The Accidental Marriage Read online

  ‘Stuff and nonsense! Of course we all like being praised, but women who steal husbands away from their wives are nothing but trollops, however highly born they might be!’

  She stopped abruptly. It would serve no purpose to tell Fanny what she thought men like Frederick should be called.

  Fanny gave a small, stifled laugh. ‘I’ve sometimes thought I should do the same, and find a man who will pay me the same sort of attentions.’

  ‘And make Frederick jealous?’

  ‘Yes,’ Fanny sighed, ‘but I can’t do it. I can’t flirt like that, so no man has ever suggested anything the least improper to me. Besides, I doubt Frederick would notice, or care if he did. He’d just think it gave him more licence.’

  Julia wasn’t so sure. In her admittedly limited experience, most men regarded their wives as possessions, and reacted like dogs over bones if they thought they were in danger of losing what they owned. She began to weave fantasies in which she encouraged her sister to show an interest in another man. Sir Carey was the obvious choice; he was the only single man – or betrothed, she hastily reminded herself – they knew as more than a passing acquaintance. But somehow the notion of flinging Fanny in his path did not appeal. And she was sure, she told herself, dismissing the idea, that neither he nor Fanny would co-operate.

  *

  Sir Carey returned to his lodgings later that day to find a letter from Angelica waiting for him. Smiling, he tore it open. It was only the third one from her, and he had concluded she was not a diligent correspondent. Caroline, the older of his sisters, was already an assiduous letter-writer, and wrote to him almost every day, letters full of her and her sister Susan’s doings, the gossip about people in the village, what the servants at Courtlands were doing, and letters she had received from her numerous correspondents, who seemed to include almost every member of her mother’s family as well as many of her former schoolfriends. Sometimes he wondered how she ever found time to do her lessons and all the other activities she described in such detail.

  Angelica’s writing was still that of a schoolgirl, and her sentences stiff and formal. They showed none of the liveliness which had first drawn him to her. Had she been told what to write by Mrs Philpot, her rather formidable mother? Did that lady, who had only permitted them to be alone together for very brief periods after the betrothal was announced, consider correspondence between the happy pair needed to be supervised? Was she afraid too many expressions of regard, or even love, would contaminate her pure daughter? He thought ruefully of his own letters, which had contained warm sentiments looking forward to their happiness after they were finally together. No doubt her mother insisted on reading those.

  It was good to hear from her, however vaguely unsatisfactory he found the epistles. She had returned to London after a month in the country, mainly, she wrote, to purchase her trousseau and have fittings for her wedding gown.

  She had heard something of the ceremony in Vienna, and asked him if he had seen the formal entry of the Emperor and the Tsar, and all the other kings and princes. Had they concluded the negotiations, and would he be coming home for Christmas? They had been invited to a large house party near York, and she would enjoy it so much more if he were there with her. She remained, his affectionate Angelica.

  He put down the single sheet of paper, and wished he might be going home for Christmas, but from the slow progress of the negotiations it seemed highly unlikely. The big powers were locked in a seemingly intractable dispute about Poland. The Tsar, in occupation, wanted to maintain his influence. Castlereagh wanted a strong independent Poland as a buffer between Russia and Europe. King Frederick William of Prussia had promised Polish provinces to the Tsar in return for Saxony, which would upset the balance of power in Europe. Talleyrand was determined that France would not lose just because it had been dominated for so long by Napoleon. The multitude of small German princes all wanted to improve their own positions, and the larger German duchies and principalities were vociferous in their own demands. How would they ever reconcile all these conflicting aims?

  Sitting down at the table he wrote a swift and affectionate reply to Angelica, and then settled down to composing the report Castlereagh had asked for on conditions in Russia as he had known them four years ago, before Napoleon had sent his Grande Armée against the Tsar, with such disastrous consequences.

  *

  Julia was returning with the girls from their daily expedition to the Prater, when she met Mrs Pryce, who had an apartment in the same building. She greeted the children with big smiles, and to Julia’s relief did not mention their singing the previous evening.

  ‘Hello, children. Have you been for a walk? The weather is glorious, is it not? One can scarce believe it’s the middle of October. Miss Marsh, could I prevail on you to permit Alice and Paula to come and play with my daughters? They’re much of an age, and it would be good for all of them to have different company occasionally. I fear Amelia and Charlotte sometimes get fretful with one another, being thrown together so much. They miss their playmates at home.’

  Alice turned hopeful eyes up to Julia. ‘Oh, Aunt Julia, may we?’

  ‘We must ask your mother, but I’m sure she’ll agree. It’s most kind of you, Mrs Pryce.’

  ‘It will give you some free time, too; my Miss Jenkins will look after all of them.’

  ‘And in return they must come to us.’

  ‘I’ll take it as settled. I’m sure your sister will agree. It was a delightful evening, please thank her for us. I’ll be calling later, when I have disposed of this shopping. Viennese shops are such a temptation, I come home with far more than I go out for, every time.’

  ‘Fanny does too,’ Julia said. Her sister was most generous, and insisted on buying Julia new gowns and dancing slippers and numerous pairs of gloves, as well as a smart pelisse and several hats.

  ‘I can’t have my sister going about in rags,’ she’d declared.

  ‘What does Frederick say to your spending all this money on me?’

  ‘He doesn’t know. He may appear mean in some ways, but he doesn’t scrutinize my dressmaker’s bills,’ Fanny said. ‘He wants me to look a credit to him. And he’d soon complain if he felt you were letting him down.’

  *

  That, thought Julia, was about the only thing Frederick did not complain about. After two nights when he didn’t come back to the apartment, he had reappeared without a word of explanation, and proceeded to find fault with everything from the food that was provided to the quality of the writing paper in the bureau.

  ‘But Frederick, you bought that yourself,’ Fanny was unwise enough to point out.

  ‘I can’t have done, I wouldn’t have bought such rubbish. You and Julia must have used up what I bought with your endless letter writing, or given it to the girls to scribble on, and replaced it, thinking I would not notice.’

  Fanny cast up her eyes. ‘Believe what you will,’ she snapped, to Julia’s astonishment. She had never before heard her sister answer Frederick in such a fashion. Perhaps Fanny was at long last beginning to assert herself. Inwardly Julia cheered. It was about time.

  Next it was the gowns they were to wear to the Metternich ball exercising Frederick’s attention.

  ‘The ladies will all be wearing blue and silver,’ he stated at breakfast.

  ‘How boring,’ Julia said, and laughed. Fanny had insisted on buying her a very pretty rose-coloured gown, and she was planning to wear that.

  ‘You were not asked your opinion,’ he retorted. ‘I cannot have my family look out of place. If you don’t have the right gowns go out today and buy them.’

  So she was his family now, was she? Julia was not sure she wanted to be counted as such.

  ‘The ball is tomorrow!’ Fanny said. ‘If it’s as you say and all the ladies mean to wear those colours the shops must have run out of the material days ago. We’d have to buy gowns already made up, and there’s no time for alterations.’

  ‘You’ll manage, if you want to
go. And you’ll need olive wreaths in your hair. It’s a Peace Ball – have you forgotten? – to celebrate the victory at Leipzig a year ago.’

  He rose from the table and left the room, and Julia could contain her splutter of laughter no longer. ‘Olive wreaths,’ she said.

  ‘Laurel wreaths are very fashionable in London,’ Fanny said, ‘though I have never liked them.’

  ‘It’s a wonder we are not all expected to wear the sword of victory, but I expect that would get in the way of the dancing.’

  ‘How on earth are we to obtain blue or silver dresses?’ Fanny demanded. ‘I have that blue morning dress, but it’s not suitable for a ball!’

  ‘The girls are going to play with the Pryce children this morning, so I’ll go out straight away and see what I can find. We both have white gowns, and if we made military style sashes of blue and silver perhaps that would do. I cannot imagine every single lady will be wearing the same colours. Heavens, there are almost two thousand people attending! A thousand olive wreaths,’ she said, laughing again. ‘Unless the men are wearing them too. But I doubt any but the Prince Regent would agree to look so ridiculous.’

  ‘Hush!’ Fanny said automatically. She was always uncomfortable when anyone said disparaging things about the Prince, though Julia knew she despised him and his Carlton House Set.

  ‘Do you think there are any olive trees in the Prater or the Augarten that we can rob, or don’t they grow here? And I promised to take the girls to see the Victory Parade there this afternoon.’

  ‘If you can find some material, I can do the sewing. We mustn’t disappoint them.’

  Julia nodded. They were going with the Pryce girls and their governess, Miss Jenkins, and at the suggestion of Mrs Pryce, they had brought a picnic.

  ‘I’m told there will be twenty thousand veterans,’ Mr Pryce told her. ‘It will take hours for them all to pass. But I suppose it’s an historic occasion, and the children ought to see it.’

  The younger girls were most interested in the colourful uniforms. It meant nothing to them that these men had fought in one of the recent battles against Napoleon, at Leipzig, one which had been a great victory for the Allies, and when Napoleon’s last ally, Saxony, had deserted him. All they knew of the defeated Emperor was the threat often used by nursery maids, that if they did not behave well ‘Boney’ would come and spirit them away.

  *

  Frederick smirked as he handed Fanny into the carriage that was to take them to the Metternich mansion in the Rennweg. ‘I knew you would find a way if I insisted,’ he said.

  ‘It was Julia’s idea. She found the silver gauze shawls and I made them into overskirts, and cut up my blue dress for the sashes.’

  Julia touched the tiny spray of olive leaves which had been all she’d been able to find, which she had fixed into her hair. It was a wonder Frederick had not objected to the lack of proper wreaths. But he was looking excited, and she wondered whether he was expecting to meet his Russian inamorata there.

  There was a long line of carriages waiting to set the guests down at the entrance to Prince Metternich’s summer palace a short distance outside the city ramparts, and Julia was able to admire the long low lines of it, and the classical porticoes. It was half an hour before Fanny and her party were able to pass up the long flight of red-carpeted stairs to the ballroom, in a specially built pavilion, also pillared in the Classical style.

  Frederick disappeared, to Julia’s disgust, but Fanny’s hand was soon solicited for the polonaise. Julia wandered through one of the many archways into the garden. It was still amazingly warm for the middle of October, and she didn’t need a wrap. Hearing the faint sound of an orchestra she walked on through the garden, passing a temple to Apollo, partly hidden by the profuse greenery, and came eventually to a small alcove where the musicians were playing.

  She found a stone bench and sat down to listen. For several days now she had scarcely ever been alone. During the daytime, if she were not teaching the children or taking them for walks in the Viennese parks, she was with Fanny, trying to keep up her sister’s spirits. Or she was searching the shops for silver gauze, she recalled, and glanced down at her own overskirt. It really didn’t look like a last minute, cobbled together affair. Frederick had passed no disparaging remarks, so it must be satisfactory.

  Was Frederick’s behaviour, his pursuit of other women, normal with married men? Until now she had believed that Fanny did not care, but her sister clearly still loved her unsatisfactory husband, and was desperately hurt by his neglect. She ought to set up her own flirt, Julia thought, angry for her sister, and for all the other women who were treated so disdainfully by their menfolk.

  She would never endure such humiliation. The thought, unaccountably, brought to mind Sir Carey Evelegh, and she tried, without success, to dismiss him from her thoughts. It was useless for her to even think of marriage, and he was already spoken for. Even if she had ever had the slightest chance of attracting his attention, her lack of fortune would have made her ineligible. She sighed. It would have to be a life as a governess or companion, and her best hope of ever marrying was that a desperate curate, as impecunious as herself, would be in need of a wife to help him in his parish duties.

  Julia didn’t want to be a wife valued only for her good works, she told herself. Wealthy, landed people married for practical reasons, to consolidate estates, or gain influence, or provide heirs for their lands and titles. Poor people, the peasants she had known in her father’s parish, married for other reasons, but whether these were for lust or love, or necessity, she didn’t know. She grinned. It had always puzzled her, when she was of an age to know a little about the process of pregnancy and childbirth, how many premature births had occurred in the parish. Then, mulling over one of her father’s most vehement sermons, she had understood.

  She was in that uncomfortable middle section of society. She had no chance of marrying for the usual reasons of status and money, and it would be frowned upon if she chose her husband from the merchant or peasant classes.

  The musicians finished the collection of sonatas they had been playing, and began to wrap up their instruments. Julia suspected they were going to find some food, and the thought made her hungry. Rising, she made her way back to the main pavilion, pausing only to watch one of the tableaux vivants. There were several of these, and she promised herself she would look for more, and perhaps watch one of the ballets, when she had satisfied her hunger.

  As she approached the buffet she heard her name called, and swinging round saw Sir Carey bearing down on her.

  ‘I wondered where you were,’ he said. ‘I saw your sister, but it’s such a crush I despaired of ever finding you. What do you think of it all?’

  Julia’s heart was racing at the idea that he had looked for her especially, and then she told herself not to be foolish. It was just the sort of flattering remark any man might make, without meaning it. And he was engaged to be married, and from his description of Angelica, very much in love with her.

  ‘Let’s go and find a table,’ he said now. ‘Then when we have eaten will you honour me with a waltz? I believe there are to be some Russian dances, but despite my time there I never managed to perform them to my satisfaction.’

  ‘Is the conga a Russian dance?’ Julia asked when they had helped themselves to platefuls of food. ‘I didn’t see it, but I understand the Tsar led one through the Hofburg at the masked ball.’

  He laughed. ‘No, it’s not Russian, though their dances are often as boisterous. But Alexander is excelling himself for rudeness tonight,’ he added. ‘He’s telling everyone who will listen how much he prefers the company of soldiers. If the Congress fails, it will be largely his fault. But enough of political matters. How is little Paula? Not fretting about her singing, is she?’

  ‘She seems happy enough, though she has refused to learn the new song I found for them. It will take some time for her to forget what happened.’

  How thoughtful of him to ask, she was thinki
ng. Most men would have forgotten the incident, and not been at all concerned about the feelings of a child.

  They danced two waltzes, and then, seeing Fanny standing at the side of the ballroom, made their way to her.

  ‘You look pale,’ Julia said. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Of course. It’s just so hot in here.’

  ‘Let’s walk out in the gardens for a while,’ Sir Carey said. ‘I believe there is to be a balloon ascent, and fireworks.’

  He gave each lady an arm and led them out to where they could sit on another of the benches. Almost immediately there was an explosion of fireworks, which made Fanny jump.

  ‘Look, they are making patterns in the sky,’ Julia pointed. ‘What are they, do you suppose?’

  ‘That one looks like the British coat of arms,’ Sir Carey said. ‘And now the Russian. How ingenious.’

  After a while Fanny began to shiver, and they went back towards the ballroom. On the way they met Prince Metternich and his wife, who stopped and said a few gracious words.

  He was tall and elegant, with blond curly hair. He was, Julia had been told, an excellent horseman and a good swimmer, though she doubted he would be swimming in the River Danube just now. Julia could understand why so many women seemed attracted to him, despite his reputation for being stiff and condescending. His wife Eleonore was small and plain, but she had been possessed of a large dowry, and Metternich’s family estates in the Rhineland had been lost during the wars. She seemed gentle, but her smile was wistful and Julia detected a sad expression in her eyes.

  Fanny was overcome, commenting as they moved away on how charming they were.

  ‘I don’t know how she endures his affairs,’ Sir Carey said. ‘He is so blatant over them.’

  Julia glanced at him. She felt instinctively that he was not the sort of man either to have affairs, or, if he did, to flaunt them.

  He asked Fanny to dance, but she excused herself, saying she was feeling tired and would prefer to sit quietly at the side and watch.