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Will had a swift response to his request for a meeting with Mr Whittleton, who asked him to call on him at White’s that very day. Arriving at the appointed hour, he was not pleased to find that Whittleton had given no instructions to the stewards, so he was not expected and was forced to loiter on the step until Whittleton had been found and had confirmed the appointment. Even then, Whittleton did not come to meet him, leaving a steward to show him up the stairs to the coffee room, where he found the fellow sitting at his ease in a large group of men of relaxed and rather loud demeanour, the table laden with a great number of empty bottles.
“Fletcher!” Whittleton yelled across the hubbub. “Good to see you, my friend. Come and meet everyone.” He rattled off a list of names, none of which Will recognized. “Here is my future son-in-law, gentlemen. Mr Walter Fletcher.”
“William,” Will said.
“Of course, of course. Makes me feel so old, to have a son-in-law. Still think of El as a bit of a girl, you see. And here she is getting married, and no doubt she will make me a grandfather before too long.”
“You are already a grandfather, sir, by your younger daughter,” Will said curtly, for he had half a mind to walk out and leave this uncaring man to his bosky friends.
“Good God! Truly? I had no idea,” Whittleton said, looking genuinely shocked. “I wonder my brother did not tell methat.But come, Fletcher, let us leave these gentlemen to their port, and find a quiet corner. Then you may tell me of Eloise.”
He found a small room, perhaps a card room, which was unoccupied, and after sending for brandy, they sat in two matching chairs, father-in-law and son-in-law, and looked at each other appraisingly. Will was inclined to dislike on sight a man who had abandoned a wife and four children, but he could not deny that Whittleton was a handsome fellow. He was perhaps a year or two younger than Will’s own father, but his hair showed not a scrap of grey, and he had a round, genial countenance with an almost permanent smile affixed to it. There was an affability to him that seemed to suggest that the world was a benign place where the very idea that anything bad should happen was unthinkable.
“Has she recovered?” Whittleton said. “Poor El, what a shock I gave her! I dare say she had not the least notion that Pen and I were in town.”
“Or in the country,” Will said acidly. “Or even alive.”
“Ah, well now, that was not my fault. That was my brother Job’s doing. When I left, he agreed to look after Helen and the children — see them educated, all that sort of thing. But the condition was that I not write to them.‘None of your wheedling letters, Jeremy,’he said to me.‘You will only upset them. Best to make a clean break.’So that was what I did. But I thought of them often, and missed them all abominably, you may be sure.”
Will was not in the least sure on the point, but he let it pass. There was one question he was determined to have answered, however. “But why leave at all, if you would miss them so badly?”
Whittleton sighed. “I did not want to, but there was no help for it.” He paused, sighed again, took another sip of brandy. Then he leaned back in his chair. “She will want to know, I suppose. El, that is. The rest of them, too. They must have wondered, and they deserve to know the truth. And she is dead, now, so it does not matter. I would not traduce her while she was alive.”
“Their mother?” Will said, astonished.
“Helen, yes. She was… a wonderful woman in many ways. A good mother, at all events. But cold, if you take my meaning. Not… not affectionate. She was always finding excuses… she was with child, she was tired, her head ached. There was always something amiss. But then after Cal was born, she told me to my face that she had done her duty and given me four children, and that was the end of it. Her bedroom door would be closed to me henceforth.
“I was twenty-nine years of age, Fletcher. Twenty-nine, and a man of normal urges. The thought of spending the rest of my life in solitude appalled me. What would you have done? I ask you, what would any red-blooded man have done? Yet still I hesitated. I did not want to take that step, you must believe me when I say that. But then Pen moved into the neighbouring estate. Lady Rowsham she was then, and newly widowed. And we found… certain interests in common.
“That little arrangement worked beautifully for six years, and no one any the wiser, but then — disaster. Pen conceived. Naturally, she had to go away, and by this time we were so close that she could not bear to go without me, so I was forced to go too.”
Will had tried very hard not to let the anger boiling within him show, but this was too much. “Forcedto go?” he said icily.
“How could I abandon her to deliver her child quite alone?”
“One might equally ask how could you abandon your wife and four children?”
“Oh, I knew they would be taken care of. We lived within a short walk of my brother’s house, you see — practically within the walls. There they had all the comfort that family can provide — feminine companionship for Helen in Job’s wife and her sister, and the children had their cousins. They would not miss me. No child misses his father. Pen needed me far more than they did. So we went abroad, moving here and there, you know how it is. We ended up in Russia, and Lord, you should see the splendour of the Tsar’s court! Ours is nothing to it, nothing at all, although that is just between the two of us. I should not like to give any offence in certain quarters, if you take my meaning. We are already finding things sticky there, and Pen used to be— But never mind that. It was in St Petersburg that news reached me that Helen had died.”
“Two years ago,” Will said.
“Indeed. The English newspapers are slow to reach the Russian court, and then we had to plan our journey. Naturally we made our way home as quickly as we could, to see if it could be true. I settled Pen here in London with good friends while I journeyed to Westmorland to see my brother, and then I was obliged to travel hither and thither to be sure of everything… pieces of paper, you know. Everyone wants written proof these days, and a man’s word that his wife is dead counts for nothing. A tedious business. The instant the happy truth was confirmed, I obtained a licence and we were married two weeks since. It is a pity nothing can be done to make the children legitimate, as we would wish, but—”
“Children?” Will said sharply.
“Oh yes. Three of them now, two boys and a girl, and sweeter children one could not hope to find, but… bastards, unfortunately. It is just unfortunate that Helen did not die a little sooner. But you can see, I am sure, that none of it could be helped, and everything has come right in the end. It was all for the best, I dare say, and Helen’s children have all done well for themselves — better than they would have done with their father underfoot, no doubt.”
Will was so incensed by this casual disregard for his legitimate offspring that he jumped to his feet, fully prepared to march straight out of the door. But some thread of good sense held him back. Whatever his faults, this selfish man was Eloise’s father, and had a place in her life, if she wished it. He might well claim a father’s privilege and give her away at their wedding. So he chose his words carefully.
“I thank you for explaining your actions so fully, sir. I will convey the essence of it to Eloise, or as much of it as she wishes to hear.”
“I had hoped I might tell her myself,” Whittleton said, in surprise. “We plan to stay in town for the rest of the season to catch up with all our old friends, and then we go to Brighton. We hope to be invited to the Pavilion, since Pen is such an old friend of the Prince of Wales. Surely he will open his doors to such an old friend. But that is for the future. For now, we are settled in town, and we will meet everywhere, no doubt. Are you going to this squeeze of the Dunmortons tonight? Four royal dukes, at least. I am sure it will be dreadfully vulgar, but Pen is wild to go.”
Will raised his eyebrows. “My father is a mercer, sir. We are not likely to be invited to any event with a member of the Royal family in attendance.”
“We have not been invited, either, but we will try. Never used to have any trouble that way, but some people are so stuffy. Pen swears she will go anyway. They can hardly turn us away at the door, now can they? Surely not. Bound to get an invitation, though. Pen knowseverybodyand if anyone can get an entrée, she can. I confess, I know a few people myself — ladies, mostly. Pen knows mostly gentlemen.” He laughed long and hard at this remark. “Well, those days are over, for we are completely faithful to each other. Well, I am, at least. Mostly." He laughed again, quite unabashed. “But anything you want, we can help you with, now that you are one of the family. What about this place? You are obviously not a member, but I can put your name forward, you know.”
Will snapped. The prospect of being beholden to this… thiscaterpillarof a man for advancement was poison to him. “You are too obliging, sir, but I will not trouble you. I would not wish to belong to any club which has you as a member. Good day to you, sir.”
