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Dearest Mélanie,
Ameila hit Billy this evening. Actually hit him. Not badly—he howled, but he plainly wasn’t hurt. And I must confess he’d been particularly beastly. She was playing with her paper dolls in a corner of the drawing room, and he snatched them up without any provocation I could see and ripped them to pieces. I could quite see her side of it. All the same, one cannot condone one’s children hitting each other.
Oliver was at the House, of course. He still hasn’t returned, so I haven’t been able to tell him what happened. I sent Amelia up to the nursery with Ellen and calmed Billy down and pointed out that he shouldn’t have torn her paper dolls. When I got Billy tucked in bed, I had a talk with Amelia. She said Billy had been horrid. I couldn’t deny it, but I said hitting was no way to solve differences. To which Amelia said, “then why do men fight duels?” I told her dueling was an excessively silly way to settle differences and her father and uncles would never do something so ridiculous (which I hope and pray is true). I finally had both Amelia and Billy settled when Rose woke up with a nightmare. Even with Ellen’s help, it was all I could do to get to get with my sanity at least partially intact.
Do come round tomorrow. I’m in crying need of an afternoon with a friend. Besides, Honoria wanted me to go to a china warehouse, and I told her I had a previous engagement with you. Yes, I can be quite shockingly deceitful, a dreadful example for my children if they knew, but I don’t think I could bear an afternoon of Honoria’s sweetly reasonable advice. I own to an uncharitable thought that when she has children of her own she’ll see how very difficult it can be. Bring Colin and Jessica and perhaps we can take all the children to Bayswater Tea Gardens.
Yours most affectionately,
Isobel
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My dear David,
I won’t comment on your speech of last week. I may find your politics by turns laughably naïve dangerously destabilizing, but there I must confess that there is nothing in being a Whig that per say is incompatible with being the future Earl Carfax. I cannot deny that more than one prior Earl Carfax has adhered to the Whig party, and while I may not find a great deal to admire in them, they all managed to preserve the Carfax name and fortune (even to add to them). And they all perpetuated the family name.
There lies the important point. You may flirt with dangerous ideas. You may associate with bohemians. But you as the prospective 9th Earl Carfax, you have a duty to see that there is an 10th Earl Carfax to follow after you.
I’m not asking you to give up all your present activities or associations. Marriage can be a pragmatic arrangement. Indeed, dear as your mother is to me, I am not sure but what pragmatism is best in these matters. The right woman would understand what was due to her position as Viscountess Worsley and the future Countess Carfax. A number of women would be very happy to do their duty by you and the family and then go their own way and allow you to go yours. You might profit by the example of your friend Charles Fraser. You must know better than to believe the more romanticized versions of his marriage. Underneath the admittedly ravishing surface, Mélanie Fraser is a sensible woman. She knows what she’s gained from her marriage, and she knows better than to make demands on her husband.
I daresay it won’t come as a surprise to you that your mother and I had hopes for you and Honoria. Some might have laughed at me for thinking you could snare such a diamond of the first water, but Honoria’s is a young man who knows what is important in life. If it weren’t for her unfortunate infatuation with Charles—
But there’s little to be gained from dwelling upon the past. You’ve always understood duty, David. You know what needs to be done.
Yours, etc…
Carfax
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My dear Louisa,
I begin to feel rather old. Yes, dearest, I know. Trust me, I wouldn’t admit it to anyone but you. I daresay it will pass. I profoundly hope so. I’m sure having a third child marry hasn’t helped, even if she if absurdly young. And before you say anything, yes, I know we thought we were frightfully grown up at that age (frightfully being the operative word in retrospect). I wasn’t so very much older than I married Dacre-Hammond. Not that that’s much recommendation of anything. Yet I actually think Judith and Tinsley stand a decent chance of being happy. Perhaps I’m growing soft, but though I would never call myself a romantic, I must confess that Allie and Geoffrey seem to be getting on remarkably well, whatever anyone may say about the age difference. Perhaps the younger members of our family is making more sensible choices.
Which brings me to Charles. For all the raised brows and whispers behind fans, I hold that he’s made a very sensible choice of wife. And he genuinely seems to like her, which is so much more important than we often realize. Whether or not he’ll let himself love her is another matter entirely. What’s that? You say I don’t believe in love. Darling, that’s nonsense, I’ve always believed in. I may not believe it can last. But there’s always the hope, isn’t there?
Returning to Charles and Mélanie, I’m also quite sure he doesn’t appreciate how difficult it is for her to make her way in society. Charles has a way of turning a blind eye to society—very idealistic of him, but society remains, and it’s much easier for a man of his birth and background to ignore it than for a newcomer like Mélanie to do so. I’m doing my best to help her, but though she’s quite charming, she holds herself a bit aloof. I’m not at all sure I know her. But then after nearly thirty years I’m sometimes not at all sure I know Charles either.
All eyes were on them at the Lievens’ last week. Mélanie managed to give a skillfully performance of a woman who was quite unaware of the attention Charles retired to the library for most of the evening. An evening also distinguished by Kenneth Fraser and Glenister very nearly coming to blows. I’m not precisely sure why. Kenneth danced with Honoria, but there must be more to it. Perhaps something to do with the Elsinore League. I can’t help but think back to our visit to Dunmykel all those years ago, and our speculation about the League’s true nature…
I must go. I’ve promised Chloe a story, and I’m trying to do a better job of keeping my promises.
Yours as always,
Frances
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Dear, provoking Quen,
I meant to say this to you in person this morning, but the door of your bedchamber was still firmly closed when I left to go to a silk warehouse with Gisèle and Lady Frances and Mrs. Fraser (and I suspect remained so long after we left). I was afraid you’d be off to your club or Tattersall’s or some or other far more disreputable place I probably don’t even know the name of by the time we get back.
Do remember Honoria’s musicale this evening. And yes, I can almost hear you saying that you remember it perfectly well and that’s precisely why you’ve accepted another engagement. But do pray remember that it isn’t just Honoria’s entertainment. It’s a family event. You’ve scarcely shown your face at a Glenister House entertainment in weeks. You’ve scarcely shown your face at any sort of family event except Judith’s wedding, and that’s only our family by extension Uncle Frederick may not admit it, but I know he’d be happy to see you in an appearance. And life is so much more agreeable when the two of you aren’t completely at loggerheads.
As to Honoria, you know she provokes me as much as much as anyone, but she’s been having a beastly time of it with Charles back with his war bride and everyone looking at her to see how she’s taking it. I’m not quite sure what happened at the Lievens’ three nights ago, but she’s seemed distressed ever since.
The various Frasers will be there tonight. Gisèle’s going to sing, and ten to one when she’s not singing she’ll sit beside Val and hold his hand under fan. There’s no one I’d rather have join the family than Gisèle, but—
You needn’t stay long. But do put in an appearance. It would mean a great deal to me.
Your devoted cousin who knows full well she can be tiresome,
Evie
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My dear Glenister,
I hesitated over whether or not to even dignify your words last night in the Lievens’ library with a response. But as I know to my sorrow that your memory has always been tiresomely tenacious, even when in your cups, I decided that some reply was perhaps called for. I trust that the clear light of day and the return of sobriety (despite the devil of a head you must be suffering from) have made you realize the absurdity of your words last night. I danced one waltz with a charming young woman of three-and-twenty. That she happens to be the niece and ward of my oldest friend only makes the dance all the more unexceptionable. Do you imagine I would fly into a temper should you dance with Gisèle? For that matter, I have refrained my flying into a temper over your son dancing with Gisèle more than once, and closely enough to set tongues wagging. Were it not for our friendship, I would not be so forbearing.
Your accusation that Honoria only danced with me to make Charles jealous is perhaps something Honoria herself could best answer (though I wouldn’t advise you to put the question to her). Charles appeared to have his head together with Worsley and Lydgate and Brougham at the time (no doubt plotting an attack on magistrates who protect property rights or some such thing). He didn’t appear much interested in what his own wife was doing either (including dancing with you at one point, as I recall). My son has always shown a lamentable lack of interest in the fair sex. So much so that I have at times wondered if he and Worsley share more than political ideals. No doubt my daughter-in-law could enlighten us further, but I confess Charles’s private life is of very little interest to me. I will say that I think Honoria has a very fortunate escape when Charles chose his foreign bride. He’d never have been the man Honoria wanted.
As to your inquiry about my intentions, why should you suppose that I have any? Surely we are both still of an age where we may indulge in a dance simply for the enjoyment of it. If I did have intentions—or were I too develop them—I hope that on reflection you will credit me with being enough the gentleman to know what is due to an unmarried girl of good family.
We have shared a great deal, Glenister. A great deal which I presume you would not wish me to commit to paper. It would be folly for this to come between us now.
Yours, etc…
Fraser
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My dear Cressida,
Judith’s wedding went off beautifully enough to satisfy even Judith. St. George’s, Hanover Square, with Gisèle and Chloe and her particular friends as bridesmaids and half the ton in attendance. The guests included the Prince Regent and two royal dukes (all of whom, I believe, Judith thinks are good candidates for her actual father, and knowing Lady Frances I suspect she may be right), Princess Charlotte (who is rumored to be enceinte) and Prince Leopold, the Melbournes, the Cowpers, both William and George Lamb and their Carolines, the Lydgates, the Granvilles, the Warwicks, the Hollands, the young Duke of Devonshire, Lord Worsley and Mr. Tanner, the Glensister House family– Listen to me, I sound like the society pages. This is what twenty years as a governess to the daughters of the Upper Ten Thousand dos to one. Please believe your sister is still a more rational creature than I at times sound.
Lord Tinsley looked very handsome and very nervous as Judith came down the aisle toward him. The nervousness does him credit in my eyes, for I believe it means he takes the married state seriously and genuinely wishes to make a success of it. The look in his eyes when he took Judith’s hand also speaks volumes as to how he feels about his bride. And Judith, for all her delight in the trappings of the wedding, is undeniably head over heels in love with her new husband. That, I think, is what reconciled Lady Frances to Judith marrying so young, That, and the fact that, as she confided to me one evening when we had a glass of sherry after sitting up into the small hours writing out cards of invitation for the wedding, “Tinsley’s understanding is far superior to Dacre-Hammond’s.”
The wedding breakfast was at Lady Frances’s, quite flawless as are all her entertainments, with a cake from Gunter’s and superb champagne. Judith prevailed upon Charles Fraser to sit down at the pianoforte and there was informal dancing in the drawing room. Gisèle danced twice with Lord Valentine. She’s been showing a rather worrisome interest in him these past weeks (and worse, it seems to be reciprocated). I know Lady Frances is concerned at the effect Judith marrying so young may have on Gisèle. For all Gisèle claims not to be interested in marriage, I’m quite sure Judith marrying before she did herself brought her up short. I suspect Gisèle’s flirtation with Lord Valentine is a reaction to the events of last winter. I pray it is so. I have lain awake more than once wondering if I should warn Lady Frances, but I can’t do so without breaking a number of confidences. And putting myself in a distinctly awkward situation. The question of how much my own cowardice figures in the equation is what keeps me tossing and turning.
I doubt Honoria Talbot was best-pleased either to be at just the sort of perfect wedding I expect she envisions for herself, with the bride a girl five years her junior. Not to mention Charles Fraser being back in London with a wife and children. Seeing him, it’s difficult to imagine two people less well-suited for each other. It’s always possible, of course, that he’d have been the making of Honoria, but I think it’s more likely she’d have been the ruin of him. I feel sorry for his wife. I heard fragments of at least five different whispered conversations about her. She can’t have been unaware, but she did an excellent job of pretending to be oblivious. She’s quite skilled at navigating the social waters, and then she settled down in an alcove during and nursed her baby. Charles brought her a plate of food, which goes to show he isn’t quite as oblivious to his wife as Gisèle makes out.
Honoria and I had an unavoidable encounter by the refreshment table when I’d taken Chloe to get an ice. Honoria greeted me very civilly, but we only exchanged a few words. Evie came and sat with me with me for a quarter hour and asked after you and the rest of the family by name. Lord Quentin only slipped into St. George’s at the last minute and only came briefly to the breakfast, which is perhaps as well, for a number of reasons.
Love to Richard and the children.
Your affectionate sister,
Aspasia
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My dear Castlereagh,
I was obliged to come down here late last night (an unexpected visitor I needed to meet) and so was unable to wait on you this morning. Charles Fraser’s speech against the suppression of Seditious Publications was, I am compelled to confess, impressive. I’ve always known he had a good speaking style—that much is apparent even over the port after dinner—but I hadn’t heard him address a crowd since a rather alarming visit to an Oxford coffeehouse where he and my son and their friends were holding forth in their undergraduate days. Charles may seem aloof in personal matters (as I heard my niece Honoria lamenting with a mock sigh only yesterday), but as a speaker he has an uncommon talent for engaging both the emotion and the intellect. He can quote Tom Paine and actually make the man sound sensible. Dangerous that. Charles is going to be challenge in the House, in more ways than one.
I begin to wish we could have kept Charles in Intelligence longer. Not that he wasn’t a challenge there, particularly of late. There’s nothing more aggravating than agents who question the reasons for their orders. Still, we knew where he was, we could direct him to a certain extent, and he didn’t have as wide an audience, so it was easier to contain the damage. And there’s no denying his skills are missed. I’ve never seen a code breaker to equal him. (Speaking of which, what precisely have you got Belmont up to in Paris? I’ve heard some vague reports that make me suspect I don’t know the whole).
I fear Charles is likely to turn my son and son-in-law’s attentions more to matters abroad. Not that there isn’t plenty of damage they can do domestically. The last thing we need to is to encourage the rabble by undoing the necessary measures that have finally been passed.
Thanks to his wife, he’s going to be a social influence as well. As a bachelor, I doubt he’d have entertained much or even gone about in society a great deal, but Mélanie will see to it that that side of his career is managed well. Sidmouth told me only this week that he thought Charles’s marriage would prove a liability for a young politician, but I doubt that will be the case in the long run. Mélanie will undoubtedly have a difficult time making her way in London society, but she has a knack for winning over most gentlemen she meets. The ladies are a bit slower to come round (there’s still the inevitable gossip), but I think they will eventually. My daughter worries about Charles and Mélanie—Bel has a kind heart—but I rather suspect that by autumn they’ll be the most fashionable young Whig couple in London. I begin to wish Charles had married Honoria. It might have made him easier to control.
Kenneth Fraser has a lot to answer for. With proper guidance, Charles could have been a son a man would be proud of.
Your, etc…
Carfax
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Dearest Harriet,
I saw them last night. Charles Fraser and his wife. Lady Frances gave a ball to welcome them to London. I must say Mélanie Fraser dresses superbly—that was plain when they were here two and a half years ago, and now one can tell she’s had all her gowns made in Paris. They certainly don’t hang about each other unbecomingly. Charles danced the first dance with her, then spent a good portion of the evening in the library with David Mallinson and Oliver Lydgate and Gideon Carne and some others. Harry went in at one point and told me they were discussing Habeas Corpus. Mélanie Fraser danced a number of dances in her husband’s absence and didn’t seem in the least concerned. Nor did Charles look the least bit jealous when he returned to the ballroom late in the evening to find his wife surrounded by a throng of admirers. So the whole idea that she someone how seduced and bewitched him and addled his reason is nonsensical. Not that I ever gave much credence to it. The whole idea of Charles Fraser being bewitched by anyone is patently absurd. If there’s one thing that man is not it’s a besotted fool. She’s certainly done very well for herself to have escaped Spain (which cannot be at all a comfortable place to live just now( and married a man so comfortably situated, but who can blame her. A girl with no family and fortune must look out for herself. She has a very elegant manner—a touch informal but doesn’t put herself forward disagreeably. And she does seem genuinely fond her children. I’ve seen her in the park with them several times.
Gisèle Fraser, by the way, danced two waltzes with Val Talbot (rather closer than I would care to see Minny dancing with anyone when she’s of an age to dance). I think they would have danced a third time had Evie not gone up and pulled her cousin away. Such a sensible girl, Evie Mortimer. Honoria didn’t look best pleased either. Of course, I suspect she found the whole occasion of the ball uncomfortable, but to her credit she behaved beautifully. She went to talk to Charles and his wife as soon as she arrived. She didn’t linger overly long, but she appeared to say everything that is proper, just as she always does. I wonder if she’s more likely to marry now that Charles is definitely taken. She’d make an excellent match for Fred—just the sort of wife a diplomat needs.
Quen put in an appearance late. For Charles’s sake, I suspect, Quen’s always been fond of him. He danced once with Evie and once with Mélanie Fraser. Kenneth Fraser also did not stay long, though he did dance with his daughter-in-law. Lord Cowper says he heard Mr. Fraser murmur that he’d never expected his son to do so well for himself. Every time I sigh over my own family, I remind myself that I could have been born a Fraser. Or a Talbot.
Yours most affectionately,
Emily
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Gelly darling,
How provoking that you are in Brighton just now. Do prevail upon Lady Frances to return to London soon. It is shockingly poor-spirited of me, I suspect, but I really am in rather desperate need of a friend just now. Val got into some sort of scrape while he was staying at the Wiltons’. I don’t know the details, but I do know that whatever happened it drove him to write to Quen. Quen pretended to great unconcern and then slipped out of the house( at an hour at which he usually hasn’t even put in an appearance in the breakfast parlor). He’s still deluded enough to think I don’t realize he went straight to Hoare’s and withdrew whatever absurd sum was required to extricate Val. I very nearly told him not to be a silly goose (how on earth does he think I’d manage to get anything done if I didn’t know what was going on under our own roof?). But Honoria shot him one of her more deviously effective darts last night when we were waiting for the carriage to go to the Cowpers’. So I decided that if Quen is comforted by his pose of rakish unconcern, who am I to unmask him. Goodness knows I understand the need for comfort.
Honoria, as you predicted, isn’t at all pleased at the prospect of Charles’s return to Britain. Not that’s she’s said anything, mind, beyond a lift of her brows and a comment that you can never tell how people will change. But I can tell she’s cross. She made a comment about being on the shelf that was so brittle I thought the air would shatter like glass, and she actually snapped at one of the housemaids this morning because the coffee had gone cold, which isn’t at all like her. Mind you, it can’t be very pleasant. Charles, that is, not the coffee. Not that anyone with a shred of sense could call Honoria even remotely close to being on the shelf, But with Charles settled in London with his family, people are bound to make comments about Honoria still being unattached.
I can’t help but feel for Mélanie Fraser. She’s bound to be the focus of a great deal of attention and not al of it pleasant. People can be so unthinkingly unkind. As to Charles, I for one will be very glad to have him home. He’s been gone far too long. He always was a steadying influence on Quen, and one can only hope some of that may rub off on Val as well. Yes, I know your sentiments, Gelly, but he is your brother. Do try to keep an open mind. Surely you’ll enjoy seeing your nephew and your new little niece. Colin was so delightful on their visit three years ago, and I was much struck by how good both Charles and Mélanie were with him. I only hope whatever sort of talk there is, it doesn’t touch the children. But then I imagine Charles and Mélanie are good at shielding them.
All my love,
Evie
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Dearest Bel,
Thank you for your kind letter and offers of help. Settling children in a new home does present its own particular challenges (though Colin has known nothing but change of lodgings in his short life thus far; not the ideal of a well-regulated nursery perhaps, but it has made him a wonderful intrepid traveler; Jessica has done quite well on shorter journeys, so I am hopeful that she takes after her brother). We have an excellent governess in Laura Dudley, who thankfully is very willing to return to Britain with us. Not only does she have the education to teach the children everything from mathematics to classics when the time comes, she isn’t averse to baby napkins, and she has a happy talent for putting up with the vagaries of Charles’s and my lives.
I may engage a baby nurse for Jessica when we are settled in our house in London (how wonderful and terrifying to think of actually having a house after all these years in lodgings!). If you could keep an eye out for someone suitable, I would be most grateful. It needn’t be someone with a great deal of experience. In fact, in some ways it would be an advantage if this were her first position. I confess that, for better or ill, I prefer to be the one making the decisions in my children’s lives. If we had a nurse who was used to ruling over the nursery domain, I would likely driver her mad with my constant visits and insistence on taking the children out for this or that reason. For that matter, Charles is quite used to breakfasting with the children and stopping in to read with Colin or play with Jessica. And since I’m nursing Jessica myself, I take her out with me a great deal (thank goodness for nursing bodices).
As to the rest of the staff, any suggestions you can make would be most welcome. I am still, I can confess to you, adjusting to the thought of actually running a household (Charles and I, the children, Addison, Blanca, Miss Dudley, and the odd housemaid scarcely seem to qualify for so lofty a term as household). The knowledge that I may rely upon your advice helps me remain sanguine. That, and the fact that I have so many books to box up, there’s scarcely time to worry.
Colin is so looking forward to playing with Billy and Rose and Elinor. He talks about them nearly every day.
Charles sends his love (or would if we were home—he’s at the embassy meeting with Stuart and Tommy Belmont—but in this at least I know I may speak for him with confidence).
Your grateful friend,
Mélanie
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My dear Val,
I found your letter most amusing. What on earth makes you think I might have a spare five hundred pounds lying about? Father makes us the same allowance, last I head. To do him justice he doesn’t stint (I suppose his own youth gave him an appreciation for the cost of wine and women and living up to the Talbot name). I can usually manage to get by until quarter day without too many creditors on my heel, But in case it’s skipped your notice, I’m not exactly known for my frugality (just ask Honoria—I’m sure she’d be delighted to give you a lecture on my failings in that area). Even three sheets to the wind I notice the quality of my liquor. My mistresses are every bit as demanding as yours. I haven’t yet mastered the knack of always winning at the table. And though Phipps despairs of the way I treat my clothes, I still tend to start out with a good pair of boots and a well cut coat.
What the devil have you got up to—in the country, at this time of year–that requires such a sum with such urgency? How deep is the play at Wiltons’ houseparty? How many former mistresses are you having to fob off with expensive trinkets?
Yes, I know, I’m not a very good brother. But then I never have been. I daresay Charles Fraser would pull Edgar out of a scrape. But then I don’t know that Edgar would get into this sort of scarpe, though he is fond of roulette. He’s coming back to Britain by the way. Charles that is. Evie had a letter from Gisèle just before she returned to town. Honoria has a look on her face as though she’s in a play that isn’t proceeding according to the script. I doubt Charles knows what a lucky escape he had. Lucky devil. His wife ought to liven things up. No, don’t get any ideas—I doubt you’d have a chance, I can’t judge her fidelity, but from what little I saw of her she looks like a woman of taste and sense.
Little else to report here. Evie sends her love. I’ve managed not to see Father or Honoria for more than five minutes at a time these past two days, which suits all of us very agreeably. The joys of family life.
You ever disobligingly brother,
Quen
p.s.
I hope you appreciate that I went to Hoare’s at an ungodly hour this morning to withdraw the enclosed. There were discreetly raised brows about my need for five hundred pounds.
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Dearest Evie,
Charles is coming home. Back that is. I wonder if even thinks of Britain as his home anymore? It’s not that it’s much in the Fraser family style to call anywhere home, and goodness know he’s been gone long enough. I was quite convinced he’d never come back at all. With all the Royalists and Ultra-Royalists and Bonapartists and Republicans one hears about in Paris alone, it seems there’d be enough to keep him occupied for years to come. But he’s left the diplomatic service (which he was once so eager to join he fairly flew out of the country) and he’s taking a seat in Parliament. David’s influence. Charles is going to stand in a by-election. I wonder where they’ll live? He can’t very well take Mélanie and the children to the Albany, but I can’t imagine him bringing them to the Berkeley Square house (I wonder what Father would say if he tried?). I expect they’ll stay with us for time at Aunt Frances’s and then I suppose they’ll hire a house of their own. I wonder what Mélanie will think of London living here instead of just making a visit. I imagine it will seem rather flat after Paris and Vienna, but she’s bound to have scores of gentlemen hanging about her—that sort of exotic foreign type always does, and I imagine she’ll find that agreeable because it’s not as though Charles seems to dance attendance upon her. Perhaps she’ll take a lover (assuming she hasn’t done so already).
Honoria won’t like it in the least, which is some small consolation. I wonder if it will make her any more likely to get married herself. It has to be a bit of a facer, having Charles about with a wife in tow when she’s still very much single. I wonder whom she might choose? I don’t think even Honoria will bring Hart up to scratch and there aren’t a lot of other ducal alternatives. I was afraid Lord Sheriton might succumb last season, but apparently he was too sensible, which is a good thing as he’s always seemed a thoroughly nice man. I should think it must be beginning to wear on her. I’m already feeling distinctly world-weary going into my second season and she’s embarking on her fifth.
Oh, dear, Evie, I didn’t mean it that way. You’re much too sweet ever to become world weary. And so enviably sweet-tempered you stand a chance of actually being happy in marriage, which I seriously doubt I ever shall be. And I’m not sure Honoria could let down her guard long enough to be happy.
Speaking of marriage, the latest on dit in the scandal sheets is that Quen’s embarked on a liaison with Cecily Summers. Judith was whispering to me about it in the drawing room the night before last. Miss Newland frowned at us and looked unusually distressed. She isn’t so straitlaced in general, but Chloe was handing round the tea, and it isn’t the sort of thing one would want her to hear (though growing up in this family it’s the mildest sort of gossip). I own I was a bit distressed myself. When Simon took me backstage to meet Mrs. Summers last autumn, Mr. Summers and children were there. She had the youngest on her lap and the oldest two were building a fort out of the dressing room sofa. Mr. Summers was leaning against the dressing table, looking at his wife in a way that was distinctly heart-melting. Not that that’s any guarantee of anything, as I’ve good cause to know, But when I saw Simon at Allie and Dr. Blackwell’s last night, he told me not to believe everything I read and added that Cecily was as true to her vows as he was to the vows he’d never actually made. Sometimes one has to positively decode the things Simon says, but I do think that means it’s all a hum, which is a relief. Quen must have someone else in keeping.
Write soon. Do let me know how Honoria reacts to the news about Charles.
Love always,
Gelly
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Darling,
It goes without saying that I’m mad to write this letter. No matter how clever the code, there’s no way I can be sure that you couldn’t decipher it. Sooner or later. Not that I’m not perfectly confident of my own abilities, but I also have the utmost appreciation for yours. And of course I’ll never be able to show it to you freely, not without first telling you a number of things which would have to be said in person and which I strongly suspect would result in your having no desire to converse with me—let alone do anything else—ever again. Which would be the sensible course of action on your part. Which if I were a true friend, I would counsel you to do. Unless I can possibly– My God, Charles, I don’t believe I could have made a worse mull of our lives if I’d actively set out to do so.
And yet I have to tell someone. I have to commit the words to paper, even if the paper is promptly burned, and you never have a chance to see it. Something as important as today (important to me, that is, though absurdly insignificant in the grand scheme of things) deserves to be acknowledged. And you’re the only person I can properly tell it to. Which makes no sense at all, because you don’t really know me. Or so I thought. Until– Darling, I don’t think you even noticed it at all. I think it slid right by you along with all the other agreeable moments of the morning. That’s the thing about moments like this—for one person they can reverberate like a Beethoven chord while someone else can be standing right beside them completely unaware. You were busy keeping Colin balanced on your shoulders and talking about the tides and showing us the rocks you used to climb out on as a boy. I was concentrating on my footing and enjoying the sand squishing round my toes and looking at the sunlight on the water, and then– I don’t even remember what made me look at you at just that moment. You were watching me watch the sea. Watching me that way you do when you’re trying to gauge my reaction and not impose any thoughts of your own. And I realized– How did you do it, Charles? How did you come to know me so well? How did I let it happen?
I can’t even find the proper words for it. They’re not in my vocabulary. I’m not supposed to be capable of feeling this way. Even if things were different between us, even if I could find the words to frame my thoughts, I’m not sure that I’d have any right to repeat them to you. It seems like an intolerable demand. And we’ve always been so good at not making demands on each other. If there’s one way in which I’ve kept true to the promises I’ve made you it’s that.
I sit here pretending to sketch. Everything seems sharper, more vivid. The sun-warmed stones of the terrace. The salt bite in the air. The blue of the sea. Those purple flowers—hollyhocks?—in the garden. I can see you, holding Colin up to look at the sundial. In few more minutes you’ll come up the stairs to the terrace. I need to banish this morning to some quiet corner of my mind, box it up, make it go away.
I can’t. It echoes in my mind like notes of music that won’t be forgotten.
As strange as the thing I know not.
Mélanie.
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Not easy, is it? I’d say I should have prepared you better, but that would be insulting your abilities, and in any case I don’t think there can be any preparation for such circumstances. I don’t know which was more difficult, Madrid or now Paris. I very nearly came to blows yesterday, attempting to separate a young sprig of the British aristocracy, fresh from his studies at Oxford or Cambridge (probably packed off to Paris by his family after he was sent down), and a veteran of the Russian campaign, not so very much the elder in calendar years but centuries the senior in experience. I was able to bring the young undergraduate (Trenor is his name) to account because, ironically enough, he recognized me as a friend of his father’s.
Paris is crawling with British. If it’s any consolation, difficult as you may be finding London, you would have had a great many more members of the ton to cope with a few months ago, before Bonaparte’s abdication made the Continent free for travel again. Rather surprisingly, I have entrée nearly everywhere. I am constantly being congratulated on my work with the guerrilleros, which apparently eclipses any uncomfortable memories of my work in Ireland and Paris. Emily Cowper (who looks so startlingly like her mother it takes me back a good twenty years, though she seems considerably more sweet-tempered than Lady Melbourne ever was) was only too happy to listen to stories about the Peninsula last night and in turn disclosed some interesting facts learned from her diplomat brother. Talleyrand paid me the compliment of trying to glean information about the British from me last night over a hand of écarté (I’m sure he’d be the first to laugh at the joke were I able to tell it him). Convenient that my cover continues to work so well, but more than once it’s taken all my willpower not to choke on my champagne. I don’t know whether not lament my sad loss of self-command or to be relieved that I am not so wholly given over to cynicism that I have lost the power to be angry.
Keep safe, querida. There’ll be work enough once you’re in Vienna. The best thing you can do now is gather your strength, and it does no harm to let yourself indulge in a holiday. God knows you’ve been too long without one, and will be again in the future, I suspect.
As to Colin, I’m sure he’ll learn the complexities behind cheap symbols soon enough. He has you to teach him. And Charles, if it comes to that.
For what it’s worth, I miss you too.
R.
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There are a shocking number of Bourbon flags and white cockades about. Odd how a simple symbol can have such power. Given how physically ill I felt yesterday at the sight of a cheap reproduction of a Bourbon flag pressed into my son’s eager, I have a whole new appreciation for the value placed on the Carevalo Ring. Who knows what emotions an object with its history might stir?
That was yesterday afternoon (we were walking in Hyde Park with Isobel Lydgate and her children and Aline Dacre-Hammond, and Isobel bought the flags for the children from a man who said he had lost his arm at Talavera). Yesterday evening, we attended a fête at Carlton House in honor of Wellington. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen so many fleurs de lys. We went through Carlton House (quite impressive enough on its own terms) into a muslin-draped hall commissioned from Nash for the event. Two bands played from a temple in the center of the room (I assume it was supposed to be a temple—it looked vaguely Greek) masked by a profusion of flowers. It was diffiult to see over the feathered headdresses and the medals and jewels in the candlelight quite blinded one. It was what the Lady Frances calls “a sad crush,” which gave me an excellent excuse for feeling suffocated,
Charles saw that I felt ill at ease (he is all too good at reading me) and took me down a covered walk to our supper tent. Over the champagne, David Mallinson explained the transparency on the wall of the tent, an allegory for The Overthrow of Tyranny by the Allied Powers. Charles murmured that given the debts of the war (not to mention the Regent’s personal debts) the whole evening might be held to be an allegory for a number of things. Not to mention the irony of certain people talking about Tyranny, Simon Tanner added, at which point I’m quite sure David kicked him under the table.
I’m sorry. I’m babbling on when I really don’t have anything of substance to report. It was past six before we returned to Lady Frances’s house, but I couldn’t sleep. I’m writing this by the nursery window in the gray light of early morning. The truth is, I feel shockingly alone. I had begun to think of Simon and Lady Frances as friends before we even set foot in Britain. David is wonderfully kind, I quite like Isobel and Aline, and I think Gisèle and I might become friends, save for the fact that I’m Charles’s wife (I don’t know that I will ever sort through the tangle of Fraser family relationships). But none of them could have the least notion of what I was thinking or feeling this evening (thank goodness, or I’d be woefully lacking in rudimentary abilities). Even Charles can’t know, of course. The better he gets at reading me, the more care I take to make sure the barriers are firmly in place.
I’ve never felt I belonged anywhere in particular but neither have I ever felt such an exile. Colin said “London” quite clearly when I went in to kiss him goodnight before we left for Carlton House. I was so excited to hear him say a new word. And then I thought how odd it was that he said “London” before he said “Paris.”
I miss you.
M.
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My dear David,
It’s over, as I’m sure you’ll know by the time you receive this letter. Bonaparte has abdicated. If the news had reached Wellington and Soult sooner, we’d have been spared a bloody engagement (weather delayed the battle, but not long enough). The fighting at Toulouse and Bayonne took the lives of more of our men than the French, though it allowed Wellington’s forces to press forward. Which in the end proved irrelevant, because hostilities have now ceased.
Tutford Minor—do you remember him? two years behind us at Harrow—lost an arm in the aftermath at Bayonne. Edgar came through unscathed. For the first time in years, I’ll be able to not feel constant fear for my brother’s safety. To lose so many lives when to all intents and purposes peace had been made in Paris is a sickening end to the war. Yet the fact remains that it has ended. I confess to still being a bit drunk on the news. So many years, so many lives lost on both—or perhaps I should say all—sides, so much senseless violence and wanton destruction, so much damage to the country we were supposed to be helping. When I learned of Napoleon’s abdication, I actually caught Mélanie in my arms and spun her round in a circle. She looked as me though I’d gone a bit mad, though as always she was understanding of my idiocy.
The end of a war, of course, means that if anything there’s more for diplomats to do. It looks as though we’ll be off for Paris with Wellington shortly, but then I suspect we’ll be back to Spain (God knows I would like very much to be part of something constructive on the Peninsula). But I hope before the summer is out, I will be able to bring Mélanie and Colin to Britain for a lengthy visit. It’s past time my wife and son saw the places and in particular the people who have been important in my life. Colin by the way continues to be a thoroughly intrepid traveler. He can sleep anywhere—a carriage jostling over a rocky stretch of road, a basket at the end of the table during a dinner party, his mother’s arms during a military review or a musical evening. Mélanie said last week, when we had returned from an expedition that proved a bit more adventurous than expected, that adapting to our unsettled life has made Colin a remarkably easy child, and we should remember that if we ever have another. Then she got an odd look on her face, one of those moments when I can’t read her. Another child is something we’ve never talked about, save that I’ve told her the decision is hers. For myself—no , I don’t think I’d best go into that now, even with you.
Tell me how the news of the abdications has been received at Brooks’s. And tell Simon to send us some more pages.
As always,
Charles
(original in code)
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Charles is off on a mission. Early yesterday morning. He didn’t tell me before he left because he was under the strictest orders (from Wellington, who sent him on the mission) not to breathe a word to anyone including his wife. He left me a letter apologizing for keeping secrets from me. The irony is priceless. No doubt I will be able to appreciate it when I get past the queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. (No, don’t worry, I haven’t gone soft, but one must acknowledge one’s feelings from time to time. As you’ve often said, all the training in the world can’t make them go away, and if one ignores them completely they can come back to bite at the most inconvenient of times).
Charles took his pistol with him and his picklocks and hair dye and his full makeup kit. Probably for use on the journey to wherever he’s going. He must have stopped and changed his clothes soon after he left, because he obviously departed in his riding dress and his greatcoat.
Tommy Belmont came round to see me last night. As best I can make out from things he left slip (he’s a good agent but flirtation and a good bottle of cognac loosen his tongue), Charles has been sent to liaison with a contact behind French lines, across the Adour. I can’t tell you who, except that Tommy said Charles was probably drinking his share of cognac, better than the bottle we were sharing he’d dare swear, and that some allies had more creature comforts to offer than others. Which leads me to suspect the source Charles went to deal with may be one of Soult’s officers. Someone, no doubt, who has calculated the odds and is betting against Bonaparte. None of which narrows the field a great deal. I’ll do my best to discover more.
Caroline Durward and I took the children for a walk this morning, despite the weather (thank God for a friend who also goes mad cooped up indoors for too long). Caro said she wasn’t going to be so foolish as to tell me not to worry, but that during a lull in the fighting there was naturally less danger. Which also tallies with Charles having been sent behind the lines.
Colin waved goodbye to her and Emily when we left by the way. The first time I’ve seen him do that.
Keep safe, Raoul. I have enough to worry about.
M.
Southern France
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Mel,
One must be grateful for small mercies, I suppose. At least we saw the New Year in together, as a family, even though the fates (or rather my superiors) conspire to separate us so early in the year.
Yes, as I suspect you deduced upon waking (long before finding this note in your dressing case), I’ve been sent on another errand. I only learned of it late yesterday. from Wellington himself. I was under strict instructions not to breathe a word of it to anyone before I left “not even that lovely, deucedly clever wife of yours.” I can’t tell you how close I came to disobeying orders. Not necessarily an unusual impulse for me (as Carfax, Castelreagh, Stuart, and Wellington would all be quick to say). But the impulse, I flatter myself, has always been coolly rational, born of intellectual quibbles (or raging disagreements) with what I was being asked to do. I’ve never known such a purely emotional (odd word) rebellion at an action I was ordered to take.
On reflection, I decided that in a lodging house, particularly in an enemy country, there is always some small risk of being overheard. And, perhaps more important, that I would rather spend last night with you and Colin ignoring what the morning was to bring.
Can you forgive me? In a marriage of course there are always secrets that each partner keeps to him or herself, and I flatter myself that we’ve been better than mos at understanding that. You’ve never pried when it comes to my work, though you’ve helped me immeasurably with it. I hope it goes without saying that I trust you as I trust few other people on this earth, though perhaps this is a good time to actually put the words down in pen and ink. Still, I can’t rid myself of the sense that, much as Portia accuses Brutus, to take you to bed last night without admitting what the morning was to bring was some sort of violation of what should be between us.
I’ll be back with you as soon as I can.
Kiss Colin for me.
Charles
p.s.
When did you realize I was gone? What gave it away? The cool sheet? The whiff of recently extinguished candle in the air? My dressing case being in not quite the same position it had last night? Or were you actually awake the whole time and simply flattering me by pretending to sleep through my departure? Somehow I suspect the latter.
South Audley Street
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Billy, my love,
Another year. We saw the old year out and the new in at Charles and Mélanie’s. The worst of the ghosts seem to have been put to rest or at least accepted at Christmas, and we were all easier, I think. Mélanie has a delightful way of making such evenings seem elegant and yet wonderfully lacking in ceremony (it doesn’t hurt that they keep a wonderful cellar; nothing guarantees the success of a party so well as really fine champagne, I often think). Father quite entered into the spirit of the celebrations. Despite pretending to be uninterested in such things, he’s enough of a Scot to take Hogmanay seriously. He actually joined in singing round the pianoforte, which I can’t remember him doing since Elizabeth was there to play the piano. He seemed a bit startled at the presence of those still in the nursery, but he took it quite in stride and even observed that it might have been a good thing to have Bess and Marjorie and me about more at evening parties. Chloe and Colin both stayed awake until midnight. Jessica insisted she wanted to as well. Wisely, Charles and Mélanie didn’t banish her to the nursery. She fell asleep in Mélanie’s lap just after ten and slept on the drawing room sofa until we took all the children up to the nursery after midnight.
Quen and Aspasia were the first across the threshold after midnight. Always a good omen for the new year when the first visitor is a handsome young man I think (even if I have known him since he was in shortcoats and he happens to be devastatingly in love with his wife and my own feelings are distinctly engaged elsewhere, as you know very well). And they came bearing an excellent bottle of whisky, surely a fortuitous new year gift.
Isobel was a bit quiet. She said her mind was on her ball on the 6th, but I couldn’t help but wonder if it was something more. Oliver went over and kissed her cheek at midnight, but other than that they weren’t much in each other’s company. David on the other hand seemed more at ease than I’ve seen him in some time. Simon clapped him on the back at midnight, and David squeezed his hand, which is a greater demonstration of affection that he’ll generally permit himself in public. Gisèle and Andrew embraced without a qualm. Or rather, Gisèle embraced Andrew, who didn’t seem to have the least objection. Charles kissed Mélanie full on the lips when the clock struck, which I don’t believe I’d ever seen him do in public before. The whole sad business with Colin seems to have given my nephew a new sense of his priorities.
The only thing lacking, of course, was that I did not have anyone to kiss myself. In prior years I’d have found someone to make do with, but somehow that no longer seems appropriate or even desirable. Who would have thought I so shockingly give way to sentiment?
Happy New Year, dearest. I hope the start of 1821 finds us together.
Yours, as you well know,
Frances
Carfax Court
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Melly, my love,
I hope the evening finds you warm and happy. I know today could not but be tinged by recent events, but I know you and Charles will have done your best to make it happy for the children, and I hope you’ll have found a measure of happiness yourselves. I’m not much of a believer in holiday miracles, but I do have great faith in your ability to create happiness. I’ve thought about you a good deal today, as I know have David and Bel and Oliver.
Christmas at Carfax Court was surprisingly uneventful. Oliver and I caught the children having a banister-sliding contest and managed to divert the attention before Lady Carfax found out. Lucinda got me to explain the bawdier passages in “Measure for Measure” after one two many cups of spiced wine on Christmas Eve. David and I managed a walk on our own on Christmas Day. Bel seems a bit preoccupied but perhaps that’s because her ball is less than a fortnight away. And she always looks a bit frayed about the edges round Lady Carfax and her sisters. It was Oliver who actually made a reference to Peterloo over the breakfast dishes one morning. Lord Carfax merely raised his brows, and Lady Carfax made haste to smooth the conversational waters, with a look that said she couldn’t think what had become of her agreeable son-in-law. I held my tongue, though it probably helped that David kicked me under the table. Shocking victory of affection and loyalty over principles.
All our love,
Simon
Berkeley Square
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My dear David,
We got through Christmas rather better than I expected. It meant a great deal to see the children tugging loose ribbons and opening boxes with unfettered glee, even if there were moments when I know they too were aware of the ways in which this year is markedly different. We could all not but be aware of it, but in the end everyone was happy to be together, which counts for a lot. Mel, I need hardly say, has a genius for creating warmth. Gisèle cried once, when we’d come back to Berkeley Square for dinner, and she and I were alone in the library. I think it was the house and the memories—we were only in Berkeley Square for a handful of Christmases as children, but sometimes the oddest things can set one off. And to you, if to no one else, I can confess I did not entirely get through the day dry-eyed myself, though no one but Mel saw.
As always,
Charles
Berkeley Square
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Simon darling,
Colin and Jessica helped us distribute Christmas boxes and baskets this morning and we had a breakfast party before the staff departed to see their families or friends if their families are too far away. Much holiday cheer and good humor, but I can’t help but be aware that if we’d gone to Dunmykel, they could have had Christmas Day off instead of waiting until Boxing Day. Of course then the Dunmykel staff would have had to work on Christmas (Stephen and Alice Drummond are hosting the Boxing Day party for the staff and tenants at Dunmykel). Do you know, there was a time when I could get by quite well without such a large staff. Of course, then we lived in lodgings, and I’d never have dreamed of having a Christmas dinner with more than twenty at table.
Colin and Jessica got quite into the spirit of delivering Christmas boxes this afternoon. Jessica didn’t say a word about keeping any of the toys for herself (not that she didn’t get quite enough of her own yesterday), though she did say that she didn’t think gloves were a very exciting present. It was Colin who told her not all children had gloves readily available. I’m quite sure he was thinking about Meg Simmons and her son he told us about who died. As much as he’s been able to talk to us, there’s so much still unsaid.
We dined at Rules with Gisèle and Andrew, Allie and Geoff, Aunt Frances and the Duke and Chloe, and Mr. Roth and his sister and sons. A new tradition, I think. We could use some new traditions.
Love,
Mel
p.s.
Addison has taken Blanca to meet his parents for the first time. Charles and I are studiously pretending to know a great deal less than we do.
Carfax Court
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Dearest Mélanie,
Back to London tomorrow, thank God. Though if we don’t find the led soldier Billy has managed to lose and the hat for Rose’s new doll, I’m not sure we’ll be able to leave, at least not without hysterical screams the whole of the drive. You are coming to help me go over the decoration for the ball, aren’t you?
In haste,
Bel
28 December 1819
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My dear Charles,
I’m still of two minds about whether or not I should send this. I know I may well be the last person on earth you wish to hear from just now. But I cannot but be aware that this can’t be the easiest of holiday seasons for you. Perhaps I am giving way to selfishness, but I feel the strangest compulsion to send my good wishes, whatever they are worth. I trust you will forgive the impulse.
R.
Berkeley Square
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Oliver,
Brooks’s at 2;00. Don’t forget the draft of the speech. Isobel and Mel have settled it that you’re coming here on New Year’s Eve. David and Simon will be here as well. Mel says she wants to be home where she can run into the nursery and look in on the children whenever she feels the need, and I must say I quite agree with her.
C.
Berkeley Square
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Happy New Year, darling. I can’t imagine anywhere I’d rather be than here, with you.
M.
Berkeley Square
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Darling Simon,
We’re nearly all gathered. Gisèle and Andrew and the baby arrived last night in a crested traveling carriage along with his grace of Rannoch. Yes, Charles’s grandfather has made the journey from Scotland. I’ve always suspected that beneath his detachment was more sensitivity than any of us credited. When I thanked him for coming, he said he thought this would be a good year to be with his Fraser grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He’s staying with Lady Frances and Gisèle and family are here with us. Cedric and Maria and the boys came up from the country (they aren’t staying with Aunt Frances, which seems to make things much more agreeable all round). We’re all going to Lady Frances’s Christmas morning and then here for dinner. “All” being a convenient term that masks that fact that there’s a gaping hole in our family this year. Gelly and Charles talked far into the night last night. Andrew told me Gisèle has said little about Edgar, beyond the first storm of grief. She holds things in. It’s a family trait.
Lydia has gone to her own family. They’ve never struck me as overly warm, but I trust they will be as understanding as they can, and that being away from painful associations will help her through the holiday. Whatever the state of her and Edgar’s marriage, the past weeks have been beastly for her. Being Lydia, of course she doesn’t talk about it either.
Colin and Jessica are helping me hang garlands and tie ribbons and looking with eager eyes into every toy shop window we pass in a way that is so blessedly normal it brings tears to my eyes.
Love to you and David. Hope you’re surviving the Mallilnsons.
Happy Solstice,
Mel
Carfax Court
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Dearest Mélanie,
I arrived here and unpacked our trunks only to find a Christmas box I was supposed to have given to you when we exchanged gifts. Do forgive me for being such a shatter brain—too much spiced wine or too much worry about being confined at Carfax Court for a week with Mama and all my sisters.
Love,
Bel
Berkeley Square
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My dear David,
So far things are progressing more felicitously than might have been expected. Gisèle and I had a good talk last night,. It’s amazing, given our history, what a sensible young woman my sister has grown into. My grandfather is here as well, which is an unexpected comfort.
I hope you’re finding Carfax Court more agreeable than you anticipated. Smile and nod to your father and don’t admit or agree to anything. Always the best policy.
As ever,
Charles
South Audley Street
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My dear Billy,
The children are all here. To you I will confess that is it remarkably agreeable to have them all gathered round (shocking the way the years smooth the edges of one’s cynicism). I wish you could see Chloe. She dined at table last night. She looked remarkably grown up, sitting between Geoffrey and Charles. But by the time she tea tray was brought in, she giggling over lottery tickets with quite as much glee as Colin and Jessica.
She has your eyes, you know.
Love,
Frances
Berkeley Square
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Raoul,
Your box arrived last night. There’s no need for me to prevaricate about the origin of the gifts. Colin and Jessica know you’re name very well now and won’t be a bit surprised that you would send them presents. In fact, they were asking about your only yesterday and where you would be spending Christmas. Wherever it is, I hope it is somewhere not lacking in holiday cheer.
Love,
M.
Berkeley Square
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Mel,
Yes, I know. A note pinned to the pillow seems sadly commonplace. But I wanted you to have your first gift before we went downstairs. Asprey’s said the commission was a challenge.
Happy Christmas, wife.
Charles
Southern France
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Raoul,
We dined with Wellington last night. Fitzroy Somerset , Charles Audley, Tommy Belmont, and the Durwards were also present. Some interesting theorizing about Soult (see attached) but much of the talk was of the Christmas holidays at home. Perhaps it was the spiced wine but nostalgia hung thick in the air. Even Tommy Belmont voiced one or two comments that were startlingly free of cynicism, and Adam Durward (who I don’t believe is any more a Christian than I am or Charles is for that matter) talked about his aunt’s plum pudding and started a round of carol singing (I confess I rather like “Deck the Halls,” which is refreshingly free of religious overtones). There was much talk of Yule logs and mistletoe and holly, pantomimes at Astley’s Amphitheatre, and parties for the tenants on Boxing Day (which, I now know, has nothing to do with prize fighting).
Charles was quiet much of the time. He seems to have distinctly conflicted feelings about the holiday, but his occasional comments speak volumes. He mentioned a Christmas when his parents were both in Scotland with him and Edgar and their sister Gisèle, which led me to believe that much of the time Lady Elizabeth and Kenneth Fraser weren’t with their children over the holidays. He also mentioned a Christmas at his grandfather’s in Ireland at which you were present—you gave him Beaumarchais’s Figaro plays. And another year you gave him Ludlow (do I have the name right?) on the English Civil War. I hadn’t realized, somehow, quite how much you saw of Charles when he saw a boy.
I imagine your visits and presents meant the more to Charles as a boy a his own parents seem to have been such erratic presences. I find it difficult to imagine Elizabeth and Kenneth Fraser being away from their children over the holidays as I contemplate Colin’s first Christmas. Odd, isn’t it? Christmas has never meant much to me. And yet it means something to share it with my son. Colin won’t remember this holiday season, of course. But I will. I’ll remember what he thinks of the set of blocks we bought for him before we left Lisbon and the stuffed bear Charles brought back from one of his errands. Perhaps having a family gives added weight to mid-winter celebrations. Because, as I realized last night, I do have a family, even if it’s at least half illusion. The part that isn’t illusion seems particularly strong just now.
I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be speaking of this to you, but there’s no one else I can talk to. I think you understand—you always do.
Happy Christmas, Raoul.
M.
Southern France
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My darling,
Difficult to believe the changes a year can bring. I know many wives complain their husbands can’t remember the date, but I think this day a year ago will be forever etched in my memory. The minister managing to make even phrases like “with my body I thee worship” sound dry as a laundry list, the puffs of smoke from the fireplace. The esteemed ambassador looking as though he had distinct qualms about giving the bride away. The way your skin glowed against the white lace of your mantilla. The way the look in your eyes made me quite lose the power of coherence, so that I’m still not sure how I mangled my vows. If nothing else, I hope the past year has shown you how very much I meant them, though my efforts to show that may have been as bumbling as my words.
I know the past year hasn’t been easy, in any way. Your ability to cope with the vagaries and vicissitudes of our life is truly remarkable. Becoming a family isn’t easy under the best of circumstances. Doing so with war and absences, sudden travel and unexpected adventures seems an exercise doomed to failure. And yet, at least from my perspective, we seem to have managed to carry it off. I know I’m not the man I was a year ago, before you and Colin. I know I wouldn’t go back to the man I was for the world.
Wellington clapped me on the back recently, in an unaccustomed moment of bonhomie, and told me God knows what sort of trouble I’d have got into these past weeks if I hadn’t thought had the sense to bring my wife with m. He’s far more right than he realizes. God knows where I’d be without your ability to pick locks, break codes, devise cover stories, and smooth over diplomatic contretemps. Not to mention other things.
I keep thinking that someday we will live a normal life. That we might be able to plan a day like today weeks in advance, invite friends to dine with us in our own dining parlor, take our son to look at the sea or to the Tower of London of an exhibition, see Simon’s latest play or a new opera,. Then I think that perhaps, for us, this is normal life.
Happy anniversary, wife.
Charles
South Audley Street
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My dear Geoffrey,
I trust you are well and that this reaches you wherever you may be. From what I can make out from the reports we have received, you are somewhere in southern France. I gather that my nephew is also there engaged in what are euphemistically called “errands” (I really don’t see why people persist in shying away from plain language—why can’t a secret mission be called a secret mission—this is quite as bad as calling sexual congress “criminal conversation,” which always struck me as particularly ridiculous because there’s frequently no conversation involved at all).
In any case, I gather that Charles is engaging in the sort of adventures I have to read between the lines to guess at. What’s more I hear that Mélanie and Colin are with him. My good opinion of Mélanie continues to increase the more I hear about her. I’m not at all sure I believe in conjugal bliss, but Charles is far more likely to be happy with a woman who is his match than with one who sits at home, to whom ten to one he wouldn’t have anything to talk about (because Charles is the sort of man for whom intimacy is bound to involved conversation and serious conversation at that, not to mention several language and the ability to trace quotations to their source). Lady Castlereagh called on me yesterday, very concerned that they have Colin with them, but I told her babies are far more sturdy than most people think, and I’m far less concerned about Colin acquiring lasting scars with his parents than left without them, the way Charles and Edgar and Gisèle were. Comforting to know Charles has the wit to manage his own family in his own way and not follow the regrettable precedent.
I have sadly little new gossip to report. Byron continues his dalliance with Lady Frances Webster, while apparently he hasn’t given up his correspondence with Miss Milbanke (talk about an ill-fated match if you ask me, but then of course none of them have). His chief confidante seems to be his sister Mrs. Leigh at the moment. In fact, their relationship is the source of a number of rumors. As usual with Byron, it is difficult to sort out truth from fiction. Caro Lamb looks thinner than ever. William is making every effort to mend matters between them, though I know his family would much prefer a separation (which would only make matters worse for poor Caroline, I fear—I can’t but admire William for standing by her).
I can’t believe it is nearly the holiday season again. Judith and Gisèle are already making plans to decorate the house with pine boughs and red ribbon, Chloe looks at toys in shop windows with wistful eyes, and I even heard Aline picking out “Deck the Halls” on the pianoforte yesterday. Christopher will be down from Harrow before I know it, and Cedric and Maria will be here with the baby. I don’t hold with this habit of over-sentimentalizing midwinter, but I confess it will be agreeable to have everyone gathered together. Miss Newland, who is a marvel of organization, is seeing to the shopping and writing the cards for my Boxing Day party.
I’d like to think Christmas will find you and Charles and Mélanie and Colin in Paris, but I suspect it will be some time longer, brilliant as Wellington may be. I hope your holidays are at least warm and dry and not lacking in cheer.
Much love,
Frances
Spain
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My dear David,
My apologies for not writing sooner. I left Lisbon almost a month ago on a series of diplomatic errands. Now that it looks as though the French will at last be driven from the Peninsula, the Spanish and Portuguese governments are looking to the future and exhibiting concern over what precisely what form that future will take. Understandable concern, in my view, considering the continued presence of British troops on their soil and the fact that neither country wishes to go back to the governmental situation that existed before the French invaded. Traveling about Spain, the scars left by the war are painfully obvious. Given what’s been done by all sides these past years, it’s difficult for the word of a gentleman to carry much weight.
As might be expected, there as many points of view as there are people involved.—more I sometimes I think. Wellington, it need hardly be said, is not put in the best humor by all of this, particularly considering (as he observed one night at dinner to an envoy from the Cortes in a tone so mild as to be dripping with irony), that the French have yet to actually be driven across the border, in case anyone hasn’t noticed.
Mélanie intervened with the most charming anecdote about getting lost once in the Pyrenees as a girl. Oh, yes, Mélanie’s traveling with me. So is Colin. Call me a deplorable husband and father if you will. I very likely deserve it. But, as Wellington observed to me after the aforementioned dinner, Mélanie is in many ways a far more adroit diplomat that I am myself. And Colin is thriving. He’s an intrepid traveler. Addison rigged a pack for him, and he quite likes being carried round on my back or Mélanie’s. He’s almost mastered sitting on his own, though we have to be careful to put cushions behind him as he tends to topple over backwards.
If I look up from my letter, I can see them now, Mélanie nursing Colin in a frayed armchair by the fireplace in our cramped lodgings. Colin’s left sticky prints on her tippet and managed to pull half her hair out of its pins and there’s an ink smudge on her cheek from the dispatch she was helping me write earlier. Colin looks to have almost fallen asleep, his head flopping against her arm. Mélanie has the most wonderful smile, but the one on her face now is the one reserved just for him. I’m filled with equal parts dread at the risk of failing them and wonder that they’re hear at all and that they have the remotest connection to me.
Let me know what you and Lydgate think of the prospects in Parliament this autumn. Have you seen Bartlett lately? Any chances of a bill to address the frame-breakers concerns?
Love to Simon. I imagine he’d find a great deal of humor in the political and diplomatic machinations of the past weeks.
As always,
Charles
p.s.
If you could send me news of Gisèle when next you call on Aunt Frances, I’d be most grateful.
(original in code)
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Raoul,
Charles is returned, with bruised ribs and a cut along his collarbone that hasn’t quite healed but no signs of permanent damage. Also no papers, though I made a thorough search of his dispatch box and desk. Anything in writing I imagine he delivered to the embassy before he returned to our lodgings. He was indeed meeting with Don Julian Sanchez. He admitted as much, quite on his own, without my having to pry for it. Odd, for in most respects he remains as reticent as ever. He actually asked my opinion about the approach he had taken to the negotiations (a most able approach, I must say—Charles may be reserved, but he’s a shrewd judge of character).
We dined at the embassy last night. There is general optimism about Wellington’s eventual success in pushing the French forces over the border (optimism which sounds to me sadly well-founded). There is a great deal more concern about precisely how matters will play out with the French gone. The Spanish and the Portuguese have, in the eyes of my British friends, a distressing tendency to think for themselves when it comes to the form their government should take and a lack of proper respect for and gratitude to the British (they may for instance, be so ungrateful as to wish British troops gone). Charles, to his credit, pointed out that it is their country. It seems likely that Charles will be sent into Spain again. I’ve suggested that, with the fighting moved so far north, perhaps Colin and I could accompany him.
I learned little else of substance. Tommy Belmont bought a Velazquez off a soldier who looted it from the baggage wagons after Vitoria. Cut from the frame but mercifully unharmed otherwise. I don’t think I realized until I saw it quite how much was lost after the battle. Tommy’s given it to the ambassador to restore to its proper place, assuming that can be determined. In the drawing room after dinner (I still can’t get used to the practice of the ladies retiring while the gentlemen drink port or whatever it is they do), two of the other ladies expressed great distress over a young lieutenant who has contracted a shocking mésalliance with a Portuguese lady. I’m not sure whether they were more scandalized that no one seems sure who her father is or that people seem quite sure of the identity of at least two gentlemen to whom she was mistress before “ensnaring poor unfortunate Harry.” When I ventured that I’d never seen Harry Carstairs look happier, they raised their brows and one said that the woman (his wife) had “contaminated” him. I could only wonder what they’d think if they knew only a fraction of the truth about me. It’s an odd sensation to sit sipping tea with people who wouldn’t be caught dead in your company if they had the least idea of your origins. Of course, I suppose in a sense I am contaminating, Charles, but not in the way they mean. An unpleasant thought, though hardly the only such I’ve had of late.
On a happier note, Colin quite definitely turns his head when he hears my voice.
Keep safe.
M.
Oban
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My dear Charles,
I wandered into the breakfast parlor at an unusually early hour this morning (well, there simply aren’t enough diversions to occupy one’s late night hours in the country, much as I do try) and happened upon Evie and Honoria finishing their tea and buttered bannocks. I caught a reference to you, more specifically to the fact that Honoria has written to you. Which reminded me that I haven’t, not on your marriage (it’s been almost a year, hasn’t it? or on the birth of your son. Not, I’m sure, that you stand it particular need of felicitations from me, but it seems wrong somehow not to write. (What the devil took Honoria so long? No, never mind, I know the answer. I trust you’re sensible enough to ignore any of her expertly veiled comments.)
It’s no secret that I’ve never thought much of the married state (growing up in Glenister House one would have to be something of a blind fool to do so). But I wish you every happiness, and I rather suspect you’ve a more decent chance at it than most. I’ve heard reports that your wife is exceedingly lovely and Simon says her letters show a keen wit. Doesn’t surprise me. In my experience (limited as to years, but I’ve been doing my best to make up for, a Honoria would be quick to tell you with a lift of her perfectly plucked brows), the cleverest women tend to be shrewd judges of who will make a good husband.
The mist is clearing beyond the book room windows as I write this. It looks as though we may get one of those sparkling August days. Staring at the damp green of the lawn and the stone wall beyond, I find myself remember another sunny day in August when you taught me to hold a cricket bat at Dunmykel. Or the afternoon you spent in the library helping me correct a Latin exercise. Or the night you took me to dinner at Brooks’s, and we sat into the early hours of the morning debating Burke and Paine and comparing “Hamlet” to “The Oresteia”. Your son will be very fortunate in his father.
There’s little enough to report here. Val and Honoria were trading barbs the moment he came down from Oxford, before he’d so much as handed his beaver to the footman. Evie runs interference. I mostly watch from the sidelines. Father seemed to have renewed his intrigue with Lady Bessboroguh before we left town. I could be uncharitable and make a comment about him trying to gain a share of the attention surrounding her daughter and the poet. Speaking of Byron, have you read his “Ode to the Framers of the Frame Bill”? It appeared anonymously in the Morning Chronicle last year. I brought a copy of the “Giaour” with me from London. I have to say the man does have a way with words.
Yours,
Quen
Oban
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Dearest Gelly,
I don’t believe you’d actually steam open a letter, and you perfectly well l wouldn’t do so with someone’s private correspondence. Even Honoria’s. There, I’ve said it, but I know I may do so to you, which is just why we all stand in crying need of a good friend. I haven’t the least notion what Honoria wrote to Charles, but she was at her desk the whole of the morning, so I’m sure the words were well chosen. In fairness to Honoria, I can understand it being a difficult letter to write. I do believe she sincerely cared for him, and that her feelings were deeply engaged. She wouldn’t talk about him at all when she and Val came back from their visit to Lisbon two years ago with Uncle Hubert and David. I remember distinctly, because I so wanted news of how Charles was getting on, and Honoria simply said “he’s quite changed” and wouldn’t elaborate or even talk much at all about Lisbon or anything else. Val said not to mind her, we all know what she’s like when she’s crossed, and then spent an hour or more telling me all about the sights they’d seen in Lisbon (he can be so charming when he puts his mind to it, it’s a pity he doesn’t do so more often) and said that Charles was as tiresomely bookish as ever. I’ve always been quite sure something happened during their stay.
I don’t think Honoria had given up her hopes of Charles, though. And so of course hearing he’d married another woman would come as a disagreeable surprise, to say the least. I must say I always rather felt sorry for Honoria in this regard, because as fond as Charles has always been of her, I never felt he cared for her in the way she cared for him. Much as I care for your brother, Gelly, I’m not at all sure I understand him, and I’m quite sure Honoria doesn’t. It’s not just the books Charles reads, it’s the fact that he always seems to be thinking about them. Even when he’s having a perfectly ordinary conversation, I’m quite sure there’s something more complicated going on at the back of his mind. And having read some of the pamphlets he wrote when he was up at Oxford (which I’m not sure Honoria has done), I really don’t think Honoria would be very happy married to a man who believes in universal suffrage and abolishing the entail. Of course love is shockingly blind to prosaic details such as what will make people happy.
I know you’ll say Charles’s feelings didn’t seem engaged in Honoria’s direction because he’s completely unromantic, and I suppose in a sense he is, but I can imagine him falling in love in the right circumstances. Quen says Charles is far too sensible to have married without caring for the lady in question, and I’m inclined to agree with him. David and Simon and Bel all say Mrs. Fraser’s letters are quite charming. As to the talk about the baby—you know as well as I do nine-tenths of the talk one hears is more fiction than one finds between the covers of a novel. I confess I can imagine Charles coming to the aid of a lady who found herself in a unfortunate situation, but I’m quite sure he wouldn’t allow himself to be taken advantage of. I’m sure he will make an excellent father, and every obligation of family and friendship calls upon us to support him in every way we can.
My love to Lady Frances and to Allie and Christopher and Judith and Chloe,
and to you of course,
Evie
The Steyne
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Evie darling,
So Honoria finally wrote to Charles? What I wouldn’t give to see that letter. Couldn’t you have steamed it open and copied it out before it went into the post? Has Honoria ever before failed to get precisely what she wants? No doubt that’s why it took her so long to write—shock held her immobile.
I wonder what she’s like? Charles’s wife that is. Rupert Thorne called last week with his mother (he’s getting round quite well without his leg, he even manages to joke about it, though he says he feels guilty not rejoining his comrades in the Peninsula, which seems odd as there’d be a good chance of his getting killed if he did, but then gentlemen do sometimes reason in the oddest way). He says Mélanie—Charles’s wife—is quite bewitchingly beautiful but so easy to talk to a fellow forgets to be intimidated (his words). Uncle Geoffrey writes about her being clever and sensible and you told me Edgar wrote Quen that Charles is a “damned lucky dog”. Not that I have any but the most academic interest in what my brother chooses to do (how, could I, I’ve scarcely seen him in over four years), but I can’t help but wonder, the way you go about an interesting novel. Judith thinks it’s a grand love match. Even Allie says people can fall in love at the strangest times, look at novels like “Pride and Prejudice”. Which is all very well, but those are novels where strange things are supposed to happen, and this is Charles were talking about. It’s so hard to imagine Charles married. He’s the least romantic person I can think of (well, next to my cousin Cedric). He’s never been one to flirt—you know that. He’d spend half a party in the library or bringing us ices in the nursery (he was rather good about that). If he had mistresses he was so discreet we didn’t so much as hear a whisper of gossip. Quite the opposite of Quen and Val. I even knew all about Edgar and Lizzie (the second housemaid at Dunmykel) and that opera dancer he had in keeping before he went to the Peninsula. And Edgar’s always falling in love. Charles has never seemed the least in love with any woman or any man for that matter (well, I couldn’t help but think of it, David’s his best friend, but there’s nothing romantic about the way Charles treats him either). I supposed this Mélanie might have married him for his money. He does have rather a lot of it. Or perhaps the gossip about the baby—the gossip Aunt Frances tried so hard to keep me from hearing (as if there’s ever been any avoiding gossip in this house) is true. If Charles isn’t the baby’s father, that should make little Colin fit right in in this family. But in that case who on earth is the father? Someone already married? Someone Charles knows? I wonder if Mélanie’s still in love with him, whoever he is. It doesn’t sound very comfortable. But then I don’t imagine marriage to Charles would be very comfortable in any case.
I’m sure Honoria found a way to allude to it. The baby, I mean, and all the talk. And ten to one Charles won’t even notice. Even I’ll admit he has an unusually keen understanding, but he’s always been irritatingly blind when it comes to Honoria being Honoria. For Mélanie’s sake I hope she’s tough as nails. She’ll need to be.
Do write soon. Why do you have to be going all the way to Scotland? I doubt will stay in Bath much above a month-=Aunt Frances will want to be back in London in the autumn, and I daresay Honoria will as well, so that’s some comfort. I wonder who Honoria will turn her sights on now. Even she has to concede Charles is beyond her.
Love always,
Gisèle
Grosvenor Square
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Dearest Charles,
I know this letter is shockingly overdue. Evie has reminded me gently at least a half-dozen times (she has the most wonderful knack for reminding one that one is supposed to do something without ever coming right out and saying so). I could give you a thousand and one excuses. I could say that with Parliament sitting do late (who would have thought a place as far away as India could cause such a fuss?—oh, dear, even as I write that I can hear you telling me I should take it seriously) July has been unusually busy. We gave a musicale only last week (for which I foolishly decided to learn a whole new Beethoven sonata, what was I thinking?). I could say that in the last month I’ve had to moderate three different fights between Quen and Uncle Frederick (with Val, of course, getting into the mix). I could add that one of Quen’s escapades—nearly coming to blows in Emily Cowper’s drawing room of all places with Sir Humphrey Grandiston, who apparently less than compliant where his wife is concerned—necessitated a whole round of calls on my part to prevent the talk from escalating. I could further mention that the sad business between Lady Caroline Lamb and Lord Byron, while blessedly distracting the ton from Quen’s peccadilloes, has had me writing a flurry of letters to friends who want the latest news (which of course it would never occur to you to ask for) not to mention paying and receiving yet more calls and visits because people will think I know more than I do. I could write a lot of nonsense about order new gowns for the autumn and preparing to go to Argyllshire as London finally thins of company.
I could say all that, but of course, being you, you’d see right through me. Because you’d discern what I must confess myself. Of course I send my warmest felicitations and congratulations to you and your wife on the birth of little Colin. How wonderful it must be to hold one’s own child in one’s arms! How glad I am to know you have experience the joy I hope to one day know myself. But I must own that sincere as my good wishes are, my feelings on hearing the news were somewhat more complicated. I’m sure you can understand (and if not, it is perhaps all the more important that I not put it into words).
There, I have perhaps said more than I should, but you know me so well I suspect you would read between the lines in any case. I have always known you would make a splendid father. I am so glad you did not turn your back on the experience, as you once said you would. I will add that, reading between the lines myself, what I know of the circumstances of your son’s birth makes me admire you all the more.
Your devoted friend always,
Honoria
South Audley Street
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My dear Mélanie,
I am delighted to hear that you go on so well and Colin is thriving. From your own letters and from the accounts I receive from Charles and Geoffrey, you genuinely seem to enjoy motherhood. Quite remarkable. I almost envy you, I never seemed to have the knack for it, though perhaps that is simply an excuse for my appalling selfishness. I have been making an effort to enjoy Chloe’s childhood, and I find it surprisingly rewarding. Gisèle coming to live with me after my sister Elizabeth’s death changed me in a number of ways. There’s nothing like seeing one is needed, and those events drove the point home even to me.
Goodness, when did I become so serious? I meant to send you some London gossip (along the latest edition of “La Belle Assemblée” which I am enclosing). Much as the victory at Vitoria is spoken of in London drawing rooms, I fear there is even more talk of Caro Lamb’s latest antics. Or rather Caro’s and Byron’s, for I hold the wretched man quite as much to blame. Caro has continued to refuse to return Byorn’s picture unless he would agree to a private interview with her (he refused (if only he would always show such sense). It all came to a head at Lady Heathcote’s ball early this month. I wasn’t present unfortunately–Chloe had come down with a chill and her fever was high enough to cause alarm–She’s quite recovered now (yesterday she attempted to slide down the stair rail). All I can do is attempt to piece together the myriad stories, each more fantastical than the last. Apparently Caro waltzed in front of Bryon (who never used to like her to do so). He made a show of his unconcern. Caro retired to the supper room, where she seized a knife and threatened to stab herself. Byron said something along the order of do go ahead, but strike your own heart not mine which you have wounded already. Some of the guests got the knife away from Caro, but she was cut and got blood on her gown. At least that’s one story. Others say she got the cut from a broken glass or from a pair of scissors she was carrying (why on earth should she be carrying scissors at a ball? Though it wouldn’t be the first of Caro’s starts). There are more versions of what happened than there were guests at Lady Heathcote’s. The Satirist went so far as to say that it was William Lamb who should be pitied because Caroline survived the attempt. Which I must say I failed to find in the least amusing.
Oddly enough, Caro and Byron seem to be getting on better in the wake of this incident. They’ve actually begun corresponding again according to Lady Melbourne (who isn’t at all happy about it). They both have such a love of creating scenes. One find oneself observing the whole as though it is some sort of hideously overdone drama. And then every so often I’m brought up short and remember that these are very real human beings. Byron meanwhile has embarked on a flirtation (or worse) with Lady Frances Webster, who is in quite over her head. And he continues to spend a great deal of time with his sister, Mrs. Leigh, while I don’t matters have really ended between him and Annabella Milbanke.
I look this over and suspect I have managed to convince you that London society is mad or a nest of scandal mongerers or shockingly self-absorbed. All three of which, I fear, are sadly true. But we do occasionally talk like rational creatures.
Your affectionate aunt,
Frances
(original in code)
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Charles is off on a mission for the ambassador. He didn’t give me any details, of course, but from the look on his face when he bent over Colin’s cradle this morning, I judge it to be serious. I took the enclosed from his dispatch box last night before he left. I didn’t have time to decode it all, but I gather Charles has gone to meet with an emissary of Don Julian Sanchez or possibly with Don Julian himself. Everyone here anxiously awaits news from Pamplona and San Sebastian, but though it’s plain that Wellington means to take both, nothing but the wildest of rumors have reached us. There’s a great deal of gossip in embassy salons (and a great deal of very real concern behind closed embassy doors) that the
Emperor means to take command of the forces in Spain himself. More than one young attaché has assured me that I shall be quite safe even should the Corsican Monster come to the Peninsula.
I’m dining at the embassy on Tuesday and will send a report. I trust I need not remind you that should any harm befall Charles on this mission, it would prove distinctly damaging to our long terms objectives.
M.
p.s.
Colin rolled over yesterday, quite on his own.
(original in code)
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Excellent work as always. The news from the north isn’t good. Soult seems to be in retreat through the Pyrenees, though according to my latest intelligence we still hold San Sebastian where General Rey has maintained a spirited defense. Losses in the past fortnight have been sadly high on both sides (close to a quarter of Soult’s men if my sources are to be believed). I don’t think your friends at the embassy need fear the specter of the Emperor. With the armistice ending and no treaty concluded, he will have more than enough to occupy him to the north.
As to your husband (there’s no need to hesitate to admit you’ve grown fond of him, by the way), he’s well able to take care of himself, and I have a number of reasons for doing my utmost to see he doesn’t come to harm.
R.
p.s.
Thank you for the news of Colin.
Lisbon
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My dear wife,
As with the letter I just wrote to Colin, I confess that I very much hope you will never have cause to read this. I am still growing accustomed to waking to find you beside me and to walking into our rooms and knowing you will be there. The thought of not finding you there is terrifying in the extreme. But until Stuart told me about the particular errand he was sending me on, I hadn’t properly considered what it might be like for you were I suddenly not to be a part of your life.
We have discussed the financial arrangements. Blackwell and Edgar would see you and Colin safely to England. David, Simon, and Aunt Frances would stand your friends once you were there. It isn’t easy to be an exile, but you would be safe in Britain until the Continent is at peace. Knowing you these past months, I have no doubt of your ability to make yourself at home wherever you may find yourself. You have a wonderful knack for making a home.
But in that eventuality, I would never have the chance of telling you how very much these past months have meant to me. You have given me so much that I never thought to have. If I am sometimes clumsy at showing it, the lack is entirely on my side and not (as I trust you realize) owed to any lack of feeling. Circumstances have made us intimately acquainted with each other in some ways, while in so many others we are still getting to know each other. I hope we shall have time to do so. If we should not, I hope more than anything that you find the happiness you deserve. If you find even a quarter of what you have given me, your life will be rich indeed.
With all my heart,
Charles
Lisbon
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My dear Colin,
I must confess I pen this letter profoundly hoping you shall never have occasion to read it. I worry about what I have to offer you as a father and what sort of job I shall make of it, but I very much want to be there to watch you grow up and to offer you what I can.
I’ve just learned that I shall have to go into Spain for a fortnight or so. One never quite knows what one is getting into with errands of this sort, and there’s always the chance it may prove dangerous. It’s a new thing for me to have responsibilities to other people. I’m still getting used to what I owe to your mother. Leaving my interview with the ambassador (where I learned about the errand), it occurred to me that I shall say goodbye to you knowing there’s a chance I shall never see you again.
If your mother someday gives you this letter to read because that is what has happened, I am sorrier than I can say for failing you, for not being there to watch your growing up. Duty is a complicated thing. It can pull one in a multitude of different directions. Honoring one’s commitments is one of the most important things a person can do. Which means not always doing as one wishes. And sometimes it’s fiendishly difficult to sort out which commitments come first. Nothing is more important to me than what I owe to you and your mother, but I have other responsibilities and people dependent on me. I don’t think I’d be a very good father to you if I didn’t do what I thought was right. It can be very difficult to figure out what’s right, but it’s very important to try to think it through for oneself and not let anyone else do your thinking for you.
Your mother is a remarkable woman. Don’t ever be afraid to ask her questions. She can tell you how eagerly we looked forward to your birth, and how much we both loved you, before you born and even more so after we were able to hold you in our arms. If there’s one legacy I’d like to leave you, it’s that you’ll never doubt you were loved. I’ll never cease to be grateful for however much time I have with you. I know with your mother’s care and protection and good sense you will have a happy childhood and will grow to be a man we would both be proud of.
Your loving father,
Charles Fraser
The Albany
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My dear Charles,
You don’t sound any madder to me than you do in the general run of things. I must say I’m a bit insulted that you don’t think I’d be interested in news of your child. I’m an uncle, remember, and have been for three years now. I must say, from what I remember of Amelia’s infancy and Billy’s more recently, you seem to be singularly fortunate (sleeping for five hours at stretch is a rare feat in an infant of that age, I believe). Of course, Bel and Oliver have a larger house and a better staffed nursery than you possess in your Lisbon quarters. Simon, reading your letter, threatened to ask Oliver if he’s ever changed a napkin. I must say, I rather hope he does. I should quite like to see Oliver’s face.
We are both, needless to say, pleased beyond measure that Mélanie and Colin are in such good health. I’ve always been quite certain I shall never be a father, so I confess I’ve never given much thought to the state. But I can imagine, I think, something of the wonder and terror you must be feeling. You know more than most people of the complexities of my relationship with my own father. Thinking back on my own childhood and knowing you as I do, I can only say that your son is extremely fortunate in his parentage. Simon adds that reading between the lines he can tell you’re an excellent parent already. He says he isn’t a bit surprised. You have a knack for being infernally good at most things you attempt.
The Royal Assent to the East India Company’s new charter was given yesterday. The Company will still govern, but their monopoly is broken. Simon and I chanced upon Christopher Ingleseby at the Piazza last night (do you remember him from Harrow? clever, scholarship student, took the maths prize you won our year,-he’s now at Melchett’s Bank) and he talked enthusiastically about the possibilities in iron and coal. Father seems pleased. I dined with him today (yes, I braved the dragon’s lair and went to White’s), and he spent half a bottle of claret talking about how the loss of the monopoly was the directors’ own fault for their gross incompetence. He has agents in India, doesn’t he? No, I know, I daresay you aren’t supposed to tell me. All in all, Father was in an unusually pleasant temper (he didn’t even take advantage of your son’s recent birth to make an remarks about my marrying). We barely touched on the war (we rarely do, there’s too much he can’t say), but I deduce that things are going well on the Peninsula, and can only hope that this means we will see you and family in England before too long.
As always,
David
Lisbon
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My dear David,
Mélanie and I send our thanks to you and Simon for the handsome silver rattle. Colin would, I am sure, thank you as well were he able to speak. As he is a remarkably alert baby but has not yet quite mastered the power of speech, you must permit to tell you that we’ve tied it to a ribbon hanging over his cradle and he stares at it with a rapped attention which (his father deduces) indicates great appreciation.
Geoffrey Blackwell assures us he has all the signs of a thriving baby. Last night he slept for five hours straight, a singular feat for which we should be most grateful says Addison (who is the eldest of seven). He cries quite loudly when hungry or in need of a fresh napkin but is blessedly even-tempered the rest of the time. His eyes are quite extraordinary. When I bent over his cradle this morning, he seemed to focus right on my face for the first time.
I just read over the above and concluded that you will probably think I’ve run mad. Which I supposed I have, in a way. I never thought to have children at all, and even in the past months, anticipating Colin’s birth, I didn’t at all grasp what it would be like. He’s so very helpless and yet so very much his own person. A person it’s Mélanie’s and my responsibility to nurture.
Mélanie is a wonder. She says she often feels she’s making it up as she goes along, but from my perspective she has an uncanny knack for knowing just what to do. Following her lead, I’ve got passably good at changing a napkin and holding him so he’s less inclined to fuss (Mélanie holds him with a casual ease which seems to make him feel entirely secure).
Clumsy as I often feel, this, I suspect, is the easy part. It’s the next one-and-twenty years or so and beyond (does one ever stop worrying about one’s children?) that fill me with cold terror at times. The times when I feel grossly unequipped to meet any of the challenges ahead. Then I look at Mélanie and Colin and realize how very grateful I am for the ability to try, however inadequate my efforts may be.
Have I mentioned lately what a wonderfully forbearing friend you are? There’s no one else on earth I’d dare speak to in this way. But I think you know that.
Has the East India Charter been settled yet?
As always,
Charles
Brighton
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Dear Mrs. Fraser,
I hope you will find the enclosed useful for little Colin. I have also enclosed a small trifle for you. If there’s one thing I remember distinctly from the births of both my children, it’s that I felt distinctly in need of cosseting afterwards (though in the general run of things I pride myself on being quite self- sufficient). Situated as you are, I imagine any sort of cosseting is in short supply.
I cannot tell you how pleased I was to hear the new of Colin’s birth and that you and the baby are both well. I have always felt Charles would make a wonderful father. I still remember how kind he was to my sisters and me when he came to visit us with David during their holidays from Harrow. He had a patience sometimes lacking in a brother (even a quite splendid brother like David) and a knack for knowing just what to say to bolster the confidence of a young girl at that awkward age at which one is so sorely in need of confidence. He’s our little girl’s godfather, you know, and though he only sees her on rare visits home, he’s always struck me as much more at ease than many gentlemen are with an infant. When I first showed her to him, he actually stretched out his arms to take her and seemed undaunted by fears that she’d either break or require a new napkin. He didn’t even panic when she started to fuss. You can imagine my admiration of such fortitude.
We have heard the wonderful news of Wellington’s great victory at Vitoria. You can imagine the rejoicing. King Joseph and his court put to flight - are one actually hope the tide has turned? There are so many reasons to hope so. And I confess that for me one of them if that perhaps this makes it more likely Charles will be able to bring you and Colin to England soon, at least for a visit. I do so long to meet you. And when the children are a bit older, Colin and Billy will be just of an age to play together.
I hope you go on well and that Charles’s work does not oblige him to go away from you for a time. I am presently at Brighton with my children, while Oliver stays in London until Parliament rises (this business of the East India Company’s new charter seems to be dragging out). He’s only a day’s journey away, and even that separation is vexing.
Yours most affectionately,
Isobel Lydgate
The Albany
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Dear Bel,
Trust me, the talk is quite as bad in the coffee room at Brooks’s or the corridors of Parliament as it is round the tea table or along the Promenade. If one of my speeches could create half the stir my friend’s marriage has done, I’d be a force to be reckoned with. Oliver and I overheard a distinctly vulgar wager over our beefsteak and claret last night. We were both on our feet before we caught each other’s eye and realized that satisfying as it would be to plant someone a facer, it would only add to the scandal which would hardly be doing Charles and his wife a service.
Father keeps muttering about “couldn’t my friend avoid distracting entanglements” as though I had some sort of influence over Charles. Lady Winchester cornered me at Sally Jersey’s last week convinced that Charles’s bride is a French adventuress twice his age with a false pedigree who ensnared him into marriage through some sort of ruse that sounded straight out of a Restoration comedy. After a quarter-hour, I managed to persuade her that Mélanie is half Spanish and younger than Charles, but I could make so further inroads. I had no sooner escaped than Mary Trenor seized my arm and said was it really true Charles had met his wife when he rescued her from the band of gypsies who had abducted her as a baby. Before I could reply, Miranda Vance said she’d got it all wrong, Charles’s wife was a gypsy and had trapped him with a love potion. At which point it was all I could do not to choke on my champagne, but I did manage to say that .Charles had indeed met his wife in the Cantabrian Mountains, but as far I knew no gypsies of any sort had been involved, and that Charles was the last man I could imagine falling victim to a love potion.
As to the true nature of Charles’s feelings–? My dear Bel, you know how little he confides in anyone. He certainly doesn’t write of his marriage with Romeo’s ardor, and yet if Charles did start sounding as if he’d jumped into the balcony scene I’d have serious concerns for his sanity. He writes of Mélanie with an affection which is all the more palpable for being couched in carefully chosen words. He writes of young Colin with a father’s love. Oliver says Charles is much too sensible to marry where he doesn’t feel a sincere attachment. Simon has exchanged letters with Mélanie and says he thinks she may be just the thing for Charles. I hope he may be right. Whatever caused Charles to marry so abruptly, I don’t believe any of us have the true story. To you, if you to few others, I can confess to my own share of lingering concern for my friend’s happiness.
I fear the business of the Charter will drag out well into July. Oliver dined with us last night. I expect he’ll have written to you by now, but I believe he plans to make a visit to Brighton at the end of the week so at least you and the children will have a few days with him.
Simon sends his love. As of course do I.
Your affectionate brother who misses you,
David
May 29, 2007 at 12:42 am
Saw your post on aarlist2 and came right over to visit. It is beautiful and very professionally done. Congrats on your new book. Seems elegant and sophisticated.
June 4, 2007 at 5:06 pm
HI Evie,
Thanks so much! Greg and jim will appreciate the comments on the site (as do I), and I appreciate the comments on the book! We’ll be updating content frequently (these letters get updated once a week), so do check back.
Cheers,
Tracy
June 5, 2007 at 6:58 am
I was so excited to recieve news of your book Secrets of a Lady. I am anxiously awaiting my copy, I already pre-orderd with amazon! And I love the Fraser correspondence. I can’t wait to read one by Charles.
June 5, 2007 at 7:07 am
Thanks so much, Perla! I love writing the Fraser Correspondence, so it’s great to hear you enjoy reading it. You bring up something I’ve been meaning to mention–I’m going to be writing a lot of letters, so if anyone has particular characters, subjects, etc… they think it would be interesting to hear about, do let me know. I can’t promise all suggestions will be work with the back story, but I’d love to hear thoughts.
Cheers,
Tracy
July 2, 2007 at 11:07 am
tracy thank you for your reply and the link to this your site.I love the letters. You have the tone of the age so authentically.I shall be getting hold of ’secrets’ to read the extra.
July 2, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Daphne, I’m so glad you visited the site and particularly that you like the Fraser correspondence.I love writing the letters and part of the fun is trying the capture the tone of the period, so your words are a lovely compliment! I add a new letter every week, so do be sure to check back. And if you have suggestions for topics/characters for letters, do leave a comment or send me an email.
Cheers,
Tracy
July 2, 2007 at 6:02 pm
Just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed your Charles and Melanie books! I saw you on one of my Historical Fiction reader groups and replied about your books but didn’t see my comment. Excellent work and I look forward to more!
Kaathryn G