Polly and the Prince (14 page)

“Nothing.” He smiled, and she realised he was teasing her. “You have so kind heart, but you must not worry for me now. My father is not permitted by the tsar to send me money, but he asked Prince Lieven, the Russian ambassador, to lend. He gave to me when he came last week to see the king, and my father will repay in Russia.”

“I’m very glad you have heard from your family.”

“Is no kind message.” Kolya produced a rueful grimace. “My father is almost so angry as tsar, but will not let the son starve.”

“You have enough to live on?”

He shrugged. “Is not a great amount, but I am a guest of the king so my expenses are not high. You like my new coat?”

Polly jumped up. “You mean I’m sitting on a new coat? I assumed it was one of the ones Lord John gave you.”

Laughing, he reached up and pulled her down. “Will not be damaged if you keep the feetwear off it. Is meant for outdoors, not for king’s drawing room.”

“Have you seen the king?” She recalled his reason for coming to Brighton.

“Not yet. His Majesty is ill with fear that the Privy Council will allow Queen Caroline to be crowned with him. In Russia, when the emperor wishes to dispose of his wife, he imprisons her in a monastery. Perhaps English way is more civilized, but is less efficient.”

“Our Henry VIII managed to dispose of six wives.”

“Six!” Kolya sounded admiring.

“Well, five, strictly speaking. Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. Poor George did not even succeed in divorcing one.”

“She makes him very unhappy. Even Lady Conyngham cannot cheer him.”

“Have you met Lady Conyngham? What is she like?”

“She is handsome woman for her age, but not, I think, clever. I have met many people since I came to Brighton, but you I have never seen in the town.”

“I have not been into town since I arrived. Lady Sylvia is something of a recluse. Oh heavens, here she comes! Where has Nick taken the girls?”

Once again Polly jumped up, and scanned the hillside opposite. Just below the crest were three small figures, the smallest somewhat higher than the other two. She heard a faint whoop and saw Winnie race down the steep slope to be caught by Nick and whirled around.

“Remember Susie Stebbins?” she said laughingly to Kolya. “Little girls seem to like Nick. But then, Winnie is not one to stand on ceremony.”

“And the mother seems to like Ned,” he responded, shaking his coat and putting it on. “Lady Sylvia was—how shall I say?—the timid, milky water miss when we came.”

“Milk-and-water.” Polly turned and saw that Lady Sylvia was leaning on Ned’s arm and conversing with more animation than she had hitherto displayed.

As if conscious of their gaze, her ladyship looked up and blushed, letting go of Ned’s arm. Ned waved, and Polly and Kolya went to meet them.

Hugging her brother, Polly said over her shoulder, “I let the girls go with Nick up the hill, Lady Sylvia. I hope you do not mind. They will be back at any moment.”

She looked anxious, until Ned said, “He will take care of them, ma’am. Polly, you look very well.”

“I am.” Suddenly she felt like laughing with happiness. The world was a wonderful place that June afternoon.

“Her ladyship tells me your portrait of Miss Ellingham is nearly finished,” Ned continued.

“Yes, it is going very well.” The laughter within her escaped. “Winnie is
another matter. The poor dear finds it so very difficult to sit still.”

“Sit still!”

For a startled moment Polly thought the shout of exasperation was a peculiar echo. Then she recognized Nick’s voice and swung round with the others. Winnie’s hatless, golden, tousled head appeared above the hazel bushes in the valley, moving towards them. Of Nick and Annette there was no sign.

“He carries her on the shoulders,” Kolya suggested.

His guess proved correct a few minutes later when the trio emerged from the thicket. Annette, neat as when she had started out, carried her sister’s hat in the hand that was not tucked confidingly into Nick’s.

“That’s a bang-up place for hide-and-seek,” he announced, swinging the little girl down from her perch.

“Mama, may we play hide-and-seek?” demanded Winnie. “Nick will show us how.”

“Not today,” said Lady Sylvia, putting her daughter’s hat back on the tangled tresses and tying it
firmly under her chin. “It grows late. But perhaps if you ask him very politely, Mr. Nicholas will come back one day to play with you.”

Nicholas looked appalled.

“Please,
Nick? I promise I will not call you Nicky.”

He glanced down at Annette.

“If you please, Mr. Nicholas,” she said in her shy, grave way, “if you are not too busy looking at boats, will you come and visit us again?”

He
heaved a deep sigh, then grinned and said, “Yes, I’ll come. I’ll bring a spyglass, and we shall go up to the top of the hill again and look at boats from there.”

As they all walked homeward, Kolya said to Polly, “If you ask me very politely, I shall come and visit you again. Or rather, I wish to show you the sights of Brighton. Is shocking that you have not seen the Pavilion.”

“I should like to.”

“You know it is not yet completed? After thirty-four years, still is scaffolding and rubble and more plans, always changes. I have talked to many people who are not pleased, because that they have not been paid for work, or because that
the mess spoils their business for many years. The house where I stay is to be demolished, if the king can persuade the owner to sell.”

“I hope they will not knock it down until you have moved out!”

“I think not. The king has never enough money to make things as he wishes. I tell you this so that you are not disappointed. Even unfinished, the Pavilion is an impressive sight.”

“I suppose you cannot show me the interior?”

“But of course. I have friends who will allow although the king is in residence. Is much of interest to an artist and also, I warn you, much that is in the vulgar taste.”

“I want to see it all,” said Polly.

Chapter 12

The dining table at Dean House could have accommodated twenty. Polly was used to dining with Lady Sylvia, just the two of them, but that evening after her brothers and Kolya had visited, the room seemed empty. She thought of Lady Sylvia sitting there alone, night after night, and her heart went out to the lonely young woman.

“I hope you did not mind Ned bringing Nick and Mr. Volkov to call,” she said, as a maid departed after replacing the remains of a roast chicken and peas with a bowl of gooseberry fool.

“Not at all. I was a little taken aback at first—you know I rarely receive visitors. I hope they did not think me rude?”

“Ned told me you were most obliging.” A gentle, pretty creature he had added, but Polly was not going to repeat that.

“Mr. Howard impressed me as a sensible gentleman, and...and remarkably agreeable. I have never met a gentleman before who treated me as a real person, not as a fool or as just one of his belongings, there for his convenience.”

“I know what you mean. Lord Fitzsimmons wants to marry me, but he sees me as a...a sort of amusing ornament. Not all men are like that, though.”

“No, some are much worse. I daresay you have wondered why I live so retired.” Lady Sylvia stirred her dish of pudding with a nervous gesture, then pushed it aside.

“You do not have to explain to me,” Polly assured her.

“I want to. You see, my experience of the world, and of men in particular, has not been happy. I was only seventeen when I married, and not by my choice.”

“Your family’s choice?”

“My father forced me to marry Lord Ellingham. He was forty, more than twice my age, and even I, though I led a sheltered life, knew of his reputation as a...a rake and a libertine, but he was excessively wealthy and Papa had debts.”

“And your mother?”

“She said it was my duty to the family.”

Polly thought of her own dear mama, who might worry and fuss but would never try to
force her to do anything that would make her unhappy. She took Lady Sylvia’s trembling hand in hers.

“My brother wanted to go into the army, and my sisters wanted their Seasons in London. How could I stand in everyone’s way? But oh, Polly, you cannot imagine how dreadful it
was.” Tears of remembered anguish trickled down her cheeks.

“Come into the drawing room, you cannot have a proper cry at table.” Polly put her arm about Lady Sylvia’s shoulders, helped her up, and steered her through to the next room.

They sat together on an elegant green brocade sofa, her ladyship sniffing into a tiny lace-edged handkerchief. Polly pulled a large, fortunately clean, paint rag from her pocket. “Here, take this. How long was it before the wicked ogre died?”

Lady Sylvia summoned up a tremulous smile. “He was killed in a duel three years after we were married, just after Winnie was born. Though he had sold all the Dean House land by then, to pay his gambling debts, not long before the duel he won a vast sum, so he left me wealthy. My family wanted me to go back home, but I refused.”

“I don’t blame you a bit!”

“His family blamed me for not bearing a son and heir, and for not reforming him, though how they expected me to do that I cannot guess. So you will understand that I have little contact with either family. I was used to think myself perfectly happy alone here with the girls and the garden and my books, but since you came I have realised that something was missing.”

“Companionship. I’m not much of a companion, I fear, always busy with my pencil or brushes, or off in another world planning what to do next.”

“Oh no, you have been just what I needed. If I wanted someone forever hovering about me, I could have taken a paid companion, as everyone urged me to do. The only thing is, I have no one to turn to for advice.”

“If there is anything I can help you with, you know you have only to ask.”

Lady Sylvia hugged her. “I know. Your coming to paint the girls is quite the best thing that has happened to me this age. But I doubt the subject is one on which you are any more knowledgeable than I. It is
a problem concerning the estate.”

“The Ellingham estate in Warwickshire? Was it not entailed to the new viscount?”

“Yes, it went to a distant cousin, which is one reason the Ellinghams were displeased with me. It is Westcombe that concerns me. You may remember I mentioned that I had inherited a small estate from an uncle? He was the only person who sympathized with me, and he left Westcombe to
me so that I should never be quite dependent on my husband.”

“I remember. It is near Lewes?”

“Not fifteen miles from here. The girls and I generally go to
stay for a month or two in the summer.” She frowned. “For two years or more the revenue has been declining, and now someone wants to purchase the
estate. My bailiff and my
solicitor both advise me to sell, but neither will explain matters to me because I am a woman. They are probably right, I should not understand if they did, but I refuse to run to my father for advice.”

“Of course not. You must ask Ned.”

“You think he would not mind?”

“I’m sure he will be pleased to help. He is the kindest of brothers. And being a land agent, he will know just what’s what.”

“That is what I thought when you told me his profession, but I should not have dared to ask before I met him. He did seem kind, and…altogether amiable. If Ellingham had been like Mr. Howard...Well, I can see that not all married women are to be pitied, after all.”

The next afternoon, Polly was in the garden sketching a moving target—Winnie being pushed on the swing by Annette—when Kolya was announced. Hat in hand he came running down the steps from the terrace, made his bow to Lady Sylvia, who was sitting on a nearby bench, and turned to
Polly.

“I have borrowed a phaeton and a pair of horses,” he announced. “Do not wish to interrupt, but perhaps my lady will be so good to excuse you for tour of Brighton?”

“Ten minutes,” said Polly. The sight of his tall, lithe form made her slightly breathless, but Winnie was cooperating for once and she was determined to finish her drawing.

Though Kolya, as expected, was amused rather than offended by the delay, Winnie, as might have been expected, was unable to sit still when a visitor had arrived.

“Is Mr. Nick coming today?” she called eagerly.

“Not today,” Kolya told her. “I introduced Nick to my friend who is fisherman, and he was invited to go today in boat on the sea. Also I have a friend who is retired naval officer who will tell him stories of Navy. But Nick has not forgotten you. He asked me to tell you, will come tomorrow to play the hide-and-seek.”

“Then may I go today with you and Miss Polly?” Winnie jumped off the swing without waiting for it to stop and landed on hands and knees. Looking at her hands, she screeched, “Mama, there’s blood!”

As Lady Sylvia hurried towards her wailing daughter, she said to Polly, “You had best go at once, before she recollects that she wants to go with you. Enjoy yourself.”

Polly hesitated, but Annette ran up and said earnestly, “You need not worry about Winnie. She is not hurt. Seeing blood always makes her cry.”

So Polly and Kolya slipped away. The borrowed carriage turned out to be a high-perch phaeton, its body slung between huge wheels. It was a very smart crimson and black vehicle drawn by a coal-black pair.

“You are not nervous?” Kolya enquired, driving through the gateway and turning left towards town.

“Nervous?” Polly was surprised. “Why?”

“Some people consider high-perch phaeton is a dangerous carriage.”

“Nick has told me you are a top sawyer, and while I am aware that you have told him any number of tall tales, I do not believe you would exaggerate your skill. Besides, we shall have a splendid view of everything from so high above the ground.”

“You are never afraid, I think.”

“I suppose fear seems to me a singularly useless emotion.” She pondered a moment and then went on, “If I thought you would overturn the carriage I should not be here with you, so there would be nothing to be afraid of. Having accepted the ride, being afraid would not prevent an accident.”