Julian Fellowes's Belgravia

by Julian Fellowes

  The Duchess of Bedford was astonished. “You were at the famous ball, Mrs. Trenchard?”

  “I was.”

  “But I thought you had only lately—” She stopped herself just in time. “I must see if everyone has what they want. Please excuse me.” She hurried away, leaving the other two to examine each other more carefully. At last the old Duchess spoke. “I remember you well.”

  “I’m impressed, if you do.”

  “Of course, we didn’t really know each other, did we?” In the wrinkled face before her, Anne could still see the traces of the queen of Brussels, who had ordered things just as she saw fit.

  “No, we didn’t. My husband and I were wished upon you, and I thought it very kind that we were allowed in.”

  “I remember. My late nephew was in love with your daughter.”

  Anne nodded. “He may have been. At least, she was in love with him.”

  “No, I think he was. I certainly thought so at the time. The Duke and I had a great discussion about it, after the ball was over.”

  “I’m sure you did.” They both knew what they were talking about, these two, but what was the point in raking it up now?

  “We should leave the subject. My sister’s over there. It will unsettle her, even after so many years.” Anne looked across the room to see a stately figure of a woman, dressed in a frock of violet lace over gray silk, who did not look much older than Anne herself. “There is less than ten years between us, which is surprising, I know.”

  “Did you ever tell her about Sophia?”

  “It’s all so long ago. What does it matter now? Our concerns died with him.” She paused, realizing she had given herself away. “Where is your beautiful daughter now? For you see, I recall she was a beauty. What became of her?”

  Anne winced inside. The question still hurt every time. “Like Lord Bellasis, Sophia is dead.” She always used a brisk and efficient-sounding tone to impart this information, in an attempt to avoid the sentimentality that her words usually provoked. “Not many months after the ball.”

  “So she never married?”

  “No. She never married.”

  “I’m sorry. Funnily enough, I can remember her quite clearly. Do you have other children?”

  “Oh yes. A son, Oliver, but…” It was Anne’s turn to give herself away.

  “Sophia was the child of your heart.”

  Anne sighed. It never got easier, no matter how many years had passed. “I know one is always supposed to support the fiction that we love all our children equally, but I find it hard.”

  The Duchess cackled. “I don’t even try. I am very fond of some of my children, on reasonably good terms with most of the rest, but I have two that I positively dislike.”

  “How many are there?”

  “Fourteen.”

  Anne smiled. “Heavens. So the Richmond dukedom is safe.” The old Duchess laughed again. But she took Anne’s hand and squeezed it. Funnily enough, Anne did not resent her. They had both played a part, according to their own lights, in that long-ago story. “I remember some of your daughters that night. One of them seemed to be a great favorite of the Duke of Wellington.”

  “She still is. Georgiana. She’s Lady de Ros now, but if he hadn’t already been married, I doubt he’d have stood a chance. I must go. I’ve been here too long and I will pay for it.” She got to her feet with some difficulty, making heavy use of her stick. “I have enjoyed our talk, Mrs. Trenchard, a nice reminder of more exciting times. But I suppose this is the advantage of the pick-up, put-down tea. We may go when we want.” She had something more to say before she left. “I wish you and your family well, my dear. Whatever sides we may once have been on.”

  “I say the same to you, Duchess.” Anne had risen, and she stood watching as the ancient peeress made her careful way to the door. She looked around. There were women here she knew, some of whom nodded in her direction with a show of politeness, but she also knew the limits of their interest and made no attempt to take advantage of it. She smiled back without making a move to join them. The large drawing room opened into a smaller one, hung with pale gray damask, and beyond was a picture gallery, or rather a room for displaying pictures. Anne strolled into it, admiring the paintings on show. There was a fine Turner hanging over the marble chimneypiece. She wondered idly how long she must stay when a voice startled her.

  “You had a great deal to say to my sister.” She turned to find the woman the Duchess had pointed out as the mother of Lord Bellasis. Anne wondered if she had imagined this moment. Probably. The Countess of Brockenhurst stood, holding a cup of tea resting in a matching saucer. “And now I think I may know why. Our hostess tells me you were at the famous ball.”

  “I was, Lady Brockenhurst.”

  “You have the advantage of me.” Lady Brockenhurst had made her way to a group of chairs standing empty near a large window looking out over the leafy garden of Belgrave Square. Anne could see a nursemaid with her two charges playing sedately on the central lawn. “Will you tell me your name, since there is no one here to make the introduction?”

  “I am Mrs. Trenchard. Mrs. James Trenchard.”

  The Countess stared at her. “I was right, then. It is you.”

  “I’m very flattered if you’ve heard of me.”

  “Certainly I have.” She gave no clue as to whether this was a good thing or a bad. A footman arrived with a plate of tiny egg sandwiches. “I’m afraid these are too delicious to resist,” said Lady Brockenhurst as she took three and a little plate to carry them. “I find it strange to eat at this time, don’t you? I suppose we will still want our dinner when it comes.” Anne smiled but said nothing. She had a sense that she was to be questioned, and she was not wrong. “Tell me about the ball.”

  “Surely you must have talked of it enough with the Duchess?”

  But Lady Brockenhurst was not to be deflected. “Why were you in Brussels? How did you know my sister and her husband?”

  “We didn’t. Not in that way. Mr. Trenchard was the Duke of Wellington’s head of supplies. He knew the Duke of Richmond a little in his capacity as chief of the defense of Brussels, but that is all.”

  “Forgive me, my dear, but it does not entirely explain your presence at his wife’s reception.” The Countess of Brockenhurst had clearly been a very pretty woman, when her gray hair was still blonde and her lined skin smooth. She had a catlike face with small, vivid features, defined and alert, a cupid’s bow of a mouth and a sharp, pizzicato manner of speaking that must have seemed very beguiling in her youth. She was not unlike her sister, and she had the same imperious air, but there was a sorrow behind her blue-gray eyes that made her both more sympathetic and yet more distant than the Duchess of Richmond. Anne, of course, knew the reason for her grief but was naturally reluctant to refer to it. “I’m curious. I had always heard tell of you both as the Duke of Wellington’s victualler and his wife. Seeing you here, I wondered if I was misinformed and your circumstance was rather different from the version I’d been given.”

  This was rude and insulting, and Anne was well aware she should be offended. Anyone else would have been. But was Lady Brockenhurst wrong? “No. The report was accurate enough. It was strange we were among the guests that night in 1815, but our life has changed in the interim. Things have gone well for Mr. Trenchard since the war ended.”

  “Obviously. Is he still supplying foodstuffs to his customers? He must be very good at it.”

  Anne wasn’t sure how much more of this she was expected to put up with. “No, he left that and went into partnership with Mr. Cubitt and his brother. When we returned from Brussels, after the battle, the Cubitts needed to find investors, and Mr. Trenchard decided to help them.”

  “The great Mr. Thomas Cubitt? Heavens. I assume he was no longer a ship’s carpenter by that stage?”

  Anne decided to let this play itself out. “He was in development by then, and he and his brother, William, were raising funds to build the London Institution in Finsbury
Circus when they met Mr. Trenchard. He offered to help and they went into business together.”

  “I remember when it opened. We thought it magnificent.” Was she smirking? It was hard to tell if Lady Brockenhurst was genuinely impressed or was somehow toying with Anne for her own purposes.

  “After that, they worked together on the new Tavistock Square—”

  “For the father-in-law of our hostess.”

  “There were a few of them, as it happens, but the late Duke of Bedford was the main investor, yes.”

  Lady Brockenhurst nodded. “I remember well that was a great success. And then I suppose Belgravia followed for the Marquess of Westminster, who must be richer than Croesus, thanks to the Cubitts, and, I see now, your husband. How well things have gone for you. I expect you’re tired of houses such as this. Mr. Trenchard has clearly been responsible for so many of them.”

  “It’s nice to see the places lived in, when the scaffolding and dust have gone.” Anne was trying to make the conversation more normal, but Lady Brockenhurst was having none of it.

  “What a story,” she said. “You are a creature of the New Age, Mrs. Trenchard.” She laughed for a moment and then remembered herself. “I hope I don’t offend you.”

  “Not in the least.” Anne was fully aware she was being provoked, presumably because Lady Brockenhurst knew all about her son’s dalliance with Sophia. There could be no other reason. Anne decided to bring matters to a head and wrong-foot her questioner. “You’re right that Mr. Trenchard’s later triumphs do not explain our presence at the ball that night. An army victualler does not usually have the chance to write his name on a duchess’s dance card, but we were friendly with a favorite of your sister’s and he contrived to get us invited. It seems shameless, but a city on the brink of war is not governed by quite the same rules as a Mayfair drawing room in peacetime.”

  “I’m sure it is not. Who was this favorite? Might I have known him?”

  Anne was almost relieved that at last they had reached their destination. Even so, she was unsure quite how to manage it.

  “Come, Mrs. Trenchard, don’t be bashful. Please.”

  There was no point in lying, since clearly Lady Brockenhurst was fully aware of what she was going to say. “You knew him very well. It was Lord Bellasis.”

  The name hung in the air between them like a ghostly dagger in a fable. It could never be said that Lady Brockenhurst lost her composure, since she would not lose that before she breathed her last, but she had not quite prepared for the sound of his name being spoken aloud by this woman whom she knew so well in her imaginings but not at all in fact. She needed a moment to catch her breath. There was a silence as she slowly sipped her tea. Anne felt a sudden surge of pity for this sad, cold woman, as unbending with herself as with anyone else. “Lady Brockenhurst—”

  “Did you know my son well?”

  Anne nodded. “In truth—”

  At this moment their hostess arrived. “Mrs. Trenchard, would you like—”

  “Forgive me, my dear, but Mrs. Trenchard and I are talking.” The dismissal could not have been more final if the Duchess had been a naughty housemaid still brushing up the cinders of a fire when the family returned to the room after dinner. Without a word, she simply nodded and withdrew. Lady Brockenhurst waited until they were alone again. “You were saying?”

  “Only that my daughter knew Lord Bellasis better than we did. Brussels was quite a hothouse at that time, filled with young officers and the daughters of many of the older commanders. As well as the men and women who had come out from London to join in the fun.”

  “Like my sister and her husband.”

  “Exactly. I suppose, looking back, there was a sense that nobody knew what was coming: the triumph of Napoleon, the enslavement of England, or the reverse and a British victory. It sounds wrong, but the uncertainty created an atmosphere that was heady and exciting.”

  The other woman nodded as she spoke. “And above all else, the knowledge must have hung in the air that some of those smiling, handsome young men, taking salutes on the parade ground, pouring the wine at picnics, or waltzing with the daughters of their officer, would not be coming home.” Lady Brockenhurst’s tone was even, but a slight tremble in the sound of her voice betrayed her emotion.

  How well Anne understood. “Yes.”

  “I suppose they enjoyed it. The girls who were there, like your daughter, I mean. The danger, the glamour; because danger is glamorous when you’re young. Where is she now?”

  Again. Twice in one afternoon. “Sophia died.”

  Lady Brockenhurst gasped. “Now, that I did not know,” confirming that she had known everything else. Obviously she and the Duchess of Richmond had discussed the whole story, countless times for all Anne knew, which would explain her manner until this moment.

  Anne nodded. “It was quite soon after the battle, less than a year, in fact, so a long time ago now.”

  “I am very sorry.” For the first time Lady Brockenhurst spoke with something like genuine warmth. “Everyone always claims to know what you’re going through, but I do. And I know that it never goes away.”

  Anne stared at her, this haughty matron who had expended so much effort putting Anne in her place. Who had brought so much anger into the room with her. And yet the knowledge that Anne, too, had lost a child, that the wicked girl of Lady Brockenhurst’s bitter ruminations was dead, had somehow altered things between them. Anne smiled. “Oddly, I find that comforting. They say misery loves company, and perhaps it does.”

  “And you remember seeing Edmund at the ball?” Lady Brockenhurst had dispensed with rage, and now her eagerness to hear something of her lost son was almost uncomfortable.

  The question could be answered honestly. “Very well. And not just from the ball. He would come to our house with other young people. He was very popular. Charming, good-looking, and funny as could be—”

  “Oh yes. All that and more.”

  “Do you have other children?” The moment she said it, Anne could have bitten off her tongue. She remembered very well that Bellasis had been an only child. He’d often talked about it. “I’m so sorry. I remember now that you don’t. Please forgive me.”

  “You’re right. When we go, there will be nothing left of us.” Lady Brockenhurst smoothed the silk of her skirts, glancing into the empty chimneypiece. “Not a trace.”

  For a second, Anne thought Lady Brockenhurst might cry, but she decided to continue just the same. Why not comfort this bereaved mother, if she could? Where was the harm? “You must be very proud of Lord Bellasis. He was an excellent young man, and we were so fond of him. Sometimes we would get up a little ball of our own, with six or seven couples, and I would play the piano. It seems strange to say it now, but those days before the battle were happy ones. At any rate, for me.”

  “I’m sure.” Lady Brockenhurst stood. “I’m going now, Mrs. Trenchard. But I have enjoyed our talk. Rather more than I anticipated.”

  “Who told you I’d be here?” Anne stared at her calmly.

  Lady Brockenhurst shook her head. “No one. I asked our hostess who was talking to my sister and she told me your name. I was curious. I have talked about you and your daughter so many times that it seemed a shame to miss the chance of talking to you. But anyway, I see now I have been wrong. If anything, it’s been a treat for me to discuss Edmund with someone who knew him. You’ve made me feel I have seen him again, dancing and flirting and enjoying himself in his last hours, and I like to think of that. I will think of that. So thank you.” She glided away between the chattering groups, stately in her progress, the colors of half mourning moving through the gaily brilliant crowd.

  Seeing her gone, the Duchess of Bedford returned. “Heavens. I must say I had no need to worry about you, Mrs. Trenchard. You are clearly among friends.” Her words were more amiable than her tone.

  “Not friends exactly, but we have memories in common. And now I must also take my leave. I am so pleased I came. Thank you.
”

  “Come again. And next time you can tell me all about the famous gathering before the battle.”

  But Anne was conscious that somehow to discuss that long-ago evening with someone who had no investment in it would not satisfy her. It had been cathartic to talk about it with the old Duchess, and even with her more astringent sister, as they both had their links to that night. But it would not do to dissect it with a stranger. Ten minutes later, she was in her carriage.

  Eaton Square may have been larger than Belgrave Square, but the houses were a shade less magnificent, and although James had been determined to occupy one of the splendid piles in the latter, he had yielded to his wife’s wishes and settled for something a little smaller. That said, the houses in Eaton Square were grand enough, but Anne was not unhappy there. Indeed, she liked it, and she had worked hard to make the rooms pretty and pleasant, even if they were not as stately as James would have chosen. “I have a taste for splendor,” he used to say, but it was a taste Anne did not share. Still, she walked through the cool, gray entrance hall, smiling at the footman who had let her in, and continued up the staircase without any sense of resisting her surroundings. “Is the master at home?” she asked the man, but no, it seemed James had not returned. He would probably race in, just in time to change, and she would have to leave their discussion until the end of the evening. For a discussion there must be.

  They were dining alone with their son, Oliver, and his wife, Susan, who lived with them, and the evening passed easily enough. She told them of the Duchess of Bedford’s tea party as they sat in the large dining room on the ground floor. A butler in his late forties, Turton, was serving them with the help of two footmen, which seemed to Anne rather excessive for a family dinner of four persons, but it was how James liked things to be done, and she did not really mind. It was a pleasing room, if a little cold, ennobled by a screen of columns at one end, separating the sideboard from the rest of the chamber. There was a good chimneypiece of Carrara marble and, above it, a portrait of her husband by David Wilkie that James was proud of, even if Wilkie might not have been. It was painted the year before he produced his famous picture of the young Queen at her first Council meeting, which James was sure must have put up Wilkie’s price. That said, he did not look his best. Anne’s dachshund, Agnes, was sitting by her chair, eyes raised upward in optimism. Anne slipped her a tiny piece of meat.