The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy

by Marsha Altman

  “She assumed I was Irish!”

  Dr. Maddox, who had had more than a few drinks and was still feeling the effects upon retiring to their chamber, said only, “She is certainly not the first and I doubt the last.”

  Caroline growled and climbed into bed beside him, but before she could slip away from him, he pulled her close. “If you are so upset, dye your hair. But it will not match your fine skin and I would be very annoyed with you, because I would not have you any other way than you are now.”

  “Says the man who can hardly see.”

  “I can see well enough still.” He kissed her on her forehead, and could feel some of her anger abate. “If you really wish to be a snooty Englishwoman, you should know you married a Welshman with a proud heritage of clan Madoc. So it is a hopeless case.” He chuckled. “Do you really have any other reason to dislike her?”

  There was a long moment of silence. “I suppose not. And Grégoire is visibly smitten,” she said. “Will she ever have children?”They knew only minor details of her history with her previous husband.

  “The doctors in Ireland said it would take a miracle,” he replied. “Fortunately, Grégoire is known for them.”

  As an unspoken peace offering, Mrs. Maddox escorted Mrs. MacKenna to all of the best shops for wedding dresses, and between that and the pre-wedding gifts of jewelry, the women of Grégoire’s extended family conspired to make her a very modish bride.

  “I hope that someone is helping Grégoire purchase suitable attire for his own wedding,” Elizabeth said in passing as Caitlin’s gown was being pinned up by the dressmaker. “I don’t know where he gets his clothing—”

  “I make ’is shirts,” she said. “But I don’ ’ave time before—I mean fer somet’ing fancy—”

  “It is a royal tradition in England,” Princess Maddox said, to their surprise. “What? The queen is supposed to make the king’s shirts. Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn fought over the right to do so for Henry VIII. Don’t you English know your history?”

  Jane and Elizabeth exchanged giggles. “I suppose we do not, Your Highness.”

  “I do not think Caroline of Brunswick will be sewing any shirts for the Prince of Wales,” Elizabeth ventured.

  “If he makes it to the throne,” Caroline Maddox said, and returned their looks with her own indignant stare. “What? I am only repeating the gossip columns.You know my husband tells me nothing, only that he is not yet allowed to retire.”

  “The curse of being too good a physician,” Princess Maddox said. “Has he tried again?”

  “He was asked to lecture next term at Cambridge on anatomy,” Caroline said. “If he ever plucks up his nerve, he might ask the Prince to officially release him, but as he has backed out twice now, I will not hold my breath.”

  “Men are so easily unnerved,” Elizabeth said. “Mention our daughters and the word out in the same sentence, and Darcy will flee the room.”

  “My husband is afraid of standing up to your husband,” Jane said to her sister.

  “Taking responsibility,” Princess Maddox said.

  “Being outdrunk,” Georgiana Kincaid said.

  “Losing de rest of ’is hair,” Caitlin said, and then covered her mouth in horror. “I shouldn’tna said that!”

  “We won’t say a word,” Elizabeth assured her. “We promise.”

  The weather was much colder in Ireland when Grégoire and Caitlin returned than when they had left, this time joined by his brother and sister and their spouses. Despite all of her history, which made her anything but a naive virgin, Caitlin MacKenna still managed to be a blushing bride in the church not far from her new home. Aside from the Darcys and the Kincaids, there were no other guests because of the weather and the location, but all they wanted was a small crowd, having already suitably celebrated and eager to get on with the matter. Their only local guests were the O’Muldoons, who had to travel some distance (for them) to the ceremony, bringing along their many children. Grégoire and Caitlin sent a carriage for them.

  “From the moment I saw yeh in town, I knew yeh would do right by her,” Mrs. O’Muldoon said to Grégoire, who wore a very nice and appropriate vest over one of Caitlin’s tunics, the best of the lot.

  Lacking anyone else, Mr. O’Muldoon gave Caitlin away, and the service was, of course, in Latin. Darcy’s only comment to Elizabeth about that when he returned from standing up as the best man was that he found it delightfully shorter than English services, where the vicar might have a tendency to go on and on about the sanctity of marriage. If it had been said in Latin (and neither had any idea if it had), it was brief.

  On 1 December 1818, Grégoire Bellamont and Caitlin MacKenna were joined in holy matrimony, with the approval of his family, their friends, and the church. After a celebratory luncheon, the couple were given their space, and the many presents packed in trunks from England were dropped at their doorstep by the Darcys before their departure.

  “There are some that couldn’t get here in time,” Darcy said to his brother. “Too many.You should invest in bookshelves while you wait,” he said, slapping him on the shoulder. “If she makes you happy, she deserves you.”

  “She is my wife,” Grégoire said with a smile. “It is no longer conditional.”

  Georgiana gave her little brother the tightest hug she could manage. “You’ll come in the spring.”

  “We are not so far away,” he reminded her. “And I want to hear about my nephew.”

  “He is fine!” Darcy shouted from his carriage.

  “Both my nephews,” he corrected himself. “And tell George to feel free to write me. Or visit. But perhaps not for a few months.”

  She nodded and kissed him and his new wife good-bye. The couple watched their guests depart in their carriages for Dublin. “Do you approve of my family, Mrs. Bellamont?”

  “Who cares?” she said, and pulled him into the house with a tug, followed by a kiss. “My dress itches. I want outta it.”

  He grinned. “I would be happy to assist you.”

  “How many books do yeh need?”

  Grégoire laughed at her comment and his situation, surrounded by trunks and trunks of books. Not only did he have his own collection, and many gifts of a similar sort, but Darcy had also sent him the entire library from the Isle of Man. “These belonged to my Uncle Gregory.”

  “De mad one?”

  “The very same.” He closed the book on Greek history, and a dust cloud came forth from the binding before he put it on the shelf. The others would have to wait—the wood had come, but he had yet to finish the bookshelves. He was only a week married and other things consumed his time, but he wanted to build them himself. He owned the house and he wanted to make it truly his.

  “Jesus was a carpenter,” he said to his wife.

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Dey don’t mention dat in church.”

  “I think the other things he did might have been more important.”

  The construction of the chapel would wait until spring, when the weather was better. The household staff was reduced to two maids and a doorman who also fulfilled the role of groundskeeper. The unpacking of their wedding gifts the Bellamonts did themselves. They received many fine wines for the basement. Grégoire, who was still a Frenchman on some level, appreciated it. There was, of course, some confusion about what came from whom. At a certain point, they decided that the origin of some items would forever be a mystery.

  “Grégoire,” Caitlin said, passing him a framed painting. It was St. Patrick, in the same pose from the ruin, pointing to his left—a common enough picture in Ireland. “It doesn’ ’ave a note.”

  “I like it very much anyway,” he said, and hung it in the main hall, so he would see it every day when he entered.

  Their life settled into a happy routine, similar to the one they had before but far less desperate. By the first snowfall, merely a dusting before Christmas, they were quite settled, even if every last shelf had not be
en put up and every cupboard had not been filled. Caitlin wanted to attend midnight Mass, but it was cold and she was not feeling well, so he insisted she stay behind, and he walked there and back by himself. By the time he returned, it was nearly time for Vigils. Even if he sometimes missed the early morning prayers, being otherwise engaged, he always knew when they were. The moon was bright and he could hear the waves of the sea even from his front steps, so quiet a night it was. When he entered, the house was silent, with the servants sent home for the holiday and his wife asleep.

  Grégoire was restless; he saw Caitlin nestled under the covers but was not yet ready to join her. He planted a kiss on her forehead before searching for another room, where he would have a better view of the moon. He’d moved the desk—which was little more than a writing desk—in the study to face directly out.

  When I pass away, he thought, will all of the magic that brought about this time in my life be forgotten? His own life, he believed, would have meaning to others in the distant future—but how could he be sure? He could not bring himself to write anything too personal—too much love and too much pain, none of it designed for the paper he pulled out before him. Instead, he inked his pen and began to write:

  This poor sinner,

  Comes to think, on this holy night, how I came to be here, and what meaning might be gleaned from all of the things that have occurred—not just the events, but the method in them of bringing me from one place to another. Can I begin to fathom the holy plan, if indeed there is one for me? I used to think so, but now there is only a simple life for me. What is my existence to mean, then? If I am to have no lasting impression, how should I conduct myself in the time that I have, to live life as joyously as it deserves to be lived?

  He was still writing when the sun rose, but he hardly noticed. The first thing to break his concentration was his wife’s hand on his back. “What’re yeh doin’ up so early?”

  “I would say the same for you,” he replied, looking up at his wife and her pale complexion. “Of course. Would you like me to make you some tea?”

  “Just a little,” she said. “If yeh don’t mind.”

  He took her hand and kissed it. “I never do.”

  CHAPTER 38

  The Knight

  “TODAY I WILL DO IT,” Dr. Maddox whispered as they entered Carlton House. “Today.”

  “I can hear you,” Dr. Bertrand said with amusement. “You should perhaps ask him at night, when he’s likely to agree to any request.”

  “I will not ask important decisions of a man while he is in a state of severe inebriation,” Dr. Maddox said. “Especially if he has the ability to go back on that decision when he has a bad headache the next morning.”

  The Prince of Wales, still Regent as long as his dying father continued dying, was usually in such a condition when one of them visited him. Since the dual deaths of his daughter and her child (and his heir), he had not been so inclined to his usual schedule of indulgent parties, but that had not curtailed his drinking or his liberal use of opiates for any perceived pain. The fact that he stayed mainly in his bed in fits of panic did not help his weight, to the point where there was real speculation if he would see the throne before the aged King George III passed away. Neither physician added to the gossip filling Town, but the servants of Carlton did the job well enough.

  “There is also the matter of my conscience,” Maddox admitted to his protégé,“for abandoning a patient I so utterly failed to treat.”

  “You cannot force the heir of the throne of Britain to exercise unless you manhandle him, it seems.”

  “They did that to his father,” Maddox said, shaking his head, “and look how he turned out. Madder than when they started.”

  They silenced their conversation upon entering the prince’s chamber. The Prince Regent was, of course, still in bed despite it being two in the afternoon, and with no intention to do otherwise. It took a lot of coffee, a lot of prying, and some actual manhandling to get him upright, dressed, and sitting in a chair for the doctor’s inspection.

  “You are actually quite well today, aside from the obvious,” Dr. Maddox said after completing his inspection. “I am worried about the bump on your knee, but there is nothing to be done for it at the moment. And, of course, you should wean yourself from your laudanum, cut back on your drinking, control your portions, and get regular exercise.”

  “That is hardly news,” the Regent said. “You give me the same advice every week.”

  “Because you never take it.”

  The Regent smiled. He had excessive amounts of gray in his hair for someone his age, due to stress and his poor diet, most likely. He had just lost his only daughter and grandson to complications in childbirth. Still, he had not been a healthy man when it happened, and there was always talk of his inheriting his father’s illness—talk that Dr. Maddox did not believe to be true.The Regent wasn’t mad—just under stress and corpulent.

  “How is my father?”

  “I do not know, Your Highness,” Dr. Maddox said. “I do not read the gossip papers, and I am not in regular contact with his doctors.”

  “But he is still alive? I am not king?”

  “No,Your Highness.You are not.”

  The Regent put his hands on his temples. “Thank God for that.” His old humor seemed to briefly return, if only briefly. “I suppose someone would bother to inform me if I was made king.”

  “Sometime before the coronation ceremony, I’m sure.”

  The Regent smiled. “The only ones who have not forgotten about me are my doctors, and I sense they have a mission today.”

  So the Regent’s senses were not totally lost. “Your Royal Highness, I have been offered a position as a guest lecturer at Cambridge in place of their old anatomist.”

  The Regent nodded slowly. “And I suppose this would be a springboard to a full professorship.”

  “If I found it to my liking, it would. Assuming I was relieved of my duties here, which, of course, are my first and only real concern.”

  “You’ve been trying to be rid of me for a year now, I think,” the Regent said without malice. “And, of course, I’ve put up a horrible fight. No, Dr. Maddox, I would not be comfortable if you were not in my service—however limited your role was,” he said. “Dr. Bertrand would assume most of the responsibilities. You have worked this out between yourselves?”

  “Yes,” Dr. Bertrand responded. “I have taken a house in town with my wife and son. My patient list is limited, and would be even smaller if I had additional responsibilities to Your Highness.”

  The Regent nodded, mulling it over. “I assume this guest lecturer position would be limited hours, in case I needed you.”

  “Cambridge is not terribly far from town,Your Highness.”

  “So you would take up residence there?”

  Dr. Maddox nodded. “Although I would retain my house in town, I feel that my family would benefit from a manor in the countryside, not far from Cambridge. We would be closer to our relatives in Derbyshire as well.”

  Again, the Regent was silent for a time, a very nervous time for Dr. Maddox. “I suppose your protégé can manage the task of giving out advice that I never seem to take. With a new salary for his new position, of course. You will, however, retain your own position of chief physician to the extent that if I call on you, you will come immediately.”

  Dr. Maddox tried to hide his joy. “Of course, Your Highness. Thank you,Your Highness.”

  Their examination done, the doctors were dismissed with a wave of the Regent’s hand. They were nearly out the door before they heard his voice bellow in the chamber. “Oh, and I suppose I cannot have one of my own physicians presented to the world as anything less than a knight of the realm. Be here tomorrow, the same time. And you can invite your wife and brother, but there will be no big ceremony. I despise ceremonies.” He continued, “And there is a royal holding of some land in Chesterton. If it is to your liking, there will be a designation for you.”

&nbs
p; Dr. Maddox bowed, now legitimately awed. “Thank you,Your Highness.”

  “Enough! I have no patience for ceremony. Go and be overwhelmed somewhere else, Doctor, and I will see you on the morrow.”

  Brian Maddox’s first question was, “Can I wear my crown?”

  “Your crown?”

  “I do have one, you know. You’ve seen it. I am a prince.” He frowned. “Or a count. I was never clear on that. The point is, I never get to wear it.”

  Dr. Maddox was in too good a mood to refuse anyone anything. “I will still never call you Your Highness, you understand.”

  “Easily understandable.” They embraced, and toasted his good fortune. “And I assume Caroline is—”

  “Still recovering from her faint, yes.” In actuality, Caroline Maddox was busy scribbling letters to everyone she knew, but her excitement had not waned.

  “She’s really willing to give up Town?”

  “For part of the year, yes. It will be good for the children to not be breathing smog all the time, and Emily is years from going out. Thank God.” He raised his glass to that. “An estate in the country. I never imagined I could do it.”

  “There is no one more deserving. Hell, I have one, and we all know I am a contemptible rogue and probably a madman. Congratulations, Danny.” He was as pleased with his brother as Maddox was happy for himself. “Perhaps we should invite the Earl of Maddox around sometime.You know, I do outrank him.”

  “In a small area of Transylvania, you might, but in England, he would say otherwise,” Dr. Maddox said.

  “Hey! Unlike him, I earned my title.”

  “Earned? You married it!”

  “Yes, completely free and without complications,” Brian said. “Well, cheers to you. If you don’t want me to show up in royal garb, uninvite me now.”

  Dr. Maddox smiled. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “I hope he’ll show,” Brian said.

  “I hope he’ll be at least partially sober,” Dr. Maddox said, fidgeting nervously in his dress clothing. It was nothing compared with the awkward metal crown Brian was wearing, more of a helmet than a circlet, and studded with ancient jewels and stones that looked more bashed in than carefully placed, with an Orthodox cross at the top. In his Romanian costume and with his very distinguished wife beside him, Dr. Maddox had to admit that his brother did look sort of…royal.