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MAY A CAT LOOK AT A QUEEN?

The Member of Parliament for Abingdon strolled home from the Palace of Westminster where he had been chairing a committee on the controversial move to protect children under the age of nine from working in the cotton mills. They had started business much earlier than usual and had now adjourned for the day. As it was a beautiful spring afternoon, he thought he would take the rural route home through St James’s Park. Ivor Asprey was a tall man with striking looks, austere and distinguished rather than conventionally handsome. He had fine cheekbones, a prominent, aristocratic nose and straight black eyebrows, below which deep blue eyes gazed coolly on the world. As a highly respected and wealthy lawmaker, he was perfectly content with his life and the elevated position in the society he bestrode with grace. This current parliamentary work, however, threatened his habitual sang-froid. He did not like to consider the life of poor children working more than twelve hours a day in such harsh and dangerous conditions. It disturbed his natural respect for the status quo.

So it was, that as March 1814 drew to its bright spring-like close, Ivor Asprey could be seen making his elegant way through the Park with an easy athletic gait, a commanding figure immaculately if soberly dressed, swinging his cane as he walked. In a mood of abstraction he watched the coots and moorhens gliding over the water in the Canal, chattering to each other, busy foraging amongst the reeds: his mood was lifted by the happy thought of his own extensive lake at home, so much grander, with interlocking cascades and sinuous vistas contrived to embellish his acres of fertile land, just upriver from London. Such comfortable ruminations of ancestral good fortune restored his mood.

This peaceful contemplation was interrupted by a cry. ‘Asprey!’ He turned to see a spirited bay cantering towards him, Lord Rackham in the saddle. His lordship reined in his horse and dismounted to offer a hand in greeting. Ivor Asprey’s feelings were ambivalent towards this libertine colleague who rarely attended Parliament and was contemptuously unconcerned with his constituents’ interests.

Asprey met the glittering eyes in a handsome but ruined face and wondered if he was already half-foxed, despite the early hour. His voice in response was cool. ‘Good afternoon, Rackham. On your way to Westminster?’

‘Devil take me, no! It’s torture. Closest thing to being buried alive. Don’t you feel in that chamber we’re just waiting to die?’ With a discontented expression he continued, ‘Luckily, I’m not burdened with your conscience. The thought of benighted brats in Manchester’s satanic mills so lowers the spirits, don’t you find?’

The two men walked on a hundred yards or so together, drawing interested glances from the fashionables promenading in the Park. Their demeanours were arresting in different ways and they were both well-known. Although still youthful at thirty-four, Ivor Asprey was an ascendant star in the Whig party and a rich and eligible man on the social scene, who scheming mamas wished to snare for their cleverer daughters. It was obvious to them that he needed a wife to play the political hostess and assist his rise on the national stage. The fact he was so elusive, some said arrogant, merely spurred them on, as did the added piquancy of his past with a dead young wife, a motherless daughter, gossiped about when his name was mentioned.

His companion’s repute had quite a different source. A few years older, Cato Rackham’s dissolute life had made him cynical in his search for increasingly extreme experiences to revive his jaded palate. That and his name, as well as his habit of always dressing in black, had also earned him the soubriquet amongst his peers of ‘Black Cat’, with all the ill omen that implied. Having inherited his father’s seat, he was a Member of Parliament for the Tories, but thought of Westminster as just another of his many convenient clubs for meeting, drinking and pleasurable diversion. His appearance at assemblies and routs during the Season caused mothers to shield their daughters from his calculating gaze. Some of the more perverse-minded and spirited young women, however, found his reputation and raddled good looks rather thrilling.

The two men talked in a desultory way about the progress of the Prussian coalition’s approach on Paris in their grinding war against Bonaparte, the coming owners’ race at Newmarket and a water spectacular at Sadler’s Wells Theatre that Lord Rackham had reluctantly attended. With a sneer on his face, he said, ‘Half the sottish audience ended up cavorting in the vast tank on stage filled with filthy water.’ He emitted a mirthless laugh. ‘One of the riff-raff youths nearly drowned. Ape-drunk he looked to me. I should have left him there, gasping like a gudgeon. But of course they had to fish him out.’

Ivor Asprey was used to his lordship’s predictable disdain and responded drily. ‘The theatre’s but our great city in miniature. Everyone from the royal princes to the scape-gallows are there to be seen. I’m surprised you went.’

‘There was a certain young vestal playing the part of a mermaid, very affectingly I thought.’ Lord Rackham’s predatory smile made Mr Asprey recoil but he strove to maintain his civility, whatever his lordship’s transgressions in the past. He saluted and turned away. His lordship bowed and swung himself into the saddle to trot in the direction of Birdcage Walk.

Quickening his stride, Ivor Asprey walked north towards Pall Mall which was filled with carriages and promenaders out to enjoy the late afternoon sunshine. The handsome buildings, the bookshops, clockmakers and gentlemen’s clubs confirmed his belief in the established order of things. He glanced up, as he always did, towards the monumental frontage of what used to be the Shakespeare Gallery when he was a boy. He particularly liked the carving in relief of the apotheosis of England’s greatest playwright. He stood for a moment, reassured by its intimations of national supremacy and the historic thread of certainty in his settled world.

As he walked on, greeting a few acquaintances on the way, Mr Asprey began to look forward to getting back to his mansion in St James’s Square for a restorative whisky before setting out for Brooks’s. At his club, he could count on being able to find convivial company where it was relaxing and unchallenging to be amongst men as secure and fortunate as himself. He turned into the handsome Square. The peace and quiet after the bustle of Pall Mall was always a balm.

Walking up through St James’s Square he noticed a grand town coach-and-four pulled up in front of his house. A familiar gloom settled over him. The great gilded crest of the Duke of Arlington glinted on the carriage door; this meant his sister awaited him within. Ivor Asprey mounted the steps and his front door swung open to reveal the smiling face of Goodall, his butler. ‘Good afternoon, sir,’ he said, taking his master’s coat, cane and hat. ‘Your sister is in the library.’ His cheery face almost twinkled into a wink until quelled by his master’s forbidding frown.

Ivor Asprey strode through the wide hallway with its elegant stone staircase curving up to the drawing room floor. He opened the mahogany door to his favourite room in the house. The carved Jacobean bookcases that lined the walls had come from an earlier mansion, now demolished, and added the gravitas of dark oak and age. They were filled with his books whose gleaming leather backs he recognised like old friends. But the peaceful atmosphere that usually greeted him was disturbed.

Edwina, Duchess of Arlington, was sitting in his favourite chair by the fire, an imposing figure in aquamarine silk, wearing a turquoise turban and one of the many magnificent Arlington necklaces she inherited on her marriage. This one was of foiled garnets which drew the eye to her generous bosom and emphasised the deep brown lustre of her hair. She was tapping her foot with impatience and looked up as she heard the door.

Her bright blue eyes met his deeper colder blue. ‘Ivor! You’ve arrived at last. Goodall couldn’t say when you’d be back and I thought I’d wait half an hour before leaving you a billet.’ Her voice was emphatic and her opinions were rarely gainsaid.

He walked over to kiss her lightly on the cheek. ‘Edwina. To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure? May I request some tea for you, or ratafia?’ His impassive gaze rested on her face.

‘Goodness no! But a whisky would do.’

He noticed she was unusually agitated and his heart sank further; Lord Charles Latimer, her cossetted son and heir, was probably involved in some scrape from which he would be required to extricate him. He poured out two glasses and sat down in the chair across from hers.

‘How is the Duke?’ he enquired. He was sympathetic to the tragedy that had befallen the family when his brother-in-law was struck from his horse at the Battle of Alexandria, some thirteen years prior; bleeding from the ear and badly trampled, his fellow dragoons had dragged him from the mêlée of horses’ hooves and fallen men, but he had never been the same again.

‘Oh, little changed,’ the Duchess said brusquely. ‘He keeps to his chambers. Still obsessed with snuff boxes.’

‘What is his tally?’

‘Oh, he’s not challenging Petersham yet, only about two hundred and fifty, but I didn’t come to talk to you about poor old George.’ Her bright bird-like eyes missed nothing and were usually focussed on his face demanding answers, but now evaded his gaze.

‘What’s troubling you, sister?’ He looked at her more closely, noting her pillowy cheeks and disappearing jawline, but was taken aback to see she was close to tears, a weakness she did not readily allow herself, or others.

‘Charles intends to offer marriage to a young trollop!’ Her voice trembled with outrage. Ivor Asprey knew she was a stickler for propriety and had very pronounced ideas about who would be worthy to become the next Duchess of Arlington, a noble line of which she was possessive and proud. He watched his sister take a gulp of whisky and the fiery liquor seemed to give her the strength to meet his eyes.

‘And pray who is this lucky young woman?’ He had to suppress a curl of amusement at his nephew’s unexpected rebelliousness. Fundamentally, he agreed with his sister; it was essential for social stability and the conservation of wealth that the status quo be maintained. Marrying out of your class weakened the very structure of society.

The Duchess could barely contain her feelings. ‘There’s a young minx, an actress at Covent Garden Theatre, cavorting about as Ophelia. Charles is there nearly every night casting lovelorn eyes her way.’

Her brother smiled, then checked his amusement when he saw her face. His languid words were meant to be consoling. ‘Oh, Edwina, you have nothing to worry about. All young red-blooded youths fall in love with an actress at some point. It’s a trifling matter. Mere animal spirits. At that age, Maria Campion was the focus of my calf-love. I would’ve given up my life for her.’