The Regency (5 page)

‘
God damn that bloody dog!' James cursed as the bays
startled, bunching their quarters and trying to leap away. 'Get
away, Puppy! Get off, you fool!' Durban's hands had joined his
on the reins, and he freed one to lash out at Puppy with
the whip. Puppy yelped, jumped aside, and then somehow became entangled in the horses' legs.

There was a moment of confusion. James felt the phaeton
jolt, and the dog shrieked in pain. Fanny was upon them,
shouting something and further exciting the horses. The bays
struggled, trying to bolt, flinging their heads up and snorting
in distress, and Durban was contemplating throwing himself
out and trying to get to their heads.

And then a new figure entered the drama. A few yards
further on, the road was joined by a track from High Moor which had recently been glorified by the name of Nelson's
Lane, and out of it came a young man on a workmanlike
road-horse, well splashed with mud as if they had come a long
way. He summed up the situation in an instant. He turned his
horse across the road and jumped from the saddle, flung the
reins over the hedge, and stepped up to catch the bays' heads.

‘
Hoa there, hoa there, my beauties,' he cried soothingly.
The bays surged against his restraining hands; the offside
horse kicked out at Tempest, and he flinched away. 'Better
take your pony out of the way, Miss Morland, before he gets
hurt.’

Durban took the opportunity to jump out, and in a
moment he and the young man had the bays at a stand.
Fanny turned Tempest away to the side of the road and
jumped off; left loose he trotted a few paces and then stopped
to graze.

‘Puppy's hurt!' she cried.

‘I can hold 'em all right now,' the young man was saying to Durban, ‘if you want to look at the dog.’

Durban left the horses and went past James, who glanced
behind to see where Fanny was crouching in the road over the
rough grey shape of Puppy. Damn and blast, he thought: if
the dog's badly hurt, she'll be heartbroken. The bays were
standing quietly now, aided by the example of the young
man's road-horse, which stood peacefully eating the hedge
and cocking one stout foot at its ease. James wound the reins,
preparing the jump down, and only then looked properly at
the young man who had come so efficiently to their aid.

The sun broke through the clouds again, and where a bar
of sunlight touched the young man's brown hair, it lit a gleam
of dark fox-red.

‘I'm very much in your debt,' James said. 'John Skelwith,
isn't it? I haven't seen you for quite some time. It must be —
oh, five or six years.’

John lifted his mother's dark eyes and looked at James
steadily. The rest of the face, James thought, was not Mary's:
dear God, how many people must notice the likeness? John
was a little taller than he, more slightly built, but so like, so
like! Did he know? Had any suspicion ever crossed his mind?
James thought not; hoped not.

‘
I've been away a good deal, sir,' John said pleasantly, neu
trally. 'School, of course, and then university; and I've been
spending a lot of time in Leeds and Huddersfield lately, about
my father's business.'

‘
Your business now, isn't it?' James said. ‘Didn't you come
of age in January?’

John Skelwith did not seem to wonder why James knew his
age and birthday. 'My business,' he corrected himself with a
faint smile. ‘I've just come back from Leeds now, as a matter
of fact. I was on my way home.'

‘
Lucky for me you were — another moment and I'd have
lost these two. Durban!' He wrenched his gaze away from
that frighteningly familiar face and looked over his shoulder.
‘How's that damned dog?’

Durban, crouched with Fanny in the road, looked up. ‘Not
so good, sir. I think we'd better try and get him back to the
house. Stand aside, Miss Fanny, and let me pick him up.’

Fanny's face was tracked with tears. ‘Papa, he's hurt! I saw
it — the wheel went over him!’

The horses surged forward as Durban came towards the rig
with the dog in his arms, but John Skelwith's strong wrists
held them.

‘
You'd better stay with Miss Fanny, Durban, and escort her back to the house,' James said. ‘I can manage the pair
myself now.'

‘
No, no! I want to go with Puppy!' Fanny cried at once.
Durban rolled an expressive eye at his master.

‘
I don't think I ought to leave the dog, sir,' he said
pointedly.

John Skelwith spoke up. ‘Would it help if I led the pony
home for you? It isn't far out of my way.'

‘
That's very good of you,' James said. ‘I'm enormously
grateful to you.'

‘
That's all right, sir. How would it be if I rode just ahead of you? It might calm your horses to see my old Trooper in front
of them. Nothing ever startles him.’

He helped James turn the phaeton before catching Tempest
and mounting his own horse, and taking up his position in front of them. The bays, sure enough, walked quietly with
Trooper's broad rump directly ahead of them, while in the
back of the phaeton Fanny kept up a crooning lament, and
Durban parried her questions and evidently prevented her
from examining the hound too closely.

James had plenty to keep his mind occupied on the short
journey home; and only as they turned in under the barbican
did he reflect that there was no-one but Ned left to be
surprised at the sight of Mary Loveday's boy, Fanny's half-
brother, leading the cavalcade home to what might so easily
have been his house, his inheritance.

 
Héloïse called first at Fussell Manor on the Fulford Road, and
did not find Lady Fussell at home; but making the second call
at Foss End House in Walmgate, found her there, visiting her sister-in-law Mrs Crosby Shawe.

Lady Fussell, formerly Miss Lizzie Anstey, shared with Mrs
Shawe, the former Miss Valentina Fussell, the distinction of
having been very much in love with James Morland when
they were all young, and he was in hopeless pursuit of Mary
Loveday. It was not an exclusive distinction — James Morland
had broken many hearts while occupied in breaking his own
— but Lizzie and Valentina were perhaps the most willing of
his lifelong captives, and were unusual in being sincerely glad
that he had at last managed to marry the woman he loved. They
liked Héloïse as they had not liked his first wife, and hoped,
if wistfully, that he would now be happy.

‘
Lady Morland, how kind of you to come and see me,'
Valentina said, holding out a welcoming hand from the sopha on which she was lying. 'Forgive me if I don't get up — I still
suffer from giddiness if I move too quickly.’

Héloïse thought she was looking very pale and worn, and
crossed the room quickly to take her hand. 'Oh, but you
should not be up so soon! I made sure you would be in bed,
and I meant only to send up my name and not disturb you.
You poor thing! I am so very sorry! But the other children are
well, I hope?'

‘
Yes, they keep very stout,' Valentina replied. 'I see you've
brought your dear little ones! I'll send for my boys, and they
can play together.'

‘
Thank you. Sophie, Thomas, come forward. Say good-day
to Mrs Shawe and Lady Fussell. I have just come from Fussell Manor, ma'am,' she added to the latter. 'I left my card.'

‘
Did they not tell you I was here? I come every day. Poor
'Tina has been very low,' said Lady Fussell. She turned her
eyes hungrily on the children. 'And here is little Miss Sophie!
I must tell you, Lady Morland, how I dote on her! And how
quiet and good they both are — so different from my sister Celia's children, who are always squabbling and shrieking, and pull one about so, there's no bearing it. Come and give
me a kiss, angels!’

Sophie obeyed good-naturedly, though Thomas, who was
always rather shy, remained at Héloïse's side after making his
bow to each of the ladies. Héloïse watched, amused, as Lady
Fussell, fascinated by Sophie's bilingual abilities, attempted
to converse with her in French, and was soon left floundering.
Eventually Héloïse felt constrained to rescue her, and made
Sophie recite from her repertoire of poems until Mrs Shawe's
three boys were brought in by a nursery-maid. They were
pale, undersized little things, Héloïse thought, with a pinched
look about the eyes, and a shrinking air, as if they had been
too often beaten. Beside them, Sophie looked strong and
bright and vigorous, as though she had grown up in sunlight,
and they in semi-darkness.

The children were introduced to each other, and taken
away to another room to play, and the women were then free
to converse more openly.

Valentina's miscarriage was naturally the first subject. She
had been unlucky with her pregnancies, for this was the
second consecutive miscarriage, and she had lost two of her
children in infancy as well.

‘
But at least you have the dear boys,' Lizzie said mourn
fully. 'As for me, I have never shewn even the slightest sign
of —' She sighed. 'I sometimes wonder if that's why Arthur
is so — difficult.'

‘
No, love,' Valentina said, pressing her hand. 'I'm sure not.
Arthur was always the same, even when he was a boy. Father
was forever whipping him, but it never seemed to make the
slightest difference.’

Arthur Fussell and Crosby Shawe had been schoolfriends.
Lizzie and Valentina had made good marriages in the eyes of
the world: for Lizzie, youngest of a large family and with only
a modest dowry, to marry a baronet with an estate was con
sidered brilliant; while Valentina, the baronet's quietest and least pretty sister, might have done much worse than Crosby
Shawe, who had his merchant father's fortune to squander.

But Arthur, spoilt as a child, had grown up a thoroughly
selfish, dissolute man, while Crosby Shawe, who was merely
weak and impressionable, copied him in everything. Both
men succeeded in making their wives very unhappy, and it
was proof of how much the women had come to like Héloïse in the snort time they had known her, that they could regard
her evident happiness kindly.