A Sister's Secret

by Mary Jane Staples

  ‘Miss Annabelle?’ Helene looked in. ‘A gentleman has called and is asking to see you. Mr Jonathan Carter.’

  Annabelle’s eyes danced. ‘Caroline, oh, do excuse me,’ she said.

  ‘There you are,’ said Jonathan, as Annabelle, bewitching in flimsy blue organdie, floated into the drawing room.

  ‘Why, it’s Mr Carter,’ she said. ‘Good afternoon, Mr Carter.’

  ‘Oh, that’s the way of it now, is it?’ said Jonathan. ‘I’m out in the cold again? Then good afternoon, Miss Howard.’

  ‘I am not Miss Howard, I’m your love,’ protested Annabelle. ‘You said so when you left this morning.’

  ‘So I did,’ said Jonathan, ‘but I ain’t having any shilly-shallying.’

  ‘But, Jonathan, I want to be your love.’

  ‘Bless you, my angel,’ said Jonathan, and pressed a chaste kiss on her forehead. Annabelle cast a demure glance. ‘I ain’t sure I won’t finish up eating you.’

  She laughed and she sparkled. ‘Jonathan, you are such sweet fun,’ she said.

  ‘And ain’t you a sweet shape?’ said Jonathan, eyeing her figure with appreciation.

  She blushed in pleasure. She did not feel, as she had with Cumberland, the shivers and palpitations that related as much to fright as excitement. She felt warmly and lovingly responsive. Cumberland’s dark eye had regarded her rounded prettiness wickedly. Jonathan regarded it with the frank, healthy pleasure of a frank, healthy young man. However, a certain amount of decorum was called for.

  ‘Jonathan, do turn your glance, I beg, or I shall go pink all over.’

  ‘All over?’ he said. ‘Well, I’ll not ask you to prove it here and now. We’re not married yet.’

  ‘And I shan’t prove it even then, you disgraceful sauciness – oh, Jonathan, am I to receive a formal proposal? I do declare it’s only fair, and in return I shall give it fair consideration.’

  ‘You’re a teasing witch,’ said Jonathan.

  ‘Witch? But I am divinely fresh and innocent.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Jonathan, ‘though your innocence don’t prevent you running rings round me. Well, I shall have my own back and come to the sweetness of unlacing you with bold adventurousness once we’re married …’

  ‘Oh, you all are a dreadful sauciness! Have you no consideration for my blushes?’

  ‘Not as much as for marrying you, kissing you and loving you,’ said Jonathan. ‘So will you say yes now or in ten minutes? I ain’t able to endure longer than ten minutes. Now will you say yes, or shall I ransack you?’

  ‘Oh, I must say yes,’ she gasped, ‘I cannot risk being ransacked in Caroline’s drawing room.’

  At which Jonathan kissed her tenderly. ‘There,’ he said, ‘never think I don’t recognize how sweet you are and how lucky I am.’

  ‘We will have such fun, won’t we?’ said Annabelle. ‘But shall we be desperately poor?’

  ‘Eh?’ said Jonathan.

  ‘Oh, I shall still love you, but as you aren’t a bang-up, slap-up, fancy gentleman …’

  ‘Eh?’ said Jonathan again.

  ‘You don’t understand the language of persons of the quality?’ said Annabelle. ‘Oh, I suppose not.’

  ‘Bang-up, slap-up and fancy is the language of the quality?’ enquired Jonathan, hiding a smile.

  ‘Of course. I am very up with Corinthian terminology. But never mind if you aren’t comfortably off. I shall receive a dowry from my father, and you can invest it in the East India Company, which I’m told is a most recommendable way of making a fortune.’

  ‘You’ll give me your dowry? You won’t.’

  ‘But I want to,’ said Annabelle.

  ‘Well, I ain’t going to take it,’ said Jonathan. ‘I fancy we won’t starve. Now, I’ve seen the P.P. and She Who Must Be Obeyed, and am taking you to meet them tomorrow. Put on your best bonnet and I’ll call for you at ten thirty in the morning.’

  ‘What do you mean, “the P.P. and She Who Must Be Obeyed”?’ asked Annabelle, reclining in the fashion of a young lady happy to prolong these moments.

  ‘The P.P. is my Paternal Parent, and She Who Must Be Obeyed is my Maternal Parent.’

  ‘Oh, they sound dreadfully formidable. Am I to fear they won’t approve of me?’

  Jonathan laughed and kissed her again. She gave her lips very happily. ‘Approve of you? They’ll give you Burleigh Court. Well, they’ll give it to both of us. It comes to me when I marry.’

  Annabelle’s eyes opened wide. ‘Jonathan, what is Burleigh Court?’ she asked.

  ‘A little estate in Sussex, not too far from Great Wivenden. It’s one of our family properties, and you’ll find the house owns a commendable kitchen.’

  Her eyes became huge. ‘Jonathan, oh, I declare, you’ve been keeping things from me,’ she said. ‘Who is your father?’

  ‘General Sir Laurence Cheviot Carter. Fought your American rebels years ago, and got dished with Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown. He’ll dip you in brimstone when he discovers you’re American. I fancy you’d better not blow the gaff. I’ve told him you come from China.’

  ‘Horrid beast.’ Annabelle laughed. ‘I vow you wicked – you haven’t told him any such thing. And I am really very vexed with you that you made me think you were poor. It has been very worrying today, feeling I’d have to exist in rags.’

  ‘I don’t recall making you think—’

  ‘Oh, Jonathan!’ Annabelle exclaimed in delight. ‘Do you realize you’re not a common ruffian after all, but a bang-up, slap-up, fancy gentleman?’

  ‘Oh, so-so,’ said Jonathan cheerfully.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  The Prince of Wales was, as Beau Brummell subsequently observed, becoming a fat fellow, and the Dukes of York, Clarence and Kent were all traditionally pear-shaped Hanoverian princes. Cumberland alone had a chest in advance of his stomach, which was a firm and flat terrain, and was apt to make a mistress feel that her belly would never regain its curve.

  The Prince of Wales was also becoming pettish. Once handsome, generous and charming, rich food was now making him soft and plump; extravagant debts caused him to tighten his pockets, and flattering sycophancy had spoiled him, leading him to imagine he was the wittiest prince in Christendom.

  His brothers bored him. He also bored them. It could not be said that the sons of George III were too compatible. Each did what he could to avoid the others socially, restricting contact in the main to state occasions or family conferences. Typically, there was little pleasure or satisfaction to be derived from this conference at Cumberland’s town residence, but it had not been easy to say no to him. It was never easy to say no in any manner to Cumberland, whose powerful personality put its limits on brotherly hedging and procrastination.

  Wales was fidgeting irritably. In his pale pink coat, yellow breeches, white waistcoat, and high, fussy cravat, he resembled a popinjay when compared with the majestic Cumberland clad in sober hues. Wales had already evinced boredom, and even fatigue, at Cumberland’s private meeting with him. The latter had produced a petition from a certain lady in respect of the compromising of her honour by Wales. He had taken the petition in graceless fashion, crumpling it up and thrusting it into his coat pocket. Now, with York, Clarence and Kent also present, he had had to listen to Cumberland’s request for family consideration of his potential marriage to a German duchess. As far as Wales was concerned, Cumberland could marry any duchess he liked. But Cumberland enunciated difficulties. There were no difficulties Wales could see, and his other brothers considered their opinions counted for nothing. It would be their kingly father who would say yea or nay.

  They were all seated, except Cumberland, who remained on his feet, giving vent to certain exasperations by stalking about. He dominated the atmosphere as he expounded on consequences, good and bad, advantageous or disadvantageous. From time to time his stalking came to a halt before a window. There he seemed in brooding reflection, looking out of the window and directing his gaze downwards. The window overlo
oked the gravelled area on the west side of the house. Perhaps Cumberland was expecting four men to appear, four men garbed as building workers, and carrying long ladders that would enable them to climb up and inspect the gutters. One man would have a forged paper on his person, a paper giving them the authority to carry out the inspection, and to make good gutters that were faulty. And two would have bombs secreted in workmen’s tin containers, together with tinder boxes to light the fuses. Perhaps it was fatefully important for Cumberland to note their arrival and to take careful heed of the moment when the ladders were erected against the wall of the house. That would be the moment he would have to absent himself. He needed a good reason for doing so. He had one.

  Wales paved the way by making a testy comment. ‘All this don’t signify, Ernest. Ye’ve no mountains to climb, nor even molehills. Ye’re painting pictures of what don’t exist. Unless’ – Wales put a sly smile on his face – ‘unless ye’re looking for an excuse to set aside a plain duchess in favour of a ravishing commoner. I’m told she’s the coveted American commoner.’

  ‘The devil she is,’ said York.

  ‘I ain’t denying I do favour her,’ said Cumberland, ‘nor that she’s suitable in all ways.’

  ‘She ain’t in the least suitable, if she’s a commoner,’ said Kent.

  ‘I’ve looked her over a time or two,’ said Clarence, jovial by nature, ‘and swear her bosom at least ain’t common.’

  ‘Allow me,’ said Cumberland, ‘to inform ye all I’ve details of her family tree.’

  ‘Have ye, b’God,’ said York. ‘I assume ye’re speaking of Lord Percival’s widow, Lady Clarence?’

  ‘Ye assume correctly,’ said Cumberland, glancing out of the window again.

  ‘I ain’t acquainted with the lady’s antecedents,’ said Wales, with a mincing laugh, ‘but I’m acquainted with her magnificence. But she won’t do, not for His Majesty.’

  ‘I’ve papers with details, the details drawn up by Erzburger and authenticated,’ said Cumberland.

  ‘Papers? Authenticated?’ said Kent, destined to be the father of Victoria. ‘Authenticating what, precisely?’

  ‘We’ve arrived at a point meriting the most serious consideration,’ said Cumberland, sound eye fixing Wales in mesmerizing fashion. ‘Lady Clarence Percival’s own family, the Howards, can trace their tree back to William of Orange, and Erzburger has done so.’

  ‘’Pon my pitiful soul,’ said Wales, ‘ye’ll be informing us next that Lady Clarence is the rightful Queen of England.’

  Cumberland picked up a sheaf of papers from a table and took them to the window. Inside a flood of bright light, he leafed through the papers, his blind, cloudy eye blank, his seeing eye very searching.

  ‘The papers don’t seem to be among these,’ he said. ‘But ye have my word, they exist and the details exist. So I require from all of ye serious consideration of a situation which ain’t now unfavourable to a rejection of the proposed alliance.’

  ‘The papers,’ said York impatiently.

  ‘I fancy they’re in my study,’ said Cumberland. ‘In a moment or so, I’ll fetch them.’

  ‘God in heaven,’ said Clarence, wondering if his sardonic brother had a touch of the mental weakness that periodically afflicted their father, ‘ye’re expecting us to consider how ye might marry Percival’s American widow?’

  ‘And why not?’ said Cumberland, dark and lowering.

  ‘I ain’t considering a damned thing until ye’ve produced those papers, Ernest,’ said Kent mutinously.

  ‘I will,’ said Cumberland, ‘but first give me a few moments to suggest to ye how I might put my case to our tetchy Majesty, who ain’t always able to make an agreeable listener.’ He mused. He was at the window again. His brothers fidgeted, Wales in irritable fashion, but Cumberland began to describe how Lady Clarence Percival compared advantageously with the German duchess. She was endowed with wealth, health and beauty, and with a lineage that could not be discounted.

  ‘Orange lineage,’ said Wales disdainfully. ‘It’s a dull thing, and originated in a medieval French farmyard.’

  Cumberland removed his gaze from the window to turn a black scowl on his eldest brother, and Wales slumped and muttered. Cumberland was an Orange adherent, a powerful figure in the Order that inspired and dominated the lives of Ulstermen, who sternly kept at bay the popery of the Catholic Irish.

  He continued to outline the pros and cons, but it was a pointless exercise if he really was expecting four men to arrive in the guise of building labourers. His every glance could draw only a blank. He grew darker; his eye glittered. He could not fetch papers, for there were no papers, not of the kind he had mentioned. There did not need to be under certain assumed circumstances. He had established the pretext of going to his study to fetch them, but by the time he returned the Irish bombs would have done their work. Irish bombs were always lethal.

  The useless conference was brought to an abrupt end by the refusal of his brothers to prolong further a meeting that had no sense to it, and Cumberland was seen to be in a dark mood for the rest of the day. Erzburger had a problem concerning Mr Joseph Maguire. He might have thought the best way to deal with a man who may have laid a trap for His Highness was to hand him over to Irish papists as an informer.

  Then there was the hireling who had Maguire under surveillance.

  Whatever steps were decided on and by whom, the fact remained that a capable-looking man arrived at the lodgings of the hireling. Finding him not at home, he crossed the street and went up to Maguire’s modest abode. His knock on the door was answered by a British Army sergeant, whose comrade, a corporal, stepped smartly out and cut off the visitor’s retreat. They took him into custody, but neither they nor any other representatives of His Majesty’s government secured a jot of information from him. He kept his mouth tightly shut throughout. He was sentenced to be transported, along with the lookout and the four papist conspirators. And Captain Burnside had the satisfaction of knowing the interests of the loyal Mr Maguire were well looked after. It did not, however, make him feel any better about the abrupt and uncompromising termination of what he considered was his precious relationship with the equally precious Lady Caroline.

  ‘So,’ said the Duke of Avonhurst later that day, ‘Cumberland endured a negative afternoon. With bad grace, I’ll warrant.’

  ‘We shall probably never know the extent of his implication. Even so, I fancy he ain’t enjoyed the best week of his life.’ Captain Burnside looked as if his own week had not been the happiest. Nor was His Grace in his best mood. The captain knew him for a perfectionist, a demanding one, but he was always fair. Something was gnawing at him now. ‘He discovered Lady Russell’s billet-doux was missing. I gathered from Betsy that his household staff were made to run the gauntlet of an abrasive interrogation. Some were dismissed on the spot, including Betsy. I’ve found lodgings for her until she gets another position.’

  ‘Have you formed an attachment for that wench?’ asked His Grace disparagingly. ‘Ain’t it time, sir, you gave thought to the honourable estate of marriage, and with a lady of grace, a lady somewhat of an improvement on a flirtatious wench?’

  ‘I ain’t immune to the prospect,’ said Captain Burnside, ‘but as to Betsy, I simply ain’t too keen on seeing a girl like her thrown on to the streets. Her nature’s far too friendly.’

  Avonhurst frowned. ‘Concerning Lady Caroline,’ he said, and Captain Burnside’s grimace did not escape him, ‘I have to tell you that she called on me this morning, and such were the circumstances that I was compelled to confess to her.’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ said the captain.

  ‘You need His help,’ said His Grace, ‘as I do myself.’

  ‘I must go and see her.’

  ‘I don’t advise it. She’ll have her servants horsewhip you, and she won’t receive you, nor give you a salve for your scourged back.’

  ‘I’ll risk the horsewhip,’ said the captain, set of face.

  Chapter Thirty


  ‘I has to inform you, sir, that Her Ladyship is not at home,’ said Thomas, standing squarely at the open door.

  ‘Do you mean she is out?’ asked Captain Burnside.

  ‘I mean, sir,’ said Thomas regretfully, for he liked the captain, ‘that she is not at home.’

  ‘She won’t see me, is that it?’

  ‘Her Ladyship is not at home,’ said Thomas.

  ‘I see. Then would you ask Miss Annabelle to receive me?’

  ‘Miss Annabelle Howard, sir, is not at home.’

  ‘Damn me, Thomas, do you want me to black your eye?’

  ‘No, sir. Not as it’ll do you any good. Miss Annabelle is at Lady Repton’s evening reception. Being it’s my duty, I’ll now close the door.’

  ‘Do so,’ said the captain, ‘then kindly carry a message to Lady Caroline, advising her that if her door stays closed to me I’ll break it down.’

  ‘Ah, has I heard you correct, sir?’ asked Thomas.

  ‘You have.’

  ‘Very good, sir,’ said Thomas, and closed the door. He carried the message upstairs to Helene, passing over the fact that Lady Caroline was pecking at her supper in the dining room.

  Helene, about to go down to join the servants at supper in their hall, received the message in startlement. ‘He is not serious, Thomas?’

  ‘Well,’ said Thomas, ‘I didn’t like the look in his eye, I tell you that.’

  ‘Oh, poor Captain Burnside,’ said Helene. ‘At the first blow on the door, Lady Caroline will have him arrested. She’ll send Sammy for the Bow Street Runners. I had better go down and talk to him.’