The Victory (72 page)

The present crisis had arisen owing to the rivalry between
the Princess and her neighbour in Blackheath, Lady Douglas,
wife of Sir John Douglas.

‘
The Princess and Lady Douglas used to be great friends,'
Anstey said, 'or at least, as much so as two such women could
be. The Douglases were always in and out of Montague
House, and it suited Lady Douglas's ambition to be seen to
move in high circles.'

‘
Odious woman,' Lucy said. 'She tried to make up to me,
once, at a ball at Cavendish House. Spiteful and showy, bold
eyes and a mean mouth! I know the Princess is disgusting, but
I'd prefer her of the two.’

Anstey smiled. 'It would be a hard choice to make,' he
agreed. 'Well, to go on with the story, the Douglases have had
Admiral Sir Sidney Smith living with them this long while,
and it's well known that Lady D. and the Admiral are having
an affair.'

‘
What, while her husband is there?' Louisa cried, staring at
him. 'How shocking!'

‘
London is a shocking place, my love,' Anstey said mildly.
Louisa's innocent outrage was less than tactful, considering
the nature of Lucy's past entanglements, so he hurried on
with the story. 'At any rate, with the Admiral visiting
Montague House so often in the Douglases company, the
Princess had ample opportunity to notice what a fascinating
man he is, and she took a fancy to him. This led to rivalry
between her and Lady D. I don't know who started it, but
they began to blackguard each other behind each other's
backs. The Princess told Lady Douglas that she was no longer
welcome at Montague House, and sent letters and crude
drawings to Sir John about his wife and the admiral. So Lady
Douglas retaliated by accusing the Princess publicly of
immoral behaviour with a number of people, including your
old friend, Lucy, Captain Thomas Manby.'

‘
Hardly a friend. I met him once or twice, that's all,' Lucy
said, waving a chicken-leg negatingly. 'He and the Princess
were certainly friendly, from what I heard.'

‘
It's an edifying tale,' James said ironically, helping himself
to cold veal and ham pie. 'What people you've been living
among down there!’

Not me, I promise you,' Anstey said. 'I live a life of
hardworking respectability. Anyway, the whole thing got
so out of hand that the Prince asked the Prime Minister
what to do, and he felt obliged to lay it before the King;
and the King, very reluctantly, as you may imagine, decided
there must be an investigation. It was supposed to be kept
secret, but a thing like that is bound to leak out, especially since they are taking evidence from the Princess's servants,
about her evening parties, and who slept the night there,
and so on.'

‘
It's being done for the sake of Princess Charlotte, I
suppose,' Lucy said. 'The King doats on that child.'

‘
And she is the heiress presumptive to the throne,' Anstey
said, 'and if the stories about the Princess having been
pregnant were true, it might cause grave embarrassment, to
say the least. There might be those to say the Prince was not
her father either.'

‘
But surely it would be easy enough to disprove rumours
about the supposed pregnancies?' Edward said. 'After all,
where there is a pregnancy, there has to be a child.'

‘
Well, yes, but then the Princess does like to adopt little
orphans and fondlings. There are several in her house, and in
particular there's that little William Austin whom some
people think needs explaining,' Anstey said.

‘
He's a nasty, spoiled little beast,' Lucy said. 'I don't know
why the Princess keeps him.'

‘
She says she must have something to love,' Anstey said,
‘and since she hates dogs and birds, and the Prince won't give
her more babies of her own, she has to adopt them.'

‘
I can quite understand a woman wanting to have lots of
children around her,' Louisa said, won over by this view.
‘That seems natural to me.'

‘
The Prince ought to find it natural, at any rate,' Lucy
said. 'He fought hard enough for Minny Seymour.'

‘
Well, the Commissioners are bound to find the Princess
innocent, whether she is or not,' Anstey resumed, 'but I think
they are going to have their work cut out to make it sound
convincing.'

‘
She's a dreadful woman,' Lucy said, 'but then the Prince
is a dreadful man. I always thought they deserved each other.'

‘
Why, Lucy!' You always say how charming he is to you,'
James protested.

‘
So he is, but it doesn't mean I approve of his behaviour,'
she retorted.

‘
He certainly isn't very popular at the moment,' Anstey
said. 'He's been making very obvious advances to Lady
Hertford ever since the Seymour case, and people are saying
he means to make her his mistress.'

‘
Well, she's just the sort of matronly woman he likes,' Lucy
said, wrinkling her nose, 'but it would be rather hard on Mrs
Fitz after all this time.'

‘
The poor old King's health is being drunk with great
fervour in the clubs at the moment,' Anstey said, 'and the
wits have invented a new toast to the Prince: "The Prince of
Wales
for ever!"‘

There was laughter at that, but Edward shook his head
sadly. 'What a world it is,' he said, 'when the country is ruled
by a madman, with a debauchee for an heir. What an
example to us all!'

‘
We shall just have to look forward to the days of Queen
Charlotte,' Louisa said soothingly. 'England always did well
when she had a queen instead of a king. Look at Great
Elizabeth and Great Anne.'

‘
And Great Mary?' her husband teased her. 'Don't forget
her, my love.'

‘That was different,' she said with dignity.

When the eating and drinking was over, the children, quite
naturally, wanted to get up and run about, and the adults,
just as naturally, wanted to recline and take their ease. John Anstey took himself off to a little distance to smoke a cigar,
and James got up and went with him, and they strolled along
the river-bank under the willows, chatting desultorily, while
the fragrant smoke drifted up through the branches into the
still, hot air. Edward, Louisa and Father Aislaby talked about
local matters, and Lucy went to look at the horses.

The gold of the afternoon deepened, and time seemed to
expand to accommodate an infinite number of permutations.
John, forgetting his public status in a delightfully informal
way, was now lying on his front on the river-bank, his coat off
and his shirt-sleeves rolled up, shewing Arthur how to catch
fish with his bare hands. Louisa watched them fondly from a
distance for a while, until she felt driven to go over and warn
them in a motherly way about dirt and wetness and the
possibilities of drowning. Edward and Father Aislaby, despite
the heat, went to organise a game of Kitcat for the rest of the
children, which seemed the only way to prevent open warfare
breaking out between Fanny and young Benjamin Anstey,
who resented the way Fanny bullied his sisters.

James and Lucy, left alone, sat side by side on a rug under a tree and contemplated the scene before them in companion
able silence, and after a while James got out his sketching-
book, propped it on his knees, and attempted, without much
conviction, to capture its essence in pencil. He paused and
gazed more than he drew. It needed paint and colour to do
the job formerl
^y
. he thought. The countryside was at its best
at this time of year; but even if he had a palette of colours
mixed by God's own seraphim, there were things he could
never have captured.

The meadow, for instance, thick with wild flowers, had a
deep rich July scent, a mixture of fragrance and promise and
the underlying fruitcake solidity of the good earth. And a
clever hand might set down the luminous quality of the great
chestnut trees, spreading their beautiful, palmate leaves to
the sun, but who could capture the dumb content of the carri
age horses, dozing in the deep, well-water shade beneath
them? Or the silent pleasure of the coachman, sitting at his
ease on the box, puffing at his pipe, and occasionally sending
a blue wreath of smoke in a companionable way about his
horses' ears, to keep the flies off?
And what skill could ever quite represent the exact colour
of the summer sky, the dense, creamy blue of it, which
seemed close enough to touch until you stared into it for a
while; and then it expanded away from you, further and further, until you felt that you were swimming upwards
through an immensely deep ocean of air towards — who
knew what?
At a little distance, the children defied the brilliant sun,
their voices, high and clear, echoing on the still, hot air. Their
calls of encouragement or enquiry were interrupted every
now and then by the flat clack of a stick striking the wooden
cat; then, like disturbed starlings, they would break into a
flurry of movement and a shrill clamour of voices, as the in-
team ran from post to post, counting breathlessly as they ran,
and the fielding team shrieked at each other as they scram
bled to retrieve the cat.

A particularly lucky strike by Hippolyta sent it flying
almost to James's feet, and Fanny came scurrying, red-faced
with heat and determination to scoop it up. The rivalry her
elder cousin aroused in her seemed to intensify every time
they met, despite the fact that Polly seemed not to have a
competitive bone in her body, and gave in to Fanny on every
whim. So determined was she on this occasion to get Polly
out, she hadn't even a glance to spare for her father, only
grabbed the cat up from the long grass and whirled away in a
flurry of skirts, flying sash-ends, and tangled hair.

‘
Such energy,' Lucy murmured in disbelief. 'And in this
heat, too!’

James turned his attention to her. It was odd to see her
dressed in black, odder still to see her face so grave and lined,
the bones standing out sharply, the mouth, even in relaxation,
grim. What Weston's death began, Chetwyn's seemed to have
completed: the merry child had gone for ever. And yet he
remembered her so well, his little, rough-haired sister, it felt
as though she must still be there, just below the surface, if
only he could reach her.

‘
Do you remember the last picnic when we were all
together?' he said suddenly. 'It was in this very field, just after
Papa died.' Lucy was watching the children, and merely
made an interrogative sound. 'You and I came in my curricle,
and I let you drive my chestnuts. You were so excited, I
thought you'd burst.’