AUTHOR’S NOTE
Elizabeth Farren, who was to become one of England’s best-loved actresses, was born in 1759.
Her father, a jovial drunk, had been an apothecary in Cork before joining a troupe of players and touring Ireland. He finally ended up in Liverpool where he met and married a barmaid.
They had two daughters, Margaret and then Elizabeth, a fair-haired child with blue eyes who played boy roles in Shakespeare.
Elizabeth was introduced to the London stage when she was a tall willowy girl. Though not considered particularly beautiful, she possessed a very expressive face that made her stand out from the other young actresses of the time.
After playing numerous supporting roles, Elizabeth appeared at Drury Lane in 1778, and her métier was unquestionably comedy.
She was known as a very virtuous young woman, unlike other notorious London actresses, but among the many men who vainly sought her favours, Elizabeth liked the Earl of Derby the best.
At an entertainment given by the Duke of Richmond the Earl confessed to Elizabeth that his intentions were not merely an improper suggestion, he was deeply in love with her.
Unfortunately at the time of his declaration he had a wife, a confirmed invalid he seldom saw and with whom he had no physical or emotional attachments. Even so she was a barrier that stood between them.
The Earl accepted that only by marriage could he possess Elizabeth, no matter how they felt about each other. He also knew that it was impossible for him to leave his infirm wife.
Instead they agreed to an intimate, but platonic friendship. In effect they became lovers without giving themselves to each other.
Despite this strange relationship their love never changed and they continued in this manner for twenty years.
Then in March 1797 the Earl’s wife died and at last he was free to marry his adorable virtuous Elizabeth. They at once started to make arrangements for their wedding, which took place by Special Licence on May 1st of that year.
On April 7th, 1797 Elizabeth made her last stage appearance playing Lady Teazle in The School for Scandal.
As the story of Elizabeth and the Earl and their idealised romance and devotion to each other was well know, the theatre was packed.
Elizabeth was thirty-eight when she became the Countess of Derby and they spent their honeymoon at Epsom.
But it only lasted for two days, as Elizabeth was so anxious to be presented at Court.
She was the first Peeress who had ever been an actress and when she appeared before the Queen she had an overwhelming desire to talk.
She told Her Majesty that it was one of the most blissful moments of her life to appear before her in a new ‘character part’.
The Queen was not amused and replied,
“Cannot your Ladyship forget her breeding?”
Feeling rebuffed, the new Countess from that moment never spoke of her connections with the theatre again.
She was, however, blissfully happy with her husband and presented him with three children, one son and two daughters.
They lived a life of perfect happiness with not a cloud in the sky until Elizabeth died at the age of seventy in 1829 at Knowsley, the county seat of the Earls of Derby. Her husband followed her five years later.
CHAPTER ONE
1821
The Marquis of Walstoke walked into the Boardroom.
It was eleven o’clock and Sir Hubert Bryan, who was sitting at the top of the conference table, said,
“You are very late!”
“I know,” the Marquis answered, “but I did not leave the Duchess’s party until two o’clock this morning.”
“Was it a good party?” Sir Hubert asked. “Very good!” the Marquis replied, walking down the table to sit in his usual place.
He was a handsome man of nearly sixty.
He carried himself with a pride and a dignity that made it obvious to everybody who met him that he was an aristocrat.
He was in fact extremely proud of his heritage, but he had, about ten years ago, been in deep water.
It was not entirely his fault.
The war with Napoleon had made a great number of landowners’ poverty stricken.
It was impossible, with so many men away fighting in Portugal and Spain, for the repairs needed on their estates to be dealt with.
Farmhouses had leaking roofs and the hedges of many an estate grew wild and unwieldy.
It was then the Marquis had been fortunate enough to become friends with Sir Hubert Bryan, one of the outstanding businessmen in the country.
Despite an inauspicious start to life in Liverpool, where he became an assistant to one of the biggest ship owners, Hubert Bryan, or as his enemies called him, ‘Hue Brien’, worked and fought his way to the top.
Consequently by the time he was twenty-five, he was an extremely rich young man with a commanding personality that impressed all those who met him.
Quite by chance, he met the daughter of the Duke of Dorset at a luncheon given by the Corporation of Liverpool at which she and the Duke were the guests of honour.
For the first time in his life, Hubert Bryan fell in love.
In ordinary circumstances he would have been swept aside by the Duke as someone of no importance whom he had no wish to know.
But the Duke was, in fact, looking for some way by which he could increase his gradually diminishing finances.
Sensing an opportunity, he thought perhaps shipping might help him where other investments had failed, so he invited Hubert Bryan to his country house about ten miles outside Liverpool.
That was the beginning of their association and the Duke intended it to be an entirely business one.
When the Liverpool ship owner wanted to marry his daughter, he was shocked, horrified and indignant.
He actually forbade the two young people ever to see each other again.
Lady Elizabeth, however, paid no attention and she and Hubert Bryan met each other secretly.
The Duke quickly discovered what was happening – there was always people ready to carry bad news.
He flew into a rage, threatening and abusing Hubert Bryan.
Then quite quietly the young man told him what he was worth.
The Duke was completely astounded.
He had no idea that anyone so young could possibly have such a huge fortune, especially one he had made himself.
Hubert Bryan also told him what he intended to do in the future.
The way he spoke was so impressive that, despite himself, the Duke believed him.
It all ended quite simply with the Duke giving his consent to their marriage.
The years passed and he basked in the sunshine of his son-in-law’s fortune.
He forgot that he had ever been so stupid as to oppose the marriage when he was first confronted with it.
What was more, no one doubted that Lady Elizabeth was blissfully happy.
Their only regret was, that having had one child, she could not have any more.
The Duke’s granddaughter, Teresa, was a beauty from the moment she was born.
It was not surprising as her father was an extremely handsome man and her mother outstandingly beautiful.
The Duke at one time had been certain that his daughter would at least marry a Royal Prince.
It had a great deal to do with the Duke that Hubert Bryan was eventually knighted. He had contributed to the success of Liverpool, being extremely generous when he was asked to help the City financially.
It certainly pleased the Duke that his son-in-law had a title.
It also gave him pleasure that his income seemed to double and triple, year by year.
When Sir Hubert lost his wife, it was a blow that would have destr
oyed a weaker man.
He had never looked at another woman and even after sixteen years of blissful marriage they still behaved like sweethearts.
Because the pain of losing her was intolerable, Hubert merely worked harder than he ever had done before.
His fleet of ships continued to grow in number, just as his fortune increased in the same way.
*
Eventually the old Duke died, but his place in Hubert Bryan’s life was taken over by another aristocrat.
He had met the Marquis of Walstoke with his father-in-law, and been impressed by the example he gave the world of how an aristocrat should look and how he should behave.
His manners were impeccable and he was as polite to a crossing sweeper as he was to a Prince.
No one had ever heard anyone say anything derogatory against the Marquis.
At the same time the war had played havoc with his finances.
He was struggling ineffectually to keep Stoke Palace, which had been in his family for generations, from tumbling to the ground.
In a desperate bid to save money, he finally had to dismiss a great number of servants that served in the great house, as well as those who worked for him on his estate.
To pension many of them off, he decided to sell one of his best pictures and the silver, which had been in his family since the reign of Queen Anne.
It was this silver which brought him into contact with Sir Hubert Bryan.
Before the auction, it was extolled in the newspapers and, on reading about the exquisite workmanship, Sir Hubert decided it would make an excellent addition to his own belongings.
His late wife had taught him to appreciate antiques and encouraged him to buy a fine house on a five thousand acre estate to showcase them.
She had decorated it in the perfect taste she had inherited from her father and persuaded her husband to purchase pictures painted by the great Masters.
She also begged him to collect fine china, which from his humble beginnings he had never come into contact with, but soon came to appreciate.
Because he loved his wife and also had an extremely astute business brain, he soon understood the value and prestige of having good taste and investing in beautiful things.
Together, Lady Elizabeth and Sir Hubert would visit auctions, sometimes in private houses, at other times in Christie’s Sale Rooms, which had recently opened in London.
When he brought her back something she appreciated, it gave him a thrill he had not known before.
Although Elizabeth was now dead, he continued to improve his house in the country as well as the one he had bought in London for his beloved daughter, Teresa.
He vowed that when she finally left school her home must provide a perfect frame for her beauty.
Realising that the Marquis of Walstoke’s house was within driving distance of Liverpool, he called on him before the auction asking if it was possible to see the silver that was to be put up for sale.
Arriving in a luxurious carriage and with his commanding appearance, the servants instinctively showed him into the library instead of directing him to the hall where the objects for sale had been laid out to view.
The Marquis was sitting by the fireplace reading a book.
To say that Sir Hubert was impressed by the Marquis was to put it mildly.
He realised that here was a man he would like to emulate, one who was as precious and unique as any of the objects he intended to sell.
On the other hand the Marquis instantly liked Sir Hubert and talked to him as if he was his equal.
He had of course heard about him and admired the brilliant way he had climbed to the top as well as the way he had assisted Liverpool and his enormous possessions were known all over the country.
The two gentlemen had talked together for nearly two hours and when Sir Hubert left, they were both aware that in some strange manner a new step forward had been taken in both their lives.
The auction was cancelled as Hubert Bryan had bought everything that was for sale.
He kept the silver for himself and gave everything else back to the Marquis.
“It belongs here,” he said looking round Stoke Palace, “and you cannot deprive whoever inherits this magnificent house of its treasures. You must make it as perfect as it must have been when it was first built.”
The Marquis was deeply touched.
At the same time he was intelligent enough to know that Sir Hubert Bryan was not speaking out of charity.
It was his way of creating something for posterity and it did in fact give Sir Hubert a new interest besides increasing his fortune.
He tried to find out where the pictures the Marquis had previously sold had gone and then bought them back.
Hardest to find was some carved and gilded furniture from the reign of Charles II. It took them both six months to discover its whereabouts before finally they ran it to ground.
After fierce negotiations, they brought it back in triumph to Stoke Palace.
It delighted Sir Hubert as much as the Marquis to see the house, like a rose, coming back into bloom.
Everything was returning to where it had originally stood.
Sir Hubert met the Marquis’s heir, who was not his son, but his nephew.
The Marquis’s only sister had married the Earl of Lanbourne, and lived in the South.
He often saw her when he went down to London, and it was a terrible blow when both she and her husband were killed in a carriage accident.
They had one child, Edward, who was always called Harry.
The Marquis immediately realised that the boy, who was then only seventeen, must make his home with him, both in Liverpool and in London.
When he told Sir Hubert about this, he said,
“Well, all I can say is that he is a very lucky young man! Stoke Palace is already spoken of as one of the beauties of the County and by the time we have finished with it, it will not have its equal in any part of England.”
The Marquis had laughed.
“I only hope Harry appreciates the trouble we have taken for him.”
“I am sure he will,” Sir Hubert replied, “just as Teresa is thrilled, like her mother, with anything new I embellish her home with.”
He paused before he went on,
“That reminds me – I want your opinion about a picture which I think should go over the mantelpiece in the drawing room at Berkeley Square.”
“Have you found what we considered was needed there?” the Marquis asked.
“I think so,” Sir Hubert replied. “Equally I always, as you know, bow to your judgement where pictures are concerned.”
The Marquis smiled.
He was always delighted when his friend paid him the compliment of thinking his judgement was better than his own.
The more he knew Sir Hubert, the more he realised how brilliantly clever he was in everything he undertook.
It was not just a question of money.
His brain was, the Marquis thought, the equivalent, if not superior to, most of those Statesmen in the Government.
He also copied the Marquis in many of the distinctive ways that had made him an outstanding gentleman in the proper meaning of the word.
Now the Marquis said,
“We will go and look at the picture this afternoon. I suppose we are having a meeting this morning?”
“We are,” Sir Hubert replied. “The others will be arriving in about half-an-hour, but I wanted to see you alone.”
The Marquis looked at him enquiringly. “I am rather late,” he said, “but nevertheless, I am here.”
To his surprise he realised that his friend Sir Hubert was feeling for words.
It was unlike him and he wondered what could be amiss.
He was just about to ask if there had been a catastrophe in Liverpool or if one of the ships he too was now interested in had been sunk at sea, when Sir Hubert said,
“I wanted to talk to you about Harry.”
“About Harry?” the Ma
rquis exclaimed in surprise.
Harry had come back from the war, where he had served under the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo.
He was only twenty when he joined the great Commander in France.
When, after Waterloo and the war was over, Harry stayed on in the Army of Occupation. He was there for nearly two years.
When he had returned to London, he had begun to enjoy all the entertainments he had missed.
He had enlisted in the Army instead of going up to Oxford like so many of his friends.
He was exceedingly handsome and very well off.
This was thanks to the money he had inherited from his father and the very generous allowance the Marquis gave him. He was therefore on the invitation list of every important hostess.
They considered him, as the Marquis knew only too well, a good matrimonial catch for their debutante daughters.
It was, however, characteristic of Harry to spend his time in other directions.
This was with married women, who were charming, exotic and discreetly unfaithful to their husbands or with the irresistible ‘Cyprians’ with which London abounded.
“The boy has to ‘sow his wild oats’,” the Marquis said often enough to Sir Hubert when he was presented with very large bills.
He also laughed when he was told of some of the pranks that Harry had played with the younger members of White’s Club.
The Dowager Duchesses might look down their noses, but the Marquis understood.
What pleased him was that Harry was extremely athletic, an excellent horseman and invariably the winner of any steeplechase or point-to-point he entered.
It delighted him that, thanks to Sir Hubert, he could afford the very best horses in his stables at Stoke Palace.
The same applied to the Mews, which by now had been enlarged, behind the house in Berkeley Square.
The Marquis had sold the house when he was in desperate straits before he met Sir Hubert.
And Sir Hubert had insisted he should buy it back.
Once again it was known as ‘Walstoke House’, as it had been in the past.
Harry lived there and always appeared delighted to see his Uncle Maurice when he came down from the North.
The Marquis had arrived three days ago. Both on the night he arrived and the next, Harry had apologised for having a previous engagement he could not break.
Love, Lies and Marriage Page 1
