Heir to Rowanlea (3 page)

Elizabeth and Lord Fenton returned just as the second Act began, but Harry did not return to their box until the second interval. Then he came in, and with just a brief word hauled Charlotte to her feet and told her they were going to walk in the corridor behind the boxes.

Outside, he marched her briskly towards the corridor behind the opposite boxes.

“Are you hoping to see Elizabeth?” she asked.

“No. Indeed not. Why the devil should I be?” he demanded, but as they strolled, this time at a more decorous pace, he paid her little attention while he scanned the faces of other strollers.

They were late back to their own box, and Charlotte, suspicious, leaned across to her mother and whispered.

“Did Elizabeth leave her box?”

“No, my dear. Were you hoping to speak to her?”

Charlotte disclaimed, and tried to bring her attention back to the play, but without success. Harry was clearly unhappy, and she wanted to help him, but could not decide what to do. Might Elizabeth relent if she went to tell her how miserable she was making Harry? Then Charlotte shook her head. It would be to no avail. Elizabeth, or her parents, had determined she was to marry both a fortune and a title. But surely, somehow, she could be persuaded to accept Harry.

* * * *

Charlotte cudgeled her brains on the way home, and during a disturbed night. It was not just Harry’s problems which kept her awake, but the noises in the Square. She was used to the peace of the country, but London seemed to be full of noise both day and night. Carriages passed all the time, the horses’ feet clip-clopping on the cobbles. Men going home late were sometimes singing, sometimes talking and shouting to one another. At dawn she fell into a deep sleep, and was woken by her maid, Jenny, who brought her chocolate and some thin slices of bread and butter, and reminded her Lady Weare was planning to take her shopping that morning.

Lady Weare took Charlotte to one of her own favorite modistes and ordered what Charlotte considered an impossibly large number of gowns, walking dresses, riding habits, driving dresses, day and evening gowns, and several ball dresses. Then they drove to Bond Street to purchase bonnets, gloves, slippers and shawls, fans and reticules, so that Charlotte’s head was in a whirl. Despite her previously expressed indifference to fashion, she could not help but be impressed, and having been given ample opportunity of inspecting the elegant costumes being displayed in Bond Street by ladies of the ton, felt the faint stirrings of a desire to appear likewise arrayed in the latest mode.

Back in Grosvenor Square Jenny was still unpacking the luggage they had brought from Sussex, and the many parcels which had been delivered from the morning’s shopping. They were both admiring an especially fine pale pink muslin shawl when a commotion outside Charlotte’s door caused her to start in surprise. Charlotte dropped her hairbrush and went swiftly to the door and opened it, to reveal James, her twelve-year-old brother, writhing in the grip of an incensed Harry who had seized him about the waist.

“You little varmint! I’ll teach you to play such damned tricks!” Harry was saying wrathfully.

Lady Weare’s door opened, and she came out onto the landing. She was an older version of Charlotte, slightly plumper, and with paler blue eyes. Her own dark hair showed not a trace of grey, for she was still only in her mid-thirties, having been married straight from the schoolroom. Her curls were more rigorously confined than Charlotte’s but still they peeped from beneath the fetching caps she wore.

“Harry! James! What in the world is the matter?” she exclaimed.

Harry looked up at her, fury in his face, while he maintained his grip on James.

“Only that James has attacked Pritchard, my groom, and in all likelihood he’ll be unfit for work for several days! And no one else can control my greys to exercise them.”

“It was an accident, I tell you!” James exclaimed indignantly. “The fool should not have been coming out of that door without looking!”

“What happened? You, Harry, tell me.”

“James could find nothing better to do than entice two of the stable lads into the mews to play cricket with him,” Harry began in tones of acute disgust.

“There was an old bat there, lying about doing nothing. And I happened to have my ball in my pocket,” James said, his injured accents proclaiming that the coincidence of these facts should explain the inevitable sequel to the meanest intelligence.

“But how does the groom come into it? Why should James attack him?” Lady Weare asked in bewilderment.

“He went to see what the noise was, and James struck a ball which hit him full in the face.”

“He should have had more sense than to come slap out of the door without looking,” James repeated. “Then the silly gudgeon has to try and catch me, and falls over the ball and hurts his ankle. You can’t blame me for that either!”

“Is the man badly hurt?”

“Badly enough,” Harry replied. “It will be days before he is fit again, and what shall I do with my greys?”

“Exercise them yourself,” Charlotte said. She was becoming a little tired of Harry’s moods, much as she sympathized with him. “Or sell them. You really cannot blame James for what seems to have been an accident.”

“He should not have been playing cricket there in the first place!”

“Where else am I to play it?” James demanded reasonably. “I am not permitted to play in the square gardens for fear of hurting some stupid flowers—”

“Or breaking windows, as you did last year,” his mother commented. “I think you are somewhat at fault, James, though naturally you could not have foreseen the accident, or intended it. You will apologize to Harry and to the poor man you hurt, and promise me not to play cricket for a week. And you must not take the boys away from their work, for then they will be in trouble too. Now you will go to bed straight after supper.”

James opened his mouth to argue, and then, recognizing the implacable note which only rarely appeared in Lady Weare’s voice, closed it again. He turned to climb the stairs leading up to his and his tutor, Mr Williams’s rooms, and then seemed to recall something.

“It would never have happened if you hadn’t been in such a miff you refused to take me out with you!” he flung at Harry. “Oh, very well, I’m sorry, you know I didn’t intend any harm.”

Lady Weare sighed.

“I do hope he contrives not to get into too many scrapes while we’re in London,” she said worriedly. “I decided I couldn’t leave him at Rowanlea Manor with only Mr Williams for company. That would have been too cruel.”

“He’d be best at school, ma’am,” Harry said bluntly, and she nodded reluctantly.

“I begin to think so, and he wishes to go to Eton with the Rector’s boys. I do hope Mr Williams can find enough diversions for him in London. Is your man receiving all the attention he needs? Good, then you must change quickly if you are not to keep your father waiting for dinner.”

* * * *

Harry and Charlotte were both abstracted at dinner. Lady Weare asked Charlotte if she were tired from so much shopping, and was only partly reassured when Charlotte denied being weary. Harry replied briefly to his father’s observations, and stared blankly at the dishes set before him, doing them less than justice even though some of his favorite dishes had been set before them. He had just refused a helping of boned knuckle of veal when Mr Norville, impervious to the lowered spirits of his son and niece, began to give his opinions on the recently concluded Peace that had been signed with France and ratified that month.

“It’s a scandal we should be forced to give back all our gains,” he proclaimed. “What have we to show for nine years of war, hey? Ceylon and Trinidad. Pah! What the devil use are either of them to us, that’s what I’d like to know. Addington’s a fool. Pitt wouldn’t have agreed to it, that’s for certain!”

“Surely everyone wants peace,” Lady Weare commented mildly. “We were left on our own and could not have continued the war when all our allies had made peace separately.”

“They’ll soon realize their mistake. The damned French will not rest, they’ll want to regain their full influence in Naples, and control of Venice, and what they have returned to Portugal.”

“Father, now it’s possible to travel to France, ought not one of us to go?” Harry interposed suddenly.

“Go to France? What the devil for? I had a great deal too much of it when I made the Tour. Oh, is that what you want? Never thought you were anxious to go, my boy. I don’t imagine you’d find many new farming techniques either, they’ve been too busy with revolts and fighting!”

“I don’t,” returned Harry, “I never even thought of anything like that, but now we’ve an opportunity of discovering just what has happened to cousin Frederick. We ought to take it while we may, for like you I do not believe the Peace will last for long.”

“By Jove, Harry, you’re right! It’s been so long I’d almost given up hope of ever discovering the truth. Wonder what did happen to the poor lad? He was a good boy, the image of my brother Frederick, though that French mother of his was inclined to pamper him.”

“Possibly, sir, but one of us ought to go,’ Harry persisted, knowing his father’s tendency to drift away from the topic under discussion. “Or we could get Glossop to send someone.”

“Oh, do you think that a good notion?” Lady Weare asked, glancing from one to the other and wrinkling her nose thoughtfully. “It’s bound to be a difficult business, dealing with all those officials. Do you recall, when we were there before, how obstructive the French officials always were? Would an agent be so persevering as you would yourself, or follow up all the leads?”

“Pooh, my dear, of course he would. I can trust Glossop to send someone reliable, and persistent. It can’t be too difficult a problem, for we had Claudine’s family’s addresses, and even if they have been dispossessed, it should not be impossible to trace them. We can be sure they did not become émigrés, or escape to England, for then we would have heard of them. I’ll get Glossop onto it tomorrow, he’ll find a reliable man.”

“If you think that best, dear,” his sister said meekly.

Mr Norville looked thoughtful. “I suppose if Frederick is alive we shall no longer be able to use this house. I trust he don’t resent that we’ve made free of it. I’ll have to look about for one of my own.”

“If he is alive he’ll be grateful to you for having kept his houses in such good repair all these years,” Lady Weare said briskly. “It wasn’t convenient to live at Rowanlea, for you had your own house close by, but it was better for us to make use of the town house than leave it mouldering for him to come back to. At least you have not wasted any money on refurnishing it,” she added wistfully, for she had a decided talent for such matters, and had often longed to try her hand on the long-neglected mansion.

“Nor in modernizing his farms,” Harry said, and suddenly recalled an improvement he and Baker, his tenant, planned to make on his own farm. He began to explain it to Charlotte, for normally she was the most interested of all his family in his farm, and even understood how some of his machines worked, and why they were better than previous models, but tonight she showed scant interest. Persevering, he changed the subject and asked whether she had enjoyed the novel he had found in the green saloon.

“It was silly,” she replied shortly, casting a quick glance across the table at him. “I would marry a man I loved whether or not he had a great fortune or a title. Females who are too ambitious and set store by such nonsense deserve to be left on the shelf!”

Harry shot her a suspicious glance, but she was contemplating, with apparently intense interest, the ratafia pudding before her and did not look at him again. He made some noncommittal reply and turned to answer a query from his father.

Lady Weare studied them unobtrusively, wondering what was the cause of this outbreak. She had a very shrewd suspicion of how matters stood between Harry and Elizabeth, but she had not thought Charlotte was aware of it. What could have happened? Had either Harry or Elizabeth confided in her? It seemed unlikely, but with Harry’s sudden eagerness to resolve the admittedly unsatisfactory situation where he did not know whether his father were Viscount Rowanlea, and himself the heir, she was convinced there had been some development which Charlotte was aware of. Her implied championship of Harry demonstrated what Lady Weare had for some time suspected, that Charlotte, whether she knew it herself or not, and her mother rather thought she did not, was becoming too deeply attached to her cousin.

Dispassionately considering the notion, which had frequently occurred to her, of a match between her daughter and nephew, she decided she would welcome it, for Harry was a most charming and delightful man despite his occasional wildness, and if he loved Charlotte would make her blissfully happy. But did he love her? It did not seem so if he were pursuing Elizabeth, and Lady Weare had no intention of permitting her daughter to pine for him. Charlotte would have plenty of opportunity in the coming season of meeting other young men, and if her youthful adoration of Harry changed into love for another man, it might be the best outcome.

* * * *

The ladies soon left the men to their port, and in the drawing-room began to pour over the latest fashion plates. Charlotte found she was suddenly interested.

“How delightful it is to have an unexceptional excuse for buying lots of new clothes, my love! I need almost as many as you do if I am to do you credit, for there’s nothing so off-putting as a dowdy chaperon! I can recall being so very ashamed of my Aunt Mary when she took me with her to a ball, because she was wearing the most antiquated gown you can imagine!”

“You’d never do that,” Charlotte declared, “for you’re always the first to adopt any new fashion at home. Why, even Elizabeth copies you, though she’d never admit it!”

“I’ve no doubt Elizabeth will attract a great deal of attention, she is very lovely,” her mother commented.

Charlotte frowned. She had noticed it in Sussex, and knew it would be the same here in London.

“Yes, but have you noticed she always agrees with what the men say to her, whether she really believes it or not? I could not dissemble so!”