The American Heiress (43 page)

In the house itself, the servants were being pulled between the activity necessary for the imminent arrival of the Duke and the natural desire to congregate in the kitchen and interpret every call for hot water or clean linen from the Duchess’s bedroom. Much of this discussion was theoretical as neither the cook nor Mrs Softley had ever given birth – the title of Mrs was an honorific bestowed with the office, and the maids were, of course, unmarried. Mr Bugler had had to come in more than once to remind his staff that their master was expected any moment and there was still no fire lit in the music room.

Upstairs in the Duchess’s apartments there were periods of quiet punctuated by screams that became progressively closer together as the evening drew in. The screams might have been louder if Sir Julius had not been a keen supporter of anaesthesia in childbirth. He held no brief for the argument that physical suffering was a necessary part of labour – a punishment visited on women since Eve’s tasting of the forbidden fruit – and neither, in his experience, did his aristocratic clients. He had never attended a birth where a woman had refused the blessed relief of chloroform.

The Duchess’s labour was progressing slowly, but that was to be expected in a first delivery. He was a little uneasy that the Duke was not present. In case of difficulty it was imperative to have the husband’s consent to any procedures that might be necessary. The Duchess of Buckingham, the famous Double Duchess, had already hinted to him that the Duke wanted an heir ‘above all else’ but Sir Julius had attended enough noble births to know that the mother-in-law’s wishes might not always be that of the husband. He sincerely hoped that there would be no choice to make. He liked the American Duchess. When he had told her about the hospital he was building so that poor women could give birth safely, she had listened carefully and had pledged a sum that had made all the difference to his plans. He had other patients, ladies with money and position who had organised whist drives, bazaars and even concerts in aid of the hospital, but he suspected that they did so as much for their own social ends as out of any great devotion to philanthropy. Certainly the sums raised bore no relation to the effort expended or the numbers of frocks that were ordered. So he had appreciated the Duchess’s straightforwardness when it came to money, very much.

The evening was drawing in, and there was still no sign of the baby or of its father. Cora was lost in a twilight world punctuated by pain. She would swim towards consciousness on a contraction and then the sweet smell of the chloroform would knock her back into blankness. Finally she woke to a pain so intense that she imagined for a moment that she was being cut open, and then she heard Bertha telling her that it was going to be all right, and then nothing.

As she came round again, snatches of conversation sank into her emerging consciousness.

‘…the Maltravers nose, definitely.’

‘…difficult delivery, I had to use the forceps…’

‘He’s dark, just like his father.’

And then a different sound, one that jerked her into full wakefulness, the thin, clear cry of her baby.

She opened her eyes and saw her mother-in-law, like a great blue crow, holding a white bundle. Cora struggled to sit up and there was Bertha on her other side putting a pillow behind her back.

She tried to speak but her voice was scratched and hoarse.

‘My baby…’ and she put out her arms. The Double Duchess looked across the room at Sir Julius and lowered the baby so that Cora could see him.

‘Here he is, the Marquis of Salcombe.’ Cora tried to take the baby from her but the Duchess drew back a fraction.

‘Don’t you want to recover a little, Cora?’ she said tightly.

Cora shook her head, ‘Give him to me,’ she whispered.

The Duchess again looked across at Sir Julius and he said, ‘I am delighted to tell you, Duchess, that you have a healthy baby boy.’ And then he gestured to Duchess Fanny so that she had no choice but to put the child into Cora’s arms.

Cora looked at the tiny wrinkled face, the milky unfocused eyes, the surprisingly abundant hair and she folded him to her.

The light had gone and Cora was in a half sleep, the baby lying in the crook of her elbow. The Double Duchess had left and now there was only the nurse Sir Julius had brought with him, busying herself over the carved and gilded bassinet that Mrs Cash had sent the week before. Cora could hardly resist the downward droop of her eyelids when she heard the first bells. The noise carried so clearly over the valley that Cora did not hear the door open; she brought the baby closer to swaddle him against the clamour and then she felt a hand on her cheek, and there was Ivo kneeling beside her, his lips brushing their son’s head.

‘You have a son,’ she said.

He took her free hand and kissed it. She saw at once that his face was soft with tenderness. There was no trace of anger or constraint there. He had come back to her. He would be the husband she had known on her honeymoon, and now the father to her son. All the waiting was over. She forgot everything, all the worry and anxiety, as she recognised the tenderness in his face. She wanted to give him something in return.

‘I thought that the baby should be called Guy, after your brother.’

He said nothing and then he stood up and turned his face away from her towards the window. For an awful moment she thought she had blundered. Ivo hardly talked about his brother but she sensed that he was always somewhere in his thoughts. She had wanted to show him that she understood his loss, but all she had done was to remind him of his grief. She was about to call his name when he turned round. His face was in shadow and she couldn’t quite make out the cast of his countenance, but there was no mistaking the tone of his voice.

‘Thank you, Cora, now I have everything I want.’

And he lay down beside her and at last she could breathe him in.

Chapter 24

Protocols

C
ORA LOOKED AT THE PLACEMENT ONCE MORE. THE
red morocco leather blotter with slots for each place round the dining table had been a wedding present from Mrs Wyndham. It was the first time she had used it and she wished that Mrs Wyndham herself was here – she would know whether Lady Tavistock as the wife of a peer ranked higher than Sybil who was the daughter of a duke. Of course Sybil would not mind where she sat, as long as it was near Reggie, but any breach of etiquette on Cora’s part would be pounced upon by her detractors, the Double Duchess in particular.

The Prince of Wales was only staying for two nights and he came without the Princess, but he travelled with two equerries, a private secretary and eight servants. Cora had received minute and irritating instructions from her mother-in-law about how to entertain the royal visitor. Lobster thermidor was his favourite dish, he liked to drink brandy after dinner, not port, and he would not tolerate a delay between courses. He would want to play baccarat after dinner, so Cora must ensure that there were enough seasoned players who understood that the Prince should always think that he had won on account of his skill. There were the bath salts he preferred, the cold roast chicken he liked by his bed in case of night-time hunger and the royal standard that must fly from the roof as long as he was in residence.

Cora had been delighted when the letter had come from the Double Duchess saying that the Prince wanted to act as sponsor to her son. Such a sign of royal favour suggested that the Louvain affair had not permanently damaged her social worth. After nearly a year in the seclusion of Lulworth, she was longing to return to London. But Ivo had shrugged when he heard the news. ‘More trouble than it’s worth, but we can hardly refuse.’ As a result Cora tried to conceal her pleasure about the royal visit from her husband but her mother had no reason to. The Cashes, who had arrived a few days after Cora had given birth, had been due to go back to Newport for the end of the season, as Mrs Cash found staying in a house of which she was not the mistress trying; but the prospect of standing next to the Prince of Wales changed everything. Mrs Cash had cabled M. Worth in Paris for new gowns and she had sent her pearls to be restrung.

Cora picked up the card that read ‘Teddy Van Der Leyden’. He was to be a godfather to little Guy. When she had suggested this to Ivo he had, rather to her surprise, smiled and said, ‘Of course he needs an American godfather. What’s this one like? I hope he has a railway, at the very least.’ Cora had protested that Teddy came from an old Knickerbocker family that was not the railway-owning kind at all, not that there was anything wrong with railroads, and that he was actually an artist. Ivo had looked at her a touch more closely but then he laughed. ‘An American painter, my mother will be
delighted
.’ They had agreed that Sybil and Reggie should both be godparents; Cora hoped that it might precipitate a proposal and Ivo saw another opportunity to irritate the Double Duchess. But when Cora had suggested Charlotte Beauchamp, Ivo had hesitated. ‘Do you really think Charlotte is a suitable moral guardian? Wouldn’t you rather have someone more solid? And what about Odo?’ But Cora had insisted.

‘I like Charlotte, at least she’s not boring.’

Ivo had turned his head away and, looking out of the window, he had said, ‘If that’s what you want, Cora, I won’t stop you.’

Cora decided to put Teddy next to Charlotte tonight. She, of course, would have to sit next to the Prince but she thought that Teddy would find Charlotte intriguing; after all, she had been painted by his hero, Louvain. Her greatest difficulty was where to place her mother. Reggie Greatorex was safe enough but she knew that her mother would be mortified if she was not close to the Prince, but for protocol’s sake she would have to put Duchess Fanny next to His Royal Highness. She decided to put her mother opposite but one, so that the Prince would be able to see her good side. And she would place her father next to the Double Duchess, so she could see for herself if there was a flirtation there.

At last the seating plan was finished. She really ought to have a secretary to write out all the cards, some nice girl who would deal with her correspondence and remember the right way to address a baronet. Her mother and her mother-in-law had both suggested it, but Cora did not want to have an English girl with a long nose and droopy clothes pointing out all the things she didn’t know. She was tired of being made to feel like a hick by the people who worked for her. She was sick of Bugler’s little pauses, by which he indicated that she had crossed an unwritten Rubicon of correct behaviour. When she had asked for all the ladies staying at the house to be brought breakfast in their rooms, he had paused and then said, ‘At Lulworth, Your Grace, it is customary for the ladies to come down to breakfast.’

Cora had stared him down. ‘Well, it is time that Lulworth had some new customs. I have no intention of coming down to breakfast and I think it unfair to expect my guests to do so.’ She turned away in dismissal, but Bugler did not move. ‘Thank you, Bugler, that will be all.’

He was looking at a spot somewhere around her knees. She could see a wiry tendril of hair snaking out of his nostril.

‘Excuse me, Your Grace, but I wondered if the Duchess of Buckingham was aware of the change?’ Bugler kept his gaze lowered and his voice neutral but there was no mistaking the meaning of his words.

‘I am not in the habit of consulting the Duchess about my domestic arrangements, Bugler, not that it is any business of yours. You may go.’

Bugler had withdrawn, leaving Cora feeling foolish for allowing herself to be provoked. She comforted herself with the thought that she would dismiss him after the christening. She had wanted to do this for ages but she had not dared to make such a move while Ivo was away. Now he was back she felt that it was time for her to take charge.

Cora looked up at the portrait of Eleanor Maltravers that hung on the wall opposite her desk. She was still getting used to having the picture in her room. It used to hang in the corridor leading to the north tower in a dark alcove. Cora had found her there one day during one of her long perambulations around the house during her pregnancy, and had been intrigued. From the orange satin of her dress and the deep décolleté this likeness had been made before the Grey Lady had earned her soubriquet. Cora thought that Eleanor must have been about her own age when the picture was painted. But it was hard to tell as it was submerged under layers of dust and dirt. After some hesitation she sent the portrait to Duveen’s in London to be cleaned, deciding that Ivo could hardly object to her restoring a picture that no one had noticed for centuries. She had forgotten about the picture in the excitement of the birth and Ivo’s return, and she had been surprised when the crate was delivered. Ivo had raised an eyebrow when he saw the Duveen stencil on the crate.

‘Have you been shopping again, Cora?’ he said.

Cora shook her head. She signalled to the footman to open the crate, biting her lip as he prised the nails out of the wood. Ivo lingered at the doorway scratching his dog’s head and whistling. Cora held her breath as the footman started to take off the wrappings; Ivo’s presence was making her nervous. Then the piece of canvas came off and Eleanor was revealed. Her skin was white now and her dress glowed, the cleaning had revealed the background to be full of details, there was even a lurcher curled up on a green tasselled cushion. Ivo stopped whistling and stepped forward to take a better look.