The Victory (36 page)

‘
We've been busy,' James said. 'The time goes by so fast.
But I'm glad he's coming — and Lucy, too. She'll love the
stables.'

‘If only poor William could be here.'

‘
Now don't start that, old fellow, or we'll have to go
through the whole list! I must say, I was pleasantly surprised that Chetwyn decided to bring the children. Fanny's going to
be so excited when I tell her how many cousins she'll have to
play with.’

Fanny's initial reaction was cautious. 'Are any of them
older than me, Papa?' she wanted to know.

‘
Well, your cousin Polly is. You remember her, don't you?’

 
‘
No,' said Fanny firmly.

‘
She lived here for a little while. Aunt Lucy says she's get
ting to be very beautiful, like her mother.’

Fanny frowned. 'I don't like her.'

‘But you just said you didn't remember her.'

‘I don't care. I don't like her. I don't want her to stay here.'

‘
Well, that's all right, chicken. I expect Aunt Lucy will
want them to stay at Shawes with Bobbie Chelmsford. But
they can come over and play with you. The younger ones,
Minnie and Rosamund, will want to see your baby house, I
know, and all the new furniture I've made for you. They
haven't got anything half so fine.’

Fanny brightened. 'And my rocking horse?'

‘
I expect Rosamund will love that. She's nutty on horses.’

 
‘
Is she pretty?'

‘
No, she's the plain one of the family, poor little thing.
Freckles and mousy hair.’

Fanny smiled. 'Perhaps I'll teach her to ride,' she said
generously. 'I could let her sit on Tempest while I hold the
reins. I don't expect she'd be able to manage him on her own.’

*

Lucy travelled post, and stopping to change at Grantham,
discovered amongst the vehicles in the innyard her husband's
chariot, with the Aylesbury arms on the panels, and his
mother's elderly berlin. As they were horseless and pushed to
one side, she assumed they must be resting or taking a meal
within, and told her post-boys she would stop for half an hour.

On entering the inn and enquiring for his lordship, she was taken to a private parlour, where a large meal was laid out on
a long table, around which sat not only her husband, but the
four children and Trotton. Three nursery maids were attend
ing to the girls' needs, and Chetwyn's man, Benton, was seen
at that instant by the astonished Lucy, indisputably to be
tucking a napkin into young Lord Calder's neck.

‘
So it's you that's responsible for blocking up the inn-
yard!' Lucy exclaimed. 'I took it to be a travelling circus at
the very least. Good afternoon, Trotton. Benton, I hope your
new master is as considerate as your old one!’

Chetwyn started up with a smile and came to greet her.
‘Well, here's a famous coincidence! I wondered if you might
pass us on the road. Will you stay and eat with us? There's plenty.'

‘
So I see. Really, Chetwyn,' she added quietly, 'this is the
outside of enough, to be eating at the same table as the
children. What will the inn servants think? You ought to
think more about your dignity as an earl.'

‘
In the first place,' he returned easily, 'they are very busy
here, and this was the only private room they had free. And in
the second place, the best thing about being an earl is that
you can do anything you like, and no-one can criticise you.
You, of all people, ought to appreciate that.’

She allowed a servant to place a chair for her and fetch her clean covers. 'There are things, and things,' she said darkly. ‘Let me help you to some of this beefsteak pie — it's excel
lent,' said Chetwyn by way of reply.

‘That was your mother's berlin I saw outside, wasn't it?’

Chetwyn grinned. 'Enormous, isn't it? The girls and
Trotton travel in that, and Benton and Roland and I squeeze
into the chariot. There are two other hired carriages, too, for
the maids and the luggage.'

‘
Benton said he would rather travel with the luggage,'
Roland offered suddenly, his wide eyes fixed admiringly on
his mother's hat. 'That was after I was sick — not the first
time, but the second.'

‘
I don't blame him at all,' Lucy said mildly. 'Why were
you sick?'

‘
Papa said it was the
infernal
road, but Benton said it was
the game pie I had for breakfast.'

‘
You seem to be having an exciting time,' Lucy said to
Chetwyn. 'Why on earth are you travelling with them?'

‘My dear Lucy, because I want to! I actually rather like my
children, I've discovered. There's something so delightfully
honest about them.’

Lucy wrinkled her nose. 'You have a strange taste.' She
thought how Weston had said he wanted to play with his
child, too. 'Men are so sentimental,' she concluded. 'Where's
Robert?'

‘
Gone to Bath, at the urgent summons of his mother. She
thinks she's dying, and wants him to be with her for a few
weeks while they still have time.'

‘
If she stays in Bath in August she will die,' Lucy asserted.
‘And not before time, either. Does Robert really think she's
ill?'

‘
How cruel you are! Well, he did at first, but I persuaded
him not to worry until he'd seen her, and he wrote quite a
comfortable letter once he arrived, to say that she's more upset than ill, but that he's staying with her at least until
September. And so here I am. I can't wait to see the stables.
Ned's promised pageants and fireworks and I don't know
what besides.'

‘Fireworks are very unwise when there are horses round.'

‘
Dear Lucy,' he said with a smile. 'I don't suppose he's
going to let them off actually in the stable! And there's to be a
ball at Shawes, for which I hope to have the honour of your
hand for the first dance, and a picnic ride to Plompton Rocks,
besides the races themselves. I'm glad you've come,' he added
genially.

‘I'm glad you have,' she returned with faint surprise.

‘
Have some of the smoked duck, and some peas to go with
it. Benton, will you carve for her ladyship? And how is the
wide world in general, and the King's navy in particular? The
last thing I heard was that everyone is raging at Admiral
Calder for letting the combined fleet get away from him
somewhere out in the middle of the sea —'

‘
Off Cape Finisterre. He engaged them in fog and a heavy
swell, and the action was inconclusive.'

‘
It seems most unfair to me to vilify him, considering that
no-one seems to be blaming Nelson for having been in the
West Indies with them for two weeks without sighting them
once.'

‘
What does it matter what ignorant people think?' Lucy
said shortly. 'Bobbie Calder's a fine seaman with an unblem
ished record, and no-one who wasn't there can say that he
ought to have done better.'

‘
Public opinion is so fickle,' Chetwyn said with a mocking
smile. ‘No-one had a good word to say about Nelson until it
turned out that he had chased Villeneuve to the West Indies
after all, and then he was everyone's darling again. Travelling
twice across the Atlantic seems to be a splendid thing to do,
even if it doesn't achieve anything.'

‘
I wish you wouldn't talk so foolishly. You don't seem to
understand how serious the situation is.'

‘
My dear, I have implicit faith in our sailor heroes. Yours, I
must say, seems strangely shaky.'

‘
Oh, that reminds me,' Lucy said, ignoring the barb, 'I
have a letter for you, Polly, from your father. It's in my
luggage. You may come to me for it, when we reach York
shire.'

‘Thank you, aunt.'

‘
Mama,' Rosamund said, now that Lucy's attention was on her side of the table, 'shall we be allowed to go on the picnic
ride?'

‘
I shouldn't think so. What would you ride? Your uncles breed carriage horses and gentlemen's hunters, not ponies.'
She had answered automatically, her mind turning instantly
elsewhere, but in that moment she caught Rosamund's eye,
and saw her deep disappointment, and suddenly remembered
herself as a child, being denied some treat to do with horses.

An unexpected sympathy touched her, and just for an instant she felt connected to the stranger who was her daughter. She
is made of my blood and my flesh, she thought in surprise. Is
this what Weston means, and Chetwyn?

‘
I expect we might be able to hire ponies from somewhere,'
she said. 'There must be plenty of them in Yorkshire.'

‘
Have some wine,' Chetwyn said with an approving smile.
'Age is making you kind, my dear Lady Aylesbury.’

*

The letter for Polly from Captain Haworth had been sent off
with all the other letters and despatches from Nelson's
squadron, from Antigua by the brig
Curieux,
which came into Plymouth on 7 July.

The letter was dated 13 June, and told the story of the run
across the Atlantic, and of the ten days the squadron had
spent sailing from island to island searching for the French. It had been a fruitless task, for at every step they had been given
false information about the whereabouts of their quarry,
which had sent them the wrong way.

‘
We have missed them at every turn, and the
admiral
now
believes that they are gone back to Europe,' Haworth wrote,
'so I conclude this in haste, my dearest Polly, as we are to
weigh anchor and set off after them. The admiral is sure they
are gone to Egypt, so we are for Gibraltar, to take on stores,
and then into the Mediterranean. I will write to you again
and send it off from Gibraltar, and hope that I may have the
opportunity to see you soon, for my poor old
Cetus
is long
overdue for docking, and I fear this sojourn in warm waters
has only increased her fouling.’

On her journey home, the brig
Curieux
had had the good
fortune to sight Villeneuve's fleet on far too northerly a
heading to be making for the Straits; so her commander, on his
arrival in London, had been able to give Their Lordships the
information that enabled them to send out Calder's squadron
to intercept Villeneuve off Cape Finisterre.