The Regency (113 page)

Her eyes widened. 'We can't do that,' she said. 'I have to be
here, to take care of my estate.’

He raised an eyebrow. 'What do you think stewards and
bailiffs are for, my sweet, simple darling? You don't have to
do the work yourself.'

‘
You don't understand. Morland Place has never been run
like that. The master or mistress must be there. It's like —
like a kingdom; my kingdom.'

‘Our kingdom, darling.'

‘
No, Fitz,' she said quietly. 'You may have the income to
spend as you like, you may have all my money, and welcome
to it, but Morland Place is mine, and mine alone.’

He looked down with admiration at her determined face,
and raised her hand lightly to his lips. 'My love, I won't come
between you and your subjects. Don't I tell you, I want you
to be happy?’

*

Edward met Hawker at his club the next day. Edward had
never liked the Maccabbees, and had always used Bookers, in
Coney Street, which was less fashionable, but he found more
solidly comfortable.

Ned determined from the beginning to be calm and business
like, feeling that this would have more effect on Hawker than
an emotional outburst.

‘
You understand, Mr Hawker, that I am Miss Morland's
trustee — her sole trustee? Any decisions about her estate,
until she comes of age, are mine and mine alone.'

‘
I didn't know that, sir,' said Hawker, quite respectfully. 'I
had assumed her father shared that agreeable duty.'

‘
You assumed wrongly. Now, as you can imagine, I am not
at all in favour of the proposed match between you and Miss
Morland.'

‘
I should be astonished, sir, if you were,' Hawker said
pleasantly.

Edward frowned. 'By God, sir, you're a cool one! No wonder
— but I digress. It may interest you to know that I have been
this morning to see the family man of business, Mr Pobgee, of whom you may have heard.' Hawker nodded. 'And I have
confirmed what I already knew, that there is no possible
way for you to get your hands on Miss Morland's fortune,
even if you marry her, until she comes of age. Two more
years, Mr Hawker — have you thought of that?'

‘I have, sir,' Hawker said calmly.

‘
Until then, I remain in complete control of all capital and
income.'

‘I understand that, sir.'

‘
Well, then,' Edward said, unnerved, 'you can't think I
would give you anything?'

‘
I think, sir, that if — when I marry Miss Morland, you will
be obliged to settle my immediate debts,' Hawker said, almost
apologetically, 'or the name of Morland would become impli
cated in my unfortunate circumstances.'

‘
Very well, damn you, I concede that. But you'd be no better
off, for I would not give you a penny more — and, what's
more, I should make sure that the tradesmen understood the
situation, and did not extend you any more credit.'

‘
That would be to admit to the world that you did not trust me. Surely you would not wish Miss Morland to become the
subject of gossip and speculation?'

‘
You won't blackmail me that way, damn you,' Edward
said, keeping his temper with an effort. 'I had sooner live with
gossip, than part with a penny of Fanny's fortune for you to fritter away.’

Hawker did not seem put out. He thought for a moment,
and then said calmly, 'I think you would sooner not live with
me at all. But if necessary, I can live comfortably enough at
Morland Place for two years. It will soon pass. I shall have my
shelter and food, horses to ride, Fanny's company. Perhaps
you and I, sir, can play cards together of an evening. Are you
fond of picquet?’

Edward glared at him. 'Damn your impudence, Hawker!'

‘Damn anything you like, Mr Morland — for there I'll be.’

Now it was Edward's turn to think. 'Very well,' he said at
last, 'now listen to me. I will consent to the marriage, pay
your immediate debts, and pay you a pension for the two
years of Fanny's minority if, and only if, you agree to live abroad for that period. I don't want to share my home with
you. I don't want you under that roof at all, sullying my
mother's memory, and the good name of my family. There
have been Morlands at Morland Place for three hundred and
fifty years, sir, and I have a responsibility to my ancestors,
and to those who are to come after me.’

Hawker smiled softly. 'Of course, those who are to come
will be Hawkers, won't they, not Morlands.’

Edward's face suffused. 'If you don't hold your tongue, sir,
I shall knock you down!' he hissed.

‘
I beg your pardon, sir. It was very wrong of me,' Hawker
said quickly.

‘
Well, what do you say? Do you agree to my proposition?
For I may as well tell you, if you don't, you may go to hell as
far as I am concerned.’

Hawker smiled. 'Well, sir, in view of the consideration that
I should like to share your roof quite as little as you would like
to share mine, and that I am rather fond of the Continent,
and that it would suit me to travel abroad for a while, I accept
your proposal — provided the pension, as you call it, is
sufficient to maintain me in a suitable style.’

Edward grunted, and then settled down to the long
negotiation over figures.

 
15 September was Fanny's wedding-day. She was to be
married in the chapel at Morland Place, for though Edward
didn't like it, the alternative, of St Edward's or the Minster,
was far too public. Besides, as future mistress of Morland
Place, she ought to be wed in the chapel: it was traditional.
There would be no guests beyond the immediate family, and
John and Louisa Anstey. There was already talk enough
about the affair.

Speculation had been running high ever since the betrothal had been announced, and the family had been virtually under
siege, unable to go beyond the estate boundaries without
having to face impertinent curiosity.
Why
the wealthy heiress
Fanny Morland should have been permitted to wed a penni
less adventurer was a question to exercise every mind, high
and low. The obvious conclusions were drawn, and sometimes
even discarded. Those who had disliked Fanny now discovered
they had always known she would come to a bad end.
Those who had liked or admired her could only be puzzled, and assume there was more to Fitzherbert Hawker than met
the public eye.

Edward had written in trepidation to apprise Mr Hobsbawn
of the business, and prayed the old man had not heard
the worst of the stories. A letter came in reply, full of outrage,
demanding explanations, forbidding the nuptuals on pain of
nameless consequences.

‘
I know the fellow, and he's paltry — a fortune-hunter, a
nobody! I saw through him the moment I first clapped eyes on
him, though it's true he did Fanny a great service at one time,
and I was obliged to allow the acquaintance. But how comes
it that you have so far forgotten your duty as to consent to
this marriage? I demand that you put an end to the betrothal
at once.’

Further correspondence resulted in Hobsbawn's threatening
to cut Fanny out of his will if the marriage went ahead;
and then a long silence was succeeded by a letter from Mrs
Murray, saying that her master had been taken ill of a seizure,
but was a great deal better now. Fanny herself wrote,
begging her grandpapa to forgive her if she had offended him,
but that she had found a man entirely to her taste, and was
determined to marry him. She asked permission to bring her
husband to visit her dear grandpapa when they returned from
their honeymoon. To that letter there was no reply, nor to her
subsequent one. Fanny shrugged. For the moment, she must
leave him to fret; but she felt sure that a visit later would
enable her to bring him back round her thumb. Cousin Jasper
was too far out of favour to get back into it so easily.

After the wedding-breakfast, Fanny and her husband were to leave straight away for London, Dover, Calais, Brussels,
and Vienna, where they were to stay with Aunt Lucy for a few
months and enjoy all the social events which surrounded the
Peace Congress. Fanny, who had never been abroad, was
thrilled at the idea, as well as quite seeing the point of removing
herself and her husband from the environs of Morland Place
until the scandal had died down.

The agreement between Hawker and Edward that he
should live abroad for the next two years had been kept secret
from Fanny, and it was for Hawker to break it to her when
their honeymoon was over. How, when and where he did it,
Edward was content to leave to Hawker. If Fanny refused to
come home without her husband, as Ned very well thought
she might, he did not mind in the least: the idea of Morland
Place without Fanny suited him very well, though he kept
these thoughts from James, who was miserable enough without
them.

Héloïse found her sympathies very much divided in the weeks preceding the wedding. James must be her principal
concern, and she did her best, day after day, to reconcile him
to the business, reminding him that he would have resented
any man who took his place in Fanny's heart, and representing
Hawker in as favourable a light as possible. From her
observations, she believed that Fanny really did love him, and
she saw that there was a genuine intimacy between them. She
did not entirely understand it, and it seemed sometimes
almost a little sinister to her, but it was undeniably real, andshe offered that, too, as comfort to James.

The wedding itself looked like being a grave, almost a sad
affair, and in that her sympathies went out to Fanny. A
woman's wedding-day was a very special thing, and if Fanny
was marrying the man she loved, it ought to be an occasion
she could remember without paim Héloïse did everything she
could to make it joyful and pleasant for Fanny; and Fanny
therefore found her only ally in the house was the woman she
had always held in hatred and suspicion, and was touched
and grateful. A better understanding between them had been
obtaining ever since Fanny came out; now at the last moment
it warmed into the beginnings of affection.