Lymington Park was not the oldest seat of the Bellasis dynasty, but it was unquestionably the grandest. They had begun their career among the landed gentry in a modest manor house in Leicestershire, but marriage to an heiress in the early seventeenth century had brought the Hampshire estate as a welcome dowry, and the family had been glad to move south. A desperate appeal for funds from King Charles I, in the heat of the Civil War, had brought the promise of an earldom, and the pledge was made good by the decapitated King’s son, when he returned in glory at the Restoration. Although it was the second Earl who decided that the existing house was no longer appropriate to their station, and a large Palladian palace, designed by William Kent, was proposed. This was to be funded by some sensible investment in the early days of Empire, but a sudden downturn meant it never happened, and in the event it was the present Earl’s grandfather who had employed the architect George Steuart in the 1780s to design a new and grander envelope to be built around the original hall. The result could not be described as cozy or even comfortable, but it spoke of tradition and high office, and as Peregrine Bellasis, fifth Earl of Brockenhurst, strode through the great hall, or sat in his library with its fine books and his dogs round his feet, or climbed the staircase lined with portraits of his ancestors, he felt it was a suitable setting as the background to a noble life. His wife, Caroline, knew how to manage such a place, or rather how to assemble the right team to manage it, and while her own enthusiasm for the house, like all her enthusiasms, had slipped into the grave with the body of her son, she knew how to make a decent show and take command of the county.
But this morning, her thoughts were on other matters. She thanked her maid, Dawson, as the woman placed the breakfast tray across her knees as Caroline watched a group of fallow deer move softly across the park outside her windows. She smiled, and the strangeness of the sensation seemed to freeze her for a moment. “Is everything all right, m’lady?” Dawson looked concerned.
Caroline nodded. “Quite. Thank you. I’ll ring when I’m ready to dress.” The maid nodded and left. Lady Brockenhurst poured her coffee carefully. Why did her heart feel lighter? Was it so remarkable? That a little harpy had tried to blackmail her dead son? That this was the reason for the existence of the boy she had no doubt, and yet… She closed her eyes. Edmund had loved Lymington. Even as a child, he had known every inch of the estate. He could have been left in any part of it blindfolded and found his way back unaided. But he would not have been unaided, since every keeper, every tenant, every worker had taken the child to their heart. Caroline knew well enough that she was not loved, and nor was her husband. They were respected. In a way. But no more than that. The local people thought them chilly and unfeeling, hard and even harsh, but they had given birth to a prodigy. That was how she thought of Edmund: a prodigy, a golden child who was loved by everyone he knew. At least, that was how he had come to seem as the empty, lonely years stumbled on, until, with the varnishing patina of history, she came to believe that she, of all people, had given birth to the perfect son. They’d wanted more children, of course. But in the end, and after three stillbirths, only Edmund was left to occupy the nurseries on the second floor; yet he was enough. That was what she told herself, and it was the truth. He was enough. As he grew, the tenants and the villagers looked forward to the day he would inherit. She knew that, and told it against herself. He was their hope for a better future, and maybe he would have given them one. But now they had only Peregrine to endure and John to look forward to; an old man with no interest in life to be followed by a greedy, selfish peacock who would care no more for them than if they were stones in the road. How sad.
Still, this morning Caroline felt different. She looked around the room, which was lined in pale green striped silk, with a tall gilt looking glass above the chimneypiece and a set of engravings on the walls, wondering quite what was making her feel unlike her usual self. Then, with a kind of surprise, she realized she felt happy, as if the sensation were so lost to her that it took a while for her to identify it. But it was true. She was happy to think her child had left a son. It wouldn’t change anything. The title, the estates, the London house, everything else, would still be John’s, but Edmund had left a son, and might they not come to know this man? Might they not find him and help him? After all, they would not be the first noble family to boast a love child. The late King’s bastards were all received at Court by the young Queen. Surely they could lift him from obscurity? Surely there must be some property outside the entail? Her imagination was beginning to spill over into a myriad of possibilities. Didn’t that tiresome woman say the boy had been brought up by a clergyman, in a respectable household, and not by herself and her vulgar husband? With any luck, he would favor his father and not his mother. He might even be a sort of gentleman. Of course she knew she had given her word that she would say and do nothing to reveal the truth, but was it necessary to keep one’s word if it were given to someone like Mrs. Trenchard? She wriggled. Caroline Brockenhurst was a cold woman and a snobbish one—she would have admitted as much—but she was not dishonest or dishonorable. She knew she could not break her oath and turn herself into a liar. There must be some other way through the maze.
Lord Brockenhurst was still in the dining room when she came down, engrossed in his copy of the Times. “It’s beginning to look as if Peel might win the election,” he said without looking up. “It seems Melbourne’s on the way out. She won’t like that.”
“I believe the Prince favors Sir Robert Peel.”
Her husband grunted. “He would. He’s a German.”
Lady Brockenhurst had no interest in going on with this. “You haven’t forgotten Stephen and Grace will be here for luncheon?”
“Are they bringing John?”
“I think so. He’s been staying with them.”
“Drat.” Her husband did not look up from the page. “I suppose they want money.”
“Thank you, Jenkins.” Lady Brockenhurst smiled at the butler standing to attention by the sideboard. He nodded and left. “Really, Peregrine, are we to have no secrets at all?”
“You don’t have to worry about Jenkins. He knows more about this family than I ever will.” It was true that Jenkins was a child of Lymington. A tenant farmer’s son who had joined the household as a hall boy at thirteen and never left, he had climbed through the ranks over the years until he reached the dizzying throne of butler. His loyalty to the Bellasis clan was unshakable.
“I do not worry about him. I simply think it rude to test him. Whether we like it or not, Stephen is your brother and your heir and should be treated with respect, at least in public.”
“But not in private, by God. Besides, he’s only my heir if he outlives me, and I’ll make damn sure he doesn’t.”
“Famous last words.” But she sat with her husband, chatting away, engaging him with talk of the estate, more friendly than she had been in months or even years, perhaps because she felt so guilty about the things she was not saying.
In the end, the Honorable and Reverend Stephen Bellasis came with his family early, not long after midday. The excuse he gave at luncheon was that he wanted to take a turn in the gardens before they ate, but Peregrine was convinced they’d come before time simply to annoy him. At any rate, neither of the Brockenhursts were there to receive their relatives when they arrived.
Shorter than his elder brother and substantially heavier, Stephen Bellasis had inherited none of the Brockenhurst charm that had made Peregrine so attractive in his youth, to say nothing of the late Lord Bellasis, who could turn heads in a ballroom with his dark, masculine beauty. By contrast, Stephen’s bald pate was struggling to hold on to the few gray strands of hair he carefully combed across it every morning, while below his oddly lush, long, gray mustache, his chin was soft and weak.
He was followed into the great hall by his wife, Grace. The eldest of five sisters, Grace was the daughter of a Gloucestershire baronet, and she had grown up hoping for better things than a fat and impecunious younger son. But she’d overestimated her own value in the marriage market and, with her pale brown eyes and thin lips, Grace, as her mother had repeatedly told her, was very much second son material. Her birth and her education might have meant the young Grace would set her sights high and aim at a great position, but her looks and her modest dowry had ensured that she could not hope to achieve one.
As she stood taking off her cape, bonnet, and gloves and handing them over to the footman, she gazed at the huge bowl of lilacs on the table at the bottom of the wide, shallow, stone stairs. Grace inhaled their sweet scent. She loved lilacs, and a large display of them at home would have pleased her immensely. But the hall in the vicarage was too small for anything quite so grand.
John Bellasis marched past his mother. She was always so slow, and he was impatient for a glass of something. Handing his cane to the man, he walked straight into the dining room, approaching the collection of cut-glass decanters on the silver salver to the right of the large marble fireplace. Before Jenkins could catch up with him, he had picked one up and was pouring himself a large slug of brandy, which he knocked back in one. “Thank you, Jenkins,” he said, turning to face the butler. “You can give me another.”
Jenkins, hurrying after him across the room, reached for a small, unopened bottle. “Soda, sir?” he replied.
“Yes.”
Jenkins didn’t blink. He was used to Master John. He refilled the glass with brandy, this time mixed with soda, and held it out on a small silver tray. John took it and walked back to rejoin his parents, who were disposed about the drawing room on the other side of the hall. They broke off their conversation as he came in. “There you are,” said Grace. “We wondered what had become of you.”
“I can tell you what will become of me,” he answered, bringing his forehead to rest against a cool pane of glass as he stared out across the park. “If I can’t lay my hands on some funding.”
“Well, that didn’t take long,” said Lord Brockenhurst. “I thought we might get to the pudding before you started asking for money.” He was standing in the doorway with his wife.
“Where have you been?” said Stephen.
“We were at Lower Farm,” said Caroline briskly, walking in past her husband. She gave a swift, cool kiss to Grace as the other woman rose to greet her. “John? You were saying?”
“I’m serious,” said John. “There is nothing else for it.” He turned around to meet his aunt’s eye.
“Nothing else for what?” asked Peregrine, his hands behind his back as he stood warming himself by the fireplace. Although it was a pleasant and sunny June day outside, there was a large, well-stoked blaze. Caroline liked to keep every room as hot as an orchid house.
“I have a tailor’s bill to pay and the rent on Albany.” John shook his head, his hands gesturing surprise, as if he were entirely blameless and these expenses had been foisted on him by an unreasonable stranger.
“Albany? Doesn’t your mother pay that?” his uncle asked in mock bemusement. “And more tailor’s bills?”
“I don’t know how a man in my position can get through the Season without any clothes,” John replied with a shrug, taking a sip of his drink.
Grace nodded. “It’s not fair to expect him to look like a ragamuffin. Especially not now.”
Caroline looked up. “Why? What’s happening now?”
Grace smiled. “That is our reason for coming—”
“Your other reason for coming,” said Peregrine.
“Go on.” Caroline was impatient to hear.
“John has an understanding with Lady Maria Grey.”
Perhaps to his surprise, Peregrine was pleased with the news. “Lord Templemore’s daughter?”
Stephen nodded. It pleased him to score a point. “Her father’s dead. The present Earl is her brother.”
“She is still Lord Templemore’s daughter.”
But Peregrine was smiling as he spoke. He found he was almost enthusiastic. “That’s very good, John. Well done, and congratulations.”
John was rather irritated by his uncle’s obvious amazement. “Please don’t sound so surprised. Why shouldn’t I marry Maria Grey?”
“No reason. No reason. It’s a good match. I say again, well done, and I mean it.”
Stephen snorted. “It’s a good match for her. The Templemores have no money to speak of, and she’s marrying the future Earl of Brockenhurst, after all.” He could never resist a dig at his brother and sister-in-law’s childlessness.
Peregrine looked at him but did not reply. He had never been fond of his brother Stephen, even when they were boys. Perhaps it was his florid, pink-cheeked face. Or the fact that he had cried a great deal as a child and demanded endless attention. There had been a sister after the boys, but Lady Alice was not quite six when she was carried off by whooping cough. As a result, Stephen, who was only two years younger than his brother, had become the baby of the family, a role their mother had very much indulged. John took another sip from his glass.
“What’s that you’re drinking?” Peregrine stared at his nephew.
“Brandy, sir.” John was quite unapologetic.
“Were you cold?”
“Not particularly.”
Peregrine laughed. He did not like John much, but he preferred him to his father. At least he had nerve. He looked back at Stephen with ill-concealed distaste. “Why were you here so early?”
“How are you these days?” replied the Reverend from his armchair, ignoring the question. He had one knee crossed over the other and was swinging his right foot. “The damp weather not affecting you?”
His brother shook his head. “It seems warm to me.”
“Everything all right at Lower Farm?”
“Checking up on your future concern?” asked Peregrine.
“Not at all,” said Stephen. “Is it a crime to be interested?”
“It’s nice to see you, my dear,” lied Caroline, sitting down near Grace. She found the endless fencing of the siblings tiresome and pointless.
“That’s good of you.” Grace was a woman whose cup was always half empty. “I was wondering if you have anything you could give me for the church fete. I’m looking for embroidery, handkerchiefs, little cushions, that sort of thing.” She drew her fingertips together to make a steeple. “I’m afraid the need is very great.” She paused. “We have so many requests for help. The old, the crippled, young widows with children and no one left to earn. It’s enough to break your heart.”
Caroline nodded. “What about fallen women?”
Grace looked blank. “Fallen women?”
“Mothers who never had a husband.”
“Oh, I see.” Grace frowned as if Caroline had committed some kind of solecism. “We usually prefer to leave them to the Parish.”
“Do they apply to you for help?”
“Sometimes.” The subject was making Grace uncomfortable. “But we try to resist sentimentality. How else are other girls to learn, if not from the sad example of the fallen ones?” She returned to safer shores and started to elaborate on her plans for the bazaar.
As the Countess listened to Grace discussing proposals for games and tents and coconut shies, she could not help but think about Sophia Trenchard, pregnant at eighteen. If she had stood, wringing her hands and weeping, in front of that stony-faced committee, would Grace have turned her down, too? Probably. And would she herself have been more merciful, if Sophia had come to the family for help? “I’ll find some things that might be useful,” she replied eventually.
“Thank you,” said Grace. “The committee will be so grateful.”
Luncheon was served in the dining room with four footmen and Jenkins in attendance. It was a far cry from the huge shooting and hunting parties of the old days. They had hardly entertained since Edmund’s death. But even when there was no one but family present, Peregrine was a stickler for the rules. There were six courses—consommé, pike quenelles, quail, mutton chops with onion custard, a lemon ice, and a currant pudding—which seemed excessive in a way, but Caroline knew that her brother-in-law would only complain if he was given the slightest excuse to do so.
While they drank the consommé, Grace, fortified by the Countess’s uncharacteristic willingness to provide her with help for her sale, decided to entertain them with family news. “Emma is to have another child.”
“How lovely. I shall write to her.” Caroline nodded.
Emma was five years older than her brother, John. She was a pleasant woman, far nicer than the rest of her family, and even Caroline was pleased to hear a good report of her. She had married a local landowner, Sir Hugo Scott, Bart., and they lived the blameless and unimaginative life that was her destiny. Emma’s first child, a daughter named Constance, had been born a gratifying nine months after the marriage, and thereafter Emma had produced a baby every year. This new one would make five. So far, she had three healthy daughters but only one son.
“We think it’s due in the autumn, although Emma is not quite sure.” Grace took a quick sip of consommé. “Hugo is hoping for a boy this time. An heir and a spare, he keeps saying. An heir and a spare.” She laughed rather merrily, but as she put her spoon back into the soup she caught the look on Caroline’s face and fell silent.
Caroline was not in fact angry. She was bored. She’d lost count of the number of times Grace or Stephen had regaled her with stories of their numerous boisterous grandchildren. She wasn’t sure if they meant to be hurtful or if they were just profoundly tactless. Peregrine always thought they were being deliberately unpleasant, but Caroline was more inclined to blame their stupidity. She was convinced Grace was too slow-witted to be that studiedly malevolent.
The footmen cleared the plates in silence. They were used to his lordship not making much of an effort when it came to small talk around the luncheon table, or in fact at any time, and in his brother’s company he was always particularly taciturn. Having put considerable energy in his youth into revitalizing the estate, he had lost his taste for it when his son died, and in his later years he was more inclined to spend the time alone in his library.
“So,” began Stephen, taking a mouthful of claret, “I was wondering, dear brother, if I might have a little word in private after luncheon.”
“A private word?” queried Peregrine, leaning back in his chair. “We all know what that means. You want to talk about money.”
“Well.” Stephen cleared his throat. His pale, sweating face shone brightly in the sunshine that poured in through the windows. He fingered his bands as if to loosen them. “We don’t want to bore the ladies.” His voice was faltering. How he hated being in this position. His brother knew exactly what he wanted, what he needed, and to think it was only due to timing, to chance, to bad luck that he was in this spot. How else could anyone describe his being born a mere two years later than the handsome and once popular Peregrine? Why should he be forced into this humiliating situation?
“Well, you don’t mind boring me.” Peregrine helped himself to some port and sent the decanter on around.
“If we could just—”
“Come on. Out with it.”
“What my father is asking for is a loan against my future inheritance,” said John, staring at his uncle.
Peregrine snorted. “Your inheritance, or his?”
John clearly did not think his father would outlive his uncle, and nor did anyone else in the room. “Our inheritance,” he said smoothly. Peregrine had to admit the young man was well groomed, well dressed, and looked every inch the heir he intended to be. He just didn’t like him.
“He wants another loan against his inheritance.”
“Very well. Another loan.” John held his uncle’s stare. He was not easy to outface.
Peregrine sipped his port. “I think my little brother has chipped away at his prospects quite substantially already.”
Stephen hated being called “little.” He was sixty-six years old. He had two living children and soon to be five grandchildren. He was seething. “You will agree that the family’s honor demands we keep up appearances. It is our duty to do so.”
“I wouldn’t agree at all,” said Peregrine. “You must live decently, I grant you, as a country vicar should. But more than that, any kind of show in a man of the cloth the public neither expects nor approves of. One has to ask oneself what you are spending the money on.”
“On nothing of which you would disapprove.” Stephen was skating on thin ice. Peregrine would disapprove very much if he knew what the money was intended for. “You’ve released funds in the past.”
“Many times. Too many.” Peregrine shook his head. So this was why his brother had suggested luncheon in the first place, as if he hadn’t known it.
Things were getting awkward, and Caroline decided to take control of the situation. “Tell me some more about Maria Grey.” She sounded quite surprised in a way. “I thought she’d only just been presented.”
Grace helped herself to a mutton chop. “No, no. That was the year before last. She is quite out by now. She’s twenty-one.”
“Twenty-one.” Caroline looked a little wistful. “How time flies by. I’m surprised Lady Templemore has said nothing to me.” She and Maria’s mother had been friendly acquaintances for years.
“Perhaps she was waiting until things were quite settled.” Grace smiled.
“And they are settled now. They have an understanding.” Consciously or unconsciously, Lady Brockenhurst’s tone told the table she thought the idea of this mismatch an unlikely one.
Grace’s smile became more firm as she put down her knife and fork. “There are one or two details to clarify, but after that we’ll announce it properly.”
Caroline thought of the pretty, intelligent girl she knew and of her pompous, pushy nephew, and then, inevitably, about her own beautiful son lying stone-cold in the ground.
“So you see, we, I mean John, needs funds,” said Stephen, glancing appreciatively across at his wife. She had been right to play that card. Surely Peregrine could not really refuse the money. Imagine how badly that might reflect on the family if Peregrine kept his own heir in penury. Particularly as the Countesses were bound to discuss it between themselves almost immediately.
At last, after the currant pudding and the lemon ices had been consumed, the coffee drunk in the drawing room, the gardens toured, Stephen, John, and Grace left. They had secured enough cash to pay their tailors, as well as the other debts that Stephen had failed to mention. Peregrine retired to his library.
It was with a heavy heart that he sat down next to the fire in his large leather armchair, attempting to read some Pliny. He preferred the Elder to the Younger, as he liked dealing in the facts of history and science; but this afternoon the words didn’t dance off the page but rather half swam before his eyes. He’d read the same paragraph three times when Caroline walked through the door.
“You were quiet at luncheon. What’s the matter?” she said.
Peregrine closed the volume and sat in silence for a moment. He stared around the room at the line of portraits above the mahogany bookcases, stern-looking men in periwigs, women laced into their satin dresses, his forebears, his family, who had lent their blood to him, the last of his immediate line. Then he looked back at his wife. “Why does my brother, a man who never said or did anything of the slightest value, live to see his children married and his grandchildren gathered round his chair?”
“Oh, my dear.” Caroline sat down next to him and put her hand on his thin knee.
“I’m sorry,” said Peregrine, shaking his head as his face flushed. “I’m being a silly old man. But sometimes I can’t help railing at the injustice of it all.”
He sighed. “Do you ever wonder what he would be like now? Married, of course, and rather fatter than when we knew him. With clever sons and pretty daughters.”
“Perhaps he’d have had clever daughters and pretty sons.”
“The point is, he’s not here. Our son, Edmund, is gone, and God knows I don’t understand why it had to happen to us.” Peregrine Brockenhurst suffered from the Englishman’s lack of ease when it came to discussing his emotions, that could at times be more poignant than fluency. He took hold of his wife’s hand and squeezed it. His pale blue eyes were watering. “I am sorry, my dear, I’m being very foolish.” He looked at his wife with something like tenderness. “I suppose I can’t help wondering what is the point of it all.” But then he laughed drily, pulling himself together. “Don’t listen to me,” he said. “I must stop drinking port. Port always makes me miserable.”
Caroline stroked the back of his hand. It would have been so easy to tell him the truth, tell him that he had a grandson, an heir to his blood if not to his position. But she did not know all the facts. Had Anne Trenchard been speaking the truth? She needed to investigate. And she had promised that woman to stay silent. In her defense, Caroline was a person who usually kept her promises.
No amount of valerian seemed to help Anne’s terrible headache. She felt as if her skull were being cut in two with a steel knife. She knew the cause and, while she was not prone to histrionics, she recognized that her lonely walk home to Eaton Square after her interview with Lady Brockenhurst was one of the most difficult of her life.
She had been shaking so much when she arrived back at number 110 that when she knocked on her own front door she failed to offer any form of explanation for the state she was in. Billy had been terribly puzzled when he answered. What was his mistress doing out on her own, shivering like a jelly? Where was Quirk, the coachman? It was all very confusing and provided them with plenty to discuss down in the servants’ hall as they waited to be fed later that night. But no one was more confused than Anne as she wandered slowly upstairs to her rooms.
“It was like she was in a daze,” said her maid, Ellis, as she sat down at the table that evening. “Just hugging that dog and rocking in her chair.”
The years had not been overly kind to Ellis. After the heady days of Waterloo, when the streets of Brussels teemed with handsome soldiers who liked nothing more than a bit of chat with a pretty lady’s maid, she’d found the move to London a little too sedate for her liking. She would talk about her friend Jane Croft, Miss Sophia’s maid in the old days, who was doing well for herself as a housekeeper in the country now, and Ellis was always threatening to go off and try something similar. But, truth be told, she knew she’d be a fool to leave. She hankered after employment in a more illustrious household, and it bothered her that she did not work for a family with a title, but the Trenchards paid their servants more than most of the aristocrats she’d ever heard of, and the food they served below stairs was significantly better than anywhere else she’d come across. Mrs. Babbage had a proper budget and she served meat at nearly every meal.
“She’s not wrong,” agreed Billy, rubbing his hands together as he inhaled the smell of stewed beef and potatoes from the large copper pot in the middle of the table. “I mean, who’s ever heard of a mistress walking about the streets alone like that? She was off doing something she didn’t want the master finding out about, that’s for sure.”
“Do you think she’s got a fancy man?” giggled one of the housemaids.
“Mercy, go to your room!”
Mrs. Frant stood in the doorway, hands on hips, dressed in a black high-necked shirt and black skirt, a pale green cameo pinned at her throat. She had only been working for the Trenchards for three years, but she had been in service long enough to know it was a job worth keeping, and so she suffered no nonsense below stairs.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Frant. I was only—”
“You were only going upstairs with no dinner, and if I hear one more word you’ll be out without a reference tomorrow.”
The girl sniffed but did not attempt any further defense. As she scuttled away, Mrs. Frant took her place.
“Now, we will converse in a genteel fashion, but we will not make our employers the subject of our conversation.”
“All the same, Mrs. Frant”—Ellis was anxious to show that she did not consider herself under the housekeeper’s command—“it is quite unlike the mistress to have such a head it needs valerian. I’ve not seen her so unwell since she and Miss Sophia went to visit that ailing cousin of hers in Derbyshire.” The two women exchanged a rather piercing look.
In lieu of any explanation, all James Trenchard could do was speculate as to why his wife had taken to her bed and why she had asked for her supper to be sent up on a tray. He assumed it had something to do with Charles Pope and his refusal to allow Anne to share the young man’s existence with Lady Brockenhurst, and while he had not changed his mind on this, still he was anxious to get back on good terms with his wife as soon as he could decently manage it. So when he came across the card among the letters delivered in the last post inviting her to a reception at Kew Gardens, he decided he would take it up there and then, in the hope that it might lift her spirits. She was very fond of gardening and an enthusiastic supporter of Kew, as he knew well.
“I could come, too,” he suggested merrily as he watched her turn the card over in her hands. She was propped up against her pillows and looking generally wan, but she was interested. He could tell.
“All the way out to Kew?” replied Anne. “You barely walk the length of the gardens at Glanville if you can avoid it.” But she was smiling.
“Susan might like to go.”
“Susan dislikes flowers and can’t see beauty in anything that doesn’t glitter in Mr. Asprey’s window. She made me take her to see the new shop last week. I could hardly drag her back into the carriage.”
“I can imagine,” nodded James, smiling. “That reminds me. After our dinner conversation the other night, I’ve been wondering if I might try to get Oliver a little more advanced in the business. He’s pootling around on the edge of it at the moment, and maybe he needs some direction. I have a meeting with William Cubitt tomorrow about the Isle of Dogs project, and if Oliver does want to be involved, as he implied, I thought I could try to sell the idea.”
“But do you think he really meant it?” said Anne. “It doesn’t sound like Oliver’s sort of thing at all.”
“Perhaps he should be a little less choosy about what interests him.” James didn’t mean to snap, but the disdain with which Oliver treated the idea of trade and hard work annoyed him.
“Well, I suppose it can’t hurt,” said Anne. “You might as well ask.”
It was not quite the reaction that James had hoped for. It would be quite an imposition to ask William Cubitt to give his son a larger stake in the business, a business in which Oliver had so far shown little aptitude or interest. For all their lucrative partnership, it was a bold move.
Anne could see his concern and she felt the same, but somehow she could not summon up much fight. She had always prided herself on her ability to judge a situation; she could read people well and kept her cards close to her chest. She wasn’t one of these foolish women who become indiscreet after one glass of Champagne. So what had she been thinking when she told the truth to Lady Brockenhurst? Had she been intimidated by the Countess? Or had she simply been carrying the burden on her own for too long? The fact remained, she’d told a secret of unimaginable magnitude, a secret that could cause them unlimited damage, to a total stranger, a woman she knew little or nothing about, and in doing so she had given Lady Brockenhurst the ammunition to bring down Anne’s entire family. The question was, would she use it? She rang for Ellis to take Agnes for her evening walk.
The following day James disappeared early. He would normally look in on his wife before he left, but she had slept so badly she’d taken a draught in the middle of the night and would probably not rise until noon. Even so, he was not overly concerned. Whatever it was, she’d get over it. He was far more worried about seeing William Cubitt. He had to get to his office and finish his morning’s business; their meeting was at twelve.
Cubitt had chosen the Athenaeum for their encounter, and James was determined to arrive early so he might have a look around. He’d heard that the club had relaxed their membership rules a little of late—they were in need of funds—and he had applied to join. James wasn’t a member of any gentlemen’s club, and it galled him.
Arriving at 107 Pall Mall, he admired the impressive columns outside the front of the building, he even crossed the road in order to see the homage to the Parthenon frieze at the top of the façade. It was hard to believe that Decimus Burton was only twenty-four years old when he designed the place.
When James walked inside and handed over his gloves and cane to the waiting steward, he was anxiously wondering whom he might ask about his application. It had been a while now, and he’d heard nothing. Perhaps he’d been turned down? But wouldn’t they have told him? It really was so tiresome. He looked around enviously at the vast hall with its magnificent imperial staircase, dividing at the first landing to sweep on upward on either side of that great space.
“James!” said William, leaping out of a chair to greet his friend. “Good to see you.” Slim, with a full head of gray hair, William Cubitt had a kind and clever face, with large intelligent eyes that he half closed when he was listening intently. “Did you see the new Reform Club on your way here? Isn’t it beautiful? Clever chap, that Charles Barry. I am not sure about the politics of the place,” he added, raising an eyebrow. “Full of liberals, and all of them bent on making trouble, but it’s a fine achievement nevertheless.” Having built Covent Garden, Fishmongers’ Hall, the portico for Euston Station. and much else besides, Cubitt invariably remarked on details that few people noticed. “Did you take in the nine-bay treatment of the front? Very bold,” he enthused. “And the scale of it. It puts the poor little Travellers Club into the shade. Now, would you like anything to drink? Shall we go up to the library?”
The library of the club, a huge chamber occupying most of the first floor, lined in bookcases housing the club’s splendid collection, only made James fidget in his anxiety to be part of this place. By what right did they keep him out? It was with the greatest difficulty that he forced himself to concentrate on what was being said, but at last he calmed down, and, over a glass of Madeira, he and Cubitt caught up on the plans, the ideas, and the changes William had in mind for “Cubitt Town.” “I’ll change the name,” he said, sitting back in his seat. “But that’s what it’s called at the moment.”
“So the plan is to expand the docks, create local businesses, and build houses for those working there nearby?”
“Exactly. There’s pottery, brick production, cement. All dirty stuff, but it has to be made, and I want to be the person to make it,” Cubitt remarked. “But we want houses for the bookmakers and clerks, too, and hopefully we can persuade some of the management to make their homes there, if we can create sufficiently salubrious areas. In short, we want to reinvent the place entirely and rebuild it as a whole community.”
“There’s a lot of work to be done,” said James.
“There certainly is. We’ll have to drain the land first, of course, but we know well enough how to do that after building Belgravia, and I have high hopes that it will make us proud in the end.”
“Do you think there might be an opening for Oliver? It’s just the sort of thing he’d love to be part of.” James struggled for a casual tone.
“Oliver?”
“My son.” James could feel his voice falter.
“Oh, that Oliver.” For a moment, the atmosphere was rather flat. “It may be that he is taking time to settle into the business, but I have never thought he was very interested in architecture,” said William. “Or building, come to that. I am not saying I object to his working for us, you understand, only that the demands of an enormous project like this might be rather more than he would be willing to undertake.”
“No, he’s keen to be involved,” insisted James, trying to quell his embarrassment and thinking of Anne’s comments all the while. “He’s tremendously interested. But sometimes he’s not good at… expressing himself.”
“I see.” William Cubitt could not be said to look convinced.
James had known William and his elder brother, Thomas, for almost twenty years, and in that time they had become close; not just as business partners but as friends. The trio had made a lot of money together and they all had reason to rejoice, but this was the first time James had asked either of the brothers for anything resembling a favor, and he was not enjoying it. He rubbed his right temple. Actually, that was not quite right. The first favor had been to get them to take on Oliver at all. Obviously, the young man had made no very favorable impression and here James was, pushing his luck.
William half-closed his eyes. To be honest, he was a little taken aback; he had not been expecting this request. He’d known Oliver since he was not much more than a boy, and in all his time working in the company the man had never asked him a single question about the development of Bloomsbury or Belgravia, or any of his previous contracts. He had done his work in the offices. Sort of. But seemingly without enthusiasm or even interest. That said, William was fond of James Trenchard. The man was clever, tenacious, hardworking, and completely reliable. He could be pompous at times, and his relentless social ambitions made him a little ridiculous, but then everyone had their weaknesses.
“Very well. I shall look for a way to involve him,” said Cubitt. “I think it is important for families to work together. My brother and I have done so for years, so why shouldn’t you and your son? We’ll take him out of the office and put him on-site. We’re always in need of good managers. Tell him to come and see me on Monday, and we’ll get him started on the Isle of Dogs project. You have my word on it.”
He extended his hand and James took it with a smile. But he felt less confident about the outcome than he might have wished.
Once recovered, it would have taken nothing short of typhus to stop Anne from attending the gathering at Kew. The gardens had been thrown open to the public only the year before, in 1840, largely due to the enthusiasm of the Duke of Devonshire who, as President of the Royal Horticultural Society, was at the very heart of the project. He was supported in this by the interest in gardening throughout the land. It seemed gardening was the perfect fashion for every class of Englishman in the 1840s. Anne Trenchard had been a major contributor to the funds, which no doubt accounted for her inclusion on their list. Despite her worries over Lady Brockenhurst and her usual social reticence when she was operating under orders from James, this was one occasion Anne was genuinely excited about.
Gardening wasn’t so much a hobby for Anne; it was her passion, her obsession. She’d started taking an interest in all things horticultural just after Sophia’s death, and she had found it therapeutic as she tended and studied the flowers that seemed to grant her a measure of peace. James had unwittingly encouraged her when he stumbled upon an extremely rare and expensive book one afternoon in Bloomsbury, Thomas Fairchild’s The City Gardener, published in 1722, and he’d continued to add to her gardening library ever since.
But it was the purchase of Glanville back in 1825 that had really fanned her enthusiasm. There was something about this dilapidated Elizabethan manor house that she simply adored, and she was never happier than when she was in deep discussion with Hooper, her head gardener. Together they replanted the orchards, organized a fine kitchen garden that now provided food for the house and the entire estate, and essentially re-created the overgrown terraces, taking both from the open fashions of the previous century and also reviving the original shapes and knot gardens of the house’s own period. She’d even had a greenhouse built, in which she managed to grow quince and peaches. The latter were few but fragrant and perfectly formed, and she’d had Hooper enter them into the Royal Horticultural Society Show in Chiswick the previous year.
She’d naturally made many acquaintances among the gardening fraternity over the years, and among them was Joseph Paxton, a talented beginner when she first met him, with extraordinary and almost revolutionary ideas. She had been very excited when he told her he’d been asked to work in the Duke of Devonshire’s gardens at his villa on the edge of London, Chiswick House. She was subsequently even more pleased when Paxton had moved on to Chatsworth, the Duke’s great palace in Derbyshire, where he’d been responsible for overseeing the construction of a three-hundred-foot conservatory. Of course, Anne did not know the Duke personally, but as President of the Royal Horticultural Society, he was clearly as passionate about gardens as Anne herself.
It was Paxton she hoped to meet that day at Kew. She’d come armed with questions about her quince trees, as he knew everything there was to know about growing under glass. The gardens were busy when she arrived. Hundreds of ladies in pretty pastel shades wearing bonnets and carrying parasols were strolling around the lawns, admiring the new beds and pathways, designed to cope with the ever-increasing enthusiasm of the crowds who would pour out of London whenever the sun shone. Anne was on her way to the Orangery when she found the man she was looking for. “Mr. Paxton. I was rather hoping I might see you here.” She put out her hand to take his.
“Mrs. Trenchard.” He nodded, grinning broadly. “How are you? And how are your prizewinning peaches?”
“What a memory,” said Anne, and soon they were discussing the intricacies of quinces and how hard it was to get them to fruit in such an unkind climate, and quite what the judges would be expecting to find if she were to enter them into the RHS show. In fact, they were so engaged that neither of them saw the two distinguished-looking figures approach.
“There you are, Paxton,” declared the Duke of Devonshire. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” A tall, elegant man with dark hair, a long nose, and large almond eyes, he radiated good humor. “Have you heard the news?”
“What news is that, Your Grace?” replied Paxton.
“They’ve taken all the citrus out of the Orangery.” Clearly this was amazing news. “Can you believe it? Too dark in there, apparently. Built at the wrong angle. They didn’t have the advantage of your planning.” He smiled as he turned pleasantly to Anne, clearly waiting for an introduction. It was at this moment that Anne noticed the Duke’s companion, who was staring at her from beneath her bonnet.
“Your Grace, Your Ladyship,” said Paxton, taking a step back. “May I present a very keen gardener and well-known member of the Society, Mrs. Trenchard.”
“A pleasure, Mrs. Trenchard,” replied the Duke with a courteous nod. “I have heard your name before now. Not least from Paxton here.” He looked back at the woman by his side. “May I—”
“Mrs. Trenchard and I have met before,” said Lady Brockenhurst, her eyes expressionless.
“Excellent!” declared the Duke, frowning slightly as he looked from one to the other. He did not quite understand how his friend Lady Brockenhurst could know this woman, but he was happy that she did. “Shall we go and see what they have done with the conservatory?” Leading the way, he set off at a brisk pace, Paxton and the two women following in his wake. The Duke could not know it, but his proud companion was in the grip of an excitement that had closed its fist around her heart. This was her chance.
“Mrs. Trenchard,” she said. “That man we were talking about the other day—”
Anne’s heart was in her mouth. What should she say for the best? Then again, the secret was out. Why pretend otherwise? “Charles Pope?” She spoke a little hoarsely, and no wonder.
“The very one. Charles Pope.” Lady Brockenhurst nodded.
“What about him?” Anne looked about at the family groups, at men writing notes on pocket pads, women attempting to control their children, and, not for the first time in such a case, she wondered how they could all be living their lives as if nothing extraordinary were happening within a few feet of them.
“I have forgotten where he lives, this Mr. Pope.” Paxton was watching them by now. Something in the tone of their voices transmitted to him that he was witnessing a kind of revelation, that secrets were being asked and told. Anne saw his curiosity and longed to quench it. “I am not sure of the address.”
“What about his parents?”
For a moment Anne thought she might just walk away, excuse herself to the others, plead a headache, even faint. But Lady Brockenhurst was not having any of that. “I remember the father was a clergyman.”
“The Reverend Benjamin Pope.”
“There we are. That didn’t hurt too much, did it?” Lady Brockenhurst’s cold smile could have frozen snow. “And the county?”
“Surrey. But that’s really all I can tell you.” Anne was desperate to get away from this woman who held their fate in the palm of her hand. “Charles Pope is the son of the Reverend Benjamin Pope who lives in Surrey. It is enough.”
And so it proved.
It did not take long for Caroline Brockenhurst to track down her grandson. Like all her kind, she had many friends and relations among the clergy, and there were plenty who were willing to help her find this young man who, she soon learned, was apparently making something of a name for himself in the City. She discovered that he was ambitious; that he had plans. He had bought a mill in Manchester, and he was looking for a regular supply of raw cotton to expand his production, perhaps in the Indian subcontinent or elsewhere. Either way, he was a dynamic fellow, full of ideas and enterprise. All he needed was a little more investment. That, at any rate, is what her inquiries had yielded.
When Lady Brockenhurst knocked on the door of Charles Pope’s office she felt surprisingly calm. She had been quite matter-of-fact when she’d spoken to her coachman, Hutchinson, instructing him to drive to the address on Bishopsgate. She’d told him to wait and that half an hour should be sufficient. In her mind, it was to be a brief meeting. She had not thought through the details or rehearsed what she would say. It was almost as if she did not dare to believe that the Trenchard woman’s story was actually true. After all, why should it be?
“The Countess of Brockenhurst? She’s here already?” The young man leaped out of his chair as the clerk opened the door and announced the name. She was there, standing in the doorway, facing him.
For a moment, Caroline could not move. She stood staring at his face: his dark curls, his blue eyes, his fine nose, his chiseled mouth. It was the face of her son, Edmund reborn, more humorous perhaps, heartier certainly, but her own darling Edmund.
“I am looking for a Mr. Charles Pope,” she said, knowing full well she was staring him in the face.
“I am Charles Pope,’ he said, and smiled, walking toward her. “Do please come in.” He paused and frowned. “Are you all right, Lady Brockenhurst? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
It was her own fault, really, she thought, as he helped her to a seat opposite his desk. She should have considered the matter properly instead of making an appointment on the spur of the moment, on the pretext of investing in his venture. It would have been easier if Peregrine had been here. Then again, she might have wept, and she had done enough of that to last her a lifetime. She had also needed to be sure. He offered her a glass of water and she took it. She had not fainted exactly, but her legs had certainly buckled with the shock. Of course Edmund’s son might very easily resemble Edmund. Why hadn’t she thought of that, and prepared for it?
“So,” she said eventually, “tell me a little bit about where you are from.”
“Where I’m from?” The young man looked bewildered. He’d presumed he was going to talk to the Countess about his business venture. How she’d heard about him and his cotton mill he was not entirely sure. It seemed odd for a great lady to take an interest in such things, but he knew she was well connected and was certainly rich enough to be able to invest in his mill. “It is not a very interesting story,” he continued. “I am from Surrey, the son of a vicar.”
“I see.” She was placing herself in an awkward position. What comment could she possibly make? How would she explain any prior knowledge of his circumstance? But he took her question at face value, without wondering as to her motives.
“Well, actually, my real father was dead before my birth. So his cousin, the Reverend Benjamin Pope, brought me up. I think of him as my father, but sadly he is also gone now.”
“I’m sorry.” Caroline almost winced with the pain his words brought her. She sat opposite her grandson and listened intently. It seemed so strange he should think of an obscure country vicar as his father. If he only knew who his real father had been! She longed to ask him question after question, mainly to hear more of the sound of his voice, but what was there to say? It was as if she were frightened that if she brought this meeting to an end, she might wake up tomorrow to find that he, Charles Pope, no longer existed, had never existed, and it had all been a dream. Because this young man was everything she could ever have hoped for in a grandson.
Eventually, after she’d promised to invest a significant amount of money in his plan, it was time for her to leave. She walked to the door and then she halted. “Mr. Pope,” she said. “I am giving an At Home on Thursday. I generally receive on the second Thursday of every month during the Season, and I wondered if you might like to come.”
“Me?” If he had been bewildered earlier, he was astonished now.
“It starts at ten. We will have dined, but there will be some supper at midnight, so there’s no need to eat beforehand, if you don’t want to.”
Charles was not in any real sense a member of Society, but he knew enough about it to realize that this was a very great compliment indeed. Why on earth should he be the recipient of such an honor?
“Mr. Pope, I am asking you to a party on Thursday. Is it so very puzzling?”
He was not devoid of a sense of adventure. No doubt everything would be explained eventually. “I should be delighted, m’lady,” he said.
When the liveried footman arrived at Eaton Square with the card inviting Mr. and Mrs. Trenchard to a soirée given by the Countess of Brockenhurst, it did not remain a secret for long. Anne had hoped to wait until James came home to discuss it with him. She had no desire whatsoever to go to that woman’s house. And why indeed had they been asked? Lady Brockenhurst had made her feelings perfectly clear at Kew Gardens. The Countess was haughty, unpleasant, and Anne wanted to have nothing more to do with her. Still, it would be a difficult invitation for James to refuse. The Brockenhursts were just the sort of people her husband wanted so passionately to spend his time with. Before she could consider the matter further, there was a knock on her door.
“Mother?” Susan walked in, a pretty smile on her pretty face, her intentions as transparent as glass. She bent to stroke the little dog, which was always a giveaway. “Am I to understand that you’ve been invited to dinner by the Countess of Brockenhurst?” she asked with a shake of her curls. Presumably this last was to give a sense of girlishness, to which her mother-in-law was impervious.
“Not to dinner. To a reception after dinner, although I daresay there will be something to eat later on,” replied Anne. “But I’m not sure we’ll go.” She smiled and waited for Susan to act. The poor girl was so entirely predictable.
“Not go?”
“We hardly know her. And it’s difficult to get up much enthusiasm for something that begins so late in the evening.”
Susan’s face twisted in a kind of small agony. “But surely…”
“What is it you’re trying to ask, my dear?”
“I just thought that we might be… included in the invitation.”
“Please don’t make me beg. After all, Oliver and I are living in the same house as you. Shouldn’t we be part of the Society you keep? Would it be so terribly difficult to ask?”
“You mean you’re determined we should go.”
“Father thinks you should.” Susan had recovered herself. This was a good argument. James would not allow her to refuse, and Anne knew she’d never hear the end of it if she did not ask for Oliver and his wife to accompany them. It was simply not worth the atmosphere in the house.
So that evening Anne sat down at her secrétaire, picked up her pen, and wrote a reply to Lady Brockenhurst requesting in the politest of terms that their son and his wife, Susan, might be allowed to attend the evening with them. As she picked up the wax to seal the envelope she knew that her request would be thought of as forward, and possibly vulgar, but also that Lady Brockenhurst would not refuse.
However, what Anne did not expect was the message that came with the reply. When she received it, she dropped the letter. Her heart was beating so fast she could barely breathe. She had to read it again. There, along with another At Home card in the name of Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Trenchard, was a note, which simply stated:
“I have also invited Mr. Charles Pope to join us.”