by Sheila Walsh
‘Pandora?’ It was an urgent whisper.
She came to with a start to find him bending over her ‒ and was confused.
‘Why are you crying?’ he demanded tersely. ‘If this is Grandmère’s doing ‒’
‘No, indeed! I promise you it is not so! I was simply lost in thought ‒ air dreaming, my father was used to call it.’ She was unable to move without disturbing the Comtesse and so said a little defiantly, ‘We had a most interesting talk, your grandmother and I.’
He was regarding her in a very odd way. His eyes moved to take in the two clasped hands and then came back to her face, given an almost childish vulnerability by the tears that spiked her lashes ‒ a tremulous mouth and those damned freckles. One tear rolled down her cheek and he lifted a slim finger to wipe it away.
‘So why the tears?’ he murmured.
The door opened and Madame Daubenay came in. She took in the small tableau at a glance, the clasped hands, the unwarranted intimacy ‒ and her mouth thinned.
‘The children are outside, your grace,’ she said, her voice as thin as her mouth. ‘Do you wish them to enter ‒ or be sent away?’
The Duke looked up, annoyed by the interruption. It was on his lips to dismiss them when he caught Pandora’s eye.
‘The Blue Salon,’ he said. ‘We will come in a few minutes.’
‘Laissez donc!’ said the authoritative voice. The bright eyes were open, keen once more. The fingers stirred in Pandora’s hand and released themselves. ‘Bring them in, Daubenay, bring them in!’
Heron’s eyebrow lifted resignedly as a young nursemaid entered carrying a baby in the curve of her arm and leading by the hand a very tiny boy with a mass of tight gold curls.
‘This, Miss Carlyon, is Edouard de Léonde and his sister, Yvette,’ said the Comtesse. ‘Make your bow, Edouard.’
The boy, dressed in cream silk skirts and small clothes, could not have been above two years, but he bowed with the self-possession of a much older child though his eyes slid a little nervously towards the Duke.
‘Bonjour, Edouard,’ said Pandora, crouching to put herself on a level with him and smiling at him encouragingly. The baby was not asleep. It lay gurgling quite happily in the nurse’s arms and she was obliged to stifle a sudden longing to reach out and take it from her.
‘These are Mariette’s children, Miss Carlyon. We spoke of Mariette, did we not?’
Pandora held her breath but the eyes that met hers were clear and coherent.
‘She would have been proud of them, don’t you think?’
Pandora sighed, and smilingly agreed.
‘How did you find Grandmère?’ the Duke asked as they left the suite. ‘Madame Daubenay is worried about her.’
‘There is nothing wrong with your grandmother, my lord Duke, except old age ‒ and loneliness.’ The sharpness of accusation in her voice brought her a searching stare. She met it pugnaciously. ‘Well, how would you like to be incarcerated in that … that exquisite prison with only a sour-faced gorgon for company? I’m not surprised her mind wanders to happier times!’
‘You are forthright as ever, Miss Carlyon,’ he drawled.
She walked a little quicker. ‘Well, you did ask me, sir,’ she insisted. ‘And I might as well confess while I am about it that I have given the Comtesse my word that when I am living down here … allowing that the cottage is within my means, that is,’ she added belatedly, ‘I shall visit her regularly!’
She did not say ‘so there!’, but might well have done so. When her declaration met with silence, she stole a look at him and found him pensive.
‘I am sorry if you are not pleased,’ she said, feeling unaccountably deflated.
He looked up then, though she still found his expression hard to read. ‘My dear girl,’ he said. ‘If you would not find it a trouble, I shall be very much in your debt.’
They found William returned from his foray into the covers, his freckled face glowing with animation as he claimed to have ‘bagged’ three rabbits.
‘And Mr Dawson said I might take them back with me for Mrs Brearly. He said I had a keen eye and a right cool head on my shoulders!’ And William was returned to the rectory proudly bearing his spoils and with the happy prospect of rabbit pie to come.
The Duke then directed his coachman to a small group of cottages beyond the village where his agent awaited them. There was one cottage set a little way apart from the rest ‒ squat and comfortable-looking with a tiny garden spilling over with colour at the front, and just visible to the rear a slightly larger patch with at least two fruit trees.
The front door admitted them straight into a sitting room sparsely but adequately furnished. A further room led off this, separating it from the kitchen. At the top of a staircase that creaked in several places were two reasonable bedchambers together with a cupboard-sized room which might just take a bed and a small chest.
Pandora, with a dreamy look in her eye, was already seeing it with new covers to the chairs and bright curtains at the windows and ‒ if she could afford it ‒ a few extra pieces of furniture. Anxiously she asked about the rent and the agent, looking blandly at the Duke, quoted a sum that was well within her means. But she had not missed that look, and much as she wanted the cottage, she had to be sure.
‘William said that you owned all the land for miles around, my lord Duke,’ she said, feeling her way with some trepidation. ‘So I expect that this cottage belongs to you. I hope … that is, I don’t know anything about rents …’ The Duke was ominously expressionless and she began to flounder, ‘but I very much want … I wouldn’t wish to be treated differently from anyone else!’
The agent made a choking sound which he quickly turned to a cough.
Heron, hardly able to stand upright against the low ceiling, and already irked by Pandora’s enthusiasm for her surroundings, felt the old exasperation rising. Coming here as they had, directly upon leaving Clearwater, one might reasonably have expected her to draw unfavourable conclusions, but not a bit of it! Not content with babbling on about setting a polished table in the window and adorning it with a jug of flowers from the garden, she now had the temerity to accuse him of over-generosity!
‘Am I to infer, ma’am, that you actually find this insignificant hovel to your liking?’ he demanded in his most dampening manner.
‘Yes, of course,’ she answered readily. ‘It is exactly what I should like, only ‒’
‘Then it is yours. To my mind the rent seems excessive, but I leave that sort of thing to Parker, here. There remains only the question of someone to lend you respectability.’ He glanced pointedly at the agent, who obliged him by stating that there was a pleasant body, the relict of the underkeeper, Briggs, who had, his grace might remember, suffered a fatal mishap not two months since. ‘She is staying with her sister at present, your grace, but she has expressed her willingness to fulfil any duties as might be required of her in return for a roof over her head … if Miss Carlyon is agreeable?’
‘Well, it all seems very silly and unnecessary,’ said Pandora, not daring to protest further. ‘But if I must, then I am sure Mrs Briggs will suit admirably.’
Chapter Eleven
It was June, and London was in the grip of celebration fever. The Czar Alexander and King Frederick of Prussia had arrived together with other dignitaries, and the crowds were treated to processions and illuminations, and innumerable state banquets were prepared for the distinguished guests. A gathering throng, of women in particular, lined Piccadilly at all hours hoping for a glimpse of the handsome Emperor of Russia each time he moved from the Pulteney Hotel where he had elected to stay with his sister, the Grand Duchess Catherine of Oldenburg.
‘Prinny is beside himself,’ Sir Henry told Mr Chessington during one of the many balls being held to add to the festivities. ‘And I’m bound to say, though I seldom find myself in sympathy with our Regent these days, Alexander has treated him deuced shabbily, spurning the apartments prepared for him at St James’s, declining t
o attend the Carlton House banquet on his first night here ‒ it don’t augur well, Fitz!’
‘It’s the sister’s doing, of course.’ Mr Chessington lifted his quizzing glass to observe the gyrations of the waltzers circling the ballroom floor. ‘Y’know, Harry, I’m not at all sure that I approve this new craze. I mean, just take a look at young Thorley there ‒ damn me if he ain’t cuddling his partner!’ He shuddered delicately and returned to his theme. ‘Lady Hertford vows that the Grand Duchess has primed her brother to plague Prinny with questions about his rift with the deplorable Caroline!’
‘Vastly entertaining, though, ain’t it?’ Sir Henry grinned. ‘Even bluff King Frederick had ’em turning Clarence House upside down to find him a camp bed! The state bed didn’t please his spartan soul! Heigh-ho. One’s heart almost bleeds for our bedevilled Prince!’
Pandora was also entertained by the spectacle, but more genuinely so. She had deferred her remove to the country in order to enjoy it to the full, and when writing an account of it to William, she allowed her enthusiasm free rein. The cows in Green Park are frightened by the constant ‘Huzzahs’ and won’t give milk and all the washerwomen are up to their elbows in suds washing for kings and princes, and have no time for ordinary mortals! The most popular by far among the visitors is dear old General Blücher ‒ he is treated as an Absolute Hero and is mobbed everywhere he goes. Yesterday I was watching as the crowd removed the horses from his carriage so that they could pull him about the streets themselves when he noticed me and greeted me most warmly. He was clearly quite overwhelmed by his reception, but the old soldier in him was very evident as his eyes twinkled and he confessed with that rumbling laugh of his, ‘But ah, my dear Miss Pandora, what a city London would be to sack, heh?’ There are more and more soldiers among the crowds these days ‒ some maimed, some just looking lost, poor things! Which reminds me, Will ‒ I have seen Sergeant Blakewell again. He is looking much more the thing and is getting about quite nimbly on his crutches …
The sergeant had arrived on Lady Margerson’s doorstep one morning while her ladyship was still abed. He had regained much of his old jauntiness, the well-drilled air of order that had made him such a splendid soldier. Pandora took him into the small front salon and persuaded him to sit down. He perched at attention on the very edge of one of the pink velvet chairs, plainly ill at ease amid so much elegance.
He had come, he said, to render her an account of the moneys she had left with him. ‘And much appreciated it was, if I may say so, Miss Pandora. There’s been many a lad through London these past weeks as will bless your name for ever.’
‘But that is nonsense,’ she said. ‘It was so very little!’
‘Little is much, ma’am, when you have nothing to begin with. See now, I have written it all down for you so that you may know where and how the money was spent.’
‘Oh, Josiah! Now you are being foolish,’ she exclaimed. ‘As if I needed to know.’
‘Alice insisted, and she was right, begging your pardon, Miss Pandora,’ he said with a brisk little nod. ‘I like to be all beforehand with things. That way everyone knows where they stand.’
Pandora took the list that he pressed into her hand and glanced down it swiftly, seeing several names that she knew. ‘Goodness, what a lot! Are they still coming?’
‘They’ve hardly begun to come yet, ma’am. Most have families awaiting their return, of course ‒ they’re the lucky ones.’ He sniffed. ‘It’s the ones recruited from the gutters ‒ they squander their arrears of pay in the nearest public house and it’s back into the gutter they go, with no one like my Alice to lift them out of the mops. Maimed or whole, it’s all the same.’ The sergeant looked Pandora squarely in the eye. ‘Small recompense, wouldn’t you say, for men ‒ dross though they be ‒ who’ve helped us to this fine victory we’re all so busy celebrating?’
‘It all seemed so different out there, didn’t it?’ she said. ‘A grand adventure.’
‘Oh, it was that, right enough, miss.’
She sighed. ‘Why does life have to be so unfair, Josiah?’
‘Well now, Miss Pandora ‒ I reckon a philosopher would tell you that it’s all part of the Grand Design, and that we must trust the good Lord to change things if and when he sees fit.’ The sergeant bent to pick up his crutch, fitted it under his oxter and came nimbly erect. ‘Myself, I think we might have to give him a bit of a hand.’
‘Josiah!’
He gave her a wry grin. ‘Oh, I’m not plotting a revolution! My Alice wouldn’t stand for that, for all that she gets mad as fire! But I’ve had a lot of time for thinking lately. You’d be surprised what notions you take into your head when there’s nothing better to fix your mind to ‒ and what I say is, things’ll have to change and change sharpish or it might well end in bloodshed … and we don’t want to end up like the Frogs, do we?’
‘No.’ Pandora fingered the list, trying hard to come to a decision. Josiah had made the money go a very long way, and it wasn’t all used up yet. She looked round the pretty salon and thought about the little table she had set her heart on for the cottage; it was at this moment reposing in the window of a shop tucked away behind Bond Street. She had finished the curtains and covers and the table was to be her last extravagance. The money for it was in her reticule now, Josiah having caught her on the point of going out. But it was an extravagance.
The sergeant coughed, recalling her to the fact that he was waiting to take his leave. On an impulse she seized her reticule and took out the money.
‘Put that with what you have left,’ she said before she could change her mind. ‘No, please ‒ it will be the last I can give you. You see, I’m leaving town at the end of the week to live in the country, so I would like it to be a kind of farewell gesture.’
Lady Margerson was finding it hard to come to terms with Pandora’s decision. Nor, it must be said, was her dismay solely on Pandora’s account, for she had begun to find it a most agreeable luxury having the child to wait upon her every need. Pritchard was getting old and a trifle deaf ‒ and anyway, Pandora was so willing! Of course, were she to become betrothed, one would put such considerations aside, but …
‘Bury yourself in the country, my love?’ she wailed upon first hearing the news. ‘But why? Are you not happy here with me?’
‘Dear ma’am, of course I am. You have been kindness itself.’
‘Well then?’
‘It was never my intention to impose myself on you for ever.’
This brought swift reassurance from her ladyship. It would not be for ever. She was convinced of it. Why, she could name several young men who had begun to show a definite interest … oh, yes, Pandora might smile, but it was so. Sir Henry had called twice within the past week, and Mr Chessington three times (though one could hold out little hope of his being considered in the light of a suitor!). But Mr Navensby, now … ten thousand a year, someone had told her … and though she had never been quite clear as to the source of his income, he was a personable enough gentleman and could not be discounted. Unless Pandora insisted upon this idiotish venture … ‘Really, my love, I cannot imagine what Heron is thinking about to countenance your leaving town at this time!’
‘The Duke does not have the ordering of my life,’ Pandora maintained stoutly.
In fact, she was not clear quite how the Duke felt about her imminent departure, but could not suppose that he felt anything special. He behaved very much as he had always done, taking her driving in the park occasionally and since she had once happened to mention that she would rather like to ride in the mornings when it was quieter he had provided a nicely behaved mare for her use. They were now more frequently to be seen, by anyone who chanced to be abroad at such an hour, cantering together along the deserted walks before the dew was off the grass.
Putting on her blue riding habit for the first time in months gave Pandora a sense of freedom greater than she had known since she had come to London. It was cut on military lines and became her trim fig
ure surprisingly well. It also filled her with nostalgia.
‘I was used to wear a riding habit more often than conventional dresses,’ she said when Heron was pleased to compliment her upon the rather dashing black shako, adorned with a red plume, which she wore set straight on her head, but tipped a little rakishly over her eyes. ‘It was by far the most practical mode of dress in the circumstances.’
‘Well, you will be able to ride as often as you please at Chedwell. My head groom will be delighted to have someone to help exercise the horses.’
It seemed as though her new life was destined to fulfil all her most cherished dreams. And with only a few days to go, she began to pack up her belongings yet again, but this time in a spirit of happy expectation.
As a final treat Pandora was to be taken to Covent Garden theatre where a special gala entertainment was being performed in honour of the city’s most illustrious visitors. It was to be an evening she would never forget. A glittering assembly was already filling the auditorium to overflowing by the time they arrived and the Duke of Heron’s box was no less crowded. His guests included friends known to Pandora ‒ and some with whom she was only slightly familiar.
Lady Margerson, who had been prey to severe misgivings that it would be a sad crush, had in the end overcome her scruples, partly because Pandora had begged her and partly out of a natural curiosity to know who was to be there. She had armed herself with an enormous fan, donned her finery and set forth, determined to enjoy herself. The fan proved invaluable, not only to herself but to those about her also, the heat being all but overwhelming. People would be fainting all over the place, she predicted, complacently wafting the air.
