Belgravia (11 page)

At last, after the currant pudding and the lemon ices had been consumed, the coffee drunk in the drawing room, the gardens toured, Stephen, John, and Grace left. They had secured enough cash to pay their tailors, as well as the other debts that Stephen had failed to mention. Peregrine retired to his library.

It was with a heavy heart that he sat down next to the fire in his large leather armchair, attempting to read some Pliny. He preferred the Elder to the Younger, as he liked dealing in the facts of history and science; but this afternoon the words didn’t dance off the page but rather half swam before his eyes. He’d read the same paragraph three times when Caroline walked through the door.

“You were quiet at luncheon. What’s the matter?” she said.

Peregrine closed the volume and sat in silence for a moment. He stared around the room at the line of portraits above the mahogany bookcases, stern-looking men in periwigs, women laced into their satin dresses, his forebears, his family, who had lent their blood to him, the last of his immediate line. Then he looked back at his wife. “Why does my brother, a man who never said or did anything of the slightest value, live to see his children married and his grandchildren gathered round his chair?”

“Oh, my dear.” Caroline sat down next to him and put her hand on his thin knee.

“I’m sorry,” said Peregrine, shaking his head as his face flushed. “I’m being a silly old man. But sometimes I can’t help railing at the injustice of it all.”

“And you think I don’t?”

He sighed. “Do you ever wonder what he would be like now? Married, of course, and rather fatter than when we knew him. With clever sons and pretty daughters.”

“Perhaps he’d have had clever daughters and pretty sons.”

“The point is, he’s not here. Our son, Edmund, is gone, and God knows I don’t understand why it had to happen to us.” Peregrine Brockenhurst suffered from the Englishman’s lack of ease when it came to discussing his emotions, that could at times be more poignant than fluency. He took hold of his wife’s hand and squeezed it. His pale blue eyes were watering. “I am sorry, my dear, I’m being very foolish.” He looked at his wife with something like tenderness. “I suppose I can’t help wondering what is the point of it all.” But then he laughed drily, pulling himself together. “Don’t listen to me,” he said. “I must stop drinking port. Port always makes me miserable.”

Caroline stroked the back of his hand. It would have been so easy to tell him the truth, tell him that he had a grandson, an heir to his blood if not to his position. But she did not know all the facts. Had Anne Trenchard been speaking the truth? She needed to investigate. And she had promised that woman to stay silent. In her defense, Caroline was a person who usually kept her promises.

No amount of valerian seemed to help Anne’s terrible headache. She felt as if her skull were being cut in two with a steel knife. She knew the cause and, while she was not prone to histrionics, she recognized that her lonely walk home to Eaton Square after her interview with Lady Brockenhurst was one of the most difficult of her life.

She had been shaking so much when she arrived back at number 110 that when she knocked on her own front door she failed to offer any form of explanation for the state she was in. Billy had been terribly puzzled when he answered. What was his mistress doing out on her own, shivering like a jelly? Where was Quirk, the coachman? It was all very confusing and provided them with plenty to discuss down in the servants’ hall as they waited to be
fed later that night. But no one was more confused than Anne as she wandered slowly upstairs to her rooms.

“It was like she was in a daze,” said her maid, Ellis, as she sat down at the table that evening. “Just hugging that dog and rocking in her chair.”

The years had not been overly kind to Ellis. After the heady days of Waterloo, when the streets of Brussels teemed with handsome soldiers who liked nothing more than a bit of chat with a pretty lady’s maid, she’d found the move to London a little too sedate for her liking. She would talk about her friend Jane Croft, Miss Sophia’s maid in the old days, who was doing well for herself as a housekeeper in the country now, and Ellis was always threatening to go off and try something similar. But, truth be told, she knew she’d be a fool to leave. She hankered after employment in a more illustrious household, and it bothered her that she did not work for a family with a title, but the Trenchards paid their servants more than most of the aristocrats she’d ever heard of, and the food they served below stairs was significantly better than anywhere else she’d come across. Mrs. Babbage had a proper budget and she served meat at nearly every meal.

“She’s not wrong,” agreed Billy, rubbing his hands together as he inhaled the smell of stewed beef and potatoes from the large copper pot in the middle of the table. “I mean, who’s ever heard of a mistress walking about the streets alone like that? She was off doing something she didn’t want the master finding out about, that’s for sure.”

“Do you think she’s got a fancy man?” giggled one of the housemaids.

“Mercy, go to your room!”

Mrs. Frant stood in the doorway, hands on hips, dressed in a black high-necked shirt and black skirt, a pale green cameo pinned at her throat. She had only been working for the Trenchards for three years, but she had been in service long enough to know it was a job worth keeping, and so she suffered no nonsense below stairs.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Frant. I was only—”

“You were only going upstairs with no dinner, and if I hear one more word you’ll be out without a reference tomorrow.”

The girl sniffed but did not attempt any further defense. As she scuttled away, Mrs. Frant took her place.

“Now, we will converse in a genteel fashion, but we will not make our employers the subject of our conversation.”

“All the same, Mrs. Frant”—Ellis was anxious to show that she did not consider herself under the housekeeper’s command—“it is quite unlike the mistress to have such a head it needs valerian. I’ve not seen her so unwell since she and Miss Sophia went to visit that ailing cousin of hers in Derbyshire.” The two women exchanged a rather piercing look.

In lieu of any explanation, all James Trenchard could do was speculate as to why his wife had taken to her bed and why she had asked for her supper to be sent up on a tray. He assumed it had something to do with Charles Pope and his refusal to allow Anne to share the young man’s existence with Lady Brockenhurst, and while he had not changed his mind on this, still he was anxious to get back on good terms with his wife as soon as he could decently manage it. So when he came across the card among the letters delivered in the last post inviting her to a reception at Kew Gardens, he decided he would take it up there and then, in the hope that it might lift her spirits. She was very fond of gardening and an enthusiastic supporter of Kew, as he knew well.

“I could come, too,” he suggested merrily as he watched her turn the card over in her hands. She was propped up against her pillows and looking generally wan, but she was interested. He could tell.

“All the way out to Kew?” replied Anne. “You barely walk the length of the gardens at Glanville if you can avoid it.” But she was smiling.

“Susan might like to go.”

“Susan dislikes flowers and can’t see beauty in anything that doesn’t glitter in Mr. Asprey’s window. She made me take her to
see the new shop last week. I could hardly drag her back into the carriage.”

“I can imagine,” nodded James, smiling. “That reminds me. After our dinner conversation the other night, I’ve been wondering if I might try to get Oliver a little more advanced in the business. He’s pootling around on the edge of it at the moment, and maybe he needs some direction. I have a meeting with William Cubitt tomorrow about the Isle of Dogs project, and if Oliver does want to be involved, as he implied, I thought I could try to sell the idea.”

“But do you think he really meant it?” said Anne. “It doesn’t sound like Oliver’s sort of thing at all.”

“Perhaps he should be a little less choosy about what interests him.” James didn’t mean to snap, but the disdain with which Oliver treated the idea of trade and hard work annoyed him.

“Well, I suppose it can’t hurt,” said Anne. “You might as well ask.”

It was not quite the reaction that James had hoped for. It would be quite an imposition to ask William Cubitt to give his son a larger stake in the business, a business in which Oliver had so far shown little aptitude or interest. For all their lucrative partnership, it was a bold move.

Anne could see his concern and she felt the same, but somehow she could not summon up much fight. She had always prided herself on her ability to judge a situation; she could read people well and kept her cards close to her chest. She wasn’t one of these foolish women who become indiscreet after one glass of Champagne. So what had she been thinking when she told the truth to Lady Brockenhurst? Had she been intimidated by the Countess? Or had she simply been carrying the burden on her own for too long? The fact remained, she’d told a secret of unimaginable magnitude, a secret that could cause them unlimited damage, to a total stranger, a woman she knew little or nothing about, and in doing so she had given Lady Brockenhurst the ammunition to bring down Anne’s entire family. The question was, would she use it? She rang for Ellis to take Agnes for her evening walk.

The following day James disappeared early. He would normally look in on his wife before he left, but she had slept so badly she’d taken a draught in the middle of the night and would probably not rise until noon. Even so, he was not overly concerned. Whatever it was, she’d get over it. He was far more worried about seeing William Cubitt. He had to get to his office and finish his morning’s business; their meeting was at twelve.

Cubitt had chosen the Athenaeum for their encounter, and James was determined to arrive early so he might have a look around. He’d heard that the club had relaxed their membership rules a little of late—they were in need of funds—and he had applied to join. James wasn’t a member of any gentlemen’s club, and it galled him.

Arriving at 107 Pall Mall, he admired the impressive columns outside the front of the building, he even crossed the road in order to see the homage to the Parthenon frieze at the top of the façade. It was hard to believe that Decimus Burton was only twenty-four years old when he designed the place.

When James walked inside and handed over his gloves and cane to the waiting steward, he was anxiously wondering whom he might ask about his application. It had been a while now, and he’d heard nothing. Perhaps he’d been turned down? But wouldn’t they have told him? It really was so tiresome. He looked around enviously at the vast hall with its magnificent imperial staircase, dividing at the first landing to sweep on upward on either side of that great space.

“James!” said William, leaping out of a chair to greet his friend. “Good to see you.” Slim, with a full head of gray hair, William Cubitt had a kind and clever face, with large intelligent eyes that he half closed when he was listening intently. “Did you see the new Reform Club on your way here? Isn’t it beautiful? Clever chap, that Charles Barry. I am not sure about the politics of the place,” he added, raising an eyebrow. “Full of liberals, and all of them bent on making trouble, but it’s a fine achievement nevertheless.” Having built Covent Garden, Fishmongers’ Hall, the
portico for Euston Station. and much else besides, Cubitt invariably remarked on details that few people noticed. “Did you take in the nine-bay treatment of the front? Very bold,” he enthused. “And the scale of it. It puts the poor little Travellers Club into the shade. Now, would you like anything to drink? Shall we go up to the library?”

The library of the club, a huge chamber occupying most of the first floor, lined in bookcases housing the club’s splendid collection, only made James fidget in his anxiety to be part of this place. By what right did they keep him out? It was with the greatest difficulty that he forced himself to concentrate on what was being said, but at last he calmed down, and, over a glass of Madeira, he and Cubitt caught up on the plans, the ideas, and the changes William had in mind for “Cubitt Town.” “I’ll change the name,” he said, sitting back in his seat. “But that’s what it’s called at the moment.”

“So the plan is to expand the docks, create local businesses, and build houses for those working there nearby?”

“Exactly. There’s pottery, brick production, cement. All dirty stuff, but it has to be made, and I want to be the person to make it,” Cubitt remarked. “But we want houses for the bookmakers and clerks, too, and hopefully we can persuade some of the management to make their homes there, if we can create sufficiently salubrious areas. In short, we want to reinvent the place entirely and rebuild it as a whole community.”

“There’s a lot of work to be done,” said James.

“There certainly is. We’ll have to drain the land first, of course, but we know well enough how to do that after building Belgravia, and I have high hopes that it will make us proud in the end.”

“Do you think there might be an opening for Oliver? It’s just the sort of thing he’d love to be part of.” James struggled for a casual tone.

“Oliver?”

“My son.” James could feel his voice falter.

“Oh, that Oliver.” For a moment, the atmosphere was rather flat. “It may be that he is taking time to settle into the business,
but I have never thought he was very interested in architecture,” said William. “Or building, come to that. I am not saying I object to his working for us, you understand, only that the demands of an enormous project like this might be rather more than he would be willing to undertake.”

“No, he’s keen to be involved,” insisted James, trying to quell his embarrassment and thinking of Anne’s comments all the while. “He’s tremendously interested. But sometimes he’s not good at… expressing himself.”

“I see.” William Cubitt could not be said to look convinced.

James had known William and his elder brother, Thomas, for almost twenty years, and in that time they had become close; not just as business partners but as friends. The trio had made a lot of money together and they all had reason to rejoice, but this was the first time James had asked either of the brothers for anything resembling a favor, and he was not enjoying it. He rubbed his right temple. Actually, that was not quite right. The first favor had been to get them to take on Oliver at all. Obviously, the young man had made no very favorable impression and here James was, pushing his luck.