Polonaise (33 page)

‘They all say I am wise to go.' She had dismissed her maid. ‘I hadn't quite realised how little the Empress and the Empress Mother like the French. And they say feeling in Moscow is fierce against this alliance; that the Tsar will never be able to hold to it; even if he goes on wanting to. That this is a time when wise people stay at home and keep quiet. Sir Robert Wilson was at the Empress Mother's palace; treated like a dear friend; he's just back with some new message for the Tsar. To England and back in seventeen days, or something amazing like that. An uppish young man, very full of himself, but the Empress Mother seems to like him just the same. I don't know what to think, Jenny.'

It was good to be called Jenny again. ‘Princess, I've had a message; from the Brotherhood. They say it's time you went home. And –' she felt herself colour ‘– They want you to take me with you.'

‘Taking a great deal on themselves!' The Princess was predictably angry. ‘But of course that was a crazy idea of yours, about going back to England. I can't think what put it into your head. You're part of my family. Mine and Casimir's. We can't possibly do without you, so let that be the end of it, please.'

‘Very well.' A brave woman, Jenny thought, would have said something about a salary, but, if so, she was not a brave woman.

Two days later, the Foreign Minister, Count Rumyantsev, declared war on England. A hastily scrawled message from Glynde informed Jenny that he was leaving with Granville Leveson Gower. ‘I have spoken to George Richards,' he wrote. ‘He promises to look after you, if you feel you must leave, but may I urge you once again to stay. I am so very sorry not to be able to see you, or the Princess again. Please assure her of
my enduring devotion and earnest hope that we will meet again.'

‘So much for that,' said the Princess. I'll never see him again, thought Jenny. And Glynde, starting out on the long, dangerous journey home, found himself thinking what a gallant companion she would have made. And thanking God she had stayed with the Princess, and his son.

England seemed a foreign land to Glynde after his five years abroad. All the talk that winter of 1807 was of Napoleon's new wars against Spain and Portugal. British progress there was of much more interest to the public than anything that had been going on so much further away, in eastern Europe. People asked him polite questions about life in Russia, and then hardly listened to his answers. Nothing the Tsar could do was half so important in English eyes as the fact that the would-be King of France, Louis XVIII, had landed at Yarmouth under the name of the Count de Lille, and been received without much enthusiasm by the British government, itself involved in abortive peace negotiations with Napoleon.

Glynde's old friend Canning was still Foreign Minister, but he, too, was preoccupied with the seething pot of the Iberian Peninsula. And he had been infuriated by Glynde's continued refusal to tell him the source of the vital information about the secret articles of the Treaty of Tilsit that had precipitated British action both in Denmark and in Portugal. It weighed on Glynde's conscience that he had not done so. But to tell Canning that his informant was Talleyrand would have meant telling him of their relationship, and how could he do that? He had held to it that his source had been a lady he must not compromise, thought Canning justifiably angry, and been sad but not surprised when Canning made only vague promises about future employment for him.

Feeling at odds with London society, he went to pay the essential courtesy visit at Ringmer Place, and was shocked at the change in Lord Ringmer's appearance. He had become an old man, and Glynde supposed his son must stay with him out of filial anxiety, but they made an irascible pair, and it was a relief to receive an invitation from his mother's surviving sister.

Maud Savage had moved to Brighton long before the Prince
Regent had made the little watering place popular. She had been the beauty of her family and the gossips had been surprised when she failed to marry. As a child, Glynde had been afraid of her sharp tongue, but when he came back wounded and in disgrace from Valmy, it was she who had taken him in and nursed him back to health. Her comfortable, unpretentious house in Ship Street, with its wide views of the sea, had been home to him from then on.

‘It's good to be home.' He had ridden over the downs from Ringmer. ‘You've not changed in the least, aunt.' It was almost true. Always small, fine-boned, elegant, she was tiny now, the grey hair white, the blue eyes sharp as ever.

‘I won't say the same of you.' She looked him over thoughtfully. ‘You've grown up, I believe. Or are growing? Something that brother of yours will never do. How did you find them? He and your father?'

‘Not my father.' Had he meant to tell her this?

‘Ah? You found out. That's a weight off my mind. I'd been wondering whether it was not perhaps my duty to tell you. In fairness to him as much as anything else.'

‘It does explain a good deal. Why should he like me? I have to be grateful to him for letting me take his name.'

‘I think you do.'

‘But my mother? Aunt Maud, I have to know. How was he to her?'

‘Do you need to ask? Irreproachably courteous and unbelievably cruel. I wanted her to come here to me; he would not allow it. If he was going to acknowledge you as his, there must be nothing to suggest otherwise. It killed her, I think, the way he treated her. She tried so hard to live, to endure it, for your sake, but she wasn't strong like me. She was a gentle creature, your mother; she could not bear the quiet unkindness. They called it a wasting disease, but I think it was just misery. I wanted to have you when she died, but of course he would not allow that either. How do he and his son go on?'

‘Badly. They are too much alike to be able to live together. I cannot imagine why they do.'

‘Of necessity. Can you really not have heard of your brother's marriage?'

‘He's married!'

‘Disastrously. A run-away match with what he thought was a great fortune. A complete take-in, and to make things worse, the poor girl bore him an idiot child, then lost her own wits. The expense of keeping the two of them shut away, and some extravagances of his own constrain him to live at Ringmer…'

‘Dear God! I knew nothing of it. Poor Christopher …'

‘Well, yes, poor Christopher. Up to a point.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘That the insanity is on his side, and that I suspect it was his treatment of his wife after the child was born that sent her off her head. I cannot tell you how glad I am that his name is all you can have inherited from Lord Ringmer, Glynde.'

‘But you're sure? This is certain?' He could not help thinking of how it might affect him. Suppose the Princess should hear that he came from tainted stock.

‘Certain enough for anyone who cared to investigate. You did not know that I was engaged to your father first? I broke it off after I saw him in one of his rages, asked a few questions. Like a proud fool, I went away, kept quiet about my reasons. I sometimes think he married your poor mother to spite me. But that's enough of the sad past. Are you taking in what this means for your future? Like it or not, you are likely to find yourself Lord Ringmer in the end. He can hardly disown you now.'

‘No wonder they hate me.' He was thinking of the Princess again, that sharp question of hers. If he went back to her, as Lord Ringmer? But, with a tale of madness in the family?

‘It's not easy, is it, Glynde?' Her tone made him wonder just how much she knew, or suspected. ‘Pull the bell for me, would you? I tend to drink a glass of something at this time of day, for my health's sake, and I imagine you would not mind joining me.' And then, when he had poured wine for them both. ‘Now, tell me about this fairy-tale Princess of yours.'

‘Fairy-tale?'

‘That's how you painted her in your letters. A creature of fantasy. A rose without a thorn. Poor Glynde.' Her smile was almost more understanding than he could bear. ‘Do you love her so very much?'

‘How can I help it?'

‘Your bright, particular star? I'm glad you have come home. You've been mad a little, have you not? Beglamoured?'

‘I suppose so.' Reluctantly. It angered him to sense what a fool she thought him for his passion, but how could he tell her the truth of his relationship with the Princess, the grounds he had for his obstinate hope?

‘Here's to romance!' She drained her glass. ‘A little of it never hurt anyone. But I'll tell you one thing, Glynde, before we start looking about for a good match for you. The person your letters made me want to meet was not your fairy Princess at all, but plain Miss Peverel from the other end of Sussex. I did meet her once, at Petworth House, a very long time ago. A quiet young thing, I remember, but she struck me as having a great deal of sense, and concealing it admirably.'

Glynde laughed. ‘Miss Peverel to the life. She is a most inspiring listener. The Princess is lucky to have her for a companion, and as for the little Prince, Jenny Peverel has been the making of him. All Europe may be grateful to her one day.'

In the end, the Princess went to Rendomierz. She paused long enough at Vinsk to celebrate Christmas and see Grucz remarried to one of his numerous poverty-stricken cousins, and Jenny, who had refused him three times on the journey, breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I need you with me,' was all the Princess said about it. ‘Rendomierz is going to be a dead bore after Petersburg. I mean to spend most of the winters in Warsaw, of course.'

‘In Warsaw? Under the French?'

‘Why not? We're all friends now. And Casimir must grow up among his fellow Poles. Must know and be known. I've written to Anna Potocka to ask how things go in the Duchy these days. Her father-in-law's in the government after all. And you might write to Marie Walewska. They say she's still likely to be well informed.' She gave one of her quick glances to the looking-glass. ‘A pity it's Davout in charge of the army there, not Murat, or another of our old friends. Baron Vincent, the French Minister is a nothing, they say, but a nothing in absolute power. It will be interesting to see how the government of the Duchy goes on. They've problems enough, by what one hears: food, money, an occupying army.' She put
her hand to her mouth. ‘Forget I said that! Josef Poniatowski says they are liberators. He begins to think highly of Marshal Davout, he tells me. A man who believes in the future of Poland. And Josef has great plans for our own army.'

‘He's still in command?'

‘Of course he is. Who else?'

When they got to Warsaw at the end of March, they found it quiet enough, with families still reeling under late news of the fates of sons and brothers who had fought in the summer campaign. Anna Potocka was in heavy mourning, having just returned from her great aunt's deathbed at the family palace in Bialystok. ‘Madame de Cracovie was one of the last of the great Polish ladies,' Isobel told Jenny. ‘She was King Stanislas Augustus's sister, Josef Poniatowski's aunt. All Poland will mourn her.'

‘What does Countess Potocka say about things in Bialystok under the Russians?' Jenny asked. ‘How do they go on?' Though the
Warsaw Gazette
was closely controlled, she had heard rumours of Russian reprisals against serfs who had joined the advancing French army.

‘Oh, well enough! To tell truth she did not say much about it. She certainly had no trouble getting there and back. Oh, yes, she did mention something about a steward who had been sent to Siberia. Served him right, I have no doubt, but she seemed to miss him. But she told me one thing that will surprise you. Do you know where your friend Marie Walewska is?'

‘No. I knew she was from home.'

‘She's in Paris, would you believe it! What it is to be monarch of the world! He sends for her half across Europe, and she goes to him as meek and public as you please! Not presented at court, you understand. Well, how could she be? But living in the greatest comfort in the Rue de la Houssaye; seen at the Opéra; dressed by Leroy. I wonder where it will all end.'

‘So do I,' said Jenny.

When she heard, at the end of the month, that Marie had returned to Warsaw, she made haste to call, urged on by the Princess. ‘She's to be recognised still, it seems. Davout has let it be known, through that wife of his who thinks herself so
important because her brother married Napoleon's sister. You call on the Walewska, Jenny, I have better things to do.'

‘Jenny!' Marie came towards her with open arms. ‘I am so very glad to see you safe. I wondered so much about you, at the time of Tilsit. You are well, you are happy, you go on as always with the Princess Ovinska?'

‘Yes to it all.' Jenny returned the embrace with enthusiasm. ‘And all the better for seeing you!' She held her off at arms' length. ‘Anyone can see you have been to Paris! I would not have thought you could be more elegant. Be ready to be heartily disliked, dear Marie, by all the Polish ladies.'

‘Not including you! But you know how much he cares about dress.' For Marie, Jenny had learned, there was only one he. ‘I've scolded him many times for the sharp things he says to ladies whose costume does not please him. So of course I made an effort. And Monsieur Leroy, the great designer, was so good to me!'

‘No wonder,' said Jenny. ‘He must have enjoyed himself. The Princess will be wild to go to Paris, too, when she sees you. But, Marie, if you were enjoying yourself so much there, why did you come back to sad little Warsaw?'

‘My home, Jenny. And for the best of reasons. He had to go away. This trouble in Spain is becoming almost serious, he thinks. He's gone to see to it himself. He'll soon show those boorish Spanish peasants the error of their ways. But Paris is nothing to me without him there, so of course I came home.'

‘And the Count, your husband?' Greatly daring, Jenny asked the question.