The Regency (32 page)

‘Hello Lucy. It was a good show, wasn't it?
I
saw you from my box, and waved to you, but you didn't see me.'

‘What on earth are you doing here?' Lucy asked. 'Of all the places in London to meet you!'

‘
I
could say the same,' Roberta smiled, 'except that I see
you are on the same errand as me.' And she nodded towards
the children, and then gestured behind her to where Lucy
now saw Bobbie and Marcus waiting, in the company of Mr Firth.

‘
Captain Haworth promised to take the children, and asked
me to come to make it tolerable for him,' Lucy explained.
'Don't tell me your Mr Firth couldn't bear it without your company?’

Lucy had spoken idly, but to her surprise, Roberta suddenly
blushed, and turned away. Lucy took her arm, and since their
turned backs gave them privacy in that crowd, she said,
'You're blushing: what is it?'

‘Lucy, please, you embarrass me,' Roberta said, distressed.

‘
But what have
I
said? Not simply calling him your Mr
Firth again?' Lucy said, puzzled. She had never been noted
for being sensitive to other people's feelings, but looking
towards Mr Firth, she intercepted a glance he cast towards
his employer. It was a look which mingled tender concern with
faint amusement, and something else — a sort of confidence
or accustomedness, the sort of look which might pass between
a husband and his wife of several years' standing. Illumi
nation spread over her features. 'You're in love with him!' she discovered.

Roberta looked up, and then away again, unable to hold
her gaze, and gave a small nod. 'You're not shocked, are you?
I made sure you had guessed many times, from the things you
said.'

‘
Lord, no,' Lucy said, 'though I hadn't thought about it,
truly! But if he feels the same way for you, then I hope you
will be very happy together. He's a splendid fellow! And it's no-one's business but yours, after all.'

‘
Oh, I knew people would be shocked, and blame us, and
talk about inequality of rank and such things. That's why
I've
been at such pains to hide it, even from myself,' Roberta said in a low voice. 'And Peter — Mr Firth — tried hard to disguise
his feelings, too. He talked about
abusing his position —
as
if he had ever done anything,
anything!
But, oh Lucy,
people will gossip and disapprove, and it's so unfair! I'm a
colonel's daughter, though
I
married an earl, and Peter's
father was Papa's old friend, and how can that be unequal or wrong or —?'

‘Hush, Roberta.
I'm
not arguing with you, or accusing you. I'm sure you're suited to each other in every way,' Lucy said,
patting her
arm vaguely. 'Besides, even
if people do talk, it
will blow over. These things always do. Good God, look at
me! People forget even the worst scandals soon enough. When
do you think of marrying?’

Now Roberta lifted her eyes. 'Oh, not until Bobbie has
come of age, of course.'

‘
What? But that's ten — eleven years away! You can't
mean to wait so long!’

Roberta looked surprised. 'But how could I do otherwise?
Bobbie's welfare must come first, and I couldn't marry his
tutor, or deprive him of him. We must continue to hide our
feelings from Bobbie and from the world; only — only I
needed to speak of it to someone, and
I
hoped you wouldn't mind. You will keep my confidence, Lucy dear?’

Lucy smiled.
'I'll
keep it; but
you
won't. All Lombard
Street to an orange you give in and wed each other within two years!'

‘
Never! I couldn't,' Roberta exclaimed, and Lucy mereiy
smiled and shook her head. From seeing them together, she
thought they were admirably suited, and Bobbie evidently
loved and respected his tutor; but she could see Roberta's
dilemma. The talk would undoubtedly be very upsetting if
they were to marry. For her own part, she had always rather do what she wanted, and brave the scandal, but she knew Roberta was made of more delicate stuff. Still, someone was bound to guess sooner or later, and then there would be no point in having the name without the game.

‘We'll see,' she said, and they turned back to join Captain Haworth and the children.

*

On the first Sunday in December, 1807, Mary Skelwith
accompanied her son to the service at the Minster with a
familiar reluctance. She preferred to perform her devotions in
the quiet and privacy of St Helen's, a small church dedicated to
the guild of glass-painters, and not particularly popular with people of fashion; but several times a year, on the important
festivals — Easter, Whitsunday, All Saints', and all through
Christmastide — it was so much expected that everyone
would attend the Minster service, that even Mary Skelwith
baulked at behaviour so particular as to miss it.

It was not that she disliked the service there. She was
orthodox in her religious views, regarding any kind of Enthusi
asm as suspiciously papist, and preferring one minister's
delivery to another's would have looked uncommonly like
Enthusiasm of the most reprehensible sort; but she disliked the social aspects of an attendance at the Minster. Hurry as
she might when the service was over, she had never managed
to avoid speaking to some at least of her neighbours. John,
who had a sociable nature, was inclined to linger and encourage
the contact.

On this particular occasion she was more anxious than ever
to escape, for during the service she had glanced towards the
enormous Anstey pew, and seen that the former Miss Celia
Anstey, now Mrs Philip Masters, was paying a rare visit to her
family. Celia and Mary had been friends in their girlhood —
close friends, Celia would have said, for she had been very pretty and popular, and since Mary had been neither, it had
suited Celia to claim her as a bosom-bow.

But Celia had fallen in love with James Morland, and had
pursued him determinedly with, in many peoples' view, a
good chance of success. When James rejected her, and what
was worse, rejected her because of his hopeless passion for
Mary Loveday, Celia's jealousy had known no reason. She
had spied on Mary and on James so diligently that she alone
had discovered the secret of their guilty liaison. She had used
the knowledge to try to blackmail James into marrying her;
and when he had refused, contemptuously, she had retaliated
by telling old Skelwith himself what was going on.

Things had not gone quite as Celia had planned; for
though Mary and James had suffered in the resultant storm,
Celia had also come off badly. She had been mocked as a
jealous spinster, and things had been made so uncomfortable
that her father had been forced to send her away to an aunt
in Harrogate, and to keep her there until a marriage could be
arranged for her with a very dull and respectable business
associate.

All those things were far in the past. Celia Masters rarely
visited York, even after her marriage, and probably no-one
now remembered anything about her part in the old scandal.
But that she remembered, and still resented, was clear from
the lowering look she gave Mary when their eyes met during
the sermon, and Mary was eager, even desperate, to avoid any
contact with her.

It was not so easy, however. When the service was over,
John gave her his arm down the aisle, but at the door, when
she tried to draw him away for the short walk home, he
resisted, scanning the emerging crowd for friendly faces and
bowing happily this way and that.

‘
There's Lady Mickelthwaite nodding — do nod back,
Mama, she's so good-natured! There's Mrs Cowey and the
Miss Coweys, inseparable as usual. And over there, look, the Pobgees — I must find a moment to see young Pobgee about
that lease in St Leonard's Place. Not now, however — here
are the Morlands coming out. We must go and speak to them.
Do come, Mama!’

The Morland party consisted of Edward Morland, Miss
Nordubois, Fanny Morland and her governess, and Miss
Sophie Morland. Lady Henrietta was a papist, as was well
known, and in any case had been much confined to bed
lately; and evidently Mr James Morland had decided to keep
her company that day. As Edward Morland immediately
joined his party with the Pobgees, and engaged Mr Pobgee
senior in conversation, John Skelwith approached them
with plenty of excuse, though it would not have escaped the
attention of some observers that it was to Miss Nordubois
that he really wanted to speak.

But Mary hung back, allowing the press of people emerging
to separate her hand from her son's arm, and once free of
him, turned and began to inch her way through the crowd,
bent on escape down High Petergate to Stonegate and safety.

But it was hard to cross the current of outward-flowing
humanity, and in her determination she thrust herself
directly into the path of the emerging Anstey party.

It was impossible to ignore them. John Anstey was amongst
her oldest acquaintances, dear friend of her brother Tom who
had died of despair when the Loveday business finally foun
dered during the panic caused by the Invasion Scare of 1803.
Mary stood, angry and alarmed, defeated and at bay, making a last attempt to avoid Celia's malicious attentions by asking after John Anstey's numerous children — another was due at
any moment, explaining his wife Louisa's absence — and for news of the youngest Anstey brother, Benjamin, of whom the
whole family was extravagantly proud.

John Anstey, everyone's friend, and a lifelong defender of
Mary Skelwith, fell to work with vigour, giving her all manner
of details about Louisa's pregnancy that Mary would not
normally have wished to hear, and discussing the political
situation just as if she knew what he was talking about.

‘
Ben's doing very well at the moment — he's quite one of
Canning's pets, you know. We had a letter from him just last
Thursday. Canning sent him out to Portugal with Lord
Strangford — I expect you know all about that mission.’