No use. Forget it. Friendship was so easily broken. A family row, the Taylors scandalized, the growing romance between Isobel and one of the Taylor brothers nipped in the bud, and all for nothing.
“Mary Anne, I’ve never seen you look so preoccupied. Is anything on your mind?”
“Yes. I’m short of money.”
“You’re joking, surely! You, in your position? You’ve only got to ask His Royal Highness.”
“Have I? I wonder. Never mind it now. Parker, call in at Birkett’s the silversmith before we return home. I have some candlesticks ordered that should be ready.”
Should be, and were. They had been dispatched already to the house, so Birkett told her in person, bending from the waist.
“Can I tempt you with these cupids just come in?”
“Tempt me with nothing. I might run to a sauceboat, coat of arms included.”
“Madam likes to jest. Have you used the dinner service?”
“Once. His Royal Highness says it tastes of polish.”
“Impossible, madam. The duc de Berri never had silver cleaned. I had it from an émigré, who knew his servants.”
“Then it must have been mold we tasted, and not polish. Next time we give a party I’ll wash every bit of it myself with soap and water.”
“Madam is always so gay. Do you need an entrée dish? I have one here that belonged to the Marquis de St. Clair. Lost his head, alas, like so many other noblemen.”
“That dish looks big enough to hold it too. But I’m not Salome, begging a boon from Herod. What do I owe you, Birkett?”
The face expressed horror, the hands brushed away the air. Such things were never discussed but were left to the future.
“Tell me. I want to know.”
“If madam insists… about a thousand pounds. Five hundred on account will always suit. But please, don’t press His Royal Highness for it.” He bowed her from the shop. The children waved. The footman closed the carriage door and climbed to his place, arms folded, beside the coachman. When she got home the candlesticks were waiting. Beside them lay the account, and written across it, “Settlement of the above would greatly oblige.”
Patronage was good, but payment better. All the credit she wanted in the world… for six months only. Odd that demands for payment were coming in batches now. Could it conceivably be—to the view of a tradesman—that after six months a prince often changed his mind?
She crumpled the bill in her hands and sent the children to Martha.
“Yes, Pierson, what is it?”
“Two gentlemen have arrived and wish to see you, a Captain Sandon and a Colonel French.”
“Did they state their business?”
“No, ma’am, but they mentioned Mr. Corri’s name.”
“Very well. Say I’m at home and bring them to the drawing room.”
A glance in the mirror, a touch to the hair, and she was ready. A thousand pounds for Birkett’s silver plate. And these men promised her two thousand guineas. “Settlement of the above would greatly oblige, but five hundred pounds on account would always suit.”
Why not use the selfsame words and clinch the deal?
4
Dinner was over. The children had been visited and kissed goodnight. The drawing-room lamps were lighted, the curtains drawn.
“Pierson.”
“Your Royal Highness?”
“Tell Ludovick I’ll want him here at six tomorrow morning. I’m driving down to Hythe—away till Saturday.”
“Very good, Your Royal Highness.”
He settled himself down before the fire, his glass of brandy on the stool beside him, loosened his waistcoat button, sighed, and stretched.
“Sing to me, my sweet.”
“What shall I sing?”
“Some jingle from Vauxhall. I’m not particular.”
She sang the songs she’d practiced in the morning, keeping her eye upon him from the piano. He beat time with his foot and with his hand, and hummed the accompaniment in tuneless fashion. She watched his head loll lower on his chest, then lift itself with an effort, to hum once more. “London Town” was spirited and catchy; “Sandy” a mock at love, with raffish words. She passed from them to his favorites of six months past. “Two Strings to Your Bow,” a ballad, and mildly salacious; “I’ll Do So No More,” soporific, conducive to concord.
At last, with the brandy downed and the blue eye glazed, the waistcoat all abroad and the temper mellow, she gave him the final aphrodisiac:
“Love is a Cheat,
Let’s be merry today…”
and, closing the piano lid, came to kneel by his side.
“Why did you stop, my darling?” he asked.
“Because I haven’t seen you all day. And tomorrow you won’t be with me. Do you mind?”
He pulled her across his chair and settled her in his arms with her head on his shoulder.
“If you think I want to jig about the country and sleep on a barrack bed, when I might be with you… What’s this?”
“An underslip, don’t loosen it. Where will you be tomorrow?”
“Hythe, then on to Folkestone, Deal and Dover. Back, with any luck, by midday Saturday.”
She took his hand in hers; played with the fingers; bit each nail in turn; caressed the palm.
“Must you go to Oatlands?”
“The Duchess will turn stuffy if I don’t. She always has the house full on a Sunday. Besides, the tongues start wagging when I give church a miss, and the King gets to hear. He has me up on the mat and scolds me like a schoolboy.”
“He doesn’t do that to the Prince of Wales.”
“Of course he doesn’t. They’re not on speaking terms, so I’m the scapegoat. I tell you what, my sweet… go on, I like it… There’s a house across the park from Oatlands, empty. It used to belong to the steward, but he doesn’t use it. Why don’t you furnish the place and fix up a staff, and then I can come for the night, after leaving the Duchess?”
“Nothing would please me more. And the wagging tongues?”
“Oh, they won’t wag at that. I’d be living at Oatlands. Easiest thing in the world to slip through the park.”
“You can’t slip anywhere, at six foot two, with all that girth… I’d love to go to Weybridge from Saturday to Monday, and get myself country air; but the trouble is, won’t it be very dear?”
“The house won’t cost you much—it’s lying idle.”
“It will have to be fitted, furnished, decorated. The trouble is, sir, you’re such a child in these matters. It comes from living in palaces all your life. You just don’t begin to know how we mortals live.”
“I’m learning rapidly.”
“You’ve learned how to leap into bed without help from a valet. But that’s about all. A baby in arms could do better than you in the morning. Ludovick buttons you up like a nursemaid pinning napkins.”
“That’s mostly your fault. I’m no longer so spry when I wake. Time was when I rode round the park before eating my breakfast.”
“You’re not idle here… but the rhythm is not quite the same; one day you’ll forget, and put my head in a nosebag. But, sir, I’m in earnest, I’d love to be with you at Weybridge; the thing is, I just can’t afford it. To furnish a house, to get staff, to keep it all going—it’s quite out of the question to manage it, on my allowance.”
Silence, a moody pause, a restless movement. She changed position, leaned more lightly against his arm.
“Don’t I give you enough?”
“Enough to maintain a small cottage.”
“Well, damn it, I don’t know. I’m perpetually bothered. Greenwood and Cox have the handling of all my finances. They and Coutts and the rest of them work through the tangle, and my treasurer, Adam, puts in a word now and then. I’m constantly broke and can’t keep my official establishment going, let alone yours. You say I don’t know how you live; you, the ordinary mortal. You haven’t an earthly idea of our total expenses. I and my brothers, Clarence, and Kent,
and the rest. The Prince of Wales has the Duchy, he can exist; but the rest of us are up to our necks in debt. The whole thing’s mismanaged, I’ve said it again and again.”
Watch out—the subject’s tricky, don’t pursue it. The seed is sown, let it lie fallow a moment. She slipped off his knee, tended the sinking fire. “I don’t want to add to your expenses, ever. Perhaps we were wrong to move to Gloucester Place? And yet… it’s so handy here for Portman Square, I love it, and so do you… but, sir, if it breaks you, let’s give the whole thing up. I’ll go to rooms, send the children to my mother, sack the servants.”
“God damn it, no.”
He pulled her back again beside his chair. She knelt between his knees, her arms around him.
“I don’t mean I’m a pauper. I’m merely broke.” His voice was angry, fretful. “If there’s one subject in the world I hate discussing, and always have done, that subject’s money. I’ve told you dozens of times you can live on credit.”
“You, sir, perhaps. But not your fancy lady.”
She laid her face against his cheek and touched his hair.
“Who bothers you with bills?” he asked.
“Birkett, and others… We shouldn’t have bought that silver plate; but it was so tempting to think of breast of chicken lying abandoned on the fleur-de-lis, though it tasted no better than it would off chipped enamel.”
“If Birkett starts complaining I’ll have him arrested.”
“Poor little Birkett. How ruthless you are, and hard.” Give him a massage behind the ears, a kiss on the eyebrow. “Have you really the power to send a man to prison?”
“Yes, if he gives me cause.”
“Is that what it means, ‘His Royal Highness used the royal prerogative’?”
“Highnesses don’t. You’re thinking of His Majesty.”
“Archbishops have a prerogative, why not you?”
“Matter of privilege. Must we go into it now?”
“But, sir, I adore information… it’s the breath of life. Parliament gets prorogued: is that different again?”
“Utterly and completely. Prorogue is another word for discontinue.”
“Prerog—prorogue—there must be some connection. Could you prorogue a kiss if I was giving one?”
The matter was put to the test and found impossible. The fire was reduced to embers in the grate. The single armchair proved inadequate to comfort.
“Why are we sitting down here?”
“You’re sitting… I’m kneeling.”
“It must be deuced uncomfortable.”
“It is. I was only awaiting the royal command to rise.”
They went hand in hand upstairs, and from her half-open bedroom door she could hear the sound of clothes flung on the floor. She wondered how the digestive powers were working. Was Ogilvie right or wrong? And did it take an hour to let medicine simmer? She took the list of names and studied it. They were mostly captains wanting majorities—it was impossible to remember all the names. She pinned the list onto the curtained bed, above her pillow, where it would catch his eye.
“Sir?” She called to the dressing room.
“I’ll be with you in a moment.”
“Sir, do you know an old boy called Colonel French?”
“Can’t say I do, offhand. What’s his regiment?”
“I don’t think he has one. The thing is, he’s retired. Or else half pay. Not of great importance. But apparently he’s been writing to you at the Horse Guards.”
“They all do that. Letters pour in every day from half-pay colonels right through the ruddy country.”
“He wants to raise recruits.”
“Well, he can raise them.”
“Yes, but it takes such a time to get his letter of service. I don’t know what it means, but I suppose you do.”
“He’ll get it eventually, if his application is approved. It will go to my M. S. Clinton, or the A.M.S. Loraine, and one or the other will forward it to Hewitt, the Inspector General.”
“Then what?”
“Then back to me for comments, and signature, if I agree. These fellows get so impatient, of course it takes time. Do they think we have nothing else to do but sit on our arses reading their ruddy letters?”
“You know, I think they do. They have no vision. But this man, Colonel French, was extremely nice. Apologized for bothering, etc., etc., and said that if I would merely mention his name he’d be infinitely obliged, and rather more.”
“What did he mean by that?”
“I hardly know. Perhaps he meant he’d send me a bunch of flowers.”
Silence from the dressing room. Then came the sound of a window opening, the treading of heavy feet on the carpeted floor.
Captain Sandon, in point of fact, had done most of the talking. Five hundred guineas on account, and, the letter of service accepted, another fifteen hundred… Then French would go off to Ireland to raise recruits, and for each man raised she’d get a further guinea, to be paid when five hundred men were passed.
“And what do you receive?” she had asked him. The point was interesting.
Sandon, with a face like a ferret, had tried to explain. “The official bounty, ma’am, laid down by government, is that each recruiting party gets thirteen guineas for every man who joins. Some regiments of the line pay nineteen guineas. We want to get it, and we’d find more recruits, but the letters we send to the War Office lie unanswered. A word to the C.-in-C. and the thing would be done. The higher the bounty, the higher your reward.”
It sounded too simple. A price upon every head. Each valiant recruit in Ireland a guinea in her pocket.
She got into bed and settled down among the pillows; and above her, pinned to the curtains, fluttered the list. An oath rang out from the dressing room, something crashed to the floor. Digestion was slow in working, or too swift. He padded in. She closed her eyes and waited. She felt him climb into bed on the other side.
“You know,” he said, “if you were really clever, you’d never need to pester me for money. That fellow French…”
“The bunch of flowers?”
“Bunch of bullocks… he’d show his gratitude. You can dandle them all on a string, in your position. And when they don’t oblige, just show them the door.”
“Won’t you make it clear what is my exact position?”
“I wasn’t certain. Downstairs, we became rather tangled.”
An interlude, to thrash the point in question. The solutions to the issue proved manifold.
“What the devil’s that?”
“I wondered when you’d spot it.”
“It’s the first time I’ve had occasion to raise my head… Whose are all those names?”
“Just names of gentlemen.”
“Admirers from your past, who set the standard?”
“No, soldiers of the Crown. It’s you they serve. To tell the truth, I’ve never heard of one of them.”
“What’s the idea? Am I suddenly lacking in stamina? Is it a gentle hint my strength is ebbing, and these fifteen chaps would put up a better show? If so…”
Cessation of the conversation, and another refresher course to win new spurs.
“I only pinned them there to jog your mind.”
“I like it jogged at the Horse Guards, not at home.”
“The poor men want some grace and favor shown them.”
“So do I… don’t throw away the pillow.”
“Think how happy they’d be, if they got promoted. Bouquets in either hand, each one for me. The place would look like a hothouse, stiff with roses…”
“Are you short of flowers?”
“I’m short of a lot of things.”
A period in which to test her statement, and the lack of possessions not entirely proved. To each his own, and devil take the donor.
“Are you asleep?”
“I was. Not any longer… If you knew anything of military matters, you’d know I can’t promote every Tom, Dick or Harry. I have to go into each ca
se and read the record, to see if the chap is fit to receive promotion.”
“Oh, well, forget it. They can all go and join the marines.”
“I’ll look them up, but it’s impossible to do them all at once. Move over…”
The digestive juices were apparently working well. The medicine had been absorbed and was coursing through the system. Small doses as prescribed, to be repeated.
“You’ll have to shift to Weybridge at weekends, to that house I told you about, across the park. Unless you do I’ll cut my throat, mooning around the grotto with the Duchess.”
“The lapdogs will keep you busy.”
“Mangy brutes. They bite your fingers if you try to stroke ’em.”
“Don’t waste your talent, then, reserve your patronage for them as likes it. Did the clock strike one?”
“I’m hardly a judge of time. My ears are covered.”
“You’ve got five hours before you ride to Dover.”
“I’m told that Boney manages with far less.”
“Less what?”
“Less time, and fewer hours in which to sleep.”
“He’s only five foot four; you’ve more to carry. Bulk must be housed and rested, soothed and tended.”
“Sounds like a side of bacon salting down. My darling, is that your elbow, or your chin?”
“I think it’s my heel, but I’m not risking any bets.”
“I’ll warrant that Boney suffers less than I do. If it came to a test of endurance, man to man.”
“He’d stand to lose. Winner takes all, plus biscuit.”
Silence fell upon Gloucester Place, peace, oblivion. The guttering candles flickered and went out. Darkness, like a mantle, shrouded the room. From one of the pillows came the sound of gentle breathing, and from the other snores more stertorous.
“It’s six o’clock, Your Royal Highness.”
“All right. Get out.”
The pallid light of morning through the window, reluctant harbinger of worse to come. Spring rain, a muddied road, a jolting carriage. A camp the other end, at best a barracks. The stink of brass and leather, new equipment. The smell of men en masse, of smoke and powder.
“Are you awake?”
She wasn’t. Best to leave her, with a kiss on the tumbled hair and on the cheek. She was awake, and, arms lifted, clung to his shoulder.