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‘He would enjoy it. He’s a sociable man, but rather lonely since his wife died, I suspect. And he was going in any case.’
‘You must not tell him you have mentioned it to me,’ Julia said. ‘If he thinks we know, then he will feel obligated.’
‘Very well. I will be tact itself,’ Hal assured her, opening the door. ‘Now, I had better find you a cab.’
They stood under the portico, surveying the street. ‘There’s one.’ Hal took a step forward and then backed into the shadow. ‘And here comes the Reverend Mr Smyth. I think I will make myself scarce, before I am the cause of you losing yet another of your worthy suitors, Julia.’ He allowed himself the indulgence of lifting her gloved hand to his lips. ‘I hope to see you at the review.’
Julia felt suddenly bereft as Hal vanished back into the theatre. He was so vivid, so alive that when she was with him she felt more alive too. Mr Smyth was making his way past the theatre, heading perhaps for the cathedral. Julia walked out into the sunlight and down the steps. ‘Mr Smyth!’
‘Miss Tresilian.’ He stopped and doffed his hat. ‘You appear to have lost your maid.’
‘I had to send her home with the fish,’ Julia said vaguely, hoping that house keeping details would distract him from her un chaperoned state. ‘I had an errand for Lady Geraldine, but I would be most grateful if you would call me a cab.’
‘Of course.’ He looked happier now she was relying on him. Julia re pressed a sigh. He was a very nice, decent man, but no-one, however charitable, could call him vivid.
However he was excellent husband material, she reminded herself as she got into the cab he most efficiently found for her. She waved to him as he stood on the pavement—solid, patient, kind. She must remember that. It would make all the difference in the world to Mama and Philip if she were to be respectably married. The obligation, the realization that she could do something to help them should make her happy—proud even. She felt miserably aware of her own lack of dutifulness: it was beginning to seem like an intolerable burden.
As the cab rattled up the hill to the Upper Town she sighed. It was her duty to marry, even if it were to a man who could most charitably be termed mousy.
What had Hal said about his sister? That she was fast and had found a man as wild and unconventional as she was. It sounded exciting and passionate and dangerous. Would life with Hal Carlow be like that? She must not think about it, even in her dreams.
‘Julia.’
She started, feeling un ac count ably guilty, and put down her slice of bread and butter. ‘Mama?’
Mrs Tresilian waved a sheet of thick cream paper. ‘I have just received this letter from a Baron vander Helvig, who introduces himself as a friend of Major Carlow and an acquaintance of Lady Geraldine. What do you know about him?’
Julia smiled brightly. ‘I have never met the baron, Mama.’
‘That is not what I asked you.’
‘Major Carlow mentioned him. He is a widower, I believe. In his sixties.’
‘He is inviting all three of us to accompany him in his barouche to the cavalry review near Ninove. He says he was mentioning to Major Carlow that he was without company for the event and the major suggested we might like to go. What do you know about that?’
‘Er…Major Carlow did suggest it, but I asked him not to mention to the baron that we had any idea, so he did not feel obligated.’
‘We certainly had no idea.’
Julia shifted uneasily as her mother looked at her. ‘Phillip would love it,’ she suggested, ‘and you would enjoy the spectacle and the opportunity of getting out of the city, Mama.’
‘Julia,’ Mrs Tresilian said care fully. ‘You are not meeting Major Carlow, are you?’
‘Only accidentally,’ Julia said, her conscience clear on that at least. ‘I came across him when I was calling on Madame Catalani for Lady Geraldine. But then I met Mr Smyth and he got me a cab home from the Lower Town.’ That was, she knew perfectly well, an outrageous editing of the events. Julia wondered uneasily if association with Hal Carlow was as dangerous as he had warned her it could be. Her moral standards seemed to be slipping; she could feel it almost as though the ground were moving slightly below her feet. But the thought of never seeing him again made her feel positively unwell. It was very hard to under stand.
Mrs Tresilian re-read the letter. ‘I will ask Lady Geraldine’s advice,’ she said after anagonising few moments of suspense. ‘I would not like to deprive any of us of a day’s harmless entertainment, and this could be a spectacle of historic significance.’
‘Wake up, Phillip.’ Julia shook her brother’s shoulder as he lay curled up on the carriage seat beside her. ‘Look, we are almost there.’
Phillip wriggled upright, scrubbing at his eyes. ‘Ooh! Is that for us?’ That was the decoration of leafy branches that covered every upright pole or surface and drooped from ropes and frame works. Ahead was a great triumphal arch, topped with what looked like laurel wreaths. Even Mrs Tresilian leaned out of the open carriage to see.
‘I think it is to honour the duke and Marshal Blücher,’ Julia explained.
‘And the Prince of Orange,’ the baron added, smiling at the small boy. Rotund, jovial and expressing himself de lighted to have two ‘lovely ladies’ in his carriage, Baron vander Helvig had made the journey pass with an in exhaustible flow of good-natured gossip, enquiries about London and stories about life in the Low Countries under Napoleon.
‘What time will it begin?’ Mrs Tresilian asked as the baron checked his pocket watch.
‘Not until noon at least, ma’am, and it is half past eleven now. I have a place reserved in the m
