Charlotte: The Practical Education of a Distressed Gentlewoman (25 page)

Freddy replied, “No,” while John
started a long-winded and digressive explanation of how Mr. Talbot
had besmirched the family honor with his attentions to Miss De
Vere. Mr. Cateford promptly shut him up. “This individual, who
calls himself John De Vere.”

“
I am John De Vere, Lord
Staverton,” John began.

“
Quiet! As I was saying, this
individual who claims to be John De Vere is clearly
unrepentant.”

“
I don't claim to be John De Vere,
I am John De Vere.”

“
Fine. I am binding you both to
keep the peace or face serious consequences. Mr.
Talbot?”

“
Yes?”

“
Normally I'd give you each a
small fine, but I understand you are quite wealthy?”

“
That's true.”

“
Good. I fine you five hundred
pounds.” A gasp ran through the room, five hundred pounds was a
huge fine. “From what I understand of your wealth that is enough to
for you to notice. We'll use it to start on that school your father
has been talking about.” Dr. Answorth groaned to himself, it looked
like Mr. Talbot hadn't forgotten his ill-founded idea of a school
for the poor. Freddy smiled, “Since it will be going to a good
cause, it will be my pleasure to pay it.” His father noticed Dr.
Answorth's distress and whispered to him, “I know you don't approve
of the idea, but it's still a good one. That's why I found a
different parish for it.”

“
Now Mr. De Vere, if that really
is who you are?”

“
It is.”

“
A fine of a pound, assuming you
have it.” John smirked, and readily paid it. “Good thing I'm in the
funds.”

Mr. Talbot pulled out a sheath of
papers, “Mr. De Vere, Lord Staverton?”

John replied, “So you finally
acknowledge it, do you?”

“
If you're in the funds, then
you'll have no difficulties with these, will you?”

They were the mortgage foreclosure
notices and the post-obit bond he had issued.

John shook and trembled at the
surprise. He was truly caught in a tight place, “I can't pay those,
and I'm not John De Vere so I don't have to.”

“
You just swore in front of the
justice of the peace that you were him. Which is it? Gaol for
perjury or the debtor's prison?”

Mr. Cateford cleared his throat for
attention and the issued another verdict. “Constable, it seems that
this individual is clearly involved in felonious criminal conduct.
It's beyond the scope of my authority to try him on these charges,
but I can and do remand him into custody for further investigation.
Will you make sure he is held while I arrange for his
transportation to the Bristol gaol pending his trial?”

“
Sir!”

That evening Mr. Talbot interrupted
Charlotte and Freddy's intimate conversation. “Miss De Vere, if my
son can spare you for a few minutes, I would like to talk with you,
in private.”

Charlotte felt the bottom drop out
of her stomach. Could Mr. Talbot have some objection to
her?

Seeing her distress, he calmed her,
“Don't worry lass, I'd just like to know my soon to be new daughter
better.”

They wandered out to the yard and
over to the piggery. “It's private in here, no one will interrupt
us.” Charlotte sniffed, then regretted it, “I'm not
surprised.”

“
I suppose I should move the pigs
to a purpose-built piggery, but that's not why I brought you
here.”

“
Why did you?”

“
It's about that dratted brother
of yours, what should we do with him?”

“
Why ask me?”

“
He's your brother.”

Charlotte thought for a moment,
“When he turned up, I was thrilled to see he wasn't dead, but now I
wish he had just stayed away from me.”

“
I could arrange
either.”

“
What?”

“
He owes money to some of my
friends, not my nice ones. They would dearly like know where his
is. I could just tell them, and they'd just handle the rest. Or I
could just spirit him away, give him a new adventure.”

“
I'd prefer it if he just went
away and couldn't come back.”

“
How do you feel if he goes to
chase kangaroos?”

Mr. John De
Vere, Lord Staverton, sat in the darkness in the village
bridewell
^vi
of the town that bore his
title. Locked up for dueling and held for his debts, he faced a
bleak future. Even when luck smiled on him by giving him the deeds
to Chalfield, all it did was to add to the 75,000 he owed for his
own estate. Not that he was too worried about those debts. The
Talbot's might see him imprisoned for them, but they wouldn't kill
him over money. The debts he owed the bookies at Newbury were far
more serious. Somehow he doubted he'd last long in Fleet Street
Prison or Coldbath Fields Prison, if he even got that far. As he
watched a beam of light from the small window high up the wall out
of his reach track a path on the wall below, he found himself
thinking, “It's been a good run. Had just one of those throws come
out right, I'd be living high.”

The warder banged on his door. “My
Lord,” he said with exaggerated civility, “There is a personage who
wishes to see you.”

John panicked, the bookies couldn't
have already found him, could they? When he saw it was Freddy's
father he relaxed. The old man could certainly be sweet-talked into
some sort of deal. Mr. Talbot dismissed the warder. “What I have to
say to you is in private, you little piece of.” He caught his
words, paused and started over. “Mr. De Vere, you're dead, legally
that is, aren't you?”

“
I'd planned to have that set
aside, but yes, officially I'm dead.”

“
That's what I thought. Good, I
was worried I'd have to talk to some of my rougher old
friends.”

“
Your rougher friends?”

“
This current lawlessness goes
both ways you know. Freddy's business methods are above reproach.
Mine weren't always so nice. Especially not when I was starting
out. It was a tough business.”

John shivered at the implied
threat. “What do you want?”

“
Your signature renouncing that
you are John De Vere and have any claim to the Staverton title.
That's all.”

“
That's all, that's
rich!”

“
In return for that signature I'll
pay your debts and get you to Europe. What you do then is your own
problem, as long as you never return to Britain or its
territories.”

“
You'll pay my debts?”

“
Specifically your post-obit bond,
and then the twenty thousand or so owed on the estate. It will make
a nice portion for Lady Staverton, your sister.”

“
And you're going to do this out
of the goodness of your heart, aren't you?”

“
No. I want to spare Charlotte,
Freddy, and for that matter Elizabeth and her Major Sam a great
deal of embarrassment and discomfort. It isn't pleasant have a
wastrel brother in debtor's prison or convicted of fraud. Let alone
to live with the threat of him appearing at the worst
moments.”

“
I don't know, I rather think I'd
like debtor's prison.”

“
Some of my best and oldest
friends make book on the racing at Newbury.”

John paled. “You wouldn't tell them
where I am, would you?”

“
Reluctantly yes.” Mr. Talbot
grinned making it clear that every bit of his reluctance was only
figurative and very slight at that. “It's only because otherwise it
could make things a little awkward for my son and his fiancée, that
I'm even being this generous. Much cheaper and more effective to
tell my old friend Gentleman Jack about you.”

It didn't take John long to make up
his mind. “I'll sign. Where are the papers?” Mr. Talbot called for
the warder to return. “Could you witness this?” John signed, and
Mr. Talbot and the warder witnessed it. As he left, Mr. Talbot had
a few choice words. “My people will be here tonight, with the
proper papers for your release. They'll escort you to the coast and
get you on a ship. You'll be dropped off with a reasonable amount
of currency somewhere in the low country. If you ever darken
England's shores again, or I hear that you try to contact Freddy or
Charlotte, well you know me. I don't make idle threats.”

It was a much happier and more
cheerful Mr. Talbot who returned to the vicarage, where Freddy and
Charlotte were discussing arrangements with Dr. and Mrs. Answorth.
Charlotte asked him, when he returned, “Did your errand go
well?”

“
Yes, very. I don't think we'll
have problems in that direction again.”

Freddy asked, “What
errand?”

“
Flowers, Charlotte asked me to
see if we could get flowers for the ceremony.”

John's escort allowed him to have a
heavy wet in Bristol before boarding the ship. A heavy enough wet
that he barely noticed she was much larger than the usual channel
packet, or for that matter that channel packets rarely left from
the west of England. In fact, they left him sleeping it off in a
cabin below decks when the ship cast off and eased her way into the
Severn. It wasn't until several days later, well out of sight of
land, that he asked one of the mates, “Shouldn't we have landed in
Holland by now?”

The mate laughed, “Holland! Lad,
we're bound for New South Wales. You'll next see land when we stop
for water in Cape Verde. See it, that is, you're not to get off the
ship until we reach the antipodes.”

If you liked Charlotte you might
also like my other, earlier, books, Katherine's Choice and The
French Orphan.

Amelia Treader is a child of the
south. She grew up steeped in that mysterious aura that accompanies
Spanish moss, mosquitoes and barbecue, She has felt the urge to
write ever since she was a little girl. Cats, dogs and children,
not to mention a husband, occasionally get in the way, but she has
eked out the time to write a unique combination of romance and
action. This is her third book.

Katherine's Choice

“
Damn these volunteers!” roared
George Clarke, “all the ladies are smitten with them.” He'd worked
his way up from midshipman – where it wasn't surprising that the
females ignored him, to lieutenant – which elicited some tepid
interest. Finally, he had been promoted to commander, almost a
captain on the inevitable way to admiral. Because of his rank he
expected female company and attention. Now when he came home on
leave they weren't interested. Much to his disgust, a regiment of
volunteers was quartered in the small coastal town of Whitstable
and red coated officers were all the rage. The volunteers were
here, as they were throughout England in this year of our lord
1803, to counter the massive army that Bonaparte was raising just a
few miles across the channel. Still, it was an almost personal
insult. Many of the young men listening to him nodded their heads
in agreement. It was as if the females had all lost their heads
over the men in red coats.

“
Anyone can put on a red coat and
be adored by the females,” he continued, “but it takes luck, skill
and effort,” pointing to his one epaulet, “to get that.” His
friend, John Grant, still lieutenant and still hungry for the
opportunity to advance, nodded agreement, and continued “prize
money helps too – lot's of prize money to be had.” They'd come to
Whitstable to wait for his posting to the
Lady Charlotte,
an
eight gun sloop still in dry dock in the nearby Sheerness docks for
a thorough refit, raise some skilled recruits from the local
fishermen, and relax – dancing and maybe some dalliance with the
fair company. Instead of dancing, they were here, in a harbor pub,
drowning their grievances in beer and expostulating the glories of
the Navy to an audience of less than interested fishermen and
coastal traders.

This criticism of the volunteers
was justified, if unfair. Unskilled, but enthusiastic, companies of
men had been drilling in every village and town to defend their
king and, more importantly, homes and families from the hordes of
revolutionary French. “If you're naughty, Boney will get you,” was
a common threat to children. The tiny regular army had shown, in
several disastrous expeditions to the lowlands of Holland, that it
was no match for the French – so the volunteer regiments stepped
up.

The 27
^th
volunteers, one
of the better regiments, was being reviewed by Colonel, now brevet
General of Volunteers Howe, a distant relative of the old general.
Every young woman who could find the time was watching, much to the
disgust of the young men of the town. General Howe had inspected
the uniforms and watched the men march in formation. Unlike many of
the other volunteer regiments, they at least could keep step and
follow some of the drummer's signals. The trouble started when they
were asked to show how well they could shoot. The first volley was
competent, if a bit ragged, but the second was a disaster. Pressed
for time, half the men forgot to remove their ramrods – which meant
that they were now almost useless as soldiers for a third volley.
The flash and flames from the locks lead to massive flinching and
the shots scattered widely down range.