Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill - Plaidy Jean - Страница 19

And when they were seated at the dinner table he told the story.

Adventures of a Prince 83

4 I met the girl, Your Highness, in London. She wanted to conic to Brighton. All of 'em want it. They want to have a chance of seeing Your Highness, I swear. So I brought her here ... set the lady up in a pleasant little apartment, and what does she do? She starts an intrigue with a fellow of Brighton.'

'This is sad news, Major. You mean she prefers this fellow to you?'

'Stab me, if I could lay hands on him I'd douse him in the sea. He'd have had enough of sea bathing by the time I'd done with him.'

'You don't know who he is?'

'No, but I shall find out. I'm determined on that. I've had her followed ... meets a fellow on the beach, .and is planning to go off with him.'

'What's this?' said the Prince.

'She goes to the beach. I've had her followed. Some fellow ... from the household, I believe ... meets her there. Oh, yes, I've had her watched; I've had her spied on. And she's eloping with the fellow, I hear. Not sure when but I'll find out. I'll let her know that I'm not paying for apartments for her to use while she goes out to meet this fellow.'

'What sort of a ... woman is she?'

'Damned pretty. And up to tricks. Not so young as she looks and she knows a thing or two, my Charlotte does.'

'Charlotte?'

'Little Charlotte Fortcscuc ... Blue eyes ... black hair and the prettiest little figure ...'

'One moment,' said the Prince. 'Describe her to me ... in detail.'

The Major did describe her and before he had finished the Prince knew. His Lottie and the Major's Charlotte Fortescue were one and the same woman. So she had pretended she was an innocent girl, when all the time she was kept ... yes kept ... by the Major.

'Major,' said the Prince, 'I am your fellow.'

'What's that sir? What's that?'

The Prince explained.

'Well, stab me!' cried the Major. 'So she's been playing us both. And Your Highness is the, the ...'

'The fellow you are going to douse in the sea.'

'Why, sir ... The wicked creature! No wonder she's been looking so smug lately.'

'You mean ... she knew who I was?'

'There's little Charlotte doesn't know.'

'When I think of her sitting in my carriage ... in my footman's uniform ... waiting for me...'

'Very pleased with herself, Highness, having hooked the Prince of Wales.'

The Prince was irritated. It was not pleasant to have been so duped by a slip of a girl. He had only been mildly involved. She was not really his type; she was far too young. And the fact that she had deceived him had completely changed his feelings towards her.

But she should not be allowed to get the better of him. He had an idea. It would be almost as good a joke as the duel.

'Listen, Major. The carriage will be waiting to pick her up. She will be expecting me inside it. You shall put on the coat and hat I wore for my meetings with her and be there in my place. Madame Lottie will trip along, enter the coach ... See how long you can keep up the deception. Then you can take her to London and enjoy the little jaunt which was to have been mine.'

The Major slapped his thigh.

'By God, Sir, trust you to think up a first-class joke. I'm ready to choke with laughter in anticipation/

They started to laugh together; then the Prince was sober. It was rather an anti-climax to what was to have been a pleasant adventure.

After the Major had gone, he started to think how pleasant it would be if he could meet a woman who was good and beautiful, who was his ideal, who loved him tenderly and whom he could love.

There is no satisfaction in light love affairs, he told himself.

In due course the Major reported the consternation of Charlotte Fortescue when she discovered that her deceived lover had taken the place of the Prince of Wales; and the incident

made the two men even closer friends. The Major's eccentricities were very diverting and he could always be relied on to think up some original trick to amuse.

On one occasion over dinner at Carlton House the Major became involved in an argument with Mr. Berkeley over the merits of turkeys and geese and which could travel the faster. Major Hanger was sure the turkevs would; Mr. Berkeley was equally certain that it would be the geese. Other conversation around the dinner table ceased and all attention was concentrated on the argument between Hanger and Berkeley.

The Prince joined in and said there was only one way of settling the matter. They must have a race. Because this was the Prince's idea it was taken up with enthusiasm. It was in any case another opportunity for a gamble.

Bets were taken and the stakes rose high.

The Prince was on the Major's side and backed the turkeys, declaring that he would be in charge of the turkeys and Mr. Berkeley should be the gooseman. The preparations were in the Prince's mind, hilarious.

'Now, George,' he said to Hanger, 'you must select twenty of the very best turkeys to be found in the land.'

Hanger said he could safely be trusted to do that.

Mr. Berkeley was equally determined to find twenty of the finest geese.

It was not possible for the Prince to do anything without a great many people knowing of it; and the proposed match between turkeys and geese was no exception.

What will they be up to next? people asked themselves; and they came out to watch the race which Berkeley had artfully decided should take place in the late afternoon.

There was great hilarity when the birds were set on the road leading out of London for the ten-mile race. The Prince and Major Hanger were with their turkeys carrying the long poles on which pieces of red cloth had been tied with w r hich to guide the birds if they decided to stray; and Mr. Berkeley and his supporters were similarly equipped to deal with the geese.

The turkeys got off to a good start and the betting was in their favour; in the first three hours they were two miles ahead of the geese; and then as dusk fell the turkeys looked for roost-

ing places in the trees and finding them would not be dislodged; in vain did the Prince and the Major endeavour to do so; they were engaged in this when the geese came waddling into sight prodded by their supporters and went on past the roosting places of the turkeys to win the contest.

This was all very childish apart from the fact that enormous sums of money had changed hands and the Prince's debts were thereby increased because of it.

But although he spent lavishly on gambling, clothes, entertaining and improvements to Carlton House—in fact anything that took his fancy—he was not without generosity. He could never pass a beggar without throwing a handful of coins; he liked to scatter them among the children in the Brighton streets; and on one occasion borrowed eight hundred pounds from the moneylenders to give to a soldier just returned from the American wars whom he discovered living in penury; and not only did he give money but made it his personal duty to see that the soldier was reinstated in the Army.

In fact he wanted to enjoy life and others to enjoy it with him; he had not yet lost the pleasure he found in freedom; the shadow of the restricted life he had led at Kew under his parents' supervision was not far enough behind him for him to have forgotten it. But he was becoming a little palled. Light love affairs, ridiculous practical jokes, absurd gambling projects—they were lightly diverting for the moment; and that was all.

He longed for a stable relationship.

He was in this frame of mind when during a visit to Kew he strolled along the river bank with a little group of friends and met Maria Fitzherbert.

The encounter was so brief; she was there; he bowed and she was gone; but the memory of her lingered on.