Through a Glass Darkly: A Novel (70 page)

   "Please do something," she finished, and her voice was shaking. "You are the only one who can. It is a misunderstanding from start to finish. Lord—Lord Russel is sometimes hot–tempered and impetuous, but I know he will regret his actions once he has time to think on them. And I will not be the cause of hurt to your son if there is any way I can prevent it. Please, my lord…"

   It was some time before the earl turned around to face her. Finally he said, "He fancies himself a man. He is a man. He will consider it an affair of honor—"

   "In another year or two it will be an affair of honor. Not now. I beg you to do as I ask. No one will think badly of him or of you for saving him. He is too young to face this!"

   The earl took a great while to answer her. Finally he said, "I will write the note. I do not condone what has happened, but I will do what I can. He is still so young, as you say. Wait here for me, Lady Devane."

   He went into an adjoining smaller room. When he returned, the sound of a woman's crying came through the door with him. He handed a folded and sealed note to Barbara.

   "My wife," the earl said simply. "He is our youngest, you know."

   The earl walked them to their carriage.

   "Lady Devane," he said, putting his hand on Barbara's arm as she began to climb into the carriage. Harry stepped back to allow them some privacy. "It took a great deal of courage for you to come to me as you have. I thank you for that. And if you will forgive an old man's tactlessness, I think you a better woman than this situation reflects."

* * *

   She waited now in her bedchamber in St. James's. Armed with the note, Harry had sworn to her that he would find Jemmy if he had to search all night. Her mother was with her. She did not wish it so, but there was no keeping her away short of ordering Dawdle to throw her out, and her mother outweighed him. Diana lay on the bed, fully dressed, dozing on and off. Barbara sat in a chair near her window, open to catch the night's breezes. For a while she had listened to the sound of carriages, of people walking in the square and hailing one another, but finally even that had stopped. There was now only silence, and the night watchman's hourly cry. She tried not to worry with the passing time, tried to believe that it boded good, not evil. A kind of litany went continually through her mind: Lord have mercy upon us, please make Harry find Jemmy, please make Jemmy read the note, please make Jemmy obey his father, Lord have mercy upon us. That out of her drunken act could have come this was beyond belief. She shivered, and finally she dozed, starting awake every once in a while, then dozing again. Diana snored, sleeping the sound sleep of those with clear consciences.

   At dawn, Harry tiptoed into the room, the Duke of Wharton behind him. The faces of both young men were pale and drawn. In her chair, sleeping, Barbara was just beginning to be outlined by the light of a dawn that was growing stronger. A great, long snort of Diana's jolted her awake. She sat up and saw Harry at once, Wart behind him.

   "Tell me!" she demanded of them both. "You found him? He read the note? Harry…"

   At the expression on his face, her voice dried up. The pupils in her eyes began to dilate.

   Harry pulled her up, holding on to both her arms.

   "Listen to me. I gave him the note. He would not listen to reason. He said it was your honor as well as his. That he would defend your good name with his life. He would not listen, Bab. It is not your fault. Do you hear me? You have done everything you possibly could."

   "He is not…"

   "He is dead," Wart said tiredly, "though to be fair to Charles, I do not think he meant to kill him. Jemmy moved at the last second."

   Barbara said nothing. She sank to the floor.

   Snoring loudly, Diana woke herself up with a start. She saw Harry and Wart staring down at Barbara, who sat on the floor in her nightgown and shawl, slumped over like a limp rag doll.

   "He killed him, did he?" she said. "Well, that is that. There goes the prince."

Chapter Twenty–Two

Philippe sat in the pleasant gardens of the house Roger was leasing for the summer from the Countess of Dysart. The gardens reached down to the shining, silver waters of the Thames. From his seat under a shady arbor, he could watch the river swans, their regal necks arching in the sun as they floated in random, languorous formation to London. It was a leisurely day; bees drifted from roses to pinks to sweet Williams, insatiable, slowly swelling with the amount of nectar they contained, until they resembled nothing so much as tiny, striped barrels. Bright butterflies flitted in the air until they were lost to the eye over the river.

   There were few large houses in the vicinity, and finding a place to stay was difficult, but Roger, with his usual charm and luck, had managed to lease this small house. Philippe was having to board in a tavern. The house was in Richmond, a sleepy village on the verge of waking because the Prince and Princess of Wales spent the summers here, staying in a lodge in Richmond Old Park. They talked of rebuilding the lodge, and there was further talk of building a row of modern town houses, to house the princess's maids of honor, along one side of Richmond Green, the center of the village, a large, open common that had once fronted a palace of Henry VIII. The palace had long since fallen apart, but the green remained vital, the center of the community. Richmond's only boast to fame, other than the fact that it was favored by the prince, was its hill not far from the green and in a curve of the Thames. The view from Richmond Hill was one of the finest Philippe had ever seen. From the top one drank in the serene beauty of the shining, curving ribbon of the Thames, surrounded by green fields and woods and pastures and, in the distance, under clouds floating like white sheep in a summer blue sky, were the medieval spires of Harrow and Windsor. Wealthy merchants and noblemen, their eyes not on the view but rather on the prospect of the future King of England, were already beginning to buy parcels of land and build spacious summer houses. Roger planned to do so and had borrowed yet more money on his South Sea stock to buy up property in the area.

   Philippe said nothing to these plans. There was no dealing with Roger's boundless enthusiasm these days. Everything he owned was invested in the building of Devane House and the square, yet he continued to borrow on his stock to invest in land and in the new companies created over the summer and to buy more paintings, more furnishings, more rare books and folios and manuscripts. Philippe had a typical nobleman's attitude toward money, in that it was simply there and not something one worried about, yet he was alarmed at the amount of money Roger was spending.

   In the old days, he and Roger would have discussed the news Philippe had received in his letters from France: Law's carriage had been overturned and attacked by a mob; Law had barely escaped being killed; he had taken refuge in the Palais Royal; he was said to be talking like a man who had lost his mind. There were riots in Paris, new edicts every day from the regent. Could it be possible, Philippe would have asked Roger, that Law's revolutionary theory was a failure? Had he caused a further collapse in the economy? Could England fall the way France seemed to be doing? Sir John Blunt, the force behind the South Sea takeover of the national debt, based his theories on Law's success in France. Should we sell stock? Philippe would have asked. Should we liquidate? But Roger would not hear even the slightest doubt he had, and Philippe had done something that he had never expected. Since July he had been selling South Sea stock, and he had not told Roger…but then Roger would not care if he did tell him. Philippe stared out at the lovely view before him. In four years, he had aged; his face and body were much heavier, and his mouth was bitter, and the bitterness had nothing to do with the old scar that drew it up to one side.

   Yesterday at Richmond Lodge he had heard the news of the duel as he strolled with the lovely young Mistresses Bellenden and Lepell, two of Princess Caroline's maids of honor and the brightest, prettiest young adornments of the court…until the Countess Devane had made her entrance last spring. Clusters of people on the terraces were whispering, their faces secretive and grave and underlit with glee, as people's faces always are when they are delivering particularly malicious gossip. Jemmy Landsdowne…dead…Hyde Park…Charles Russel…the Earl and Countess of Camden retiring to their estate to mourn…possible arrest, never, he is the son of a duke…and over and over again… Barbara Devane…Barbara Devane…Barbara Devane. She was in every one's mind, on everyone's tongue, the laughing, flippant, poised young woman whose gowns were always more fashionable than anyone else's, who led the prince around by the nose, who inspired foolish poetry and verses from young men, who was the lover of one of the most eligible men at court, who was rumored to be the next mistress of the Prince of Wales, who did not live with her husband, who wore the slightly rakish air of one who had seen and done her share of living, but who had such lovely, clear blue eyes. Eyes that the young men wrote insipid verse to, never reaching the heights Caesar White had achieved in his last epic poem, "The Dying of Young Aurora."

   Barbara added a certain dash to what Philippe had considered a fairly dull court, though courts could be interesting places, particularly courts of the heir to the throne. The fight for power had to be so much more subtle. After all, one must not offend the still–living king with too much solicitude about his heir, the corporeal reminder that even kings are mortal. All summer, Philippe had watched that viper who was Roger's mother–in–law weave her web about the Prince of Wales. And he had smiled ironically to think that he and Diana might share a common goal, for he, too, wanted Barbara to become the prince's mistress, perhaps even more than Diana did. Roger's pride would never allow him to reconcile with the public mistress of a royal prince, particularly such a dull and stupid prince. Therefore, the news of the duel made him ill. He had to stop and rest a moment, the lovely Mistresses Bellenden and Lepell fluttering around him like soft butterflies in their pastel gowns. For he had faith in Diana, in the sheer, dogged determination with which she pursued her goals. And now, a moment's anger between two jealous men, and it was gone. And Philippe, with the expression on Roger's face when he had seen Barbara this spring engraved in his mind, felt poisoned with the final, harsh dregs of his cup of bitterness. For Roger wanted her again….

   A lone bee, clearly dazzled by the fragrance and color of nearby snapdragons and pinks and sweet Williams, busied himself in flower after flower, so fat with nectar that he could barely fly from one blossom to the next. "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, / Old Time is still a–flying, / And this same flower that smiles today / Tomorrow will be dying." Roger had gathered his rosebuds in Hanover, going from flower to flower, crazed with grief, no joy in his random couplings. Old Time was still a–flying. English poets sometimes put things aptly, though never with the splendor of the French, thought Philippe, gazing at the bee. He had suffered Hanover, knowing the fit must work itself out, that what he had set in motion must be played to its conclusion. But he had never expected that conclusion to be the loss of the physical closeness between them. Yet, when Roger was finally finished that summer in Hanover, he was finished with everything. He was empty, and Philippe had seen for the first time that Roger was no longer immune to time, that this grief, whose depth he had so miscalculated, had changed him. The bee droned close to Philippe's head, too fat with nectar and therefore unable to fly, drifting lower and lower toward the ground, settling near the toe of Philippe's shoe, his wings fluttering in helplessness.

   "You were too greedy," Philippe said to him in flawless English, learned all those years ago when he had loved the handsome young aide to the Duke of Tamworth. Now ashes in his mouth. For nothing. He was a stranger alone in a foreign land. The bee droned in agreement. Philippe reached down and carefully set him on a nearby carpet of fallen blossoms. Die in peace, he thought, surrounded by what you love. Death will be welcome to you. When you can no longer taste the divine nectar of life, when love no longer exists, then life is death. You have had your glorious moment in the sun. Die in peace. So I will, droned the bee.

   Roger came out of the house and stood in the sunshine. He, too, knew of the duel, but it had not been Philippe who had told him. Philippe knew better than to mention Barbara's name, for with the mention of her name all that they both held so closely inside might burst out, and then Roger would be forced to sever the tie he allowed to remain between them out of kindness. Though, as Philippe had learned, sometimes kindness can be very cruel. Shading his eyes against the sun, Roger saw him and smiled and began to walk toward him. Philippe watched him. The building of Devane House had helped Roger. Philippe had watched it erase the ravages of grief that had shown so clearly after Hanover. But this summer, as Devane House was in its final stages, and London talked of nothing else, and indeed, nothing else was more beautiful, Roger had miraculously shed all signs of aging. He was leaner, fitter, more tanned, and smiling, possessing new energy and drive. There was light and laughter once more in his handsome face. The years disappeared. Once more, people were dazzled by his charm, his smile, that perennial youth so lightly frosted with time. He had taken a mistress, something he had not done since the excesses of Hanover. At every fête, every ball, every concert or opera, all women's eyes followed him and men were drawn to him again once more. Philippe had thought, as he had watched Roger grow quieter and grayer, that perhaps, at last, his sun was setting, and that if he were patient, Roger would turn to him for warmth in his waning years. But suddenly Roger was shining brighter, more dazzling than ever. And the cause—it was far more than Devane House—was probably at this moment on her way back from London, a fresh scandal to her name, and her husband smiling because of it. What cause did he have to smile? Philippe could see the expression on Roger's face. He was happy. Why? Almighty God, why? And once more he tasted the dregs of his pride, bitter, corrosive, copperlike in his mouth. He was a prince of France; his lineage was linked to kings, stretching back hundreds of years; he was learned, sophisticated, a product of the best of his civilization. His pride was immense, and it lay humbled in the dust, a monstrous ruin whose shadow he faced daily. Once there had been no secrets between them. Had they ever been young, laughing over women, sharing them? Had they ever been lovers? There were times now when he thought his memory played him falsely, when he knew its truth only through the pain, which was a daily reminder of what had once been. We pay for our sins in this lifetime, he thought, watching Roger—no longer his lover, yet still his love—stride toward him with the slim vigor of a twenty–year–old, while he sat full and heavy on his bench like a stone. With each breath I take, he thought, I pay for my sins of pride and love. Ah, Roger…

   "I must be getting old," Roger said. The neck of his shirt was open, his sleeves were rolled up, he wore no wig, and he looked like a young man whom nature had grayed too soon. "I have a pain here," he said and touched his chest.

   "You ought to rest more," Philippe said irritably. All summer, Roger had been acting as if he were twenty again. He had taken and discarded a new mistress in a four–month span. No wonder he had a pain.

   "I have decided to put off my return to London for several days."

   Philippe stared at him. "The note said the meeting was urgent—"

   "The South Sea directors are old ladies, merchants and bankers trembling in the wind at the idea they might lose a penny."

   "But the stock is falling."

   "And it will rise again. I told them when they insisted on this Bubble Act that in prosecuting other companies they might make their own stock fall. It is a tremor, no more. It will rise again."

   "Roger, take time to read my letters from France. I have an ominous feeling—"

   He stopped. The look of impatience that crossed Roger's face at his words made him ill with pain. Once he had been the leader, the strong one, and Roger the follower. Now all was changed. He would not be the harbinger of doom, the complaining, dreary one. He would not play that role. He did have some shred of pride left. He managed to smile and shrug. "As you wish."

   "Good!" Roger said at once. And Philippe saw that he never meant to discuss it seriously at all. "Let us take a boat to Spring Gardens this evening. Monty will be there with his new mistress, and Tommy says the birds are singing as if they know summer is at an end. We can bowl, drink some good English ale, and watch Monty make an ass of himself with this new woman. What do you say?"

   Philippe smiled easily in agreement, but he thought, Scraps from your table, Roger, thrown to the faithful dog.

   Francis Montrose came bustling out of the house.

   "Francis is upset by my decision," Roger murmured. "You might console with him in private on my unpredictability. It will do him good to vent his spleen."

   "Lady Alderley is here, sir," Montrose called as he neared them.

   "What?"

   "'Your mother–in–law," Philippe said dryly, as if Diana needed an explanation. "She must want money again."

   "Well, well. Order tea in the gardens for our guest. And Francis, send out some brandy and claret with that tea. Lady Alderley prefers stronger refreshment toward afternoon. And I had thought this afternoon would be spent dully, Philippe, just you and I."

   Under the shadow of the arbor, a muscle worked in Philippe's cheek.

   Montrose did not move. He cleared his throat. "One does not like to… you, ah, are in your shirtsleeves, sir."

   "Am I? Shocking. Lady Alderley would be scandalized, not to mention Justin, who would go into a decline. Have your way. Send out my coat." He smiled, and Montrose grinned back. The charm was in full effect.

   Philippe watched him with narrowed eyes as he inspected a flower bed, plucked a fat, luscious pink, and when his coat was on, tucked it into his buttonhole. Why was he so happy?