Julian Fellowes's Belgravia

by Julian Fellowes

  “Don’t worry, Father.” Oliver had given up trying to control himself. “I am well aware that Mr. Pope has all the virtues you find lacking in your own child.”

  Susan decided to refrain from adding any more tinder to the fire. She had established without question that Mr. Pope was an extremely important, if mystifying, figure in this argument, but she did not think she would push it any further here. Instead she might as well sit back and let her ridiculous husband make a fool of himself.

  “Sit down, Oliver,” said Anne, for her son was on his feet, wagging a finger at his father like some itinerant preacher at a country fair.

  “I will not! Turton! Have my dinner taken up to my room. I would rather not stay here and disappoint my father.” So saying, he stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

  There was a silence before Anne spoke. “Better do as Mr. Oliver says, Turton. Please ask Mrs. Adams if she can make up a tray.” She turned to her daughter-in-law, determined to change the tone. “Now, Susan, do you have anything you want to do while you’re down here, or shall we just plan our entertainment as each new day dawns?”

  Susan knew what was happening, but she was happy to play along, launching into how they might amuse themselves until they returned to London.

  That night James couldn’t sleep. He could hear from Anne’s easy, even breathing that she had not been kept awake by Oliver’s outburst, but it wasn’t only that. Anne had retired early and had made sure she was asleep before he arrived in the room so that he would have no chance to question her about her visit to Bishopsgate. He suspected this, but he could hardly shake her awake. What could she have imagined she was doing? Was he the only member of this family who was not trying to destroy their world? And as for Oliver, he was so spoiled. Now he was jealous of Charles, but if it hadn’t been Charles, it would have been something else. What did he want? What did he expect? For his father to hand everything over to him on a silver platter?

  James shook his head. He remembered how his own father had worked when he was a child. He remembered how hard he himself had worked. How low down the pecking order all those officers had made him feel as he found them their bread, their flour, their wine, their munitions on the grubby streets of Brussels. He also remembered the risks he’d taken when he returned. He’d gambled his resources on the Cubitt brothers and the development of the new Belgravia, and what a terrifying journey that had been. Sleepless nights, anxious days, and now here they were, sitting in their beautiful house in Somerset with an ungrateful wretch of a son and his equally spoiled wife, both of them expecting him, James Trenchard, to keep them in the manner to which they were determined to become accustomed. How he wished Sophia were here, beside him. In his mind he saw her as his true child, ignoring the barriers that held her back, pushing them down and stepping over them, not whining or complaining but simply taking what was hers. In truth, she had never left him. There could not have been more than a few waking minutes since she was taken from them when she had not been in his mind, laughing, making fun of him, but always with love. Not for the first time he could feel his cheeks wet with tears at the loss of his darling daughter.

  The rest of the time at Glanville passed without too much incident, although relations between father and son remained strained. James had questioned Anne about the visit to Charles’s place of work and she had justified it, saying that she knew Lady Brockenhurst was going and it felt wise to her to be one of the party. She would then be able to contain any awkwardness if the Countess was indiscreet, but in the event, she had not been. James was forced to admit this seemed sensible enough and he did not press the point, although he sensed that Anne was becoming accustomed to the idea that the day would come, before too long, when the truth would be free. In the meantime, she walked her dog in the park, discussed the coming season with her gardener, and retired early.

  Susan tried to winkle out some information, but Anne was made of much sterner stuff than she appreciated and had no intention of giving away the least scintilla. “But there must be some reason for Father’s interest in Mr. Pope?” Susan ventured once as they strolled together down the long lime avenue, Agnes trotting in their wake. “Especially as Lord and Lady Brockenhurst obviously feel the same. I am curious.”

  “Then you must stay curious, for I cannot help you. They like the young man, and they think he will reward their patronage. That is all.”

  Susan was clever enough to know that that was not all, or anything like all, but she could not think of a way to learn more. She did try to get something out of Ellis but was firmly rebuffed. Ellis had her pride. She was not about to be bought by the likes of Mrs. Oliver.

  By the time they returned to London, son and father were talking again, although the wound clearly festered. For her part, Susan had survived her pastoral month and was trying to decide how to make the little she had learned sound like more when she told it to John.

  She didn’t have long to wait before she received a note suggesting that she and John should meet by chance in the Green Park, and so she set off with Speer in tow.

  “But when you say important, how important?” said John impatiently. “I know he is important to Mr. Trenchard, but I want to know why.”

  “It must have something to do with his business, I suppose.”

  “Nonsense.” He shook his head. “Anyone can see there is more invested in this than just money.”

  Susan knew he was right. “Oliver’s furious about the whole thing. He thinks he is being pushed into second place by this nonentity.”

  John was at his most sardonic. “I am always sympathetic to your husband, of course, my dear, but his anger doesn’t help me now.”

  “No.” Susan was aware that she was not delivering what she had been summoned for, the reason why she had endured the endless weeks at Glanville, but there was something else that had begun to trouble her since their last encounter at Morley’s Hotel. She had been planning to bring it up here and now, but seeing John’s annoyance she thought it might be better to leave it. Except she couldn’t leave it indefinitely.

  He glanced down at her. “What’s the matter? You look preoccupied.”

  “Do I?” she shook her head girlishly. “It’s nothing.”

  But it wasn’t really nothing. As she knew very well.

  John followed Susan home to Eaton Square. Not that she realized. She was too busy talking to Speer, ordering her to pick up some ribbon, some trimming, anything, so they might give Oliver a good reason why they had been out all afternoon.

  He waited on the corner, standing underneath a streetlight, in the hope that Ellis might manage to slip away for a minute. He was frustrated by the scant information Susan had managed to glean while in Somerset, but he had not been expecting much more and he had given Ellis the task of talking to his aunt’s maid, Dawson. She must know most of the secrets of that household. He had told Ellis where and when he would be in the square, and finally, just as the sun was beginning to fade, Ellis appeared. She saw John waiting at the next corner and walked toward him. “Well?” he asked. There was no need for pleasantries.

  “Oh, sir,” she said, wringing her hands with carefully judged obsequiousness. “I’m not sure I have anything very useful to report.”

  “You must have something.”

  “I’m afraid not, sir,” continued Ellis. “Miss Dawson isn’t really the sort of woman we thought she might be.”

  “You mean, she is loyal to her employers?”

  John sounded so incredulous that Ellis nearly laughed. She swallowed it, in time. “It appears so, sir.”

  John sighed loudly. Someone, somewhere must know something about this young man. He had to think. “I have a task for you.”

  “Of course, sir.” Ellis always liked to sound helpful, even if there wasn’t much she could do to make things better. It increased the tips.

  “Ask Turton to meet me again. Usual place. At seven tomorrow evening.”

  “Mr. Turton likes to be back by seven, to
get ready for dinner.”

  “Six, then.” He had tried the ladies’ way, of gossiping maids and curious daughters-in-law, and it hadn’t worked. It was time for a rethink. “And don’t forget.” Before she could protest that she would not, he was striding away along the pavement.

  Charles Pope was in a quandary as he stood near the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens. In his hand was a letter that had been delivered to his office. He turned it over and over, staring down at the light, precise writing. Was there any point in his being here? What could he achieve beyond more trouble? Maria Grey had written, asking him to call on her at her mother’s house in Chesham Street, but he had refused. A man in his position could not call on a young woman of her standing, especially as she was already betrothed. Instead, he’d sent a note suggesting they should meet at the Round Pond at three in the afternoon. It was a public enough place, and there would be no sense of impropriety should they happen to bump into each other while out for a walk. Would there?

  Except that, now it was nearly the appointed time, his nerve was failing. How could he claim to love her if he was prepared to risk her good name like this? But even as he asked himself the question, he knew that he had to see her again.

  A stiff wind was blowing when he arrived at the pond. The water was choppy, with small waves lapping against the sides and splashing at his feet. Despite the breeze, there were plenty of ladies taking a stroll, some in groups of two or three, and small children were running around, zigzagging between them. Some older boys were struggling to get a scarlet kite off the ground, and behind them was a gathering of their anxious nurses, a few pushing the new basket-weave baby carriages, while others carried their charges.

  He sat down on a park bench and stared at the ducks bobbing about on the surface of the water, all the time glancing anxiously around him, scanning the faces of passersby. Where was she? Perhaps she had decided not to come. It was already twenty minutes after the hour. Of course she had decided against the whole thing. She had discussed it with someone, her mother or her maid, and they had seen it for the mad plan that it was. He stood up. He was clearly making a fool of himself. This fine and beautiful girl was a thousand miles out of his league. What was he doing but wasting his time?

  “I am so sorry!” He spun around and there she was, wearing a simple light tweed suit and clutching onto her bonnet. “I had to run.” She smiled. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks flushed as she stood catching her breath. “It was much harder to escape Ryan than I thought.” Then she laughed, because he was there waiting, and she hadn’t missed him as she feared, and everything was wonderful again. She sat down on a bench and he sat with her.

  “You’ve come alone?” Charles did not intend to sound as shocked as he felt, but she was playing with her reputation.

  “Of course I’ve come alone. You don’t think my mother would have let me out if she’d had the slightest idea where I was going, and I can’t trust Ryan. She reports every move I make back to Mama. You are so lucky, Mr. Pope, to have been born a man.”

  “I’m rather glad you were not born a man.” It was the most daring thing he had said to her, and he fell silent at his own courage.

  She laughed again. “Perhaps. But I’m rather proud of myself today. I lost my maid and hailed a cab, for the first time in my life. How’s that?”

  He could not rid himself of the sense that he was luring her into danger. “But I don’t see what good can come of our meeting. Certainly not for you. You have taken a great risk in coming here.”

  “Surely you admire people who take risks, Mr. Pope?” she asked, watching the ducks.

  “I would not admire a man who allowed his beloved to sacrifice her reputation.” He’d failed to notice that he referred to her, by implication, as his beloved.

  But she had. “Because I’m engaged?” said Maria softly.

  “Yes, you are engaged. But even if you weren’t.” He sighed. It was time for some reality to break into fairyland. “I am not the sort of man Lady Templemore would ever entertain as a possible suitor for your hand.”

  He had meant by this to bring things to a halt, but instead his words released a thousand possibilities. “Are you a suitor for my hand?” she said, looking him directly in the eye.

  He returned her gaze. What was the point of lying now? “Lady Maria, I would fight dragons, I would walk over flaming coals, I would enter the Valley of the Dead, if I thought I might have a chance of your heart.”

  For a moment she was silenced by this declaration. She had grown up in a different world from his, and she was used to flowery speeches but not great passion. She understood now that she had inflamed a love in this straightforward man that was completely out of his control. He loved her with his whole being. “Heavens,” she said. “We seem to have covered quite a distance in a few short sentences. Please call me Maria.”

  “I can’t. And I have told you the truth because I believe you deserve the truth, but I do not think we have the power to make it happen, even supposing you should want to.”

  “I do want to make it happen, Mr. Pope. Charles. Be easy in that.” She remembered the stiff and stilted conversation with John Bellasis she’d had in her mother’s morning room and compared the two scenes with wonder. This is what love is like, she thought, not that absurd mixture of polite anecdotes and feeble, unfelt compliments.

  Charles did not reply. He simply did not dare to look into her beautiful, hopeful, proud face for fear of losing himself completely. And whatever she said, she would surely break his heart. Even if she had no desire to, even if she was determined to stick to him through thick and thin, it must come to that in the end. She might bemoan her fate at being born a woman, but he was ruing the day he had been born the orphan cousin of a country parson.

  A figure striding up the Broad Walk caught his attention. “Isn’t that your mother?” he said suddenly, jumping to his feet. There was something about the shape of the woman’s silhouette, the brisk air of impatience, that he recognized from that moment on the balcony at the Brockenhursts’ party. He remembered how she had stood in the doorway, reeking of disapproval. Even then he had known that Lady Maria Grey was beyond his grasp.

  She paled. “Ryan must have gone straight home and told her I’d given her the slip. I suppose she heard where I directed the cab. You must go, now.”

  “I can’t,” he said. “I can’t leave you to take the blame.”

  She shook her head briskly. “Why not? The blame is mine. And don’t worry. She won’t eat me. But this is not the right moment for you to be introduced as my lover. You know I’m right. So, go.”

  She took his hand and squeezed it, then Charles drifted back across the graveled paths and lost himself in the shrubbery beyond.

  Lady Templemore had arrived. “Who was that man?”

  “He was lost. He needed to find the Queen’s Gate.”

  She was very convincing. Lady Templemore sat on the bench. “My dear, I think it’s time you and I had a little talk.”

  Charles heard none of this exchange, although he might have guessed its content. He didn’t care. As he quickened his pace and walked back toward Kensington Gore, his chest was close to bursting. Nothing else really mattered, not any more. She loved him. And he loved her back. She had acknowledged him as her lover. That was all he really needed to know. If she did break his heart, it would be worth it for this moment. What came next he couldn’t guess at, but he loved and was loved in return. For now, that was enough.

  John Bellasis braced himself before he crossed the threshold of his parents’ house in Harley Street. He wasn’t sure why he disliked it so much. Maybe because the place was so shabby in comparison to his aunt’s splendid palace in Belgrave Square. Maybe because it reminded him that his origins were not quite as smart as they should have been. Or perhaps it was simpler. Maybe it was just that his parents bored him. They were dull people, weighed down with problems of their own making, and, to be honest, he sometimes felt a creeping impatience for his fa
ther to quit the scene, leaving John as his uncle’s direct heir. Whatever the truth of the matter, he experienced a certain weariness as the door was opened and he stepped inside.

  Luncheon at home with his parents was not an invitation he would normally accept with much enthusiasm. He’d usually concoct some excuse: an urgent, pressing engagement that sadly could not be delayed. But today he was—once more—in need of funds, so he had little choice but to be courteous to his mother, who always indulged her son and rarely refused him anything. It was not a fortune, but he needed something to tide him over until Christmas, and there was the question of Ellis and Turton to attend to. But that was an investment, he told himself confidently. A small outlay for a large reward, or so he hoped.

  He wasn’t sure what the butler and the maid would come up with, but his instincts told him that the Trenchards were hiding something. And at that point, any illuminating fact about Charles Pope and his connections would be helpful. John was banking on the butler. He recognized a venal soul when he saw one, and a butler enjoyed greater freedom of access within a private house than a lady’s maid. Turton had carte blanche to wander where he chose and could lay his hands on keys that would be withheld from servants of a lower rank; the maid’s territory was more circumscribed. Of course Turton had feigned surprise and consternation at their meeting when it was suggested he might investigate Mr. Trenchard’s papers, but then again, it was amazing how persuasive the offer of six months’ wages could be.

  Walking into the small sitting room at the front of the house, John found his father in a high-backed chair by the window, reading a copy of the Times. “Mother not here?” asked John, looking around the room. If she were about, perhaps he could dispense with luncheon altogether and go straight to the essential question of finances.

  It was an oddly decorated room. Most of the furniture, and indeed the portraits, with their heavy gilt frames and elaborate subjects, looked far too grand for their surroundings. The scale was wrong; it was clear these tables and chairs had previously occupied a larger setting. Even the lamps seemed bulky. It all generated a sense of claustrophobia, a feeling that permeated the entire house.