My Lady Caroline

by Jill Jones

  She led him into the first receiving room, an addition which opened to the left of the main hall. It, too, was filled with covered furniture. “Tell me about some of the visitors,” Jeremy probed patiently.

  “The house has sixteen bedrooms, ten of which were added to the back of the Great Hall over two centuries ago,” Gina said, pulling open a heavy, dust-incrusted drape to reveal a terrace overlooking what once must have been the gardens. “That leads one to believe there must have been frequent guests in those days. I haven’t looked into such things, to be quite frank. I suppose the most famous, or infamous I should say, visitor that I’m familiar with is Lady Caroline Lamb. She was the wife, you know, of William Lamb, Lord Melbourne, who was Queen Victoria’s first Prime Minister. But that’s not what made Caroline famous, as I’m sure you know.”

  He knew, but he wanted to hear what she would say. “What would that be?”

  “Why, her scandalous affair with Lord Byron, of course. When it was over, for him at least, she wouldn’t give it up. Followed him everywhere, to everyone’s embarrassment, except her own. I guess today they’d call her a stalker, and she’d be all over the tabloids.”

  “I recall now,” Jeremy said, thinking of the letter’s message, hiding his growing excitement behind measured words. “She visited here?”

  “Oh, quite frequently. Brocket Hall is the neighboring estate, you know. She used to ride freely on both properties and was likely as not to show up at tea unannounced. The fifth Lord Chillingcote was aging at the time, and lonely. Apparently he enjoyed her company, and the fact that they both relished the cognac from his well-stocked cellars.”

  “Drinking pals?” From what he’d read recently of Caroline’s later years, Jeremy doubted it not a whit. “That’s how the story goes. Who knows? Would you care to move on now?”

  Gina led him through the other receiving rooms and the long, darkly-paneled dining hall, past the kitchen and pantry areas, pointing out that part of the newer structure now served as a laundry. They went up a flight of stairs at the rear. “This is the back way to the upper guest rooms so the servants aren’t seen in the front of the house with the dirty linens,” she explained. “The rooms have been renovated to include baths in most. The property can actually be used as a single residence, or separated into apartments. It’s also zoned for use as an elderly persons’ home, if you wanted to go that way with it.”

  “It’s…not what I had in mind.”

  The hallway connecting the various rooms was dark and labyrinthine. He could envision smoking rushes choking the air in these close quarters, and he was glad when Gina led them out onto the second floor gallery, overlooking the Great Hall.

  “It’s like a maze, isn’t it?” she commented. “Although they were probably built in the same century, I think these rooms were actually added at different times to the original Tudor structure.” She turned to him and grinned. “The various Lords of the Manor have adjusted Dewhurst to suit their needs, no matter what it might take away from the integrity of the original hall. Wait until you see the swimming pool.”

  “Swimming pool?” Jeremy, the purist, frowned at the aberration. A swimming pool in a sixteenth century Tudor manor house?

  “It’s in the newest wing, which was built by Lord Charles just after the war.”

  Jeremy consoled himself that the main part of the house at least appeared to retain its Tudor authenticity. Additions didn’t count against the original, he told himself. Gina continued the tour, moving into the rooms at the front of the house. “These are the apartments usually occupied by the Lord and Lady of the manor,” she said, opening doors, blinds, closets. “As you can see, everything has been pretty much updated, as far as creature comforts are concerned. But in all, I think the modernization process has somehow maintained the feel of the way the place has been over time.”

  “Maybe even the ghost of Caroline Lamb might recognize it?” Jeremy asked with a sardonic smile.

  Gina cocked her head slightly and paused, then replied, “I suppose she might.”

  Jeremy’s expert eye told him that the furnishings in each room were worth a good deal of money. Probably as much as the house itself.

  The tour wound down the front stairs, through the library and back to the Great Hall. “Now, we’ll take a side trip through the new wing,” Gina said, leading him to the other side of the house, where she showed him still more guest rooms, these obviously built in the early part of the twentieth century. “Hell of a place for a party,” he commented.

  “And I’ve saved the best for last,” Gina promised mysteriously. “But first, let’s take a look at the swimming pool.”

  The pool was surprisingly large, lighted from beneath, and heated. Oddly, it appeared to be well cared for. “Who uses this?” Jeremy asked, puzzled.

  “Swim teams from all over Britain used to come here for competitions until Lady Julia died. It was one of the few philanthropic things the old lady did for anyone. But some people say it wasn’t philanthropy, it was revenge that drove her generosity.”

  “Revenge?”

  Gina laughed. “It seems that Lord Charles tore down Lady Julia’s prize rose garden and gazebo to build it. Actually the rumors go even deeper. They say the reason he did that was because he once caught her in the gazebo with a lover. Who knows? But when Charles became an invalid in the eighties, Lady Julia seized the opportunity to strike back. He always valued his privacy, and except for his personal friends, didn’t like strangers on the property. So she opened the place, or the pool at least, to the noisiest segment of the population—teenagers.”

  “They sound like a fun couple.”

  “Quite. Now for the grand finale. Follow me.”

  Retracing their steps into the original structure, they went down still another half-flight of stairs into a small chamber located just under the library. It appeared to serve no real purpose. “This is it?” Jeremy asked, looking around.

  “Almost.” Gina pressed a panel near the center of the far wall, and to Jeremy’s surprise, it gave way beneath her touch. She pressed a secret latch, and the middle panel of the wall swung slightly ajar, revealing that it actually was a door.

  “In olden days, this served as a secret exit,” Gina explained as they passed through the thick portal. “If enemies encroached, the family had an escape route through a tunnel that ran behind the wine cellar and came out on the far side of the hill that overlooks the River Lea. The tunnel has long ago been filled in, but this room,” she said with a dramatic flourish of the light switch, “has been a favorite of the men of the house for eons.”

  A long rustic wooden table and chairs stretched almost the full length of the room in front of a huge hearth, which was covered entirely by Delft tile. “They called it the Dutch room, for obvious reasons.” Gina moved to the opposite wall and opened another door. “These stairs lead back up to the kitchen, so meals could be served easily,” she explained. “All the Lord Chillingcotes down the centuries have used this as their private gentlemen’s party room.” Then she dug into her huge handbag and retrieved a key that looked to Jeremy as if it were the original Key to the Kingdom. “And now for the best part.”

  Jeremy watched, amused at Gina’s theatrics, as she placed the key in a heavy, archaic-looking lock and snapped it open. She withdrew the heavy chain from the bolt and opened the door. “The wine cellar.”

  Jeremy had to crouch slightly to go through the door, but once inside, he saw that dusty bottles of wine still lay in rusted metal holders.

  “Any of this still good?” he asked.

  “I doubt it.” Gina pulled out a bottle which, despite the fact it was still corked, was half empty. “Lady Julia wasn’t much of a drinker. I understand she sold off all of Charles’s good wines and champagnes shortly after he died.”

  Too bad, Jeremy thought, taking that possibility off his list of potential profits.

  “Well, what do you think?” Gina asked some time later when they pulled up in front of the estat
e office once again. “Is Dewhurst Manor something you’d be interested in further?”

  Jeremy turned an open smile her way, the one the women liked so well. And trusted. “Oh, yes, definitely. But I’m afraid I won’t be able to spend more time here today. I’m due in London at a meeting before tea. Would you be so kind as to contact the bank and see if you can find out their absolute bottom line? I have some contacts at Coutt’s, I might query as well.” He saw concern in her eyes. “And don’t worry. If either of us can make the deal happen, I’ll make sure you receive a healthy commission. After all, that was quite the tour.”

  His meeting before tea hadn’t really been scheduled, but it took place nonetheless in the inner offices of his school mate from Harrow, Robert Hadleigh, now an officer of Coutt’s. At its conclusion, Jeremy Ryder walked out of the building and down the block toward, Boodle’s, his gentlemen’s club, a satisfied smile on his face.

  Things were working out as he had hoped.

  Better even.

  Through life’s dull road, so dim and dirty,

  I have dragg’d to three-and-thirty.

  What have these years left to me?

  Nothing—except thirty-three.

  Lord Byron

  I do not know why L. H. is so adamant that I write these memoirs. He deems it important that I tell my story for posterity, but I find it difficult to believe that anyone will give a damn about me when I am gone. Society loathes my name in London. Shall they not loathe it as well from Rome? I care not what they think, those Dandies and Dilettantes. I care only for myself, and thus I shall write this, neither to Enlighten nor Entertain the perfidious scandalmongers who continue to hound me, but to attempt to unravel these years of Torment and Discontent. Time is moving quickly. I surely must be nearing my end, and I welcome that long dark sleep, As it approaches, however, I find that it is becoming curiously important to me to sort out the madness that has been my life. Perhaps I shall do this best after all with pen in hand…

  …Standing at the Crest of my years, I look into the Valley behind me, and I watch myself in a pitiful, crippled dance, a desperate dance—between Longing and Confusion. Aye! How I sought to break the rhythm, but My mother, God rot her soul, set the Music in sway even before I exited her womb. She longed for the perfect babe, the Childe who would assuage the treachery of my own derelict Father, but she was confused when I was born lame, and took every chance to blame me for her mistake in wearing too tight a corset. She confused me with my father, hating me for his betrayal, but loving me in his place. Even now I scarcely know the difference between Love and Hate, but Hate, when coupled with my mother’s memory, seems the stronger. It is confusing to hate one’s mother.

  Confusion over women remains the cornerstone of my Infamy, and my longing its Perpetrator. I have longed to make peace with the Fair Sex, but in Truth, the Fair Sex has always confounded me. Women have worshipped at my very feet, (except my sweet Mother, who hated them) and yet I have never been able to truly love any woman. Although I have known many intimately and taken pleasure in their arms, I find myself afterwards regarding them with the same horror as I did May Gray, that monstrous Composer of the Dance of Longing and Confusion. What my mother began, May Gray concluded.

  I see her horrid countenance behind closed eyelids even now, that vile Destroyer of Innocence. May Gray, my childhood nurse, who preached to me strict Calvinist doctrine and the wages of Sin by day, then came to me in the darkest hours of the night and awakened my sexual appetite at an age when most boys are barely able to think on such things. I hated May Gray, but I was unable to resist the wicked deeds in which she and her lovers enjoined me. Indeed, I often found myself longing for the pleasures she and her libertines inflicted upon me. It was a painful physical longing that turned to confusion when the light of day returned once more and May Gray beat into me the Wickedness of my Soul.

  The face of May Gray has haunted my affairs with women ever since, rendering impossible a normal union expected between man and woman. I long to love one of the female sex, but I cannot. With women I can only satisfy that Carnal Lust with which I am plagued from time to time. For Love, I must turn to those with whom I am not required to perform the Depraved Act. As a schoolboy at Harrow and Cambridge, I sought to quench my dire thirst for love in the company of slender handsome youths, like Clare and Edelston. They were beautiful creatures, not so different from the young girls I longed for but knew I could not love.

  It was the resemblance to these slender youths, I am certain, that attracted me instantly to the only woman who ever came close to resolving the unbearable dichotomy of my sexual ways. I speak, of course, of Lady Caroline Lamb.

  Chapter Four

  The twin beds in the old hotel were covered with cheap yellow chenille spreads. A paint-chipped arch of iron stood at the head of each. Water dripped a rusted pattern on the stained lavatory in the cramped room.

  “You sure we want to spend the night here?” Alison asked crossly, plumping her pillow. “It’s not too late to find something a little more…well, liveable.”

  “You’re such a brat,” Nicki sighed as she came out of the adjoining closet-sized room that contained both shower and toilet. “Where’s your spirit?”

  They looked at each other and burst out laughing at the unintentional play on words, releasing the tension that had stretched tightly between them since they’d paid Mary and left her cursing the entity named Caro. “Right here, I imagine,” Alison relented, giving up any hope of reposing in greater creature comfort. “What did you think of that psychic? Was she some kind of nut or what? Wonder where she took acting lessons.”

  “You really think she was acting?”

  “Get real. Of course that was all an act.” Alison saw the disappointment on her friend’s face. “Nicki, you didn’t actually think we’d get to talk to my father, did you?”

  “I guess not. I guess this was a stupid idea. But you were so upset, I just wanted…”

  “I know,” Alison interrupted with an understanding and grateful smile. “And I appreciate that you care. No one else seems to. But that’s not the point,” she went on, quickly passing over the self-pity she’d been wallowing in lately. “We came here. We gave it a shot. It didn’t work. No big deal.” She sighed. “I guess I’m just going to have to grow up. Get a life.”

  “Not that!” Nicki replied in mock horror. Then she switched the subject back to the séance. “Why would Mary, a psychic in Florida, bring up Lord Byron? Don’t you think that’s a little bizarre?”

  “I thought the whole thing was bizarre.”

  “And who do you suppose Caro is?”

  Alison turned down the covers and slipped between the sheets, relieved that at least they felt clean. “A little-known fact of my life,” she said, yawning, “is that I’ve read a lot of Regency romances. You know, the Lord-and-Lady-of-the-Manor stories?”

  “I always wondered what those little books were you used to carry on the airplane.”

  “Well, now you know. The Regencies are all set in the early nineteenth century, in the court of George IV. He wasn’t really the king, because his father wasn’t dead yet, only crazy. It was during the time Lord Byron was famous, and I think I recall he had an affair with Lady Caroline Lamb. I’m not totally sure, but I think one of her nicknames was Caro.”

  Nicki considered this for a long moment, then continued. “But we’re in Florida, not England. Where do you suppose that woman came up with spirits from nineteenth century England?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she likes Regencies, too. Good night.”

  Alison was exhausted, physically, mentally and emotionally, and she desperately needed a good night’s sleep. But it wasn’t to be. Instead, her dreams were filled with strange shapes, undefined patterns, white wispy images that seemed to beckon her down a lonely country road. Ancient trees stretched gnarled limbs high overhead, their leafy fingers entwining into a heavy canopy that all but shut out the dusky light.

  The wraith-like ima
ges then somehow coalesced into a single specter, and unable to resist, Alison followed when it beckoned her, fearing where it might lead her but unable to resist its force. Around her she heard faint voices, but she couldn’t tell if they were trying to warn her of something, or encourage her to go on. At last, the figure turned a corner and disappeared from sight, leaving Alison standing in front of a large old house of some sort. A country house, maybe in England, the way it looked, with walls of mildew-blackened stucco embellished with a fanciful pattern of peeling brown timbers. A turret above the front entrance reminded her of the fairy tale prison of Rapunzel. In her dream, Alison felt a nudge in the small of her back, impelling her toward the massive wooden door. Mist swirled around the scene, then formed the image of a face, the face of a young woman, with large eyes and a sorrowful mouth.

  “Dewhurst,” it murmured.

  “What?” Alison wasn’t sure what she’d heard.

  “Dewhurst Manor. This place. Come! It’s important.” The voice grew louder, more urgent, with each word. Then the mist swirled again, turning into a violent storm, and Alison felt herself lashed suddenly by an ice-cold wind.

  “What?” she called again, this time out loud. She jerked violently in her sleep, trying to escape the storm’s wrath, and woke up. She sat up abruptly and found to her relief she was still in the small iron bed in the hotel. Dawn was just beginning to show through the yellowed window shade. “Jeez Louise,” she muttered under her breath, her heart pounding. You come to a ghost town, she thought, I guess you’re going to dream about ghosts.

  Then she realized there was a faint odor about the room that hadn’t been there when she went to bed. A sweet, intense perfume, like overripe flowers. She turned her head toward the source of the fragrance, then jumped with a scream out of the bed and on top of Nicki.