Belgravia (5 page)

She reached the landing and made her way into another predictably large drawing room, this one lined in pale blue damask, with a high painted ceiling and gilded doors. A great many women sat about on chairs and sofas and ottomans, balancing plates and cups and frequently losing control of both. A smattering of gentlemen, point-device in their outfits and obviously creatures of leisure, sat gossiping among the ladies. One looked up at her entrance in recognition, but Anne saw an empty chair at the edge of the gathering and made for it, passing an old lady who started to lunge for a sandwich plate that was sliding away from her and down her voluminous skirts when Anne caught it. The stranger beamed. “Well saved.” She took a bite. “It is not that I dislike a light nuncheon of cakes and tea to carry one through to dinner, but why can’t we sit at a table?”

Anne had reached her chair and, given her neighbor’s relatively friendly opening, considered herself entitled to sit upon it. “I think the point is that one isn’t trapped. We can all move about and talk to whom we like.”

“Well, I like to talk to you.”

Their rather anxious hostess hurried over. “Mrs. Trenchard, how kind of you to look in.” It did not sound as if Anne was expected to stay very long, but this was not bad news as far as Anne was concerned.

“I’m delighted to be here.”

“Aren’t you going to introduce us?” This came from the old lady Anne had rescued, but the Duchess showed a marked reluctance to carry out her duties. Then, with a crisp smile, she realized she had to.

“May I present Mrs. James Trenchard.” Anne nodded and waited. “The Dowager Duchess of Richmond.” She said the name with tremendous finality, as if that must bring all reasonable conjecture on the subject to an end. There was a silence. She looked to Anne for a suitably overawed response, but the name had given her guest something of a shock, if a pang of nostalgia and sadness can
be called a shock. Before Anne could make any observation that might rescue the moment, their hostess was gushing on. “Now you must let me introduce you to Mrs. Carver and Mrs. Shute.” Clearly she had corralled a section of more obscure ladies whom she intended to keep out of the hair of the great and the good. But the old lady was not having it.

“Don’t snatch her away yet. I know Mrs. Trenchard.” The old lady screwed up her features in concentration as she studied the face opposite.

Anne nodded. “You have a wonderful memory, Duchess, since I would have thought I was changed past all recognition, but you’re right. We have met. I attended your ball. In Brussels, before Waterloo.”

The Duchess of Bedford was astonished. “You were at the famous ball, Mrs. Trenchard?”

“I was.”

“But I thought you had only lately—” She stopped herself just in time. “I must see if everyone has what they want. Please excuse me.” She hurried away, leaving the other two to examine each other more carefully. At last the old Duchess spoke. “I remember you well.”

“I’m impressed, if you do.”

“Of course, we didn’t really know each other, did we?” In the wrinkled face before her, Anne could still see the traces of the queen of Brussels, who had ordered things just as she saw fit.

“No, we didn’t. My husband and I were wished upon you, and I thought it very kind that we were allowed in.”

“I remember. My late nephew was in love with your daughter.”

Anne nodded. “He may have been. At least, she was in love with him.”

“No, I think he was. I certainly thought so at the time. The Duke and I had a great discussion about it, after the ball was over.”

“I’m sure you did.” They both knew what they were talking about, these two, but what was the point in raking it up now?

“We should leave the subject. My sister’s over there. It will unsettle her, even after so many years.” Anne looked across the
room to see a stately figure of a woman, dressed in a frock of violet lace over gray silk, who did not look much older than Anne herself. “There is less than ten years between us, which is surprising, I know.”

“Did you ever tell her about Sophia?”

“It’s all so long ago. What does it matter now? Our concerns died with him.” She paused, realizing she had given herself away. “Where is your beautiful daughter now? For you see, I recall she was a beauty. What became of her?”

Anne winced inside. The question still hurt every time. “Like Lord Bellasis, Sophia is dead.” She always used a brisk and efficient-sounding tone to impart this information, in an attempt to avoid the sentimentality that her words usually provoked. “Not many months after the ball.”

“So she never married?”

“No. She never married.”

“I’m sorry. Funnily enough, I can remember her quite clearly. Do you have other children?”

“Oh yes. A son, Oliver, but…” It was Anne’s turn to give herself away.

“Sophia was the child of your heart.”

Anne sighed. It never got easier, no matter how many years had passed. “I know one is always supposed to support the fiction that we love all our children equally, but I find it hard.”

The Duchess cackled. “I don’t even try. I am very fond of some of my children, on reasonably good terms with most of the rest, but I have two that I positively dislike.”

“How many are there?”

“Fourteen.”

Anne smiled. “Heavens. So the Richmond dukedom is safe.” The old Duchess laughed again. But she took Anne’s hand and squeezed it. Funnily enough, Anne did not resent her. They had both played a part, according to their own lights, in that long-ago story. “I remember some of your daughters that night. One of them seemed to be a great favorite of the Duke of Wellington.”

“She still is. Georgiana. She’s Lady de Ros now, but if he hadn’t
already been married, I doubt he’d have stood a chance. I must go. I’ve been here too long and I will pay for it.” She got to her feet with some difficulty, making heavy use of her stick. “I have enjoyed our talk, Mrs. Trenchard, a nice reminder of more exciting times. But I suppose this is the advantage of the pick-up, put-down tea. We may go when we want.” She had something more to say before she left. “I wish you and your family well, my dear. Whatever sides we may once have been on.”

“I say the same to you, Duchess.” Anne had risen, and she stood watching as the ancient peeress made her careful way to the door. She looked around. There were women here she knew, some of whom nodded in her direction with a show of politeness, but she also knew the limits of their interest and made no attempt to take advantage of it. She smiled back without making a move to join them. The large drawing room opened into a smaller one, hung with pale gray damask, and beyond was a picture gallery, or rather a room for displaying pictures. Anne strolled into it, admiring the paintings on show. There was a fine Turner hanging over the marble chimneypiece. She wondered idly how long she must stay when a voice startled her.

“You had a great deal to say to my sister.” She turned to find the woman the Duchess had pointed out as the mother of Lord Bellasis. Anne wondered if she had imagined this moment. Probably. The Countess of Brockenhurst stood, holding a cup of tea resting in a matching saucer. “And now I think I may know why. Our hostess tells me you were at the famous ball.”

“I was, Lady Brockenhurst.”

“You have the advantage of me.” Lady Brockenhurst had made her way to a group of chairs standing empty near a large window looking out over the leafy garden of Belgrave Square. Anne could see a nursemaid with her two charges playing sedately on the central lawn. “Will you tell me your name, since there is no one here to make the introduction?”

“I am Mrs. Trenchard. Mrs. James Trenchard.”

The Countess stared at her. “I was right, then. It is you.”

“I’m very flattered if you’ve heard of me.”

“Certainly I have.” She gave no clue as to whether this was a good thing or a bad. A footman arrived with a plate of tiny egg sandwiches. “I’m afraid these are too delicious to resist,” said Lady Brockenhurst as she took three and a little plate to carry them. “I find it strange to eat at this time, don’t you? I suppose we will still want our dinner when it comes.” Anne smiled but said nothing. She had a sense that she was to be questioned, and she was not wrong. “Tell me about the ball.”

“Surely you must have talked of it enough with the Duchess?”

But Lady Brockenhurst was not to be deflected. “Why were you in Brussels? How did you know my sister and her husband?”

“We didn’t. Not in that way. Mr. Trenchard was the Duke of Wellington’s head of supplies. He knew the Duke of Richmond a little in his capacity as chief of the defense of Brussels, but that is all.”

“Forgive me, my dear, but it does not entirely explain your presence at his wife’s reception.” The Countess of Brockenhurst had clearly been a very pretty woman, when her gray hair was still blonde and her lined skin smooth. She had a catlike face with small, vivid features, defined and alert, a cupid’s bow of a mouth and a sharp, pizzicato manner of speaking that must have seemed very beguiling in her youth. She was not unlike her sister, and she had the same imperious air, but there was a sorrow behind her blue-gray eyes that made her both more sympathetic and yet more distant than the Duchess of Richmond. Anne, of course, knew the reason for her grief but was naturally reluctant to refer to it. “I’m curious. I had always heard tell of you both as the Duke of Wellington’s victualler and his wife. Seeing you here, I wondered if I was misinformed and your circumstance was rather different from the version I’d been given.”

This was rude and insulting, and Anne was well aware she should be offended. Anyone else would have been. But was Lady Brockenhurst wrong? “No. The report was accurate enough. It was strange we were among the guests that night in 1815, but our life has changed in the interim. Things have gone well for Mr. Trenchard since the war ended.”

“Obviously. Is he still supplying foodstuffs to his customers? He must be very good at it.”

Anne wasn’t sure how much more of this she was expected to put up with. “No, he left that and went into partnership with Mr. Cubitt and his brother. When we returned from Brussels, after the battle, the Cubitts needed to find investors, and Mr. Trenchard decided to help them.”

“The great Mr. Thomas Cubitt? Heavens. I assume he was no longer a ship’s carpenter by that stage?”

Anne decided to let this play itself out. “He was in development by then, and he and his brother, William, were raising funds to build the London Institution in Finsbury Circus when they met Mr. Trenchard. He offered to help and they went into business together.”

“I remember when it opened. We thought it magnificent.” Was she smirking? It was hard to tell if Lady Brockenhurst was genuinely impressed or was somehow toying with Anne for her own purposes.

“After that, they worked together on the new Tavistock Square—”

“For the father-in-law of our hostess.”

“There were a few of them, as it happens, but the late Duke of Bedford was the main investor, yes.”

Lady Brockenhurst nodded. “I remember well that was a great success. And then I suppose Belgravia followed for the Marquess of Westminster, who must be richer than Croesus, thanks to the Cubitts, and, I see now, your husband. How well things have gone for you. I expect you’re tired of houses such as this. Mr. Trenchard has clearly been responsible for so many of them.”

“It’s nice to see the places lived in, when the scaffolding and dust have gone.” Anne was trying to make the conversation more normal, but Lady Brockenhurst was having none of it.

“What a story,” she said. “You are a creature of the New Age, Mrs. Trenchard.” She laughed for a moment and then remembered herself. “I hope I don’t offend you.”

“Not in the least.” Anne was fully aware she was being provoked,
presumably because Lady Brockenhurst knew all about her son’s dalliance with Sophia. There could be no other reason. Anne decided to bring matters to a head and wrong-foot her questioner. “You’re right that Mr. Trenchard’s later triumphs do not explain our presence at the ball that night. An army victualler does not usually have the chance to write his name on a duchess’s dance card, but we were friendly with a favorite of your sister’s and he contrived to get us invited. It seems shameless, but a city on the brink of war is not governed by quite the same rules as a Mayfair drawing room in peacetime.”

“I’m sure it is not. Who was this favorite? Might I have known him?”

Anne was almost relieved that at last they had reached their destination. Even so, she was unsure quite how to manage it.

“Come, Mrs. Trenchard, don’t be bashful. Please.”

There was no point in lying, since clearly Lady Brockenhurst was fully aware of what she was going to say. “You knew him very well. It was Lord Bellasis.”

The name hung in the air between them like a ghostly dagger in a fable. It could never be said that Lady Brockenhurst lost her composure, since she would not lose that before she breathed her last, but she had not quite prepared for the sound of his name being spoken aloud by this woman whom she knew so well in her imaginings but not at all in fact. She needed a moment to catch her breath. There was a silence as she slowly sipped her tea. Anne felt a sudden surge of pity for this sad, cold woman, as unbending with herself as with anyone else. “Lady Brockenhurst—”

“Did you know my son well?”

Anne nodded. “In truth—”

At this moment their hostess arrived. “Mrs. Trenchard, would you like—”

“Forgive me, my dear, but Mrs. Trenchard and I are talking.” The dismissal could not have been more final if the Duchess had been a naughty housemaid still brushing up the cinders of a fire when the family returned to the room after dinner. Without a word, she simply nodded and withdrew. Lady Brockenhurst waited until they were alone again. “You were saying?”

“Only that my daughter knew Lord Bellasis better than we did. Brussels was quite a hothouse at that time, filled with young officers and the daughters of many of the older commanders. As well as the men and women who had come out from London to join in the fun.”

“Like my sister and her husband.”

“Exactly. I suppose, looking back, there was a sense that nobody knew what was coming: the triumph of Napoleon, the enslavement of England, or the reverse and a British victory. It sounds wrong, but the uncertainty created an atmosphere that was heady and exciting.”