Charley said to her in the post chaise, driving to London, “What are you thinking about? You look so stern.”
She laughed. “I was miles away, in point of fact. It was nothing to do with you or me or the present. I had a picture of mother washing the dishes, bending over the tub in the small back kitchen—you know how dark it was, with no window—and the boys crawling under her feet, clinging to her ankles, so that she couldn’t move. Father came in and shouted, wanting his supper… I remember I went and hit him. I’ve never forgotten.”
“What made you think of that, after all these years?”
“God knows…” The post chaise bumped along the lanes, swaying from side to side. She clung to the strap, and with her other hand held on to Charley. Something had cleared in her mind. She was confident, happy. Burlington Street as a pied-à-terre was finished. Russell Manners had gone to India—just as well, she did not want to be bothered with complications at the moment, nor advertise her presence to stray creditors.
Two days at an hotel, then lodgings at Hampstead. She put flowers on Edward’s grave, planted bulbs for the spring, not consciously thinking of Edward, only of George. Hampstead was nostalgic, familiar, full of memories, not of the honeymoon with Joseph but of Bill. Mrs. Andrews at the Yellow Cottage was warm and welcoming, but alas, she had no rooms to let for at least six months; the whole of the upper floor was let to a publisher, Sir Richard Phillips. Did Mrs. Clarke know the name? She did… and made a note for future reference. A publisher might be useful, depending on plans. Meanwhile, would Mrs. Andrews recommend lodgings for herself and Captain Thompson, and later the children? She could certainly try Mr. Nicols, Flask Walk, New End. He was a very respectable man, by profession a baker. The lodgings were taken.
Round one of the contest was staged.
A note to Portman Square produced no answer, but… on the twentieth of November Captain Charles Farquhar Thompson, 59th Regiment of Foot, was reinstated. She showed Charley the Gazette with a smile of triumph.
“I promised, didn’t I?”
“Yes, but what happens next?”
“Go and rejoin the regiment down at Colchester. If Colonel Fane is aggressive, write me at once.”
George was still secure at Chelsea, but Charley was right, his name had been erased from the lists for Marlow. Adam was one of the governors, so was Gordon—it was easy enough to see where the influence lay. For the moment Charley came first. George must be second. There was room for them all at Hampstead, at Mr. Nicols’, for the French governess, too (she must forget about school), and for Martha. Her mother could stay down at Loughton for the present; she was getting old and shaky, always complaining and asking why H.R.H. didn’t come to see her.
At the end of the week Charley returned from Colchester. One glance at his face told her of further trouble.
“What now?”
“I’ve got to exchange. Colonel Fane says he won’t have me in the regiment.”
“Does he give his reasons?”
“The same as before—absent without leave. And another thing too. You remember those bills drawn on Russell Manners that mother signed and you sent me back in the summer? They were payable through Rowland Maltby at Fishmongers’ Hall, and I got the Paymaster up at Leeds to cash them, just before I was ill and came on leave. The bills were refused, and we’ve got no proof that I believed they would be honored. The C.O. says a charge of fraud can be brought against me.”
“But that’s ridiculous. Rowland Maltby always honors Russell’s bills.”
“That’s where you’re wrong—Maltby refused to honor these particular ones. Wasn’t there some brush between you and Manners and Maltby at Burlington Street, before you went down to Loughton? Both knocking at your door, and you wouldn’t admit ’em?”
“Oh, good God! They were both as drunk as owls, and I was dead.”
“Well… there’s his answer. But the Paymaster had given me the money, and the bills were returned. If the matter gets to court it will be my finish.”
“Did Colonel Fane say a charge would be brought against you?”
“He told me the matter would close, if I’d get an exchange.”
“Very well. You shall get an exchange. You shall have it by Christmas.”
This time nothing happened. The notes sent to Portman Square were returned, unopened. Charley wrote for an interview. The request was refused. Martha, who used to hobnob with the Portman Square staff, went down to pay a call on old friends in the kitchen. She found new faces, who firmly closed the door. Mr. Adam, it seemed, had given her old friends notice. Mary and Ellen, walking up Heath Street, were followed. The French governess had hysterics and asked to leave. A man had touched her arm and tried to question her. “Is Mrs. Clarke in Hampstead? What’s the address?”
It could be creditors, or even Joseph, but more likely spies of Adam on the prowl. Charley paced up and down in the small front parlor, biting his nails and peering out of the window.
“Any word of my exchange?”
“Not yet. I’ve written.”
No need to tell him his career was blocked. She’d written to fifty regiments: and they’d all refused him. No agency would take him on their books. Word from G.H.Q. must have gone round, “Blacklisted: C. F. Thompson.” Friends who two years back would have done her favors were suddenly out of town, or ill, or busy. She went to Will Ogilvie. At least she would get the truth from him.
“What’s happened, Will?”
“Haven’t you read the papers?”
“You know I’ve been down at Loughton all the summer, and through the autumn too, until last month.”
“I told you to watch events. They’re illuminating. Instead of which you’ve let your mind go rusty, gazing at Coxhead-Marsh in a blaze of pheasants.”
“If you think I enjoyed it… What about the papers?”
“Attacks against H.R.H. almost every day. Pamphlets spitting abuse, very near the knuckle.”
“What’s that got to do with me?”
“Officially, nothing. But everyone at the War Office thinks you write them.”
“My God! I wish I did.”
“They’ve just worked around to probing into your past. Or rather Adam has, and Greenwood too. Not your marriage, dear—your fun with the Grub Street boys, that money you made on the side when you lived in Holborn.”
“Is that why they’re trying to throw Charley out of the regiment?”
“Of course. As your brother, he’s in it up to the neck.”
“But Will, it isn’t true…”
“That doesn’t matter. You’re smeared with the dirt, and it all fits in very well. The point is this—the people read the pamphlets and say to themselves, ‘No smoke without a fire, a fish stinks at the head,’ and all the rest. Our friend, dear H.R.H., begins to lose favor. Popularity wanes, and so do the things he stands for: the Army, the Church, the Tory government, the war with France, the British Constitution. Let a few more months roll on, we can start doing business in rather a bolder way than we did before. You don’t play chess, so why should I explain? You’re an excellent pawn, Mary Anne, in a certain game that I’ve been playing now for fourteen years, since France disencumbered herself in ’93.”
She shrugged her shoulders in exasperation. “Still harping on republics? Well, play it alone. I’ve told you before, security comes first. My family’s, and my own. What concerns me at the moment is my brother Charley. They’re trying to boot him from the 59th.”
“Let him be booted, then. It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to him. It matters to me as well. I’m damned if I’ll see him booted without a reason. Can’t you get him an exchange?”
“He’s on the blacklist. I can’t do a thing, nor can anyone else. Take the long view, dear, and don’t get so excited. In a year from now the Government will fall, H.R.H. will lose his command… Why can’t you be patient?”
“I love my brother, and his heart is breaking, and my only hope is to get the Duke to s
ee reason. Is he still visiting Mrs. Carey down at Fulham?”
“You’re out of date, he’s toying with a peeress… Now, listen to me, the tactics have changed entirely. You are not going to get him back. You are going to smash him.”
The urbane mask had dropped. The dark eyes glittered. This was another Ogilvie, hard and ruthless. “Behave like a fool for your brother—you’re wasting your time. But when he’s had the sack, and sacked he will be, come back to me: I’ll tell you what to do. It’s been rather dull at Loughton, hasn’t it? Duller still in Devon, among the seaweed.”
She loathed him, liked him, feared him, trusted him.
“Why,” she asked, “should I always do what you tell me?”
“Because,” he said, “you can live no other way.”
He escorted her down to the carriage and closed the door. She went back to Hampstead and found Charley waiting, the children with him, all with anxious faces.
“A man’s been watching from the doorway opposite. He asked Mrs. Nicols if you wrote letters to Fleet Street.”
“Nonsense. Don’t take any notice. Some drunkard or other.”
She made one last request to Portman Square, and a letter from Charley was sent direct to the Horse Guards.
Hers had a scribble in answer, penned at midnight. “I do not know what you mean. I have never authorized anybody to plague you or disturb you, and therefore you may be perfectly at ease on my account.”
The letter to Charley was terse and official, with instructions to report at once to Colchester.
“Then everything’s all right? I don’t have to exchange?”
Charley waved the printed form. His eyes were shining. All his self-confidence was back again. “Why, yes… It must mean just that,” she smiled, and kissed him. So Ogilvie was wrong. There was no vendetta.
He rushed to get his equipment and start immediately.
George was the next to be planned for. Marlow or Woolwich—it would be easy enough to arrange now Charley was fixed. Everything seemed simple. The children were happy. No one was being a nuisance and spirits were high. There was only one thing lacking, of course, with Charley gone; a man about the house who knew her moods, not anyone fresh, requiring poise and effort, but a man who did not matter, who understood. But nobody fitted the bill… She seized the paper. “Is the expedition back from Buenos Aires?”
The South American war had been a fiasco. It was a dispersal of effort, just what the enemy wanted. A mistake by Supreme Command or the politicians? Never mind about that, the point was, Bill might be home. She hadn’t thought of him for eighteen months, but now he was the answer to her mood.
“I’ll write at once to Uxbridge. He must be home.”
She’d forgotten how she had wanted him out of the way, because of pride, when Gloucester Place was sold, glad to think he was out of sight and hearing, thousands of miles away in Buenos Aires.
Now, like a weather vane, the mood had shifted. Hampstead… association… Bill was the man. Heavens! So much to tell him. All the upheavals, the diabolical plotting of Adam and Greenwood, with poor H.R.H. a helpless tool in their hands, obliged to give her up because of their pressure (no need to mention the advent of Mrs. Carey). Disaster upon disaster, but she had survived, all through her own unaided, determined efforts. Russell Manners, Rowland Maltby and Coxhead-Marsh? Just dull old friends in the country, being obliging.
Charley was packed off to Colchester and Bill was summoned. He tried to tell her some of the hell endured in Buenos Aires, the privation, sickness, climate. She listened five minutes, shaking her head in distress, then interrupted; he was back in the well-accustomed role of listener. The months and the years slid away, he was here again, quiet, dependable, solid, faithful, adoring. It was happy, relaxing, the touch of someone familiar, like wearing comfortable shoes, or a three-year-old gown found at the back of a closet and quite forgotten, the color somehow becoming, enhancing the eyes.
“You’ll stay with me, won’t you?” She kissed him behind the ear.
“Won’t it look odd? The children are so much older.”
“I’ll send them back to Loughton. Mother’s there.”
Back to the known routine, and very pleasant. Adoration was soothing to the nerves, especially when the palate was rather jaded and interest in exploration was completely lacking. Bill could stay until his next assignment, whenever that should be. No orders had come. Half pay at the moment should cover their expenses.
The annuity from the Duke had not been paid, but that had not worried her, living at Loughton Lodge. Adam’s doing again, of course, he was stopping the payment. Another small matter she’d fix before very long.
“Bill, it’s rather strange. Not a word from Charley.”
“He’s probably waiting for orders, the same as I am. His regiment may be going on foreign service. The rumor is all over London that we’re off to Spain, with Wellesley in command, on a new expedition.”
“I’m afraid Charley may be ill. He isn’t strong.”
“It would do him a power of good to see some fighting.”
“It’s exactly what he wants,” she answered swiftly, “to show what he’s worth, and prove it to the regiment. He hasn’t been given a chance up to the present.”
The silence from Charley was the first cloud in the blue, the gathering of the storm. And then, after twenty-four hours, she had the truth direct. Seen in the London Gazette, in black and white: “Captain Charles Farquhar Thompson, 59th Regiment of Foot, is now under close arrest, pending Court Martial.”
Will Ogilvie, god or devil, had been prophetic. The Hampstead idyll was over. The fight was on.
10
Mary Anne sat in the Inn at Weeleigh, Colchester, with a copy of the charges in her hand, and by her side the lawyer recommended by Comrie, a man called Smithies, who took notes at her dictation.
At the opposite side of the table sat Rowland Maltby, a reluctant witness, sulky and ill at ease, dragged from his home in Hertfordshire to give testimony. She had fetched him herself by coach the day before, threatening that, unless he admitted that the bills which were mentioned in the charges had been backed by him, she would summon his wife downstairs and make a disclosure, a disclosure unpleasant for him and for Russell Manners, out of the way, lucky devil, somewhere in India.
“What am I going to say?”
“You can say what you please, as long as you clear my brother of fraudulent charges.”
“I’ve no desire to get mixed up in the business. A court martial’s a matter for soldiers, not civilians.”
“You helped to bring it about, and now you can speak for him. Or shall I get out of the coach and ask for your wife?”
She had the door wide open, about to descend. He handed her hurriedly back, his eye on the window. “Very well, I’ll travel with you. Give me time to make excuses. I’ll be with you at the crossroads in an hour.”
He had sulked all the way to Colchester, hoping to taunt her, and she hadn’t bothered so much as to turn her head but scribbled right through the night on a piece of foolscap, notes for her blasted brother, he supposed, and then, when they reached Weeleigh at 2 a.m., all he got was sandwiches in the bar and a brief goodnight. A fine sort of fool he must seem in front of the landlord.
She was reading the charges and the lawyer was taking them down.
“Charge One. For scandalous and infamous conduct unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman in absenting himself, on or about the 21st of July 1807, without leave from his Commanding Officer.
“Charge Two. For scandalous and infamous conduct unbecoming, etc., etc., in defrauding Mr. Milbanke the Paymaster of the Leeds Recruiting District of one hundred pounds, by prevailing upon him to cash two bills, neither of which was paid when presented for payment.”
She paused and ticked the charges with her pencil. “Now, Mr. Smithies, I want you to understand that my brother’s unable to speak on his own behalf. You will represent him and cross-examine witnesses. I shall
be one, and so will Mr. Maltby. My brother pleads not guilty to both charges.”
“I understand, Mrs. Clarke.”
She tore off a sheet of paper and handed it to him. “The first charge, this business of leave. Here are the questions I want you to put to the Prosecution, as coming from my brother. Question one: ‘Do you know that at the time of my absenting myself and going to London I was crazy with pain, and was stated by three doctors to be unfit for service?’ You must realize, Mr. Smithies, that this court martial is what in cockney language we call a ‘frame.’ They want to kick my brother out of the Army, and any stick will do to beat the dog.
“Question two: ‘Do you know that as soon as I got to London I sent a doctor’s chit certifying my unfitness?’ Have you got that clear?”
“Yes, Mrs. Clarke.”
“Right. To the second charge. What the Prosecution will ask me we can’t foresee. It will relate, of course, to the bills I gave my brother, signed with my mother’s name, Elizabeth Mackenzie Farquhar. The fact is that she’s crippled with rheumatism and can’t write herself, so I write all her letters for her, guiding her hand. The reason I used her name and not my own was that I didn’t want my name connected with Russell Manners—brother-in-law to Mr. Maltby here. What I shall want you to ask me in Court is this: ‘Did you ever receive information from Mr. Rowland Maltby that he would not honor any bill drawn on Russell Manners and payable through him at Fishmongers’ Hall?’ To which, Mr. Smithies, I shall answer ‘Never.’ ”
She looked across at her gloomy, silent witness. He sipped a glass of ale and did not speak. The lawyer scratched at the foolscap paper in front of him.
“After which, Mr. Smithies, I want you to say to me: ‘From your knowledge of the transaction relative to the bills in question, can you state whether it was possible for Captain Thompson to have any fraudulent interest when he induced the Paymaster to discount the bills?’ To which you will hear me answer ‘Certainly not. Captain Thompson was aware that Mr. Manners was indebted to me.’ ”