The True Darcy Spirit (25 page)

Which brought a shadow to Cassandra’s face, as she remembered the debt she had incurred at Mr. Rudge’s establishment. Her need for money was immediate, the time scale over which she might expect to attract clients much longer.

Mr. Lisser gave her the name and directions of other colourists and a first-class brush maker.

“At the beginning, when you are setting up a studio, there are a lot of expenses. I cannot help in any pecuniary way, but I have an easel to spare, which I will send round to you, and also some canvases, no”—he held up a warning hand—“do not refuse assistance from another artist. We are all in the same game, after all, and”—with a rueful look, which Cassandra didn’t quite understand—“I know something of what it is to be exiled from one’s home.”

“It is a matter of considerable delicacy,” Lord Usborne said. He was looking straight ahead and into the distance, not even glancing at Horatio Darcy, to whom he was speaking. “It is, in short, a matter of state, and directly concerns the Prince Regent, and possibly the future of the monarchy.”

Horatio’s eyes narrowed. What exactly was Lord Usborne up to? Their acquaintance was slight, the animosity between them almost palpable, yet here was his lordship, seeking him out at his club, taking him aside, and lowering his voice to make an appointment, then insisting, when they met, on leaving Horatio Darcy’s chambers and walking up and down the gravel path by the river—bare of other walkers on a blustery day that promised rain.

“I dare say it is no mystery to you how matters stand between His Royal Highness and his estranged wife, Princess Caroline.”

Horatio became more wary. It was no secret, state or otherwise, that the prince and his bride had cordially disliked one another ever since their wedding night. Princess Caroline of Brunswick, a cousin of the Prince of Wales, as he then was, had crossed the Channel to become a royal bride more than twenty years before. The marriage was an arranged one, with no pretence of any affection existing between the couple. At that time, the prince’s amorous affairs were as entangled as ever. He was still very much in love with Mrs. Fitzher-bert,
whom he had secretly married ten years before, and at the same time, he was carrying on an affair with Lady Jersey.

The marriage to Mrs. Fitzherbert, in a Catholic ceremony, was not legal, as the heir to the throne could not marry without the consent of the King, his father, and of Parliament, and could not, under any circumstances, marry a Catholic, which Mrs. Fitzherbert was. She had borne him a troop of children, the Fitzroys, of whom he was very fond.

He was not fond, however, of his wife, whom he found physically repulsive, and after the first week of their marriage, when she conceived Princess Charlotte, he never slept with her again, so rumour said.

She took her pleasures elsewhere, rumour also said, and they lived apart. The hopes of the nation and of her doting father rested on Charlotte, and it was a personal and national tragedy when she died in childbirth in 1817, leaving a stillborn son and a grieving husband.

With Princess Charlotte no longer alive to inherit the throne in due course, the race was on among the royal brothers, and for the Prince Regent himself, to marry and beget a legal heir. The royal brothers, with whom the Prince Regent was not on good terms, were free to find themselves brides if they could; he, still married to the Princess Caroline, was not.

“He wants a divorce, as you must know,” said Lord Usborne, “but the princess resists any attempt to make her agree to this and will not consent to any arrangement by which the prince would be left free to marry again. She has said she will contest any divorce to her utmost, and, as you know, the prince is not exactly popular.”

Horatio Darcy, himself no admirer of the florid and decadent prince, was well aware of his unpopularity.

“There came into my hands, I will not say how, some letters, some compromising letters. The prince has now learnt of their existence and wants me to present them to him, as soon as may be.”

Horatio Darcy waited, growing impatient. It was cold, and he had work to do. Still, he was curious as to where this might be leading.

“Unfortunately, these letters, which, as I say, came into my hands, were taken out of them.”

“Oh?”

“By a person or persons unknown.”

“This is no doubt very regrettable, my lord, but what has it to do with me?”

“My wife speaks highly of your abilities,” said Lord Usborne, with a distinctly sly smile. “In many fields. You are, I know, a rising lawyer, with a sharp mind, and, being a younger son, are keen to make your mark on the world and thus enhance both reputation and income.”

Horatio Darcy remained silent. He heard the sting in the words “sharp mind.” It was not a compliment to suggest that a gentleman, even one keen for advancement, possessed a sharp mind; that was rather an attribute of the lower kind of lawyer, the men who were not too nice in their selection of clients, nor as to the cases they undertook.

“I want you to trace and recover these letters for me, and quickly, for His Royal Highness is growing impatient. I will pay you well, and should you succeed, as I am sure you will, then the gratitude of a prince is not to be sneezed at.”

Now Horatio’s interest truly was aroused. “Is this a legal matter, my lord? For it does not seem to be so to me. I believe there are agents who make it their business to carry out enquiries and investigations of the type that you mention.”

“This is far too important, and, as I have already said, far too delicate an affair to be entrusted to that order of person. Discretion is a necessary; absolute discretion. Plus the ability to mingle in a social world higher than that frequented by the persons of whom you speak. I do not know where the letters may be, but I doubt if a common thief would have taken them.”

“I see. Perhaps you can give me some more details.”

“Will you accept the commission, or not?”

Horatio Darcy hesitated only for a moment. This was too great an opportunity to pass by, loath as he was to do anything for a man he mistrusted as much as he did Usborne. He despised Prinny, and would have said, if asked, that the prince’s matrimonial affairs were a perpetual scandal, but then he had no strong feelings as to the rights
or wrongs of Princess Caroline’s situation. These were deep waters he was swimming in, but he had a streak of recklessness, and nothing ventured, nothing gained, applied as much to a successful lawyer as to anyone else.

“I will, my lord, but I shall need to know every detail as to the content and history of the letters, who else would be interested in them, and for what reasons. Did they disappear in your house?”

“They did. They were in my study.”

“Then I shall need to question your servants, which is an unsavoury business.”

“You may leave that to Ratchet, my man, who has already started to make his own enquiries. It is of the first importance that we arouse no suspicion, that is the other difficulty you will face. I do not want it generally known that these letters exist, or that they were ever in my keeping.”

“I understand.”

“I hope to God you do,” said Usborne, in a sudden outburst of ire. “For it will be the worse for you if you do not. And I expect speedy action on your part, there is not a moment to lose.”

Impassive, and determined not to react to the imperious tone of Usborne’s voice, Horatio Darcy bowed, said he must return to his chambers, and requested Lord Usborne to ask Mr. Ratchet to wait upon him as soon as possible.

Then he turned on his heel and walked away. His mind was in turmoil; he wanted to get back to his desk, and take time to sift through in his mind all that Lord Usborne had said.

Cassandra was destined to visit Mr. Rudge again sooner that she could have imagined, for not half an hour after Henry Lisser had left, Camilla was at her door, exclaiming at how workmanlike the studio looked.

“It makes me wish I had even a modicum of talent in that direction.” As she spoke, she drew out, not without a struggle, a fat notebook from her reticule. “I wish you to look at this, it is Mr. Wytton’s sketchbook from his Italian travels. I dare say you are familiar with the exciting excavations presently being carried out in the ruins of Pompeii, the Roman city that was buried in ash from an eruption of Vesuvius?”

Pompeii! That was a name that brought scenes from her childhood rushing back into Cassandra’s mind. Sitting on her father’s lap, while he told her the story of the great eruption in AD 79, and the city that was so utterly buried, only to be uncovered as recently as the last century.

“My father planned to travel to Italy, to see the excavations for himself,” she said, speaking more to herself than to Camilla. “Only he died.”

She took the notebook, and began to study it. “Are these all Mr. Wytton’s drawings? They are very accurate.”

“He drew the ruins, but the figures and the landscapes from the
paintings were done for him by a local Italian; the one within the panel is called an emblema, so he told me. The red streaks down the side are his attempts to match the colour prevalent in some of the finest of the wall paintings. Pompeian red, it is called. Do you recognise it?”

“It is not difficult,” Cassandra said, taking the notebook over to the window. “It is cinnabar vermilion, a sulphide of mercury. Why, do you want this colour for some reason?”

“I have a commission for you,” said Camilla. “You mentioned that you were painting a fresco for your landlady in St. James’s Square, the one who turned out to be so much more and less than a mere landlady.”

“Yes, I began work on designs for her morning parlour. That is why I have to pay Rudge for the paints.”

“Very well. Then we shall get the paints back from Mrs. whatever her name is, for if she expects you to pay the bill, then she cannot keep the paints. I shall then purchase them, by paying over the money you owe him, and you will use the colours to paint a fresco at my house. Only you will have to work with great speed, for Mr. Wytton will be home within ten days, and I wish it all to be ready for him when he is back. It is my birthday present to him: a Roman fresco in our dining room. Do not you think it an excellent idea?”

Cassandra’s head was reeling. “Camilla, you are impossible. You are full of schemes to get me out of my difficulties, but I can’t believe that Mr. Wytton wants any such thing in his dining room, or anywhere else.”

“He does, although he does not yet know it. He has been prosing on about redecorating the room, it is very dark and gloomy at present, and he says he can’t enjoy his food in such lugubrious surroundings. I thought of Egyptian, for he is also very interested in Egyptian antiquities, and it is a fashionable style, but it is not quite to my taste, so much seems to belong in tombs and temples, and ours is, after all, a domestic interior; I do not care to have a crocodile or a hippopotamus grinning at me from across the room. Will you do it? Please say that you will.”

Camilla’s enthusiasm was infectious, and, looking at the graceful figures, Cassandra could see just how they might be adapted. “With flowing robes,” she said firmly. “I can’t destroy such shreds of reputation that remain to me by painting women in the nude in your dining room.”

“I suppose not, although I dare say Mr. Wytton would like it. No, women in the classical style, and that wonderful red in the background, and some of the birds and flowers such as are drawn here, could you do that?”

“I could, I think,” said Cassandra, her hand reaching for a pen. She flicked open her notebook at a fresh page, and with a few swift, sure lines produced a figure that might have stepped off the wall of a Roman villa.

“Or possibly one of those Greek vases that Mr. Wytton has so many of. Some of them are quite beautiful, although there are others which may definitely not be displayed where visitors or servants might see them. The Greeks were not altogether the thing, and I don’t think the Romans were any better as far as their morals went.”

Cassandra was drawing a closer view of a head done in the style sketched in Wytton’s notebook, and Camilla, after a puzzled look of recognition, burst out into delighted laughter. “You have drawn me, how very funny.”

“I shall make you one of the Graces,” Cassandra said. “Or possibly Flora herself.”

“You will do it? I am so pleased. But now, we must go to this Mr. Rudge, at once, there is not a moment to be lost.”

“I do not think,” said Cassandra, as she closed the front door behind them, “that Mrs. Nettleton will give up the paints without she sees the money for her rent. Besides, she may have thrown the paints out.”

“She may, but more likely she plans to pass them on to some other artist whom she will get to do the work. And as to the rent, it is a trifling sum, surely.”

Trifling to Camilla, perhaps, but not so trifling to Cassandra. “More than I can presently pay.”

“Then I will pay it, it can be taken as a part of the fee for the wall painting you are going to do for me.”

Cassandra stopped abruptly. “I cannot possibly take money for that.”

“Oh, pooh, do not hold your nose so high in the air. Come down out of the clouds, Cousin. You will not make yourself any kind of a living if you plan to work for nothing. The labourer is worthy of his hire, it says so in the Bible, let me tell you. No, let me hear no more nonsense about that. And, as soon as it is done, and Mr. Wytton has seen it, then I will invite some particular friends of mine, Pagoda Portal and Henrietta Rowan, to dine. He is famously rich, he made an immense fortune in India, he is a delightful man, and it occurs to me that he would be a first-rate patron for you.”

“I begin to feel overwhelmed by what you are doing for me. Especially when I suspect that neither of your parents would approve of your having anything to do with me.”

“Such stuff! That is the advantage of being a married woman, for one comes under the authority of a husband, and not a parent, and Mr. Wytton is the most obliging man in that way, he would never dictate whom I might and might not see. It is not his way, and besides, he would not dare.” She bit her lip, clearly cross with herself.

“It is all right,” Cassandra said. “Mention of husbands, even when I am so conspicuously lacking one, does not upset me.”