Julian Fellowes's Belgravia Episode 3

Episode Three

Lymington Park was not the oldest seat of the Bellasis dynasty, but it was unquestionably the grandest. They had begun their career among the landed gentry in a modest manor house in Leicestershire, but marriage to an heiress in the early seventeenth century had brought the Hampshire estate as a welcome dowry, and the family had been glad to move south. A desperate appeal for funds from King Charles I, in the heat of the Civil War, had brought the promise of an earldom, and the pledge was made good by the decapitated King's son, when he returned in glory at the Restoration. Although it was the second Earl who decided that the existing house was no longer appropriate to their station, and a large Palladian palace, designed by William Kent, was proposed. This was to be funded by some sensible investment in the early days of Empire, but a sudden downturn meant it never happened, and in the event it was the present Earl's grandfather who had employed the architect George Steuart in the 1780s to design a new and grander envelope to be built around the original hall. The result could not be described as cozy or even comfortable, but it spoke of tradition and high office, and as Peregrine Bellasis, fifth Earl of Brockenhurst, strode through the great hall, or sat in his library with its fine books and his dogs round his feet, or climbed the staircase lined with portraits of his ancestors, he felt it was a suitable setting as the background to a noble life. His wife, Caroline, knew how to manage such a place, or rather how to assemble the right team to manage it, and while her own enthusiasm for the house, like all her enthusiasms, had slipped into the grave with the body of her son, she knew how to make a decent show and take command of the county.

But this morning, her thoughts were on other matters. She thanked her maid, Dawson, as the woman placed the breakfast tray across her knees as Caroline watched a group of fallow deer moved softly across the park outside her windows. She smiled, and the strangeness of the sensation seemed to freeze her for a moment. "Is everything all right, m'lady?" Dawson looked concerned.