Rebel Heiress (33 page)

‘Why, of course,' she said again. ‘I am very fond of Simon. But I still do not understand what you would be at, Mr. Gurney.'

‘Why, just this. I have had an opportunity, through friends in the inner councils of the Whig Party, of offering Simon the chance of a safe seat at Marchalsea where there is to be a by-election shortly. The Duke of Devonshire is prepared to use his influence on his behalf and that, you know, will do the business. But naturally, there are financial considerations involved. He cannot hope to be returned without a considerable outlay; it will be necessary for him to be able to guarantee one thousand pounds at least. It is the chance of a lifetime, Miss Marchmont, and it is idle to hope, as I believe he does, that it may recur. I only wish I could make the money available to him myself, but you know I have a houseful of daughters who must be launched in the world. There remains his family. Surely you can persuade Mr. Charles Rivers that, whatever he may think of his brother's change of party, this is an opportunity not to be missed.'

‘I see.' Her father's daughter, she saw at once what a chance this was. ‘But, surely, Lord Queensmere?' she asked.

‘Is beyond business, I am told. And, besides, Simon is understandably reluctant to approach him in the matter, since he knows how deeply his change of party must affect him.'

‘I see,' Henrietta said again. But what she really saw was the two brothers standing, last night, facing each other, silent and hostile, across the fireplace. In her heart she knew that to appeal to Charles would be useless. ‘Mr. Gurney, I do not know what to say.'

He rose at once to his feet. ‘I am sorry to have troubled you. Miss Marchmont.'

‘No, no. I beg you will be seated. It is just… Mr. Gurney, I am sorry to have to say it to you, but I do not believe Charles will help.'

‘Oh. I see.' She was afraid that he saw far too much. ‘Then I am afraid that my friend Simon must just say good-bye to his chance.'

Once again he rose to go, but she stopped him with an impulsive gesture. ‘If only my father were here. I know he would help.' There was a little pause before she went on. ‘Mr. Gurney, I — I do not know how to say this. But' — once again she paused, then, in a rush — ‘I am my father's heiress. Could I not borrow the money?'

‘On your expectations? Miss Marchmont, you are a true friend, but you must not be going to the moneylenders, which, I am sure is something your father would never forgive.' It was his turn to pause for a moment, thoughtfully. Then, ‘But if you are sure of yourself, and will guarantee the money, by your own note to me, I will advance it to Simon.'

‘Oh, thank you. Only tell me what I must write, and, Mr. Gurney, on no account must Simon know.' Or Charles either, she told herself, as, their business completed, Mr. Gurney took his leave with many protestations of friendly satisfaction.

There followed a strange, twilight time for Henrietta. Charles continued at Wimbledon, writing her, every day, short, passionate notes of which the theme was always the same. He longed for her; he was maddened by his inability to visit her; they must marry as soon as his grandfather showed the slightest sign of recovery. ‘Otherwise' he wrote, ‘we may find ourselves compelled to wait out the period of mourning for him, and that, my love, I could not bear.'

In her answers, she temporised, but in her heart, she despaired. What in the world had happened to her? Had Charles changed, or had she? Had she ever really loved him? Love at first sight, indeed! A girl's infatuation. Enthralled by that magic, skilful touch of his, she had loved, not Charles, but her own image of him. Time and again, when she had been shaken in her allegiance, he had drawn her into his compelling, expert arms, and she had been his slave again. Now, painfully, irrevocably, she found herself free. But what could she do? How could she tell him, now, when he had so much to trouble him, that she had changed her mind?

If only her father would come home. He would help her. And yet it was her father's absence that provided her best excuse for postponing the wedding. Her only consolation,
those cold days when winter lingered on and spring would not come, was little Caroline's continued recovery. But there, too, was a drawback. A fretful and, inevitably, a spoiled convalescent, Caroline kept asking for Simon, and still Simon did not come. Pride would not let Henrietta write again and ask him to visit them, but, missing him herself more than she had imagined possible, she found it hard to keep her temper when Caroline fretted for him.

News of him, at least, she had. He had thrown himself with enthusiasm into contesting his by-election and seemed, she thought, to be making an admirable job of it.

The Miss Giddys, of course, were gloomy. ‘So Mr. Simon Rivers is become a flaming radical,' said Miss Letitia.

‘Drinking at the Crown and Anchor with Sir Francis Burdett,' said Miss Patricia.

‘Plotting, no doubt, at the King's Arms to overset Government and bring us all to ruin,' added Miss Giddy.

‘And such a well-spoken young man, too,' said Miss Letitia.

‘I would never have thought it of him,' said Miss Patricia.

Henrietta, who had been controlling her temper with difficulty, could stand no more. ‘I believe it to be true that Mr. Simon Rivers has joined the Whigs,' she said, ‘but I am yet to learn that it necessarily means he is planning to overthrow the Government. I collect that Mr. Rivers is entitled to his opinions as much as anybody else.'

‘Even if they kill his grandfather?' asked Miss Giddy.

‘But of course we defer to your great knowledge, Miss Marchmont,' said Miss Letitia.

‘Naturally, you would know more about Mr. Simon Rivers than most people,' said Miss Giddy.

‘My dears, we must be taking our leave,' said Miss Patricia.

‘To call upon dear Lady Beaufrage,' explained Miss Giddy.

‘We owe her a duty for her new mother's sake,' said Miss Letitia to Lady Marchmont. ‘Is it true that they are to buy a house in town and quite cut her manufacturing interests? I had hoped it might mean an interesting event…' She let the sentence trail off hopefully.

When Lady Marchmont did not respond, Miss Giddy took up the tale. ‘They have been married these five months or more.'

‘I believe dear Lord Beaufrage is quite the man about town again,' said Miss Patricia.

‘His friends must be glad to see him back at Watiers,' said Miss Letitia.

‘And why not?' asked Henrietta, who found this new teasing of her stepmother harder even to bear than their attacks on herself. ‘I have yet to learn that a man must do nothing but stay at home and match his wife's wools, just because he is married.'

‘Of course not,' agreed Miss Giddy warmly.

‘What an understanding wife our dear Miss Marchmont will make,' said Miss Letitia.

‘Mr. Rivers is a lucky man,' said Miss Patricia.

‘Mr.
Charles
Rivers,' explained Miss Letitia.

‘Such a
good
young man,' said Miss Giddy.

‘So devoted a grandson,' added Miss Patricia.

‘And to think of his even finding time to comfort dear, lonely Lady Beaufrage.' Miss Letitia let the sentence hang, obviously waiting to be questioned on it. But Henrietta and Lady Marchmont exchanged one long, thoughtful glance and said nothing. Deprived of the reaction they had hoped for, the Miss Giddys rose at last and took their leave.

‘You must not mind them, my love,' said Lady Marchmont, when they were really gone. ‘They only do it to tease you. You should not let them see that they have succeeded.'

‘I know it,' Henrietta said ruefully. ‘But they are beyond bearing sometimes.' Neither of them thought fit to refer to Miss Letitia's remark about Charles Rivers and Sally Beaufrage, but Henrietta thought about it a good deal in the days that followed.

The Miss Giddys, however, soon had something better to do than gossip about Henrietta. All of a sudden, with the first spring weather good news from Europe came thick and fast. Wellington had defeated Soult and taken Bordeaux, while in the North the Allied armies were advancing rapidly on Paris. And as if it was not enough delight for the Miss Giddys to run from house to house comparing and passing on the latest news, they had an ample source of scandal at home too. The quarrel between the Prince Regent and his wife had achieved new heights of vulgar publicity and he was being greeted wherever he went with shouts of, ‘Where's your wife, Georgie?' Henrietta's affairs paled in comparison to this, and, to her relief, she was spared a visit from the Miss Giddys for several days.

Caroline was getting steadily better, but Charles' daily notes
from Wimbledon reported no improvement in his grandfather's condition and no early hope of getting into town to see her. Instead, his notes urged, on a rising note of passion, that as soon as he could be spared from his grandfather's bedside, they should be secretly married. ‘If you were but mine, I could bear everything,' he wrote. Wondering what, exactly, he meant by ‘everything', Henrietta admitted to herself, at last, that she did not trust him. He was not stupid. He must be aware, by now, that her feeling towards him had changed. His reaction, it seemed, was to make sure of her. Increasingly aware of the false note in his passion, she yet found that his tone of the confident and accepted lover made it extraordinarily difficult for her to take the initiative and break their engagement. Her only comfort was that he did not come to press his suit in person, but this, she knew, was a relief that could not last.

But what could she do? It was April now and she sat at her bedroom window, nibbling at her pen, trying to think of an answer to his latest note of love and devotion, and gazing instead out at the garden, green and gold with daffodils. Suddenly she jumped to her feet. The guns were firing. Could it be victory at last? Hurrying downstairs, she met Lady Marchmont in the hall and they ran together out into Park Lane. Crowds were gathering already, and rumours passing from mouth to mouth. Bonaparte had committed suicide; Paris was in flames; the Czar of Russia had been elected King of France — No, it was Wellington, and he was to be President.

They returned to the house little the wiser, but soon a footman came back with firm news. Paris had fallen and Bonaparte had abdicated at last. All through the Easter week-end the news kept coming in and
Gazette
followed
Gazette
. By Sunday, the supply of newspapers was exhausted and the newspaper horns did not blow. But the news got about just the same. Bonaparte was to be exiled to Elba; the Allied sovereigns had made their ceremonial entry into Paris; the war was over. Most important of all, for Henrietta, was a short note from her father, dated from Paris, and announcing that he would be home next week. Crying quietly with relief, Henrietta told herself that he would free her from Charles. She had come a long way from that first encounter in a Devonshire lane.

On Monday, London was to be illuminated in celebration of the peace, and at breakfast that morning Lady Marchmont bewailed that they had no escort to take them to see the decorations,
which were expected to be something quite out of the ordinary. At luncheon, she was triumphant. ‘I have secured us a gallant for this evening,' she announced.

‘Oh?' Henrietta looked up quickly. ‘Who?'

‘Why, who but Simon Rivers?'

‘Simon? Are you out of your mind?'

‘But why not, my love? I know he has somewhat neglected us of late, but that is only because he has had his electors at Marchalsea to consider. It can do him nothing but good to been seen out, this evening, with you and me. And since Charles, as we know, is unable to escort us, what more suitable than for his brother to do so? I cannot think why I did not hit on him sooner, for I tell you frankly I would not miss this spectacle for the world. So I just sat myself down and wrote him a little note, in both our names, asking him to come for us this evening, and have had the most polite of answers. I can tell you, my love, he is an escort these days that anyone could be proud to be seen with. I never saw such a change in anyone as there has been in him since he came to town. I declare, I quite took him for Charles the other day when I met him in the park with those plump Miss Gurneys.'

Henrietta ground her teeth silently. The damage was done: to protest further would only make matters worse. And, besides, Simon had agreed to come. Impossible to repress a leap of happiness at the idea of seeing him. And perhaps she might learn at last why he had kept away from them for so long. For she could not accept Lady Marchmont's easy explanation that he had been busy at Marchalsea, and had racked her brain during many a sleepless night as to how she could have offended him.

The afternoon dragged interminably; dinner had never seemed so long; but at last Simon appeared, looking, Henrietta thought tired, thin and pale. And surely there was a note of constraint in his greeting? She must have offended him: but how? For once, she was grateful for Lady Marchmont's ready flow of talk, glad enough to sit silently by, studying Simon's face and listening as he answered her stepmother's questions about Marchalsea. He did so readily enough, but as soon as politeness allowed, suggested that they set forward to look at the illuminations, which had already, he said, drawn great crowds. He was anxious, Henrietta told herself, to get the outing over with.

It was with mixed feelings and an infuriating tendency to tremble that she found herself leaning on his familiar arm once more. With Lady Marchmont chattering away on his other arm, he led them down Pall Mall to look at the lamps decorating the pillars of Carlton House. Returning, Lady Marchmont insisted, despite the rapidly thickening crowds, on stopping to look down St. James's Street, where each of the clubs had its gay decoration of candles, outlining every architectural nook and cranny.

As they paused to gaze at the brilliant scene, a flash of lightning suddenly put lamps and candles alike to shame. It was followed almost at once by a long, threatening roll of thunder. The crowd stirred uneasily. All day the weather had been oppressive, now the first large drops of rain began to fall. As the candles went out, one by one, the crowd began to move, hurriedly now, for shelter. The rain came faster, and another flash of lightning heralded a downpour. A woman's scream somewhere in the thick of the crowd touched off panic. Simon, who had Lady Marchmont on his inner arm, tried to guide her and Henrietta to a doorway where they could wait out panic and storm alike, but the crowd was too thick and too unreasoningly desperate. Henrietta on the outside, was torn from his protective arm and carried away in the chattering, screaming tide.