Belgravia (6 page)

The other woman nodded as she spoke. “And above all else, the knowledge must have hung in the air that some of those smiling, handsome young men, taking salutes on the parade ground, pouring the wine at picnics, or waltzing with the daughters of their officer, would not be coming home.” Lady Brockenhurst’s tone was even, but a slight tremble in the sound of her voice betrayed her emotion.

How well Anne understood. “Yes.”

“I suppose they enjoyed it. The girls who were there, like your daughter, I mean. The danger, the glamour; because danger is glamorous when you’re young. Where is she now?”

Again. Twice in one afternoon. “Sophia died.”

Lady Brockenhurst gasped. “Now, that I did
not
know,” confirming that she had known everything else. Obviously she and the Duchess of Richmond had discussed the whole story, countless times for all Anne knew, which would explain her manner until this moment.

Anne nodded. “It was quite soon after the battle, less than a year, in fact, so a long time ago now.”

“I am very sorry.” For the first time Lady Brockenhurst spoke with something like genuine warmth. “Everyone always claims to know what you’re going through, but I do. And I know that it never goes away.”

Anne stared at her, this haughty matron who had expended so much effort putting Anne in her place. Who had brought so
much anger into the room with her. And yet the knowledge that Anne, too, had lost a child, that the wicked girl of Lady Brockenhurst’s bitter ruminations was dead, had somehow altered things between them. Anne smiled. “Oddly, I find that comforting. They say misery loves company, and perhaps it does.”

“And you remember seeing Edmund at the ball?” Lady Brockenhurst had dispensed with rage, and now her eagerness to hear something of her lost son was almost uncomfortable.

The question could be answered honestly. “Very well. And not just from the ball. He would come to our house with other young people. He was very popular. Charming, good-looking, and funny as could be—”

“Oh yes. All that and more.”

“Do you have other children?” The moment she said it, Anne could have bitten off her tongue. She remembered very well that Bellasis had been an only child. He’d often talked about it. “I’m so sorry. I remember now that you don’t. Please forgive me.”

“You’re right. When we go, there will be nothing left of us.” Lady Brockenhurst smoothed the silk of her skirts, glancing into the empty chimneypiece. “Not a trace.”

For a second, Anne thought Lady Brockenhurst might cry, but she decided to continue just the same. Why not comfort this bereaved mother, if she could? Where was the harm? “You must be very proud of Lord Bellasis. He was an excellent young man, and we were so fond of him. Sometimes we would get up a little ball of our own, with six or seven couples, and I would play the piano. It seems strange to say it now, but those days before the battle were happy ones. At any rate, for me.”

“I’m sure.” Lady Brockenhurst stood. “I’m going now, Mrs. Trenchard. But I have enjoyed our talk. Rather more than I anticipated.”

“Who told you I’d be here?” Anne stared at her calmly.

Lady Brockenhurst shook her head. “No one. I asked our hostess who was talking to my sister and she told me your name. I was curious. I have talked
about
you and your daughter so many times that it seemed a shame to miss the chance of talking
to
you.
But anyway, I see now I have been wrong. If anything, it’s been a treat for me to discuss Edmund with someone who knew him. You’ve made me feel I have seen him again, dancing and flirting and enjoying himself in his last hours, and I like to think of that. I
will
think of that. So thank you.” She glided away between the chattering groups, stately in her progress, the colors of half mourning moving through the gaily brilliant crowd.

Seeing her gone, the Duchess of Bedford returned. “Heavens. I must say I had no need to worry about you, Mrs. Trenchard. You are clearly among friends.” Her words were more amiable than her tone.

“Not friends exactly, but we have memories in common. And now I must also take my leave. I am so pleased I came. Thank you.”

“Come again. And next time you can tell me all about the famous gathering before the battle.”

But Anne was conscious that somehow to discuss that long-ago evening with someone who had no investment in it would not satisfy her. It had been cathartic to talk about it with the old Duchess, and even with her more astringent sister, as they both had their links to that night. But it would not do to dissect it with a stranger. Ten minutes later, she was in her carriage.

Eaton Square may have been larger than Belgrave Square, but the houses were a shade less magnificent, and although James had been determined to occupy one of the splendid piles in the latter, he had yielded to his wife’s wishes and settled for something a little smaller. That said, the houses in Eaton Square were grand enough, but Anne was not unhappy there. Indeed, she liked it, and she had worked hard to make the rooms pretty and pleasant, even if they were not as stately as James would have chosen. “I have a taste for splendor,” he used to say, but it was a taste Anne did not share. Still, she walked through the cool, gray entrance hall, smiling at the footman who had let her in, and continued up the staircase without any sense of resisting her surroundings. “Is the master at home?” she asked the man, but no, it seemed James had not returned. He would probably race in, just in time to
change, and she would have to leave their discussion until the end of the evening. For a discussion there must be.

They were dining alone with their son, Oliver, and his wife, Susan, who lived with them, and the evening passed easily enough. She told them of the Duchess of Bedford’s tea party as they sat in the large dining room on the ground floor. A butler in his late forties, Turton, was serving them with the help of two footmen, which seemed to Anne rather excessive for a family dinner of four persons, but it was how James liked things to be done, and she did not really mind. It was a pleasing room, if a little cold, ennobled by a screen of columns at one end, separating the sideboard from the rest of the chamber. There was a good chimneypiece of Carrara marble and, above it, a portrait of her husband by David Wilkie that James was proud of, even if Wilkie might not have been. It was painted the year before he produced his famous picture of the young Queen at her first Council meeting, which James was sure must have put up Wilkie’s price. That said, he did not look his best. Anne’s dachshund, Agnes, was sitting by her chair, eyes raised upward in optimism. Anne slipped her a tiny piece of meat.

“You only encourage her to beg,” said James. But she didn’t really care.

Their daughter-in-law, Susan, was complaining. This was so ordinary a state of affairs that it was hard to concentrate, and Anne had to force herself to listen to this evening’s litany of woe. The problem seemed to be that she had not been taken to the Duchess of Bedford’s tea party. “But you weren’t invited,” said Anne, reasonably enough.

“What difference does that make?” Susan was almost in tears. “Women all over London simply reply saying they would be delighted to accept and that they will be bringing their daughters.”

“You’re not my daughter.” As soon as she had said it, Anne knew this was a mistake, since it gave the moral high ground to Susan on a platter. The younger woman’s lip quivered. Across the table their son put his knife and fork down noisily.

“She is your
daughter-in-law
, which would mean the same
as ‘daughter’ in any other house.” There was something harsh in Oliver’s voice that was more pronounced when he was angry, and he was angry now.

“Of course.” Anne turned to help herself to more sauce, deliberately making things normal again. “I just don’t think I would be justified in taking someone, anyone, to the house of a woman I barely know.”

“A duchess you barely know, and I don’t know at all.” Apparently Susan had recovered. Enough to fight her corner, anyway. Anne glanced at the opaque faces of the servants. They would soon be enjoying this down in the servants’ hall, but, like the professionals they were, they gave no hint of having heard the exchange.

“I didn’t see you in the office today, Oliver.” Mercifully, James found his son’s wife as tiresome as Anne did, even though he and Susan shared so many ambitions as far as the beau monde was concerned.

“I wasn’t there.”

“Why not?”

“I went to inspect the work in Chapel Street. I wonder we have made the houses so small. Haven’t we surrendered a healthy share of profits?”

Anne looked at her husband. However misguided James might be when dazzled by the glare of high Society, he certainly knew his business. “When you develop an area as we have done, you must build for the whole picture. You can’t only have palaces. You must house the supporters of the princes who live in the palaces. Their clerks and managers and upper servants. Then there must be a mews for their coaches and coachmen. They all take space, but it is space well used.”

Susan’s petulant voice reentered the fray. “Have you given any more thought to where we might live, Father?” Anne watched her daughter-in-law. She was a good-looking woman, no doubt about it, with her clear complexion, green eyes, and auburn hair. She had an excellent figure and she dressed well. If only she could ever be satisfied.

The issue of where the young couple should live was an old and tired one. James had offered various options as Belgravia was going up, but his ideas and theirs never seemed to match. They wanted something similar to the house in Eaton Square, while James believed they should cut their coat according to their cloth and start more modestly. In the end, Susan preferred to share a house that suited her pretensions rather than lower her standards, and so a kind of ritual had been achieved. From time to time, James would make suggestions. And Susan would turn them down.

James smiled blandly. “I’d be happy to give you the pick of anything empty in Chester Row.”

Susan wrinkled her nose slightly but softened her reaction with a laugh. “Aren’t they a little poky?”

Oliver snorted. “Susan’s right. They’re far too small for entertaining, and I suppose I have a position to keep up, as your son.”

James helped himself to another lamb chop. “They’re less poky than the first house I shared with your mother.” Anne laughed, which only served to annoy Oliver more.

“I have been brought up very differently from the way you two began your lives. Maybe I do have grander expectations, but you have given them to me.” Of course there was truth in this. Why else had James insisted on Charterhouse and Cambridge, if he had not wanted Oliver to grow up thinking like a gentleman? In fact, his son’s marriage to Susan Miller, the daughter of a successful merchant like himself, had been a disappointment to James, who had hoped for something higher. Still, she was an only child, and there would be a considerable inheritance when the time came. That’s if Miller didn’t change his mind and cut her out. James noticed that Susan’s father was becoming more reluctant to hand over money to his daughter in the way he had done when the pair were first married. “She’s such a fool with it,” he’d said to James once, after a liquid luncheon, and it was difficult not to agree.

“Well, well. We’ll see what can be done.” James laid down his cutlery and the footmen stepped in to remove the plates. “Cubitt’s had an interesting idea to do something with the Isle of Dogs.”

“The Isle of Dogs? Is there anything there?” Anne smiled her
thanks to the footman as her plate was taken. Naturally, James was far too important for any such thing.

“The opening of the West India Docks and the East India Docks have made a hell of a difference—” He stopped, catching Anne’s expression, and started again. “Have made a terrific difference. Ramshackle buildings are going up every day, but Cubitt thinks we can build a solid community if we give respectable people—not just workers, but management—somewhere decent to live. It’s exciting.”

“Will Oliver be part of this?” Susan kept her tone bright.

“We’ll have to see.”

“Of course I won’t,” said Oliver curtly. “When was I ever brought in to anything interesting?”

“We seem to be failing on every count tonight.” James helped himself to another glass of wine from the decanter he kept by his place. It was an inescapable truth that Oliver was a disappointment to him, and the younger man suspected it. It did not make for a comfortable relationship.

Agnes was beginning to whine, and so Anne picked her up, hiding her in the folds of her skirt. “We’ll be at Glanville for most of next month,” she said, in an effort to lighten the atmosphere. “I hope you’ll come down when you can. Susan, perhaps you can stay for a few days?” There was a silence. Glanville was their house in Somerset, an Elizabethan manor of great beauty that Anne had rescued from the brink of collapse. It was the one place which, before his marriage, Oliver had enjoyed above all others. But Susan had different ideas.

“We will if we can.” She smiled briskly. “It’s such a ways.” He knew that, in addition to something splendid in London, Susan had her heart set on an estate near enough to the city to make the journey in no more than a few hours. Preferably with a large and modern house equipped with every convenience. The ancient, mottled, golden stone of Glanville, with its mullioned windows and uneven, gleaming floors, held no appeal for her. But Anne was undeterred. She would not give up the house or the estate—and James did not expect her to. She would try to encourage her
son and his wife to appreciate its charms, but in the end, if Oliver didn’t want it, then she must find her own heir elsewhere. Which she was fully prepared to do.

Anne had been right about the servants’ pleasure in their account of the upstairs conversation. Billy and Morris, the two footmen who had served at dinner, kept the table in the servants’ hall in stitches with their telling of it. That was until Mr. Turton came in. He paused on the threshold. “I hope there is no disrespect on display in this room.”

“No, Mr. Turton,” said Billy, but one of the maids started to giggle.