Lady Madeline's Folly

by Joan Smith

  In fact, it took its other well-known course, and made her fonder of him, or at least lonesome for more of his company. She approved of his devotion to duty; it was heartening to see him pitch himself eagerly into the new load of work. There was a deal of running back and forth to be done, and Henry preferred trotting about in his carriage to sitting over a desk.

  After the bishop's ladies had seen all the interesting churches, and a few dozen of the uninteresting ones, they were induced to join the more enjoyable business of touring the shops. It was after this last outing that Lady Madeline's carriage drew up in front of Eskott's house to deposit his guests at his doorstep.

  "We'll just step in and say how-do-you-do to Eskott," Lady Margaret decreed, always busy to pitch Maddie into his company.

  "He won't be home at five o'clock," Madeline pointed out.

  "It is only a step. Let us go and see."

  Eskott had just returned minutes before. "I stopped around at St. James's Street to see if you had gone back there," he said, welcoming them. "Have you shopped the stores empty?"

  The few parcels being carried in indicated nothing of the sort; they were few and small.

  "Not quite," Madeline re­plied, with a little peep at the scanty packages. "But even window shopping is fatiguing. We would be happy for a cup of tea or a glass of wine."

  "You have earned it," he answered, the swift, secret smile that passed between them expressing a whole outline of the afternoon's tedious rooting. "I didn't see Fordwich at the House today. I hope he is not ill."

  "A slight indisposition," Lady Margaret assured him. "Nothing serious. It is business as usual, but from his bed. The red dispatch boxes are coming in thick and fast. Some new imbroglio going on."

  "Don't bother perking up your sharp ears," Madeline warned. "We don't know a thing about it. Perhaps you can tell us?"

  "I stopped by your place in the hope you would let fall some revealing remarks. We are all at a loss."

  "Better go to Lord Minchin's ball tonight and see what you can hear over the punch bowl," Madeline suggested.

  "Are you going?"

  "No, with Papa feeling under the weather, we are using it as an excuse to stay home and get to bed before midnight for a change."

  The bishop's wife opened her eyes wide at this telling speech. The conversation turned to topics that could include the ecclesiastical ladies till the tea was finished.

  "I'll stop by tomorrow and see how your father goes on," Eskott said as he escorted the visitors to the door. His houseguests were already on their way up the stairs with their parcels. "Thank you very much for helping me. They say you are extremely obliging, which tells me you have had a very dull scald of it these past days."

  "Not in the least. I have been meaning to count all the buttons in all the shops of London for some time now. Somehow I never got around to it. You know how it is," Madeline told him.

  "You don't have to tell me; I owe you a favor."

  "No, we are even now, dear Eskott," she answered crypt­ically. Her aunt frowned in curiosity, wondering what secret she was being left out of. The slyest questioning all the way home told her nothing.

  The matter fell from her mind the moment they stepped in the front door of their own home. Fordwich stood in the hallway with his housecoat on, his hair all awry and his cheeks red with anger. The butler was the object of his tirade, which was in full swing.

  "I tell you the letters have been opened!" he shouted. "The seals broken and very clumsily closed up again. I have left orders that the dispatch boxes are to be brought up to me the instant they arrive."

  "Now Fordwich, calm yourself," his sister said. "Go back to bed. You'll catch your death of cold in this drafty hall without proper dress. What are you doing downstairs?"

  "I came down the minute I got a look at this correspon­dence. How long was it sitting on that table by the door, for any chance caller to tamper with?" he demanded of the butler.

  "I just went down to the kitchen to have a cup of tea, your lordship. I wasn't gone above half an hour. The down­stairs footman said he would tend the door while I was gone. He was in the study dusting the top shelves, for the maids don't like climbing up the ladder. No one came except the courier from Westminster. The footman left the box for me to take up to you."

  "Then it is someone in my own household who is spying," Fordwich decided.

  "Rubbish, the letters were opened and resealed before they left Westminster," Lady Margaret countered. "Is there something very important in them?"

  Fordwich did not actually reply, but his mutterings as he turned to the stairs to go back to his bed indicated that he had not actually taken time to read the letters.

  "He is nervous as a kitten," Madeline remarked, looking after him.

  "He's always on the fidgets when he is ill. All men are. I daresay the ministers have been worrying about their se­crets since Eskott knew all about the great mass resignation. I'll go up and calm him."

  When her aunt had gone, Madeline turned to the butler. "Is Mr. Aldred in father's study?" she asked.

  "No, ma'am. He left an hour ago. Took some message to Lord Eldon for his lordship, I believe."

  "Thank you. About the dispatch box, Evans—when did it arrive?"

  "While I was at tea, ma'am. Less than an hour ago. Mr. Aldred was putting on his coat when I left. 'I'll see myself out, Evans,' he said to me."

  "I see. Were you back at the door when Lord Eskott came to call?"

  "Why, he didn't come, milady. I didn't let him in, and the footman said no one came. But then Lord Eskott doesn't always bother to knock, does he? He might have just stepped in, and seeing no one about, gone out again without dis­turbing us."

  "That must be it. I spoke to him just now, and he told me he had been here. That's all, Evans. Tell Cook we'll dine a little late this evening. Papa will be having a tray in his room, and Lady Margaret and myself have just had tea."

  After putting off her pelisse, she went to her father's room, to see Lady Margaret and Fordwich in quiet, worried conversation. "What's the matter? Was there something important in the box?"

  "Yes, information we would not wish the opposition to get hold of just yet. I've told Meggie, and I don't mind telling you, Maddie, as you are not going out anywhere this evening, and soon it will be public knowledge. Do not speak of it to anyone. The fact is, Perceval is at loggerheads with the prince over Lord Sidmouth's appointment as lord pres­ident of the Council."

  "Is that wise, Papa, to push Sidmouth forward? The prince hates him—his father's prime minister. Sidmouth is generally blamed for not giving the regent his military promotion, which he wanted so much. Why must it be done at this time?"

  "Perceval's doings. Sidmouth is able and conscien­tious—a good man. We can use him. The fact is, the prince is quoted here as saying he has no confidence in Sidmouth and, more significantly, that he has no confidence in any person who forces Sidmouth on him. If the Whigs have got hold of this piece of information—if they should decide to hold their hand on the matter of Catholic Emancipation, for instance, they could surely get themselves appointed as the government tomorrow."

  "Why does Perceval persist then?"

  "He means to show he has the upper hand, that he is not a puppet to anyone. Perhaps he has Lady Hertford's support, behind her hand as it were, but in any case, you can see we do not wish our enemies to know what we are about till the thing is done. Send for Aldred. I'll dispatch a note to Westminster and let them know about this affair—the letters being tampered with. They'll be there till all hours tonight if I know anything."

  "Yes, do that, Fordwich," his sister said. "You'll hear they had some reason to open the letters themselves before sending them to you, and did not bother to put on a new seal."

  "I think not. There are no cross-outs in the letters. I am going to get dressed. Call my valet, Maddie."

  "A tempest in a teapot," Lady Margaret said to Madeline as they returned belowstairs. "Where is Henry? Will he be dining w
ith us?"

  "Probably not. Papa wants him upstairs now in any case. Evans, has Mr. Aldred come in yet?"

  "Yes, ma'am. He's in the study."

  "Send him up to my father, please. Papa will want him to go off to Westminster."

  It was a full hour before Aldred returned. When he came back from Westminster, he had Lord Tilsit and Lord Eldon with him. Fordwich was dressed and awaiting them in his private study. The ladies and Aldred were excluded from the discussion that went forth. There was no shouting, no vocal sign of anger, but the closed door told them the matter was troublesome. After perhaps fifteen minutes, Mr. Aldred was sent for.

  "They cannot think Henry had anything to do with it!" Madeline said to her aunt, outraged at the notion.

  "He was here. He handles your father's correspondence."

  "He doesn't handle the dispatch boxes, except perhaps to pass them on to Papa. And he wasn't here when it arrived either. Evans told me he had gone out."

  "Maybe he came back."

  "Yes, and maybe Eskott took a look while he came slip­ping in, unannounced. He was here; he told us so, remem­ber? But Evans and the footman say he did not knock at the door."

  "He often comes in without knocking."

  "Yes, to see what he can learn at keyholes."

  "Don't be absurd!"

  Before their conversation had quite deteriorated into a fight, Aldred was back. "What a brouhaha! They've got the footman up on the mat now, trying to discover if he knows anything. The letters had not been opened and resealed before their departure from Westminster. Unless the courier has turned spy, it looks as though it happened here. A clumsy enough job too. The work of a servant, if you ask me. I daresay half our servants are serving the Whigs, if the truth were known."

  "I cannot think so, Mr. Aldred," Lady Margaret said stiffly, bristling over his casual "our servants." "Our serv­ants have been with the family for years, and in most cases, their parents before them. Servants do not concern them­selves with politics in any case. It is nothing to them." With a truly blighting stare, she arose and swept from the room, to stroll slowly past the closed study door, trying to overhear what was passing within.

  Henry turned to Madeline. "I hope your father does not think I had anything to do with it," he said.

  "Of course not. You weren't even here at the time. He had already sent you on an errand, had he not?"

  "To tell the truth, I didn't notice if the red box was on the table when I left. It might have been."

  "It wasn't. Evans says you were already putting on your coat when he went downstairs for tea, and the box had not arrived yet."

  "Yes, but I didn't leave immediately. I went back to the study to get some letters of my own to post while I was out. I stopped and had a few words with the footman who was dusting—just teasing him a little about that maid he is always ogling, you know. Then he left the room for a minute, and I collected and sealed up my letters. There was no one in the hallway when I actually left. Eskott's carriage was just drawing away when I got on to the street. I rec­ognized it, but I'm afraid I didn't notice whether the dispatch box had come while I was busy in the study. You don't suppose Eskott... ? No, of course he would not. He is too fine a gentleman to do such a thing. What is the great commotion all about anyway? What was in the box, that they are so upset about it?"

  Madeline was about to tell him when she changed her mind. "I don't know. Some highly secret business, I assume. Something the Whigs would turn to their advantage if they knew of it. You're sure you can't remember whether the dispatch box was there when you left? Red—it stands out. You would have taken it up to Papa before leaving if it had been there."

  "I can't be positive. I was distracted at your seeing so much of Eskott, to tell the truth. I haven't said anything, Maddie, but—well, you are seeing a good deal of him lately. That was on my mind. Some little corner of my mind seems to remember, but I can't be sure the box was there. If it was not, then of course it cannot have been Eskott who tampered with it."

  "No, it cannot." And it cannot have been you either, she thought to herself.

  "Unless he spotted the courier as he drove away, and came back, knowing the hallway was unattended," he added reluctantly.

  "It would be attended when the courier knocked on the door, Henry. He would not enter unbidden," she pointed out.

  "That's true. He would have had to wait till the footman left, and there would be no saying the box was not taken immediately to Fordwich, as it should have been. I person­ally cannot think for a minute Eskott would do such a thing. I place my money on the servants, your aunt's prejudices notwithstanding."

  Lady Margaret returned to them, no wiser than when she had left. Nothing could be overheard through the door except Fordwich sneezing his head off. He was coming down with a cold; that was why he felt so wretched. They'd all get it. Before she sat down, dinner was announced.

  "Will Lord Fordwich be joining you, as he has left his bed?" the servant asked.

  "I doubt he'll be finished before midnight. We shall eat without him," Lady Margaret answered.

  "I am leaving now," Henry said, "Your father does not need me. As you told me you were staying home, I made plans to dine with Taffy and some friends at one of his clubs. I shall be back tomorrow bright and early, to discover what happened."

  "Thank God for that," Lady Margaret said when he was gone. "This evening will be vile enough without his chat­tering."

  Madeline glared mutinously, but said nothing.

  * * *

  Chapter 14

  There was little conversation over dinner. Madeline was trying to decide whether Eskott could possibly have wanted badly enough to know what was transpiring at Downing Street to open letters that did not belong to him. There was no denying he was ambitious. He wanted that woolsack very much. The Whigs had been waiting endless years to form the government. This was the best chance that was likely to come their way.

  If the prince regent did not bring in his erstwhile friends now, when would it ever happen? They all knew it, and were furiously frustrated. And if that red box had been at the door when he came... The only other possible culprit was Henry, and why would he bother to risk so much to open letters he would soon have easy and proper access to? He was a Tory; there was nothing for him to gain by this underhanded trick. She wondered if Eskott had put Henry up to it, for she knew that vague hints had often been proffered to her cousin by Eskott.

  But if that were the case, Henry would not have mentioned Eskott's being at the house. Had she mentioned it first? No, it was Henry who'd volunteered the information.

  Aunt Margaret chatted on about the malign influence of a cold on one of Fordwich's years, about returning to Highgate Park, and about the bishop's wife and daughters, while Madeline answered in monosyllables. It had to be Eskott. Nothing else made any sense. She had not a gentleman's strict ideas of honorable behavior, but she knew this was conduct heinous enough to ruin his reputation, at least amongst the Tories. If the Whigs were able to come into power by acting on what he had learned, on the other hand, she doubted very much he would long wear the guise of a villain.

  When dinner was over and the ladies retired to the Gold Saloon, Fordwich and his cohorts were already there, having a glass of wine.

  "The ladies know all about it," he explained. "I trust my own family's discretion. They do not go out this evening."

  "Do you trust your cousin's boy equally implicitly?" Lord Tilsit asked blandly.

  "What would be the point of his snooping? He is one of us. Certainly I trust him. What we must decide is whether to pull back on the matter of Sidmouth's appointment as lord president of the council. It is a risky business. The appointment could always be made later."

  "Sidmouth would never sit still for it. He still has his own circle of influence. Prinney already knows we want him. The fat is in the fire," Eldon said fatalistically. "If the Whigs come up with an acceptable cabinet—if they back down on some of their less attractive policies—I
fear we are for oblivion."

  "We must count on the influence of our friends on Manchester Square," Tilsit said.

  "Thank God Lady Hertford still has something to say about it," Eldon added.

  Into the midst of this controversy, Lord Eskott's presence was announced by the butler. He entered, outfitted in black formal clothes for his night's activities. A mischievous smile sparkled in his eyes as he looked around the room, where every face wore a frown.

  "A small caucus to discuss the imminent demise of the government?" he asked leadingly. "I think it excessively poor decision-making on Perceval's part to put Sidmouth forward so soon after dispensing with Prinney's bosom beau, Wellesley. But then you Honorable Gentlemen excel at the fine art of making bad decisions. Good evening, Lady Margaret, Maddie. Got a chair for a Whig, or shall I be discreet and retire?"

  He was soon aware that the latter was the wiser choice. The men glared at him with open hostility, while Madeline's eyes narrowed in conjecture. How did he know, if he had not read the letter?

  "May we know how you come to be so well informed of private matters, Eskott?" she asked.

  "Private? It is quite publicly discussed at Brook's I assure you. Did you hope to keep such a choice tidbit secret? Not much chance. The prince regent is blubbering all over his mistress's bosom what a foul trick you hope to play him."

  "I cannot think Lady Hertford told anyone she does not trust," Tilsit suggested.

  "Then it seems she must have misplaced her trust, does it not?"

  "It seems to us the affair was not circulated by Lady Hertford, but by someone else," Madeline said.