by Deryn Lake
The heiress was standing with her back to him, staring out of the window across the gardens. Even without looking round she must have sensed who it was for she said, ‘She stood out there last night and looked up at me. Do you know that, Mitchell? She blames me for it all — and rightly so. If I had said nothing she would still be alive.’
Hands strong as whips were on her shoulders as he said, ‘Missie, take care! You tread a dangerous path. She would never blame you. She was probably looking for her babe, poor lost soul.’
‘But she was out there in the pouring rain, looking up at me.’
‘She was looking at the house. Now come to your senses. There’s a long journey ahead of us — and a grief-stricken man waiting to be comforted.’
‘You speak of Matthew?’
‘I speak of her husband — Joseph Gage.’ There was a note of irritation in his voice. ‘Missie, you cannot indulge yourself like this.’
The eyes flashed in his direction.
‘What do you mean?’
‘What I say. Arrant selfishness allows you to behave in this manner. You care nothing for your mother’s suffering — nor that of your father. You stand here in martyr’s pose and let the rest be damned.’
She flew at him but he caught her wrists and held them above her head.
‘Listen,’ he hissed. ‘We all have to live with guilt — there’s not a man nor woman born who does not — but it is how we master it that matters. And yours, Missie, shall be private. You can scream and cry in the quiet of your room till your heart bursts open. But you’ll not inflict your dark soul on the rest of the world.’
She pulled her hands away from his grasp and stood rubbing the newly sprung red marks.
‘Hyacinth has gone, hasn’t he?’
‘He left at dawn.’
‘I shall follow him.’
‘And give up Sutton Place? For your father will never let you marry him now. He’d as soon disinherit you — and that’s the truth.’
She looked at him slowly.
‘Is it?’
‘You know it is. Think carefully. If you play the bitch forever you will have nothing.’
‘But I am stricken with guilt.’
‘When you spoke of the baby’s eyes did you mean to draw attention to the likeness between it and Banister? Did you deliberately set the cart of death to roll downhill?’
‘No.’
‘Then brace up, Missie. Be strong. For you can never have your heart’s wish. But I tell you one thing. I’ll watch you — and your behaviour — like a raven. You shall never act the shrew while I live. The great lady of Sutton Place must be worthy of her title.’
‘And if I dismiss you from service?’
‘That you’ll not do. Only a ghost can live without its shadow.’
And with that he held out his hand to her and led her down to the black carriage and the sound of the single tolling bell that rang out for Sibella from the steeple of Holy Trinity.
*
The letter to John was brief:
November, 1720
‘Dear Brother,
I am ruined! The South Sea Bubble has burst and the Mississippi Company collapsed. Everything has been sold to pay my debts. I shall be at the Posting Inn in Dover the night after tomorrow and if you would see me again before I leave England I would pray you to be there.
Your affectionate brother,
J. Gage.’
John’s worst fears had been confirmed. His own investment in the South Sea Company had been heavy enough. Earlier in the year the organization had underwritten the English national debt on a promise of five per cent interest. Shares had risen to ten times their value and speculation had run wild. And Joseph with his enormous holdings in both that and the Mississippi Company in France had trebled his already vast fortune. But he had been too full of the death of Sibella to do little more than nod his head when informed of the fact.
In better times might he — or even John who was far less shrewd — have seen the potential crash ahead? But neither had — and the government attempt to halt the speculation, the consequent fall in the price of shares and the inevitable bursting of the bubble had savaged them both. The long-awaited restoration of Sutton Place had been cancelled and many of the pictures and much of the silver had gone from the mansion house. But that Joseph had been actually ruined John had not realized until this moment. Though perhaps he should have guessed for, simultaneously with the English disaster, the Paris based Mississippi Company had gone tumbling as well. So Joseph had lost everything — wife, fortune, the right to call Garnet son. Without a moment’s hesitation John ordered his coachman to take him to Dover.
As he entered the inn on the waterfront he remembered that the last time he had set foot in the place had been eighteen months earlier when he had seen Matthew Banister off to Europe and the rescue of Princess Clementina. What a change in that short space of time; then Sibella a merry bride; Melior Mary so full of fire that she had run away to take part in the adventure; Joseph — unbeknownst to anyone — already at the Polish Court and ready to adopt the guise of Chateaudeau, the Princess’s Gentleman. And now Sibella cold in the Gage family tomb; Melior Mary withdrawn from the world; Joseph a ruined man in every way. And of Hyacinth himself, not a word. He had walked out of Sutton Place into the rainy May morning and had never been heard of again. John thought of the curse that dogged them all and shivered as something walked over his grave.
A voice at his elbow said, ‘John! So you’ve come!’
He looked round but could see nothing of Joseph. And then, peering more closely at the man who stood beside him, he gave an exclamation of surprise. He had thought to find the great rake at his most distraught, sighing into his lace kerchief, but the figure beside him exuded vigour and a certain restless desire to go out and wrestle with the world.
And not only that. If John had passed his brother-in-law in the street he would not have known him. For gone was the prinkum-prankum, the frills, the lorgnette and the walking cane; and in their place were doeskin breeches, a linen shirt and a leather coat and riding boots. Discarded was the great curly white wig and the thick hair had been allowed to grow from a short crop to the shoulders, and was now tied back with a small black bow. The cat eyes had a look in them that no man would cross and the mouth was hard. Joseph was unrecognizable.
John could only say, ‘You’ve changed!’
‘Aye, the fop has been dismissed. He’s a pitiful figure without the fortune to back him, would you not agree?’
‘But where are you going dressed like that? What are you going to do?’
‘I have ten guineas between myself and starvation. Enough to secure passage for Sootface, Garnet and myself to France. I have connections in Paris that will help me raise cash and — after paying my respects to the King in Rome — I intend to join Wogan, Missett and Gaydon in Spain. In short I’m going for a soldier, John. In the service of the Spanish King.’
Weston was dumbfounded. It was the very last thing that he would ever have expected.
‘And you are taking—’ he paused, inwardly embarrassed, ‘—Garnet — with you.’
‘Of course. He is all I have left in the world beside the Negro. Don’t look so bewildered. They have children in Spain, you know. I hear that Tamsin Missett gave birth to a fine girl for whom Queen Clementina herself has stood godmother.’
John shook his head.
‘But what do you know of soldiering?’
‘Nothing that I cannot learn. I’m still three years off forty, John. Don’t put me past taking up a new life.’
‘And where’s the child?’
‘Here. Come upstairs where he sleeps.’
And sure enough in a tiny cramped bedroom in which John could not stand erect, Sibella’s son slept in the arms of the slumbering blackman. He was nine months old and more like Banister than ever. Joseph said, as if reading John’s thoughts, ‘I see Sibella in him — and that is all that matters to me. He loves me as his father, John
. His first smile in this world was for me. He and I shall stick together through this lean time until I can make a new fortune for him.’
And John knew then, with no second sight or power of that kind, that Joseph would. That from this disaster would rise another Joseph even more successful than the first.
‘I wish you both God’s blessing,’ he said.
‘Thank you.’
From the harbour came the call ‘Tide, tide’ and it was the moment for Joseph Gage and his party to embark. And so it was with the winter sea shouting of storms and the November wind biting to the bone, that John stood once more to see a ship make for France.
And long after the vessel bearing the man who had been one of the greatest of his day — the richest, kindest, most eccentric person that John had ever grown to love — disappeared from view, the Lord of the Manor of Sutton stood where he was. He was cold to his heart. An inescapable trap had been set for him at birth. With his very title he had inherited the agony of a long-dead Queen and all those most beloved to him had become immeshed in its coils. But two had escaped. Joseph Gage and the child he called his son had sailed for Spain and a brave new life.
As John Weston turned for home he prayed not only for Joseph’s safe deliverance but for those whose destiny it was to remain at Sutton Place.
Part Two
16
She had remembered; strung together all those beads of thought of which the necklace of her life consisted. There, in the early morning sunshine on her forty-ninth birthday, she had stood by the bedroom window, looking out upon her peacock-jewelled lawns, and had re-lived it all. Even to the ultimate agony; to the extraordinary sensation of freezing that had gripped her from the moment Sibella’s poor drowned body had been carried into the Great Hall to lie with the stained glass windows splashing pools of colour onto her newly-dead face.
It was a sight Melior Mary could never forget and when she had eventually emerged into the world again, she had won the nickname Queen of Ice. Even George II who, as Prince of Wales, had come across a portrait of her by Sir Godfrey Kneller and had tried his hand at making her his mistress, had been refused. And those seeking the pleasure of capturing beauty so unique — princes, dukes, earls and statesmen who had thrown their hearts and their fortunes at her feet, had only heard Melior Mary laugh politely and spurn them. But she was clever in her refusing. She had few enemies — in fact invitations to stay with the great hostess at Sutton Place were prized high indeed.
It had been Mitchell who had finally decided what role she would play in life, for she had planned to do little. A visit to Malvern to improve her ailing spirits — so desperately worried over by John and Elizabeth — had had no apparent result. Though, in fact, she had found again that magic spring which she had first seen with her mother and Mr Pope and Amelia FitzHoward; and, shortly afterwards, had discovered its extraordinary effect upon her appearance. But other than that she had returned to the mansion house as wretched as ever.
But John’s interest in re-building the family fortune after the bursting of the South Sea Bubble had caught her attention. He had begun to deal in the buying and selling of property and found that his nineteen-year-old daughter was a shrewd and energetic business woman. Only too glad that something aroused enthusiasm in her he allowed her to participate and, within two years, the refurbishing and restoration of Sutton Place was once more in hand.
But she was the despair of her mother. Melior Mary seemed almost mannish in her approach to life. Riding and business dealing were her only sources of interest and suitors could be paraded till Elizabeth dropped. And quite suddenly — she did. In 1724, aged only forty-four, she grew weak one day, lay down upon a sofa, smiled at John and died. She had not lived to see her beloved house completed and was laid to rest, wearing a sad, puzzled expression, in the family vault at Holy Trinity. Alexander Pope — now acknowledged leader of the literary school of the day — wrote to Melior Mary from his house in Twickenham sitting, as he penned, in his exquisite grotto. She condemned his manuscript to the flames.
A few months later the work on Sutton Place was completed. At last the Long Gallery, spoiled so long ago by fire, was re-opened and made beautiful. The dining room and staircases were re-panelled and additions made to the stained glass in the Great Hall. But there was no Elizabeth to see it; no husband of Melior Mary’s to ride with his father-in-law and love the house; no grandchildren to fill all those empty echoing spaces with their fun; no word from a brother-in-law gone long since to a foreign land. John took to drink and to riding. And one day the two combined to send him flying and he was for evermore lame. He lived to see the death of the man he hated above all others — the Hanoverian, George I — and himself died three years into the reign of George II. His last words on earth were, ‘Support that boy in Rome, Melior Mary.’ For Princess Clementina had been fruitful. James III had been blessed with an heir — Charles Stuart.
And then the house had been deserted. Melior Mary had come back with Mitchell from the freezing misery of John’s funeral and had stood warming her hands at the fire in the Great Hall.
‘Well,’ he had said, ‘that is that. It’s all yours now. You are the mistress.’
She had looked at him impassively. ‘Yes.’
‘And what do you intend to do about it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Just that, Missie. Are you going to live here like a hermit or are you going to open the house to guests? Are you going to live as befits the Lady of the Manor or are you about to rot alive?’
She stared into the fire depths.
‘I am not very interested in people, Mitchell.’
‘Selfish as ever.’
She turned angrily, stung by his remark.
‘Remember that the power of dismissal lies in my hands solely now! You have no right to speak to me so.’
‘I have every right because I love you. Yes, and as a man loves a woman too. A million times I have wanted to possess your body but was prevented by my position in your father’s household. Oh, don’t look startled. You must have known it.’
‘I have never even considered it. Hyacinth took my virginity and my love with it, that is all I know. You must leave Sutton Place forthwith. You have no respect.’
He had taken a step towards her and she had looked at him properly for the first time in years. The great livid scar ran down his cheek behind the still brilliant eyes, but his black hair had become sparkled with white here and there. Yet the years had not been cruel. His lean frame — fairly small in stature — had gained no weight and he was still as strong and tough as he had ever been.
‘You may ask me to go — and go I will,’ he had said earnestly. ‘But consider this, Missie. What do you have left? Bridget Clopper, Sam, Tom? A handful of servants to occupy the mind of a clever young woman who has set her face against men? You’ll be dead — in your brain if not in your body — within ten years. And then what price Sutton Place? What future for the mansion house with no firm hand to guide it?’
He had hit home as well he knew.
‘But I have sworn never to marry.’
‘And you need not break your vow. But you must go out into the world. Look at you! You are twenty-seven years old but by some miracle still appear ten years less. Society is yours to conquer!’
Even Mitchell did not know the secret of Malvern’s hidden spring and Melior Mary’s eyes flickered a little.
‘Show the world your beauty and move in Court circles. They say the King never recovered from his infatuation for you when he was Prince of Wales, and would still make you his confidante. Remember your father’s dying words. How else can you serve Charles Stuart?’
He had got her trapped now.
‘What should I do?’
‘Go to Bath immediately. It’s the season and you will take the place by storm. If you wish I will accompany you as major domo.’
She put her hand out to him.
‘You will never mention that again, will you; your des
ire for me?’
‘No, never.’
And it had been as he had said. Admittedly, on the first morning when she had attended the baths during the early hours, attired from head to foot in bathing clothes — her little tray carrying her handkerchief, snuff box and puff box attached to her waist — she had caused a stir. But at the taking of the waters in the Pump Room afterwards — accompanied by the playing of music and the animated chatter of fashionable visitors — everything, including the orchestra had come to a stop.
Melior Mary, as befitted her mourning, had advanced to be greeted by the Master of Ceremonies, Richard Nash, in rustling black taffeta and a black straw hat, hung plentifully about with trailing silk roses. Turning from his conversation the beau had actually let his mouth drop open in amazement.
He had seen lovely women in his enviable role as the Master of Bath. But the creature who stood before him now was incomparable. Eyes like flowers gazed steadily at him. And, as she swept her curtsey, the brim of her hat threw a shadow onto cheek bones that were both hard boned yet softly skinned. He bowed and took the proffered hand — small and white — and brushed it with his lips.
‘My dear madam...’, he said, but could manage no more. He was lost for words. Finally, he said, ‘I believe you are more beautiful than anyone else alive.’ And it was then that every voice was hushed and the music died away. Beau Nash had just created a new fashion and polite society stood thunderstruck.
After that Beauty and her Beast — as Melior Mary and her scarred servant became known — were the talk of the town. And it was the frustration of every hostess; of every beau, fop and dandy; of every theatre manager; of every charlatan, rogue and thief, that mourning for her father forbade her to do little more than take tea and dinner. Cards, theatres and routs were precluded and, as a result and as the Scotsman had nicely judged, she went on everyone’s list for future invitation when the London season began and her period of grief was at an end.
And that was how it had started. Melior Mary had gone from triumph to splendour. She had been presented at Court where the King had whispered to her tenderly; in fact she had become the object of desire for all men of blood and imagination. Furthermore fashion had copied the wide-brimmed hats and trailing feathers that she wore so well and the phrase ‘a la Weston’ had been born. And, at last, Sutton Place had rung with laughter as it had not done since Sir Richard the builder had laid the great red carpet beneath the feet of Henry VIII. Naturally George II could not follow suit and grace with his presence the home of a Catholic hostess, but this did not stop him casting his heavy-lidded German eyes in her direction, and wishing that the dictates of high politics could have been otherwise.
