Tested by Fate

by David Donachie

  “Your Emma is quite remarkable, but so are you. You’ll be aware of my nephew’s prospects, but I doubt you’ve any inkling of his inability to indulge in decisions that would materially advance them.”

  “He always seems in a stew about money, that I do know.”

  “The solution lies within him. There are people who esteem his gifts, not least those who’d help him to achieve office within the ministry. Opposition can lead to advancement too, yet Charles dithers, says that he cannot support either Fox and the Prince of Wales or Pitt and the King.”

  “I thought he had it in mind to marry well.”

  “In his mind, yes, Mrs Cadogan,” Sir William growled. “But his aim is so inept that if he were a hunter needing to live off his kill he’d starve. But you must let me tell you what happened in England or, to be more precise, in Wales.”

  He paused for a moment to gather his thoughts. “It’s no secret that I had tender feelings for my late wife, attachments based on those most solid foundations, trust and esteem. In short, Mrs Cadogan, though not accomplished in any startling way, my late wife was a good woman.”

  “Everyone below stairs says so, sir.”

  “They talk too much below stairs,” he snapped.

  “Funny that, Sir William,” Mary Cadogan replied, dipping her head to her glass. “That’s what folk attending usually say about those they serve.”

  “Something tells me that I have just been humbugged,” Sir William admitted, before continuing. “My late wife’s estates, bequeathed to my nephew, will ease his burdens. But, being Charles Greville, he will not come out and say so. He’s a schemer even when such behaviour is unnecessary. He seeks to tie me to what my inclinations direct me towards, notwithstanding the fact that I may, at some future date, decide to marry again.”

  Mary Cadogan smiled. “It would be a lucky woman who got you, sir.”

  “Thank you for that,” he replied, genuinely touched. “I have named Charles as my heir and that makes him happy, though the notion that I might take another wife renders him anxious. Matters came to a head on my return to Naples. I travelled part of the way with the widowed Lady Clarges. In a moment of madness, in Rome, after a good supper and much wine, I let my tongue slip enough to emit what might have been construed as a proposal of marriage.”

  The Chevalier told a good story, describing both the supper and the conversation, his face animated enough to convey the depth of the shock at his own stupidity, plus the nature of the farce that had followed.

  “Luckily the lady either missed the nature of the allusion or chose to ignore it. I wrote to Charles recounting this vignette in the most light-hearted vein, presenting myself as a buffoon who had, by sheer serendipity, managed a narrow escape. I need hardly tell you of the effect on him.”

  “He offered you Emma?”

  “Quite,” he responded, uncomfortable again at being so rudely reminded of the point. “I doubt to a woman of your sagacity that much more explanation is required. The regard I have for your daughter’s beauty must be plain to the dimmest eye. I made no secret of it in London, though she, besotted with my nephew, chose to see it as mere gallantry.”

  “Understand, sir, she receives that kind of attention all the time.”

  “Don’t I know it!” Sir William replied. He stood up suddenly and fingered the motif around the rim of a tall Roman vase. It was sad to see his shoulders sag a little and his voice, though not weak, was melancholy. “You forget, Mrs Cadogan, that I have been out on the town with her. It has been my duty to confound the attentions of those who know both my nephew and Emma, even the Prince of Wales himself. I also confess myself flattered that those who did not know her thought her attached to me. And I can assure you that delivering her back to Charles Greville was often the occasion for a sad reflection on the burden of age.”

  “You was telling me about Wales.”

  “It was there, while we were touring my estates, that Charles first mooted that I might take on responsibility for your daughter.” He ignored Mary’s loud sniff of satisfaction, the certain knowledge that she had been right, and carried on, gently turning the tall vase to admire the artwork. “I believe I had said to him many times that her beauty was so classical. Do you know how often I have seen her face on objects such as this?”

  That made Mary Cadogan look more closely at the decorative friezes that adorned the vase he was fingering, at the reclining beauties holding lyres or grapes. In profile they were, indeed, like Emma.

  “From my point of observation,” Sir William continued, “the idea has obvious attractions, as well as uncertainties. To Charles it is all advantage. Don’t think he doesn’t esteem Emma, he does. But love is not an emotion to which his heart is open. My nephew is a man so practical that it is sometimes necessary to wonder if he is actually flesh and blood.”

  The look he gave her then, as he turned to face her, was unblinking. “The rest you can guess. If I take on responsibility for Emma, Charles has less to fear in the article of my marrying again. He also offloads the cost of keeping a household for her and, as a quid pro quo, he has a lever on which he can work to get me, publicly and legally, to name him my heir.”

  “You have not done so?”

  “No, Mrs Cadogan, I have not!” he replied, the snap back in his voice. “I will not see everything I own entailed by some extravagance, for he would be bound to borrow on his expectations. He plagues me in the letters you deliver to stand surety for a bond, which I will refuse to do. Should he inherit, which is my intention barring the caveats I have already stated, then I want that bequest to be that which was left to me, not the residue of his speculations.”

  “One of which is Emma.”

  “I’m very fond of her, I hope you acknowledge that.”

  “It’s our lot to be used, sir. I had decades of it, and had hoped for better for my only child.”

  “That was wounding, madam.”

  “Then forgive me for my honesty. And forgive me for observing that I had your nephew as less the rogue than you.”

  “I think it a bit high to term him a rogue.”

  Mary Cadogan lost some of her reserve then. Her voice was emphatic. “He has sought to profit from Emma since the day he moved her to London. How many times has Romney painted her and how many pictures do you see? Sold, near every one, not kept to gaze on in admiration. And now that he tires of her he barters her off in order to maintain a grip on your good intentions.”

  “It is not as mean-spirited as you make it sound. He observed my attraction to Emma and thought he saw that it was mutual in its potency. And I do not think that he has the capacity to return the level of affection she demonstrates for him.”

  “So he’ll break her heart?”

  “I seek to mend it.”

  “Without success.” That sharp rejoinder caused Sir William to respond with a curt, unhappy nod. “It was the attentions you paid her that caused me to ask for this chance to talk.”

  “I am more concerned with what your daughter thinks, Mrs Cadogan.”

  “Why, sir, if she notices at all, she ascribes it to kindness, not desire. My Emma does not think of you as a gallant.”

  “That is the unkindest cut of all,” he replied, crestfallen. “It is true to say that I am aware of being well past the first flush of youth, but the prospect of never being anything other than an uncle is not one to savour.”

  “What would happen if Emma and I were to return to London?”

  “The true answer madam is that I have no idea.”

  Mary Cadogan suspected that he was lying. If they had discussed Emma coming to Naples, they must also have talked about what would happen if the hoped-for result didn’t materialise. Set against that would be Sir William’s reluctance, having invested so much, to admit to failure. No man would embark on such a deep-laid plan of seduction contemplating outright defeat.

  Sir William Hamilton, harbouring that very thought, had been made uncomfortable by Mary Cadogan’s question, the assump
tion that failure would see Emma and her mother back in Edgware Road. Every time he had mentioned it to his nephew the idea had been swept aside as absurd. He realised just how much Charles had flattered him, playing on his vanity to achieve an object that, in truth, held more advantage for the proposer than it did for the supposed beneficiary. Had he been alone he might have voiced the thought that there was no fool like an old one.

  “The question, sir, is where we go on from here?”

  “I confess myself at a stand. I am unable to offer any solid opinion.”

  “What would you offer Emma?”

  That made him look at her sharply. She dropped her head to examine the back of one of her hands.

  “I cannot be certain I know what you are saying, madam.”

  She looked at him, her eyes hard. “Then you are not the clever man I think you are, sir. It be simple enough, Sir William. Does my Emma have a better prospect of happiness here than elsewhere?”

  “And if she does?”

  “Then I’d see it as my duty to help persuade her of it. And I might add that, given your nephew has gone to such lengths to create such a situation, no doubt he will take a mighty unkind view of a contrary outcome.”

  “He will meet his obligations, madam, I will insist on it.”

  “I know you will forgive me the liberty I take when I say that don’t reassure me.” She ignored his flash of irritation and carried on talking. “You know something of my life, sir, and can guess what you don’t, just as you know all about Emma’s. I want for her now what I have wanted from the day she was born. That she should not have to bend to the will of any man who—”

  “I have no desire to bend her to my will,” he interrupted. “What I desire I would want to be surrendered willingly.”

  “And having won that, what then?”

  “Security and the knowledge that as long as I live Emma will be a charge upon my honour. And I would add this, I am not like my nephew.”

  Mary Cadogan stood up. There was little more to say, except, “I will not assure you that all will work out as required, but if Emma is to be persuaded to see where her advantage lies, then I am the one she will listen to.”

  Months of carefully dropped hints and allusions to betrayal did not dent Emma’s attachment to Greville. Throughout the summer and early autumn she still spoke of him as if he was just about to walk through the door, and in such an obsessive way that her mother sometimes wondered if the oppressive heat had addled her brain.

  Mary Cadogan had experienced love in her own life, as well as infatuation and all the shades of regard in between. She had also been part of a society of women where the ability to hold on to a fantasy, despite ample contrary evidence, was endemic. But never had she come across something of the depth of Emma’s enthusiasm. It took the transfer from comfortable, warm Naples to cold, lonely Caserta, to bring matters to a head.

  Sir William attended the King’s annual hunting expedition, for which he had been allotted what he liked to call his cottage near the Winter Palace, a stab at humour that had some merit since it could accommodate over forty souls. Occupied for two months of the year, it lacked any sense of permanence, but what was worse for those not engaged in blasting every living thing that crossed the landscape, was the lack of company.

  Sir William would set off every morning clad in ample clothes to ward off the chill, weapons cleaned and gleaming with fresh oil, several flasks of ardent spirits in his servant’s saddlebags. The hunt would last all day, Ferdinand leading furious charges over his land in pursuit of wolves, foxes, bears, stags, and, when none of those larger creatures would oblige, any small bird demented enough to fly within the range of his weaponry.

  At night they consumed the day’s bag, long feasts well oiled with drink, all-male affairs at which the hunters would eat to excess, drink bumper after bumper in endless toasts, sing vulgar songs, exchange lewd anecdotes, and end up in furious arguments regarding the claims of rival noble families. At some point several of Ferdinand’s courtiers, having watched him eat for four men, would be required to accompany him to the privy, there to wait patiently while he burbled on in his nonsensical way and eased the pressure on his bowels.

  Back at the cottage, Emma and her mother were left with a few servants, to sit in a draughty house in which every doorway required a bolster, every room and passageway a blazing fire. During the day, if the sky was clear, the aspect of distant snow-capped Apennine peaks was pleasant, but there were rain-filled days, when the landscape seemed to close in on the royal enclosures, making the place feel like a prison.

  There were few visitors for Emma, no teachers or aristocrats to sit at her feet and admire her beauty. Outdoors it was nothing like teeming Naples, where the lazzaroni, the peasant class of the city, on seeing her face would seek to touch her hem and hail her as the living embodiment of the Madonna. Good rider though she was, Emma was forbidden to join in the Royal Hunt, her status forbidding attendance at an event often observed by the Queen. With no recognisable social standing, she couldn’t be presented to royalty. Indeed, if she was out riding and saw the hunt heading in her direction, she had to turn and flee lest she cause a scandal. Accustomed to better treatment, this led to many a tantrum, stormy sessions during which Italy was cursed, the weather likewise, and Sir William castigated for his ill-treatment of a guest he often admitted as his favourite person.

  “I shall tell him as soon as he walks through that door, Mother. I have had enough of his damned Italy.”

  “And what d’you reckon his response will be, Emma?”

  The surprise was genuine, the way she treated the answer seen as obvious. “Why, he will arrange for us to return to London, of course.”

  In all the three months since that talk with Sir William, Mary Cadogan had tired of the game she had been playing with Emma. She was also irritated by the ague, brought on by the draughty residence she was forced to occupy. Her joints were stiff, and the morning and evening chill had her sniffing and wiping an almost constant drip from her nose. It was no preparation for a game requiring patience, and neither Sir William nor any of the endless stream of guests who attended her daughter in Naples was here to restrain her.

  “So you’ve finally given up on your Greville ever coming here to you?”

  “No!”

  “Then you’re a fool, girl. If you still hold a candle for Charles Greville you’re worse than that.”

  “How can you say such a thing?”

  “Cos it be right. How many letters have you penned these last months?” Eliciting no reply Mary Cadogan continued, in a harsh voice that had as much to do with her condition as it had with her daughter’s stupidity. “Dozens, and not so much as one word to say he’s even read them.”

  “It’s his way. It was the same when he was with his uncle in Wales.”

  “His way is to ignore you, then, lest you be right by his side.”

  Emma threw herself into a chair, hand over her brow like a lovelorn stage heroine. “You cannot fathom how much I miss him.”

  “Ain’t hard, girl,” Mary Cadogan replied, with scant concern to be polite, “since you never leave off telling me.”

  “You must want to go home as well, Mother. This house, and this particular climate, little suits you.”

  “Cold air suits better than cold charity,” Mary Cadogan snapped.

  “What does that mean?”

  That was the moment at which maternal patience fractured, for reasons numerous and manifest: but especially Emma’s blindness to the fact that Sir William was, and had been since their arrival, paying court to her. How could she not see his endless attention to her and her education, his occasional salacious sallies, for what they were?

  Personal discomfort also played a part to shorten Mary’s temper, the aches and pains that racked her body, but most of all it was the weight of keeping a secret from someone who had every right to her support. It was as if a dam had been breached, and a torrent of words told Emma just what arrangements had
been made for her, and just how she stood in regard to the man she professed to love.

  “She fled the room in tears.”

  “I wish she had been made aware more gently,” Sir William replied. His voice was slightly slurred from the drink he had consumed in the King’s company and his face was flushed, but what was most striking was his air of depression.

  “You’re more’n fond of her, aren’t you, sir?” asked Mary Cadogan gently.

  “I won’t deny it,” he said sadly. “I made no secret to you or my nephew how attracted I was to Emma. But it was an appreciation of her beauty you saw in London. My doubts as to the wisdom of her coming to Italy you must be able to guess at, leaving the bed of a young and virile fellow to go to that of an old and somewhat diminished man.”

  “That, I sense, has changed.”

  “Do you look at her, Mrs Cadogan, and see what I see?”

  “I see my girl, your honour. I see beauty and her lively nature. I see her make you and other men laugh. I see the look of lust that your friends take care you should not notice.”

  “I notice, madam,” he replied, staring at the burning logs, adding a small, humourless laugh. “You have no idea how it pleases me to do so. I am flattered by it, especially since Emma seems so ingenuous as to positively encourage the notion that I am her lover.”

  “She wants to touch often those she is fond of.”

  “If I didn’t know better I would think she was teasing me, flattering my vanity as Charles did my mind, leading me towards an indiscretion so that she could play the shocked innocent and embarrass me.”

  “My bones ache for the chill, Sir William. I am about to help myself to that ardent spirit you recommended. Might I be so bold as to suggest that you would benefit from the same?”

  “Let it be so.”

  Half of the bottle of grappa disappeared while they talked of the spectre in the background, a distraught young woman, who might at this very moment be sobbing herself to sleep. Mary Cadogan wiped a maudlin tear from her eye, then took another stiff drink to kill the temptation to weep.