She sighed in relief. Mr. Crace, however, would require more work to earn his cordiality. If he was capable of it.
Belle spent a week further at Brighton, walking through the Pavilion with Nash, drawings in hand, and further understanding his and the prince’s vision for it. Mr. Crace never reappeared.
She returned to London, her head stuffed with her own ideas for fabrics to complement the planned exotic Hindu exteriors. She promised to return soon with cloth samples for Mr. Crace’s inspection.
4
Are we aware of our obligations to a mob? It is the mob that labor in your fields and serve in your houses—that man your navy, and recruit your army—that have enabled you to defy the world, and can also defy you when neglect and calamity have driven them to despair. You may call the people a mob; but do not forget that a mob too often speaks the sentiments of the people.
—George Gordon Noel Byron, maiden speech to the House of Lords, February 27, 1812
February 1813
London
The memories of Clive’s betrayal, Wesley’s treachery, her humiliation in Parliament, and the king’s immodest proposal all flew from Belle’s mind as she immersed herself into the world of room design. She remained up late each night in her rooms, surrounded by samples clipped from her bolts and her growing collection of books, floor plan drawings, and colored plates representing Mr. Crace’s designs.
She matched and rematched samples together against the artist-designer’s plans, finally wondering how it was she thought she was capable of any of it. You’re just a draper. You sell cloth. You’re not a designer. You have thoughts of grandeur way beyond your station.
Yet she loved the challenge and wasn’t about to relinquish her task.
And, besides, Mr. Nash told her before she left Brighton not to obsess to perfection over her suggestions, for he and the prince were sure to make numerous changes.
Wesley was of great comfort to her, for he’d taken to his role of her assistant with great aplomb. He was charming and affable to the women who visited the shop, and although Belle suspected he succumbed to the attentions of the more persistent female patrons, she closed her eyes to it. Her brother was discreet, business was thriving, and how could she stop him even if she so desired?
She had to shut her eyes even tighter against his periodic disappearances for hours, so reminiscent of his behavior in Leeds, but she trusted that all would work out.
In January, her Luddite wound was reopened briefly when she heard that George Mellor and his mob of men were convicted in the uprisings in Yorkshire. Thirty-six hours after their conviction—with no time for appeal—he and two of his compatriots were summarily executed before a silent crowd. Dozens more Luddites were transported to the Colonies, and another round of executions resulted in the deaths of fourteen more of Mellor’s followers.
Belle hoped this was the end of worker fanaticism in England.
“So a bunch of rabble were executed, and the court may have been corrupted,” George said to Lady Isabella, who had just shared the news with him. “What of it? They were criminals terrorizing the countryside. Besides, their anger is at Parliament, not me. I’ve done nothing. Therefore, there’s nothing to worry over. When will supper arrive?”
On cue, a servant entered with an overloaded tray of steaming dishes, which he set on the table between the prince and his mistress. Lady Isabella had suggested that they dine here in her rooms, but now questioned the wisdom of that idea, given that the table might collapse under the weight of their food.
The prince signaled for another glass of wine, and endeavored to acquaint himself with selections from every plate.
Lady Isabella sighed. Her royal lover didn’t understand that the people could bring great ruin to the country if their ire was sufficiently roused and they might find the differences between Parliament and the Crown to be mere nuances.
He held up his knife, which had a slice of crispy-skinned duck on it. “Besides, there are so many other problems plaguing me that I can’t be worried about what goes on in the north. Jane Austen has a new novel out, and I’ve yet to secure an inscribed copy for Carlton House. She’s very evasive. Must have my librarian Clarke see to it.
“And of course Caroline continues to try my patience. I’ve isolated her as best I can, and now all of the ton patronize my parties, not hers. But she’s in league with that cursed Whig, Henry Brougham, and together they’re stirring up propaganda against me. But I can wage my own campaign, can’t I? And one that might get Parliament’s attention enough to help rid me of that millstone.”
Apparently the ongoing war with the Americans and Napoleon’s unrelenting agitation on the Continent were of little concern to him in light of his personal domestic matters. Lady Isabella felt her patience being tried. If only his fixation were limited to obsessing over his wife, she wouldn’t be concerned. But now he was consumed with his building projects. It didn’t bode well for the future if his attentions were to be diverted so far from her.
“My dearest heart,” she began, reaching over for a piece of gingerbread cake. “How often will you be leaving me to go to Brighton to visit your new residence? You know how much I miss you when you’re away.”
“Not too often. Just when Mr. Nash needs me to make approvals. And for periodic checks on progress.”
“You haven’t invited me to accompany you yet. I should like to see the progress, too. Or don’t you plan to have me preside there as your hostess? Have you someone else in mind?”
“No need for you to worry, my love. I am as constant as the North Star. You know that, don’t you?”
And that’s what was so worrisome. George’s constancy was well-known to everyone. And now he was focusing his attentions in Brighton, where Maria Fitzherbert still resided, and where the prince had now employed some young chit to paper his walls and unroll rugs.
Lady Isabella’s own constancy these days was a peculiar feeling of dread.
Belle stared at the letter in her hand. Was she angry? Sad? Over a year had passed since her life had so dramatically changed. Ambivalence was the most passion she could muster. She read it again.
14 June 1813
Dearest Belle,
I have momentous news to share with you. Clive and I have married, and are leaving for Wales to be near some distant relatives of his that have promised him work.
I pray you are not too terribly shocked or angered. You know Papa always liked Clive. He thought what went on at the shop was a complete misunderstanding, and that you would soon return to your rightful place here in Leeds. When you didn’t, and we never heard from you except to return that bit of borrowed money, well, Clive gave up hope and sought my father for comfort.
It led to us developing a close friendship, which Papa encouraged. And, truthfully, I saw no other prospects for myself and welcomed Clive’s attentions. Please, dearest friend, may I have your blessing on our union?
Your faithful friend,
Amelia
Belle shared it with Wesley. He read it impassively. “So your best friend is marrying your fiancé.”
“He was no longer my fiancé. Not once he connived you into ruining my life.”
“Sister, I’ve apologized for—”
She held up a hand. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to unearth the dead. Consider the topic reburied.”
Wesley held up a length of Osnaburg linen. It had a grease stain on it. He threw the cloth on a pile of other fabric scraps to be discarded.
“It does bring up an interesting question, Belle. When do you plan to get married, and stop your obsession with decorating people’s homes?”
“Why, Brother, the minute you decide to get married and stop carousing the streets at night like a wharf rat.”
“Peace, Sister, peace. Although, in my defense, if I bring a bit of joy to a lonely woman’s life, what harm have I done? But I believe we should agree to leave each other alone on this topic, eh? Besides, there are more important concerns for us. For
instance, I’ve served this shop well and faithfully for a year. Isn’t it time you let me share in its management?”
Except that you haven’t been faithful, Wesley. You slip out for hours at a time with no explanation. If I run an errand, I never know if you’ll be here on my return.
His overt affection for some of the shop’s patrons reminded her of his fancy for the girls who frequented the Pack Horse Inn. A little too indiscriminate.
And there were some of his strange comings and goings late at night. Occasionally, Belle could hear him banging into their lodgings in the wee morning hours and stumbling off to his room to sleep for an hour or two. That day, there would be no odor of rancid alcohol on him, but he would behave like a man in the aftermath of a drunken stupor, tired and slow. By supper he was fine again. It never affected his sales, for women were too enamored of his cocoa-colored eyes framed by long lashes to notice that he was a little off.
Belle noticed. She’d not said anything because it had only happened a handful of times. But the tiny kernel of doubt that had sprouted inside her was beginning to flourish. She loved Wesley, but, regrettably, she didn’t trust him.
“I don’t know if the time is right for that yet,” she said, turning away so he wouldn’t see the unease on her face.
But she didn’t move fast enough to avoid seeing the resentment in those narrowing brown eyes.
Wesley had the dream again. Not a dream, really, more like a tortured limp through a maze of pain and confusion.
It began as so many of them did.
He was walking through a park late at night, alone. The moon hung low and bright, its dark surface shadows stark against the glow. It was warm and utterly still, without even a stray bat flying overhead for company.
Wesley strolled through the park with a cane, whistling aimlessly. He was always happy in the beginning of the dream, his whistling carefree and joyous and his body that of a hale and hearty young man. He had the sense of being wealthy, and being respected by all he encountered. That feeling of importance was calming and satisfying.
But as he neared a copse of trees in the center of the park, clouds drifted across the face of the moon, sending the park into gloomy grayness as the moon struggled futilely against the jagged-edged mist beginning to obscure it.
His instincts now prickling him with the urge to flee, Wesley kept walking toward the trees, his mind issuing an alarm but his legs unheeding of the warning.
He now reached the canopy of overhanging branches from the oaks and elms on the outer edge of the copse. The leafy spreads served to conceal the filtered moonlight even more.
Still he continued. Now he knew that someone was calling him from inside the grove. A woman’s voice, pleading and begging. For her life? For Wesley to do something? The sounds were indecipherable. Where was she? He could hear her, but couldn’t find her.
In the darkness of the trees, the temperature dropped low enough that Wesley knew he should be shivering, but instead he was sweating profusely. His disobedient legs continued their pace forward, and he was incapable of ordering them to do otherwise.
The woman’s voice was rising, becoming more hysterical. And now he was closer, so he could make out words. “It’s you, Wesley Stirling. You did this to me.” The “me” ended in an anguished choke. “I’ll be with you forever. I’ll never let you go.”
Wesley stopped to mop his brow with a kerchief. But his legs only permitted a moment’s rest, so determined were they on their course.
“Why?” The woman’s voice was rising to a screech. “How could you leave me behind? To be devoured?”
Wesley put his hands against a tree, in an effort to stop his legs from carrying him to what was surely hell. “I didn’t mean it, Alice,” he whispered. “Truly. I couldn’t help it.”
“You’re a liar, Wesley Stirling.”
Wesley jumped. He could feel the warm breath against his ear as the words flowed in like poison.
“No, you must listen to me. I was forced to leave you there.” He wasn’t even sure where to address his words. Up in the treetops? Next to him? Toward the center of the woods? But surely he was near the center now.
“You’re a liar, and will burn on a pyre.” In his ear, the voice cackled happily at her own rhyme. “Liars burn on pyres, pyres are for liars, liars roast in fire on the pyre, heeeeeee!”
The voice seemed to swoop quickly up away from him into the tree branches, shaking and rattling them. Small acorns struck him in the face. And then the voice, or woman, or whatever it was, plunged back down, settling at his ear again.
“I thought you loved me, Wesley, my dearest.”
“I did, Alice, I did.” Sweat was trickling in rivulets down inside his collar.
“But not now?” Her—its—breath was now burning hot on his ear. The stench of something acrid assailed him. Had Death finally come for him? Was it the final divine joke to face your guiltiest moment before descending into Hades?
“No. I mean, yes. Of course yes. I don’t know what you want, Alice.” Wesley could feel his hands being pushed off the tree trunk. Was he falling? He clawed out in front of him, grasping for anything solid. He regained his footing as he made contact with something unrecognizable. It was soft and pliable, like the sweetest of women, yet thick and gummy. His hands were lodged securely in it. He pulled back gently, but could not extricate his hands.
What the hell was it?
It was at this moment that Wesley realized there was no light at all in the woods. Or had he been blinded? He tried again to extract his hands from the gelatinous substance in front of him.
“Pl-please, Alice. It wasn’t my fault. What can I even do now about what happened to you?” If he wasn’t careful, he’d start weeping.
“You can do nothing, my love. But I can do many things. Over and over. Forever and ever and ever. You’ll never leave me behind again, sweetheart.” Her giggle was barely perceptible over the echo of the word “sweetheart.”
And with that, his arms disappeared into the viscous substance up to his elbows and he tipped forward, his face against the slimy, jellied thing in front of him.
And then it was gone.
He was standing alone again in the dense grove of trees. He was no longer sweating, but instead was overtaken by a distinct chill. The chill rapidly plummeted into frigidity. He flexed his hands to work warmth into them, and tried to turn around to once again quit the landscape.
But again his legs were uncooperative. So he stood rooted to his place, shivering and blowing our great plumes of frost. For how long would he be made to stand here, taking this punishment?
And then she was back.
He preferred her in her gelatinous form.
For her voice was back against his ear, hot and heavy with a malicious desire. “No, sweetheart, you’ll never leave me behind. Not while I have you in my arms.”
And those arms, strong as the tree limbs above him, wound their way around his chest, gripping him in a deathly vise. Alice had been fleshy and strong, but he didn’t remember her as being quite so powerful. And with such a long reach.
For her arms were now endless, wrapping around him again and again, a spider entangling an unwary insect in her secret web. And he was the fool who had wandered—no, dashed—into it.
She was squeezing him now. He couldn’t breathe. Wesley could feel a small tingle in the back of his throat, as though she had inserted a thin, hairy leg in his mouth and was probing him.
Not just probing him, choking him. Seizing his breath by both her embrace and her evil scraping from within. He closed his eyes, willing her away, but knowing that she would eventually claim him as her own. He fell to the ground, staring sightlessly through the tree canopy at the moon’s reappearance from the cloud cover, unable to do more than emit a faint gurgle.
And then he awoke.
Wesley sat straight up in bed. The moon was indeed bright. It couldn’t be past midnight. He frantically checked himself in his fading panic. There were no dead
ly tentacles around him and his hands were not covered in anything gummy. He swallowed. Nothing there, either.
But he was sweating profusely, the only reminder of his nightmare. He picked up the package on the table next to his bed and examined it.
I’ll eat no more opium. Ever.
But he knew there would be more. There would always be more. More and more and more until Alice completely devoured him from beyond the grave.
August 1814
London
While Belle’s business grew, and Nash’s projects expanded, war raged relentlessly across the Continent for the next year. Following Napoleon’s disastrous retreat from Russia in October 1812, Prussia, Sweden, Austria, and a number of German states reentered the war, seeing opportunity in the emperor’s defeat. Even the indefatigable Napoleon Bonaparte could not long survive the coalition built against him. In June 1813, the Duke of Wellington broke the will of the French Army at the Battle of Vitoria in Spain. Napoleon was subsequently defeated again at Leipzig in October 1813, and by March 1814 his forces were stretched too thin to effectively protect Paris, which succumbed to his enemies on March 30, 1814.
The hopelessness of his situation forced Napoleon to abdicate at Fontainebleau on April 4, in favor of his son, Napoleon II. However, the allies refused to recognize his successor, and instead reinstalled the House of Bourbon, placing Louis XVIII on the French throne.
Napoleon himself was exiled to the island of Elba, off the coast of Tuscany. Chillingly, Napoleon promised his troops that it was not the end but that he would return to France “when the violets will bloom.” His troops rested assured that their god-like leader would come back for more victories.
Despite Napoleon’s confidence of his eventual retaking of the French throne, England’s happiness over the peace resulting from his abdication lasted for months, and now a splendid exposition, called the Jubilee Fair, replete with fireworks and entertainments celebrating peace, was to take place at Hyde Park on August 1.
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