Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill: (Georgian Series) (6 page)

‘Impossible,’ said Thomas. ‘The Protestant Association is a worthy body. I’m sure of this.’

‘But,’ said Haggerston, ‘I hear that Gordon is a madman.’

Maria sat at an upper window in the house in Park Street. Terror had struck London and she knew that at any moment the mob might come running into this very street, stop at this very house, break down the doors and destroy or burn their possessions.

Thomas had urged her to leave London, but that she would not do. It was his duty, Thomas said, to stay here. The houses of his friends had been looted and some of their priests were in danger. He must do all he could to get them removed to places of safety. He would not be true to his Faith if he ran away to
the country to hide himself there. Besides, who knew when these riots would spread even into the country. But he deplored the fact that Maria was in the centre of the trouble.

Maria for once was in disagreement with her husband. Her mouth set into firm lines, for Maria could be very firm when she considered it necessary to be, and she said: ‘If you stay in London, Thomas, I shall stay too. You may need my help.’

And Thomas found it impossible to persuade her.

The trouble had seemed to break out suddenly. At the heart of it was mad Lord George Gordon, an insignificant younger son of a noble house, good looking, a
bon viveur
, a Member of Parliament who could not get himself taken seriously.

That, Maria had said to Thomas, was at the root of the trouble. Lord George was determined to call attention to himself no matter if he laid waste half London to do so. He was a Protestant, and when he had been elected President of the Protestant Association of England he believed he had that chance. He announced his intention of bringing about the repeal of the Catholic Act, that Act which had given the rights to Catholic subjects in England which had so long been denied them. He had spoken in Parliament where his diatribes had not been given serious attention; he had had an audience with the King which had brought no success.

To a man such as Gordon, obsessed by the need to call attention to himself, these rebuffs only strengthened his resolution. The Parliament and King rejected him; very well there was the mob.

The nightmare days followed. Members of the Protestant Association collected in St George’s Fields; they marched round the fields singing hymns and holding banners aloft; but it was not the orderly members of the Association who would be of use to Lord George; it was the mob he collected on his march to the Houses of Parliament. Beggars, criminals, prostitutes, all looking for sport and chiefly gain, joined the throng which had grown to over twenty thousand.

‘No Popery!’ they shouted. They flung mud at the carriages of Members of Parliament; they waited outside the House while Gordon entered it; but they were not interested in talk; they wanted action. Many did not know what the point at
issue was but they screamed the parrot cry of ‘No Popery’; and the pillage began.

Maria shivered; looking out she could see the red glow in the sky. They were burning Catholic chapels and the houses of well-known Catholics. The Fitzherberts were not unknown. When would their turn come?

A carriage drew up at the door and Frances stepped out and hurried into the house. Maria ran down to greet her.

‘Frances! To come through the streets!’

‘But Maria, Carnaby is out … I know not where … and I could not stay in the house alone. I had to be with you. So I took a chance. Oh, Maria, it was terrible. I saw houses ablaze … the houses of our friends … What will happen next?’

‘How can we know? Sit down and have a glass of wine.’

The servant brought it. Was she watching them furtively? The girl was a good Catholic – she would not have been employed in the household if she were not – but what were the servants thinking? It was the rich Catholics who were the targets for the mob.

Frances drank the wine and looked at her sister, asking for comfort.

‘It cannot go on,’ said Maria.

‘Why not!’ demanded Frances. ‘They could burn the whole of London. They have attacked the house of a magistrate who attempted to warn them that they were breaking the law. On my way here I saw seven big fires. Oh, Maria, Maria what next?’

‘They will have to stop it. They will have to call out the Army.’

‘Then why do they not? What do they let this go on for? The mob has freed the prisoners from Newgate; they have set the prison on fire. Felons are walking the streets. What will become of us.’

‘That’s something we never know from day to day – Gordon riots or not. It is no use agitating yourself, Frances. It does no good. At any moment we may be called upon to play our part and we have to be ready for that.’

‘Where is Thomas?’

‘He is out … helping our friends. He is trying to get some of the priests out of London. It is their only hope.’

‘They would have no compunction in murdering
them
,’ said Frances. ‘Listen.’

The shouts seemed to be coming nearer, the red glow in the fire more fierce.

Maria prayed silently that no harm should befall her friends, her sister and herself. If the riots spread to the country … she thought of the house in Brambridge and her father, that poor helpless invalid, and the boys. What of Uncle Henry who would, like Thomas, not stand idle? And men like Thomas who were taking an active part in all this were the ones who were in most danger.

Thomas must be safe. How she wished he would come in.

The shouting had become more muted.

‘They are not coming this way,’ said Frances.

Maria sighed with relief. But where was Thomas?

It was midnight when he returned; his clothes were singed and blackened by smoke and he was exhausted.

Maria cried: ‘Thank God you are home.’ She did not ask questions; it was imperative to get him to bed. She would not allow the servants to wait on him, for how did one know whom one could trust?

‘I must wash this grime from me, Maria,’ he said.

‘I will prepare you a hot cordial while you do so.’

Exhausted, Thomas bathed and before he could drink the cordial lie was asleep.

In the morning Maria was alarmed by his looks; he had lost his usually healthy colour and he coughed incessantly. She wanted to call a physician, but Thomas said it was only a chill and would pass. There was work to be done. More of the priests were in acute danger and it was the duty of men such as himself to bring them out of it.

But when he tried to rise from his bed he could not do so and Maria decided that whatever he said she was going to call a doctor.

She was scarcely aware of what was going on outside because Thomas was very ill, through an inflammation of his lungs; Maria was at his bedside day and night listening to his delirium.

Meanwhile the rioters were threatening St James’s Palace and the Bank of England, and the King, realizing drastic action was necessary, called in martial law. The troops fired on the mob and after several hundred rioters had been killed, order was at last restored.

The Gordon Riots were over.

But Thomas Fitzherbert was very ill indeed: and even though the fever subsided, he did not regain his former good health.

With the coming of that winter as his health did not improve, Maria decided to take him to the South of France where a warmer climate might be beneficial. They took a villa near the sea where Maria devoted herself assiduously to his comfort. But it was no use. Thomas’s lungs seemed permanently affected.

Never before had Thomas realized what a blessing his marriage had been. In Maria he had the perfect nurse. Every hour of the day she devoted to him; she would sit with him at the open window looking out over the sea and talk about events in England, for which Thomas was homesick. Not so Maria. Those early years in France had given her a love of this country and she would not have objected to settling there altogether.

But as the winter wore on it became apparent that Thomas was no better in France than in England and that far from improving he was growing steadily more feeble.

He grew anxious about Maria’s future, knowing what had happened in the case of her first marriage, how the will which would have left her very comfortably off had never been signed, he was determined that nothing like that should happen again.

He told Maria that he had made a will and that if he died she would be a comparatively rich woman.

Maria said that she did not wish to talk of such an unlikely eventuality, but he insisted that she did.

‘The estates at Swynnerton and Norbury will have to go to my brother Basil. They were left to me with that provision. It is always a male heir who must inherit … and if we should have no son …’

Maria nodded. The hope of children was one which she had been obliged to subdue, for it was almost certain now that Thomas would never father a child.

‘But that will not prevent my looking after you, Maria. The lease of the house in Park Street is not part of the family inheritance. That shall be yours, with all the furniture in it, also my horses and carriages, and in addition there will be an income of two thousand pounds a year – so, my dear, although you will not be as rich as I should like to make you, you will be well provided for.’

‘Oh, Thomas, do not speak of these things.’

‘Nor will I again. This is settled. I can now have the consolation of knowing that if I should die, you will be comfortably placed.’

‘Nonsense,’ she said sharply. ‘You are not going to die. When the spring comes …’

But the spring came and there was no change in Thomas’s condition. His cough grew worse and when she saw the blood on his pillow she knew.

That May he died. He was only thirty-seven; she was twenty-five years old – and once more a widow.

An Evening at the Opera

SHE WAS NO
longer young; she had been twice widowed; and now she was completely free to live the life of her choice. Deeply she missed Thomas; she thought affectionately now and then of Edward her first husband; but she discovered that freedom was pleasant. She was no longer beholden to anyone and she had enough money to live in the utmost comfort.

She did not return to England when Thomas died, but stayed on in Nice, and when she had a desire to be once more in Paris she decided she would stay there for a while. What joy to be back in Paris, the city of gaiety which she had once loved so much. To ride through the streets in her carriage, to mingle with the fashionable people in the Bois, to visit the dressmakers, to meet friends on the fringe of the Court, all this was interesting. But Maria wished to do something practical and since
Thomas had died for his Faith (for his work during the riots, she insisted, had been the beginning of his illness) she would found a house where Roman Catholic ladies could find refuge in Paris if life was not tolerable for them in England.

She grew a little saddened during her study in Paris, for she soon discovered that it was not the same as it had been a few years back. There was an air of brooding tension in the streets which she was quick to sense. The people hated the Queen and this was made obvious by the unpleasant cartoons in which she was depicted. In spite of the fact that a little Dauphin had been born the murmurings continued and Maria began to think of returning to England. Moreover, her family were writing to her and asking her to come home where, they pointed out, she could live in the utmost comfort; and Maria, growing more and more sensitive to the atmosphere in her beloved Paris, and feeling a little homesick, crossed the Channel and decided to look for a house near London.

Marble Hill was not for sale, but Maria had no wish to buy it since it could be let to her, and as soon as she saw it she was eager to begin the tenancy.

Ideally situated in Richmond, it had been built by the Countess of Suffolk, mistress of George II, and been called Marble Hill because it stood on the top of an incline and was of dazzling whiteness; on either side it looked down on lawns and chestnut trees and from the windows a very fine view of Richmond Hill could be seen.

Here, Maria thought, she could indeed settle and be content. She had no desire to entertain lavishly; she assured herself, her friends and her family that she preferred to live quietly.

She was too beautiful and accomplished to shut herself away from the world was the general opinion, and Lady Sefton, a distant relation on Maria’s mother’s side, was soon calling at Marble Hill. She wished, she said, to launch her charming kinsman into London society. Maria protested, but so did Lady Sefton.

‘Why, my dear cousin,’ she said, ‘you are far too young to live the life of a recluse. I was talking to the Duchess of Devonshire about you and she is eager to make your acquaintance.’

‘My dear Lady Sefton …’

‘Oh, come, Christian names between cousins. Isabella if you please.’

‘Well, Isabella, I have no great desire to go into society as yet. I am happy here in Marble Hill and my friends and family are frequently with me.’

‘When Georgina Cavendish asks to meet people they are expected to be delighted. Moreover, you will be so interested in her. She has the most exciting
salon
in Court circles. Everyone … simply everyone of interest is there. Fox, Sheridan … even the Prince of Wales.’

‘But my dear Isabella, I am a simple country woman.’

‘What nonsense! I never knew anyone more poised. You are not going to waste your talents on the desert air of Richmond, cousin, I do assure you. I shall not allow it. You shall come with me to the opera, I insist. Why, you have a place in Park Street. What could be more convenient. It was clearly
meant
.’

Maria wavered. She did like society. It might be that she would soon tire of the quiet life at Marble Hill, and enjoy meeting the famous people of whom she had heard.

‘So it is settled,’ said Lady Sefton. ‘You will come to Park Street; and I shall show you off in my box at the Opera. I think society is going to be very impressed, for, my dear Maria, you are not only a beauty, you are such an original one. No one at Court or in society looks quite like Maria Fitzherbert.’