The Emperor (4 page)

‘
What would you consider a civilized occupation?' Lucy
asked.

‘To spend my time in well-heated, well-lit rooms,' he said
promptly, 'with elegant surroundings, beautiful women, and
witty conversation.’

Lucy glanced at Danby Wiske. 'He is so different from
you, sir. How came you to be acquainted?’

Mr Wiske entirely missed the implied insult, which made Mr Brummell smile, and replied, 'We were at Eton together,
ma'am. George and his brother William and I all entered in

‘86, and lodged together at Dame Yonge's.'

‘
Such lodgings!' Mr Brummell exclaimed. ‘Forty boys
with beds for twenty, food for fifteen, and coals for ten.
Eton was such a perfectly
barbarous
place that I do not
think I shall ever be able to forget it.'

‘Really, sir?' Lucy laughed.

‘
Really,' Mr Brummell affirmed. 'Not only were we
starved, but we were beaten – flogged, my dear Lady
Aylesbury, like dogs, upon the most frivolous of pretexts,
positively in
batches!
I remember on one occasion, the
headmaster gave ten strokes a-piece to seventy boys, after
which he was confined to bed for upwards of a week, with
such pains in his arm and shoulder he could scarcely sit
upright.'

‘I wonder you survived it,' Lucy said, her eyes alight.

it don't do to take him too seriously, ma'am,' said Mr
Wiske. ‘Beatings were as common as blackberries at Eton,
but I don't recall that George was flogged once the whole
time we were there. He was such a favourite, you know, and though he was always playing tricks, he was never punished.
The praepostor would come down upon him, arm raised,
and George would just smile, and it would all be forgotten.'

‘
I was fortunate in my smile,' Mr Brummell admitted.
‘But it was only what was fair. God gave me my charming
Irish smile to make up for my unfortunate Irish nose.'

‘
I think Mr Brummell is making game of us,' Lucy said to
Danby Wiske.

‘He don't take anyone seriously,' said Mr Wiske.

‘
Indeed, you wrong me,' Mr Brummell said gravely. 'My
Irish ancestors have always been my affliction. One can
discourage history in one's family, but one cannot entirely
escape its geography.'

‘
Talking of geography,' Lord Tonbridge interposed at
this point, 'don't I hear that the Dragoons are going down to
Brighton Camp this summer?'

‘
Yes, and the Prince and Princess will be there too.
Brighton will be the place to be this year.'

‘
Brighton will be well enough, when all the rebuilding is
finished,' said Mr Brummell. ‘At the moment, the dust is
intolerable.'

‘
But we have famous dinners, Lady Aylesbury, and the
theatre is very pretty. I wonder you do not come to
Brighton,' said Mr Wiske a little wistfully.

‘
Perhaps I may,' Lucy said carelessly. ‘I have recom
mended Lady Chelmsford to try the sea-air for her health.
Perhaps I may join her there for a little while.'

‘
Of course, you will drive yourself to Brighton,' Mr
Brummell said mischievously. ‘In your curricle and four,
you may even beat the Prince of Wales's time. You know
that he drove down from London in '84 in less than five
hours, and it has never been bettered.’

Lord Tonbridge was looking alarmed, but Lucy's interest
was already caught, as Danby Wiske said, 'It was four hours
and fifty minutes, George, in a three-horse phaeton. A
devilish difficult rig to choose, I always thought.'

‘
Four hours and fifty minutes does not seem so very fast,'
Lucy said thoughtfully. ‘It cannot be more than sixty miles, I suppose? And perhaps the road may be better now.'

‘
Very true – and four horses, you know, must be faster
than three, if the driver is as good,' said Mr Brummell
seriously.

‘
He is teasing you,' Lord Tonbridge told Lucy anxiously.
‘Do not rise to his bait. You cannot possibly drive yourself
to Brighton in a curricle and four. Think of the scandal!’

Lucy's smile was calm and determined. ‘Of course I can,
Tonbridge – and as for the scandal, I don't regard it. And
I'll beat the Prince's time, you see if I don't. Only it must be made worth my while. What do you all say to a wager? I am
sure enough of the result to put a hundred guineas on my
own performance.’

Lord Tonbridge looked more than ever distressed. 'This
grows worse – to make a wager on it, too! I beg you,
consider.'

‘
Don't be so gothic, Tonbridge – what is there in that?
Ladies make wagers all the time. Look at your mother,
playing whist, and what is that but a wager on her skill with
cards?'

‘
It is not the same thing at all. What would your husband
say?'

‘It seems exactly the same to me,' Lucy rejoined stoutly,

‘
and as for Chetwyn, don't trouble yourself about him. He will think it very good sport. He has always said that I am
the best driver of my family, and I will be very surprised
indeed if he doesn't put something on me too, when he
hears.' She smiled round at the three men. 'It is just what I
was wanting — something to amuse me. I was just beginning
to feel bored with life. I am very grateful to you for
suggesting it, Mr Brummell.’

Mr Brummell smiled and bowed, and murmured, 'And I
am grateful to you, dear Lady Aylesbury, for exactly the
same reason.’

He and Lucy looked as though they understood each
other perfectly, and Danby Wiske was regarding her with an
expression little short of adoration. Only Lord Tonbridge
looked unhappy, and he was made even more so when Lucy
told him that she hoped he would lend her his greys for the
race.

‘
I shall need three changes, you see. My chestnuts for the last, and I'll send for Chetwyn's bays, which are eating their
heads off at Wolvercote, and I'm sure Charles will let me use his team. But I must have one more, and yours would
do. They are a neatish team, and fast, though their knees are weak. But there's nothing much to the first stage, except for
the hill at Brixton, and I'll nurse them up that like babies,
you may he sure, and send them back to you no worse than
I took them.'

‘
There now, Lord Tonbridge,' said Mr Brummell with a
seraphic smile, 'how can you possibly refuse to lend them to
her ladyship after that?'

‘
And when she has spoke of them so handsome, too!' Mr
Wiske added, and could only look on in bewilderment when
Lucy and Mr Brummell burst simultaneously into laughter.

 
The news of Lucy's race to Brighton was, on the whole, well
received in a Season whose scandals were otherwise of the
bad-tempered sort. One or two high-sticklers — what Mr
Wiske called 'mossy-backs' — thought it shocking, not so
much that Lucy should drive herself in an open carriage
down a busy road accompanied only by her groom, for
indeed she was a Countess, and what was the world coming
to if a peeress could not travel according to her fancy; but
because she had made herself the subject of a wager, and
won a great deal of money by backing her own perform
ance.

‘
Envy,' said Mr Wiske tersely. 'Wish they'd thought of it
themselves. Wonder if we don't see dowagers organizin'
wheelchair races and madeira-drinkin' contests, hoping to
win enough to pay off their mortgages.’

Danby Wiske had constituted himself Lucy's faithful
attendant, admirer, and unofficial protector. That he
admired her to distraction was obvious from the way he
gazed at her with his mouth open and hung on her every
word as though it were Holy Writ. He had attended her
during the race, riding behind the curricle on horseback,
despite the serious disadvantage of the dust and mud
thrown up at him.

‘
See fair play,' he offered as an explanation, when
Charles at the starting line looked surprised; and then added with a blush, 'Take care of her la'ship — see no harm comes
to her.’

When the race was done, and Lucy had beaten the Prince
of Wales's time by a full fifteen minutes, Mr Wiske's
admiration was secured for ever. His continual appearance
thereafter by her side, or rather half a pace to the rear,
might have created a real scandal, had his devotion not been
so evidently dog-like and innocent. As it was, Lady
Aylesbury was in general considered a dashing and enter
prising young woman; her health was drunk at Carlton
House twice in one week, and in the officers' mess of the
10th Light Dragoons every night for a fortnight; and Mr
Wiske's devotion was thought no more than her due.

At Morland Place, her brother James laughed and called
her 'a trump', and her brother Edward wanted to know where she had changed horses. Her mother sighed and
shook her head and said that there was no taming Lucy; and
her husband, though laughing with James and Edward and
agreeing that it was a capital stunt, and a great joke against His Highness, grew very thoughtful afterwards, and cut his
visit short. Her escapade had served to remind him that he
had married her in the first place to provide him with an
heir, and that if she broke her neck with one of her hoyden
ish pranks before she had done so, he would have to go
through it all again with another woman. The idea turned
him cold, and he hurried home to remind her of her duty
and, if possible, to make her pregnant.

The one person at Morland Place who remained
unmoved by the event was James's wife, Mary Ann. She
listened without either admiration or disapproval, indeed
with no other emotion than a faint surprise that any female
should wish to expose herself to so much dirt and
discomfort. Her life so far had not contained such desires.
As Miss Hobsbawn, her father's adored only child, she had
lived a well-regulated and peaceful life in their large modern
house in Manchester. Her mother had died when she was
very young, and she had been brought up by a nurse, now
her maid, Dakers. At the age of nine she had been sent to a
convent school for three years, where she had learned to
read and write and sew_ and speak French; thereafter she
had had a fashionable governess for four years to teach her
the accomplishments, and at sixteen had entered into society
as her father's companion and housekeeper.

Her days had been an uneventful round of ordering the
household, receiving and paying morning visits, taking her
walk in the garden, dining, and spending the evenings
reading, working, or playing for her father upon the piano
forte. Her upbringing and religion had taught her obedi
ence, and she had always known that Papa would arrange
her marriage at the right moment. Trusting him, she had been content to leave such things to him. She had never
wished to choose for herself. She did not read novels; she
had no romantic notions.

Her experience of the male sex was limited. There were
her father's friends and colleagues, most of whom had
known her since her infancy, and treated her accordingly.
Occasionally a clerk or foreman would come up to the
house from one of the mills, but these, like priests and male
servants, did not really count as men at all; and the young
men she encountered were usually husbands of the women
her father considered respectable enough for her to visit.
Young unmarried men did not come in her way.

So her interest was keenly aroused by the news that she
was to meet her future husband. Would he be tall, short, fat,
thin? Would he be gruff or cheerful, bad-tempered or
kindly? Everyone, she knew, had good qualities, and since it
was her duty before God to love her husband, it would be
her business to find them out, and respect him for them. Her
first sight of James Morland was reassuring. He was not tall,
but he was graceful and strong, and definitely handsome,
with his fair skin, fine features, reddish-brown hair and dark
blue eyes. He played upon the pianoforte at her father's
request, and did it well; he spoke little, but sensibly; and the
only words she had privately with him, gave her to think
well of his character, for he told her that he did not wish her
to marry him against her will, which seemed a kindness. He
would be considerate to her, she thought.