Paradise in Penang

chapter one ~ 1869-1

chapter one ~ 1869The train came into Victoria Station and Lord Selwyn stepped out with a deep sigh of relief.

He was home!

There was no carriage waiting to meet him at the Station, but fortunately travelling with him was a French Diplomat, who was to be met by a carriage sent by his Embassy.

“May I give you a lift, my Lord?” he asked politely.

“I would be most grateful,” Lord Selwyn replied. “As I have already informed you, I left sooner than I had expected and did not have time to notify my secretary that I was returning earlier than I had previously arranged.”

The Diplomat smiled.

“I have always been told, my Lord, that it can a dangerous thing to do.”

Lord Selwyn laughed.

“Not as far as I am concerned, but, of course, you are right in principle.”

They stepped into the Embassy carriage.

Lord Selwyn noted it was not only very smart but was drawn by two well-bred horses.

They were not the equal of his own. At the same time they were a credit to whoever had purchased them.

As he sank down against the well-padded back seat, he thought that tonight he would see Maisie Brambury.

She had been in his mind ever since he had left England.

Then while he was in Paris he had made what he knew was the most important decision of his life.

He would get married!

For years and years he had fought against what at first had been subtle hints from his family and then pleadings for him to be married.

He could not imagine in any way why there should be any hurry for him to do so.

Except, of course, that he was distinguished, extremely wealthy and also owned one of the finest Georgian houses in the country.

It was obvious, therefore, that sooner or later he will have to produce an heir to succeed him.

He had decided many years back that the idea of being tied down was abhorrent to him.

He wanted to be free, untrammelled and most definitely unencumbered by a wife.

He had gone to Paris on a delicate Diplomatic mission that had been assigned to him by Lord Clarendon, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

He had been determined to forget all about Lady Brambury.

Paris, he well knew, would be full of women who wanted to flatter him into spending his money. At the same time they made sure that he felt every penny of it had been well spent.

Although he had adhered strictly to the business in hand, which was very characteristic of him, his evenings were totally free.

It was then that he started to search for the attractive courtesans whom he had met on his last visit.

They welcomed him with open arms and he went from party to party and inevitably from bed to bed.

It was only yesterday morning that he had finally decided that enough was enough.

If he was honest, and he usually was honest with himself, he had to admit that the magic of Paris had this time not been there for him.

He had forced himself to enjoy what in the past had been spontaneous excitement and what the French called very rightly joie de vivre.

At first he had asked himself what was wrong.

He just had to admit that instead of the alluring dark eyes looking passionately into his, he could see only the blue of Lady Brambury’s.

He could hear only her voice, soft and childlike, as she talked to him brightly on any and all subjects.

‘I am being a fool!’ he told himself and drank a little more champagne.

Nothing that the French could provide seemed now to satisfy him.

The food he had enjoyed at various parties was superlative and even better when he took some charmer to the famous Maxim’s or Le Grand Vefour.

No one, he thought, could be more alluring than the French Demi-Mondaines.

They were chic and they were witty and with a fascination that was all their own.

They made every man feel like a King.

But all he could hear was a little voice saying,

“I am so – alone and the – Social world – frightens me!”

Two blue eyes looked at him helplessly and he felt that he wanted to protect Maisie and there was only one sure way that he could do so.

“But marriage is not for me!”

He just wondered how often he had said those words to his relatives, to his men friends and to too many women for him to count.

He had everything that he could possibly want in his life.

He was never lonely in his impressive house in the country nor in his delightful London mansion in Park Lane.

As he was exceedingly intelligent, he enjoyed reading.

While his contemporaries rushed off to their Clubs rather than be alone at home, Lord Selwyn could sit reading in his library long into the night.

“You must be careful, my dearest, not to ruin your eyes,” his mother had said when she was alive. “You will not look so handsome if you have to wear spectacles.”

Lord Selwyn had laughed.

There were many years for him to enjoy his reading, he thought, before his eyes began to fail him.

Reading books always gave him as much pleasure as did a beautiful woman.

Moreover, he often thought cynically that they lasted a great deal longer.

All his love affairs came to an end simply because he found that there was nothing to talk about except love.

He was of the opinion that the English language was regrettably extremely limited on the subject and the women who gave him their favours were undeniably beautiful and had figures like young Greek Goddesses.

But while his body responded to their beauty, he found that his brain was being critical also, although it was a strange word, ‘deprived’.

When he thought of marriage, he realised that it would be impossible for him to listen to what he would call ‘banal conversation’.

It was what he would have to do from first thing in the morning to last thing at night.

Even his most witty and amusing mistresses had a way of expecting him to laugh at the same joke that they had told him before or to pay them the same compliments over and over again.

‘What am I looking for? What do I want?’ he asked himself often.

There was no answer.

When he looked at Maisie Brambury, he thought that she was most definitely different.

To begin with she looked very young and attractive.

He had just finished an affaire de coeur with a rather intense woman who was a little older than himself.

Maisie was therefore a most delightful contrast.

She was, he thought, like the small cherubs he had seen carved and painted in Bavarian Churches.

At first he could hardly believe that she was aged twenty-four, to which she admitted.

Then, when he learnt her history, he understood.

Maisie had been married when she was eighteen to Lord Brambury, who was one of the more influential figures at the Court of Queen Victoria.

That he was sixty when he first saw Maisie was considered unimportant beside the fact that he was so distinguished.

He held many posts including that of the Lord Lieutenant of Huntingdonshire and was extremely wealthy.

He had been married before and his first wife had died, having unfortunately failed to provide him with any children.

When he proposed marriage to the daughter of a well-born country Squire, he was being sensible in making sure this time that he had an heir to his riches as well as to his title.

Maisie’s parents were completely overcome and thrilled that their daughter should have received such a splendid offer.

Because she was very pretty, they had always hoped that she might marry well.

They had planned to take her to London for the Society Season.

But before they could do so, she had met Lord Brambury.

Like many an older man had done before him, he fell head-over-heels in love with a very much younger woman. Casting discretion to the winds, he refused to listen to an inner voice that told him that he was far too old for her.

Maisie was indeed everything that he had dreamed of.

She was young, healthy and of good country stock and would surely give him the son he wanted now desperately.

Maisie had little say in what was happening to her. She was told that she was the luckiest girl in the world and that every one of her contemporaries would envy her.

She was swept up the aisle of the fashionable St. George’s Church in Hanover Square in Mayfair.

She had always imagined that she would be married in the little village Church that stood on her father’s estate.

But Lord Brambury was too important.

“You will understand, my dear,” he said, “that Her Majesty the Queen will be present at the Church and a large number of Statesmen, Courtiers and Diplomats will be attending the Ceremony as well.”

He was able to clinch the matter quite easily with Maisie.

He then announced that the Reception would take place in the large house in Grosvenor Square that he had occupied for nearly thirty years.

Maisie was never asked if she agreed or disagreed with all that was being planned for her Wedding Day.

She was told only what had been arranged. This meant that Lord Brambury had given his orders and all her father and mother had to do was to accept them gracefully.

Because it was undoubtedly the most important Wedding of the Season, everyone wished to be present.

On the day St. George’s Church was full to overflowing and the huge Reception rooms of the house in Grosvenor Square were packed with the great and good.

When his friends saw Maisie for the first time they could so easily understand why Lord Brambury was so infatuated with anyone so lovely.

She looked like a piece of beautiful fragile Dresden china.

It is true that one or two of their guests sniggered that ‘there is no fool like an old fool!’

But they kept their voices low, having no wish to offend a man who had the Queen’s ear.

Lord Brambury had in the whole of his successful life never put a foot wrong.

To Maisie everything seemed unreal. It was as if she had stepped from the schoolroom straight into a maelstrom.

Lord Brambury had wished to be married as quickly as possible.

Maisie was therefore hurried from one fashionable dressmaker to another.

She found it extremely tiring to stand for hours being fitted for gown after gown.

On top of all this there were parties almost every night.

The Brambury family was very large and they all wanted to ingratiate themselves with the head of it.

Invitations to luncheons, dinners, Receptions and Assemblies poured in for them and Maisie’s father and mother enjoyed every moment of it.

But Maisie herself saw very little of her future husband.

“You will understand, my dear,” he said, “that before I take you away on our honeymoon I have a thousand and one urgent matters to attend to.”

He smiled before he added,

“I have always found that if I want something done well, I have to do it myself.”

Maisie had, of course, agreed with him and in a way she was somewhat relieved.

She was, in fact, rather frightened of this large and imposing man whose hair was turning grey.

She wondered vaguely what he would expect of her when she was his wife.

She knew of no one who she could ask.

Her mother had always treated her as if she was a very young child and her father made no secret of the fact that he was disappointed that she was not a boy.

She had been educated by a series of Governesses who never stayed in their job for long.

They had found it boring living in the depths of the country when they had no chance of going to London or to any other large town.

“I am sorry,” they would say at the end of a year, “but I do feel as if I am buried here.”

Maisie’s parents could not understand at all.

“After all the woman has a very nice bedroom,” Maisie’s mother said indignantly. “And the schoolroom gets all the sunshine.”

Governesses for ever came and went. Each one started their history lessons with Hengist and Horsa so that Maisie never went beyond Richard Coeur de Lion.