The Emperor (12 page)

‘
Since the Princess of Wales had a girl, and an
immense
one at that, it would not do to produce a child of any other
sex, or requiring any other epithet. Dear Lady Aylesbury,
you have such exquisite taste!'

‘
It's very good to hear you talking nonsense again,' Lucy said. 'And haven't you to be congratulated, too? I think you
are promoted to Captain, are you not?’

Brummell bowed. 'Though the pleasure is not unalloyed,'
he sighed. 'One must spend even more hours before one's
glass before one is fit to parade before one's troop. Thank
God I do not have to groom my horse myself, or we should
never have done.’

Danby Wiske gave a positive bark of laughter. 'Idea of
you
groomin' a horse, George!'

‘Nothing, I assure you, surprises me more about the
army,' Brummell replied solemnly, 'than finding myself in
it.'

‘
Tell her la'ship what happened the other day,' Mr Wiske
urged him. 'About old Blue-nose.’

Mr Brummell bowed. 'I had a scheme, you see, for
recognizing my own troop, for in general soldiers all look so
much alike, and it is horribly embarrassing to be forced to
ask where they are when going on parade. But one of my
men had a nose quite blue in all weathers, so I gave instruc
tions that he should always be placed in the front row.'

‘Ingenious,' Lucy remarked.

‘
So I thought,' Captain Brummell went on. 'But the other
day I was sitting on my horse in front of my men, when the
Colonel came galloping up to me shouting, "Captain
Brummell, what the devil are you doing there? You are with
the wrong troop, sir!" I was greatly taken aback; but then I looked over my shoulder, and there was blue-nose, right in
the middle of the front line. I was not to be so taken in! I
smiled engagingly at the Colonel, and said, "No, sir, no, I
know better than that! A pretty thing, indeed, if I did not
know my own troop!" The Colonel's face turned quite
purple, poor thing, which clashed horribly with the scarlet of
his regimentals, and proceeded to bawl at me in a most
unrestrained way. It was only afterwards I learned that my
troop had received some new recruits, and my dear old
Blue-nose had been moved on to another.'

‘
I'm not entirely sure I believe you,' Lucy laughed, 'but
pray don't stop! Tell us all the latest scandal. Mary and I
pine for the news.'

‘
What can I tell you? You will have heard about your
cousin, the Earl of Chelmsford, of course?'

‘
About Charles? No, what has he done? He left his card
as soon as we came up, but we were out at the time, and
we haven't had a moment yet to visit him. Have you seen
him?'

‘
Everyone in the 10th has seen him forever,' Danby
Wiske said. 'What makes it so gallin' for Captain Morland!'

‘
For Horatio?' Lucy enquired, puzzled. 'What can you
mean?'

‘The
on-dit
is, your ladyship, that the Earl has fallen a
victim to the little blind god,' Captain Brummell said with a
smile.

Lucy and Mary exchanged an astonished look, and Lucy
said, 'Charles in love? It can't be true. You can't mean it?'

‘It is sad to see it happening to a man of sense and years,'
Brummell agreed solemnly, 'but indeed it is so. The lady in
question is the daughter of one of our company com
manders, Colonel Taske.'

‘But it's barely six months since Flora died and he was
inconsolable!' Lucy said unguardedly, and Mary, sitting beside her, pinched her hand warningly. These were not
things to be said to mere acquaintances, however shocked
one was.

Mr Brummell bowed. 'Colonel Taske is a widower
himself,' he went on, 'and his daughter is his sole comfort,
and much beloved, so he is not best pleased by Lord
Chelmsford's attentions. On the other hand, it would be a
brilliant match for Miss Taske, for though she is perfectly
amiable, and rather pretty than not, she has no portion at all
– as, I believe, Captain Morland has been at pains to point
out to his brother.'

‘
Oh dear, has Horace been making a spectacle of
himself?' asked the incorrigible Lucy, who could never learn
to have any reserve with people she liked.

‘Lucy!' Mary reproved.

‘
Pray don't concern yourself, Mrs Haworth,' Brummell
said gently. 'Wiske and I are entirely to be trusted. And
nothing could be more suitable than the attentiveness
Captain Morland and Lady Barbara have been shewing his
lordship. Indeed, more than once Lord Chelmsford has
begged them not to put themselves at such pains, and not to
be afraid to leave him sometimes on his own! It was in the
course of a mild indisposition of Lady Barbara's – she is
increasing again, you understand – that Lord Chelmsford
formed his acquaintance with Colonel Taske and his
daughter; and by the time Captain Morland was able to
resume his custodial duties, the damage was done.’

*

It appeared that Charles had gone out of Town for a few
days, but Lucy and Mary had not long to wait before
meeting the other protagonists in this family drama. Miss
Taske they came across while calling on Lady Tewkesbury,
a sharp-nosed, garrulous woman who prided herself on
being always the first with the gossip. It was plain that she
had invited Miss Taske for the purpose of pumping her, and equally plain that Miss Taske was either too innocent or too
wise to be pumped.

She seemed very young, too young, almost, to be 'out'.
From her appearance she might be no more than sixteen,
and Mr Brummell had done her less than justice in saying
she was 'rather pretty than not', for in fact she was very
pretty indeed, with golden curls, a pink-and-white com
plexion, and violet-blue eyes. Her dress was very plain,
which might be attributable either to poverty or modesty;
but though she was quiet, even reserved, there was no
shyness or awkwardness about her, and her air and manner
made her seem older than her years.

All Lady Tewkesbury's remarks about 'beaux' and
'future plans' and 'happy news' eliciting no response from Miss Taske, she turned with evident relief to the Morland
females, whom she might legitimately ask if they had yet
met with their cousin Chelmsford; but as they had not, and
as the mention of his name drew no blush to Miss Taske's
rose-and-ivory cheek, the dowager found herself baffled at
every turn, and was obliged to allow the conversation to
turn to fashions.

*

’Well, she seems a very pretty girl, at least,' Lucy said to Mary when they were in the carriage again. 'One can see
why Charles fancies her.'

‘
One can't,' Mary said crossly. 'When he was so devoted
to Flora, how can he so soon be in love with nothing but a
pretty face?'

‘
She might be very intelligent,' Lucy said fairly. 'It's hard
to tell, when she says so little, and who would not keep
silent with that disagreeable old hag needling and probing
away like a glutton at a snail?’

That made Mary laugh. 'It was to her credit, I suppose,
that she did give so little away. But how can a girl of her age
be so composed? She
ought
to have blushed. It's unnatural.'

‘
There's no pleasing you, Polly,' Lucy said. 'But at least,
having met her at Lady T's, we can invite her to our ball next week without comment. Now all we have to do is to
find a way of meeting her father.’

It proved easy enough, for since all of Society was
longing to know how much of the scandal might be
believed, and what Chelmsford's family thought about it, it
wanted nothing better than to throw Morlands and Taskes
together at every possible opportunity; and at a dinner the following day given by a fashionable hostess, Mary, Lucy
and Chetwyn found amongst their fellow-guests not only
Colonel Taske, but Captain the Honourable Horatio
Morland as well.

Colonel Taske was a gaunt man in his fifties, with the
upright carriage of a cavalryman, and though his wig and
coat were rather old-fashioned, his eye spoke a lively intel
ligence. During dinner the conversation turned to the
conditions in France, where the Directory was proving as corrupt and inefficient as the government it had replaced,
and where mismanagement had led to internal bankruptcy.
Colonel Taske proved himself an intelligent commentator.

‘
The only hope of financial relief for the French must be
the conquest of Italy. This young General Buonaparte's
army seems to be sweeping right across the country.'

‘How does that help finances, sir?' Chetwyn asked.

‘
Plunder, my lord, plunder, sent home to France by the
shipload! And of course, as long as the army is on foreign
soil, it feeds itself on the produce of that country,' the
Colonel replied. 'France, you see, is in the position of one
who has grasped a tiger by the tail. She dare not let go. If
she makes peace, that army of half a million Frenchmen will come home, and it will want to be fed, and it will want to be
paid; and there is not gold and corn enough in France to
satisfy one of them, far less half a million.'

‘So what will happen?' Chetwyn asked.

‘
The Frogs will go on fighting. They must. They will press
on outwards, extending their frontiers until the conquered
territory is so unwieldy it becomes unmanageable. Then it
IC
will collapse under its own weight, and the other nations will
drive the French back into France again. Then we shall have
peace.'

‘How long will all this take?' Chetwyn asked.

‘
Who can tell? Five years – ten – twenty? Perhaps I may
not live to see the end of it. But it will happen. You may read
it all in your classics: it is the way all empires grow, and die.’

There were several dinner-guests who looked as though
they did not agree, and one of them, an elderly politician,
broke in at this point to say cheerfully, 'Stuff and nonsense!
All this talk of empires, Colonel – there ain't a man in
France fit to be emperor! Look at this Directory of theirs –
thieves, rogues and vagabonds! Not a gentleman among
'em! No, no, we'll lick the Frogs in no time, and have 'em
back under hatches within the year, you'll see.' As this was
evidently the popular view, it had the last word, and the
conversation turned to other topics.

After dinner, in the drawing-room, Horatio took the
opportunity of the general mobility caused by the advent of
the tea-table to come to Mary's side, and address her in an
urgent undertone.

‘
Thank heaven you are here! Now Mary, I beg you, you
must talk to Charles and make him leave off. You always
had more influence with him than anyone, perhaps you can
talk some sense into him.'

‘Make him leave off what?' Mary said discouragingly.

Horatio was not to be deterred. 'You know very well.
And what the devil was Aylesbury doing, encouraging old
Taske like that'? Everyone will draw their conclusions. It is
making us all ridiculous. A man of Charles's age, dangling
after a chit of a girl like Roberta Taske!'

‘
Oh come, Horace, the girl is respectable enough, isn't
she? Why should he not be polite to her?'

‘
She's respectable, I suppose,' Horatio said unwillingly.
‘As respectable as anyone can be, who has neither rank,
family nor fortune. But you don't understand: he is not just.
being polite to her. His attentions are become so particular
that everyone is saying he means to marry her!'

‘Well, if he wants to, surely that is his business?’

Horatio stared, reddening. 'How can you say that, you of
all people? Good God, it's not six months since Flora died! It is in the worst possible taste for him to be running after a girl young enough to be his daughter, and his wife not cold
in her grave! Of course,' he went on bitterly, 'it would be a fine match for her. Taske is penniless, with nothing but his
army pay to live on. You can see what they have been
about, on the catch for Charles, casting out lures for him. If
you don't do something, he will have
offered
for her, and
then we shall all be done up!'