Season of Light (8 page)

Surely it must abate soon. But the storm went on and on until at last Asa ran up to Philippa’s room, thinking: I’ll see her first, reassure her, then I’ll deliver the note, whatever the weather. Philippa was sitting on the bed, eyes fixed on the window. ‘Oh, Asa. What shall we do if we can’t get away tomorrow?’

‘There’s no hurry,’ Asa replied. ‘A day or two won’t matter.’

‘It’s foolish, I know, but I feel as if I will not be fully well until I leave here. Stay with me and help with the last of my things. At least then I shall be ready, whatever happens.’

Never had it been more difficult for Asa to be patient with Philippa, to fold and refold her clothes and then to unpack the entire trunk because a fringed shawl which would be needed on the journey had been placed at the bottom. Each time the thunder clattered above their heads Philippa patted her stomach, as if to comfort the unborn child. Finally, after the hail turned to torrential rain and then to drizzle, Asa said she must see to her own packing. Instead she ran downstairs and outside, where rainwater gushed over her feet, drenching her skirt. The air was cold and the streets almost empty except for a woman standing at her door in tears: ‘The pots in the courtyard. There is not a plant left standing.’

At one point Asa had to run through to the rue de Sèvres, parallel to her usual route, to avoid the rivers of filth rushing along the cobbles. By the time she reached Paulin’s apartment she was exhausted and soaked through. His landlady, flustered by the damage done to her roof by the storm, was impatient and disapproving as she took Asa’s sodden note, saying she had no idea when Monsieur Paulin would be back. For an hour Asa walked up and down the street, marched round the Carrefour de la Croix Rouge under dripping trees, stared up at his window. He did not come. It was now nearly three in the afternoon, but still she paced to and fro, then at last went back to the Montmorency and hastily changed her clothes.

Morton returned at five and said the storm had done irreparable damage. It was rumoured that the crops had been devastated, and the harvest in most of France would be ruined. ‘Well then, we cannot possibly leave tomorrow,’ said Asa. ‘The roads will be in chaos.’

‘On the contrary, I am all the more determined to make an early start. There may be riots, when people realise the damage that has been done. The country has no stores, and no money to import crops. In my view the king and his ministers have made a grave miscalculation. We shall leave in the morning.’

Asa returned to her room, pushed up the window and leaned into the street. He must come. But still there was no sign of Didier, and she had to endure an interminable dinner during which the talk was of nothing but the storm and what might have been the cause – natural or otherwise – of such unseasonable weather. Afterwards Morton insisted that his wife have an early night in preparation for the morning, so Asa spent half an hour helping Philippa to undress. As her hair was brushed with long, hypnotic strokes, Philippa confided that she was a little homesick and could not help being grateful to the French for their unrest, which provided the perfect excuse for departure.

‘I feel that John will be more settled in his own home. And the thought of another hotel, even in Italy or Switzerland, of being confined to a room as I have been here, fills me with dread. I know you must be disappointed, Asa, at having to go back to Ardleigh, when you might have spent the summer abroad …’

Asa squeezed her shoulder. ‘Your health is my first concern. There will be other opportunities. And I shall be glad to see Caroline.’

Afterwards she stood again by the window in her room. Didier did not come.

Just after eight o’clock she raced along the passage, down the stairs and into the lobby, barging into a portly fellow guest who fell back against the wall in astonishment. Outside, the air was clear, as if scourged by the hail. She crossed the rue du Cherche-Midi and stood deep in the entrance to a courtyard so she could watch the street. Surely Didier would have returned to his apartment by now and received her note? After quarter of an hour she began to walk, oblivious to the fact she was wearing unsuitable shoes and her head was bare. Nobody noticed. All of Paris was stunned by the storm. But she sensed as soon as she reached his street that he had not come back. Summoning all her courage, she again knocked on the door, and this time received only a curt: ‘I’ve told you, he’s not here.’

She waited until it was almost dark and the lamps were lit. By the time she made her way back to the hotel her skirts were heavy with mud. Surely, this time, by some miracle, he would be in the lobby. But there was no sign of Didier, and no message. Hour after hour she sat at her bedroom window, though she knew there could be no question of him coming now. If only wretched John Morton had made up his mind earlier, then she could have warned Didier last night that they were leaving. If only they’d never met Didier and his friends in the Tuileries.

In the morning she sat heavy eyed and sick with suspense as Philippa sipped a tisane and ate a mouthful of brioche. He will come, Asa thought, as she watched the trunks being stowed on the roof of the carriage. Morton gave her his arm to lead her on to the wet street and in the seconds it took to cross the carpet of clean sacking between the hotel and the carriage steps, she strained for a glimpse of Didier, convinced he would still come and snatch her away. She even imagined Philippa’s astonishment when she and Didier announced their determination to marry at once, the hurried explanations, the untying of Asa’s trunk.

As the carriage made its tortuous way through Paris, Asa pressed her face to the glass, sure that he would follow. In half an hour they halted at the gates to show their papers. Now, now he would race up and claim her. But soon the horses were picking up speed on the open road, spattering the carriage with mud.

Three days later, in Calais, her face a mask of calm, she finally admitted to herself that he would not come; that there would be no pounding of hooves, no shouting of her name. Soon she was walking the breezy gangplank, the ropes were uncoiled, a strip of sea was widening between ship and harbour and she, Asa Ardleigh was being carried relentlessly to England while her lover, her Didier, was left behind in Paris.

By the time the Morton party had returned to England in July 1788, Georgina was engaged. Within another month she was married. Her new spouse, Mr Geoffrey Warren, who had been introduced through a hunting acquaintance of her father’s, described himself as a financier and had impressed Georgina with his natty dressing and talk of prospects. Too late it transpired that none of his elderly relatives was about to die after all, let alone leave him their fortune, if they ever had any, and almost all his business ventures – including, incidentally, his marriage to Georgina Ardleigh – were to prove ruinously ill advised. But one of Georgina’s most endearing traits was her belief that at any moment her luck would change, and although it took nearly four years, in August 1792, it suddenly did.

The Warrens’ lack of funds was in part due to their love of gambling. Georgina preferred cards, Warren the dice. Normally the establishments they patronised were more Billingsgate than Pall Mall, but that summer they had an unexpected invitation – issued as part of a gambling debt to Warren – to a party in St James’s Place, and it was there that Georgina first noticed a fair-haired gentleman dressed in black, who was drinking heavily and placing ever more extravagant bets. The talk, as usual, was of the scandalous events in France: London was still reeling from the news that a mob of low-lifes had invaded the Palace of the Tuileries, threatened the lives of the king and queen, and forced the Revolutionary Assembly, France’s new but ramshackle equivalent to the exemplary British Parliament, to declare an end to the monarchy. The French royal family was now interred in some dreadful prison and twelve hundred people were dead, mostly the king’s Swiss guards but also a considerable number of the Parisians who had invaded the palace.

‘So death, at least,’ said the fair-haired gentleman, ‘is proving egalitarian in France.’

‘A state of affairs in which the future of our nearest neighbour is decided by mob rule cannot be countenanced,’ replied Warren. ‘Soon we’ll have no choice but to declare war on the French or vice versa.’

‘You seem rather excited by the prospect of war,’ said the stranger, scooping up a heap of chips.

‘That,’ whispered one of Georgina’s gossipy friends, ‘is young Harry Shackleford. I say young, but actually he must be well over thirty by now. What I meant is, he’s the
younger
Shackleford. If I were you I wouldn’t let your husband play him at dice much longer – he’ll be bankrupt within half an hour.’

Georgina, decked out in a gown copied from the style known as
chemise à la reine
, after a dress worn by Queen Marie Antoinette in her pre-revolutionary attempts to emulate a shepherdess, put her hand to her throat. ‘
Shackleford
. Tell me more. My distant cousins are called Shackleford. When my father dies it’s a Shackleford who stands to inherit everything.’

‘But surely you must have heard? It seems to me that nobody’s talked about anything else for weeks. Harry Shackleford has recently inherited several hundred thousand pounds and vast estates in Somerset.’

‘
Somerset
. Our relatives are from Somerset.’

‘Then claim kinship quick. You see, until a couple of months ago Harry Shackleford was worth virtually nothing. Then the news came that both his father and his brother had died at sea, in very odd circumstances.’

‘What can you mean?’

‘Who knows? The thing is, they were on a voyage to Jamaica but never arrived. Nobody’s sure what happened. Some say disease, others mutiny or revolt. But one way or another Harry has inherited the lot.’

The minute there was a pause in play Georgina gathered her skirts, glided over and dropped a deep curtsy so that Shackleford was confronted by her magnificent bosom and a froth of silver-sprigged muslin. ‘Mr Shackleford, forgive me, but I felt I must come and offer my condolences since we’re related. In fact, I believe that I too should have been wearing black, or perhaps purple, if only I’d known.’ Shackleford, bewildered, stood up and bowed. ‘My name is Georgina Warren. You’ve been dicing with my husband for the last half-hour and neither of you realised you were relatives. I’m a daughter of Squire Ardleigh of Sussex. Do you see the connection?’

After her bosom, Georgina’s smile was by far her best feature. Her nose was broad and her face rather square but her smile, which revealed a full set of white teeth, was delectable, and the accompanying toss of curls had certainly been the downfall of Geoffrey Warren. But it was her words, on this occasion, which had a bizarre effect on Shackleford, who drew breath sharply and even seemed a little flustered.

‘Mrs Warren, I’m delighted to meet you. How very kind of you to make yourself known to me. Is your family well?’

‘Goodness, they’re all extremely well, I’m sure. Unlike your own. Oh, it’s so sad. You lost both your father and your brother at the same time, I believe.’ Her eyes filled with tears.

Shackleford shrugged. As Georgina later commented to Warren, who had been a somewhat drunken witness to the encounter, the man couldn’t have seemed less concerned about his dead relatives.

‘It was a blow to find myself suddenly head of the family,’ he said.

‘Good Lord, it must have been an
appalling
shock. How long ago did it happen?’

‘Late last year. I was abroad, in Sierra Leone, and was called back to take up the reins.’ For a moment he looked distracted, then said with much more animation: ‘I met your sister – sisters – in Paris, you know, a few years back. Since then I’ve scarcely set foot in this country.’

‘Oh, I remember, yes, they wrote to me about you and said how
thrilled
they’d been to make your acquaintance. My sister Philippa has three children now. Can you imagine? All boys, and thriving. John, Edward and something … My brother-in-law, Morton, is doing extremely well. Fingers in many … Warren and I are always being invited to their beautiful new house in Surrey.’

‘And your younger sister … Thomasina?’

‘Oh, Asa. You met her too. Of course. Asa is Asa. Much as ever.’

All this while Georgina was conscious that the rest of the room was agog; Shackleford was possibly the most eligible gentleman in London that season and yet his entire attention was on Mrs Georgina Warren. His light brown gaze was fixed on her face and he had placed his hand high on the wall beside her, effectively cutting off the rest of the party, including her husband. The thought even crossed Georgina’s mind that if Shackleford really admired her and wanted to embark on a clandestine liaison, Warren would just have to turn a blind eye.

‘Does she …? Is she …?’ Shackleford said. ‘I believe Miss Ardleigh was living with her father in Sussex.’

‘That’s right. Still the same. There are never any changes at Ardleigh, but fortunately Asa never grows bored. In any case, she spends half her time these days at Morton Hall during Philippa’s confinements, so that keeps her amused.’

Such was Shackleford’s intense interest that Georgina had to make a mental readjustment. Good Lord, why had Philippa, when recounting events in Paris, not mentioned Shackleford’s interest in Asa?

‘Is she still as dedicated as ever to the cause of the French Revolution?’ he asked. ‘Or have recent events dampened her enthusiasm? I rather think she’s the type to have joined a correspondence society.’

Several hundred thousand a year
, thought Georgina. Shackleford father and son had died on their way to the West Indies, and she was fairly sure she’d heard that the Shackleford wealth came from sugar. Obviously, then, she would have to conceal the fact that Asa included abolitionist activities in her list of causes. ‘I admire Asa very much,’ she said, watching him carefully, ‘because she’s so principled. She was already mad on the French before she visited Paris, and of course being there turned her head completely. I believe she must have read every news article that’s ever been written on the subject of the Revolution. We’re always arguing about it. I’m afraid as a result of her strong opinions – they
are
only opinions, mind, and she’s always open to persuasion – she has never married. It’s such a tragedy. I’ve always thought she was the prettiest of us three Ardleigh girls.’