My Lady Nightingale

by Evelyn Richardson

  Isobel was gratified to find these soirees much more to her liking than those held by her father’s coterie. There was an energy and a purpose about all these people that was lacking among the adherents of the ancien regime. Auguste’s friends talked of the future rather than the past, of ideals rather than antecedents. But despite her enjoyment of the society in which Auguste moved, despite her music lessons, and despite becoming accustomed to France, Isobel felt hollow inside. She did not want to admit it to herself, but she was forced to come to the conclusion that it was the absence of Lord Christian Hatherleigh’s companionship that was at the root of this empty, restless feeling.

  Every time her mind conjured up the picture of the tan face with the alert gray-green eyes, every time her pulses quickened at the sight of a tall, broad-shouldered man, she would quickly try to think of something else, anything else. These unwanted thoughts were made all the worse by her certainty that he had never suffered from such things himself. Undoubtedly he had forgotten her entirely by now and was enjoying numerous flirtations with the sophisticated flirts of Vienna. Emily had mentioned in one of her letters that he had joined Stewart and Castlereagh in the Austrian capital, where all of Europe had gone to decide the fate of the territories conquered by Napoleon. Emily wished that she could convince her husband to think of some way in which to be useful there because she was longing to visit the Continent. Her letters complained that everyone who was anyone had left London to waltz until dawn in Vienna, but Verwood could not be made to see that there was any other spot in the world as comfortable, salubrious, and well-mannered as England and therefore, he saw no earthly reason for departing for foreign parts which were all thoroughly inferior to England.

  But Isobel was completely mistaken in her assumptions. While it was true that Christian was in Vienna, and he was, of necessity, a guest at all the most brilliant gatherings, he was avoiding rather than indulging in amatory adventures. This took a great deal of skill and forethought, for many of the ladies who satisfied their craving for power by flirting with the older, more important statesmen longed to indulge their physical appetites in an affair with the handsome Englishman. His total lack of interest in the many feminine charms displayed for his benefit only added to Christian’s attractiveness and to the challenge of capturing his interest.

  As he moved among the ministers and foreign dignitaries, Christian had no thought for the attractions of their wives, daughters, or mistresses, but concentrated entirely on the information that could be gleaned from conversations with them or those that he overheard. These he would report once a day to Stewart or Castlereagh. The rest of the time he spent poring over reports from other observers like himself or interviewing various spies that the English were paying to keep an eye on the foreigners. As an officer experienced in evaluating intelligence information offered by partisans in Spain and Portugal, Christian had, over the years, gained an innate sense for judging the credibility of both the informant and the information.

  Though Lord Christian Hatherleigh could been seen dancing at balls and receptions with the most alluring of women, a truly sharp-eyed observer would have noticed that his partners were women such as Wilhemina of Sagan and the Princess Bagration, who were involved with powerful men, women from whom he could learn a great deal. For their part, the women danced with him because he appeared to be a man who was not only charmingly gallant, but bent on enjoying himself and therefore he offered a great contrast to their more important lovers, who were intent on gaining any political advantage that they could.

  “I do like waltzing with you,” Princess Bagration confided one evening as they whirled around the ballroom of the Hofburg, “because you know how to make a woman feel appreciated and you do not fume over Talleyrand or make sarcastic remarks about Metternich.”

  “Ah, Princess, that is because I came to Vienna for the beautiful women that were rumored to be found here. For me, politics is a secondary concern, if it is any concern at all.” Even someone as accustomed to flattery as the princess experienced a frisson of pleasure as the gray-green eyes smiled into hers and the mobile mouth crooked into a mocking half-smile. Christian’s explanation of his presence was accepted without question by these ladies, who saw him dancing with first one and then another of them. Each one assumed that he never presumed to do anything more than waltz with them because he was more seriously involved with someone else and when he disappeared after a ball, they pictured him following that someone else discreetly to her boudoir instead of returning to the headquarters of the British delegation in the Minoritzenplatz, where he related to his superiors everything of value he had learned that evening and where he helped to write the dispatches to be carried back to England by one of the king’s messengers. That done, he would conclude by burning everything. It was a tedious and often monumental task, but a critical one, for he never knew when Hager’s spies would find the opportunity to sift through the wastepaper. They never caught these spies, but it was well known that the Austrians were keeping an eye on all their guests.

  Christian welcomed the exhaustion that washed over him after the long, intense days, for it often meant he would fall asleep in a chair or slumped over his desk to be wakened later by Digby, who would help him stumble to bed. He welcomed it because it meant he did not lie awake fighting off memories of Isobel or speculating on how she was doing. And it meant he was too tired to dream of wrapping her in his arms and covering her face with slow, gentle kisses. It was bad enough that every woman he danced with he compared to her, remembering her lithe, graceful figure moving in perfect harmony with him as they had waltzed that first and only time at Carlton House.

  Yes, he was managing to fill his days and nights, to keep his mind occupied with politics and his senses alert as he parried the questions of delegates, their wives and their mistresses as he probed for even the tiniest scrap of information. But the thought of Isobel was always with him, a dull ache that would not go away, and the more he fought against it, the more he asked himself if he wanted it to go away.

  At last, Christian realized that when he had offered to join the British delegation he had been hoping against hope that Isobel and her father might appear with Talleyrand and the French diplomatic representatives, but now he knew that that was a vain hope, inspired more by his own need to see her than by any realistic expectation. The Duc de Montargis was a courtier who would remain with his king in Paris. After months of missing her, Christian began to feel the distance between Vienna and Paris lessening and at last, driven by the desperation of uncertainty, he had resolved to ask Castlereagh for time off to accomplish this journey when the diplomat was recalled to London to defend his policies to Parliament. Wellington arrived to take Castlereagh’s place and Christian could not bring himself to ask for leave from a man whose dedication to his troops and his country had won the war, nor could he deprive someone newly arrived in Vienna of his own experience in the seething cauldron of intrigue that was the Congress.

  In the end, it was Napoleon himself who solved Christian’s dilemma. In little over a month after Wellington’s arrival in Vienna the duke was asking Christian to join him as an aide-de-camp when he left to take command of the British army in Belgium and to plan for the battle that was bound to occur.

  Chapter 30

  For Isobel too, the Corsican Monster provided a means of escape from the stifling court routine that threatened to sap all her energy.

  During the first months of Louis’s return to France the Duc de Montargis had spent most of his time close to his royal master, assisting him in the selection of his ministers, the granting of peerages to fill the upper and lower chambers of the Chamber of Deputies, organizing the household troops to take the place of the Mousquetaires and the Chevau-Legers that his brother had disbanded a generation ago, and assisting in the preparations for the solemn ceremony honoring the transfer of the bones of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette from the cemetery of La Madeleine to the customary burial place of the Royal Family in Saint-Denis
.

  Once these tasks had been accomplished, however, the duc had turned his attention to his daughter’s future. Isobel received some idea of what he was about when he began to insist on joining her as she made calls on many of their old friends who had returned to their hotels in the Fauborg Saint-Germain and when he encouraged her to increase these calls. Isobel had begun these visits out of politeness, but once she had started with her singing lessons she had curtailed her calling drastically. Now her father began taking such a serious interest in her activities that she was not allowed to get away with this reduced schedule. Isobel also began to notice the presence of highly eligible young men of illustrious lineage who were suddenly to be found at home when the de Montargis, in a carriage lent to them by the king, pulled through the entrance portals into the courtyards of these imposing hotels. Her suspicions were confirmed one afternoon as they were returning to the Tuileries along the rue de Varenne and passing in front of the high walls that surrounded the Hotel de Montargis when the duc remarked, “It will not be long before we arc home again and then we shall hold a ball to announce your engagement.”

  “But I am not engaged. Papa.”

  “You will be,” her father replied serenely as if he had just told her he had decided to order new hangings for the ballroom of the Hotel de Montargis.

  “But, Papa, there is no one ...”

  “Of course there is someone. In fact, there are many someones who have approached me on the subject now that life has returned to normal. The Comte de Pontarlier has always been a member of our circle and the Chevalier d’Entremont has also expressed his admiration for you. Though the chevalier’s lineage is not so pure as the comte’s, he is master of several estates that seemed to have survived the depredations of the sans culottes. And there is the Duc de Montmorency, though I do not know so much about him or the Comte de Reverdy.”

  Isobel could no longer contain her exasperation. “But, Papa, I am not in love with any of them, nor am I that well acquainted with any of them.”

  The duc opened his eyes in astonishment. “What does love or even acquaintance have to do with alliances made among people like us? And you have known the Comte de Pontarlier and the Chevalier d’Entremont since we lived in London.”

  It was useless to argue and equally useless to point out that exchanging polite pleasantries with young men who abhorred discussing anything more serious than the cut of their coats or the ability to select a good tailor hardly amounted to knowing them. Now she understood the meaningful look in the Comte de Pontarlier’s eye and the slight squeeze he had given her hand the other day as he had helped her into the carriage after his aunt’s salon. With a sinking feeling she realized that the moment she had been dreading had arrived. She could no longer avoid the fate of all well-bred young women of her class. Her father would choose a husband for her. The thought of relinquishing her freedom and her independence to some man was so upsetting that she decided she did not care which man it was, as they were all equally uninspiring.

  But that evening the Comte de Blacas called on the duc and Isobel in their apartments in the Tuileries to tell them that another gentleman was about to play a far more important role in their lives than either the Comte de Pontarlier or the Chevalier d’Entremont, for news had reached the palace that Napoleon had escaped from Elba along with an escort of twelve hundred officers and men of the Old Guard and had landed at Golfe Juan. “I have only come to tell you this because the king wishes his most loyal subjects to be fully informed.” The Comte de Blacas smiled reassuringly. “But I assure you that there is no need to be alarmed by the Corsican’s mad enterprise. The king will publish a proclamation in the Moniteur asking all loyal subjects to lay their hands on Bonaparte wherever he should happen to appear. There are sufficient troops in the south to rout the invaders and the Comte d’Artois and the Duc d’Orleans have been sent to Lyons, so you see, there is no cause for alarm.

  However, Auguste, who knew when Isobel was most likely to walk with Marthe in the gardens of the palace, sought her out to voice a very different opinion. “You must convince Papa to leave at once. It is dangerous for a royalist to remain in Paris.”

  “But the Comte de Blacas told us not to worry that there are troops who will stop him, and ...”

  “Isobel, attends-moi, the troops who are being dispatched to stop Bonaparte are the same troops who helped him conquer nearly all of Europe. They are men to whom he brought a glory they had never dreamed of in their entire lives. Now tell me who do you think they will follow, the man who gave them so much of the world or an ineffectual king who cannot make up his mind without consulting his ministers? I tell you, petite soeur, that man Bonaparte works magic, and until you see him, you can have no idea of his power. You know I am not an alarmist and I should not suggest a journey that will be exhausting for you and for an old man in frail health if I were not convinced that Napoleon will soon be in Paris. I have friends who can help me procure you a traveling carriage and horses. You must listen to me, and you must leave before anything happens. Go north, away from Napoleon and his army, to Belgium, where you can get a packet to Dover. Do not try to leave from a French port or you may be stopped.”

  “But, Auguste, surely you do not think that Bonaparte can take over all of France that quickly?”

  “This man is a genius, Isobel. I have seen. him work miracles before. You yourself have heard enough at Madame de Stael’s and the salons of her friends to know that the royalists are not making themselves popular. Now, go home and prepare to pack. I will send you a reliable coachman as well as a carriage and horses.”

  “But, Auguste”—Isobel clutched at her brother’s sleeve in an agony of indecision—”what about you? What will you do? Will you not come with us?”

  “Petite, you know I cannot do that. Papa would never allow it. And I am still a soldier, you know. I must obey orders. I do whatever Marshal Ney commands me to do. At the moment he is just returned from leave and is perhaps even now meeting with the king. Now I must go and await his instructions, but I want you to promise me you will do what I ask.”

  “I will.”

  “Good. Bonne chance. Petite, I shall be thinking of you.” He kissed her tenderly and hurried off, leaving Isobel and Marthe to look at one another in some dismay as they contemplated the work ahead of them.

  “I must convince Papa to flee, but I have not the slightest notion how I will do so. I believe that Auguste knows what he is about in wanting us to leave, but I cannot breathe a word to Papa of what Auguste said, for that will make him resist the idea of departure all the more.”

  “Angleterre,” Marthe exclaimed gloomily. “These old bones cannot face it again. Les Anglais,”—she shrugged—“I can get along with them, but their weather, it is of the worst.”

  England. The very word sent a tremor of excitement through Isobel that she could not attribute to the hope of seeing Jane and Emily or escaping the rigidly formal atmosphere of the Tuileries, or even the opportunity to show Signor Bartoli the results of the new breathing exercises that Signor Spontini had taught her. She tried unsuccessfully to ignore the vision of a tanned angular face and gray-green eyes looking deep into her soul and a deep voice that said. You and I belong together. Shaking her head to clear it of these disturbing images, she turned and began to walk briskly back toward the palace and their apartments. “Come, Marthe, we must begin packing.”

  But Auguste was not the only one who thought that flight was the proper choice for the king and his supporters. That evening at a reception at the Tuileries, Aimee de Coigny, who once had tried to convince Talleyrand himself to support the Bourbon cause, admitted to Isobel. that even the Duchess of Courland, Talleyrand’s mistress, had left Paris. “She says that she wishes to visit her daughter, Dorothea de Talleyrand-Perigord, who is in Vienna with her husband and Wilhemina, but I know that the real reason she has left is that she fears Napoleon will return to Paris.”

  There were others who spoke of leaving. By the time Isobel an
d Marthe had surreptitiously packed their personal belongings, word came that Marshal Ney, who had journeyed to Lons-le-Salnier with a force of eight thousand men, had thrown in his lot with Bonaparte. The king sent immediately for the Duc de Montargis, and the rest of his advisors. While her father was occupied with the debate that raged over whether or not to proceed to La Rochelle and try to raise loyal troops there, to remain and fortify the Tuileries, or to ride out surrounded by all the nobles and deputies to face the Corsican upstart, Isobel and Marine finished the remainder of the packing.

  When her father at last returned, gray and exhausted, to report that Louis and his household, along with Monsieur and the Gardes du Corps, were to leave at midnight the next night in twelve traveling carriages and make their way north, Isobel and Marthe were ready. By that time, the duc was too worn down by worry and the tense hours of discussion to do anything but eat and fall asleep in a chair in front of the fire. The next evening he was still too tired to question the two women as they helped him into the traveling carriage sent by Auguste. He simply lay back against the cushions and stared blankly ahead as they joined the solemn procession leaving the Tuileries.

  This second flight from France seemed to have robbed the Duc de Montargis of not only his energy, but his powers of thought. As they rolled north to Soissons, Cambrai, Valenciennes, he sat dumbly watching the scenery pass by, his face expressionless except for the deeply etched lines of exhaustion. The de Montargis carriage followed the royal cortege to Ghent, where Louis, unable to face the finality of returning to England, decided to remain as a guest of the Governor of East Flanders at his elegant Hotel d’Hane-Steenhuyse. The due would have been content to remain there with the rest of the court, but the hotel was too small to accommodate them all so they were forced to make do with the dubious comforts of a small inn on the Vrijdamarkt.