The Regency (79 page)

Lucy considered herself at fourteen; she thought of Fanny;
and was forced to the conclusion that Mrs Touchstone was
right. She appreciated for the first time how her own mother must have felt when she ran away from home; she would not
allow herself to consider at that juncture how much her own
example had inspired her niece.

‘
Well, leaving that aside,' she said briskly, 'have you ques
tioned the other girls? Someone must know when she left last
night, and where she was going. Who was her particular
friend? She probably confided in someone.'

‘
If your ladyship would care to question the young ladies, I
shall be happy for you to make use of my sitting room,' Mrs Touchstone said faintly.

‘
Very well. Meanwhile enquiries had better be made at all
the coaching inns, and of the Watch and the hackney-drivers, in case someone saw her. Have you footmen for the job? And
find out who her closest friend was, and send her in to me, if
you please.’

Mrs Touchstone, considerably cowed by the brisk way Lady Aylesbury handled the matter, went away to do her
bidding. A little later she came back, escorting a shrinking girl
into the Presence. 'This is Julia Johnson, your ladyship.’

Lucy waved Mrs Touchstone away, and gestured the child
to a chair. Julia Johnson was small and fair, with large foolish
eyes, and she perched on the edge of her seat looking terrified, wringing her hands in her lap.

‘
You are Africa's particular friend? Speak up, child, I'm
not going to bite you.'

‘Well, ma'am, I suppose so.'

‘You suppose so?' Lucy snapped.

‘
She wasn't one to mix very much, ma'am,' Julia whis
pered. 'She kept herself to herself. Her cousin Sophie was her
intimate friend while she was here, ma'am, but since she
came back on her own, ma'am, she hasn't talked to anyone
very much.'

‘
To you more than others?' Lucy asked, trying to soften her
voice. Did she tell you anything about her plans?’

Julia looked as though she might cry. 'No, ma'am.’

‘
Come now, she must have said something.'

‘
No ma'am, truly. When she came back, she said she wasn't
going to stay here, that's all.'

‘
She wasn't going to stay here? What do you mean? Tell me
exactly what she said, if you please.'

‘
She said — she said she hated it here, and that no-one
could make her stay. "I've got a plan," she said, ma'am, "and
one day you'll wake up and find me gone".'

‘And did you?'

‘Ma'am?’

Did you wake up and find her gone?'

‘Oh no, ma'am. She never went to bed.’

Lucy stared. 'What?'

‘
She was the last one to use the closet, ma'am, and she was still in there when I went to bed. I fell asleep, but I woke up a
while later, and her bed was still empty.'

‘What time was that, do you know?'

‘
I heard the church clock strike twelve before I fell asleep
again, ma'am,' Julia said after a hesitation.

Lucy looked grim. 'And you never thought to tell anyone
that she had gone?’

Now Julia really did cry. 'I didn't know she'd gone! Really I
didn't! I thought she was still in the closet!’

Lucy saw there was no more to be got out of her, and
dismissed her. Questioning the other girls produced no more
useful information than that Africa had been very quiet at
supper, and had refused a game of spillikins, saying she had
to write a letter. Since that letter was nowhere in evidence,
it seemed likely that it hau been an excuse to go to the dormitory and make her preparations.

The enquiries at the stage-coach office and the post-houses
proving negative, Lucy consulted Parslow.

‘
If she left before midnight last night,' she said grimly, 'she
has a good start on us. None of these fools seems to have done
anything. She doesn't seem to have confided in anyone, so we
must guess for ourselves as best we can.'

‘
Miss Africa would most likely head for the sea, my lady,'
Parslow suggested.

‘That was my thought. But where?'

‘
Portsmouth, my lady,' said Parslow, so promptly that
Lucy knew he had been thinking about it already.

‘Bristol is nearer — a great deal nearer,' Lucy said.

‘
Yes, my lady, but Miss Africa doesn't know Bristol.
Besides, if she is trying to get to her father, my lady, Bristol
would be no use to her. There's a good fast road direct from
Bath to Portsmouth, which I reckon she would know. My
guess is that she'd go that way. If she hasn't taken the stage or
the mail, she'd probably walk and hope to beg a ride.'

‘
That's what I think, too. We must go in pursuit, Parslow.
She's my responsibility.’

He didn't waste time arguing with her. 'We'll check at the
turnpikes, my lady. If she went through, someone will have
seen her.'

‘
Pray God we catch up with her before something happens,'
Lucy said quietly.

*

At the end of a fortnight Lucy returned to London, leaving
Parslow behind to continue the search, with the aid of agents
hired for the purpose. She was reluctant to go, but as he
pointed out to her, there was nothing she could do that he
could not, and her presence was required in London, where
her sudden disappearance, in the middle of the Season in
which she was bringing out three protegées, was bound to
cause speculation.

As soon as she was in residence again, she received a polite
visit of enquiry from George Brummell.

‘
How the deuce did you know about it?' she asked, not
pleased.

The Beau shrugged. 'My man told me. How does one ever
find out anything? You found no trace of her, then?’

Lucy sat down and passed a hand across her brow. 'We
enquired at every pike and inn on the Portsmouth road, at
the Dockyard and at all the inns in Portsmouth. We spoke to
every boatman and idler on the Hard. She seems to have
vanished from the face of the earth.'

‘Perhaps she didn't go to Portsmouth,' he said quietly.

‘
But where else would she go? She didn't go to Morland
Place, that we know, and she hasn't come here. The only
other thing she could do is to try to reach her father.' She
paused, and then added in a low voice, 'It's the kind of mad
cap thing she would do — especially since I'm famous for
having run away to sea when I was her age. With my example
before her —'

‘You mustn't blame yourself,' Brummell said.

‘Give me one reason why I shouldn't,' she said bitterly.

‘I can give you three — your daughters, and the elder Miss
Haworth. If your example was all that was needed to make a
girl run away, there'd be no girls at home.' He looked at her
bent head compassionately. 'Don't despair — she'll be found.'

‘
The best we hope is that she's managed to stow away
aboard some ship or other,' Lucy said after a moment. ‘If she
did, and it set sail before she was discovered, that would
explain why we haven't heard anything. Aboard any King's
ship — well, any English ship at all — she'd be quite safe.'

‘
Yes, and sooner or later, she'd be delivered safe and sound
either to her father, or to you,' he said.

The worst to fear was that she was dead, by accident, star
vation, or at the hands of some ruffian of the road. But that
was a possibility Lucy had never voiced, being too horrible to
be thought of.

Mr Brummell begged to be instructed, if there were any
way in which he could be of service: his person, his intellect,
and his influence were equally at her ladyship's service.

‘
There seems to be nothing to do, that isn't already being
done,' Lucy said. 'But thank you for asking.’

He bowed. 'Then, if there is nothing to be done, dear
ma'am, let us try not to think about it any more. Let me
entertain you instead with the gossip.'

‘
I haven't seen a newspaper since I left London,' Lucy said,
making an effort for his sake.

‘Oh, you want the news first?' Brummell said, making a
moue.
'Very well, let us have it over with. You heard, I
suppose, that we have revoked the Orders in Council, in an
attempt to placate the Americans?’

Lucy grunted, hardly attending. 'We should have dropped
them last year, when Boney began issuing licences again.'

‘
Ah yes, I forget that you have Lord Anstey to teach you
about financial matters,' Brummell said politely. 'I never
understood what it was all about. I rely on you, ma'am, to tell
me anything I need to know.'

‘
Why do you like pretending to be a fool, George?' Lucy
said with a reluctant smile. 'What else has happened?'

‘
Oh, Boney sent us an offer of peace in the Peninsula,
that's all.'

‘What!' She looked up, startled.

‘
Provided we accepted his brother Joseph as King of Spain.’

‘
A most reasonable condition.'

‘Quite. Castlereagh had no hesitation in telling His Imperial
Majesty what we thought of it. So it's back to the old, slow
grind, which, we are assured, wears away mountains in time.
I fear our friends will be a long time coming home,' he
said, giving her a look askance. 'But Wiske will be due for
some leave very soon. He has been out there a year. We may
look forward to seeing him this summer, I expect.'

‘
So what was Boney up to?' Lucy said, ignoring the jibe.
'He must have known we'd refuse.'

‘
It was a vain hope, but he had nothing to lose. He was
clearing the way for his invasion of Russia, it seems. The Csar
won't come out and fight, so he has to go in. Boney himself
was in Danzig three weeks ago, inspecting the troops, so it looks as though he means to lead the army in person. Let's
hope he has started what he can't finish.'

‘
The Russians aren't the world's best soldiers,' Lucy said
doubtfully. 'Look at Austerlitz. Look at Friedland.'