Regency Rumours (28 page)
Authors: Louise Allen
The front door opened as if by magic as he swept her up into his arms and carried her up the steps, but there was no one to be seen in the hall with its wide staircase. Giles carried on up to the first floor to where double doors stood open on to a room decorated all in palest grey and in blue silk with a wide Venetian window framing the landscape and, as he had promised her, a very big bed.
‘Lady Isobel Harker,’ Giles said as he set her on her feet. ‘There is something in the marriage service about worshipping you with my body and I take promises very seriously.’
‘I hope so, Mr Harker,’ she murmured as he began to unfasten her gown. Silk and lawn whispered to the ground, her stays followed with a facility that she would tease him about later. But now this felt too important for levity, only for deep happiness.
Giles carried her to the bed and stripped off his own clothing. ‘I have never seen you without all those bruises,’ she murmured, running her hands over the
flat planes of his chest, the ridged muscle of his stomach. ‘I was too nervous to notice in the pool that they had gone.’
He lowered himself over her, his scarred cheek resting next to her smooth one and she twisted so she could kiss it, then his nose with its new bump.
‘I love you,’ he told her as his hands began to caress her. Every time he said the words it seemed to her that it was never just a phrase. Each time he seemed to find it wonderful and new, a surprise to love and be loved.
‘Show me,’ she whispered back, curling her legs around his waist, cradling him between her thighs where she had wanted him for so long.
‘Eight weeks of respectability is all very well,’ Giles said, his voice husky. ‘But it makes a man very, very impatient.’
‘So am I,’ Isobel told him, and lifted her hips to press against him, took his mouth and thrust with her tongue to tell him it was all right to be urgent, to take her. It had been a long time since Lucas, but for all his scarce-controlled desire Giles was gentle. She opened to him when he entered her, as he slid home deep and sure to make her his, and then she lost every trace of apprehension in the heat and the joy of their merging and the pleasure that he spun
out of caresses and kisses to send her wild and desperate for release.
They cried out together and sank into sleep together. When she woke Giles was watching her and lifted his hand to trace where his eyes had been roaming, across her brow, down her cheek, softly over her lips.
‘You were meant for me,’ Isobel told him.
‘I know. I think I knew from the moment I caught your hand in the lake and feared I was too late. Mine,’ Giles said. ‘Mine for ever.’ And he began to prove it all over again.
Afterword
Sir John Soane and Sir Humphry Repton— the changing face of Wimpole Hall and its park
One of the main reasons I was so attracted to the early nineteenth century for my story set at Wimpole Hall was the discovery that Sir John Soane was deeply involved in the improvements made by the Hardwickes.
I became fascinated with Soane after my first visit to his home in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, now the Sir John Soane’s Museum (http://www.soane.org/). Soane (1753- 1837) was a very active and ambitious architect who, amongst other commissions, designed the Bank of England.
He was also a passionate collector of art and antiquities, and he designed his home to accommodate his collections, his family and his architect’s office. The interior is perfectly preserved, and is not only an example of Regency taste at its most refined but also gives a vivid impression of the man himself. Where else could you find a ‘monk’s cell’ designed as a gentleman’s retreat in close proximity to one of the finest Egyptian sarcophagi in the country?
His two sons were a great disappointment to Soane and it seemed possible that he might make a protégé of an able young man from his office—which was my starting point for the character of Giles Harker.
When Philip Yorke, later to become the Third Earl of Hardwicke of this novel, was on the Grand Tour in Italy in 1779 he wrote, ‘An English architect by name Soane, who is an ingenious young man now studying in Rome, accompanied us [to Paestum] and measured the buildings.’
Philip Yorke remembered Soane and, after his return to England, commissioned the architect to work on his Hertfordshire house, Hamels. When he inherited the earldom from his uncle in 1790 he set Soane to transform
Wimpole Hall. The architect—who was still plain Mr Soane at the time of this book—worked extensively on the house. Improvements by him which can be seen today include the Book Room, the spectacular Yellow Drawing Room, the alterations to the Great Staircase to allow for the building of the Bath House and considerable remodelling on the first floor. He was also responsible for the Home Farm.
At the time this book is set Soane’s work at the Hall was largely concluded, but I imagined he might have been called in for an opinion on the Hill House, which becomes so significant for Giles and Isobel.
Sir Humphry Repton (1752-1818), the great landscape architect, was also much involved at Wimpole Hall and he is mentioned in this novel, although he never makes an appearance. Many of his suggestions—floating boats on the lake so their masts can be seen from the house and changes to the Hill House amongst them—were not adopted, but he created one of his famous Red Books, showing his proposals for transforming the landscape of the park, and this still survives at the house. His design for the formal gardens at the North Front were used after his death.
Other gardens designed by Repton include the Royal Pavilion at Brighton, Longleat, Woburn Abbey and Tatton Park.
In the footsteps of Giles and Isobel at Wimpole Hall
Isobel enters Wimpole Hall through the western gates, past the Hardwicke Arms, which is still an inn to this day. In 1800 it was considered one of the best on the Old North Road, the route we will have taken from London. Although it dealt with the stage and mail coaches, it made most of its money from the wealthier post-chaise travellers and derived considerable benefit from being at the gates of Wimpole Hall.
These gates are closed to the public now so we must approach from the eastern side and leave our chaise—or car—
behind the stables which were built in 1854, replacing the old ones closer to the house. The service area, with kitchens, wash house, larders and stores around the central yard where Giles brought the half-drowned Isobel and Lizzie, has also gone—it was attached to the eastern end of the house.
Like Isobel, we climb the steps to enter through the front door and find ourselves in the Entrance Hall. To our right is the Ante-Chapel, now separated by screens, but originally a separate room. The tour of the house takes us through the South Drawing Room, where Isobel overheard Giles’s scathing opinion of her looks and manners, to the Long Gallery, where the family put on their amateur plays, and into the Book Room, which leads to the Library.
Returning, we go through the northern rooms—the Red Room, the spectacular Yellow Drawing Room, the Breakfast Room and the Grand Dining Room (or Eating Room as it is labelled on Soane’s plans).
We climb the Grand Staircase and our tour takes us to the Lord Chancellor’s bedroom and dressing room—the chambers I appropriated for Giles’s use. As we pass through the lobby to reach the front of the house, look up. You will see the ‘snob boards’ that ensured that the servants moving around on the upper floor could not look down at the family and guests. The doors between the servants’ areas and the main house are all faced with studded baize on the staff side, to make certain that even in the dark no servant could stumble into the family side by accident.
I gave Isobel the room that is now known as Mrs Bainbridge’s Study as her sitting room, with the room beyond as her bedchamber and the Print Room as her dressing room. Only this small central part of the first floor is now open to the public. The western side of the house has the Earl and Countess’s suites, including her spectacular semi-circular dressing and sitting room. The eastern wing holds more bedchambers.
The attic floor above is where the nursery rooms were located, with a south-facing aspect and a beautiful view over the park.
The official route now takes us down to the Bath House, created by Soane in about 1792. The dressing room is warmed by a fire and the water heated by a boiler—a very luxurious bath indeed! It is an unusual indulgence to find in a house of this period, when bathing houses and plunge pools were very popular but were usually located outside and filled with cold water. Of all the treasures of Wimpole Hall, this is the room I would most like to transfer to my own home!
From the Bath House we descend to the basement, with the Chapel and the remains of the service rooms. The kitchen, laundry, bakehouse, game larder, shoe room, fuel stores and servants’ privies were all in the now demolished Service Wing, with the original Servants’ Hall and the Steward’s Room in this basement area.
When we follow Isobel outside there is no trace of the Castello d’Aqua, where she stumbles over Giles dealing with the plumbing, so I guessed at its location and put it into the shrubbery. The park is full of delightful walks and surprise views—of the lakes where Lizzie almost drowned and of the Folly that Repton wanted to convert into a gardener’s cottage, much to her indignation.
The Hill House, or Prospect House, was demolished at some point in the nineteenth century, after being derelict since the 1780s. I have blamed Giles for its demolition, although that probably took place later. It must have been both charming and elegant, and its image is preserved on a dessert plate in a service in the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. Other plates surviving from the service, which was made for Catherine the Great by Josiah Wedgwood, show the Folly and the lakes at Wimpole.
The naughty frescoes in the little chamber are from my imagination, but in July 1800 the Reverend James Plumptre
described the Hill House as ‘…a scene of desolation…The Tea Room was simple and elegant; the little room on the side was a rare specimen of painting, of Etruscan figures in colours…The place [is now] made a shelter of deer and sheep…’.
Now, sadly, all that can be traced is a dip in the ground and a few pieces of stone poking out of the turf, but the view southwards is as delightful as it was when the little house was erected.
The Yorkes
From his portrait, which still hangs in the Hall, Philip Yorke, Third Earl of Hardwicke (1757-1834), seems an intelligent and charming man as he regards the observer with large brown eyes and just a hint of a smile on his lips. From all accounts he was a model landowner, a good landlord and a conscientious first Lord Lieutenant of Ireland—a post he held 1801-6.
He inherited the title from his uncle who, like Philip’s father, was one of the sons of the First Earl of Hardwicke. That earl, as Lord Chancellor, was responsible for Hardwicke’s Marriage Act in 1754, which put an end to irregular ‘Fleet Marriages’. As a result, couples who wanted to avoid a Church of England wedding by banns or licence were driven to elope across the border into Scotland, where the law made marriage far simpler. Unwittingly, the Lord Chancellor provided a rich source of inspiration for future romantic novelists!
Philip’s wife Elizabeth was an intellectual who wrote numerous plays which the family performed in the Long Gallery.
The Court of Oberon, or The Three Witches
was particularly successful and was reprinted several times. She cared for the tenants, founded a Sunday School and would not allow beer houses on the estate.
Their four daughters—Lady Anne, Lady Catherine, Lady Elizabeth and Lady Caroline—all survived into adulthood but,
tragically, young Philip, Viscount Royston, drowned in 1808, returning from the Grand Tour and Charles died of scarlet fever in 1810, leaving the Earl with no son to inherit. The title passed to a nephew, and eventually Wimpole was sold in 1894.
The estate was bought by Captain and Mrs Bambridge. Elsie Bambridge was the only surviving child of Rudyard Kipling (and a very remote cousin of mine, through her American mother and members of my family who emigrated to America in the seventeenth century, I was delighted to discover!). Mrs Bambridge spent many years restoring the house and on her death in 1976 it was bequeathed to the National Trust.
Research and sources
I began with the National Trust guidebook and
Wimpole: architectural drawings and topographical views
by David Adshead (2007). This gave me numerous plans, drawings and photographs to work from, including pictures of the Hill House and the ‘before and after’ plans Soane drew up for the interior of the Hall.
The guides at Wimpole Hall were extremely helpful and I was fortunate enough to be taken on a roof-to-basement tour, including the attics and the old nurseries, Lady Hardwicke’s sitting room and the basement Servants’ Hall.
Exploring the park is always a joy at Wimpole, but it took me a long time to locate the Hill House. Eventually, with the aid of Google Earth and some rather inaccurate eighteenth-century plans, I managed to find the dip left when the stone was robbed.
The lakes with the dam between them have been dredged and restored, the Folly still draws the eye and scenes simply leapt to life in front of me as I explored—with my husband trying to keep up with my demands for more photographs and making more notes around every corner.
MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK
MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ABOUT THE NATIONAL TRUST
Regency Rumours: Scandal Comes to Wimpole Hall
I lived within a short drive of Wimpole Hall for almost twenty years and grew to love it. A walk in the park in the evening followed by a drink at the Hardwicke Arms at the gates was a perfect way of unwinding after a hard day and on summer weekends I’d take pad and pen and write under one of the great beech trees.