The Regency (46 page)

The carriage was waiting when she went downstairs, and
Thomas was sitting on one of the little hard hall-chairs, ready to go with her. He looked up as his mother came towards him.
He thought her as beautiful as an angel.

‘
Are you ready, my dear?' Lucy asked. She paused, cocking
her head enquiringly at the gaze of the brown eyes under the
delicately arched eyebrows. 'Why do you stare at me?'

‘I think your hat is very pretty, ma'am,' he said frankly,
with his sudden smile. Something inside her turned over: he
looked so like Weston when he smiled.

‘
Thank you,' she said gravely. 'I'm glad you think so.' She
held out her hand to him. He jumped down from the chair
and took it and they walked towards the door.

‘
I think you are very pretty, too,' he added with an air of
mature judgement, which made Hicks, who was holding open
the door for them, bite his lip to keep his countenance.

At Chelmsford House, they were met in the vast, black-
and-white-tiled hall by Hawkins, who looked unaccountably
agitated.

‘
Have I taken you unawares, Hawkins?' Lucy said cheerfully, thrusting her muff and gloves into his unready arms.
‘I'm not expected, but I'm sure her ladyship will see me.'

‘
Oh, my lady! Of course, my lady,' he said, made even
more flustered by Lucy's apologising to him. He had always
held her in the greatest respect, even when she was a new
young bride of fifteen. ‘I beg you won't think — allow me to
shew you up, my lady. Her ladyship is in the small saloon —’

As this was where the Chelmsford ladies had always sat in
the morning, Lucy positively grinned at the idea of being
shewn where it was. 'Don't trouble, Hawkins. I ought to know
my way by now,' she said, and, leading Thomas, started
briskly up the stairs before the slow-moving Hawkins could prevent her. The butler's unusual lack of self-possession she
put down to Roberta's return being sudden and unexpected;
but as she opened the door to the small saloon, she heard a
small muffled cry and the rustle of hurried movement. When
she stepped over the threshold, she saw Roberta sitting on the
very edge of a sopha, looking ruffled and holding up a news
paper defensively, while Mr Firth was standing by the chimney-
piece with his back to her, industriously poking the fire.

‘
Lucy!' Roberta cried in a mixture of relief and embarrass
ment. 'Oh, I wasn't expecting you! But how lovely to see you!
Please come in. And Thomas too. Do sit down. You received
my message, then? I was going to call on you later.’

Lucy raised an eyebrow at this unnatural garrulity. 'What
is
the matter, Rob? I thought Hawkins was behaving oddly, and now you start to chatter like a lunatic, too.' She looked
from Roberta's pink face and downcast eyes to Mr Firth's
inhospitably turned back, and a slow smile began to spread
over her face. 'You will surely ruin that fire, Mr Firth, if you
don't put down the poker,' she said in amusement.

He straightened up and turned to her, giving her a look
half defiant, half conspiratorial. 'How delightful to see you
again, Lady Aylesbury,' he said, laughter quivering just under
the surface.

‘
I was going to call on you the first moment,' Roberta went
on, still valiantly trying to keep everything on a normal, social
footing. 'How are the boys? It was so kind of you to —'

‘
It's no good,' Mr Firth said, catching her eye. 'We can't
deceive Lady Aylesbury's sharp eye. You've guessed, haven't
you, ma'am?’

Lucy hadn't, entirely, but looking from him to Roberta and
back again, it came to her in a sudden illumination. 'You're
married!' she exclaimed.

Roberta blushed the more deeply, but Mr Firth grinned
and came forward to take Lucy's offered hand. 'Guilty!' he
laughed. 'We discovered while we were marooned in the
depths of Sussex, surrounded by mud and hens and ancient
cousins, that we simply couldn't bear to wait any longer.
Roberta has done me the inestimable honour of becoming my
wife, and I do hope you will forgive us, and wish us joy.'

‘
Forgive you? What is there to forgive?' Lucy said, turning
from wringing his hand to embrace Roberta, and kiss her hot
cheek. ‘I'm only astonished you waited so long.'

‘
I'm sorry we couldn't let you know, Lucy dear,' Roberta
said, beginning to look happier now that the secret was out. 'I
would have liked you to be at the wedding, but the whole
thing was so sudden — and then, we didn't quite know how to
tell the boys. I was going to come and see you today, and tell
you about it, and ask your advice. It will be such a shock to
them — and I'm afraid a lot of people will disapprove.'

‘
Let 'em!' Lucy said robustly. 'I told you before, it's no-
one's business but yours. Besides, why should anyone
disapprove? You're both over twenty-one, and free to choose
for yourselves.'

‘
That's what Peter says.' Roberta's tongue betrayed how familiar, and how dear, the name was to it. 'He insisted on
telling Hawkins the moment we arrived —'

‘
My wife thought she could keep it from the servants,'
Firth said, giving her a delighted look. 'As if anyone ever kept
anything from the servants! Far better to tell Hawkins, and
give him the official task of enlightenment.'

‘
But I wanted to keep it a secret for the time being,'
Roberta said. 'Just until Bobbie's older.'

‘
Then, my darling,' Firth pointed out, 'there would have
been no point in our getting married in the first place. Do you really think I could go on calling you "my lady", and sleeping
in the nursery wing, and stealing kisses from you in dark
corners like some sneaking dog —'

‘
Oh don't!' Roberta begged. 'I don't know what I thought!
Only I'm afraid —'

‘
I know you are,' he said gently, 'but don't be. We'll face
them out together.'

‘I should have thought,' Lucy said, 'that the only person
who mattered was Bobbie; and that he'll be delighted.'

‘
Do you really think so?' Roberta asked doubtfully.

‘Of course. He admires Mr Firth more than anyone
 
except possibly Parslow,' she added thoughtfully.

Thomas had been sitting quietly on the sopha beside
Roberta all this time, listening, his head turning from one
speaker to the next like someone at a play. Now he suddenly
said, 'Bobbie knows.’

Lucy stared at him. 'Knows what, my dear?' Thomas
looked confused. 'He can't know about Lady Chelmsford and
Mr Firth getting married, because it's only just happened,'
she pointed out.

‘
But he knows they were going to,' Thomas said. 'He told
Marcus when we were out riding that Mr Firth would be his
step-papa one day, and Marcus told Bobbie he was a lucky
dog.’

Lucy and Firth exchanged a glance. 'Are you sure about
this, my love?' Lucy asked. 'When was it?’

Thomas nodded firmly. 'It was ages ago.'

‘When?' Lucy insisted.

Thomas screwed up his face. 'When they went away,' he
said at last. Before Christmas was ages ago as far as he was
concerned.

Roberta gave him a short, fierce hug by way of thanks for
the reassurance.

Firth caught her eye and said, 'That should make you feel
happier, love. Perhaps it won't be so hard to tell him after all.'

‘I'm glad he guessed. But it will still be hard,' Roberta said.

Lucy held out her hand to Thomas, and said, 'I think we
had better leave you two to settle in. I'll send the boys over to
you this afternoon, Roberta, and you can tell them every
thing. I shan't say anything myself beforehand, so you may
do it whatever way you think best. And be sure to let me
know when it's no longer a secret. I shall hold a special dinner
for you.'

‘
We will. Thank you, Lucy, for being so understanding,'
Roberta said.

‘
There's nothing to understand,' Lucy said. 'I'm very
happy for you. Come, Thomas. No, don't bother to ring. I'll
see myself out.’

She had other calls to make, but when she reached the
carriage, she ordered it to drive home. She needed time and
silence to assimilate the news and understand her feelings
about it — in particular the pang of jealousy which she had
felt when Firth looked at Roberta in that particular way,
and called her 'love'.

It was not that she had any desire for Mr Firth to look at
her that way; but it reminded her of her own relationship
with Weston, and how much she missed him, and how empty
her life was without him. She held Thomas's hand absently as
the carriage jerked its way through the traffic in Pall Mall,
her thoughts far away; and Thomas, feeling her absence,
looked up into her stern face sadly, longing for her to come
back to him.

*

Two days later, on 4 February, the Prince of Wales wrote to
Perceval to say that he did not intend to remove 'His
Majesty's official servants' from office.

‘
So we are back exactly where we were,' John Anstey said,
calling on Lucy directly from Carlton House. 'The letter,
apparently, says that the Prince is afraid lest any action of his
delays the King's recovery — the doctors have been hinting
that His Majesty might be well again within three months.
But I shouldn't be surprised if Lady Hertford's recommen
dation hadn't more to do with it than filial duty. She and
Hertford never had any time for the Whigs.'

‘
I agree with Brummell,' Lucy said. 'I don't believe he ever
meant to dismiss the Tories. I dare say the Whigs are furious?'

‘
They're saying at the club that Grenville is rather relieved
than otherwise!' he said with a smile. 'But certainly the rest
are very upset. Pall Mall this morning was thronged with
shoals of angry Whigs, all muttering together and crying
calamity. I heard that Sheridan told the Prince that his
character is wholly gone, and Thanet said it was the worst
disaster to befall the country since the death of Fox.'

‘
You must be glad at the way things have fallen out,
though?'