Belgravia (48 page)

Reggie continued. For a man of twenty, he really did have authority, and Maria felt proud to call him her brother. “I will listen to what he has to say, and, Mama, I cannot promise to support your stance. If the man is a gentleman, then I suggest we should talk instead about real conditions, real agreements, by which he would protect Maria’s future and earn the right to join our family.”

Corinne threw back her head in disgust. “So you are defeated.”

Reggie was a match for her. “I am realistic. If Maria will not marry any other man, then let us at least try to see if we can come to terms with this one. In the end, Mama, I’m afraid your choice is going to be simple. You must decide whether you wish to get on with your children or live at war with them. Now, shall we go down?”

Susan Trenchard was checking her rooms. Everything they were taking was packed except for the clothes and things she would need on the journey. They were moving to Somerset. Anne had advised against traveling so far much later in the pregnancy, and so they had decided to go now. Susan did not relish it, either the journey or their future in the country, but she accepted both. They had a job ahead of them, to make the house and the estate their own, and she would like to get the nurseries into a respectable condition, even if superstition prevented her from redecorating them before the birth of the child. The only thing that concerned her was Oliver. True to their agreement, they had never mentioned the paternity of the baby since that night, and nor did she intend to, ever again. But he was still preoccupied, even maudlin, and she wondered if he was coming to regret his decision to go along with her plans. He could be difficult, as she knew well enough, and she prayed that he was not getting ready to be difficult now.

One case stood open in the corner, to take whatever was left. The rest had been carried out to the vast traveling carriage that had made its way up from Somerset and waited now in the mews
behind the house. A hall boy would guard it overnight, and then they would leave as soon as they had breakfasted. Unlike her mother-in-law, she intended to make it to Glanville in two days, and for that they needed an early start. As she looked at the clothes she had retained for traveling, the door opened and Oliver came in.

“Are you ready to go down?”

She nodded. She was wearing a simple gray dress, which would be useful for the night they must spend at the coaching inn on the way. It was quite becoming but not as formal as James usually demanded. “I know this isn’t very smart, but I’ve kept a silver necklace out that may raise its rank a bit. Speer took it down to clean, and she’ll be back in a moment.”

Oliver was hardly listening. He nodded without comment, glancing around the room. “Will you miss London?”

“We’ll be back for the Season.” She spoke happily, because that was what she had decided. To be a happy wife from here on in.

“It’s a long way off.” But Oliver was not sneering or angry or even drunk; he sounded more wistful. Maybe he was worried for her. He slumped into a chair near the fire, glancing around him as if he were looking for something, but she could not guess what it might be.

She smiled. “I wish you’d tell me what’s wrong,” she said.

He did not deny it, which confirmed that something was amiss. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

But the door opened and the maid returned, holding the filigree necklace Susan had spoken of, and in another moment it had been fastened around her mistress’s neck. Susan and Oliver were ready to descend.

Charles Pope was torn. He’d only recently welcomed his mother to London and installed her in the rooms he had taken for them both in High Holborn. She’d been in the City for less than a week, and, although she professed excitement at this new turn her life had taken, she was also nervous to find herself in the rattle and
clatter of a modern city after a lifetime in a rural village. He felt he should go home and see to her comfort, for a few more days at least, but instead he stared at the note in his hand. It had been delivered not much more than an hour earlier.

Dear Mr. Pope,

I wonder if you will indulge me with your company this evening. Very possibly not, after the last time we met, when I allowed my anger to overtake my manners. But I believe it would add greatly to the happiness of a man we both hold dear if we could manage to settle our differences. I am sure they are of my making and not yours, but I would take it as a great compliment if you would indulge me in this. I will be at the Black Raven on Allhallows Lane at eleven. I cannot get there sooner as I have committed myself elsewhere, but I would prefer to get things settled sooner rather than later.

Yours, Oliver Trenchard

Charles had read it several times by this point. The letter was undated and did not bear an address, but he had no reason to question its authenticity. James had shown him some notes Oliver had submitted on the Isle of Dogs development and the writing certainly looked genuine. And he knew only too well that he had caused difficulties between James and his son. It would be a good thing if they could move past their troubles, since it was a poor return, after all James had done for him, to make trouble in the family. For a moment he thought he might carry the letter to James’s house in Eaton Square, but then wouldn’t that be defeating the object? To call James’s attention to the quarrel before there was a solution? He did not know the public house named in the message, but he was familiar with Allhallows Lane, a narrow alleyway not far from Bishopsgate on the river’s edge and walkable from his office. Why must it be so late? If Oliver was busy that evening, why not just leave it for another day? But then, if he objected to the time, might it not be interpreted as a refusal
to patch things up, when the truth was that he wanted nothing more?

In the end, he decided to walk back to his rooms, settle his mother, eat something with her and, after that, keep the appointment. She would retire to bed as soon as he left, if not before, and there was both a landlady and his own servant to keep an eye on her. With that in mind, he called for his coat.

Maria, her brother, and her mother had spoken of little that was contentious at dinner. They were served by the butler and the solitary footman and Corinne did not care to advertise her family’s difficulties to the servants. So they had discussed Reggie’s plans for Balligrey and gossiped about their friends and relations in Ireland until it was almost possible to forget that Maria and her mother were engaged in a struggle that could only end in victory for one of them. “You’re very secretive about your own life,” said Maria playfully. “Is there anything you ought to tell us?”

Reggie smiled as he reached for his glass. “Experience has taught me to keep my cards close to my chest.”

“That sounds promising. Doesn’t it, Mama?”

But Lady Templemore was not prepared to be drawn into merry banter when she had such heavy thoughts weighing on her mind. “I’m sure Reggie will tell us when he’s ready,” she said, nodding to the footman that they had finished. The man stepped in to remove the plates.

“I don’t want to wait,” said Maria, but she did not succeed in getting much more out of her brother. Only that he “might” have found the daughter of some friends of their parents very “congenial,” and it was “possible” that something could come of it.

“If her parents really are old friends, then that in itself is balm to this wounded soul,” said Corinne when the servants were momentarily out of the room, but she did not attempt to elaborate.

Only later, when they were back in the drawing room and the servants had left them, did she speak to any purpose. “Very well,” she said.

Maria was taken unawares, halfway through pouring a cup of coffee for herself. She looked up. “Very well what?”

“I will wait for Reggie’s verdict. If he likes your Mr. Pope, if he approves the match, then I will try to follow suit. He is the head of the family now. It is he who will carry the burden of this man as a brother-in-law. I will be dead soon, so what does my opinion matter?” She sat back on the sofa with a sigh, suggesting a vaguely infirm condition, and picked up her fan from the table by her elbow.

For a moment, neither Maria nor Reggie moved. Then the girl threw herself on her knees before her mother and, seizing her hands, began to kiss them as tears coursed down her cheeks. “Thank you, dearest, most darling Mama. Thank you. You won’t regret it.”

“I am regretting it
now
,” said Lady Templemore. “But I cannot fight both my children. I am too weak. I will try my best to like him, this man who has stolen my daughter’s future.”

Maria looked up at her. “He hasn’t stolen it, Mama. I have given him my future quite freely.” At least the mother did not pull her hands away, letting them rest in her daughter’s, and although she shed a few tears that night as she lay in bed, over the loss of the paradise she had dreamed of, still, all things considered, Corinne Templemore preferred to be on good terms rather than bad when it came to her children. They had been down a difficult, rocky path together while their father was alive, and it did not suit her to fight with them now.

The fruit had come in, arranged on a silver epergne with little baskets held around a central bowl of roses all filled with plums and grapes and nectarines, glistening in the light of the candelabra at either end of the table. It looked like something from a painting by Caravaggio, thought Anne. Mrs. Babbage could be quite artistic when she put her mind to it. She had ordered a good dinner to send Oliver and Susan on their way, and, to be honest, she was pleased that Susan had somehow brought her son around. Anne
intended to abide by the agreement and never mention the child’s paternity again. For a second she had thought of telling Caroline Brockenhurst that now
all
of Anne’s grandchildren would have Bellasis blood, but she knew that if she told even one person, eventually James would hear, and that she did not want. So Susan’s secret was safe with her, and Anne was glad. She wasn’t exactly fond of her daughter-in-law, but she thought Susan clever and competent when she put her mind to anything, and this latest fright, this brush with scandal, seemed to have brought her out of the selfish mist she moved around in and made her engage with the practicalities of their new life. Dr. Johnson wrote that if a man knows he is to be hanged the following morning, it concentrates the mind wonderfully, and maybe the same could be said of the threat of ruin. Anne was sorry to have surrendered Glanville. She would go there for visits, perhaps not much less than she did already, but it would no longer be her kingdom. Queen Susan would henceforth rule. Still, she knew it was a sacrifice worth making, to allow her son to live his own life instead of his father’s.

But when Anne looked down the table at her son, she realized that something still appeared to be troubling Oliver. She’d tried once or twice over the past few days to ask him what it might be, but with no success. He’d answered her inquiries, insisting that there was nothing amiss, but still…

“Have you seen Mr. Pope lately, Father?” Oliver’s words were a surprise, since they all knew he had no love for Charles Pope and would normally have preferred to steer clear of the subject. As far as Anne and James knew, he still had no idea of Charles’s true identity, as James felt it only right that Charles should learn it first, or at least no later than everyone else. He was, of course, quite ignorant of Susan’s role in the story, and Anne was not going to disabuse him. So she was content that Oliver should find out once Charles, Lord Brockenhurst and the Templemores had been told at dinner the following evening.

After pausing a moment to get over the strangeness of the question, James looked at his son. “What do you mean, ‘lately’?”

“In the past week.” Oliver was eating a peach and some of the juice dribbled down his chin. Susan noticed it and felt her jaw tightening with irritation, but she forced herself to let it go. If he wanted to have juice on his chin, then so be it. It was his chin, after all.

“No,” said James. “He’s moved lodgings to have some more space for his mother—” He caught Anne’s glance and corrected himself. “For Mrs. Pope, who is coming to live with him. He knew he would need a while to settle her in.”

Oliver nodded. “Do you know where those lodgings are?”

James shook his head as he began to peel a peach, puzzled as to where this conversation might be leading. “Somewhere in Holborn, I think. Why?”

“No reason,” his son replied. Anne caught Billy glancing at Oliver in curiosity until he saw her watching him and blushed. She would have to call him Watson now that he was the butler. They all would.

“I think there is a reason.” James’s voice had an edge to it, and Anne supposed it was because he knew he would have to defend Charles against Oliver’s criticism. But the younger man didn’t seem aggressive or angry or even rude. If she’d had to put a name to his mood, she would have said he was worried. “Oliver, can you come with me?” James threw down his fruit knife and stood, discarding his crumpled napkin on the table. He led the way across the hall to the library.

They walked in silence, but once they were there James shut the door and spoke. “Now, what is going on? Why are you preoccupied, and what has this to do with Charles Pope?”

In a way, now the question had come, it was a relief for Oliver to unburden himself. How he’d gone to the Horse and Groom hot with anger; how John Bellasis had found him there. “He knew I was in a rage about Pope, though I don’t know how, and he started to question me. He was curious about the man, and, as we know, Pope is a great favorite with Mr. Bellasis’s aunt. Perhaps he was jealous. I know I was.”

“But what happened? What did he do? What did you do?” Anxious for something to occupy his hands, James seized the poker and began to stir the dying fire back into life.

Oliver did not speak at once. He tried to think of ways to make what he had to say sound less serious. But he could not. “He said he wanted to teach Pope a lesson.”

“What sort of lesson?”

“I don’t know. I was pretty drunk before he arrived. And I was angry with Pope myself.”