Page 10 of The Viscount's Pearl
Frances sank onto a chair and waited for Deborah to fuss about with hot tongs to ensure neat ringlets, her mind elsewhere. She wanted more oyster shells but they were in short supply in Margate. In Whitstable, there would be mounds of them everywhere, for many people went to Whitstable expressly to eat them. Perhaps she could ask for the carriage to drive there one day. It might give her some respite from Mr Mowatt.
“Done,” said Deborah with pride, for Frances had sat unusually still and for once her hair was a credit to the maid.
Reluctantly, Frances made her way down to the dining room.
Dinner was served, during which Lord Barrington mostly spoke about philosophical texts he had been reading while both Laurence and Frances nodded along and turned their attention to the food. Mrs Norris, Lord Barrington’s cook, was a woman who knew how to please guests, providing a meal which made the most of both their seaside location and Northdown’s fine orchard, with cod in oyster sauce, roast lobsters and fried whitebait all making an appearance, as well as plum puffs, applepie with a rich custard and some dainty jellies made with her own bottled elderflower wine. As the meal came to an end, Frances abruptly stood up, forcing Laurence to do the same.
“I suppose I should retire so that you can drink port and talk about whatever it is you men talk about when there are not ladies present. I shall be in the library, in my rocking chair.”
Laurence watched her as she left the room. Andrew the footman placed port and cigars on the table. Laurence filled the two glasses and shook his head at the cigars, while Lord Barrington lit one and leant back in his chair. “What delightful company I am to enjoy. First Frances, now you, joining me here. How are you getting on with my goddaughter?”
Laurence sipped his port. “She is… a little odd in her manner, Sir.”
Lord Barrington chuckled. “She is indeed. She speaks her mind as she sees it and she does not suffer fools. She follows her heart’s wishes, and I admire her for it. She claims she does not want a husband, that she would rather be a spinster all her days, but I think the man who sees her true beauty will be a lucky fellow.”
“I think a husband might wish to change some of her ways, Sir.”
“Ah, I hope not. I love her as she is and hope a man who feels the same will claim her as his bride one day. We do not change those we truly love, Laurence, we see their strange ways and their little faults and we love them all the more.”
“Even if they do not meet the expectations of those around us, Sir?”
Lord Barrington gazed into the fire for so long that Laurence thought he might not be going to answer at all. At last he sighed, looked up and gave him a small smile. “When we love someone, we forgive the pain they may cause us, for we cannot stop loving them once we have been bound together.”
It seemed an odd speech from a man who had never been married, Laurence thought, but perhaps Lord Barrington had had his heart broken in his youth, possibly on the Grand Tour he always spoke of with such fondness, some French or Italian beauty he had never forgotten. His uncle was a romantic, that much Laurence had always known. His mother had been wont to tease her brother, lovingly calling him a romantic fool. The visit would be dull compared to life in London, but Uncle Barrington was a kindly fellow and Laurence was prepared to make an effort for him. Once done, he would return to London, and it would be some time before he would feel obligated to return. And as for Miss Lilley and her odd ways, well that was none of his business. He would be civil but no doubt she would spend her days on the beach while he discoursed with his uncle on matters unlikely to be of interest to a lady. They need not spend much time together, only meals, and that would not be too taxing.
But the next morning it was raining, a grey steady rain that looked unlikely to stop and Lord Barrington shook his head over breakfast.
“I know you would go to the beach even in the rain, Frances, but your mama would never forgive me if I allowed you to catch a chill. Come, we shall walk in the gallery instead, one of my favourite parts of the house. Do you remember it from when you were a boy, Laurence?”
Laurence dimly recalled a room full of light and colour, of statues and echoing walls when he ran or laughed, his mother telling him to be quiet and respectful but Uncle Barrington only smiling indulgently and saying that a joyful child should never be disciplined, that there was not enough joy in the world as it was. “I recall parts of it, Sir.”
Lord Barrington waved at the door and a footman opened it. “It is where I keep all my treasures from my travels.”
“From the Grand Tour, Sir?”
“Indeed. It was the happiest time of my life. Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples, then on to Athens and Istanbul before we came home. My father was astonished at how much art travelled home with me, sculptures, paintings, even masks and chandeliers. Most of them I keep here at Northdown as a real-life memory palace.”
Frances paused in the doorway of the gallery, looking about the vast space. Even with a grey sky outside, the room was full of light from the large windows along one wall, while the other walls were adorned with paintings. Sculptures and statues sat on plinths where the light might best illuminate them. “What is a memory palace, Uncle Barrington?”
“It comes to us from the Greek poet Simonides of Ceos. In order to memorise something, you place it within an imaginary space in your mind. So you might imagine a house with many rooms and in each room of that house you place an object that reminds you of something you wish to remember. Usually it is all imaginary, but here in my gallery I could take you on a journey which recalls the Grand Tour I undertook with Lord Hyatt in our youth.”
He pointed to a painting close to the door, showing a landscape of snowy mountains. “We crossed the Alps and were snowed in for a week by an unseasonable snowstorm, staying in a wretched little inn we had intended to avoid altogether, but we had little choice.”
He moved along past a sculpture of a young man asleep, a rose held in his hand, then gestured to a cabinet of Venetian masks, bright with colour and gilding, faces both beautiful and horrible in their aspects. “Venice was our first real glimpse of the beauty available to us on the Grand Tour. Hyatt and I attendedthe Carnival, we stayed there longer than we had planned, enjoying all the city could offer.” He looked upwards, to where a magnificent chandelier hung. “Venice lit up my heart and my life, I was never so happy before or since.”
“You travelled with Lord Hyatt?” asked Laurence. He remembered the name being mentioned in connection with Lord Barrington, but had not known the two men had travelled together.
“Indeed. He was not in possession of the title yet of course, neither was I of mine, we were young men, free of any ties or responsibilities. We travelled for over a year before we returned to London where we lived in adjoining apartments close to St James’ – something like your Albany is today for young gentlemen who wish to spend their time in the city. We were there for another two years before his father died early and he came into his title.” A small sigh left him. “After that of course he had many responsibilities – the management of the estate, securing an heir. He married and had children, after which we saw each other less frequently.”
“Where was his estate?”
“In Kent, close to Margate. He would visit me here at Northdown, which I built when I came into my title. It allowed us to see one another as often as possible, when he had time.”
“Is he still living?”
Lord Barrington shook his head. “He was lost to us ten years ago, before his time, like his father before him. His children must be your age by now, grown up and out in the world.”
“Do you still see Lady Hyatt?”
