She showed him the door, with icy courtesy. “My past life concerns nobody but myself. Neither you, nor His Royal Highness, has any right to pry into the matter.”
“I put it to you, madam, that you have known perfectly well during these past years that your husband, Joseph Clarke, was alive, and that your statement to His Royal Highness that you believed yourself a widow was incorrect?”
“Not so at all.”
“Very well, then. How was it that early in 1804 an action was brought against you, which you kept from His Royal Highness, and which was settled out of court by your attorney, who pleaded your coverture?”
Cornered very smoothly. She shrugged her shoulders. “My attorney and I thought it the best way out. I had no actual proof of my husband’s death.”
His cold bland face remained without expression. “Have you any certificates of your children’s births?”
“No, I don’t think so. And why should you want to see them?”
“It has been suggested to me by persons I need not mention that you gave birth to children prior to your marriage.”
Good God! What flaming impudence. She saw it all. He’d sent his spies to Hoxton, ferreted out the neighbors in Charles Square, muddled the husband Joseph with his brother John, planted on her John’s brood of older children, now nearly adult, scattered the Lord knew where.
“The initial ‘J’ has given rise to error,” she said. “Go back to Hoxton, and make sure of your facts. My husband has a parson brother with the same initial, but the name is James. If it would make your enquiries any easier, I’ll willingly admit I married all three brothers.”
“Flippancy won’t assist you, madam; I’m sorry. Would you please give me the date and place of your marriage?”
She was damned if she would. He could go and tramp the country. She remembered her mother’s wedding to Bob Farquhar. Let him track that down, if he liked, as the past was so vital.
“At Berkhamsted,” she said. “Go and search the records. You’ll find some mention of my family there. And if you wish to go further back, you must travel to Scotland. Dig in the heather for the clan Mackenzie, or go and slit open the cod in Aberdeen.”
Livid with rage, that night she forgot discretion. The Duke came home to dine and she attacked him.
“How dare you send that man to question me? Poking his filthy nose into my affairs.”
She caught him on the raw. He looked embarrassed. “If you mean Adam, it’s nothing to do with me. I merely told him to try and find your husband and give the fellow hell, to be rid of the business.”
“Well, tell him the door won’t be answered another time. I’ve never been so insulted in all my life, and God! that’s saying something.”
She longed for a flaming row to clear the air, to throw a bottle at his head and break it—the head, the bottle, both. It didn’t matter. He wouldn’t rise. He sat there, looking glum, the same expression he had worn now for several weeks, sulky, withdrawn, just like an injured schoolboy.
“I haven’t the time to meddle with all this. I’ve too many things to attend to the livelong day. The pressure at the Horse Guards is nearly killing me, apart from Greenwood nattering, and Adam.”
“And yet,” she said, “you find time to go to the theater. I saw it in the paper yesterday. That was the evening you sent word you were kept by His Majesty.”
“I was. And by the time I was through at Buck House it was much too late to come back to dinner here.”
“The King’s theater. Mrs. Carey… Does she dance well?”
“Passably. I didn’t really notice.”
“Perhaps you noticed her at supper afterwards?”
He reddened, drank his port and didn’t answer. Then Will Ogilvie was right, there was something to it. She clenched her hands to try and keep control. “I understand she’s tall. That’s an advantage. No danger of falling arches, her reaching up to you. A broken instep’s not much use to a dancer.”
Before he could answer there came the sound of an uproar from the basement. A scuffle in the kitchen, the servants fighting? There was no Martha to keep the peace—she had married and left.
“Pierson, for heaven’s sake!”
There were whispers in the hall, murmurs and talking. The Duke’s complexion was like a turkey-cock’s. The disturbance served as excuse to evade any issue.
“My lord! A fine house to return to in the evening. Servants’ brawls and shouting. I’d get more peace if I ate my dinner in barracks.”
“Or in a theater dressing room.”
Pierson returned, his manner apologetic. “I’m very sorry, madam, but it’s some woman says she’s legal wife to the coal merchant. The man Mrs. Favoury married a month ago. Screaming and shouting, she is, for law and justice.”
“Have her removed.” The Duke was thin-lipped and frozen.
“They’re struggling with her now, Your Royal Highness. Her language won’t bear repeating.”
“What does she say?”
“She says, madam, you encouraged the husband to leave her, let him come here to Gloucester Place to be with Mrs. Favoury, and that things go on in the basement that would shock the world, not to mention what happens upstairs. She said the house was nothing but a…” He stopped and coughed, loyalty overcoming scandal.
“Remove the woman,” the Duke repeated; “have her locked up. Get the footman to help you.”
“Very good, Your Royal Highness.”
The fracas below was renewed. The floors being thin, before the final silence they heard the woman’s shout, “Your mistress is to blame, the dirty strumpet. Taking a married man into her bed, and him a Royal Duke, as should know better.”
Once it would have been a matter for giggles and choking laughter, the sort of thing she would imitate and repeat, while, laughing, he would listen in the drawing room. Not so tonight. They sat like mutes, like strangers, no grain of humor in the situation. Dignity came first.
“Shall we go up?”
The piano was left untouched, there was no conversation, each held a book that neither read. The clock in the drawing room ticked on, dragging the hours until eleven. And then, as eleven struck, the finishing touch—a pealing bell, blows on the front door, the sound of altercation on the doorstep. The Duke threw his unread book across the floor. “If that’s the woman again I’ll call the guard.”
Footsteps sounded up the stairs and Pierson entered.
“I’m sorry, Your Royal Highness, to disturb you… Madam, it’s someone for you, and very insistent. He gives his name as Joseph Clarke.”
So… here it was. Joseph couldn’t have timed it better, not if he’d had the wisdom of the devil. Checkmate, and finish. Seconds, throw in the sponge…
“Thank you, Pierson. I’ll see him. Show him into the little room below. And stay within call, it’s possible I shall need you.”
She rose and curtseyed. The Duke did not look at her. The irony was wasted, or maybe he took the gesture as his due. She went downstairs and into the anteroom where visitors waited. Joseph was standing there, or rather his shadow, or worse still not his shadow but his caricature. Shabby, ill dressed, gray hair touching his shoulders, the shoulders stooping, the body gross and spread, eyes nearly sunken in the flabby face, the chin unshaven, lips swollen and cracked.
This was the man she’d married, loved and cherished, father of her children, father of George.
She said, “What do you want? Be brief, I have guests above.”
He did not answer for a moment but stared at her, the low-cut evening gown, the jewels, the hair dressed high in curls. Then he laughed, the foolish senseless laugh of a drunken man.
“You look quite ravishing”—slurring, lisping his words—“pink always suited you. Weren’t you married in pink? I seem to remember the gown on the end of the bed. Later, you wore it on Sundays in Golden Square. Without those trinkets, though. Diamonds suit you. I couldn’t buy you diamonds, hadn’t the money. I did my best to save, but you spent it all.”
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The rambling voice of a man whose mind had wandered, whose senses, soggy with drink, felt no sensation, who twisted the facts of the past to suit his dreams.
“If that’s what you came here to tell me you’re wasting your time.” She had no feeling in her heart save anger. He was only an empty shell without life or substance. She could not even pity him. He was dead.
“I want you back. I want Mary and Ellen. I want my boy.”
“You mean you want money. Very well, how much will satisfy you? I have twenty pounds in the house. I can spare you that. It should last you a week or so, till the bottles are empty.”
He moved a step towards her. She went to the door. “The house is full of servants. I’ve only to call, and they’ll throw you out of the house, so please don’t touch me.”
“Is he here?”
“Who?”
“His nibs…” He put up his hand to smother a stupid grin, then lowered his voice, jerking his head at the door. “I’ve frightened him all right, I’ve seen his lawyer. Keep the case out of court, that’s what they say.”
“You mean you’ve seen Adam?”
He grinned again and winked; and then with drunken solemnity waved a finger, choosing his words with care.
“Saw some fellow or other, called himself Treasurer, don’t remember his name, but I told him the tale. Oh yes, I managed to give him all the details, how we kissed and cuddled in the alley, and how you first carried on with the printer fellow, not to mention your stepfather on the sly. I told him too how you’d driven my brother to suicide, spent all his fortune and mine and then hoofed it, with the remainder, when I lay dying. The fellow seemed very grateful, very polite. He expressed his deepest sympathy, and said he’d warn his nibs not to be hoodwinked further.”
She called for Pierson. “Show this man to the door.”
“Not quite so fast,” he said; “there’s more to tell you.”
“I’ve heard enough.”
“Lots of little things come back to me. How you turned your own sister into cook, Bob Farquhar’s girl, and dolled her up in an apron. I told him about your mother keeping lodgings, lodgings a good disguise for something else. Oh yes, he was very grateful, he noted it down, put all the details in a little book. ‘Thank you, Mr. Clarke, this will come in handy.’ ”
Pierson was there and the footman, they had heard what was said. They stared at her, round-eyed, waiting for further orders.
“Take him away.”
There was no scuffle, no disturbance. He was not carried out like the coalman’s wife. He shuffled through the hall with unsteady footsteps, bowing, leering, a crumpled hat in his hands.
“I’ll expect you and the children on Saturday. Our wedding anniversary’s any day now. We’ll hold the usual family celebration. D’you remember how we used to in Golden Lane?”
They bundled him down the steps. The front door closed. Pierson, averting his eyes, led the two footmen back to the kitchen quarters. Turning, she saw the Duke at the head of the stairs.
“I’ve got rid of him.”
“So I see.”
“Not only drunk, but mad.”
“Lucid enough.”
“To those who like to listen… Where are you going?”
“I ordered the carriage. I’m not sleeping here tonight.”
“Why ever not?”
“I’ve got an early start. I have to be down at Windsor at half past ten.”
“You never said so before.”
“I forgot to tell you.”
There was no point of contact between them, only empty, formal politeness. He brushed her hand with his lips before he left and murmured something about dinner on Friday. She heard the carriage leave, and then, with a heart of lead, she walked upstairs. She looked at her face in the mirror in the bedroom. The eyes were anxious, staring, lacking luster. Two telltale lines ran from nose to mouth. Her birthday in a week, and she would be thirty. She sat before the mirror, smoothing the lines. Nobody to talk to, not even Martha.
On the morning of the eleventh a note was brought to her. It was in the Duke’s handwriting, and said, “Adam will call upon you at six o’clock.” No more than this. No hint about his business. She did not go out all day. She sat and waited. Then, as the day wore on, she passed through the rooms. The children’s first, tidy, because of their absence. Mary’s (now nearly thirteen) somber, religious, with Bibles and pictures of saints—a passing phase. Ellen’s (at ten) more childish, a skipping rope, two books of poetry (romantic) and over the bed a large-sized colored portrait of the Duke, torn from a paper, stuck with drawing pins. George’s, boxes of paints, of marbles; soldiers with broken heads and broken limbs; the Duke again, seated astride a charger; a picture of George himself as a cadet; the military school at Chelsea, small boys drilling.
The front door pealed. She hurried down the stairs. It wasn’t Adam, but Will Ogilvie. They chatted of this and that. She made no allusion to anything that had happened or was likely to happen. She thought he watched her closely, that he was waiting for something, but she made pretence of behaving as though all was as usual. Nothing had happened lately in military matters, business between them had slowed for the past few weeks. He ventured to mention something about promotions. She shrugged her shoulders—nothing had gone through lately. He did not press her, and then, as he kissed her hand, as he took his leave before he went downstairs, he said in a casual way, as though en passant, “I see Mrs. Carey the dancer is living at Fulham.”
“Oh, really? I don’t know much about her. King’s theater, isn’t she? I haven’t been.”
“You’re in the minority. Everyone’s raving about her. I understand His Royal Highness knows her, and gave a party for her at Fulham Lodge.” A happy parting shot to wish Godspeed.
Adam arrived on the stroke of six o’clock. She was waiting in the drawing room, dressed for dinner, the diamonds round her neck that the Duke had given her.
“I’m afraid,” he began, “my mission is not very pleasant. The interview is not of my own choosing.”
“Please continue.”
“I have been commanded by His Royal Highness the Duke of York to inform you, madam, that from today your connection with him must cease. He has no wish to see you, or to communicate with you again. This is quite final.”
She felt the color go from her face. She did not move, only clenched her hands the tighter behind her back.
“Does His Royal Highness give any reason for his decision?”
“No, madam. Only that facts have come to light which show that you have constantly lied to him—about your past, about your family, and many other matters unspecified. His Royal Highness believed you to be a widow, and your husband attempted to bring a suit for adultery into court against him. This is but one detail out of many. Also your extravagance, and the frequent demands upon his purse, have so exasperated His Royal Highness that he will submit to it no longer.”
“Everything I have spent, I have spent for him. This house, the house at Weybridge, was all his doing.” Adam raised a hand to interrupt.
“Forgive me, madam, no explanations, please. His Royal Highness further commands me to say that if you conduct yourself in a proper manner, he is willing to allow you four hundred pounds a year, to be paid quarterly. But he considers himself under no sort of obligation to do this: it is merely an act of generosity on his part, and the amount will be immediately withdrawn should he think fit to do so.”
She stared at him, aghast. Four hundred pounds? Her debts were near four thousand… Why, at Weybridge alone the improvements he had suggested, insisted, she should do came to at least two thousand. The farm, the gardens…
“You must have mistaken your orders,” she said. “His Royal Highness knows the financial difficulties. He would never suggest four hundred pounds a year, a quarter of the sum I pay in servants’ wages and liveries.”
“Four hundred was the sum,” Adam repeated. “As to debts incurred, His Royal Highness won’t recognize the
m. You must settle them as best you can by selling up the contents of this house.”
She tried to think, to plan, to pierce the future. Where was she to live, what was to happen? And George at the military school, what about George? “My son,” she said, “what’s to become of my son? His Royal Highness promised to educate him. He’s at the school in Chelsea, and in a year or two he’s due for the college at Marlow. His name is accepted, I saw the Commandant.”
“I regret, madam, I have no instructions regarding your son.”
Full realization began to come upon her. The servants must be told, the wages paid, all of them dismissed. The tradesmen must be settled, curtains dragged down, carpets rolled, the horses and the carriages sent away, and somehow, mixed up in the crazy confusion, her friends and family warned that the whole thing was finished… Pitying glances, sympathy forced, not sincere, the mocking smile behind the mocking hand…
She said, “I must see His Royal Highness. He can’t leave me like this, without a word.” Panic swept her now, and chaos, the world disrupted.
“His Royal Highness, madam, declines an interview.”
He bowed—he went. She didn’t attempt to detain him. She sat by the window, trembling. She thought, “It isn’t true. It’s all a nightmare. Or Adam’s lying, forced him into it. He’ll come tonight and explain; he’ll be here directly. He told me dinner on Friday, he doesn’t break promises. The last thing that he said was dinner on Friday.” She went on sitting in the drawing room, waiting. Seven, eight, no sound of the horses coming. She pulled the bell for Pierson.
“Pierson, there must have been a misunderstanding. Send round to Portman Square and find out if His Royal Highness is coming home to dinner. Tell the cook to keep the dishes hot.”
A fumbling pretext, to save her face and theirs. Something was in the wind, they knew it too. Trust servants to smell out a threat or a disaster.
Pierson returned. “Excuse me, ma’am, no one knows anything. The servants at Portman Square thought His Royal Highness was here. No dinner is ordered at the house, he must be coming. Perhaps His Royal Highness has been detained at the Horse Guards.”