Tuesday's Child (Heroines Born on Each Day of the Week Book 3) (2 page)

On that occasion, when her anger flared, she managed to control it. She and Edgar, her late husband, had decided that if they ever had a son, they would name him George. “Although I agree Arthur is a noble name, Papa, why do you want him to be addressed by it?” she had replied, in an attempt to sound reasonable, although her cheeks burned with suppressed wrath.

“Perhaps it is lese majesty to admit that due to the present king’s madness and the Prince Regent’s excesses, their Christian name is not one I consider suitable for my heir,” her father-in-law declared. “After all, my lineage is superior to the Hanover’s. They are nothing more than jumped up minor German royalty with slight claim to English blood.” He paused to flick open his tortoiseshell snuffbox. “My child,” he continued after he indulged in a pinch of snuff, I think, Arthur, the Duke of Wellington’s given name, is more appropriate for my heir.”

She was not his child. Although her temper increased until she thought it would boil over, with great effort she managed to contain it and employ guile. “Papa, I agree Arthur would be an appropriate name for my son, however-” A wave of the earl’s hand silenced her.

“You admire our king, who has lost his wits, more than the hero of Waterloo?”

“No, though I pity His Majesty.”

“I daresay, but perhaps you condone our future king’s excesses.”

She considered the Prince Regent’s shocking reputation and extravagance. “No, Papa.”

Immaculate in a blue coat, off-white nankeen pantaloons, the intricate style of his starched neckcloth faultless, and his silver hair in perfect order, the earl spoke. “We are agreed. From now on we shall call my grandson Arthur instead of George.” His triumphant smile deepened his wrinkles in which powder and rouge clung.”

“Very well, Papa.” Grateful to him for saving them from destitution, she consented out of gratitude.

Informed of the decision by his grandfather, when given his pony six months ago, her delighted son did not object. In fact, after jumping up and down with joy, he petted Prince, and from then on answered to his new name. To Harriet’s chagrin, on one occasion, when she called him George, he stamped his small, well-shod foot. “Grandfather says my name is Arthur.” 

“When,” she asked herself, remembering the occasion, “would her father-in-law respect any of her wishes?”

The earl’s gentle smile, which masked an iron-will, repulsed her. His generosity and many gifts, for which she was obliged, made it extremely difficult to protest over his determination to dominate her.

This morning, in response to her request for the pair to walk their horses, the earl inclined his head, smiled, but made no reply. Now, without a leading rein, Prince trotted across the sweep of grass dotted with daisies towards the house beside his grandfather’s well-mannered mount. Harriet’s teeth clamped together. Doubtless the small flowers would be cut with ruthlessness to equal anything else that did not please his lordship.

She clutched a fold of her expensive sprigged muslin morning gown,  paid for from the generous allowance allotted to her by Pennington. Guilt and resentment warred within her. Guilt because before the earl acknowledged her and her son, they experienced such hardship that she prayed for death to claim them. Resentment because her strong-minded father-in-law insisted on taking charge of every aspect of Arthur’s life.

In spite of the luxury surrounding her, while she watched Pennington and Arthur ride, her anger increased. The earl doted on Arthur. Indeed, he pandered to him so much that her son had become a small tyrant.

Her hitherto obedient, sweet-natured little boy now indulged in shocking tantrums if his demands were refused. To make matters worse her father-in-law interfered whenever she attempted to discipline the child. Harriet clenched her jaw. Regardless of what Arthur did, the earl did not even allow Arthur’s nurse to punish him.

Harriet wiped angry tears of frustration from her eyes. Her memories could not be wiped away so easily. If only her handsome, debonair young husband, a captain in The Glory Boys, had survived his last battle. Since Edgar’s death, not a day went by when she did not yearn for the sound of his deep voice, his ready smile and their tender, passionate, love making. Even now, Harriet visualised him,  magnificent in his black hussar uniform embellished with gold and scarlet. She could almost hear his words. “Smile for me, Harriet, I shall always return to you sound in limb, and in the best of spirits.” Until his demise Edgar evaded the grim reaper so many times that she had believed in her husband’s invincibility.

Harriet closed her eyes, trying to erase the memory of the mental and physical agony of giving birth to a fatherless child in the best quarters in Lisbon, the best her father, a major in the Glory Boy could afford for her. She squeezed back involuntary tears at the recollection of the day on which she received the dreadful news of Papa’s death in the Battle of Toulouse, the final engagement in the campaign against Napoleon before his exile to Elba. Until she glimpsed her child’s frightened face when he returned from a walk with his nurse, for a week she neither ate more than a morsel nor stopped crying.

Until her father’s died, she and Arthur enjoyed his protection. Afterward, although in desperate need of a protector, she refused several marriage proposals. Of course, out of expediency, many army widows did remarry soon after their husbands’ funerals, but Harriet rejected her suitors.

In spite of her impoverished circumstances, she never considered replacing Edgar in her affections, and marry without  love she would not.

Now, at the age of four and twenty, at the thought of what might have been if Edgar lived, tears filled her eyes. After wiping them away with her handkerchief, she  watched Arthur and Pennington dismount. Her son laughed in response to something his grandfather said.

Harriet knew she should not be unappreciative of her father-in-law, nevertheless, she resented her separation from Arthur by the nurse appointed by Pennington, in his words “to relieve her of the tiresome task of caring for a child”. Despite hardships she never found it “tiresome” to care for Arthur. Fortunately, she approved of Bessie a young woman, whom Arthur liked, who took excellent care of him.

* * *

“Mamma,” Arthur shouted when he entered the breakfast parlour, “Grandpapa and I went riding.” Arms outstretched he rushed towards the table set with Wedgewood china and an array of monogrammed flatware.

Relieved to see him safe, Harriet stood. Regardless of the risk of her starched muslin gown being crushed, she spread her arms wide to embrace him.

Her father-in-law stepped forward.  “Be good enough to remember your station, Arthur. You are not a cottager’s brat.” One hand, marred by age spots gripped the child’s shoulder to prevent him from running forward.

Arthur looked up at his grandfather, a trace of anxiety in his large eyes, the intense blue of the sky on a summer’s day.

Harriet’s eyebrows twitched. The earl did not have the right to insist on formality. Since Arthur’s birth she had cuddled and kissed him, and would continue to do so.

The earl smiled down at the child. “Make your bow, to Lady Castleton.”

Arthur’s shoulders drooped, but he obeyed.

Her father-in-law’s eyes gleaming with unmistakeable triumph, he glanced at her over the top of Arthur’s head of shiny brown curls.

Harriet caught her lower lip between her teeth. No matter how much the earl provoked her, she would not engage in a direct battle over Arthur.

She released her lip. Nonsensical for her father-in-law to have said Lady Castleton instead of your mamma to Arthur, and to have prevented him from running to her for a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Aware of a surge of angry colour, which heated her cheeks, Harriet made up her mind neither to allow the old man to wean her son away from his affection for her, nor to permit him to be in full control of her son.

“Oh, Papa, what harm can it do if Arthur embraces me?” she asked, looking down to give the earl an impression of a submissive daughter-in-law. Without waiting for a reply, she continued to hold out her arms. “Come, my boy, give me my morning kiss.”

Her son looked up at his grandfather for permission.

“Arthur,” Pennington commenced, “Lady Castleton forgets you no longer wear skirts. You are a little man in your trousers and short jacket. In future, you must remember gentlemen are not forever hugging and kissing ladies. Take your place at the table.”

Harriet looked up at her father-in-law. Confound it, none of her ploys to charm the earl ever succeeded. Well, in her son’s presence, she would not brangle with him like a fishwife. She checked her desire to express her indignation. Instead she smiled at Pennington, pretending to be unaware that he did not consider her to have been a suitable wife for his late son.

Although she was not a nobleman’s daughter, her parents  had taught her how to conduct herself with decorum. Moreover, she prided herself on the good English blood she inherited from them. By birth, she had nothing to be ashamed of, even if she were ineligible to be considered to be a member of the ton – the so called upper ten thousand persons considered the cream of society - amongst whom the earl numbered.

At the round table, her father-in-law seated himself opposite her with Arthur  on his right. The elderly chaplain, good-natured Mister Rivers took his place on the earl’s left.

Her spine stiff, Harriet sat between Arthur, whom the earl insisted should sit next to him, and the secretary, Mister Vaughan; a young man of approximately twenty-five years of age, whose eyes more often than not nursed a merry sparkle, in spite of his patron’s haughty disposition. 

No one spoke while the butler supervised the footmen, who put a silver coffee pot in front of Harriet and food on the table.

While Mister Rivers intoned a short grace Harriet wondered what the sycophantic man of the cloth thought of the stone-pillared room decorated in the gothic style.

Harriet’s gaze strayed beyond the arched window, through which she glimpsed the rose garden, bordered by low box hedges, basking in sunshine. “Coffee, or ale, my lord?” Harriet asked.

“Coffee, my dear child.” Despite that gentle smile which Harriet considered artificial, his forehead creased. “On numerous occasions, I have already requested you to call me, papa.”

Although she could not imagine him ever replacing her beloved father in her affection, his request was not unreasonable. “How foolish I am,” Harriet replied with false meekness intended to soften his heart. “I beg your pardon, Papa.” She poured the fragrant beverage into a porcelain cup, hand-painted with Wedgewood’s famous Kutani Crane design.

A footman stepped forward to hand it to his lordship.

“Will you partake of coffee, Mister Rivers?”

“Yes please, Lady Castleton, you are too kind, too gracious.”

Harriet suppressed her desire to giggle at such obsequiousness.

“Yes,” Arthur piped up, while a footman served Mister Vaughan with ale, “Mamma is always gentle not like Nurse, who pinches me.”

“What did you say?” Pennington asked his quiet tone at odds with the outraged expression in his eyes.

Arthur stared down at the table.

The wrinkles on Pennington’s face deepened. “Castleton, I expect you to answer me when I address you,” he reprimanded Arthur, his unusual severity with his heir emphasised by addressing him by his title.

“Mamma is kind but my nurse is unkind. She won’t let me drink from my silver mug.” He scowled. “She said it is too good for a naughty boy, and I didn’t like it when she  pinched my cheeks.”

“How dare she!” Pennington exclaimed, his cheeks puce beneath the light layer of rouge. “Lady Castleton, I shall dismiss Bessie Cooper without a reference. My grandson’s pluck to the backbone. I will not allow him to be turned into a coward afraid of his own shadow. Damn the woman.”

Mister Rivers murmured an almost inaudible protest on the subject of not swearing in a lady’s presence.

The earl ignored his chaplain’s timid objection.

Harriet frowned. The pleasant young nurse did not deserve such treatment. She reached out her hand to smooth the tumble of curls back from her son’s forehead. “Look at me, and tell the truth. Did Bessie pinch you hard?”

She hoped Arthur still knew better than to lie to her.

“No, Mamma.”

Harriet looked at the earl. “I don’t think there is any need for concern. Children need discipline if they are not to turn into young tyrants. Perhaps you judge too quickly, Papa. Is there really any need to dismiss Nurse?”

Pennington, whom she knew rode roughshod over any opinion, which did not concur with his own, did not answer her. 

An uneasy silence, other than instructions to the footmen to serve them with eggs, ham, kidneys, rolls or toast, followed until Arthur broke it.

“Grandpapa,” he said, while he pushed a piece of ham around his plate with his fork, “after breakfast I want to swim in the lake.”

The earl swallowed a mouthful of buttered toast. “You are too young.”

Arthur’s cheeks reddened.

Harriet frowned. “Eat your breakfast, Arthur, and don’t speak without permission.”

“Be good enough to allow the boy to do so,” Pennington intervened.

Yet again, although he interfered, she forced herself to remain silent in an attempt to seem compliant and keep him in a good humour.