Now Face to Face (32 page)

A servant stood silently in a doorway. Tony stood. “Do you include yourself in that?”

“Of course.” And then, surprising Tony, Carlyle said, “Call upon me whenever you wish. I better than anyone understand betrayal, and friendship.”

In the private apartments of the palace, a Turkish soldier who was one of the King’s personal attendants—the King was known, and not belovedly, as the gentleman who kept two Turks—bowed to Tony and opened a door inset into a paneled wall. For a moment, Tony heard the sound of a woman singing—she had a pleasing voice—and the high, sharp notes of a harpsichord. Through the door he was able to obtain a quick glimpse of royal domesticity. A young woman, one of the Duchess of Kendall’s nieces, sang like a human songbird to the composer Handel, who stood with her at the harpsichord. Kendall herself, jewels blazing around her thin arms and neck, stood by an enormous bird cage, its shape a duplicate of the Tudor gatehouse of this palace. The birds inside it were singing also.

Tony just caught the shape of the Duchess’s mouth saying, “Listen.” The man to whom she spoke was Robert Walpole. The King walked forward through the door; with him was his dwarf, a court jester, brought from Hanover. That was another thing everyone mocked, that the Hanoverians were so barbaric they still had court jesters. The door closed again behind them. Tony could still hear the muted music rise and fall, the voice and harpsichord point and counterpoint.

“Lovely music, Your Majesty,” he said, bowing.

His heart was beating like a drum to summon soldiers to battle. There was every possibility that the King would ask him to give up his place as one of the gentlemen who served the Prince of Wales. That would be the closest thing to punishment Tony could expect, since Masham did not admit to a duel, and neither did he, and therefore, there had not been one. There was only a broadsheet about one.

“Lovely music from a lovely young woman.”

The King spoke in French. The gentleman from Hanover, as the King was called when someone wanted to insult him, had a long nose and jowly cheeks, both objects of much derision in the news sheets. But his eyes, quite pale, were shrewd and not unkind.

“Your conduct…” The King had soldiered with Tony’s grandfather, with Marlborough and Prince Eugene and William of Orange against the mighty ambitions of France’s Louis XIV. “Your conduct distresses us. I think it would distress your grandfather. He was an honorable man, more than that, he was a grand seigneur.”

That phrase signified something more than “gentleman.” It meant someone who was noble in the largest sense, in every aspect of his conduct, upholding strictly the rules of his class and birth, acting at all times as he should, with honor and decorum. Tony felt blood rushing to his face. He kept his eyes upon the King’s shoes, with their blunt, square toes, their diamond-and-silver buckles, their red heels—the sign of old men, now, those red heels.

“He is young.”

The King spoke to the dwarf, as if Tony were not there. “Such is youth. Impulsive. Fiery. My dear Lord Devane’s family has suffered enough. Tell him so. Tell him I require prudence from him. Tell him that he does the lady in question no good by misbehaving. Ask him if she has arrived in the colony. Ask him if there is any word from her. Tell him I sent her a message of goodwill. Tell him that.”

“There is no word,” Tony said.

“I will see the fine against her estate reduced one day, Tamworth. But not now, when there is a certain broadsheet on the streets that howls of my greed, that calls those whom I love bawd and parasite. You English are cruel. We have been dealing with the South Sea Bubble for over a year, and now we must press on to other things. Yet this rumor of a duel has been used by unscrupulous men to raise old matters again, to bring divisions among us. People are reminded once more of what they believe they have suffered. We have all suffered.”

The King had finished. The dwarf was opening the door for him, and the music swelled out. The door closed, and all was muffled again. Tony was left alone.

The interview had not gone as he’d expected. What did I expect, thought Tony, some kind of punishment? The King shouting at him, telling him he was a fool and a hothead, the way the Prince of Wales would have done? Lord Holles did not say, “You are no man for my daughter,” but instead, “Let us wait awhile, let rumors die.”

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.

He walked under the gatehouse of St. James’s Palace, his mind on his next errand. His aunt Diana had come to London yesterday from Hampton Court, and been exceedingly busy ever since.

“D
ARLING,” SAID
Diana, leaning over the stair rail above Tony; he had a vivid, startling look at her breasts. The rouge on her lips was crimson. She wore diamonds and sapphires, and she was beautiful—remarkable, really—in the candlelight.

“I called to see you,” she said, walking down the stairs and holding out her hands affectionately to him. She had been affectionate since she’d known he wanted to marry Barbara. “But your mother said you were away from home.”

“I must speak with you, Aunt.”

“Of course. But come upstairs with me first; let me introduce my guests—”

“No, if you please—at once.”

She put her arm through his, led him to a parlor. “You look awful, darling, tired and ill. You remind me, at this moment, of your father. I haven’t thought of him in years. He was my favorite brother.”

“Today I went to Tom Masham to see how he fared.”

She did not turn her eyes away or busy herself with something; he had to give her that. She knew what was coming, and she faced him.

“He said you had called on him,” he continued, “offered him coins not to admit to the duel. You also called upon Lord Holles. He would tell me nothing of your conversation, but he did ask me if there were prior commitments to which I was obligated, or which might prove embarrassing later. I cannot imagine what you had to say to him. You are not to interfere in my affairs.”

“Do you or do you not want Barbara?”

The question took his breath away.

“Because if you do not, tell me so now, and I will allow you to do exactly as you please. You may drink yourself into oblivion, whore yourself into the pox and an early grave, and stand at the altar and marry the insipid Holles chit, who will bore you to death within the space of a year. I will not lift a finger to stop you. But if you want my daughter, you’d best listen. At this moment, in my drawing room, are several men from the Board of Trade and Plantations, as well as a Virginian or two in the bargain. Now, why do you think I endure their company? It is not for their wit or charm, I do assure you. It is because I think they may aid Barbara, and anything I may do to help her from this end of the world, I will do. If that means I must commit mayhem and murder, so be it. She is the only child left to me, and I want the world for her, Tony. I want everything this life has to offer a woman. I want her debt cleared. Security in a marriage such as she deserves. Children, houses, gowns, jewels, whatever she desires. She is not going to spend her days dependent and—”

“She is also not going to spend her days as the Duchess of Tamworth.”

“You—You asked for her hand in marriage—” Diana actually stammered.

“She made the decision for both of us at the time. It was the proper decision, I see now.” His head felt as if a thousand fireworks had lit themselves inside it and split him away to nothing. “Tell me, did you think I would share her, whether she was my mistress or my wife, with the Prince? Was that part of your plan?”

“Of course not. I would never—”

“You married her off to the highest bidder when she was fifteen. You encouraged her love affairs; you held her up to the Prince as if she were a choice bone, and he just the dog to enjoy her. From whom do you think Barbara fled, Aunt Diana? It was not from me. I am not the first man to act the fool over her, and I won’t be the last. My ardor did not frighten her. I did not frighten her. I think she fled from you and your limitless, loveless ambitions, ambitions which have now led you to act in a manner I will not countenance. I have obligations that go beyond desire. You are not to include me in any of your ambitions unless I give you express permission. And I do not give it. And you are not to meddle in my affairs, ever again.”

The footman in the hall had to run to open the front door for him in time. Outside, he stood a moment before summoning a carriage to take him to the edge of town, to Devane Square.

Carlyle’s words were in his mind. What was it that interested Midas Andreas, who turned everything he touched into gold? Once there, Tony walked on one of the bricked streets of the unfinished square, a square filled now with weeds, with gaping holes where once trees had been planted. Everyone in London had walked in the garden that had once been here; Roger had brought in plants from around the world. Only one end of the square had been built up into townhouses. These remained, though shorn of their beautiful fittings inside. There was also a small church designed by Sir Christopher Wren. The church and townhouses faced each other in lonely splendor among the fields between the road and Hyde Park. Their windows were boarded over, the front door locked with a chain. The decoration of the interior of the church had never been finished.

Tony walked behind the church to a fountain, where the entrance gates to the house had been. Moss scaled the fountain’s sides, scaled the stone figure of a nymph. The house had been here, but there was nothing now, only bits of broken brick from the wall that had surrounded it. One could see the church spire of the hamlet of Marylebone in the distance. Every plant, every iron ornament, every windowsill—all, all had been sold to pay the fine, or stored away in a warehouse.

The sun glanced off the water of a landscape canal. Gone were the hundred orange trees in wooden tubs, the small, perfect stone Temple of the Arts Roger had built at one side, like a summerhouse, to hold his collection of paintings and statues.

The bell in the spire of the church at Marylebone began to ring. Andreas must think the city will move this way, thought Tony. Prices for land were low now; nothing much was selling. There was no building. What building there had been, was stopped.

“See how a crafty, vile projector picks Britannia’s purse by South Sea shams and tricks.” So went the saying that accompanied a popular woodcut; the face of the South Sea Company director in the print was Roger’s. He was among the chief scapegoats of the crisis. I did what I could, Walpole had said, tiredly. The howls against Roger were too loud. Give me a year, Tamworth, perhaps two, and I will see the fine reduced. She has only to endure a year or two.

The figure of a woman rose out of a shell in the center of the fountain, like the famed Botticelli painting of Venus rising from the sea, except the woman’s face and form were Barbara’s. Tony reached out to touch the moss that covered one slim leg.

What was Carlyle’s game?

Carlyle and Walpole had long been friends. What a high price Walpole paid for his place in the ministry, but everything had its price. Tony himself paid a price for being a duke. The price was that he must put duty and legacy over love.

And, then, again, the price brought its privileges. No one, it seemed, would do more than shake a finger at him. Even Masham forgave him. In fact, there was a likelihood he and Masham might become friends. They had laughed over that today. I feel like a rag doll from which the sawdust has been expelled, Masham had said, his face flushed with fever. I am a changed man, I swear it, Tamworth. Are you?

The character of heroes, the stuff of legend. And speculators, on my grandmother’s side, thought Tony. Gamblers. My father was little more than a gambler in land and buildings, his grandmother had once said. Interesting, to try to envision the future, to speculate which way a city might sprawl.

I’m going to ride through London over the next few days, he thought, and look at what is happening, so that I can make certain Barbara profits from this land I stand on; she must not lose anything more. And then I am leaving town; I am going on a tour of my estates to meet the men who want seats in the House of Commons come spring. But first, he was going home to write two letters: one to Harriet, and one to his grandmother, from whom he was no longer estranged. That, at least, had been accomplished by all this mess.

A
S A
church bell nearby struck ten, Tony walked through the dark streets to his Aunt Shrew’s. He felt almost happy. The letter to his grandmother was written. He whistled a little as he climbed the stairs up to Aunt Shrew’s drawing room. As he had imagined, she was playing cards with her lover. They were both richly dressed, she in a ridiculous youthful dark auburn wig that curled down to her bony shoulders, as many jewels as she could find a place for everywhere, her face splashed with its usual helping of white powder, red rouge, and dark patches.

Pendarves was equally splendid in dark coat and grand periwig. Knowing them as he did, Tony knew they had done little more than go for a drive in her carriage and eat their dinner. Anything else took away too much from cards. When she saw Tony, Aunt Shrew smiled, waving an arm that displayed a ring on every finger and bracelets to her elbow. She loved to rattle and jingle with jewelry. She prided herself on her jewelry. I know how to pick my lovers, she bragged to her great-nieces, who laughed at her behind their fans but would never have dared to do so to her face, and my lovers know how to pick my jewelry.