So Near So Far Read online

  “But look, Mr Mather, why don’t I hear all this from him? If he is so distinguished, successful, and brave, why can’t he decide for himself which girl he likes best? Why have I to decide for him?”

  “Perhaps you would understand him better if you realised how his recent years have been spent. He took command of the Merlin at Gibraltar in 1799. He served in the Mediterranean from then until the war ended, now on convoy duty, now at Malta and eventually in the battle of Algeçiras. All that time he hardly set foot ashore. Finally, when the sloop was paid off he comes to London and falls in love with the first lady he meets and that doesn’t prevent him from falling in love with you as well. Sailors come ashore starved for love—yes, like Lord Nelson himself. Believe me, we can behave very foolishly indeed. He will not listen to my advice, Miss Sinclair. Only you can save him from ruin.”

  “And will his marriage to this lady make him happy?”

  “I don’t know. I have never seen her.”

  “Men who marry an heiress can end in misery.”

  “Very true, Miss Sinclair. But it is also misery for an active officer to be left on the beach.”

  “But I still don’t understand. As good an officer as you say he is must be needed at sea.”

  “Forgive me—I have failed to explain things clearly. If he jilts this lady—for his withdrawal now would amount to that—her family would see to it that he never has another command. He would be ashore for good as a half-pay Commander—supposing, of course, that he survives a duel with the lady’s brother.”

  “I begin to understand, Mr Mather. I am an ignorant girl from the country, with no knowledge of society beyond what I learn from playing a part as Lady This or the Honourable Mrs That. I speak the lines yet I know little sometimes of what they mean. But I’ll be frank with you provided that you repeat nothing of what I say to Richard Delancey, or indeed to anyone else. Have I your promise?”

  “On my honour, Miss Sinclair.”

  “Very well, then. Your friend Delancey saw me on the stage and liked me. Years later he has seen and talked to me, to discover that he likes me more. To speak openly—as I suppose that real ladies never do—I like him too. But for men to admire me is no new experience. I need to know of a man whether he wants me enough, whether he wants me more than anything in the world. Such a man I could love but I won’t accept anything less.”

  “Thank you for being so open with me.”

  “I have decided, anyway, what I must do. It so happens that I have been offered a leading role at a theatre in the provinces, far from London. I have been trying to decide whether to accept or refuse it. I have now made up my mind to go. But your plea for your friend’s career has led me to a further decision. I shall go at once. I shall go without leaving an address. I shall leave my understudy to take my part. So far as Delancey is concerned, I shall have vanished. He will have his regrets but then he will remember his career and pay homage again to this lady upon whom his future depends. As for me, I too will soon forget him as a man who admired my beauty but who never really cared for me. How is that for a bargain?”

  “I hope that you have not made too great a sacrifice.”

  “I have made no sacrifice at all. If Delancey goes back to his heiress and his chances of promotion, he is not a lover worth having. Next time he calls at the stage door there will be a note from me advising him to be faithful to his society lady. If he calls again it will be to learn that I have left London and that no one knows where I have gone. And here we are at my lodging and I must say goodbye to you. Take care of yourself, Mr Mather, don’t get killed in battle, and find a nice girl to marry.”

  Mather walked away with an odd feeling that he had betrayed his friend. He knew that he had acted from the purest of motives. Mather could see what Delancey’s temptation had been. Fiona Sinclair was a lovely girl—he had no illusions about that—and she had an honest down-to-earth quality, a directness, a lack of affectation, which appealed to him personally. Mather thought the time had come for him to leave town. His business had been done and he would do well to escape from the expenses and temptations of London. A few days later he left London by coach after wishing Delancey every success in his wooing. Delancey, he knew, had recently been seen with Mrs Farren and had not, he felt certain, been seen again at the theatre.

  Chapter Three

  THE PRETENDED GENTLEMAN

  DELANCEY’S best friend in London was Colonel Barrington, once of the East India Company’s army but now something of an invalid, living in St James’s Square and seldom seen in society. It was to Barrington that Delancey finally explained his problem. This was in February 1802, some weeks after Fiona’s vanishing from Drury Lane, and Delancey had since continued to pay half-hearted court to Diana. He came straight to the point and described his position.

  “I have been much seen in company with the Honourable Mrs Farren, a widow of good family—”

  “Yes, yes, I know who you mean. A charming woman. Her husband was killed in a hunting accident—his horse fell on top of him, poor fellow. Diana is still in good looks and owns a pretty estate in Wiltshire. When in town she stays with the Markhams. You could scarcely find a more eligible match. Your dancing attendance on her has been noticed, by the way. Someone made some comment on it only t’other day. Could it have been Tommy Onslow? Anyway, I hear that the relatives approve and that the lady is likely to say ‘Yes.’ I offer you my congratulations.”

  “The trouble is, Colonel, that I am not in love with her.”

  “My dear sir, marriage between persons of consequence cannot wait until they fall in love. That happens afterwards and if it doesn’t a man must make use of a chambermaid. The moment of passion is all very well but there are more vital considerations, land is one, income is another, and family connections, as in this instance, can be more important than either. That you are not in love does not signify. Let’s see now—how old are you?”

  “I was born, sir, in 1760, almost at the same time as when our present king came to the throne.”

  “So you are past forty and past the age of falling in love. When you were twenty or twenty-five was your time for romance. A man, sir, should not behave like a boy!”

  “But consider, Colonel, how my life has been spent. At twenty-three I was defending Gibraltar against the combined armies of France and Spain! I was sixteen when I first went to sea.”

  “I see what you mean. But why have you suddenly discovered that you don’t love Mrs Farren? You have been fond of her until now.”

  “I am fond of her still. I thought, indeed, that I loved her. Then I met another girl and suddenly discovered that real love is something different.”

  “Ah, there is another girl! I thought as much. But how, pray, can you tell real love from false?”

  “Quite easily, sir. When you are merely fond of a woman, you notice her good points and regret her blemishes, weighing up all that is for and against her. When you love her you regard each blemish as another aspect of her beauty and would not have it different.”

  “And what was this other girl’s blemish?”

  “Her bare feet were dirty and I did not want them otherwise.”

  ”Zounds, man, does she sell cockles and mussels?”

  “She is an actress, sir, and her part, at Drury Lane, requires her to go barefoot.”

  “An actress! The situation is serious indeed. To jilt Mrs Farren is enough in itself to ruin your career and damn you for ever with the present government. All that you need to do to clinch the disaster is to announce that your preference is for a whore from Drury Lane! Had she any knowledge of your position, had she any consideration for you, this girl would reject your acquaintance and leave London.”

  “And that is exactly what she has done!”

  “S’death, then, that solves your problem. She is gone and you don’t know where. You are free again!”

  “But I learnt this from her, that I do not love Mrs Farren. Were I to propose to her I should be offering her what I d
on’t have to give.”

  “But she’ll know that, man, she will be in the same case and people who marry for the second time have learnt not to expect too much.”

  “I can’t do it, sir. It is the simple fact that I can’t go through with it.”

  “But how do you get out of it? Things have already gone too far.”

  “How do I get out of it? Nothing could be simpler, sir. I ask the advice of an old officer and man of the world. If anyone knows what to do, I tell myself, it will be my old friend, Colonel Barrington.”

  “You be damned, sir! You wish to make me your accomplice in doing something dishonourable without taking the consequences!”

  The old man was white haired and red in the face but there was a twinkle in his eye which hinted at some inner amusement. Delancey said no more but waited in patience.

  “Well,” said the Colonel at last, “I do recall a man who escaped from your sort of dilemma. I don’t say I admire him for it, nor do I advise you to copy his misconduct. All he did was to make close acquaintance with members of the political party to which his prospective father-in-law was bitterly opposed. The match was forbidden and he left the scene with unconcealed grief. He had not jilted the lady nor had her brother any occasion to call him out. His political views were to change again at a later date but this was long after the lady was married to someone else.”

  “The Markhams are followers of Lord St Vincent, who supports the Prime Minister. Their hostility is directed, I suppose, at those who have chosen to support Pitt against Addington.”

  “Yes, but their bitterest hatred is reserved for those who promised to support Addington and then deserted him. I’ll give you two names: Lord Ravenglass and the Honourable Stephen Lowther, M.P.”

  “I know them at least by repute. One of them owns a schooner yacht in the Lake District. She is called, I think, the Water Nymph.”

  “I never heard that and never met his lordship but I can introduce you to Lowther, his close friend and neighbour. There, I have done my best for you and wonder whether I should have done as much. Mrs Farren is a charming woman and I think you are making a great mistake. More than that, I hate to think that I may have done her a disservice.”

  “But what service would it be to ensure her marriage to a man who is in love with someone else? Married to a most attractive and eligible brunette I should be kind, I hope, and considerate but all my thoughts would be with a wild girl whose hair is red-gold and who counts socially for nothing at all. I don’t know where she is but I am prepared to follow her to the ends of the earth.”

  “Pooh! You talk like a lovesick youth of eighteen! She won’t go to the ends of the earth. If she is an actress she will have gone to another theatre; to Bath, for example, or Bristol. The person who will go to the ends of the earth is you, more likely, leaving her at Sadlers Wells. The present Board of Admiralty may have their revenge on you, remember. They could send you on a mission to China! They could station you in the East Indies for the next five years! Or they could send you to look for the North-West Passage—that would cool your ardour! To be frank with you, sir, I think that you are out of your mind…. Is she very lovely?”

  “She is the most beautiful creature I ever saw.”

  “Ah, well…. You shall meet Tim Lowther in a few days’ time. For the rest, I leave you to play the game your own way. Don’t say that I encouraged you! I think rather that you are demented!”

  Once Delancey and Lowther had met their friendship developed rapidly and a friendship with Lord Ravenglass was the natural sequel. Both were keen yachtsmen and talked a great deal about Lowther’s schooner yacht Water Nymph, which sailed on Windermere. She had outsailed all other yachts on the lake but Lowther had now received a challenge from—of all places—the Isle of Man. The schooner Peggy was already famous for her speed and was on charter, for the time being, to Colonel Manning. It was at first a question whether Water Nymph was somehow to reach the Irish Sea or whether Peggy was to travel by some means to Windermere. This problem was settled by the toss of a coin and Manning was left with the problem of transporting Peggy on rollers. He was a man of wealth, unconcerned about the cost, but the operation was going to take time. The trials were provisionally planned for April 1802. Lowther had meant to race Water Nymph himself but Ravenglass had what seemed to him a better idea.

  “This fellow Delancey shall sail her. He has spent his life on board ship, knows all that is to be known about every damned rope or spar. Manning will be at the helm of Peggy and he is a soldier, brought up in the stable yard. Manning thinks that you are to race Water Nymph but there is nothing about that in the terms of the wager. With Delancey we are sure to win and I, for one, will double my bet. He is a fine seaman—everyone I have talked to agrees about that. We shall stand to win a small fortune.”

  “Will Delancey expect to be paid?”

  “No, he’s a gentleman of sorts, a cousin in fact of Oliver Delancey. A bit marginal, perhaps, but I’m pretty sure that he will expect no more than hospitality. He can make his money from his own wagers.”

  “And that’s the one thing he won’t do. Oddly enough, I took him into the club the other day, assuming that he would play like the rest of us. He refused flat, and can you guess why?”

  “Easily, my dear fellow. He is afraid that Diana Farren would come to hear of it! She and her family are all Methodists or little better. He, poor fellow, will have to conform to pattern. It will be worth it, mind you. She has a good holding in East India stock.”

  ”You make a good guess, Ravenglass, but you chance to have guessed wrong. He turned to me and said, in the hearing of my friends, ‘I have to warn you, Lowther, that I never gamble. My old father made me swear on the Bible that I would never play any game for money, never bet on a horse, never throw dice or place any wager of any kind.’”

  “Good God! And who was his father, for heaven’s sake?”

  “Nobody of any consequence, I’ll swear. As you said, his position in society is only marginal. He is merely the probable bridegroom for Diana Farren. His real objection to betting is probably because he has no money.”

  “And there could be worse reasons than that. Did he make no prize-money?”

  “Not much, I should guess. His last command was only a sloop. To make money you need a frigate. He has not even been posted.”

  When approached on the subject of the yacht race, Delancey accepted the offer and felt reasonably sure of beating a Lieutenant-Colonel. He did not bet on the result, however certain he may have felt about it, but he seemed to have an almost morbid interest in gambling. He was often seen in the gaming rooms and sought the company of some notorious rakes. At other times he was assiduous as an escort for Mrs Farren, taking her to more than one concert of sacred music composed by Mr Handel. He could not live this double life for ever and it became apparent before long that Diana was no longer as friendly as she had been. A puzzled expression was taking the place of her welcoming smile. Things came to a head in March when Delancey found himself summoned to call on Captain Markham at the Admiralty. Markham came third in a hierarchy of which the formidable Lord St Vincent was the head. He greeted Delancey with great politeness and waved him to a chair. He had not yet achieved his flag but it was all but visibly ready to hoist. Of his competence there could be no doubt at all and it was he who spoke for the Navy in the House of Commons. He looked older than he was, a not unusual result of working under St Vincent.

  “Ah, Delancey, it was good of you to call. I hope you did not conclude that I was about to offer you a command at sea. There is little I can do in that way for anyone while the country remains at peace. No, I am concerned with something more personal. As you know, my wife’s sister, Mrs Farren, has been almost an inmate of my house since her husband died some years ago. She stays with us, that is to say, whenever she is in town. I have the highest regard for her and feel that she should marry again should a suitable opportunity arise. I have been aware for some time of your growing acquaintanc
e with her and am convinced that she has a high opinion of you. I feel, myself, that you have a good war record and may well have a distinguished career. You will not take it amiss, I hope, when I have to admit, with reluctance, that you lack any family connections which would strengthen your position …” Markham shook his head sadly while Delancey remembered that Markham was himself the son of the late Archbishop of York. “As against that, my sister-in-law is a widow and can no longer be described as a young woman. For that and for other reasons I have looked with approval on what I hoped would prove a fortunate connection.” He paused again and then resumed his speech in more solemn tones. “You will be aware, I have no doubt, that Mrs Farren is a lady of great piety. Her evangelical views are quite opposed to the frivolities of London society—plays, dances, and gambling in all its forms. She disapproves of the faction which opposes Mr Addington and could not possibly have any social relations with those who promised him their support and then went back on their undertaking.” There was another pause and Captain Markham continued: “Knowing all this, I must warn you against associating with characters like Lord Ravenglass and Mr Timothy Lowther. Mrs Farren does not as yet know of your association with these men and their friends. In the event, however, of her realising that you are associated with her family’s political opponents, she will have to look upon you as another member of the opposing faction. Her acquaintance with you will have to end on my advice and you must see yourself that we have no alternative. To give you these words of warning is for me a very painful duty but it was unavoidable. You will realise, I hope, that I have your best interests at heart.”

  “You are quite right, sir, to class me as an ignoramus in politics. I gave little consideration to Lord Ravenglass’s political position and would not have known whether Tim Lowther was Whig or Tory. I have been asked, however, to sail Lowther’s yacht in competition with another yacht and have accepted the task. I do not see that I can very well tell him that I have changed my mind.”