The Regency (58 page)

Danby shook his head. ‘I'd love to, but I'm afraid I can't.
I'm wanted at the Horseguards in an hour. Just came to tell
you so, and apologise for not riding with you this afternoon.’

‘
Oh, that's all right, don't worry about it,' Lucy said
lightly. 'I shall only ride around the Park. You can't refuse a
summons to the Horseguards, after all. Is it something
important?’

He didn't answer at once, looking down and fiddling with
his cup and saucer as though unsure what to say. Lucy cocked
her head at him. This was not just his usual self-effacement.
There was something different about him today.

‘Danby?’

He looked up. 'Well, yes, it is important,' he said. 'Really, quite.' He stopped again, and began rolling a crumb of bread
into a pellet between his finger and thumb. 'Fact is, we're
going abroad. The regiment, I mean. We're being brigaded
with the fifteenth and eighteenth Hussars, and sent to the
Peninsula, to reinforce Wellington.'

‘
You're going to fight?' Lucy said, with a hollow feeling in
her stomach, at odds with the large breakfast she had just
eaten.

‘
Wellington's planning a big offensive this winter. So far
he's only been able to keep the French at the Portuguese
border, but now the supply lines have been set up, and the natives trained and so on, it's time to attack. Recapture the
frontier posts, advance into Spain, take the war to them. New
phase beginning, and so on. So it's our turn at last.'

‘The Tenth?' Lucy said teasingly.

He didn't smile. 'Now the Prince is Regent, he can't be
expected to lead us personally, so there's no difficulty about
letting us go into active service.'

‘
You needn't go. You could sell out: I believe you could get
four thousand pounds or so for your commission these days.'
She looked at him carefully. 'Or do you want to go?’

He smiled suddenly. 'Lord, yes! Sick of parades and civil
duties! Longing to put all that drill into action. We all are,
you know — there isn't an officer or man who'd give up his
place now. We didn't like bein' called the China Tenth. No
man likes to be labelled a coward.'

‘
No-one who knows you would ever call you a coward,
Danby.' Lucy said warmly. 'You'll make your name out there,
I'm sure of it.'

‘
Thank you,' he said, and hesitated again, looking down at the third bread-pellet, and then up at Lucy, his blue eyes sud
denly bluer than ever. 'Only one thing I regret — leavin' you.
It's been my privilege to escort you these last few years. Don't
know why me — always felt you did me too much honour.'

‘
Don't be too modest, Danby,' Lucy said flippantly, to
cover her growing embarrassment, 'or I'll think you're
hanging out for a compliment.'

‘
No,' he said seriously, 'I mean it. I'm not special in any
way. Younger son — no title or anything — no particular
talents. Family always thought me a bit of a fool. That's why
they bought me m' colours. Put him in a fashionable regiment,
they said, where he can't do any harm. Lucky having been
to school with George — he took me around, introduced
me to the right people. Made me acceptable.'

‘Nonsense! You would always have been acceptable, with or without Brummell,' Lucy said firmly.

The interruption seemed to have made Danby lose his
thread. He looked at her for some moments in silence, and then said, 'Thing is, Lucy, I've grown to love you over the
years. I suppose you might think it's impudence on my part.
But I know you very well — bound to, after all this time.
Sixteen years, is it?'

‘Seventeen,' she corrected him absently.

He nodded. 'I've seen you happy and I've seen you sad.
Weston was a good fellow — he was right for you. I was glad
you had him. And then when he died —'

‘
Don't, Danby,' Lucy said, turning her head away. 'Don't
say any more.’

But he was curiously determined, a quiet, unregarded man
who had found his moment to speak. 'I can't tell you how it
hurts me to see you suffer. I'm not an imaginative chap — no
brains at all, really — but it was as if everything you felt, I
felt. You've been so brave, and anyone who didn't know you
would think you're all right now. But you're not.’

Lucy could bear no more. She stood up abruptly and
walked to the window, keeping her back to him. Danby stood automatically as she did, and turned towards her.

‘
You're lonely — I've seen that,' he went on relentlessly.
‘You were never meant to live alone. Oh, I know you have
your children, and lots of friends, and even me, God help us,
for what use that is. But you need more than that. You need a
husband.’

She turned in desperation. ‘Danby —'

‘
I love you Lucy,' he said. 'I came here today to ask you to
marry me. I've been thinking about it for a long time, but
when I heard we were going abroad, I decided I'd better speak
up before it was too late. The war won't last for ever. One
good campaign, and we'll drive Boney out of Spain, and then
we'll drive him back into France, and then we'll corner him like a fox, and have him. Two years, three perhaps, then it
will be over, and I'll be back for good.’

He paused, and she said nothing, backed up by the flood of
his words, wide-eyed, rather like a cornered fox herself.
‘Well,' he said, suddenly nervous, 'what do you think?’

She looked at him, amazed, perplexed, touched, terrified.
What was it she had kept by her all these years and never
recognised? The Danby she had thought she knew could not have spoken so much and so eloquently. He looked far from
fair and foolish now, his eyes burning with intensity, his face firm with decision. She realised he had said nothing about the
disparity in their rank or fortune, and she saw that it was
from some inner sureness, a pride without vanity, which told
him that such things did not matter. How many men, in
fashionable, nervous, money-grubbing London society,
could have thought like that? There was a strength in him,
unsuspected by her, that could woo a woman more wealthy
than himself, and not feel in any way threatened or diminished
by it.

‘
Danby — I don't know what to say,' she said at last. 'I
never thought — I didn't expect —'

‘
Don't suppose you did,' he said frankly. 'Got used to me
— part of the furniture. Furniture don't propose. Fireside
chair suddenly ups and asks you to marry it — disconcertin'.'
She smiled unwillingly. 'I don't want an answer now. That
would be unreasonable. You need time to think.'

‘
How much time am I allowed?' she asked in a small voice.
‘You're going abroad.’

He shrugged. 'Abroad or not, I won't press you. You've all
the time in the world. Give me your answer when you're
ready — I won't ask you for it. But think about it seriously, Lucy. We could be comfortable together. I know I'm not an
exciting sort of chap, but I know you very well, and I could
make you happy.’

She looked at him doubtfully. 'But what about you? It
shouldn't be just me. You ought to want to be happy too.’

He smiled suddenly, and something in her turned over dis
concertingly, as though he were not her safe, familiar Danby,
but someone strange and exciting. 'I'm always happy with
you. Don't you know that? And now,' pulling his watch out
from his fob, 'I must be going. Theatre tonight, isn't it? I'll
call for you as usual. Servant, ma'am.’

He bowed and took his leave in his usual manner, as if
nothing untoward had been said between them; and Lucy sat
down abruptly on the window-seat and stared into space,
deep in thought, absently stroking Jeffrey, who purred rustily
in his sleep, his paws and tail-tip twitching as each stroke
intruded into his dreams.

*

Fanny felt her campaign had opened well. The servants at
Hobsbawn House had been suitably impressed by the grandeur
of her arrival, which had made them treat her from the
beginning with respect, so that she was able to be gracious
and pleasant to them. The housekeeper, Mrs Murray, had
curtseyed all the way to the ground, and had begged Miss to let her know if the slightest thing was wanted in the arrange
ments in her room.

‘
I've been accustomed to decide the meals myself, Miss, the
Master not caring to be bothered with such things,' she said,
‘but if you was wanting to take over the ordering, Miss, I'd be
happy to attend you at any hour you like each morning.' She
smiled obsequiously, a smile which intensified when Fanny
indicated that she had no desire to take over the pains of
Mistress of the house along with the consequence.

Fanny found her grandfather much aged in appearance
since she had last seen him, but his voice and his spirit were as
vigorous as ever. He met her on the steps when she got down
from the carriage, and folded her in his arms in a fierce hug,
which she did not quite like, but endured with a good will.
Then he put her back from him, and gazed at her with tear-
filled eyes.

‘
Eh, my little Fanny! Let your old Grandpa look at you.
Why, you've grown into quite a young lady! And so pretty —
ain't she pretty, Mrs M?'

‘
Indeed, sir, it's not for me to say, sir, but I'd say Miss was
beautiful, rather.'

‘
Beautiful! You're right, Mrs M. Beautiful's the word —
and the image of your mother, Fanny, God rest her poor
soul.'

‘
Mrs Morland was always known as a beauty, sir, and Miss
Fanny's just like her,' Mrs Murray agreed with a smirk, and
Fanny found herself wondering at the familiarity with which
Grandpapa addressed the housekeeper, and the freedom with
which she expressed her opinions. Fanny didn't like servants
to be encroaching, and she slipped her hand through her
grandfather's arm and turned him pointedly away from Mrs
Murray, and into the house.

‘
I'm glad you think so, Grandpapa,' she said sweetly. 'My
greatest wish is to be as like Mama as possible, though I fear I
can never match her. But she has been my guiding inspiration
all my life.’

This seemed to go down very well with Grandpapa, who sighed and pressed her arm, and squeezed out another tear.
Inside the hall, the rest of the servants were assembled, all of
them new to her except the old butler, Bowles, and her
father's ancient manservant, Simon. Both of them were pre
sented to her as old friends, and they sighed and remembered
her dear late mother and brother, and Simon's wrinkled old
cheeks trembled, and Bowles's eyes grew moist. Really, Fanny
thought, if everyone in Manchester is going to weep over me
all the time, it will be very tedious.