Clanross greeted Barney Greene and smiled at Johnny. "Waite tells me you've decided to leave
for Winchester this morning." He cut a slice of sirloin and seated himself.
"I thought to." Johnny hesitated "My lord...er, Clanross, if the king's death alters things..."
Clanross was pouring a cup of coffee. His eyes gleamed with amusement, but he said gravely, "It's
bound to, you know. Especially for Prinny"
Johnny flushed "I know... I meant... What with the election and so on, if you've a more urgent
use for my services..." He trailed off, incoherent with hope and embarrassment.
Clanross took a reflective sip of coffee. "I can think of few things more urgent than helping
Richard Falk."
"Yes, but a novelist."
"He won't require you to spin fantasies for him, Johnny, but his disability makes copying slow
work. I daresay he'll set you to straightening the Canadian correspondence. Bookkeeping was never Colonel
Falk's strong point." He sipped again. "He's done yeoman work as secretary, though. I should have foreseen
he'd throw himself into that business. Richard never does anything by halves."
The Canadian "business" was a charity Clanross had organized--and funded--five years before,
when the government decided to grant officers lands in Upper Canada in lieu of prize money and arrears of
pay. By then it was evident that discharged soldiers from the Peninsular Army would have great difficulty
finding work. The economy was in postwar shambles, unemployed weavers and mill workers rioted in the
north, and veterans of many years' service were left to beg their way from town to town, desperate for
bread and employment.
That the situation was bitterly unfair Clanross had pointed out in the Lords more than once, but
the debt-ridden government were unwilling to increase taxes in a time when landlords suffered from
declining rents and the Poor Law burdened the conscientious with further outlay.
Many of the less affluent officers had emigrated to Upper Canada themselves. But wealthier
officers, with no real need for the grants and no wish to transport their families to a wilderness, could be
persuaded to assign their holdings to the use of discharged veterans. Some, like Clanross and his friend,
Lord Bevis, donated their land grants to the project outright and made substantial gifts of money as well.
Others, less affluent or less generous, were willing to help settle the men and their families as
tenants.
It was a useful scheme, but it was complicated enough to require the services of Clanross's
solicitors and at least one bookkeeper. Colonel Falk did not keep the books, but as secretary he had the
considerable chore of writing cajoling, placatory, and grateful letters to contributors. He also kept a journal
of the charity's transactions and provided emigrants with letters of introduction, testimonials of good
character, and, alas, in some cases, pleas for leniency addressed to the colonial officials when beneficiaries
indulged in feckless misbehaviour.
"Shouldn't have said Falk was the charitable type myself," Barney Greene mumbled around a
mouthful of toast. "Had the reputation of a care-for-nobody."
"Appearances can be deceiving." There was ice in Clanross's tone. Greene's eyes dropped to his
plate and he mumbled something apologetic.
Clanross turned back to Johnny. "The success of the project has been Colonel Falk's doing. Bevis
and I lend our names, but he does the work. I never intended... Well, that is by the by. The point is
Richard needs your assistance, Johnny, and needs it now. I'll rub along without you for a fortnight or so. Do
your best for him. He's my oldest friend." He sawed a bit of beef and daubed it with mustard. "You'll like
Mrs. Falk. Charming woman. Have you taken a room at the Pelican?"
"Yes."
"Excellent. I don't want you to burden the household. What with my godson's illness and a new
infant, Emily Falk will have her hands full."
"Yes, my lord." Johnny addressed his cold coffee and congealed eggs with a gloom he hoped was
not obvious. It all sounded so domestic and trivial. "I'll do my possible. Does Lady Clanross come to town
next week as planned?"
Clanross gave a wry smile. "She will be cast down, I daresay, but I fear the girls' come-out must
be put off."
At that sally, Johnny smiled, too. Lady Clanross had spent Christmas bemoaning the necessity of
removing to town to present her twin sisters to society. An astronomer of some note, her ladyship had
lately caused the Chacton works to cast a very large mirror for her new reflecting telescope, and she longed
to oversee its installation in the small observatory Clanross had built for her at Brecon. But if spring was the
season for astronomical discovery, it was also the Season.
Lady Jean and Lady Margaret Conway would turn eighteen in May and they were determined to
come out. Christmas had seen them aflutter with plans for new gowns and new sensations--theatre parties
and routs and balls, balls, balls. At their insistence, their dancing master had called up all the gentlemen in
the household, including Johnny, as auxiliary troops, and the long gallery had echoed with dancing musick
throughout the holiday.
Clanross had married the eldest daughter of his predecessor, a remote cousin. Lady Clanross's
sisters, with wealth, birth and striking good looks in their favour, meant to take the Ton by storm. It was an
enthusiasm neither the countess nor her husband shared, but they were inclined to indulge the girls.
Johnny was a little in love with the fiery and impetuous Lady Jean, and he had listened with
melancholy amusement as the twins' eagerness wore down their elders' resistance. He also taught Lady
Margaret the
pas de Zephyr
.
The girls were young. They could have waited a year to make their appearance on the marriage
mart and no harm done, but when they put their minds to a course of action it was well-nigh impossible to
resist them. It looked as if the king's death would throw a rub in their way. Johnny wondered how they
would surmount the barrier of a year of national mourning. If he had been a gambling man, he would have
laid odds on their ingenuity.
Barney Greene, his plate of sirloin demolished, wiped his mouth on the heavy damask napkin and
rose from the table. "The letter for Mr. Kilbride in Dublin?"
Clanross grimaced. "Finish that one first, then try the address to the Holton freeholders. A
formality. Say all that's proper." Holton was a pocket borough. Clanross disapproved of pocket boroughs.
He had inherited three.
Greene bowed and left the room.
Clanross ate in silence for some minutes. He looked underslept--the Featherstonehaugh dinner
must have run late. Johnny finished his own meal and sat still, wondering if he ought to break in on his
employer's thoughts. But it was now or never.
"My lord."
Clanross started and looked at him, frowning. Johnny knew he did not like to be addressed by his
style, having come to the title late and unexpectedly, but he said in kindly enough tones, "What is it,
Johnny? I've a letter for Richard--more business, I fear--and another for Emily. Shall you carry the post for
me?"
"Yes sir." Johnny drew a breath. "If you could make use of me in the canvassing, Clanross, or in
anything of that nature, I'd be glad of the experience."
The grey eyes narrowed. "Are you interested in politicks?"
"Of all things, my lord."
Clanross sighed and rubbed his forehead. "I envy you. I often think there's nothing I detest so
much as politicks and politicians."
Johnny gaped. "But-- "
"I know. I'm inconsistent. What are they calling me now, Radical Tom? Or is it Mad
Conway?"
Johnny flushed and dropped his eyes. "But sir, if you dislike it--"
"Why bother?" Clanross rose, half his meat untouched. "I'm stuck with it, am I not? At least until
we abolish the House of Lords."
Johnny stared.
"Too Radical for you? Never mind, Johnny. I shan't corrupt the youth of Britain with my more
extreme ideas. There'll be work enough and to spare before the election. They'll delay the funeral as much
as a fortnight--safe enough, in this weather." Clanross's nose wrinkled. "Time for the crowned heads to
assemble."
"I daresay."
"Meanwhile do you best by Richard and I'll see what I can find for you on the hustings."
"I... Th-thank you, my lord."
"Come along, if you want to save the expense of a hack. And keep your ear to the ground whilst
you're in Winchester. Who knows, you may find stirrings of discontent even in happy Hampshire."
Confused but heartened, Johnny rose, too, and went in search of his gear.
Clanross deposited him at the Angel in good time to pay the fare before the coach left for
Winchester at ten. Then the bells began to toll again and Johnny's elation leaked away in the chill air.
* * * *
The coach had begun to bowl along at a smart clip. Johnny opened his eyes to find a
tight-mouthed clerk regarding him with disapproval.
Probably fancies I shot the cat last night,
Johnny
reflected.
I might have done, if anyone had asked me to.
"Ah," said the red-faced corn chandler who sat beside the clerk. "King's dead then, poor old
gentleman. 'Tis a sad day."
"We shall not see his like again," the tight-mouthed clerk said piously. "He was a moral
man."
The plump woman beside Johnny agreed, the black plume on her bonnet nodding
sycophantically. "Not like some I could name."
"Aye," the corn chandler echoed. He shifted his heavy thighs. "Not like some."
They were thinking of Prinny, of course. The fat, dissolute, charming Prince Regent was now
George IV. Hard to imagine Prinny as King of England. George III had been king throughout Johnny's
twenty-five years. Even Johnny's father remembered no other monarch, and the venerable dean recalled the
days of powder and patch, of knee breeches and hoops and style, when ladies wore silk the colour of Marie
Antoinette's hair and gentlemen carried swordsticks. What if the king had been old and mad for almost as
long as Johnny could remember? He had been king--and he had been a moral man.
"Time for a change, then," the corn chandler muttered. "Past time."
"'O wind,'" Johnny intoned, quoting a line from a poem his friend, Hogg, had sent him lately in
manuscript. Was it Byron or that fellow Shelley? "'O wind, if Winter comes can Spring be far
behind?'"
Everyone stared at him.
The king is dead. Long live the king.
No one was going to say anything further. The acts suspending habeas corpus and making open
criticism of the government a capital crime were still in force. Only that past August, mounted troops had
ridden down unarmed citizens in the streets of Manchester. What ever people might be thinking, they
would keep their thoughts to themselves among strangers.
Perilous times.
And I,
Johnny mused, his melancholy deepening,
am journeying to Winchester to help
Colonel Falk scribble a novel. A noble endeavour.
He leaned back again, closed his eyes, and tried to
imagine the scene at Brecon when the Conway sisters discovered they were not, after all, to make their
come-out. He rather thought Lady Jean would swear.
"...so it's true, after all. The king is dead."
"Hellfire and damnation!"
Elizabeth Conway winced. "Really, Jean."
Jean's twin, Margaret, plucked a macaroon from the tea tray. "It's a great pity, Jean, but I daresay
His Majesty didn't die to spite us." She nibbled the confection.
Jean sniffed.
A year ago, Elizabeth reflected, Maggie would have munched and Jean would have thrown
something at her.
It is just possible that my sisters are growing up.
She reached again for her husband's
brief letter. "Three months of deep mourning..."
Jean plumped down on the sofa beside Elizabeth and peered at the neat script. "Then in April we
can put off our black ribbands and make our come-out."
"April will be taken up with electioneering." Elizabeth folded the letter again lest Jean see the
private joke with which Tom had closed, an allusion to her new telescope. No point in adding fuel to Jean's
fire. "The new Parliament are to take their seats on the twenty-fifth. After that, I daresay the leaders of the
Ton will begin to entertain privately, but you cannot be presented this year, so what is the point? At least I
don't think there will be a court levee. Prinny has never had a great regard for the proprieties, but even
he...well, we shall see. Tom means to come home as soon as he can."
"Oh good," Maggie dusted the crumbs daintily from her fingers. "Una's healing nicely, but I'll
want Clanross's opinion." Una was Maggie's Irish setter, a gift from Clanross, and a recent mother. The
birth had been attended by complications.
It was Elizabeth's private belief that Maggie felt more enthusiasm for Una's puppies than she had
felt at the prospect of a London Season, but Maggie was a good girl and where Jean led her twin would
follow. Whither Jean, seething beside her, would direct her frustrated energies, Elizabeth did not venture
to imagine. She said cautiously, "Should you care to make your come-out in half-mourning, Jeanie?"
Jean sniffed. Her small-boned fists clenched on her lap, and her flame-red hair crackled with
indignation. "It's so unfair. Anne even promised in her last letter to take us to Mme.
Thérèse."
Lady Anne Featherstonehaugh, their second sister, was a modish political hostess and awake to the
highest kick of fashion, which Elizabeth knew
she
was not. That Anne had agreed to see to the
girls' gowns was Elizabeth's doing, and she was about to tell Jean so when the girl rounded on her.
"You don't care, Elizabeth. You're happy!"
"Do you accuse me of rejoicing at His Majesty's demise? Believe me, I'm not so lost to
propriety."
"You know what I mean," Jean muttered, sullen. "Your blasted telescope."
Elizabeth looked at her from the corner of her eye. "Perhaps it's fortunate you won't be going
about in Society after all. Your language would make a grenadier blush."