Charlotte: The Practical Education of a Distressed Gentlewoman

by Amelia Grace Treader

  Colonel Hughes, the squire and justice of the peace who raised the regiment and had done his best to train it, stood near him - white with embarrassment and trembling with shame.

  “God help us if the French invade,” the General muttered, and then to the Colonel, “Your men marched well enough, but clearly they are not ready for the French.”

  The Colonel could only nod agreement. The review had been going so well and then suddenly it wasn't.

  “There are other regiments that are far worse, but -”

  “I can tender my resignation, if you wish.”

  “Lord no, what good would that do? You've done well to get this far, just need leavening with a few regulars – it will soon fix these men up.”

  Jane Wilson and her younger sisters Alice and Mary were excited about the ball. It was only at the local assembly rooms, and for the volunteer officers at that, but they were men – men in dashing red coats. It was certainly a truism that single woman were all in search of husband – the alternatives were either essentially indefinite indentured servitude to the family, being a governess, or an unthinkable descent into disgrace as a woman of the streets. The volunteer officers might be tradesman's sons or maybe the younger son of a country squire but they were a much better catch than a carte blanche that would be the most offered by a real nobleman.

  Jane especially took care of her toilette – like most English maidens of the period she wore a high waisted muslin dress, a bodice covering her shoulders – this one was green, chosen to emphasize her deep blue eyes, a laced cuff and a simple pearl necklace. She carefully brushed her hair. That naval commander should be there. It would be nice to pursue a flirtation with him – if not more.

  The ball had already begun by the time Commander Clarke returned to the town in Whitstable and changed into formal dress. Unlike the soldiers, naval tradition had it that the uniform could only be worn on duty – recruiting sailors counting as duty – and not balls. He hurried to the assembly rooms where the tones of dance music could be heard streaming out over the streets.

  He thought “I hope Jane still has some dances free,” as he entered the hall.

  Jane was over in a corner, talking intently with a nondescript looking officer, clearly someone in the army - judging by his red coat, but definitely not someone he'd like her to be talking with.

  “Jane!” He burst in loudly, “I'm late but I've made it – do you have?”

  “Oh,” she was a little embarrassed, “George, this is Captain James Wolfe, have you met?”

  A rival? George glared at him with the practiced intensity of man used to command and instant obedience, but the man seemed nonplussed.

  “I don't think we've been introduced, yet, George?”

  “Commander George Clarke to you, sir.”

  Captain Wolfe executed a neat little bow.

  “Delighted to meet you Captain, Miss Wilson it has been a pleasure, but I must release you to this charming gentleman.”

  With that he left to pursue other quarry.

  “What was that about?”

  “Don't be silly, we're just talking – I've saved you the next couple of dances.”

  The first dance set were a country dances. They were able to snatch bits of conversation as the moved through the figures. They stood in opposing lines on the floor and walked together for a quick touch while having the chance to exchange words in the intervals.

  “Jane, you know how I feel about you.”

  “Yes, but mother has her doubts about a mere commander.”

  “I've made plenty of prize money. The French privateers are easy prey. I'll make even more as commander and then as captain.”

  “I know – if it were just me, it would be an easy question to answer, but I have to marry well for Alice and Mary's sakes.”

  She made sure to brush up against him on the next exchange of sides which only increased depth of his passion about her.

  “What were you talking about with that army officer, a Captain?”

  “Captain Wolfe, nothing.”

  “Really?, you were quietly and closely conversing when I came in.”

  “I can't talk about it.”

  “I see, well if that's the case.”

  George simply stopped, turned on his heal and very rudely left the dance line.

  “George!”

  A young army ensign who'd been waiting his chance quickly stepped in.

  “Miss Wilson, may I take his place?”

  “Oh, yes, I guess,” Jane craned her neck to see where George went, but lost him in the crowds.

  The dance over, Jane went in search of George. He was lost in the crush, somewhere. She bumped into Lieutenant Grant.

  “Miss Wilson?”

  “Lieutenant Grant, have you seen Captain Clarke?”

  “No Miss, but could you introduce me to one of those charming young women?”, he pointed at her sisters, sitting at the side and waiting for their turn on the floor.

  “Yes, but first – did you see where did Captain Clarke went?”

  “He said for a walk – by the shore, needed some fresh air.”

  Jane escorted the lieutenant to her sisters.

  “Alice, Mary – this is Lieutenant John Grant – Mr. Grant was interested if you would be willing to do him the honor of a dance.”

  Alice replied “I've promised the next set to Mr. Anselm”, but Mary asked artlessly, “Lieutenant – you're not in a red coat – a man is nothing without a red coat.”

  “I'm a naval officer, a lieutenant, – we don't wear red.”

  “Oh, well, then,” she paused and stood up, “I'd be pleased to accept your offer, Mr. Grant.”

  Her social responsibilities over, Jane rushed for the door and out into the night to find George. She thought, “If only I can talk with him, It's just a silly misunderstanding.” Lieutenant Grant said George had gone to the shore, for some air, so she headed to the sea wall, the promenade.

  She called, “George!” and received only the crashing of the surf in response. Walking further along the promenade and repeating her call gave the same results. She started to shamble back to the ball, her dejection evident in her gait. Her mother would notice her absence soon and could make things awkward if she were away too long. Passing the pub, 'the Ship', she couldn't help noticing the sounds of boisterous celebration, the result of free-flowing libations, coming from the inside. One voice, in particular, seemed very familiar to her.

  Doing something that her mother would definitely forbid her, had she known, Jane pushed her way through the half drunk crowd of sailors, fishermen and navies into the main lounge. There, seated by the bar, with a pint, obviously not his first of the evening, singing with the rest of the crowd, and -worst of all- hosting a buxom, blond doxy on his lap was George. He hadn't let his disappointment and anger spoil his evening.

  “George!” Jane shouted loudly enough to cut through the noise. The room went silent and he turned to her. “Jane!” George rose to his feet and unceremoniously dumped the bar maid on the floor.

  “Here mate, watch yourself!”

  “Jane! What are you doing here?”

  Jane furiously stared at him. A swarm of things to say circled in her head, most too unladylike for her to utter and the rest too tame to be worth uttering. Nothing that was both cutting enough and polite enough came to mind. Finally she controlled herself and replied, simply. “George, you've opened my eyes, Mother was right about you. Good bye!”

  General Howe and Colonel Hughes talked as the dancers performed the intricate figures of the quadrille on the dance floor. The Colonel was intensely worried about what would the General do about his regiment's sorry performance.

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “Do about what?”

  “The regiment.”

  “I've done it.”

  “What?”

  “I've sent a dispatch to one of the better junior officers I've known.”

  “And?”

  “He
was badly wounded in our retreat from Ostend last year. His division stood against the French until we'd all boarded.”

  “So?”

  “If he's fit for duty, he's the man you need – knows his business. Be a colonel by now, but for his wounds.”

  The French Orphan

  1. The Past Catches Up With Sir Simon.

  The seagulls were having a feast on the fishermen's scraps and calling raucously as they wheeled out to sea in the harbor of Boulogne-sur-mer. Commerce with England had restarted with the signing of the treaty of Paris and the cross-channel ferry had just landed in the harbor. Its cargo of English gentry were anxious to see the sights of the continent. Sights that were so long denied them by the wars of the revolution and the French empire. That evil Corsican bandit was constrained to Elba, good King Louis XVIII reigned and all was right in the world.

  A spry, just into middle-aged, English gentleman who walked with a limp and his slightly younger wife debarked from the ship and sauntered over to customs. “Simon,” the woman asked her husband, “Are you sure you want to do this? We could just use the diplomatic passports.”

  “Katherine,” he replied, “It will be fine, I'm just using an old cover name. We were married during the war and I never did take you on a honeymoon, just us, alone. It will be easier if we travel as private citizens. We won't have the mayor wanting to talk to us as representatives His Majesty and all that.”

  Time had treated Katherine very well. Despite her extensive adventures she was still a beautiful woman. Time had only added a patina of distinction to her. She'd married Lieutenant Simon Bates, now Colonel Sir Simon Bates attached to the foreign office in some mysterious manner. They were married shortly before he was posted as a military attache to Vienna. Vienna was an exciting posting where their first child, David, now at Eton, was born. They managed to hear Beethoven conduct the premier of his fourth symphony before things became undone. After the ignominious surrender of Vienna to Napoleon, they fled with their new child across the wastes of Poland and the Ukraine to Russia. A long sequence of diplomatic postings, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Stockholm and Lisbon finally ended with a return to England. Simon's parents had insisted on having a chance of getting to know their grandchildren, and giving them the time to learn to be English. Both Simon and Katherine found the peace and consequent idleness profoundly boring. Life in the tiny Essex coastal village of St. Osyth was even more boring, if that were possible. Much to the distress of their families they leaped at the chance to be posted to Bruxelles. They'd left their brood with their grandfather, the Reverend Gregory Bates, in St. Osyth and gone to find quarters in Brussels.

  The French customs agent asked, “Passports and names?”

  Simon replied, in the Norman French accent he had mastered ten years ago, “Je m'appelle Henri Simon Beaufort and this is my wife Katherine Beaufort.”

  The customs officer checked his papers, then loudly whistled and called up a pair of gendarme's. “You sir, are under arrest. There is a warrant for your detention.”

  “Simon!”, Katherine interrupted in a testy voice, “give them your real name. I'm tired, it's been a very long day and we need to get to the inn.”

  “Yes dear, as you say, my name is Simon Bates and this is”

  The customs officer stopped him abruptly, “There is a warrant for him as well, with a large reward, 1000 francs, it's an old warrant but it's still valid.” With the hyperinflation at the end of Napoleon's rule, the reward was only worth about a shilling, but still a shilling saved was a shilling earned. The gendarme's stepped forward and grabbed Simon by the arms and escorted him away. “This way, Sir.”

  Magistrate Pigne had a problem. The prisoner was clearly one Henri Simon Beaufort also known as Simon Bates. He remembered interviewing the prisoner himself when he'd been a mere sergeant in the gendarmes eleven years ago. There was not much of a question about his identity nor, for that matter, about his guilt. He'd been a British spy eleven years ago, fooled the lot of them, assaulted a colonel in the intelligence division of the Grande Armee, stolen a boat at gunpoint and disappeared into the channel. A month later, a long requested report from Paris had finally arrived. It stated unequivocally that there had never been a 'Henri Simon Beaufort' in the Grande Armee, and certainly not one who had been honorably discharged with a wounded leg. To make things worse, he was here. Now he had a diplomatic passport and a wife who was insisting that he used it to leave, this minute. The situation was fraught with difficulties.

  “Monsieur Pigne, I'm sorry for the fuss. We, Katherine and I.”

  “Speak for yourself Simon.”

  “Katherine, I thought we could finally have a honeymoon. This part of Normandy is beautiful, especially in June.”

  M. Pigne also remembered 'Henri' as a decent sort of bloke, one of the few farmers who would fight over the honor of his wife. Too many Norman farmers were inclined to take any offered money and look the other way. Gendarmes didn't make many, if any, close friends who weren't other gendarmes, but he'd liked Henri.

  “Henri, Simon, Mr. Bates,” he began, “It's clear there's been a terrible mistake. These warrants should have been voided with the fall of the empire. I'll have to apply to Paris.”

  Katherine asked, “How long will that take?”

  “Dear, We don't want to cause a diplomatic incident. Monsieur Pigne, I can give you my parole for a couple of weeks, but then we really must move on to Bruxelles.”

  “Your Parole?”

  “My word as an officer, I won't leave Boulongne without your permission.”

  “But Henri, you fled in the past. Why should I believe that you'd honor your parole now?”

  Simon could see that Katherine was beginning to lose patience with the proceedings, which could only complicate matters. He turned to her and said, “Katherine, why don't you see that our luggage arrives at L'Hotel d'estrangers? I'll meet you there, this won't take long.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely, If I'm not there for supper, you can come and bail me out.”

  “Don't hold your breath, I'll wait at least until after supper or maybe tomorrow morning. If I decide to come for you at all.”

  After Katherine left, Simon turned to M. Pigne. “Look, it's very simple. I'm traveling with a diplomatic passport, so it would only take a short message to the local English consul to have a company of soldiers come and remove me from your custody. But this would be embarrassing, both for you and for me.”

  “Oui, it would be.”

  “Also it's unnecessary. Now I'd like to spend a week or two here, have a walk on the beach in the sunset with my wife, visit the countryside, try the cider, do some of the normal things that visiting English used to do before the war.”

  “Ah? And”

  “It would undermine your authority to just let me go wouldn't it?”

  “Yes it would, so if I accept your parole?”

  “Then in a few days, after some 'further investigation' you can dismiss the charges and everyone's happy.”

  Pigne thought for a short while, trying to add up the pluses and minuses of Simon's seductive argument. Simon added, “I'll stand you a drink, dinner, you and your good wife?”

  That settled it, dinner with a knight and his lady would improve his family's social standing no end, so he agreed to accept, very reluctantly accept, Simon's parole.

  A few days later, Katherine brought the exciting news to her husband, “I've found your Marie.”

  Simon was enjoying his enforced rest on parole by staying in the town and systematically sampling the local wine, cheese and cider. Katherine took advantage of his diversions to arrange a carriage tour of the surrounding countryside.

  No fool, she, early in their marriage, had wormed enough of the story about Marie from Simon to be upset with him. So in the end, he told her the whole story, which wasn't nearly as bad as her imaginings had made it. After all, she'd just thrown wine in his face, called him a puppy and trounced out of his life, refusing even to r
ead his letters. While undercover in Normandy, Simon pretended to be married to Marie to free her from the forced draft to work the army brothels or les Musikos. Eventually, inexorably, pretending led to practice, and practice had its consequences. While his actions were deplorable, they were at least excusable. Once Katherine met Marie, they were even understandable.

  Katherine continued, “She runs Lion D'argent in Baincthun.”

  “Good thing we stayed L'Hotel d'estrangers then.” Baincthun was a few kilometers outside of Boulogne.

  “I've also met your daughter. She's the image of our Alice.”

  David, Alice, Jane, and Peter now had an older half-sister.

  Katherine continued, a bit stiffly, for some old wounds never completely heal, “She told me that she was sure she'd have a child from an English Mi'Lor. In any case, they're coming to visit you tomorrow.”

  “Oh God.”

  “She's a Madame LeBrun by the way. Married a Thomas LeBrun, late owner of the Silver Lion, and is now widowed.”

  “So this girl? Is she?”

  “Nominally she's legitimate, apparently LeBrun didn't mind.”

  “Well, at least that's something.” There was no way to legally make an illegitimate child legitimate, and while a male bastard could haunt the outskirts of society with his father's support, no amount of effort could rehabilitate a natural daughter.

  Time had not treated Mme. Marie LeBrun well. While the traces of her beauty could still be seen beneath the wrinkles, the sun and difficulty of managing an inn had prematurely left her an old and frail woman. Losing her husband and father within a few months of each other had not helped either. To Simon's eyes, there was something else wrong as well, a sort of withdrawal from life. She seemed to have a catch in her breath, as if it hurt. The spark of vitality that had so animated her as a younger woman, and which was such a part of her allure, was missing. Her daughter, Henriette, was pretty enough for a eleven year old. Unfortunately, she was also very quiet and subdued. This was either due to natural shyness, fear of these English strangers or both. Despite her travails, Marie had done well enough materially, Henriette was well-dressed, wearing a white silk dress and a silver chain necklace that complimented her clear blue eyes and striking auburn hair.