All for Love (20 page)

‘You’re selling my house? The house Mr. Jay designed for me. For
me
.’ She underlined it. ‘And without a word to me?’ She had actually almost convinced herself that she was in a rage with him. After all, he might have warned her.

‘Well, my dear.’ Hyde’s expression was a triumph of uxorious apology. ‘I did not wish to distress you before the party, but you must see, with our expenses.’ An expressive glance took Mrs. Broughton into the secret of those expenses. ‘We must cut our coat according to our cloth,’ he added helpfully.

‘And the servants! In Oglethorpe Square! What will happen to them?’ This was not a question Josephine would ask, but she could not help herself. He had taken her, indeed, by surprise.

‘Who knows? They have their freedom, after all; what more can they ask?’

‘I do agree with you, Mr. Purchis,’ Mrs. Broughton’s voice was honeyed. ‘I’m delighted to hear you have realised, at last, that there is a limit to what one can do for those creatures.’

‘Oh!’ Juliet was on her feet in a rush. ‘I’ll not stand it. My servants. That I’ve trained so they understand how we do things in France. And you’ll let them go — just like that?’

‘Well,’ said Hyde reasonably, ‘since we cannot afford to keep them.’

‘You’re intolerable. No, thank you, Priscilla. No dessert. But I’ll have this.’ She almost snatched the glass of champagne, and swept, holding it, clear across the room to where Judge James was holding court in the centre of a little group of ladies.

***

‘I must say, Hyde —’ They were safe away at last, driving home through the warm darkness. ‘You might have warned me!’

‘About the house? I’m sorry, though mind you it made a much more convincing scene of it. And, besides, I’d hoped, until we got to Scarbrough’s, that it would not be necessary. But while you were telling the President your cock and bull story about true-blue Scotsmen, Scarbrough was asking me for a loan. I only hope I can let him have enough. You won’t mind, too much, being confined to Winchelsea for a while?’

‘You know I’ll love it. But, Hyde, the servants —’

He pressed her hand. ‘I knew you’d rise to that one. You should have seen your splendid look of indignation. Josephine herself could not have done it better. Of course we’ll take care of the servants, love. Besides, when the crisis is past, we will undoubtedly buy ourselves another town house, but something smaller, don’t you think, and a trifle less pretentious? I always felt —’ he looked up at the looming shadow of their house as he helped her to alight from the carriage — ‘that this one was more Josephine’s than mine. Besides,’ his hand was warm on her arm, ‘I have my eye on a double lot, a little further out of town, where there will be more room for the children to play.’

‘The? Hyde!’ But Moses was holding open the big front door. There was no time for anything more. Suddenly, she found herself grateful for the friendly throng of servants waiting up for them, and, best of all, Alice and Anne at the head of the stairs, waiting to help her out of her ball gown. ‘What an exhausting evening,’ she smiled, a little tremulously up at Hyde. ‘I’m worn to the bone.’

‘And no wonder.’ And then, for her alone as they mounted the curving stair, ‘No need to look so frightened, love. If I’ve waited four years for you, since I met Josephine, I can wait four more days.’

‘Four?’

‘It’s all fixed.’ He paused at the door of her boudoir, and Anne and Alice tactfully withdrew to the further room. ‘I talked to Mr. Kollock, the minister, this evening. The New Independent Presbyterian Church is to be dedicated on Sunday, you know, with Monroe and all the bigwigs there. It’s not finished, of course, but you won’t mind that, will you? We’re to stay on, after the congregation leaves. Judge James will give you to me. You’ll forgive me for not consulting you, but there was no time. I’m afraid you’ll have an odd enough honeymoon of it, my poor love, with all the junketings for the President. I don’t see how we can get out of the ball in Mr. Jay’s pavilion, still less the trip to Tybee on the
Savannah
. But the minute he leaves for Augusta, we’ll be off to Winchelsea.’

‘And Aunt Abigail?’

‘Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. For the moment, you’re tired out, and tomorrow is another long day.’ He laughed. ‘I have to close your account at the Planters’ Bank, remember. I got the necessary signatures from Josephine before she left. We’ll not be on speaking terms, tomorrow, you and I. First I close your bank account, then I carry you off, neck and crop, to Winchelsea and sell your town house over your head. What a brute I am, to be sure.’

‘Aren’t you just.’

He bent and kissed her, swift and hard, on the lips. ‘Good night, love. We’d best quarrel, I think, and keep apart. Sunday seems a thousand years off to me.’

‘Ma’am.’ Anne was waiting to put the emeralds away in their box. ‘There’s something Alice and I were wondering about.’

‘Yes? What now.’

‘Your name, ma’am. You surely won’t want to go on being called Josephine for ever?’

‘Oh dear,’ she put an exhausted hand to her brow. ‘How could I be so stupid? And what in the world will we do?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Alice robustly, beginning to unfasten the green dress. ‘But I’m sure as Sunday Mr. Hyde will think of something.’

‘Sunday!’ said Juliet.

She slept the clock round and was eating a belated breakfast in bed when Hyde tapped on her door. How strange it was. She had inured herself, over the last months, to their travesty of married life. Now, as if this was the first time, she felt the uncontrollable tide of colour flush her cheeks as he bent to kiss her, lightly, good morning. ‘You feel it too,’ he smiled down at her. ‘Strange, is it not?’

‘Darby and Joan,’ she managed.

‘Well, not precisely. Lord, I nearly frightened you away that time, did I not?’

‘Yes, I should have gone. Thank God I didn’t.’

‘Thank God indeed. But I’d have found you, somehow, once I knew I was free. And, talking of Josephine, there’s news of her this morning. Or rather of her faithful crew of Frenchmen.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes. It seems they got tired of waiting for her, and cut up a rumpus in Charleston. Half of them are safely lodged in the town gaol, and the rest have run for it. And of course they’re all talking nineteen to the dozen, naming her.’

‘As Madame de Joinville?’

‘Not a bit of it,’ cheerfully. ‘As Mrs. Purchis. Poor Josephine, I was afraid she would not make much of a conspirator. Isn’t it a fortunate thing she has that capable husband to look after her now?’

‘Yes, but Hyde, you mean —’

‘You’re in more disgrace than ever today, love. We’re going to have to throw ourselves on the President’s mercy, I think. Isn’t it a fortunate thing he’s right here in town?’

‘But, Hyde a—’

‘Don’t look so frightened, my darling. It’s not so bad as all that. After all, nothing has come of it. I’ve already seen Mr. Calhoun and explained the whole thing to him — how I discovered what you were doing just yesterday — That was really why we were late for Mr. Scarbrough’s party. I had already taken steps to buy in the
Liberty
and close your bank account. The sapphires, of course, you had given to that rascally crew of Frenchmen and we’ll see no more of them —’

‘But Mr. Scarbrough —’

‘I’ve had a word with him, too. And I’ve done something else. I hope you won’t mind it. I’ve announced that you are indisposed. You can see no one, go to none of the parties. In fact, I am being a brute of a husband and keeping you immured here, in disgrace.’

‘Oh, bless you, Hyde. You think of everything. You mean I really don’t have to see anyone, or tell any lies, all day?’

‘My poor darling, not even a tiny one. You are free till Sunday, when you will meet Mr. Monroe at the consecration ceremony, shed a guilty tear, if you can manage it, and be forgiven. Oh, and by the way, I am so furious with you, I am telling everyone that in future I intend to cut your entire connection with those Bonapartes. I won’t even call you “Josephine” but Juliet, instead, after my own mother.’

‘Hyde! Was she?’

‘Did you not know? And hers before her. And our daughter, next spring.’

‘Really, Hyde!’ Colouring more deeply than ever, she pushed ineffectively at the breakfast tray.

‘Really, Juliet,’ he picked it up. ‘Must we, seriously wait for Sunday?’

Acknowledgment

IT IS hard to know where to begin my thanks to all the Savannah friends who helped me with this book. But I think I should start, as the book did, in Mrs. A. J. Waring, Jr.’s library of Savanniana, where she bravely let me loose, and even allowed trans-Atlantic borrowing. Mrs. Lila M. Hawes of the Georgia Historical Society was kindness itself throughout, and actually had the painters’ dust-sheets removed from her library so that my sister (to whom I am also indebted) could check a point for me. Mrs. Prior of the South Carolina Historical Society helped me, at short notice, with a wealth of information from their magazine, and Mrs. Nancy Stevenson took time out from her own writing to show me over her splendid ‘Charleston Single’ house.

Miss Beth Lattimore of Historic Savannah took me round the wreck of the Scarborough house by torchlight. It is good to know that this beautiful house, where President Monroe stayed, is now in process of restoration, through the good offices of Historic Savannah, many of whose members showed me round their fine old houses and those of their friends. Judge Alexander A. Lawrence generously took time off from his more serious affairs to help me over a series of problems that stuck me, here in England.

As to books, Savannah and I have been lucky in her historians, and I was particularly fortunate in having Miss Isabelle Harrison of the Little House Bookshop to guide me among them.
Anchored
Yesterdays
by Mrs. Craig Barrow and Mrs. Malcolm Bell proved an historical novelist’s goldmine, and so were Malcolm Bell, Jr.’s
Savannah
Ahoy
! and Walter C. Hartridge’s edition of the
Mackay
Letters
. Mr. E. Merton Coulter’s two books,
Wormsloe
and
Georgia
,
A
Short
History
, were invaluable, while Mrs. Sieg kindly lent me her own copy of her article on the Jewish graveyard from the
Savannah
Morning
News
Magazine
.

But this is becoming a mountain of bibliography for a poor ha’porth of historical novel. I will spare you the rest, but must add, in case it should need saying, that Winchelsea is not Wormsloe, though I hope it may constitute some kind of inadequate tribute to the civilisation preserved there. And, finally, if by mischance I have happened to use, or misuse, any family name, I can only humbly apologise and say it was by accident, not design.

JANE AIKEN HODGE

If you enjoyed
All for Love
you might be interested in
Runaway Bride
by Jane Aiken Hodge, also published by Endeavour Press.

Extract from
Runaway Bride
by Jane Aiken Hodge

CHAPTER I

‘Mark my words, George, you must marry—and quickly.’ The Duchess hitched up her auburn wig which had, as usual, slid down over one bejewelled ear.

‘I fear you are right, ma’am,’ said her grandson gloomily as he bent down to offer her his enamelled snuff-box. The Honourable George Ferris—or, to give him his baptismal due, George Frederick William Edward Ernest Augustus Adolphus Ferris—was having a bad half-hour with his grandmother. According to his friends at Brooks’ Club there were only two people in the world that this formidable young man feared: one was the Duke of Wellington, the other, the Duchess of Lewes. Friend of Dr Johnson and confidante of Fox, she was indeed a grandmother to make a man tremble, particularly as he himself was set on a political career. It was she, of course, who had insisted on his being named after all the deplorable Royal Dukes, sons of George III, and had browbeaten them into resolving their differences for long enough to stand godfathers together at his christening. It was not, as she frequently pointed out, her fault that his royal godfathers had in fact done so little to advance his career.

The younger son of a duke’s spendthrift heir, George Ferris had his own way to make in the world. While his older brother made the Grand Tour as best he might in the intervals of the long war with France, George had been given his father’s unenthusiastic blessing, a small and spasmodic allowance, and introductions to Beau Brummell and Brooks’ Club. Luckily for him, his erratic old grandfather the Duke had finally gone mad in Trafalgar year and the Duchess had lost no time in immuring her husband in one of his smaller and more remote castles and taking control of his fortune. One of her first actions had been to buy a commission in the Blues for George, whom she much preferred to his dissolute elder brother.

George had thanked her warmly, packed his few possessions and joined his regiment in the Peninsula. Handsome in a blue-eyed, black-browed, frowning way; short-tempered, daredevil, a judge of horses and men, he had soon made his mark in the field and had been rebuked by the Duke himself for putting up his umbrella to keep off the rain while waiting to charge at Salamanca. Once noticed, he was not easily forgotten. Soon afterwards, he was taken on to the Duke’s staff where he distinguished himself by capturing an Eagle in the intervals of carrying despatches at Waterloo.

With peace at last secure, the army’s attractions had dwindled. He had sold out and persuaded his father to send him to Parliament as member for the family’s pocket borough of Cuckhaven. Once admitted to the House he had delighted that staunch old Whig his grandmother by the point and ferocity of his attacks on the Government, and was already being talked of as a rival to the colourless Ponsonby for the leadership of the Party.

‘But depend upon it, George,’ continued his astute grandmamma, taking a pinch of snuff and sneezing with gusto, ‘Bachelor’s chambers are a damned awkward rallying ground for a coterie. A political leader must have a house, and a house must have a mistress. With the right wife, you can put them all in the shade. Marry now, marry well and, above all, marry richly and who knows where you may find yourself when the King finally dies and Prinny’s friends come into their own at last. There’s not a leader among them: Ponsonby, Tierney...bah, you’re worth six of them. But marry, George, only marry...’

He looked down at her ruefully. ‘You’re mighty insistent, ma’am.’

‘I am mighty correct.’ The fierce old eyes softened as they gazed up at him. ‘George, it cannot be that you still wear the willow for that Ponsonby chit?’

He drew himself up and for a moment his eyes flashed, fierce as hers: ‘Lady Caroline Lamb will always have my heart.’

The old lady sighed. ‘To add to her collection? Or to offer, among other things, to Lord Byron? No, no,’ she put a delicate restraining hand on his arm, ‘I’ll not tease you, George, but if you have no heart to give, you still have a hand, and there’s many an heiress will take it, and glad to. What do you think of one of the Markham girls?’

‘As little as I can, ma’am, I assure you. Now spare me, I beg, the catalogue of this year’s possible misses, for I have a mind that if marry I must it shall be a girl of my own choosing.’

She sparkled up at him, arch as the brilliant girl who had once charmed Dr Johnson. ‘George, I declare you have someone in mind. Tell me quick, who is she? What is she like? Do I know her?’

He smiled down at her. ‘No, ma’am, she is, I apprehend, something of a country mouse, nor, to deal plainly with you, do I know her myself, but of her, I think, enough...’

‘More and more romantic,’ she twinkled at him. ‘Who is this paragon you would marry unseen?’

‘She is a Miss Purchas, ma’am. Jennifer Purchas.’

‘Hmmm,’ the old lady considered it. ‘A pretty name, for what that is worth. Let me see, Purchas...Ah, I have it: the Cornish Purchases, I collect. Bought the Sussex estate with their profits out of the South Sea Bubble. There’s an American branch—they spell it differently I believe. A good old Whig family and shrewd as well. He married...now let me see, there was something of a breeze over it: yes, of course, not a Miss Butts, but some other banker’s daughter. But she was produceable enough, I always understood. Died in childbirth, did she not?’

‘Ma’am you amaze me as always, and, as always, you are entirely in the right of it. Jennifer—it is a pretty name, is it not?—Jennifer was the child. She grew up under the guardianship of her father and his sister, and much the companion of my friends, her older brothers.’

‘Oh, there are brothers are there? I had quite forgot.’

‘Were, ma’am, not are. Both her brothers, and her father, were killed at Waterloo.’

She considered it, quiet for a moment. ‘They were always a military family, but, surely, George, that was excessive?’

‘Indeed, yes. Her father rejoined the army when his wife died. The sons must needs follow him—and now Jennifer is alone.’

‘George, I declare, you are in love with her name!’

‘So much the better if I am, for, I must tell you, I feel in honour bound to marry her.’

‘In honour bound? What absurdity is this?’

‘No absurdity, ma’am, but a very real duty. Let me explain. I was, as doubtless you recall, at Waterloo myself, attached to the Duke.’

The old eyes softened. ‘Strangely enough, George, I remember it very well. It was you who took the pains, on the very day of the battle, to send me news by the messenger who announced the victory to Lord Harrowby. But we were fortunate...most fortunate. All three Purchases were killed, you say?’

‘Yes, and worse than that.’

‘Worse?’

‘Yes, I apprehend, for Jennifer. It was this way, ma’am. Francis, the eldest, died in the first charge. “Damme,” said the Duke, “there goes one of my best young men.”’

‘’Twas a terrible day. I think I have grown too old for wars. But tell me of the other two.’

‘Her father was killed rallying his men at Hougomont. I came there with the Duke’s orders that they hold the farm if it cost every man of them. Purchas smiled at me. “Someone else will have to hold it,” he said, “but never fear, they will.” And died.’

He paused. ‘Well?’ she asked. ‘Naturally I am aware that Hougomont was held. But what of the third?’

‘Richard.’ His voice was quiet. ‘Richard was on the Duke’s staff with me, and many a night we made of it together.’

‘A wild young man?’

‘Wild enough for me. But not that day. I had to tell him of his father’s and brother’s deaths. “Damn,” he said, “that’s bad, George.” But we were interrupted. The Duke rode up. It was midday and he had had no news of Blücher. He looked at us both. I had my wound by then; it was a nothing, a scratch, but it bled most confoundedly.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Such language to a lady?’

‘I ask your pardon, ma’am. It is sometimes hard to remember you are a lady.’

She laughed outright. ‘I find it hard enough myself. But to your story. Your wound was bleeding...’

‘Yes. A damned awkward place...The Duke looked at me. “You have got yourself deucedly knocked up, Ferris, and your horse is blown. Purchas shall bring me news of Blücher. It should be a lively ride.” Richard saluted, finished his bottle and rode away. After that, we were busy for a time. It was some hours before I observed that Richard had not returned from his lively ride. The Duke had noticed it too. Our men were being badly mauled: he called me to his side and looked me over: “So,” he said, “you are presentable again. Very good. You will ride after Purchas and bring me news of Blücher without fail. Of Purchas, too, if you can do so without overmuch delay. Do not you get yourself killed. Good men are growing damnably scarce.”

‘I found Richard not half a mile away, under a hedge. There was nothing I could do for him. A cannon ball had done its business. He could just speak: “Finishing my errand, George? I wish you may speed better than I have. But I’ll not delay you. Only, George; one kindness,” he paused for breath, then went on: “My little sister, Jenny, George. She will be all alone. Father’s will cannot stand, since Francis died before him...No protection for Jenny,” he was gasping for breath now, “an heiress, and a damned bad hat of an uncle. Look after her, George.”

‘I promised, filled my flask with water for him, and left him.’

‘And you found Blücher?’

‘Naturally, ma’am, since I am here today. I would scarce have faced the Duke without. As for Blücher, he embraced me on both cheeks, and nearly suffocated me with his stink of gin and rhubarb.’

‘A barbarous concoction. And now, you would tell me that, because of your promise to a dying man, you feel in honour bound to marry this Jenny?’

‘How else can I look after her, ma’am?’

She smiled. ‘It is indeed a difficult task for a young man of thirty, is it not?’

‘Thirty-five,’ he corrected her.

‘Time indeed that you thought of marriage. But, forgive me, George, you do not seem to have hurried yourself overmuch. It is a year now since Waterloo. Who, pray, has been protecting your Jennifer?’

‘Not I, more shame to me. But you well know that I have only these last few days got my affairs into some sort of order. And she is but a child, seventeen at most.’

‘At seventeen, George, I was your father’s mother. I think you would do well to bestir yourself. Besides, what of the wicked uncle? Is he not in all likelihood at this very moment making ducks and drakes of her fortune?’

‘I earnestly hope not, ma’am. But if he is, I am informed he is well able to make restitution. He is her mother’s brother, a Gurning, one of the banker lot, as rich as Rothschild.’

‘What makes you think, then, that he’ll marry his rich ward to a younger son with, forgive me George, no prospects but of his own making and a certain something in expectation from a long-lived, bad-tempered old grandmother?’

The dark eyes, so like her own, flashed down on her. ‘A duke’s grandson, ma’am. Don’t forget my connections. The man’s not such a fool. He has, I am told, a puppy of a ward he’s mad to get into Parliament and some such ambition on his own part too. My father has three boroughs at his disposal. I expect no difficulty.’

‘You think, then, that your father will back you in this enterprise?’

‘I know it. No need to beat about the bush with you. My father is damned nearly in Queer Street since the peace and now with my brother’s debts to be paid before he can marry he’ll think himself advantaged if he can get me a fortune in exchange for one of the family seats.’

She sighed. ‘Indeed Henry has been most imprudent. A few thousands of debt are merely to be expected in an elder son but he, I collect, has not been so modest.’

‘Modesty, ma’am, was never Henry’s forte, as you well know. I can only regret that he has not chosen to have a few inexpensive vices.’

She frowned. ‘George, he is your elder brother.’

‘Yes, deeply to my chagrin, he is. No, no,’ he put a hand on hers, ‘do not think I grudge him the title, but his opportunities...and to see them so wasted.’

Once more she sighed. ‘Yes, I know it is hard. I told your father he gravely mistook when he made such a difference between you two boys, but he was always set on his own opinions, and so it was Oxford and the Grand Tour for Henry...’

‘And nothing for me,’ he interrupted her, ‘if you had not stepped into the breach and paid my shot at Cambridge. I’ll never forget it, nor the gift of my commission. All I am I owe to you.’

She smiled at him fondly. ‘And a most satisfactory hobby you have proved. But never thank me till you are First Minister. I shall dearly love to be grandmother to the power before the throne.’

He laughed. ‘I might have known you had your own axe to grind. Well, let me but make this marriage, set up my London house, and we shall see...’

She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘And the girl, George, what of her? Perhaps she may have a mind to wed someone else.’

He showed his surprise. ‘The girl, ma’am? I hope she knows a man when she sees one.’

She smiled her wise old smile: ‘So do I, George, so do I...’