alone pleasures. And in this instance she neither liked nor disliked the Prince of Wales, but she did rather like the Princess, poor woman. She was deaf, and imprisoned in a world of her own, but still she had to be aware of her husband’s self-indulgences.
A far greater tragedy, which she shared with perhaps fewer other women, but still far too many, was the death of her eldest son earlier this year. The Duke of Clarence, like his mother, had also been severely afflicted with deafness. It had been a peculiar bond between them, drawing them closer in their almost silent world. She grieved alone.
A dozen feet from Vespasia, the Prince of Wales was laughing heartily at something told to him by a tall man with a strong, slightly crooked nose. It was a powerful face, intelligent and impatient, although at the moment its expression was alive with humor. Vespasia had not met this man but she knew who he was: Charles Voisey, an appeals court judge, a man of profound learning, widely respected among his peers, if also a trifle feared.
The Prince of Wales saw her and his face lit with pleasure. She was a generation older than he, but beauty had always charmed him, and he remembered her most ravishing years when he himself had been young and full of hope. Now he was tired of waiting, of responsibility without the respect and the reward of being monarch. He excused himself from Voisey and moved towards her.
“Lady Vespasia,” he said with undisguised pleasure. “I am so pleased you were able to come. The evening would have lacked a certain quality without you.”
She met his eyes for a moment before dropping a slight curtsy. She could still make it seem a gesture of infinite grace, her back ramrod straight, her balance perfect.
“Thank you, Your Royal Highness. It is a splendid occasion.” It flickered through her mind just how splendid it was, like so many others these days, extravagant, so much food, the best wine, servants everywhere, music, chandeliers blazing with light, hundreds of fresh flowers. Nothing that could be imagined to add to the glamour was missing, nothing stinted.
There had been so many occasions in the past when there had been more laughter, more joy, and at a fraction of the cost. She remembered them with nostalgia.
But the Prince of Wales lived well beyond his means, and had done so for years. No one was surprised anymore at his huge house parties, shooting weekends, days at the races where fortunes were gambled, made and lost, at his gargantuan dinners or overgenerous gifts to favorites of one sort or another. Many no longer even commented on it.
“Do you know Charles Voisey?” he enquired. Voisey was at his elbow, courtesy demanded it. “Voisey, Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould. We have known each other longer than either of us cares to remember. We should telescope it all together.” He gestured with his hands. “Take out all the tedious bits between and keep only the laughter and the music, the good dinners, the conversations, and perhaps a little dancing. Then we should be about the right age, shouldn’t we?”
She smiled. “That is the best suggestion I have heard in years, sir,” she said with enthusiasm. “I don’t even mind keeping some of the tragedy, or even the quarrels-let us simply get rid of all the tedious hours, the exchanging of phrases that neither of us means, the standing around, the polite lies. That would take years away.”
“You are right! You are right!” he agreed, conviction in his face. “I did not realize until this moment how much I had missed you. I refuse to allow it to happen again. I spend years of my life in duty. I swear I am not convinced that those I spend it with are any better pleased with it than I am! We make utterly predictable remarks, wait for the other to reply, and then move on to the next equally predictable response.”
“I fear it is part of royal duty, sir,” Voisey put in, “as long as we have a throne and a monarch upon it. I can think of no way in which it could be changed.”
“Voisey is a judge of appeal,” the Prince told Vespasia. “Which I suppose makes him a great man for precedent. If it has not been done before, then we had better not do it now.”
“On the contrary,” Voisey retorted. “I am all for new ideas, if they are good ones. To fail to progress is to die.”
Vespasia looked at him with interest. It was an unusual point of view from one whose profession was so steeped in the past.
He did not smile back at her, as a less confident man might have done.
The Prince was already thinking of something else. His admiration for other people’s ideas seemed highly limited.
“Of course,” he dismissed airily. “The number of new inventions around is incredible. Ten years ago we would not have conceived what they could do with electricity.”
Voisey smiled very slightly, his eyes on Vespasia’s for an instant longer before he replied. “Indeed, sir. One wonders what may yet be to come.” He was polite, but Vespasia heard the faintest thread of contempt in his voice. He was a man of ideas, broad concepts, revolutions of the mind. Details did not hold his regard; they were for smaller men, men whose view was conceived from a lower level.
They were joined by a noted architect and his wife, and the conversation became general. The Prince glanced at Vespasia with regret, a shred of humor, and then played his part in the trivialities.
Vespasia was able to excuse herself and moved on to speak to a politician she had known for years. He looked weary and amused, his face deeply lined, full of character. They had shared personal crusades in the past, triumph and tragedy, and a fair share of farce.
“Good evening, Somerset,” she said with genuine pleasure. She had forgotten how fond of him she had been. His failures had been magnificent, as had his successes, and he had carried them both with grace.
“Lady Vespasia!” His eyes were alight. “Suddenly a breath of sanity!” He took the hand she offered, barely brushing it with his lips in a gesture rather than an act. “I wish we had a new crusade, but this is beyond even us, I think.” He glanced around at the opulent room and the ever-increasing number of men and women in it, laughing together, diamonds blazing, light on silks and pale skin, swathes of lace, shimmering brocades. His eyes hardened. “It will destroy itself… if it doesn’t see sense in the next year or two.” There was regret in his voice, and confusion. “Why can’t they see that?”
“Do you really think so?” She assumed for a moment that perhaps he was speaking for effect, a little dramatic overstatement. Then she saw the tightness of his lips and the shadow over his eyes. “You do…”
He turned to her. “If Bertie doesn’t curtail his spending a great deal”-he inclined his head momentarily towards the Prince of Wales ten yards away, laughing uproariously at someone’s joke-”and the Queen doesn’t come back into public life and start courting her people again.” There was another guffaw of laughter a few yards away.
Somerset Carlisle lowered his voice. “Lots of us suffer grief, Vespasia. Most of us lose something we love in our lives. We can’t afford to give up-stop working because of it. The country is made up of a few aristocrats, hundreds of thousands of doctors, lawyers, and priests, a million or two shopkeepers and traders of one sort or another, and farmers. And dozens of millions of ordinary men and women who work from dawn to dusk because they have to, to feed those who depend on them, the old and the young. Men die, and women break their hearts. We go on.”
Somewhere at the far end of the room the music started. There was a tinkle of glass.
“You can’t lead people from more than a certain distance away,” he went on. “She isn’t one of us anymore. She has allowed herself to become irrelevant. And Bertie is too much one of us, with his appetites-only he isn’t indulging them on his own money, as the rest of us have to!”
Vespasia knew that what he said was true, but she had not heard anyone else put it quite so boldly. Somerset Carlisle had an irresponsible wit and a high sense of the bizarre, which she knew only too well. She still felt a note of hysteria rise inside her when she thought of their past battles and the grotesque things he had done in his attempts to force through reform. But she knew him too well to think he was joking or exaggerating now.
“ Victoria will be the last monarch,” he said almost under his breath, a harsh edge of regret in his voice. “If some people have their way… believe me. There is unrest in the country more profound than anything we’ve had in two centuries or more. The poverty in some places is almost unbelievable, not to mention the anti-Catholic feeling, the fear of the liberal Jews who’ve come into London after the ‘48 revolutions in Europe, and of course there are always the Irish.”
“Exactly,” she agreed. “We’ve always had most of these elements. Why now, Somerset?”
He remained silent for several moments. People passed them. One or two spoke, and the others nodded in acknowledgment but did not intrude.
“I’m not sure,” he said finally. “A mixture of things. Time. It’s nearly thirty years since Prince Albert died. That’s a long time to live without an effective monarch. We have a whole generation who are beginning to realize we can
