Legendary Lover (33 page)

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Startled, she looked at him in mild bewilderment. "That sounds slightly pragmatic."

"Sorry. I haven't gotten used to the idea of babies yet."

"I, on the other hand, often see babies born at the hospital."

"Really," he said, clearly uneasy with the subject.

"Although I've never considered a child of my own."

"If you'd rather not," he quickly interjected.

She gently squeezed his fingers. "I'd like to very much."

"Really?" he said again in an altogether different tone. "Are you sure?"

"As sure as I am that I love you."

"I like the sound of that," he murmured, his voice husky and low.

She turned her ear to him in teasing response.

"I love you more."

"Then everything's perfect."

"Greedy minx.
You always want more."

"Surely not a surprise to you."

"On the contrary, it's one of my greatest pleasures."

"Happy?" she whispered.

He nodded, suddenly struck with the full glory of unalloyed joy. "I never knew."

"Nor did
I
, not about this kind of bliss. Thank you for coming."

"Thank Peggy."

"I will. She loves you, too."

"I'm a very lucky man."

And he was. Even those most cynical at first over the marriage of the notorious Lord
Redvers
had to agree.

He was indeed lucky in love.

osao

NOTES

i. See page 1. Exhibitions in themselves were nothing new. Trade fairs had been held in Europe for centuries; Paris had been presenting an Industrial Exhibition every five years since the early nineteenth century; Ireland had been displaying Irish agriculture, arts, and manufactures every third year since 1829; and England had held its first exhibition of Art Manufactures in 1847, with successive ones in 1848 and 1849. But the Great Exhibition of 1851 was the first international rather than national exhibition.

As Henry Cole notes with typical Victorian superlative and grandiosity, "The history of the world, I venture to say, records no event comparable in its promotion of human industry, with that of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations in 1851. A great people invited all civilized nations to a festival, to bring into comparison the works of human skill." (Gibbs-Smith, Charles.
The Great Exhibition of 1851.)

The organization of this giant enterprise, the inclusion of every important type of manufacture, its appeal to all classes, the stimulation of trade, the creation of a new excursion style of travel, the educational benefit, and not least the profit of 186,000 pounds when the exhibition was over made it a historic achievement.

The building, entirely of glass over an iron framework,

2QO

enclosed
a space of eighteen acres. It was 1,848 feet long and 456 feet wide; the height of the nave was 63 feet, the transept 108 feet—tall enough to cover the three full-grown elm trees that had been left to grow inside. On opening day, May 1, 1851, half a million people ->
aited
in Hyde Park to see the Queen officially open the exhibition. To preserve order on the occasion, only season ticket holders were admitted to the building. Twenty-five thousand men and women packed the aisles and galleries of the Crystal Palace. In the words of
The Times
the next day: "There was yesterday witnessed a sight the like of which has never happened before and which in the nature of things can never be repeated. They who were
so
fortunate as to see it hardly knew what most to admire, or in what form to clothe the sense of wonder and even of mystery which struggled within them. The edifice, the treasures of art collected therein, the assemblage and the solemnity of the occasion, all conspired to suggest something even more than sense could scan, or imagination attain." The article goes on with the sublime self-glorification that placed an Englishman in the center of the universe: ". . . Some were most reminded of that day when all ages and climes shall be gathered round the Throne of their Maker; there was so much that seemed accidental, and yet had a meaning, that no one could be content with simply what he saw."

In this magnificent Crystal Palace that awed on countless levels, the exhibitors numbered 13,937 (British Isles and Empire 7,381; foreign 6,556). There were over 100,000 exhibits. In the period the exhibition was open to the public, May 1 to October 11, 1851, the total number of visitors was 6,039,195 with the average daily attendance 42,831. The building was taken down during the summer of 1852

291

and
rebuilt in a modified form at
Sydenham
, where it remained until it burnt to the ground on November 30, 1936.

2. See
Dage
20. In 1851, dueling was illegal in both France
anu
England, although duels often took place. Should a participant not be of lofty enough social status, he would more likely
favd
himself on
ttial
for murder if his opponent died. In 1808, for instance, a Major Campbell was hanged for killing a Captain Boyd over an argument concerning the correct way of giving a command. At the time a writer observed that the catastrophe would leave a salutary lesson to mankind.

However, the following year, Lord
Castlereagh
, the Secretary of War, sent a challenge to Canning, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and a duel was fought at Putney Heath. Canning was wounded and the encounter terminated. The Duke of Wellington and the Earl of
Winchelsea
fought a duel in 1829. Another notable duel was between the Earl of Cardigan and Captain
Tuckett
in 1840, and the impunity with which Cardigan and the two seconds flouted the law resulted in highly critical public opinion concerning the institution of dueling. Two more well-known fatal duels in 1841 and 1843 led to the formation of the Anti-Dueling Association, and the Queen and her government became involved. The chief result was publication by the War Office of articles forbidding dueling, and judges and juries became more determined to convict duelists of murder-

Nevertheless, the practice continued. Even the Prince of Wales was involved in the illegal activity, offering a challenge to Lord Randolph Churchill in 1876 over the
Aylesford
Scandal, asking him to name his seconds and

292

meet
him with pistols at some convenient spot in France. Duelists often found it prudent to go abroad after 1844 to fight their duels, or at least flee to the continent for a time until the scandal subsided. Not until the close of the nineteenth century did dueling virtually disappear from the
cul-tural
scene.

3.
    
See page 23. Considerable ambiguity exists over the wearing of drawers in the nineteenth century. Although drawers were for sale as indicated by ads in ladies' publications early in the century, their use was not universal until much later. One of my favorite observations is that of King Victor Emmanuel visiting the court of Napoleon HI in 1855—at the height of the wide-skirted caged crinoline fashions. Following a number of the Empress's ladies-in-waiting up a flight of stairs, he had a clear view of their bottoms under the tipped cages of their skirts. And he remarked that he was delighted to see the gates of paradise were always open. First-person accounts are always enlightening in terms of dating fashion. In
The History of Underclothes
by C. Willett and
Phillis
Cunnington
, in the chapter covering 1857-66, the authors mention, "If drawers are worn they should be trimmed with frills or insertion"; the "if" is indicative of their irregular use. In general, too, the French were less prudish and constrained about their bodies than the English, so I'm assuming Venus
Duras
would be sans drawers at this time.

4.
    
See page 27. The condom as a birth control device emerged in wide usage only after the vulcanization of rubber in 1844.

5.
    
See page 187. The Derby run on Wednesday, May 21, 1851, is wonderfully described in the May 24, 1851,

293

issue
of the Illustrated
London News.
It's fascinating to see and feel and read the same edition of the magazine that contemporaries of the event held in their hands. The pages are yellowed, the engraved illustrations fabulously detailed and numerous, the atmosphere and sense of place striking. The events in my story mirror those that actually took place on that day so long ago, in terms of weather, horses, spectators, and the actual race.

6. See page 192. There really was a man who won seventy thousand pounds on the Derby race that year, the equivalent today of 4,200,000 U.S. dollars. According to the
Illustrated London News,
he was Sir Joseph Hawley, owner of
Teddington
, the actual winner of the Derby. Ted-
dington
was a chestnut horse, bred in 1848 by Mr. Tomlin-son. His sire was Orlando, winner of the Derby in 1844-The engraving in the
Illustrated London News
portrays a lean, beautiful, gleaming thoroughbred with his jockey up.