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The Major
There’s nothing I like better than beginning the Christmas festivities with your Ball here in Turnham House, Leonora. The whole setting is so beautifully unspoilt Tudor and yet the rest of the year you spend so little time here, I can’t understand why.’
‘My dear Juliana, this place is dead. The neighbours are boorish farmers or these new industrialists playing at being country gentlemen, who have the money but no style to go with it, and what’s more without a brain between them. Tristan loves it, well he’s welcome. Give me London any day, at least something happens there, even if it is only gossip.’
‘You’ve invited some interesting guests this year, even that arrogant stern faced stiff necked Major Gurney’s come, but that face! Wouldn’t want to see that on the pillow every morning.’
‘My dear Juliana, I don’t think it’s his face all the girls find fascinating, they line up to sleep in his bed, he should worry.’
Juliana reproved her cousin. ‘You are indelicate, cousin. I see Tristan’s around, I must remember to have a word.’
‘Is he? We came separately, he’s been here two weeks already.’
‘Didn’t you know? You should after all he’s your husband!’ Juliana returned to surveying the guests. ‘I say! You know the Major don’t you? Well. . . . .his face has. . . well, it’s changed completely, he looks nothing like as severe as he did. He’s smiling, my dear, at someone, but there’s such a crowd I can’t tell who he’s smiling at. Ohh! I don’t believe this! Why! Heaven’s above, it’s your Charlotte! He’smiling at your Charlotte. I say!’
‘That old spinster bluestocking daughter of mine doesn’t get a smile from any man living.You’re mistaken.’ And Leonora dismissed her cousin’s observations as not worth even thinking about for another second.
‘I’m not mistaken! They’re walking towards each other. . .and. . . .his hand’s outstretched. . . .’
‘Most likely fending her off!’ Leonora laughed at her own wit.
‘No, no, he’s smiling with such. . . . .well, such. . . . . .delight. They’ve obviously met before.’
‘Now you are being ridiculous, more likely he’s looking as though he’s sucked a lemon once he’s seen her face. No man this side of the Thames would smile with delight at her, believe me. Come to think of it no man would smile with delight at Charlotte no matter where he lived.’ Leonora small in stature couldn’t see, but as it couldn’t possibly be her daughter she ignored her cousin’s enthusiasm yet again.
‘Why, he’s taken hold of her hand and kissed it.’
‘Kissed it! Now I do know it’s not Charlotte!’
‘Now. . . .he’s turned her hand over and. . . . .yes. . . . .he’s kissing the palm of her hand with what I can only, oh! my! describe as. . . well as lingering kisses. He doesn’t seem to care that the whole world is watching. They’re all looking at him!’
‘Lingering? Lingering kisses? In public! There’ll be a scandal! This I have to see. Help me up.’
‘Help you up?’
‘I want to stand on a chair.’
‘How can you possibly be so vulgar, Leonora? You musn’t.’
‘And miss the happening of a lifetime? Give me your hand.’
From her elevated viewpoint Charlotte’s mother saw the scandal with her own eyes.
‘Did I beg Tristan not to set her up in her own establishment in London and look what it’s brought us to, to say nothing of the expense of a whole house just for her. The scandal! It’ll be all over London by the end of the week. I shan’t know where to look. She’s turned this way a little! Why! Why!’Leonora drew in a sharp unbelieving breath. ‘She looks. . . . . .beautiful! There’s a glow to her face and her eyes are shining, what is going on? He must be taking advantage of her. That’s it, she’s behaved like a whore.’
‘Like mother like daughter then.’ Cousin Juliana commented wrily Leonora was so angry she ignored Juliana’s acid remark,.‘My daughter! How dare he?’
‘Bit late to begin taking an interest in her, Leonora. When she was four years old, you met her with her mursemaid in Turnham Woods and asked her who she was. No point in getting on your high horse now.’
‘I was only teasing her.’
‘No, you weren’t, you genuinely didn’t recognise her.You never have.’
‘I wanted a boy. I knew it was a boy on the way and when it arrived it was a girl and well, I couldn’t love her. It was all her fault.’
‘And look what smothering Bernard with mother love has done to him?’
Leonora pouted. ‘He’ll turn out all right believe me, in the end.’
This event took place at Christmas 1817. Charlotte Templeton and Maxim Gurney married a few weeks later and had a family of five children each of whom loved to stay at Turnham House whenever they could and all of them developed a love of the countryside that was with them all their days.
Some of Charlotte’s possession were amongst the memorabilia of the Templeton family stored in the attics at Turnham House until the estate was sold to Craddock Fitch in the 1990’s when Sir Ralph Templeton removed them to his house in the village where he now lives.
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