She had heard him out in amazed silence; now she thought for a moment before speaking. “It is indeed a remarkable proposition, my lord. But have you thought closely enough, I wonder, about what you are doing? Your grandmother, you say, wishes you to marry out of family pride. Surely, if I may speak plainly with you, this means she wants you to marry and get an heir. May you not find, if you venture into the kind of arrangement you have done me the honour of suggesting, that you are saddled with the wife, and still deprived of the fortune for lack of the heir?”
He looked at her with a new respect. “I confess that is an idea that has occurred to me. But my grandmother is a woman of her word; she has not stipulated the heir; she will hold to her side of the bargain. Besides, she is hardly to know on what terms we live—and—she is a very old lady. That is the ground on which she insists on my marrying forthwith. She wishes, she says, to see me established in life before I go to Portugal because she does not expect to live until my return. As a matter of fact, I have no doubt she will live to be a hundred, but there it is; she has delivered her ultimatum and will abide by it. And anyway, if I must marry, there could be worse times. It is bound to be something of a nine days’ wonder, and we would be safe away from it, in Portugal. Besides, a wife is always a useful adjunct to a diplomat.”
Camilla could not help laughing. “I must say, sir, that your proposal is scarcely a flattering one. ‘If you must marry’ indeed. What do you expect me to say to that?”
“Why, anything to the purpose.” There was a note of impatience in his voice. “I have been at some pains, already, to explain to you that this is anything but a romantic proposal. Flattering, on the other hand, in some ways, I think it is. You are the first young lady I have met with who had enough sense to entertain it for a moment.”
“Or enough foolishness.” Thoughtfully. “But then, you must remember, sir, that I am only by courtesy a young lady. Do you really think your grandmother will be delighted at the news that you are to marry a governess? Not,” she hurried on, “that I have at all decided to agree to your remarkable proposition, but I think we would do well to have all clear between us. And she does not sound to me like the kind of person who will take kindly to a declassee granddaughter-in-law.”
“What a sensible girl you are,” he said with approval. “All your objections are admirable ones. Of course we would have to handle it with care, but I think if we make you known to her first, and tell your story afterwards, we will do well enough. Besides, she will be too delighted at having me marry at all to throw many rubs in our way.”
Again she laughed. “More and more flattering. Well, sir, it is an odd enough proposition, but I tell you frankly I find myself so circumstanced that I must at least consider it. Since you have dealt plainly with me (and I am grateful to you for it) I will do as much by you. A year ago, I would not have entertained such a proposal for a moment. I was still full, then, of dreams of romance. Now, I am not so sure. Romance, I begin to see, is something of an expensive commodity and I wonder whether I can afford it. But tell me, when do you need your answer? I would like, if I may, to see my father before I decide. Not, of course, that I would tell him anything about your proposition. I can see that one of the terms of our agreement would have to be most absolute secrecy on both sides. It is not the kind of arrangement one would wish to discuss even with one’s dearest friends. Not,” she added reflectively, “that I have any very dear friends. Which would make it all the easier. But, frankly, I would like to see if my father has any more eligible suggestion for me. Perhaps—who knows?—he has won a fortune at cards since I saw him last, and I may set up heiress on the proceeds. It is not, I can tell you, likely, but I would like to make sure before I commit myself to—forgive me—so desperate a hazard.”
It was his turn to laugh, somewhat wryly, and she found herself thinking with amusement that he liked her plain speaking no better than she had his. But he spoke with his usual grave courtesy. “Of course, Miss Forest, you must have time to decide. That you will even consider my proposal is, to my mind, a great point gained. I must, in any case, go to town tomorrow to discuss the terms of my appointment and begin my preparations. It will hardly be possible for me to set out for Portugal until, at the earliest, the middle of May, and, in my opinion, our marriage, if you agree to it, should take place at the last possible moment.”
“Naturally.” Again she could not help a little laugh.
“Before then,” he went on, “we should, of course, have to pay a visit to my grandmother, and you, too, would have your preparations to make. You will want, I suppose, a trousseau, for which, in the circumstances, I shall consider it my privilege to pay. Altogether, the sooner you make up your mind, the better. Besides, I should be glad to have my anxiety at an end.”
“To be put out of your misery,” she said kindly. “Yes, and, of course, if I should refuse, you will have to start looking about for another candidate.”
“Quite so.” He refused to be roused. “So, all things considered, I would suggest that you do me the honour of accompanying me to London. We will take Cousin Harriet too, in deference to the proprieties. If you are to be Lady Leominster, you cannot be jauntering about the countryside alone with me.”
“Caesar’s betrothed?” she said, teasingly.
“Exactly so. Indeed, I must ask Mrs. Lefeu to look out for a maid for you. And,” a new thought struck him, “where are you to stay? I do not imagine that your father’s lodgings will be quite the thing for my future wife.”
This was suddenly too much. “Not your future wife yet, sir,” she said. “You are going a little too fast for me. And naturally I had not the slightest intention of staying with my father. I am quite as well aware of what is suitable as you are, and plan to return to Devonshire House, where I have carte blanche. You would not, I collect, consider it beneath your dignity to take a wife from there.”
“I beg your pardon.” She was aware of his increasing respect. “No, even my grandmother can hardly quibble at Devonshire House, though your coming from there may give her ground for some anxiety about your politics.”
She laughed, in charity with him once more. “So that is why you asked me whether I was a fierce Whig. I can see that would hardly do for the wife of a Tory diplomat, any more than a secret passion for Lord Hartington, or one of those tiresome Lambs. But it is getting late and you do not, I am sure, wish your servants to be gossiping about this any more than is inevitable.” She rose. “I shall be most grateful for your escort—and Mrs. Lefeu’s—to London. When do you intend to start in the morning?”
“Why, as soon as Mrs. Lefeu can be ready, which will be early enough, if I know her.” He too had risen and now escorted her ceremoniously upstairs to Mrs. Lefeu’s apartments, where the arrangements for next day’s journey were quickly completed, Camilla noticing, not for the first time, how absolutely he was obeyed and how entirely he took such obedience for granted. What kind of a husband, she wondered as she undressed in the luxurious warmth of her bedroom, would he make? Was she not mad even to consider his strange proposal? But on the other hand, what else did the future hold for her? She had spoken truly when she said that she had outgrown her romantic dreams. For some time now she had considered her future with a cold and gloomy realism. In this spring of 1807, Bonaparte remained all powerful in France, and even if she could bring herself to submit to him, the chances of his restoring the family estates were so slight as to be pitiful. She was condemned, so far as she could see, to be a displaced person for life, dependent on her father’s slight support and her own resources for a livelihood. Her first experience as a governess had hardly been an encouraging one, and what chance of marriage had she, dowerless as she was? Her hopes along that line had been dashed once and for all when the older of Lady Elizabeth Foster’s sons, after showing all the signs of a tendre for her, had made it clear that it was very far from being marriage that he intended. If she was not good enough for Augustus Foster, what hope of a respectable establishment
had she? No, she told herself, as she began to drift off to sleep, she must think very seriously of Lord Leominster’s proposal. After all, to be Lady Leominster ... and besides however odd his proposal, there was no denying his attractiveness. And already, she thought, she had learned something of how to deal with him. He might dislike women (why? she wondered sleepily), but he could be brought to respect one who would not let herself be browbeaten. It might do ... it might very well do. And she drifted into sleep incorrigibly troubled by romantic dreams.
Waking, she told herself briskly that that would not do at all. If she did decide to marry Lord Leominster, it would be strictly upon his own terms. If it was to work, there must be no romantic nonsense about it, on her part any more than on his. Just the same, she was human enough to take particular pains about her appearance, exchanging the governess’s drab in which she had been expelled from Mrs. Cummerton’s house for a most becoming travelling dress of dark red sarsenet which had been a present from Harriet Cavendish.
Hurrying downstairs, she saw, in daylight, much that last night’s candles had failed to reveal, and began to realise the truth of Lord Leominster’s remarks about his straitened circumstances. The red turkey carpet that covered the main stairway was frayed in several places, and the shadows of many years’ candle smoke darkened walls and ceilings. In the breakfast room, where she found herself the first, it was the same story; the brocade curtains were faded and the chair seats that matched them had been exquisitely mended in several places. The house might be luxury itself compared to the governess’s quarters at Mrs. Cummerton’s, but, compared instead with the extravagant elegance she had been used to at Devonshire House, it was scarcely fit to live in.
The rooms, however, were beautifully proportioned, and the window, to which spring sunshine drew her, showed a handsome prospect of beautifully kept lawn and parkland. It was like a man, she thought, to have spent all he could on the grounds and let the furnishings go. She was mentally repapering the breakfast room and hanging it with rose-coloured curtains when she was interrupted by the fluttered appearance of Mrs. Lefeu, who apologised breathlessly for being late, explained that she had been at her packing since six o’clock, offered Camilla a choice of green tea or bohea, exclaimed about Leominster’s absence, and then, all in the same breath, greeted him warmly as he appeared from a door at the end of the room. He in his turn greeted Camilla with the automatic courtesy of a host, announced that they had fifteen minutes before the carriage would come round, and applied himself to the consumption of devilled kidneys with a concentration fatal to the romantic visions that had wreathed themselves among Camilla’s dreams. Very well (she helped herself largely to scrambled eggs), if he could play at detachment, so could she.
It was only later in the carriage that she began to be aware of the difference between them. However collected an appearance she contrived to present, behind it her emotions were in a constant whirl of indecision. Whereas he, having made his proposition and left her to decide, really seemed to have forgotten all about it, and was soon deep in a serious discussion with Mrs. Lefeu as to the comparative urgency of various repairs and refurbishments of the house which she had apparently been pressing upon him. After listening for half an hour to their earnest discussion of the woodworm in the attic and the dry rot in the cellar, Camilla was in a fair way to flying into a miff, and had to remind herself that so far as Mrs. Lefeu was concerned she was merely an object of casual charity, a poor little governess who had been given a night’s lodging out of kindness. Braced by this thought, she endured another hour or so of dilapidations and retrenchments, merely making a mental note, from time to time, that if she should chance to find herself in charge of the house, she would go quite otherwise about things. But then, of course, if she did marry Lord Leominster, his grandmother would be bound to increase the allowance she made him. Everything would be different.
Different indeed. But that was not the way to achieve detachment. She had told herself she would attempt no decision until she had found out how her father was circumstanced, and now firmly put the problem out of her mind and turned instead to listen to her companions’ talk. Mrs. Lefeu and Lord Leominster had reached the subject of the stables by now, and here it was evident that he would allow of no economy. His guests might suffer some diminution of luxury; his horses never would. Camilla, who had noticed with approval the handsome team of matched bays that drew his carriage, saw nothing out of the way about this. It would have been equally ridiculous to suggest that some local tailor might dress him as satisfactorily as the master hand that had cut the capes of his travelling coat.
Thanks to their heroically early start, they reached London betimes in the afternoon and Camilla was quite human enough to enjoy being driven up to Devonshire House in an elegant travelling carriage instead of dwindling to the door in a hackney as she had expected. She parted from Mrs. Lefeu and Lord Leominster with many expressions of sincere gratitude, and a little niggling worry at the back of her mind was set at rest when he promised himself the pleasure of calling upon her next day to make sure that she was none the worse for her journey. So he had meant it, last night. He would no doubt expect her answer tomorrow. She must lose no time in getting in touch with her father.
To her relief, she found no one at Devonshire House but Miss Trimmer, who welcomed her with her usual reserved affection and told her that the family were in the country and likely to remain there for some time longer. This suited Camilla admirably, and she sat down at once to write a note to her father, urging him to call upon her that very evening. He arrived with suspicious promptness and greeted her with an enthusiasm that boded no good as his guardian angel, his
“Camille bien aimee.”
Detaching herself as best she might from his port-wine-flavoured embrace, she observed with the still patience of constant repetition that she preferred to be called Camilla and asked him how he did.
“Villainously,” he replied, with that faint but unmistakable French accent that had won him so many female hearts, years ago, when French refugees were still a novelty. “I am au desespoir, Camille—Camilla, I should say, since you insist. You arrive most happily to be my saviour, mon ange guardien—and to make your own fortune, my love, which, no doubt, you will think more to the purpose. I was on the point of writing to you when I received your note.”
“Really, Father?” She looked at him with a suspicion based on long experience. “And pray how am I to set about being your saviour—and making this fortune?”
“Why, so easily, my love, that you will hardly believe it possible. But ’tis something of an histoire. Shall we not be seated and will you not, perhaps, offer your vieux pere some refreshment?”
“Of course, Father.” She rang and gave the necessary orders, while he prowled about the room with a restless air that made her wonder more and more just how he proposed to make their fortunes. Established with his necessary glass of wine, he raised it at once to drink her health, emptied it, refilled it from the decanter, drank again, and said, “Well, mon amour, what do you think of an advantageous marriage?”
“Marriage? For me? Father, you cannot be serious. How can I expect to marry well with no dowry?”
“But that is exactly the point of the whole affaire,” he said. “The dowry will be provided, the groom is willing, it is but for you to say yes and our troubles are over.”
“And who is to be the lucky man?”
“Oh, ma Camille, always the cynic, always the sceptic.” He burst into one of his fits of exaggerated and unconvincing laughter, while she wondered more and more what was coming. “But I have much to tell you, and first for a piece of news that will make you folle de joie. What think you of your brother’s being alive all this time?”
“My brother? Charles?” She could not believe her ears.
“Yes, Charles. My son, your brother. Not dead in the Terror as we thought, but alive and well, the adopted son of some good people in Clichy who told him, only the other day, who he really
was. Only fancy my heir, the future Comte de Foret, masquerading all this time as Monsieur Boutet, a butcher’s son. And only see how blood will tell, for even as a butcher’s son he has achieved distinction.”
There was a cold dread now around her heart. “How, Father?” she asked.
“Why, as one might expect, serving his country. It is a trifle embarrassing, I confess, but understandable enough that he should have thrown in his lot with Bonaparte. After all, he was not to know that he was an aristocrat—and besides, let us be a little realistic, ma petite. Nothing will shake Bonaparte now; he is master of Europe and will remain so. These bungling fools of Englishmen will be lucky if they can keep their own freedom. Any idea of their invading and freeing the continent is merely laughable—a faire rire. All they think of here is their party squabbles; there is not a man among them fit to set up against Bonaparte. And then, only consider that poor exiled king, fit for nothing but the gout stool and water gruel. Who is he to rally the French to his cause? And what has he ever done for us, despite the years of faithful service we have offered him? Now, through your brother, only see what prospects open up before us!”
“You have heard from him, then?”
“But naturellement, how else do you think that I know all this? There is a friend of his, even now, in London, who sought me out with the most proper messages of filial regard from Charles.”
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