Earl of Shadows: A moving historical novel about two brothers in 18th century England

by Jacqueline Reiter

  ‘Lord Chatham. Lady Chatham.’ William’s former Foreign Secretary, now Fox’s ally and head of the political opposition, bowed to John and kissed Mary’s hand.

  An awkward silence fell. John saw Mary looking up curiously at him, waiting for him to say something, but he was too busy trying to work out how to make the exchange as brief as possible without seeming rude. Grenville had changed since John had last seen him. He had always been a small man, but now he was getting plump, and what little hair he had left was streaked with grey. He looked as uncomfortable as John felt, and when he spoke his voice was strained. ‘I wished, my dear cousin, to congratulate you on your appointment as commander of the Eastern District.’

  Across the room, John’s Cabinet colleagues, Lord Hawkesbury and Lord Castlereagh, had noticed John and Grenville together and began whispering to each other. John tried to ignore them. ‘My thanks.’

  ‘I hear,’ Grenville went on, wretchedly, wringing his hands, ‘that you will soon take up headquarters at Colchester?’

  ‘I had planned to do so, but given the current state of public affairs I will remain in London for at least another month.’ The shadow of the two men’s relative political positions cast itself down hard upon John’s words. Grenville’s hand-wringing became more desperate. ‘Besides, I do not feel it right to leave town until my brother’s health has improved.’

  His words seemed to relieve Grenville of a weight, as though he had wanted to introduce the subject of William and was glad it had been done for him. ‘What news have you from Putney?’ John pressed his lips firmly together. So that was what this was all about. He had suspected the congratulations on the military appointment had been nothing but an excuse to approach him. He fixed his eyes on Grenville, wondering how much he should say to this man who was, after all, the leader of the opposition. Grenville understood immediately what was passing through his mind and shook his head. ‘I hope you understand I speak as your cousin, not as a politician. I know I have no reason to expect, or deserve, anything more from you, but…’

  He tailed off, but he had no need to blunder on with his protestations. As reluctant as he was to give the opposition leader any information, John had no news to impart anyway. ‘You should be asking my niece, Lady Hester Stanhope.’

  ‘She is not here.’

  That was true enough, and John tried not to think too hard about what her absence might mean. He deflected the uncomfortable thoughts with a stiff shrug. ‘I’m afraid I know very little.’ He added, sarcastically. ‘Like you, I am not in the secret.’

  He bowed, clearly intending to end the conversation, but instead of taking the hint Grenville blurted out, ‘Wellesley told me you saw Pitt the same day he did.’

  Lord Wellesley, a close friend of William’s and an old university companion of Grenville’s, had just come back from a long governor-generalship of India. Although he could not quite say why, a nagging doubt entered his mind. He spoke as blithely as he could. ‘What did he tell you?’

  It had been a simple request for information, but to John’s astonishment Grenville’s melancholy grey eyes widened and filled with tears. He mastered the emotion quickly enough, but for a man who had always been less disposed to showing his emotions in public than William it was a disturbing reaction. He parried John’s question with another. ‘How did you find him?’

  ‘Wellesley? I left before he arrived—’

  ‘Not Wellesley,’ Grenville corrected. ‘Pitt.’

  Even after two years of political estrangement Grenville still referred to the Prime Minister by the familiar use of his last name. For the first time John felt a twinge of familiarity with his cousin, who, like him, found himself looking in on William’s life from the outside. It was this feeling rather than any desire to talk about what had happened at Putney that prompted John to reply. ‘He was clearly unwell, and I was only able to spend a short time with him. I spent most of my time with the Bishop of Lincoln.’ He dwelt on that conversation a second or so, then pushed it roughly out of his mind: he was not ready to devote much thought to it yet. He finished, with a half-shrug, ‘I admit he’s weak, but he will rally soon. He always does.’

  On the edge of his field of vision he saw Mary close her eyes and heard her exhale sharply, as though against a sweep of pain. Grenville, on the other hand, looked openly offended now. He said in a strained voice, ‘You think I am spying for information.’

  ‘Not at all,’ John said hurriedly. Grenville’s voice shook with emotion.

  ‘Many things have passed between Pitt and me over the last few years, most of which I heartily regret, but if I thought there was even the slightest chance of being allowed to his bedside to beg forgiveness, I need not tell you how quickly I would go … How severe is his danger?’

  A chill raced through John at Grenville’s words, as though someone had opened a door and let in a rush of frozen air. All he could think of was William’s hoarse, exhausted voice, hollow eyes, and wasted body. The memory cut at him like a knife; he winced at the pain, staggering away from the blow. Beside him, Mary slid her hand round his and squeezed it. The pressure from her gloved hand brought him out of the past and back into the present. It took John only a moment to summon the anger required to bury the panic in his heart. ‘I have told you all I know, my lord. What do you wish me to say? That my brother is dying?’

  ‘Oh, John …’ Mary muttered.

  Grenville stared at John. ‘He is not?’

  ‘Would I be here if he were?’ John said coldly.

  Grenville said nothing, but continued to look at John with the same mixture of astonishment, dismay and pity. It struck John that Grenville knew a lot more about William’s situation than he was letting on. He experienced the same prick of cold fear he had felt in William’s Putney drawing room, when the Bishop of Lincoln had given him a look like the one Grenville was giving him now. His anger evaporated as quickly as it had come. After years of offering impeccable service as an emotional shield, it had finally met its match in the cold reality that William might die.

  The royal band in the anteroom struck up the birthday ode, announcing the arrival of the Queen. Grenville gave John a last, long scrutiny, then bowed and returned to the other side of the room.

  John gave one last, desperate look around him. Castlereagh and Hawkesbury were still staring at him with little favour, but he was too shaken by what had just passed to pay them any heed. ‘Lady Hester is still not here.’

  ‘No,’ Mary whispered back. ‘She is not.’

  The Queen rustled into the room, wearing a dark grey velvet gown with gold tassels in the shape of acorns. She took position leaning against a marble-topped table placed under a window to take full advantage of the fading light. The days when both the King and Queen had each made their own circuit around the assemblage were long gone. The King, incapacitated by his increasing blindness, rarely attended drawing rooms, and the Queen preferred the company to come to her. Each individual was announced by the chamberlain and then brought by their sponsors to kiss Her Majesty’s hand.

  Beside John, Mary caught her breath. She flung out a hand and clung to her husband’s arm, her breath coming out in ragged gasps. Her face was the colour of fresh snow. John felt her leaning against him with all her weight. He remembered how off-colour she had seemed lately and his mouth went dry. ‘Careful. Are you well?’

  Across the room he could see heads turning in her direction. Some frowned, others whispered behind their hands. Mary, too, was aware they were in a public place. He could tell she was still in pain, but she raised her head and steadied her breathing under the curious eyes of the rest of the crowd. ‘Don’t fret. I merely slept badly last night.’

  ‘You’re so pale,’ he said, unconvinced. She looked like wax in the thin winter light, and there were rings under her eyes. Through her gloves, John could feel the bones in her wrist; it occurred to him that it had been some time since he had seen her do anything beyond push her food half-heartedly around on her plate. �
�You should go home.’

  She shook her head bravely. ‘The Queen is here. I’ll rest later.’

  John opened his mouth to protest, but then he saw something that wiped all other thoughts out of his mind. Even though it was bad etiquette to enter the council chamber after presentations had begun, two people had just slipped in: Lady Hester Stanhope, and her 17-year-old brother James.

  The wave of relief that flooded through him was such that he only then realised how much their absence had fed his unacknowledged fears.

  The presentations ended as the last of the winter light fled from the gilded council chamber. After the Queen had departed, the room burst into a hum of conversation. John took Mary’s hand from his arm. ‘Excuse me.’

  ‘We should leave here before it becomes too dark to see our way out,’ Mary said, but John smiled absently.

  ‘In a minute.’

  Mary followed his gaze. She saw Lady Hester then looked up at her husband with an expression he could not quite gauge; it was full of sadness and pity. He led her over to his niece. Lady Hester was already preparing to leave, even though she had arrived late. James Stanhope dealt with a string of people while his sister stood silently by the door waiting for a suitable gap in the departing crowds. She wore a high-waisted black and green velvet gown studded with rubies, her considerable height increased by a head-dress of feathers and diamonds, but she uncharacteristically shied away from attention, fiddling with her silk gloves and smiling coldly to deter anyone who approached.

  He had expected Lady Hester to greet him coldly, but he had at least expected her to greet him. The moment she saw her uncle approach she set her carmined lips in a thin line and turned deliberately away.

  Disbelief and fury filled John’s veins. In his outrage, he forgot that he was supposed to wait for a lady to acknowledge him and called out, ‘Lady Hester. A word, if I may.’

  Lady Hester was chalky white under her rouge. Her eyes were ringed with sleeplessness and her voice was unsteady with fury and fear. ‘You may not.’

  John did not know what shocked him more, her words or the desolation in her eyes. Lady Hester took the opportunity of his speechlessness to turn away again, but John caught her back, cold fear slicing through him again. ‘I only want to ask you how my brother is.’

  ‘Ask him yourself,’ Lady Hester snapped, so shrilly that several courtiers looked round with interest. John’s hand tightened round Mary’s.

  ‘I only thought, since you were here—’

  ‘You thought, no doubt,’ Lady Hester interrupted, ‘as little as you did last week, when you came to Putney and attacked my uncle on his sickbed. All you deserve to know is that he did not suffer for your foolishness.’

  ‘John,’ Mary murmured, but John was too angry and embarrassed to pay her any heed.

  ‘I only want to know if he is improving. I did not think you would have come here if he were worse.’

  Lady Hester flung him a hysterical look, but said nothing. This time John did not hold her back, and she slipped into the crowds picking their way blindly along the long, unlit hallway.

  He turned to Mary and gave her a half-smile to hide how shaken he was by the exchange. ‘Foolish child.’ Mary just looked at him; John saw the trembling of the feathers in her head-dress and realised she was swaying slightly. Despite the coldness of the room, her forehead was sheened in sweat. He frowned. ‘What is the matter?’

  ‘Will you return to Putney?’ It was the closest she had come to questioning his opinion of William’s illness. He could see the effort the words cost her. John blinked. Time was moving too swiftly for his liking; all was confusion, all was noise, his thoughts drowned out by the possibility that his brother might, after all, be dying.

  And yet he had no reason to believe that. His fear had been stoked by the darkness and by the gloom. Had there been reason to be despondent, surely someone would have told him so, and as rude as Lady Hester had been, she had not said William was worse. Mary was right: the only way he could lay those ghosts to rest was by returning to Putney and seeing for himself. ‘I suppose I should, probably, yes.’

  Naked relief chased across her face. ‘Will you go today?’

  ‘Good lord, what’s the rush? It will be dark in an hour. There will be plenty of time to visit William tomorrow, or the day after that.’ Mary flinched, but she did not protest further. She looked as though she could barely stand. John bit his lip against his concern and put his arm around her shoulders. ‘Come. Let us return to St James’s Square. I think you need a rest.’

  ****

  Parliament opened on the 21st of January under a pall. The floor of the House of Lords was crowded with strangers, waiting and hoping to see the opposition tear the ministry limb from limb. They were disappointed. Lord Grenville, even more strained and miserable than at the Queen’s drawing room, announced his decision to postpone his attack until more favourable accounts should be received of the First Lord of the Treasury. Fox made the same announcement in the Commons. The sword of Damocles suspended over the ministry continued to hang by a thread.

  John finally set out for Putney the morning after the opening of Parliament. The sky was still dark and there was a hard frost on the ground shrouding everything in white. He still clung to a vague hope that Farquhar had been right and William was merely weakened by gout, but the moment the porter opened the door John knew his brother’s situation was serious. The porter was grey-faced and deeply upset. He barely seemed to recognise John, and made to close the door in his face. ‘I am sorry, sir, but Sir Walter said no visitors.’

  ‘But I am the Earl of Chatham,’ John protested, his breath pooling desperately before him in clouds of steam. He added, unnecessarily, as though he had something to prove, ‘Mr Pitt’s brother.’

  The porter looked wretched, as though weighing the consequences of disobeying Farquhar’s orders against the consequences of locking out the brother of the Prime Minister. Eventually he compromised, and allowed John access to the drawing room while Sir Walter’s judgment was sought.

  William, ever the optimist, had always been very fond of green, and the colour of hope was everywhere. It was in the curtains, the fabric of the chairs and sofas, even in the heavy woollen rugs laid in front of the terrace doors. John wished he had chosen a different colour; its freshness and vigour in this house of sickness offended him. There was a constant thunder of footsteps going up and down stairs as servants bustled past carrying trays of medicines. John found himself straining for noises from the first floor, any sign at all that his brother might be able to see him.

  After a few minutes the door opened and Sir Walter entered. He looked exhausted, but his face was hard and uncompromising. ‘Lord Chatham. I wondered when you would darken this door again.’

  John flinched at the hostility in Farquhar’s tone. ‘I wish to see my brother.’

  ‘Mr Pitt is unable to receive visitors,’ Farquhar replied, and slanted a hard glance down on John.

  The look pierced John like a shard of ice. He had put off his visit as long as possible, but never once had he entertained the prospect that he might be turned away. He forced himself to speak civilly. ‘I am pleased you are taking my brother’s well-being so much in hand, but I trust you will make an exception for his brother.’

  Sir Walter’s lips tightened as though he thought John had sacrificed all entitlement to that claim. ‘It would be irresponsible of me to admit you to Mr Pitt’s bedside after what happened last week.’

  For the second time John felt Farquhar had knocked the breath out of his body. Until now he had thought Farquhar was the chief obstacle standing between him and William; with a shock, he began to realise why the doctor was so hostile. ‘I will not leave until I have seen him.’

  ‘Then you will not leave,’ Farquhar said, his voice rising angrily. At that moment, the door opened to admit the Bishop of Lincoln. Sir Walter turned to him in appeal. ‘Sir, my Lord Chatham insists on seeing his brother.’

  The Bishop p
laced a placatory hand on Sir Walter’s shoulder. ‘My dear doctor, you should not make such a noise. You can be heard above stairs.’ The image of the sick man lying above them drove into John’s mind like a dagger. Tomline smiled as though to say Be easy. I will deal with this, and said to Sir Walter, ‘You should go to him. Pursler says it is time for his opiate.’

  Sir Walter gave John one last glare then left the room. John breathed a sigh of relief and turned to Tomline, certain he had one ally in the house. ‘Bishop, I must see my brother.’

  Tomline said nothing, but sank heavily into a chair. The silence was so deep John thought he would be driven deaf by it. The Bishop raised his head and John looked him in the eyes for the first time. Another chill coursed down his spine. Tomline, it appeared, was no more minded than Farquhar to give John a chance to cause his brother harm.

  ‘I do not have the authority to override Sir Walter in the sickroom,’ Tomline said. ‘If he says visitors cannot be admitted, I must uphold that prohibition, even if the King himself were to request an audience.’

  John’s mind raced so fast he could barely sort through his thoughts. He opted for the brazen approach; he was damned if he would leave without fighting. ‘May I ask why I am to be denied access?’

  ‘I am not denying you access.’

  ‘Sir Walter is, and as you just told me, it amounts to the same thing.’

  The Bishop said nothing for a moment, caught out. At length he said, ‘To be honest, I am not displeased Sir Walter wishes Mr Pitt to remain undisturbed. I have been sitting with your brother this morning. He and I have been praying. Now he needs reflection, untroubled by worldly matters.’

  The Bishop’s brown eyes were bright, and held John’s with a penetrating gaze. As soon as it became apparent he was not going to get a straight answer, John dropped his head. Tomline was too subtle to reproach him directly, but Farquhar had had no such qualms. It was only a week since John had burst into William’s room and shouted at him to pull himself together. He did not feel any better knowing that, had he come to Putney earlier, he would have been turned away in the same manner.