Thistlewood’s spirits were high, though. He had great confidence that he would be freed. His reason and faith in himself dictated it.
Change was coming to England. And no jail cell would prevent Arthur Thistlewood from being at the center of it.
7
Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of.
—Jane Austen, Emma, 1815
April 1817
Brighton
Belle’s next trip to Brighton involved more interaction with Mr. Crace, although he seemed to have gained a modicum of respect for Belle and didn’t treat her quite so harshly. She showed him the embroidered seat covers she’d ordered for the Music Room, and they went over more measurements and Crace’s further plans for that room until Belle felt she had enough information to do more ordering.
Once her business was completed, she was free to do what she had really looked forward to: have supper with Maria Fitzherbert. It was a much more pleasant affair than Belle could have imagined.
They discussed trivialities during a meal centered on some poached cod caught that morning in the waters along Brighton’s coastline, during which Belle could easily observe Mrs. Fitzherbert. Although the woman had to be in her sixties, she still retained a beautiful mass of golden hair, complemented by hazel brown eyes set in a creamy complexion. Her few wrinkles indicated that they had only developed in response to a life of laughter.
The prince’s ex-wife also wore an interesting ruby cross around her neck that glittered in the candlelight.
Mrs. Fitzherbert was kind, solicitous of her guest, and carried no airs about her at all. It was remarkable, given the lady’s previous status as practically the Princess of Wales.
It made Belle understand perfectly why the prince might have risked his father’s wrath to have secretly married her.
Afterwards, Belle followed Mrs. Fitzherbert into her parlor and they took seats at a square gaming table. Maria took a deck of cards out of a wooden box.
“A game of Speculation?” she asked.
“Madam, I’ve never played cards before.”
Mrs. Fitzherbert blinked her sympathetic round eyes several times. “Truly? Well, no matter, I’ll show you.” She poured out a quantity of different-colored round disks, made of mother-of-pearl, from the bottom of the card box. “Since you’re new at this, I believe we should play without real money.”
And soon Belle was immersed in the fast-paced card game, selling and buying visible trump cards as well as risking bets on face-down cards. Once the game was well under way and required less concentration on Belle’s part, Maria opened up conversation.
“So, Miss Stirling, tell me how things fare at the Pavilion. Are any rooms complete yet?”
“The Music Room is started, as is the Great Corridor, which will link the Banqueting Room, the Saloon, and the Music Room. The Corridor is more than a hundred feet long. Also, the kitchen is finished, and it is a wonder to behold.”
Maria sat forward. “Tell me everything about it.”
So Belle described as best she could the mechanical marvels of the Pavilion’s kitchen: the lead ice-bins, enormous bread furnace-ovens, and expensive water-pipe system.
“There is even a steam table that allows dozens of covered dishes to be kept warm before being carried into the Banqueting Room. The prince wants to be able to serve at least a hundred dishes at his state dinners.”
Maria smiled sadly. “I once presided at the Pavilion, you know. What marvelous parties His Highness and I used to host. Everyone flocked to Brighton to attend. They still come to Brighton in droves, of course, but rarely to see me. But”—she brightened considerably—“I can imagine that now the Pavilion’s kitchen will light everyone’s imagination afire. Oh! I believe I just made a pun!” Maria’s laugh tinkled in the room, and Belle could not help but join her.
Mrs. Fitzherbert had more questions. “Are there rooms in use during the renovations?”
“Most of them are. Mr. Nash tries to ensure that there are elegant spaces available for the Prince Regent to do any entertaining. He has imported a French chef, Antonin Carême, and wants to make use of his talents frequently.”
Mrs. Fitzherbert sighed. “Yes, the prince has the finest taste. Has he hosted any grand meals recently?”
“I was not present for it, of course, but Mr. Nash told me of a grand affair in January with four soups, four fish dishes, and no less than thirty-six entrées, an assortment of soufflés, and eight majestic dessert molds designed to look like palaces and mosques.”
“A delight to his guests, I’m sure. And how is the prince himself? Is he well? Happy? I do hope so.” Maria dealt more cards.
“I don’t know the prince very well, madam, but he doesn’t strike me as unhappy.”
“People misunderstand him, you know. He’s led a very difficult life. What we had together was ... transcendent of mortal descriptions such as ‘love’ or ‘marriage.’ And I know some have thought it tawdry, and have called it a mere liaison, just because the prince was forced to end it. But I know that I will always be the wife of his heart, and we are married in God’s eyes.” Maria absently fingered the cross at her neck.
The conversation had taken a decidedly maudlin turn, but Belle decided to press an advantage here. Keeping her eyes studied on her cards, she said, “I understand that the prince has formed other relationships beyond that with the Princess Caroline, madam.”
“You mean Lady Hertford? Yes, he dallies with her. I imagine his hands are quite full with her, too. Oh! There I am again! I don’t suppose you’ve seen Lady Hertford before.”
“No, madam.”
“Ah, never mind, my little joke is lost on you. I’m certain she and her husband are colluding to bankrupt my naïve prince.”
Mrs. Fitzherbert was proving to be the prince’s staunchest defender, a bullmastiff in a ruby collar.
“You’re right, I’m sure. Do you know if he has cast his affections toward any other women?”
Maria hesitated. “Another mistress? Do you suspect someone in particular as his inamorata?”
How have I managed to ask such a brainless question?
“No, madam, I just think His Highness is a man of many appetites, that he might desire ... rather, that I, I think ... what I mean to say is ...” Belle faltered.
Maria turned up another card before holding Belle in her stare. “Miss Stirling, are you trying to entice the Prince Regent yourself?”
“Heavens, no! I mean, of course not. How could I possibly? He’s so corpu—Er, I realize that you once were his mist—I mean, his wife—oh, fiddlesticks, madam, I must apologize for being the most harebrained person who has ever crossed your threshold.”
A deadly silence filled the room, nearly swallowing Belle whole.
And then Maria Fitzherbert laughed, her attractive voice replacing the terrible quiet. “You mean you’re attempting to divine the prince’s proclivities without calling attention to my own previous attachment to him? Please, don’t look so troubled. I know the prince doesn’t seek out younger women for company. After all, he can hardly tolerate his own daughter’s presence, much less the vigor that a youthful companion would bring.”
“I understand. Please forgive my boorish questioning.”
“No matter. I caution you, though, Miss Stirling, to remember that no matter how unpopular the prince might be to the public, it is always wise for those around him to keep quiet counsel.”
First Mr. Nash, now Mrs. Fitzherbert, were warning her from being too inquisitive where the prince was concerned.
Knowing Mrs. Fitzherbert must now think she had windmills in her head, Belle turned the conversation to the paintings that filled the room. Maria enthusiastically provided details about the artist of each one. Many had been gifts from the prince.
By the end of the game, Belle had the highest trump and claimed the winning pot, although she was certa
in Mrs. Fitzherbert had let her win.
September 1817
London
Belle received a letter, but this time the handwriting was unfamiliar. She gasped at its contents.
Dear Miss Stirling,
It is my unfortunate duty to inform you that my dear sister, Jane, passed away on 18 July, of a wasting disease. She had been unwell for more than a year, although such awareness has not lessened the blow for our family in the least. My brother Henry moved us temporarily from Chawton House to Winchester in May, as he’d heard of a doctor there who might be able to cure her, but it was to no avail.
I found some of the correspondence between you among her papers, and, remembering her fond recollections of you, took it as my personal responsibility to advise you of her passing.
My sister is buried at Winchester Cathedral, should you find the means to visit and pay your respects.
With kindest regards,
Cassandra Austen
She laid the letter down in utter shock. Jane, gone? First her parents, then Clive and Amelia, and now this. It seemed God was determined that she be alone in the world. At least there was still Wesley.
She spent the day locked in her room, reading and rereading Jane’s letters and fingering her books. The following morning, finally spent of tears, Belle rejoined her brother to resume her duties. He didn’t seem to notice a difference in her, although his distance from her was growing marked. He wasn’t exactly surly; it was more like he was somewhere else and grumpy about being there. She needed to talk to him about it, but her own grief overrode her concern for her brother.
And then she was distracted by a visitor.
One morning while she was on a ladder, rearranging bins of silk and cotton gimp, Put Boyce entered, carrying a folded slip of paper. He was wearing the same ill-fitting dress clothes as he’d worn when he escorted her to see his shop for the first time.
Climbing down to greet him, Belle shook her head. Put-rhymes-with-shut Boyce was a man meant for leather and homespun, not silks and buckskin.
An image of Put enjoying his time with the young woman at the fair appeared unbidden in Belle’s mind. She wondered what the woman thought of her beau’s lack of style and quickly dismissed the thought. Mr. Boyce must be here on business, else why be here at all?
“How may I be of assistance?” she asked.
He glanced around. “Is Mr. Stirling not here?”
Actually, she had no idea where he’d disappeared to this morning. “Wesley’s on an errand for me.”
“Ah. Yes.” Put cleared his throat. “I found this and wished to offer my condolences.” He unfolded the paper and handed it to her. It was a copy of Jane’s obituary, torn from a periodical magazine.
18 July. At Winchester, Miss Jane Austen,
youngest daughter of Rev. George Austen,
Rector of Steventon, Hants, authoress of
“Emma,” “Mansfield Park,” “Pride and
Prejudice,” and “Sense and Sensibility.”
The print blurred before Belle’s eyes. I never even realized she was ill.
“Yes, Mr. Boyce? I am aware of Miss Austen’s passing,” she said, handing the notice back to him.
He frowned. “My apologies, I did not intend to cause you further distress. But I remembered your mention of the lady as a friend you’d acquired since arriving in London, and wanted to pay my respects.”
“I told you about Jane?”
“Miss Stirling, there was little you didn’t tell me that day.”
And despite herself, Belle laughed. “I suppose I was a chattering magpie that day.”
“Without the thieving habits. Actually, you were quite charming.”
Belle was saved from responding to his comment by the arrival of a passerby, who stopped in to ask when the wallpaper merchant next door would be opening for the day.
After the shopper left, an uncomfortable silence ensued. Put obviously had more on his mind, but Belle didn’t want to think about what that might be.
He cleared his throat again. “I’ve been working on some interesting pieces lately. Right now I’m finishing up an ebonized mantel clock for a Mr. Ashby. He said your brother referred him to me.”
Mr. Ashby? She’d never heard Wesley mention the name.
“Young Merrick, my apprentice, is advancing in his skills. I believe he’ll make journeyman before his seventeenth birthday. You remember Merrick?”
Of course. The boy who escorted her to Lady Derby’s when it should have been Put himself. “Yes, I remember. I’m glad for him. And you.”
“How does your own business fare?”
“Very nicely. Because of my work at the Pavilion, some of London’s aristocrats are using me as their exclusive draper, and, as with Lady Derby, some are even consulting me over interior design. I’ve had some valuable commissions.”
“So one day you’ll be noticed by one of their eligible second sons, who will whisk you off to marital bliss before heading off to his naval commission.”
“Hardly, Mr. Boyce. And you know my feelings on the subject.”
“Isn’t it time you called me Put? After all, I know such personal details about you as your propensity to wield pistols at intruders. Surely we are on familiar terms.”
Yes, you are on familiar terms with someone else, too.
Why did it feel so comforting to be near this man, as full of dust and shavings and peculiar smells as he was? There was something very reassuring about his collection of saws, his jars of stains and varnishes, his stacks of planks, and his display of finely crafted furniture. But it wasn’t the shop that was the comfort, was it? The comfort was in the owner.
Belle shook her head to dissolve the tears once again threatening to spill forth. Where was her pert attitude hiding? Really, she had to stop this infernal blubbering whenever she was around him. Except now she wasn’t sure if she was crying for Jane or crying for something indefinable that was missing from her life. She loved her independent life, but it all seemed ethereal. Just the result of chance and of no permanence. Ultimately, her success lay in whatever Mr. Nash wanted it to be. Or what the prince wanted it to be. Or Mr. Crace.
She wanted warmth. And comfort. And stability.
And how in the world did an odorous, sloppy place like a cabinetmaker’s shop make her feel any of these?
“I’m not sure we’re as familiar as you think, Mr. Boyce. You seem to know everything about me, whereas I know little about you.”
“Easily rectified, if you’ll join me for a walk through Vauxhall Gardens.”
No, she would not be his secondary bit of baggage.
“I’m very busy lately, and have little time for frivolities. Here, I’ll show you the latest drawings for the prince’s Pavilion. You’ll easily see how much ordering has to be done for such an immense residence.”
She retreated to the counter, going to its other side and pulling her set of rolled-up sketches from behind it. At least she now had a barrier between her and Mr. Boyce.
Belle cleared a space on the counter and smoothed the drawings out on the wood top, and for the next half hour she pointed out details of the interior design for the palace. She distracted Put well, for soon he was caught up in suggestions for table heights, mirror frame patterns, and chair leg motifs.
Their examination of the drawings concluded, Belle moved to roll the drawings back up, but Put laid his hand down in the center of them to stop her.
“One moment, Miss Stirling. There’s one thing we’ve not discussed. And that’s the real reason why you came into my shop all those months ago resembling a warped walnut board: beautiful, but completely unmanageable. I left you alone, hoping you might return on your own once you’d overcome your feelings, but you’re stubborn.”
Not stubborn, Mr. Boyce, just wary.
“My apologies, sir. I had a temporary lapse of judgment in coming to you. A weak moment. I’m sorry I troubled you, and assure you I won’t allow it to happen again.”
“Hmm.” Put kept his hand in the center of the papers so that she couldn’t move them. His gaze was intense, and she knew she would soon falter under it. She responded to him lightly.
“Must I remove your hand with one of those terribly dangerous blades I saw hanging on your walls?” she asked.
Something in his eyes shifted. He realized she wasn’t going to lower her guard. “I’m terribly sorry about your friend. I remember when my brother died, many years ago. He was kicked in the head by a horse. Terrible how he suffered before he finally died. That’s why today I won’t ride one of the beasts if I can help it. I walk almost everywhere.”
“You walk? Everywhere?”
“I’m used to it.” Put shrugged and removed his hand from her papers.
“But we took a hack to your shop.”
“Wouldn’t have been right to ask you to walk that far. You deserve better than the calloused hands and feet I have, Miss Stirling.”
But do I deserve better than your other young lady?
Belle picked up the sheaf and began straightening the pages. “I, too, am sorry for the loss of your brother, for I don’t know what I would do if something happened to Wesley. And now, Mr. Boyce, I have one final question before I must return to work, as my day will soon be busy with customers.”
She finished tying the twine on the drawings and laid the rolled tube of drawings back under the counter before leaning over it as far as she could to stare at him, hoping that her eyes were half as penetrating as his.
He laughed uncomfortably but didn’t step back. “This does sound serious.”
“It is. I know I’m being a bit impertinent, but I must ask. Why are your eyes so ... different ... from each other?”
And now Put did take a step backward, scowling.
Oh dear. I’ve erred in asking this question.
“What do you mean, different?”
By the King's Design Page 16