The French Affair (Endearing Young Charms Book 2)

by M C Beaton

  In only six of the twenty-one years between 1793 and the previous year, 1814, was an average harvest gathered.

  Though more land was laid down to corn than ever before, the supply was not large enough to feed the people of England, and death from starvation was not uncommon. Although the war had ended and Napoleon was in exile on the island of Elba, conditions had not improved.

  Sir George had adopted the pioneering methods of Coke of Norfolk and had improved the farming, despite the bad harvests. He marled and clayed the land, using a great deal of purchased manure, adopted the four-course rotation, grew wheat where only rye had grown before, grew turnips, clover, and sainfoin. By these means, he was also able to increase his number of livestock.

  Delphine paid her call on Mrs. Jones and then rode on into the local market town of Littlejohn. The air was clear and warm, and the hard riding had enabled her to put the problems brought about by the French gentlemen’s visit aside for the moment.

  But there seemed to be a great excitement in the normally sleepy town. People stood in knots at corners, talking earnestly. Others were studying a bulletin posted up outside the offices of the Littlejohn Recorder.

  Delphine dismounted outside the inn, the Wheatsheaf, in the town square.

  Mr. Partington, who owned the haberdashery, came bustling up. “Terrible news, my lady,” he said. “Terrible.”

  “What is it?” asked Delphine with some amusement, since Mr. Partington always met her with this greeting. It usually turned out to be a piece of town gossip of minor importance.

  “Boney’s escaped!” gasped Mr. Partington. “‘Tis said he has landed in the south of France and none can stop his march.”

  “Wellington will stop him,” said Delphine, although she felt a shiver of fear. Napoleon Bonaparte had been an ogre who had haunted her childhood.

  She could still remember the panic when it was thought that Napoleon would invade England. But they had lived with the war for so long, and last year it seemed as if Napoleon would never rise again.

  Mr. Partington went on his way to spread the news to a more rewarding audience, and Delphine stood lost in thought.

  The threat of being at war again, although she was in no way involved, brought an increase in the restless excitement that had begun to plague her. War brought with it thoughts of death, thoughts of the mortality of man; brought with it a realization that the days were slipping and sliding and gliding towards old age without excitement, without fun. Never had Delphine felt so young.

  She became aware that someone was watching her and looked around.

  Mr. Garnett, steward to the Bryce-Connells, Marsham Manor’s most prosperous neighbors, was standing revolving his hat between his fingers and studying her anxiously.

  “Good day, Mr. Garnett.” Delphine smiled on him. She did not approve of his master, Mr. Bryce-Connell, who had a reputation of being harsh to his tenants and servants. Mr. Garnett, however, was known to be a good steward. It was said that the Bryce-Connell estates would never have survived the bad harvests under less expert management than that of Mr. Garnett.

  “I would beg the favor of a word with you, my lady,” said Mr. Garnett. “Perhaps I might have your permission to call. It’s on a matter of business.”

  “Very well,” said Delphine with a little sigh, thinking it was probably some lengthy matter of cattle straying onto Mr. Bryce-Connell’s land. “Perhaps we could discuss it now?”

  “Yes, my lady,” mumbled Mr. Garnett in a manner very far removed from his usual cheerfulness.

  “Then let us go into the Wheatsheaf,” said Delphine, leading the way.

  Mr. Garnett followed her. It was strange, he thought, that such a young lady as Lady Charteris should perpetually ride about without a maid.

  Delphine began to sense that Mr. Garnett’s business matter might be something out of the common way and so she asked for a private parlor.

  When they were both seated over a bottle of wine and a tray of biscuits, she settled herself down to listen to Mr. Garnett, who seemed strangely reluctant to begin.

  At last she prompted gently, “Perhaps Mr. Bryce-Connell has some complaint …?”

  “Oh, my lady,” burst out Mr. Garnett. “He has, indeed, and the complaint is about me. I have lost my employ.”

  Delphine looked in surprise at his honest, square face. “You know Mr. Bryce-Connell often loses his temper and says things in haste which he repents at leisure,” she said. It was unthinkable, after all, that Bryce-Connell should rid himself of such a valuable steward.

  “We’ve been quarreling for some time, my lady,” said Mr. Garnett in a low voice. “Mr. Bryce-Connell and I never saw eye to eye over the tenants’ welfare. Somehow I managed to look after them. Now he says if there is no work for the laborers, then they are not to be paid.

  “I know it’s the law, my lady, and that he’s within his rights. But it’s mortal hard to see people suffering for want of food. Well, we had words, and his sister Miss Harriet ups and says that Mr. Bryce-Connell is a milksop to allow a servant to speak to him in that way—meaning me, my lady. And so I lost my employ.”

  “And you are come to me for work?” asked Delphine.

  “Oh, and it please your ladyship, any kind of work.”

  “You are an educated man, Mr. Garnett,” said Delphine thoughtfully, “and you have a good reputation. It should be easy for you to find another position.”

  “Mr. Bryce-Connell will not give me a reference. He says I am a thief. And it’s a lie, my lady,” said Mr. Garnett passionately. “They—that’s Mr. Bryce-Connell and his sister—say a gold statuette was found in my room. I swore blind I never touched it, but they said I should consider myself lucky that they had not taken me to the nearest roundhouse.”

  A light breeze blew in at the open window, bringing with it all the scents of early spring.

  “I shall employ you,” said Delphine suddenly and abruptly, her voice almost harsh.

  “My lady!” gasped Mr. Garnett. “I would be honored to work for you.”

  “You will work as my steward, Mr. Garnett, and you may hire an assistant as well. For your assistant, I would like you to look among the young men on my estate and find one that you think worthy of education and advancement. I shall supply you with some names, of course, but I would like the decision to be yours.

  “This comes at a very opportune moment. I trust you will not repeat this conversation to anyone, but I have become wearied of the chores of my own stewardship. The country people have accepted me, but they would rather be governed by a man. I—I have in mind a certain undertaking, which means I shall perhaps be not as well able to attend to things as I was in the past. You may commence your duties immediately. I gather you are at liberty to do so?”

  “Yes, my lady. I was turned out of my dwelling this morning.”

  “How very like Mr. Bryce-Connell,” said Delphine. “He is like one of those wicked squires so beloved of Astley’s Amphitheatre that I read about in the newspapers—constantly turning people out into the snow.

  “It is hard to believe such people exist in real life, but I am still inclined to expect everyone to be like my late husband.”

  “I would to God they were,” said Mr. Garnett fervently. “He was the finest man the county has ever known.”

  “Then I shall expect you in my estates’ office later today, Mr. Garnett. I will explain as much as I can and will take you on a tour of the estates tomorrow.”

  After she had parted from Mr. Garnett, she attended the coal and clothing club, and then made her way back to the main square.

  She was about to mount her horse when she saw Mr. Bryce-Connell and his sister, Harriet, alighting from their carriage. They saw her at the same time.

  Harriet’s beautiful lips curled in a complacent smile as her blue gaze took in the drabness of Lady Charteris’s clothes. She herself was wearing a Bourbon hat and mantle—named to celebrate the return of the royal family to Paris. Her hat was made of blue satin trim
med with fleur-de-lis in pearls; an edging of floss silk and pearls finished the brim and a white ostrich feather was placed on one side. Fleur-de-lis trimmed both the Bourbon dress and mantle.

  Harriet’s blond curls peeped out from under her delicious bonnet. Her fair English complexion glowed with health. Delphine was conscious all of a sudden of the dowdiness of her own dress and the foreignness of her coloring.

  Mr. Bryce-Connell was stocky and florid. He was as fair as his sister, but his blue eyes were crisscrossed with red veins, and his high color owed more to port than health.

  He assumed a mincing, affected manner which did not go well with his burly farmer’s figure.

  “Servant, Lady Charteris,” he simpered. “‘Pon rep, it is a good thing we have Wellington to fight for us. Those demned Frenchies are like black beetles. Can’t get rid of ‘em. Stamp ‘em down one place and they pop up another.”

  “La!” Harriet smiled. “You forget, Lady Charteris is French.”

  “Oh, she’ll have forgotten all of that nonsense.” Mr. Bryce-Connell giggled.

  “Much as I would adore to stand here and listen to you both maligning my race and character,” said Delphine, swinging herself up into the side saddle, “I fear I must bid you adieu. It is amazing, is it not, that the English who most affect to despise the French wear French fashions and interlard their conversation with bad French? But I have business to attend to. You see, Mr. Garnett will be working for me.”

  “Garnett! The man’s a thief,” cried Mr. Bryce-Connell.

  “Oh, the gold statuette. He told me about that. Of course, I did not believe a word of it. One would have to be quite mad to think Mr. Garnett would steal anything.”

  And with a small bow from the waist, Delphine spurred her horse and rode off quickly before either of the Bryce-Connells could find time to reply.

  “Monstrous!” said Harriet angrily, staring after the slight figure on horseback, now at the far end of the square.

  “She called us liars! And the statuette was found in Garnett’s bedchamber.”

  “Where you put it,” said her brother. “An unnecessary touch, that.”

  “Pah!” said Harriet disdainfully. “Unnecessary, indeed. You needed something to have against him. If I had not interceded, he would have had the whole estate overrun with paupers, eating us out of house and home. You should have had Garnett charged with the theft. Now the wretched man will make the Charteris estates prosper just to get his revenge.”

  “We’ll find a way to make Lady Charteris smart,” said her brother thoughtfully. “I don’t know why people hereabouts won’t hear a word against her. She’s French. She behaves like a farmer. And she has not one ounce of femininity in her whole body!”

  But Delphine was feeling the disadvantages of her sex very much indeed. If she were a man, she thought savagely, she would have challenged Mr. Bryce-Connell to a duel on the spot. Somehow, however, they had contrived to make her feel like a foreigner in a strange country. For the first time, she began to think of herself as French.

  All at once, the facts of her parents’ death hit her like a hammer blow. She reined in Xerxes and slowly bent her head forward until her face was buried in the animal’s shaggy mane and cried her eyes out.

  She had a sudden longing to have a companion, some man who would take some of the cares of her life from her shoulders. Someone to turn to and lean on. Someone French who would understand that one could not shed one’s nationality even after a long stay in England.

  Would a marriage of convenience be such a bad thing? Delphine dried her eyes and slowly looked about at the budding trees and hedgerows. The sun was going down in flaming glory behind a bank of clouds. Red light washed over the fields, making the landscape look strange and alien. What was this Comte Saint-Pierre like? He was not a wastrel. Somehow she trusted the two elderly Frenchmen’s judgment on that score. She felt she could almost see him. Someone dark-haired and golden-skinned like her, with quick, vital gestures talking rapid French.

  She rode on until she came to the top of Hebcock Hill, one of the few hills in the flat countryside.

  Marsham Manor lay below her surrounded by trees, iit by the setting sun. Smoke curled up lazily from its tall chimneys.

  From a nearby cottage came the sound of children’s laughter. Children! It had seemed odd that she and Sir George had not been blessed with children. At first she had cried, feeling she was less than a woman, that it was all somehow her own fault, and Sir George had laughed and pulled her down onto his lap and ruffled her curls, saying she was the only child he needed in his life.

  But she was not a child, thought Delphine sadly, but a woman with all of a woman’s longings and passions. And although there could be no great, passionate love to be expected from an arranged marriage, perhaps it would bring children and companionship.

  All at once she was eager to get home and see more of her guests and hear more about her parents. She urged Xerxes into a gallop.

  Maria Bencastle was sourer than she had ever been before. Nothing but French was spoken at the dinner table. This steward had been appointed without consulting her, and not only that, he had hired an assistant—a mere cottage youth with only a smattering of education.

  She had told Mr. Garnett firmly that all problems should be brought to her. Lady Charteris took too much upon herself. But Mr. Garnett had simply smiled and continued to go to Delphine for advice.

  Certainly the conversation at the dining table had begun in English, the others being too polite to wish to exclude her from the conversation. But she had tried to put these unwanted guests in their place by saying, “Since you speak English so badly, why don’t you speak in French? It will not trouble me at all, I can assure you.” They had been about to protest, but Delphine had flashed her an enigmatic look and had begun to talk in French and, it seemed, had not stopped since.

  Mrs. Bencastle’s only allies were the servants, but they were too much in awe of their young mistress to do anything to make these wretched Frenchmen feel unwelcome. Mrs. Bencastle’s only consolation was that as far as she could gather, no further mention had been made of this stupid marriage arrangement.

  But the subject had been much discussed—in French. The Marquis de Graux told Delphine how the young Jules Saint-Pierre had been forced to watch his parents being guillotined. He had been destined to follow them on the following day, but a soft-hearted turnkey at the Bastille had smuggled him out in a suit of rags, pretending that he was a peasant boy who had been found skulking about.

  He told her how the young comte had made his way bit by bit towards England, working on farms to gather a little money, then working his passage to England. He was a gallant young man, said the marquis, and as brave as a lion.

  He also told her at length about her parents, talking of the château in the Loire Valley, talking of happier times, describing them in detail to Delphine, never again touching on the agony of their death.

  That night, when Delphine fell asleep, she had a vivid dream of her mother, pretty and powdered, holding out rounded arms and teasing her to take her first steps. She could even feel the sun warm on her back and see the exquisite embroidery of her mother’s panniered gown and the way the sun shone on her powdered hair.

  She awoke with a start and lay trembling. It had all seemed so real. She lay in the darkness and thought about all the conversation of the evening. Thought about how French came so naturally to her lips, and about how the presence of the two elderly Frenchmen had managed to banish her feeling of foreignness and isolation.

  And then she thought about this Comte Saint-Pierre. It would be a marriage in name only, insisted the Marquis de Graux. He was only interested in carrying out her dead parents’ wishes.

  The pull of the past was very strong. Perhaps if Sir George had made an effort to introduce his young bride to the homes of the county or had taken her to London for a season, Delphine would not have felt so isolated after his death. But after he had rescued her, Sir George had be
come something of a recluse as far as the social world was concerned, and so, in a way, he became England for Delphine; and on his death, she once again felt foreign, one of the despised French unable to take root on English soil.

  Now she began to realize why the French émigrés flocked together, only speaking French, hanging on to the hope that one day their estates would be restored, that one day they would return to the sunshine of France and leave England with its fog and perpetual roast beef behind.

  All at once, Delphine made up her mind to go ahead with the marriage.

  She must trust her parents’ judgment, and the high opinion of the Comte Saint-Pierre which her two guests evidently had.

  After being hard-working and quiet and practical all her life, Delphine felt a tingle of excitement at the idea of taking such a plunge into unknown waters.

  Monsieur Renaud had said that if she decided to marry the Comte Saint-Pierre, then they would return immediately to London to tell him the news. Since it was not necessary that she meet the comte first, as it was to be a marriage of convenience, she could leave all arrangements for a quiet, modest wedding to the two gentlemen.

  Delphine decided she would not mention anything about it to Maria Bencastle. Maria would only know about it when she returned home with her new husband.

  It was this desire not to tell Maria Bencastle that made Delphine forego a meeting with her husband before the wedding. Underneath this reason was the wish not to have her glorious dream of a handsome, vital, dashing French nobleman destroyed. Deep down, Delphine craved romance and frivolity.

  Mrs. Bencastle smiled for the first time, showing strong yellow teeth as Delphine’s traveling carriage eventually departed, bearing the two French gentlemen off to London.