Carola Dunn (4 page)

“Tía Fanny says I liked strawbies last year when I was two,” she explained.

“Frank brought them as a treat,” said Fanny.

“M-miss Ingram, I’m sure the captain meant the b-berries for you and the child.”

“There are plenty for everyone, Mr Solomon,” she assured him untruthfully. “Frank’s upstairs. I’ll call him down to eat.”

As she went out to the hall, Solomon’s gaze of fervent devotion followed her. He glanced at Felix, his dark eyes demanding, “Is she not wonderful?”

Amused, Felix sat down at the table and took Anita on his knee. Such a small matter to excite such admiration! No fashionable picnic or supper was complete without mountains of strawberries and lakes of cream. He’d not deprive the others now by eating any.

Fanny returned, with her brother. At twenty-five, Frank Ingram appeared older, a sturdy figure in a well-worn uniform jacket, dark blue with scarlet facings. He had his sister’s brown eyes and curly brown hair but his face was more square than round, with a look of steadfast--perhaps a trifle obstinate--determination softened by his friendly smile. Though Felix had always considered him short of stature, he was taller than Moses Solomon by half a head.

Shaking the young Jew’s hand with a hearty greeting, Frank said, “I hope your arrival means more gold for the army. Our pay is overdue again.”

Solomon looked to Felix for permission, then assured him, “Yes, I brought gold from Mr Rothschild.”

“Good. Take a seat and help yourself. Carting bullion about must give you a good appetite.”

“That was how I first came into contact with the Rothschilds,” Felix remarked as they sat down. “I worked for the Treasury then. My superiors didn’t yet trust Nathan Rothschild, so they sent me to escort his first shipment of gold to Wellington in the Peninsula, right across France.” He buttered a slice of bread, removed the crusts, and cut it into fingers for Anita, who was still sitting on his knee.

“I remember when news of that gold’s arrival spread,” Frank said, filling glasses with beer from a pitcher. “Just before Fuentes de Oñoro, it was. I can tell you, the men went into battle with a better heart for knowing they’d be paid. But it was rumoured that two Jews brought the gold down out of the mountains,” he added, puzzled.

“I never reached Spain,” Felix confessed. “When Isaac Cohen and I were reconnoitering the border, in the Pyrenees, I was stupidly careless. I had a bad fall. Isaac went on to meet Kalmann Rothschild and deliver the gold, while Miriam Jacobson--she was our guide--had to stay behind and nurse me.”

He was unaware of his change of tone when he spoke Miriam’s name until Fanny cast him a shrewd glance, with a hint of compassion. To the devil with the woman, she was too knowing by half! He concentrated on slivering a slice of cheese and feeding a piece to Anita.

What Lady Sophia would have thought if she’d seen him cuddling a nobody’s by-blow didn’t bear thinking of. If she ever heard about Rothschild--yet the Duke and his staff respected him no less for his employment. As Isaac and Miriam had pointed out to him, he performed a necessary task, vital to Napoleon’s defeat, which was more than most members of the aristocracy could claim.

Anita whispered in his ear, pointing, “Please, Tío Felix, my lord, may I have some strawbies? If I eat all my cheese first I’ll be too full.”

He reached for the dish of berries. What did he care what anyone thought? His little charmer was worth a dozen Lady...ladies.

“Yet Rothschild hired you despite your making a cake of yourself,” Frank commented, peeling the red wax from a large chunk of Edam. “Do you like working for him, my lord?”

“The work is interesting. I respect him enormously, both his ability and his integrity, and I have no qualms about giving him my loyalty, second only to my family and my country. Equally important, he pays well, and on time.”

“Better than a captain’s pay, I wager. Besides, once we’ve put Boney to bed with a shovel, I shall be on half pay, I daresay. Any chance of a position with Mr Rothschild, do you suppose?”

“I honestly couldn’t say. He hired me because I have an entrée to Society which is useful to him.” And on Isaac’s recommendation. Felix didn’t mention that he would have been prepared to recommend Frank to the banker if the mystery of the inquisitive Cockney had not cast a shadow of doubt on his seeming respectability.

“I can’t offer any friends in Society,” said Frank, crestfallen. “I’m a simple soldier.”

Fanny sprang to her brother’s defense. “Mama’s father was a peer.” At once she wished the words unsaid, as Felix turned on her an incredulous gaze.

“He was? You have never mentioned that before.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “He cast her off when she ran away with Papa, so it cannot signify. She used to tell us the story as a fairy tale, ending with her living happily ever after with her soldier husband.” She sighed.

“We don’t know which lord, not even his rank,” Frank explained. “So he’d be of no use for obtaining a position with Rothschild.”

“He’s of no use for anything practical,” said Fanny caustically. “I cannot imagine why I brought him into the conversation.”

“So you are the granddaughter of a peer! You’re right, I fear, the relationship alters nothing since the family doesn’t acknowledge it.”

She tried to turn it into a whimsical joke. “We can’t even boast of him, alas, since we don’t know his name or rank.”

“A pity!” he said with smile. “I’m glad you are too sensible to repine, Miss Ingram.”

Though grateful for his sympathy, Fanny had had enough of the subject. “Frank, pray pour some more beer for Mr Solomon. Lord Roworth, you have been so busy spoiling Anita, you haven’t eaten a bite.”

“I had a late breakfast, and a hearty one.”

Fanny gave him a mocking look. She was very well aware of where and why he had breakfasted late.

Frank pushed back his chair and stood up. “I have to get back to Braine-le-Comte,” he said. “Slender Billy wants to march us around a bit this afternoon.”

“I met the prince at Headquarters this morning,” said Felix, as Anita slipped down from his knee, her mouth all stained with strawberry juice, and ran to hug Tío Frank. “He’s an engaging young man, full of fire and enthusiasm.”

“I’ve heard Old Hookey was terrified, while Slender Billy was in charge alone here, that he’d start the war without waiting for his allies. It’s to be hoped his enthusiasm don’t rush us into calamity,” said Frank dryly, swinging the little girl up for a kiss.

The silence that followed this reminder of the perils of war was broken by Anita’s piping voice. “Where’s Clamity? Don’t you want to go there, Tío?”

Frank laughed, his face suddenly younger. “No, sweetheart, I most certainly don’t. I must be off; duty calls. You be a good girl and mind your Tía while I’m gone.”

“I awways do,” said Anita with dignity.

Fanny had errands to run, and Solomon begged the privilege of accompanying her. He was a bank courier and a Jew, but he reminded her strongly of the young officers she knew so well, and she was perfectly at ease with him. She found his evident admiration mildly flattering. Not for the world would she let him see that it also amused her.

“I shall be glad of your company,” she assured him cordially.

They took Anita, so Felix was left in peace to finish his report. He ended with a verbatim account of a conversation in the park between Wellington and Mr Creevey, which that inveterate gossip had repeated to all and sundry.

“Now then, will you let me ask you, Duke, what you think you will make of it?”

“By God! I think Blücher and myself can do the thing.”

“Do you calculate upon any desertion in Bonaparte’s army?” Mr Creevey had persisted.

“Not upon a man,” the Duke assured him, “from the colonel to the private, inclusive. We may pick up a marshal or two, perhaps, but not worth a damn.”

“Do you reckon upon any support from the French king’s troops?”

“Oh! don’t mention such fellows!” Wellington’s braying laugh rang out. “No, I think Blücher and I can do the business.” He pointed at a British infantryman, a private, strolling by in his scarlet tunic with a girl on his arm. “There, it all depends upon that article whether we do the business or not. Give me enough of it and I am sure.”

That ought to please Nathan Rothschild, who supplied the gold to pay “that article,” and whose family had loaned Louis XVIII hundreds of thousands of pounds, the fate of which hung in the balance.

Felix blotted, folded, and sealed his missive. Impatient now to call upon Lady Sophia, he waited for the others to return, then sent Moses Solomon on his way.

“But he only just arrived!” Fanny protested.

“Rothschilds’ couriers are the fastest by land or sea,” said Solomon importantly, and dashed off.

Fanny smiled at Felix. “A nice boy.”

“And much taken with your charms,” he teased.

“A little,” she conceded. “It is just as well he takes such pride in the speed of his journey. I’d hate to see him hurt.”

It was typical of her to be more concerned for the young man’s feelings than complacent at discovering an admirer, Felix decided as he walked towards the Rue de Belle Vue. She was a thoroughly kindhearted person.

Passing through the Marché aux Fleurs, he stopped and spent more than he could afford on an armful of gladiolus. When he reached the Daventrys’ hôtel, he carried the sheaf into the drawing room, where Lady Sophia was holding court. The Comte de St Gérard was there, and Major Sir Henry Bissell in his Rifle green hovered discontentedly on the outskirts of the group. The major’s place at the Goddess’s side had been usurped by an officer of the Light Dragoons uniformed in blue with silver lace and yellow facings.

“That’s Viscount Garforth,” Bissell muttered to Felix. “I’m a mere baronet, and infantry at that. The ladies always go for the cavalry.”

Lady Sophia greeted Felix briefly, murmured “Very pretty,” when he offered her the flowers, and directed him to hand them to the butler. Then she turned back to Garforth and St Gérard and continued planning a picnic in the forest of Soignes.

She did not realize, of course, that buying the flowers had been a sacrifice, however small. All the same Felix wished he had taken the unappreciated blooms to Fanny, who would have been thrilled.

He crossed the room to talk to Lady Daventry, a thin, anxious matron who was chatting with a friend. He amused the ladies with a lively description of the Prince of Orange’s eruption into the staff room at Headquarters, then made his excuses and returned to Lady Sophia.

A pair of Guards had joined the group. Feeling drab in his morning coat beside their gold and scarlet resplendence, Felix took his leave, claiming an engagement elsewhere.

“You will come to my picnic, will you not, my lord?” said the Goddess, pouting a little.

“I should not miss it for the world, ma’am,” he vowed, elated that she desired his attendance. Dared he hope that her neglect of him this afternoon was an attempt to make him jealous?

He called at the Richmonds’ hôtel in the Rue de la Blanchisserie, and found the young Lennoxes also planning a picnic.

“We want to go to Tournai,” Georgiana told him.

“Or Lille,” said Lady Jane eagerly, “just across the border, to snap our fingers in Boney’s face.”

“It’s too far,” Lady Sarah protested.

“William cannot go so far,” Lady Mary seconded her.

Their fifteen-year-old brother, still pale and weak from his fall, said stoutly, “If you will only wait a week, Georgy, I shall be able to go.”

“Of course we will wait,” cried Lady Jane. “Mama, say we may go if we wait for William to be better.”

The duchess looked dubious.

“You’d best see what Wellington has to say, Mama,” put in Lord George, one of the Duke’s youthful aides-de-camp. “Do you not agree, Lord Roworth?”

“Certainly. A fine thing it would be if the Duke had to send out the Dragoons especially to rescue you from Boney’s advance guard.”

The duchess’s offspring laughed, and she sent Felix a glance of gratitude. She had enough on her hands keeping a rein on her husband, who would have given a fortune to be allowed to join Wellington’s staff.

Felix spent an entertaining half hour with the lively Lennoxes before returning to Madame Vilvoorde’s. He found Fanny, in a faded pink muslin walking dress and her straw hat, about to take Anita to the park to feed the swans.

“May I join you?” he requested.

Fanny was taken aback. Companionable as he was at home, she’d never expected the aristocratic Lord Roworth to choose to be seen in public with the shabby sister of an obscure Artillery officer. After all, his wish to take her to the Cavalry Review had been voiced in the knowledge that it was impossible.

“Yes, you come wiv us, Tío Felix,” said Anita decidedly, and took his hand.

He smiled down at the little girl with real affection. Fanny decided it was not her company he sought, but Anita’s. What a splendid father he would make! Walking along together, she could almost pretend they were a family, only that would mean she was married to him, an inconceivable notion.

But not altogether a disagreeable notion.

Alarmed by the trend of her thoughts, she caught up his mention of the Richmonds and asked him about that family. His tales of the exploits of the spirited Lennoxes made her regret that she would never meet them. They sounded delightful. Lady Georgiana’s vivacity, in particular, sounded utterly unlike Lady Sophia’s refined impassivity.

The sun had turned westwards and the streets had cooled a little. Anita trotted happily along between them, holding a hand of each, until they reached the cathedral of St Gudule, where she stopped dead.

“Pigeons,” she said, pointing at the indolent birds perched on the steps. “Pigeons like bread, too. Be they hungry, Tía, like the swans?”

“Pigeons are always hungry,” Felix told her.

“Poor pigeons! Can I give them some bread, Tía?”

Felix took the bread from Fanny and broke it into small pieces for Anita to throw. The birds speedily awoke from their torpor and flocked about their feet, pecking and squabbling. Anita laughed in delight.

“That’s the last of it,” said Fanny. “The swans will have to go without today.”