|
|
|
|
|
|
|
DEATH OF A COURTESAN CHAPTER 1 April 1764 The murder created no stir at all at first. Even the discreet house of pleasure which was the dead woman’s home was barely disturbed by her passing. Only six hours later did the furore begin. And then it bade fair to encompass all those on the town. For Estelle – the fashionable impure whose fame rested on the extortionate cost of her favours – had been murdered in the same bed to which so many gentlemen of the ton had sought admittance. And murdered – it was whispered – in the course of an orgy! The respectable matrons who passed on and embroidered this intelligence could only speculate on the circumstances. Their better informed husbands said merely, “Estelle? At Madame Blanche’s gala, I am informed,” and sought the company of whichever of their contemporaries who might admit to having been present on that interesting occasion. But all this happened later. For the moment, we pick up the story at about three of the clock in the early hours of Saturday, 7th April in Madame Blanche’s genteel establishment in King Street, Covent Garden. It would have been inaccurate and lacking in ton to denigrate Madame Blanche’s by calling it a bordello, but undoubtedly its charming inhabitants were to be numbered among the ranks of the fashionable impure. The house had been en fête that night but most of the gentlemen were noq gone home. David, the chief footman, was making his final round to check that all was well when he paused outside the door of Estelle, reigning toast of the town and currently the house’s most sought after inhabitant. A weird sound, half way between a keening and a whimpering had attracted his attention. Well familiar with the sounds normally arising from that bedchamber, this bore no resemblance to anything he had ever heard before. What could be going on? While it was possible that some noble Lord had succumbed to an attack of conscience while visiting Estelle, it hardly seemed likely. At the same time, members of the “polite world” did not care to be interrupted at their pleasures, however strange they might be. It was therefore with great caution that David eased the door open a crack and peered in. As the door opened he noticed a strange smell – sort of greasy. not quite furniture polish, not quite suet … This was forgotten the moment the crack became wide enough to see through. The second footman, Edwin, was stretched out on the bed kissing and cuddling Estelle while emitting the odd keening which had attracted David’s attention. To David it was evident at first sight that Estelle was dead. Dead? He could not have told you how he knew, but there was no mistaking it. Somehow she was no longer there. The failure of the thing Edwin was cuddling to respond to him was the definitive non-response of something dead, not the friendly floppiness of unconsciousness. The sheer weirdness of the spectacle held him spellbound for a second. Then commonsense re-asserted itself. First of all he must put a stop to this terrible necrophiliac fondling of the dead. He went over to the bed and touched Edwin on the arm, “Come on, lad. This isn’t doing her any good. Come down to the kitchen and get warm and we’ll get Mrs Bawdsey to her.” This seemed to David a safe thing to say. Mrs Bawdsey was both midwife and general adviser on women’s troubles to the house. The inhabitants would not, in the normal course of events, have any need for her other function as layer out of the dead. To David’s great relief Edwin allowed himself to be helped up, composed Estelle’s limbs in a decent fashion and followed David down the back stair to the warm basement kitchen. “Well I never did!” said Cook. “And her in the prime of life! Who would have thought it would be her took off?” But no-one suspected anything sinister. Sudden death was commonplace. Usually people had warning of the coming end but not always. Plague still appeared from time to time. Some people were just struck down – an apoplexy you called it if there was no reason known. In any other house the kitchen would now have been filled with such observations as “In the midst of life we are in death” and “all the more important to be sure you are ready for the next world”, but these were felt to be inappropriate when the so-recently deceased was a well-known woman of the town, departed to her maker in the small hours following a night of pleasure. They were particularly hampered in this respect by the presence of Edwin who was known to be deeply attached to the dead woman. A cosy chat on the standard topics for such an occasion thus being impossible, there was an embarrassed silence. The awkward quiet was brought to an end by David saying, “Now, Cook, I’m sure we’re all both tired and parched after the busy night we’ve all had. Most of the gentry have gone. There’s only Sir Malcolm with Chloe and they won’t stir now till morning. Silas Turner,” who delivered the house’s provisions, “came and went hours ago. The French chef is long gone. Why don’t you make us all a dish of tea and then we’ll get to our beds. The kitchen skivvy can take a note to Mrs Bawdsey asking her to come first thing for the laying out and another to Jem the carpenter asking him to come and measure for the coffin. More than that we can’t do tonight. Jacob the hall porter has to be awake in the morning to serve Sir Malcolm if he needs it and let him out. He can let Mrs Bawdsey and Jem in while we get some rest and the skivvy can look after Mrs Bawdsey, won’t you Elly?.” Elly nodded. She slept by the kitchen fire so Mrs Bawdsey’s arrival would wake her anyway. Mrs Bawdsey read the note when she returned home about four in the morning from an accouchement - an undemanding event at which her services had barely been needed. The mother had produced her thirteenth offspring with very little fuss and then proclaimed herself as going to have a good sleep. Mrs Bawdsey decided to doze in her chair by the kitchen stove for an hour or two and leave at half past five to do the laying out. She never liked to leave it too long. Once the corpse started to stiffen the whole business became much more of a chore. She carried out the first part of this programme to the letter. Elly heated some water to make the washing of the corpse easier and she headed upstairs to get the job over with. It was when she started work that the inexorable train of events, which was to encompass so many, started. As slowly as the first rock slipping down a hill with a sort of innocent indolence just before a landslide and with the same promise of inevitable disaster, Mrs Bawdsey trudged upstairs with her bowl of water. It was when she started work that the pattern of events started to quicken. Back went the sheets. Back was folded the expensive silk nightgown. Mrs Bawdsey lingered to examine a rather serious rent in the front of it and to comment to herself on the carelessness of those given to a life of sin and how it would not help them in the next world. Then she turned back to the body. It was at this moment that events started to gather pace. Mrs Bawdsey knew better than to shriek at what she saw and so bring the whole household in on her, but she also knew murder when she saw it. She went out, closed the door and went downstairs to confer with Elly. Elly said that Cook must be told. Mrs Bawdsey said indeed she must, but felt no need to await Cook’s permission before dispatching of Jacob the hall porter to inform the Bow Street Police Office. Cook, when woken, said that Madame must be informed and, instructing Elly to blow up the fire and get a kettle on the stove, went back upstairs to rouse Madame with the unwelcome news. Madame Blanche’s establishment being no more than the length of Covent Garden market away from the office of the Bow Street Runners, Jacob was back with a couple of the Brave Fellows well before either lady was dressed and it fell to Mrs Bawdsey to take them up to Estelle’s bedchamber – it being considered a task unsuitable for the men of the household. Jacob was to send Doctor Hodge up as soon as he arrived. The good doctor, a regular at the house, bustled in saying, “Which of them is it this time?” and, on being told he was wanted in Estelle’s room, headed off up there expecting to see a live patient. That curious and very particular smell however warned him on the threshhold. “Oh dear! Oh dear! What on earth’s been happening to you?” Doctor Hodge always talked to his patients whether living or dead. “Dead, of course, but you didn’t need me to tell you that,” he added to the Runners. Madame Blanche swept in – by now arrayed in a handsome dressing gown of brocaded silk – having been informed of Dr Hodge’s arrival. “Pray continue, gentlemen. My maid Molly tells me that Estelle is dead and that there is reason to suppose she did not die naturally?” “Mrs Bawdsey was starting to lay her out and she noticed that,” and the Runner’s pointing finger indicated a two inch long slit in the soft skin just below the left breast. Narrow and showing no sign of bruising it could easily have passed for a normal fold in the skin. “She says the girl was lying just like that when she arrived – peacefully on her back – and that her nightrobe was already torn when she folded it back.” Doctor Hodge looked, “Yes, I see. No blood. Unusual!” and he hummed and hawed happily. “You get that sometimes. Very rare. Interesting! Pass me my bag,” and, muttering all the time as though to a live patient, “Now you mustn’t mind this, my dear.” “Only a little bit further,” he set about exploring the wound. Finally he roused himself enough to explain to the Runners. “ It’s a very expert wound. Straight up into the heart. If she was lying like this on the bed, the blood would have run down into the body cavity. No external bleeding at all. She may not even have known she had been wounded at all. I’ve known such a case,” and he sighed heavily at the cussedness of life. The Runners were not impressed. They dealt with mayhem as a matter of course. “When?” “Ah, now that’s a very interesting question. Is Mrs Bawdsey still here? She has more experience than I have – the laying out, you know. The body is starting to stiffen and she’s cooled a lot – the body is no warmer than this room now, I’d say. What time is it? Did I not just hear seven o’clock strike? My feeling is that she’s been dead at least six hours and I would think more like eight. What about you, Mrs Bawdsey?” Mrs Bawdsey emerged from the dark corner to which she had retreated hoping not to be put out of the room until she should have gathered as much information as possible for the gossip mill. “I found their note when I got back at four of the clock. I assumed it must have just happened and got here in order to start at six before she was too stiff.” She felt the skin, moved the arms and legs gently and stared at the corpse’s colour. “When I laid out old Granny Wicks she was like this - just starting but even so some parts not really loose. She had passed away around eleven at night and the family said they didn’t like to trouble me before seven in the morning, but I think they were up all night hunting for the will and didn’t want anyone else around until they had found it. They must have found it,” she went on garrulously “because that nephew she was so fond of never got a penny. But when I did Ben Groom last week – and a right mess he was – he’d managed to get under the wheels of their cart out beyond Highbury before they stopped for their midday break and his mate had just loaded him on the cart and brought him back into town. I done him about six-ish but he wasn’t as stiff as she is. I’d say more than six hours ago but not more than eight – or not by much anyway” “There you are, gentlemen,” said Doctor Hodge jovially. “Your experts agree. Now I’ll just go down to the kitchen, if you’ll excuse me and find out if anyone else in the house needs physicking.” “And we need to report back to Bow Street before Sir John goes into court,” So the whole party left the room together, the Runners carefully locking the door behind them.” A commotion greeted them as they came downstairs. Jacob was stoutly refusing to open the front door to permit someone to depart - someone dishevelled but nevertheless clearly a gentleman. “What’s this in aid of?” he was saying testily. “You know we often stay over if the ladies agree and slip out in the morning.” “I’m sorry, Sir.” The luckless Jacob was in a quandary. If Estelle had been murdered – horrid thought – should he be letting out of the house someone who might have had some connection with the crime? But then to commit what in that house was the ultimate crime of refusing to obey a client’s lightest wish… What was a fellow to do? He was rescued by the arrival of the Runners and Madame Blanche. The Runners took charge. “I’m sorry, Sir, for the inconvenience. You are…?” Madame Blanche hurried into speech. “But of course, we know the gentleman …” The gentleman in question merely bowed. “Sir Malcolm Hurst. May I ask who you are and your interest in my movements?” Another apology, “As I said, I'm sorry, Sir. The house is somewhat disrupted by the sad death of one of the ladies. If you would just leave your direction with Jacob here, we need detain you no longer.” “Oh, Jacob knows where I live.” That worthy merely nodded and opened the door. “May I call a chair for you, Sir Malcolm?” “Thank you, but I told my people to have the carriage here just after seven and there, I think, they are.” Sir Malcolm made his escape, Madame Blanche saw the Runners off the premises and the inhabitants of the house settled down to get over their shock, tell anybody who had not been present all about it and get on with the business of providing themselves and those earlier risers who were astir with slices of bread and butter and cups of chocolate. Madame Blanche however made it her first task to dispatch a messenger with a note to a certain Mr Silas Turner, telling him to avoid the house until it was clear of Runners. She then left the house to pay a hasty visit to a friend. She felt desperately the need for a confidante, but even to her she did not propose to tell the whole story. Estelle had been more to Madame Blanche than just a source of profit.
* * * * * *
“Am I to understand that there were no marks on the girl apart from the fatal knife wound?” asked Sir John Fielding. “That’s right, Sir, and no blood either.” It was William Wright who was reporting back to Sir John. ”You can’t knife someone and not let blood,” expostulated Sir John, “Apparently you can, Sir. At any rate Doctor Hodge knows of other cases. It’s all to do with how she was lying. On her back, all comfy in bed. It’s not a big wound and all the bleeding stayed inside her.” “Better not let all our villains know that or we’ll have half London dying of unexplained causes.” “Quite, Sir.” “So tell me about the girl and where she died.” ”The house is in King Street. It’s owned by a Madame Blanche and it’s a house of assignation.” ”A bagnio?” meaning a bordello. “Not quite, Sir. You could almost call it a common lodging house – except that it’s not common at all. Got up in the most spanking style – no expense spared, all rooms lavishly furnished, high class French chef, porter, major domo, footmen, maids etc and the what-you-might-call tenants. “Ah, them! What else might I call them?” “Well, you might call them whores, if you were being blunt, but they aren’t common or garden street-walkers. They’re all real high-flyers. The sort who are seen driving or walking in the park or appear at the opera or Madame Cornelys’ concerts resplendent in silk velvet and lace court dresses complete with demi-train, powdered hair and feathers. All of them charge a high price for their services – if they consent to receive you at all - and at least one of them has a lawyer negotiating a contract for the price of her surrender to an lovelorn peer. All are well enough found to pay Madame Blanche’s extortionate rent for the use of their rooms and the common parts of the house. It’s a common enough arrangement with no real harm to it. There has never been any point in prosecuting Madame Blanche for keeping a disorderly house. In the first place we’d never be able to prove it - why shouldn’t a number of single ladies share a house and why shouldn’t their gentlemen friends visit them there where they can chaperone one another? – and in the second, it isn’t disorderly. It’s a well managed enterprise and prosecution would only drive all the women into worse conditions.” Sir John was quite surprised by William Wright’s vehemence. “As you say, a fairly normal arrangement with which we have no reason to interfere - if no-one suffers from it. What’s the place like?” “It’s a handsome double-fronted house just down the road from here, facing onto King Street. The ground floor just has cloakrooms, a library and Madame’s saloon and bedroom. The reception rooms are on the first floor, two floors of handsome bedrooms above and then the attics. Kitchen and so forth in the basement, of course. Normally Madame Blanche’s tenants are free to entertain their clients in their bedchambers of offer them tea or dinner in the reception rooms on the first floor. Unfortunately for us, once every so often Madame Blanche throws what she calls a Gala. She threw one last night. Fees for Madame’s galas are far from cheap and she accepts no more than twelve gentlemen guests. She has four ‘tenants’ at present, so for an additional fee some of the gentlemen can bring their own ‘particular’ – if she’s well enough behaved to fit in. For what they pay the gentlemen get the finest food and drink that Madame and her chef can find, a select ensemble of musicians playing quietly at one end of the rooms so that the guests can dance, should they wish to do so. Alternatively they can chat or play cards or enjoy whatever other services the gentlemen can persuade the ladies to provide. The ladies get out of it a percentage of the takings, once the costs have been paid, and whatever little expensive trifle a gentleman may press upon them to express his appreciation of their company. It is a private party and in theory it is nobody’s business but theirs what high jinks they get up to. I am given to understand that tickets to one of Madame’s galas are highly prized and are not available to anyone who, on a previous occasion, failed to prove themselves agreeable.” “Sin, with a gilded coat!” commented Sir John. “Oh, very much so. But the coat is pure gold leaf, which is what makes the enterprise so successful. Anyway, one of these shindigs took place last night. From just before ten o’clock onwards coaches and sedan chairs deposited their gentlemen at the door to be greeted by Jacob, passed on to Madame’s high-priced major domo, relieved of their coats by footmen and greeted at the head of the staircase by the sound of music and the seductive lassies. In short, the murder took place in a house full of members of the quality behaving in a way they would not wish to be made public.” “Tricky,” observed Sir John. You’d better take charge of the investigation yourself. Find out who was there doing what and try to narrow down the lists of potential murderers. I must go into court now but I shall want your report at the end of the day when I come out of court.”
* * * * * *
Just the other side of Covent Garden from King Street lay a very different household from Madame Blanche’s. The residence in Henrietta Street of the Hon. Richard Devereux, the third son of the Earl of Deal, managed to maintain an astonishing degree of respectability for the home of a bachelor sprig of the nobility. Richard, recently returned from India, seemed moderate in his cups, not given to the muslin company and not even a hardened gamester. Not that you could call him a puritan. Richard was a member of the polite world and it was a rare evening that did not find him at the opera, a soirée, a ridotto, a concert or at least a convivial evening with friends in the tavern. Only the close-knit circle of Covent Garden neighbours knew that nothing in this quiet ménage was quite what it seemed. Even the house had its history. Its former occupant had been Mrs Albegg. A singer at Drury Lane, her favours were assumed to be available to the highest bidder. She, for her part, made sure the bids were high enough by ensuring her admirers’ comfort. As a result, the house’s basement stone kitchen had big windows on to the sunk courtyard outside and a good closed stove – Mrs Albegg had regarded good refreshments for her guests as a priority – which dispensed cheerful warmth. The necessary house was only just across the courtyard and there were enough stools and chairs for the entertainment of guests. This palace of warmth, comfort and good cheer was presided over by Richard’s cook-housekeeper, Meg Swift, supported by the weekly washerwoman, a char hired in to help with the rough and with the dubious help of a scrap of humanity called Polly, all of six years old, recently accepted by Meg as a parish apprentice. Polly, fresh from being fostered in the country, like all parish orphans, was fattening up nicely now she had joined the household in Henrietta Street and learning to be a real help in the kitchen. On Richard’s valet and butler, Tom Swift, fell the responsibility of making sure that his master always left the house looking as a well-bred young man of fashion should. Bob, their ten year old son – in training to be himself a valet when he grew up – lent a hand when time permitted but Richard’s hard edict had recently sent him to the parish school to learn his letters and figuring. Bob was well aware of the opportunity this offered but none the less viewed the change in his circumstances with some lack of warmth. In the Swift’s world, to be literate and able to cast accounts were valuable assets for any man, but the process of learning was proving unpleasant and he rather wished their master were less careful for the good of his staff. So far the appearance of normality was maintained. But Tom and Meg did not originate from the secure and respectable background of domestic service to the great. Tom indeed had, as a child, won fame within a limited circle as an expert pickpocket. Meg, declining the pressure to earn her living on the streets, instead put her skills to use cooking for those who did so. Both had had a wide acquaintance in the subterranean world of the dishonest. Joining the East India Company as a soldier had been Tom’s way of escaping the rope and India had brought them comfort and respectability as Richard’s acolytes. All three were content. All this modest happiness was maintained by Richard Devereux on the £500 a year left him by his grandfather. The fact that he had returned from India rather better shod than he went - sufficiently so, indeed, to warrant a far more showy establishment - was not a fact which he wished to broadcast at this stage of his life. The evening before the stirring events at Madame Blanche’s he had been from home – though not at Madame Blanche’s. His mother had commanded him to squire her to the Duke and Duchess of Grafton’s dress ball. “Am I condemned without the option, Madam?” said her undutiful son. “I’m afraid so, Richard.” Viscountess Deal smiled, acknowledging nature of the query. “Your father refuses. It ought to be Stephen, but I could never be sure that he would remember the engagement or turn up sober. Douglas is away on manoeuvres; so you’ll have to do your duty. The family must be represented.” Richard surrendered to force majeure. The Duke of Grafton was a minister in the government and a great-grandson of Charles II. For the Deal family not to be seen at the Graftons’ annual dress ball would be tantamount to withdrawal from society and provoke endless speculation. Irrelevant that the Graftons themselves were known to have had a devastating row and not be speaking to one another. Attendance was still de rigeur. So it was that Richard had emerged from Tom Swift’s hands the previous evening resplendent in his very best evening suit – coat, waistcoat and breeches in cut embossed scarlet silk velvet, black knitted silk hose, black shoes with enormous cut steel buckles – his hair powdered, a jewelled small sword at his side and a handsome diamond star on one shoulder (both a product of his Indian days). Tom folded him tenderly into the chair waiting outside and sent him on his way. “I’ve told the bullies escorting you to wait in Lord Deal’s kitchen until you return from the Grafton’s and then escort you home. They’ve been paid half and won’t get the rest till you get back here safe.” Richard laughed, “Stop your mother hen-ing and go and enjoy your evening. You needn’t wait up for me. A candle in the hall will do.” The Graftons, whatever their differences, received their guests in form - he, bun-faced, relaxed, charming; she, not beautiful but commanding, dignified and graceful. Richard delivered his mother to one of her cronies and turned - to be pounced on by the two Sophies, keen to receive and pass on gossip. Sophonisba, Countess of Surrey could be guaranteed to be up-to-date with the political news. Her elegantly turned on-dits had wrecked many a budding political career. Lady Sophronia Ellis’s speciality was society scandal delivered with her own panache. Together the two ladies were a force to terrify the most assured aspirant to high position. But Richard was unmoved. He had no such aspirations and enjoyed the ladies barbed utterances and the elegant shafts they continually aimed at one another. “Lady Surrey, your most obedient. Lady Sophronia, how delightful!” and he made them an elegant leg. “Dear boy!. And how is your father? Not here I see?” Richard laughed. “No grist for your mill there, I’m afraid. He’s well – just shied off this parade in the most shameful way. Mother said she couldn’t rely on Stephen.. ” Both ladies nodded knowingly. The heir’s devil-may-care habits were known. “Douglas is on manoeuvres so mother co-opted me. I only wish I could supply you with some tale of family disruption to make the party go with a bang.” Sophronia cast an eye back towards their hosts, “You really have no need to go to such lengths today and in this house,” she said meaningfully. “And have you any news of the sad Mr West?” The Reverend Mr West’s wife, formerly Lady Constance Marriott, had been killed the previous year and Richard had been instrumental in discovering the perpetrator of the crime and minimising the distress to the family. Mr West, having subsequently received a country living from Lady Constance’s brother, was no longer in town. “As it happens I have a correspondent in the West Country who knows of my interest in him and I received news yesterday. He is indeed settled in an comfortable modern vicarage with its own farm, is reputed to give an excellent sermon and is, I understand, attracting some notice among the local ladies as an interestingly sad but eligible single gentleman.” “A most distressing affair.” Sophonisba passed judgement. “But not all bad,” added Sophronia, nipping in with some news. “Sarah” – the dead girl’s sister – “has just produced a son.” This was news indeed. Ten years of barrenness had produced tensions in Sarah’s family which had once threatened to destroy it. All that would now be healed – if only the baby lived! Young life was so fragile. “I see the silk weavers are causing trouble again.” This from Lady Surrey. Two years previously the silk weavers had rioted over the loss of trade caused by the importation of French silk following the end of the war with France. Their protest had been successful and the import of silk was prohibited. “Now they are waiting on his Majesty” i.e. marching to the palace in a noisy and disorderly way, “over the issue of smuggled silk.” “Poor things,” Sophonisba looked smug. Lack of means meant that her gowns were always made of Spitalfields silk. Sophronia shifted uneasily in her Paris gown and hurried to trail more bait. “One can only be sorry for poor Susan Fox-Strangeways,” she said in a carefully artificial tone. “Never an attractive girl – that puppy fat, you know. One feels she should have grown out of it. And so gauche, so controlling and so ill-fitted to govern anyone even herself! One could only be glad when she became smitten with the theatre bug, but then I suppose one should have foreseen that she would go too far” and Sophronia paused artistically to await the inevitable enquiries into what it was that Susan Fox-Strangeways had done to blot her copybook now. Susan, the daughter of Lord Ilchester and niece of Lord Holland would have had an assured place in society, save for her social ineptitude. “What’s she done now?” Hannah Wentworth, Richard’s childhood friend had joined the group. “Married!” “No!?” “Eloped!” This was scandal indeed. “Who?” ”She stole away yesterday. They were married at St George’s Covent Garden.” That at least was better than a trip to Gretna Green. A woman who had been so lost to propriety as to travel for two to three days alone in the company of a man to whom she was not married could not hope to be again admitted to polite society. “Yes, but who?” It was obvious that she could not have married anybody suitable or the banns would have been called with all proper formality. “William O’Brien.” There was silence. Then, “Oh, dear!” and the group dispersed. The matter was too bad for further converse. For a woman to marry beneath her was always a subject for scandal: the wedded pair usually had to make their new life together abroad. But to marry an actor! Such a woman could not, of course, be part of any future social interaction with her former friends. What would she do? Richard was sobered by this exchange and found himself exchanging glances with Hannah Wentworth. “I don’t know how it is,” she said, “that some people seem to be born into the world with a gift for getting things wrong. Susan should have had all the advantages life has to offer, but somehow she has always managed to ruin things for herself,” and she sighed. It occurred to Richard that Hannah herself was an exponent of doing things the right way – quietly spoken, with no parade but also no lack of assurance, always neat but not over-dressed and kind to a fault. She was looking charming tonight in a deep pink robe over a cream petticoat dotted with hundreds of embroidered pink flowers. “Yes, it’s sad,” he said. “Now will you stand up with me? I see they are just forming up for the start of the country dances.” Richard went on to dance with Hannah’s two younger sisters – Lady Fanny Desvres, blond, blue-eyed, an experienced matron of twenty two years, and Clara, eighteen and enjoying her first season - before taking his mother down to supper. Clara had been on good form but Fanny had seemed unusually subdued. A lady who normally encouraged a little light flirtation, tonight her eyes were following her husband round the room as he moved from one partner to the next, laughing, talking and offering compliments – Richard saw worry in Fanny’s eyes. Was there trouble there, he wondered? But he had never heard of gallantry being one of John Desvres’ vices. A puzzle, he thought. Later, at supper, he was carrying a selection of the titbits on offer back to his mother when his friend Benjamin Court swooped down, said enigmatically, “My mother wants to talk to you”, and flew off again. Richard, following him with his eyes, saw him rejoin the lady he was escorting just as she left the room. “And what was that about?” wondered Richard’s mother, having caught the exchange. Richard prevaricated. “I wonder! Do you think perhaps she wants me to procure something for her from India? Whatever it is, I had best see her and find out.” After supper he lost no time in finding Mrs Court and seating himself beside her on the sofa to watch the dancing. “Benjamin tells me you have a friend who is looking for an estate?” she said. “He asked me to keep it in mind if I heard anything. Do you think your friend might be interested in Ivy Hill House? It’s just beyond Addington, on the way to Westerham.” Richard gave the news a cautious welcome, “Tell me more.” “The basic house is good redbrick with large windows looking down over the Weald. Built about fifty years ago, panelled throughout, five or six good bedrooms, library, morning room, dining room, a saloon or two and so on. But Fitzgerald who owns it, has just added a wing at right angles to the main block in the new classical style with a new carriage drive leading up to the new front door. I believe Mr Adam has done much of the decoration. The estate does not, I imagine, yield much more than £5,000 a year, but it is still a very pretty property.” It sounds perfect, thought Richard. Not too big nor too far from London but big enough to yield a decent income and give him consequence. He was however still not ready to admit that the searcher for a property was himself “I am greatly obliged to you. It sounds just the right sort of place for my friend. Why is Mr Fitzgerald selling such a desirable property, especially when he has clearly just lavished a great deal of care on it?” “Poor man! Yes, indeed, I am afraid it is the usual story of inability to hold household. Too much money spent on the house and too many losses on the horses. Like our host here, he has only one interest – the stables..” “Our host here has two!” interjected Richard, a remark which earned him a reproving glance from his friend’s mother. The Duke of Grafton’s other interest was well known to be women. “Now, Richard, where have your manners gone? You know that is not a proper thing to say to a female.” “Indeed, sadly astray, ma’am. But do, I pray, forgive me enough to tell me how my friend may contact this fascinating Mr Fitzgerald. Should he write to Ivy Hill House or does Mr Fitzgerald have a London man of business?” This answered, Richard went on to enquire exhaustively into the well-being of all the members of Benjamin’s family, many of whom he knew from childhood. As a precaution, he also chatted about the vivid colours of some of the silk shawls woven in India and asked whether or not one would be acceptable when he received his next cargo from India. Later, crossing the front hall to find out whether his mother was ready to leave he ran into John Desvres, Hannah’s brother-in-law, husband to the fair and adventurous Fanny. “What, off so soon and alone?” Desvres shrugged. “I have another engagement this evening. Duty!” and he made a comical grimace. Richard finally crept into his own house, having paid off his escort, soon after three in the morning as the sky began to show promise of lightening.
|
|
|
|
