Chapter 1: Prelude

Lionel Grant expressed his dissatisfaction to his brother, George. “Cambridge was bad enough. But, there, boredom came from studying and the cure was found in diversions. The diversions of London are boring themselves. ‘If the salt has lost its savor, what can season it?’”

“You refused to go into the church,” George pointed out. “You sound like you already have.”

“I attend one Sunday in five. How could I preach every Sunday morning and evening? I lack the calling. I lack sufficient faith.”

“What you have is too much faith, not too little. I know a dozen who have taken orders who believe not a word of it.”

“I have the wrong amount, that is certain. And the army is no better, even if England were not overrun with officers who served in the wars against Napoleon and now have no place. What else is there for a younger son to do?”

“Wait for me to die, of course.”

“I do not, George, appreciate your jest.”

“But that is what a younger son does. Do you think I regard Father less highly than you regard me? Yet I am waiting for him to die. That is what the heir does. Neither of us is an evil man; I shall not strangle him in his bed. I do not suspect that you plan to poison my tea. But I shall not become Earl of Fenhurst without his death, and you will not without mine. In the meantime, the Season starts in days. Enjoy yourself. There are many diversions. Gamble, drink, dance, chase women.”

“I was good, if not outstanding, in school. I am totally in the shade in the ton. My allowance does not stretch to gambling like the most famous gamblers of our number do, not a penny on the guinea. I have seen public drunks. If I desire to have the whole world see that I am an ass while I see it not, I shall wear a tail and a blindfold.”

“That leaves dancing and chasing women. There is a ball in two days, and another after that, and another. I only warn you that the women you chase should not be brought back here. Mother may be staying in the country with father, but the staff is loyal to her. What you do in Darrow House will be reported on her next visit to London.”

“I have reached the age of discretion. I shall practice it. For that matter, I am not the one who was caught in the haymow.”

“Then learn from my mistake. Avoid getting caught. Besides, haymows are distractingly scratchy.” In the following weeks, Lionel took his brother’s advice. He went to balls to dance with virgins of his own class. He prowled the streets of London to find women who were neither of his class nor virgins. He only gave his custom to those who could provide their own bedchambers. The ton were perfectly happy to have him at their balls, since he was of acceptable breeding, had a decent income, spent it on stylish clothes, and danced rather well. They did not notice him, however. His clothes did not compete with Brummel’s; his horse did not compete with Dorwich’s. Thirty pounds a month was no small allowance for a man living at home; twenty-five a month was considered enough to support the life of a gentleman including housing and food. Twenty times that would not, however, support the gaming or entertaining that took the ton’s notice. Men wagered more than his year’s allowance on one turn of the cards.

He found that he enjoyed the balls, enjoyed the gossip, enjoyed the dancing especially the waltzes. He would whet his concupiscence by holding chaste debutantes and faithful matrons in his arms. Then he would slake it in a visit to a street-doxie on his way home. If some of his returns to his father’s London house, Darrow House, were shortly after midnight and others were shortly after dawn, no-one commented. His brother, who had a similar pattern, merely nodded the one time they met on the doorstep as the sky was beginning to lighten in the east.

One of the balls he attended was at Jardine House. After the first dance, the quartet made a sound which drew all attention. Standing in front of them, Dorwich announced his engagement to a blonde standing beside him. Then the quartet started a waltz to which the engaged couple danced away in solitary splendor. No-one else had a partner. Lionel collected his partner, and they danced after the quartet started the waltz again. Lionel’s partner could only speak of the coup.

“Is that not the most romantic announcement? And did you see them dance together? I wish that would happen to me.” A lady is not expected to believe her current dance partner is the most romantic man in the room; she is expected to speak as if he were. To have his partner praise Dorwich during her waltz with him almost crushed Lionel’s vanity. By the end of the evening, though, he salvaged something. Dorwich, whose escapades at Cambridge had not quite faded by the time Lionel attended, had made his more recent repute as a traveler. Lionel would make his repute as a traveler. He told the story to George over luncheon, the meal they shared every day.

After he recounted the incident at the Jardines’ ball, he continued, “And I plan to emulate Dorwich.”

“Emulate him?” George drawled. “I think you will find that the Walton girl is not available. Jardine usually holds but one ball a year. You would have to wait a year to announce an engagement at his ball.”

“Emulate, not this recent exploit, but his travels. I shall travel the world. First France, then Italy and Greece.”

His father was amenable. The family’s man of business, on orders from the earl, was ready to advance him two month’s allowance and put him on three-quarter’s pay for the next eight months. He took him around to the Rothschild bank. Mayer Rothschild’s sons had established a near-monopoly on the shipment of bullion. Although the shipment the family planned to make was minuscule compared to the amounts with which the Rothschilds dealt, they were pleased to do them the favor of charging them merely the same slight percentage that they charged large shippers. The man of business would pay the allowance in to Nathan Rothschild’s bank in London on the first of the month, and Lionel could draw it out from James Rothschild’s bank in Paris on the fifth or thereafter.

(That the Rothschilds engaged to ship 900 troy ounces of gold from London to Paris for half of what another shipper would charge and engaged to ship 1,000 troy ounces of gold Paris to London on the same terms -- then shipped 100 troy ounces from Paris to London plus some paper back and forth -- the man of business did not explain to Lionel if he even knew. The guineas the Grants had “shipped” only added a one line on the bottom of one of those sheets of paper.)

The earl, who was a reliable Tory when he visited the House of Lords, obtained a letter of introduction to the ambassador in Paris for his son from the foreign secretary. George obtained a letter to the ambassador’s son, a contemporary of his, from a mutual friend.

Finally, in January, Lionel sold his horse and set out for Dover. He reached Paris early in February. He engaged an apartment and a French Valet. His French, learned from a governess long ago, was not all that good. He would need his classical languages to get by in France as much as in the countries he planned to visit later. A visit to the University of Paris delivered a great shock. His Latin, polished over a decade at Eton and Cambridge, was written the same as le Latin du professeur, but pronounced entirely differently. The professor introduced him to another, who told him that not only was his Greek pronunciation somewhat different from what was standard in French Universities, but that neither would be recognizable in the Athens of the day. He had been aware that Paul wrote a somewhat different language than Plato had; he had not asked whether that process of alteration had continued for the next eighteen centuries.

However disappointing the news which undermined his plans to travel further, he found himself enjoying his stay in Paris. In the first place, the English colony was not all that large. Lionel Grant, unnoticed in the ton, was a personality when English folk gathered. In the second, French society took to him. His fair handsomeness made him “Le Blond Lion.” His French improved rapidly, and his dancing skills were appreciated. Third, and most important, he appealed to the ambassador’s son for guidance in dealing with his carnal needs. That worthy introduced him to one of the more notable courtesans then working in Paris. It was as though he had asked for porridge and been handed meringue.

Suzanne called him “mon amant innocent.” It was not strictly true, but he knew as little of what she considered “l’art du amour” as he had at the age of twelve. He was an enthusiastic pupil.