sunny riverbank. Lewis was twenty-five, she knew, but she would have guessed at something closer to her own age. His dark-brown hair was worn long, parted in the centre, waving down over his ears. Like his elder brother’s, his hairline was already receding to reveal a high, smooth forehead. His jaw was smooth, too, with no trace of a beard. He was not handsome, his nose being rather too big, his mouth rather small, but he had an infectious smile and a gleam of mischief in his eyes that Margaret found vastly appealing. Though his slim figure was soberly dressed, his red necktie hinted at a tendency towards ostentation, and ther
e was, in the way he carried himself, something of the feline grace of a ballet dancer.

  “Well, do I pass muster?” he asked, settling himself beside her and pouring them both a glass of the dark beer. “You were positively drinking me in, my dear.”

  “You are nothing like your brother,” she answered, somewhat taken aback.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment. I have what is known as a thespian bent.” He touched his glass to hers. “Slainté, as they say here. Good health.” He took a long draught and smacked his lips theatrically. “I always know I’m in Ireland when I taste that.”

  Margaret took a sip, nodding approvingly. “It is rather good.”

  “You’re something of an expert, are you?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that, but I’ve had the occasional glass in Dublin.”

  Lewis leaned back on his elbow, smiling over at her. “Have you, now? My mama told me that you were ‘a bit out of the ordinary way,’ and since that is how I view myself, I reckoned we would be bound to like each other.”

  Elizabeth, Lady Londonderry, was one of her mother’s closest friends, which was why Margaret was here with Julia. She had lost her first husband, Viscount Powerscourt, when her three boys were very young. Though it was said that her second marriage was a love match, it, too, ended tragically when her husband, the Marquess of Londonderry was confined to a lunatic asylum, effectively making a widow of her for the second time. Like Victoria’s mama-in-law, Lady Cecil, Marchioness of Lothian, and Mama herself, Lady Londonderry had converted to the Roman Catholic religion in middle age. She was an established beauty and a woman of fearsome intellect, and Margaret had always found her rather intimidating.

  “What else has Lady Londonderry said about me?” she asked Lewis, frowning.

  “You must not worry that she has been spreading gossip. My mother is most discreet. She said only that you have a most decided mind of your own. Since I pride myself on sharing that trait, too . . .” Lewis made an expansive gesture. “She also told me last year, when I was first considering a visit, to leave you be.”

  “And you have done so for almost a year, but now your curiosity has got the better of you, is that it?”

  He shrugged. “If you must know, I needed a change of air.”

  “There is nothing like the fresh Irish air for healing the spirit,” Margaret said, half teasing. “I myself am testament to that.” She waited for Lewis to elucidate, but he was frowning down at his hands, looking slightly uncomfortable. “Whatever the reason for your visit,” she said, “I am glad you are here.”

  She earned herself a relieved smile for this. His reluctance to confide made her warm to him. He was not as shallow as she had first thought. She finished her porter, shaking her head when he made to top up her glass. “I like it, but more than one makes me feel sick.”

  “Waste not, want not,” Lewis said, emptying the jug into his own glass. “In any case, we had better make our way back soon. I don’t want to upset Julia on my first day here by being late for dinner.”

  “Tell me a little about yourself first. I know next to nothing about you, save that you are an artist. You painted those lovely panels in the saloon, didn’t you?”

  “In happier days, when Maurice was still alive and Mervyn did not live in fear of my inheriting. In the last few years, I have been many things, an artist, an actor, and an attendant in a lunatic asylum. I worked in a prison, too, as a warder. For a short while only, you understand.”

  “Good heavens, why?”

  Lewis shrugged. “The same reason that I pretended to be a pauper and begged a bed in a workhouse or dressed up in petticoats to play an elderly spinster in a burlesque. For the fun of it. Because I get bored easily, I suppose. Mostly because I would rather be almost anyone than the heir to the great Powerscourt estates.” He grimaced. “Now that really is the most tedious role I can imagine—unless one imagines actually being Lord Powerscourt.”

  “Do you mean that? Truly?”

  “Truly, honest to God and cross my heart,” Lewis said, suiting action to words. “I dread the very idea of having to walk in my brother’s shoes. I do wish Julia would hurry up and produce an heir.”

  “Don’t say it like that,” Margaret said sharply. “No-one wants a child more than Julia.”

  “Save my brother,” Lewis continued in the same flippant tone, quite unrepentant. “Mervyn would do anything rather than see me inherit. It does beg the question, doesn’t it, why he spends so much of his time away from Wicklow. You’d think that after all the effort he has put into the house and gardens, he might strain a sinew to produce a son to inherit them.”

  “Lewis!”

  “Oh, have I shocked you?”

  “You have, and I am aware it was quite deliberate on your part.”

  He laughed, getting languidly to his feet, and holding out his hand to help her up. “I think I’m going to enjoy my brief stay.”

  “Bray,” Lewis informed Margaret five days later, “is not nearly so fashionable as Brighton. It is a quaint little seaside town with a charming promenade, but has not much to offer by way of diversion.”

  They were seated together in Julia’s landau with the top down, for the day was fine and the sun shining. Margaret dragged her eyes away from the view of the River Dargle, which the road had been following for much of the short drive, to smile at him. “I don’t need diversion when I have you.”

  “If only the critics agreed with you, but they can be so cutting. Do you know, after my debut performance in a burlesque, they said that my ‘idiotic dance in petticoats might stand for something in a competitive examination for admission into the Earlswood Asylum.’ Why does one only remember the bad reviews?”

  “Have there been any good ones to recall?”

  “A few. A very few, actually. My Roderigo was fairly well-received, but when one treads the boards with Mrs. Kendal and Ira Aldridge, one cannot help but shine. I don’t suppose you happened to see that particular production of Othello? It was on at the Haymarket a couple of years ago. August, I think it was.”

  “A month after I was sent off to Dalkeith,” Margaret said, grimacing.

  “Ah yes, after you fled the ball at midnight, just like Cinderella in the pantomime. I have not had the pleasure of appearing in it, which is a pity, as I do have a fine pair of calves for a pair of breeches.” Lewis raised his leg to be admired. “Actually I have decided to bring down the curtain on my acting career, so to speak.”

  “Why?”

  “Alas, I am never going to be an Edmund Kean. In any event, I am a bit of a butterfly, always flitting from one endeavour to the next. Now here we are arrived in Bray. I have asked the charming coachman to drop us off at the promenade, where we can take a stroll and enjoy the fresh air. What do you say?”

  “An excellent idea. I can smell the sea already.”

  The River Dargle widened as they neared the harbour, and the air became distinctively briny. The nondescript little main street gave way to much more imposing buildings as the landau came to a halt on the wide promenade upon which were located several very grand hotels. A long sweep of neat gardens with a bandstand in the centre was bustling with visitors, some clustered in deck chairs, others conversing in groups. The promenade itself ran in a long straight line next to the shore, where the waves pounded up the steep strand, spraying the unwary. Margaret clutched at her hat, for the breeze had got up, and closed her eyes, tilting her face towards the sun. The sound of the sea, the swoop and cry of gulls, and the smell of salt and sand, and something indefinable that was the seaside reminded her of the sands at Portobello near Edinburgh.

  She opened her eyes to smile at Lewis. “Do you think we might go for a paddle?”

  He shuddered. “Aside from the fact that the water is freezing, I have no desire whatever to roll my trousers up and totter about on those pebbles trying to keep my balance. It is a most undignified prospect. I sincerely hope you are jesting.”

  “I expect I am,” Margaret said, lo
oking longingly at the sea.

  “You will be telling me next that you wish to hire a bathing-machine.”

  “Do they have them here? Can one hire a bathing costume, too?”

  “Dear heavens, I have no idea.” Lewis took her arm, and they set off along the strand. “Those are the Wicklow Mountains you can see to the south. The walk to Bray Head should take us half an hour or so each way. Then we shall have earned our tea.”

  The sea breeze ruffled her hair, which was already escaping from her hat, and it made her crinoline sway in her wake. “If the wind catches me the wrong way, I shall take off into the air. I wish that women could wear trousers.”

  Lewis chuckled. “Only on the stage, alas.”

  “Are you serious about giving up acting?”

  “I am almost never serious about anything.”

  “Lewis!”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said off-handedly. “I find learning lines that others have written somewhat tedious. I by far prefer to create my own characters.”

  “Such as Ned Smith, the cabman’s friend, the character you adopt when carousing in rough taverns. If, of course, you weren’t teasing me.”

  “No, it’s true enough. I am rather fond of Ned, though Ned is too fond of the drink, which is why the cabbies are fond of him. He overtips when he is in his cups.”

  “What will you do, if you give up the stage?”

  “I said I would give up acting, not the theatre. I might try my hand at stage adaptations or directing and I will continue with my reviews, for the meantime. I write as Whyte Tyghe, for the Globe, you know.”

  “I didn’t know that. Honestly, Lewis, I can hardly keep up with your many alter egos.”