by M C Beaton
Mr. Fordyce was stricken. It dismally occurred to him that Lady Artemis had never called him John. Even in moments of high passion. Why had she left? He had serviced her well. He had been tender and loving. He never so much as glanced at another woman. Why?
He made his way back to his own home and into his library and sat down and stared at the floor. He was still sitting staring at the floor an hour later when the Earl of Tredair was announced.
The earl had been wondering what to do about Mr. Fordyce. He did not want to call him out. Duels had a nasty way of getting into the newspapers. Duels were now illegal, and he did not want to have to flee to the continent before his marriage. He could not take the matter to court without causing a scandal.
Mr. Fordyce did not even look up as he came into the library.
“I find it hard to believe that you would play such a dirty trick,” said the earl, glaring down at him. “It was you, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Fordyce.
“Why, in God’s name?”
“Lady Artemis wished you to be reconciled with Miss Fanny. She thought that might happen if she threw you together. Also, she thought you deserved to be cured of your high and mighty attitude as regards Miss Fanny’s thieving.”
“Which you told her about after promising me not to breathe a word?”
Mr. Fordyce shrugged. “A man should have no secrets from the woman he loves. We did it for the best. If you wish to challenge me to a duel, I am ready to meet you.”
He raised his eyes and the earl stifled an exclamation at the world of misery there.
“Where is Lady Artemis?” asked the earl.
“She is gone. She has left me. She wishes to cancel our engagement.”
“Why?”
“She says she wants to be free. Women were ever fickle. My heart is broken.”
“Hearts don’t break,” said the earl cynically. Then he wondered how he would feel if he returned to Brighton and found Fanny did not want him. A cold feeling of dismay stole over him.
“I think you have been punished enough,” said the earl.
“Please tell me all is well with you and Miss Fanny?” pleaded Mr. Fordyce.
The earl walked from the room without replying. He had no intention of confiding in Mr. Fordyce again. He went home and rushed through the final arrangements for his departure. Was Fanny still missing him? Or had Mrs. Waverley been seeping poison in her ears?
***
Fanny was finding it all a great strain. Frederica and Felicity were in high spirits. They loved Brighton. They were allowed to go out walking accompanied by Mrs. Ricketts and were relishing their new freedom. Mrs. Waverley was particularly tender to Fanny, stroking her hair at every opportunity, and calling her “most beloved.”
Mrs. Waverley had made a few friends among like-minded ladies of the town. In that way she was able to find out that all the gossip about her and the girls had died down. Only one piece of gossip had stuck and that was that all the Waverleys were fabulously rich. Tradesmen vied with each other for Mrs. Waverley’s custom and sent presents of wine and delicacies. Mrs. Ricketts remarked to Fanny that when folks thought you were rich, you could live comfortably without spending a penny.
Fanny longed to confide in Frederica and Felicity but did not dare do so, apart from the fact she would be breaking her promise to the earl. The two girls appeared very young to Fanny now. They had reverted to their usual squabbles and horseplay.
They made Fanny tell the story of her abduction over and over again. They particularly liked the bits where the earl was taken for a villain.
Fanny said it was hard to understand, for the earl was handsome and did not have a sinister cast of face, but Frederica said his eyes were too clever. Proper gentlemen had blank, stupid eyes.
Lying in the bottom drawer of a bureau in her room were three letters Fanny had written. One was to Mrs. Waverley and the other two to Felicity and Frederica. She planned to take them out and leave them on top of the bureau after she made her escape.
Soon the week of waiting was nearly over. Fanny began to worry. What if he had forgotten about her in London? There were so many pretty women there, of good family too, who would be happy to have him for a husband.
She did not dare pack a trunk, but she went up to her room to sort out in her mind the clothes she would take with her. She planned to leave all her jewelery behind. She hated every bauble now.
She pushed open the door and let out a gasp. Frederica and Fanny were standing together at the window, reading those letters she had planned to leave behind when she eloped.
She ran forward and snatched them away, crying, “How dare you poke and pry among my things!”
“I was looking for my pale pink shift,” said Frederica, hard-faced, “and Mrs. Ricketts said it might have been put with your things by mistake. What is the meaning of this, Fanny?”
Fanny looked at their furious faces and knew she was going to have to lie. If she pleaded with Frederica, if she told her of the elopement, then Frederica would be convinced the earl was tricking her and meant to make her his mistress.
“I wrote those some time ago,” said Fanny. “I thought we were going to elope. But then I saw he could never marry me. I forgot about the letters. Tear them up. All is over between myself and the Earl of Tredair. I shall never see him again.”
The strain of the long week’s wait told on Fanny at last, and she burst into tears, which was the best thing she could have done, for the two girls thought she was weeping because she had at last found out the earl’s evil intentions.
Frederica and Felicity hugged her. Such had been Mrs. Waverley’s teaching that they both believed that no man would ever want them in marriage. Frederica vowed never to become as “soft” as Fanny. She felt much older than Fanny and much harder. Any man would find it difficult to trick her.
“So I will take these nasty stupid letters away and burn them,” said Frederica. “You are lucky we found them and not Mrs. Waverley.”
That evening Fanny retired early after dinner. She sat down and wrote three more letters, wondering where to hide them this time.
There came a scratching at the door, and Fanny placed the letters under a large ewer on her toilet table and called, “Come in!”
Mrs. Ricketts entered and went quickly to Fanny’s side. “It’s tonight, miss.”
“What is?” asked Fanny.
“The elopement, to be sure.”
Fanny clutched the housekeeper, her eyes shining. “He has come back?”
“Yes, miss. I was out walking this afternoon when his servant approached me and gave me money and a letter. He knows there might be a terrible scene and the authorities called if he tries to take you out the front way. I cannot unlock the door for him, for I would lose my job.”
“So what is he going to do?”
“Come up to your bedchamber by a ladder in the back garden. I’ve left the garden gate at the side of the house unlocked. I’ve brought a long rope. We have to lower your trunk into the garden first, as soon as it’s dark.”
“Oh, Mrs. Ricketts, bless you!”
“Don’t bless me, miss, until you get clean away. Miss Felicity’s likely to be lying awake reading, and her bedchamber overlooks the garden as well.”
“What time will he come?”
“Two in the morning. Now, for that trunk. Lock your door while I pack.”
Fanny brought out gowns and mantles, bonnets and pelisses while Mrs. Ricketts arranged everything in a stout trunk. “This will never do, miss,” she said straightening up. “Your bonnets will get crushed in here. Hand me that bandbox from the top of the wardrobe.”
“I think we are taking too much,” said Fanny anxiously. “Did he not say one trunk?”
“Well, his servants did. But men never think of practical things like what to do with bonnets.”
At last both trunk and bandbox were corded up. Mrs. Ricketts tied them both firmly to a long length of rope while Fanny gently eased up
the window. They heaved the luggage over the sill and began to lower it slowly.
“What if someone looks out and sees it?” hissed Fanny.
“Let’s just hope they don’t,” said Mrs. Ricketts, “and if they do, you’re to swear blind it was all your own doing.”
There was a soft thud as bandbox and trunk hit the grass below.
“Now, it’s up to you and my lord,” said Mrs. Ricketts.
“You do not need to worry about your job here,” said Fanny, hugging the housekeeper. “You can come to me.”
“I shall stay here, miss, and take care of the other two. Better for you to know they have someone looking out for their interests.”
After she had left, Fanny sat and waited. The hours at first dragged by and then seem to speed up. Two o’clock came. Then ten past. Then half past.
Fanny was close to tears with the strain of waiting. What if he did not come?
And then she heard a grating sound from outside the window. She opened it again and leaned out. A ladder was propped against the sill. She turned about and took the letters from under the ewer and placed them on the mantlepiece.
The earl’s face appeared at the window. “Come,” he said softly.
“Do you really mean to marry me?” asked Fanny, suddenly afraid.
“Of all the stupid things to say,” he said crossly. “I am not in the habit of climbing up ladders in the middle of the night to abduct females. Are you going to stand there twittering all night? I could shake you, Fanny.”
Fanny let out a nervous giggle and crossed to the window. “Are you going to carry me over your shoulder?” she asked.
“No, Fanny, I think you are quite capable of getting down by yourself,” said the earl, beginning to back down the ladder.
Fanny climbed after him. The night was warm and the scents of the garden rose to meet her. When she reached the bottom of the ladder two servants glided out of the darkness and began to carry it away. The earl put a hand at her waist and hurried her through the garden.
The sound of the restless sea met their ears, and they climbed into a traveling carriage laden with luggage. There was another carriage behind with more luggage, and the earl’s servants and four outriders carrying torches.
Fanny stood with one foot on the steps of the coach and looked up at the house.
Then she let out a gasp. Frederica was leaning out of a front window, her hair streaming about her shoulders.
Frederica saw the traveling coaches, the outriders, the earl, and Fanny.
“Come back, Fanny,” she screamed. “He will betray you.”
The earl pushed Fanny into the carriage. “Drive on,” he called to the coachman who whipped up the horses.
Frederica stayed there, clutching hold of the sill. What could she do? What could Mrs. Waverley do? What could anyone in this whole household of women do? A stern father would have ridden after them, brothers would have challenged the earl to a duel, or magistrates would be called in to stop the marriage.
She turned away from the window. She did not go to Fanny’s room. She knew now those letters had been written for this night. She went to Felicity’s room. Felicity was lying awake, reading. She had just been reading about a most exciting elopement and so vivid had the description been that Felicity could have sworn she actually heard the ladder grate against the wall, the stifled whispers, and the carriages racing off into the night.
“Fanny’s gone,” said Frederica. “You must come with me to Mrs. Waverley. I cannot bear her tantrums on my own.”
“Gone!” said Felicity. “She has betrayed us.”
Frederica shrugged. “In Fanny’s case, she thinks it’s the world well lost for love. She deserves our pity. She will learn her fate soon enough.”
“Those letters …?”
“Yes, those were the letters we were supposed to find tomorrow morning. She has probably rewritten them. Let us collect them and go to Mrs. Waverley.”
Mrs. Waverley’s rage was terrifying. She did not shout or weep as the girls expected her to, but sat like stone with only her pale eyes flashing fire.
“She will try to come back to us,” said Mrs. Waverley, “after he has ruined her. She is not to be allowed pity or charity.”
“Are women who fall from grace because of the machinations of some man not deserving of pity?” asked Frederica.
“No,” said Mrs. Waverley. “Not Fanny. You see what men are like? Stay with me. Keep close to me and all will be well.”
Despite her distress, Frederica saw a way of manipulating Mrs. Waverley into allowing them more freedom.
“When you look at it,” she said, “it is not entirely Fanny’s fault.”
“How so?” asked Mrs. Waverley.
“What do we know of men or the outside world? Had Fanny been allowed to go out more, she would not have fallen head over heels for the first man who looked at her. Now Felicity is in danger,” said Frederica, surreptitiously pinching Felicity’s arm, a sign to that young lady to remain silent.”
“Felicity?” cried Mrs. Waverley. “Has some man …?”
“No,” said Frederica. “But she has been addling her brains with romances from the circulating library.”
“She is not allowed to read romances!”
“There you are,” said Frederica. “We are not allowed to do so many things that you must understand our lapses. If you continue to restrict our liberty, then we shall both, like Fanny, begin to see any man as the only means of escape.”
The angry fire died out of Mrs. Waverley’s eyes, and she began to look hunted. “Leave me,” she said weakly. “The shock of Fanny’s betrayal has been great.”
The girls went back upstairs. “Why did you have to tell her about me reading romances?” said Felicity fiercely. “I thought we had given up telling tales on each other.”
“I had to frighten her,” said Frederica, “else the shock of Fanny’s escape should make her keep us housebound more than ever before.”
“Don’t you think the earl means to marry Fanny?” asked Felicity. “He went to an awful lot of trouble, and with his title and money he could get any woman he wanted.”
“They get jaded,” said Frederica worldly wise. “Women are like food to them. They are always searching out some new and different gourmet treat. If you think of poor Fanny at all, think of her lying naked on a platter with an orange in her mouth.”
Felicity began to giggle and Frederica to laugh. Mrs. Ricketts heard the laughter and shook her head. It was all for the best. No one but herself had ever had one spark of affection for little Miss Fanny.
***
On their return to London, life certainly took a change for the better for the two remaining Waverley girls. Mrs. Waverley took them out, not to balls and parties, but to plays and operas, museums and exhibitions, and occasionally for a drive in the Park. Instead of attiring them in their drab schoolgirl outfits, she compromised by dressing them in plain but fashionable clothes.
Frederica and Felicity often talked about Fanny. Frederica vowed that if she returned a broken reed in need of help, then they would help her every way they could. She never noticed that Felicity was always very silent on the subject of Fanny. Felicity had written a furious letter to Fanny to the earl’s town house, calling her every name under the sun. She was already regretting that letter, but she had written it in the heat of the moment when she had felt betrayed by Fanny. Both girls believed that Mrs. Waverley was right and that Tredair would ruin Fanny. That trust in Mrs. Waverley’s judgment bound the girls close to her.
Mrs. Waverley was so delighted with the girls new affection for her that she allowed Frederica one day to coerce her into taking them to the Park at the fashionable hour instead of driving out at a time when they could be guaranteed to meet as few people as possible.
The girls dressed in slightly finer clothes than they were usually allowed to wear. The day was chilly and gray. Both Frederica and Felicity prayed it would not rain, for they were to go to the Pa
rk in an open carriage.
The carriage was rented. Mrs. Waverley would have loved a female coachman, but knew that would be far too shocking a thing for society to accept. So she always rented her carriages from the livery stables, which meant she did not have to tolerate men servants except on drives.
Frederica and Felicity were excited at the grand sight of all the fashionable clothes and glittering carriages. “I think, girls,” said Mrs. Waverley, leaning forward, “that it is time I gave you an allowance. Pin money, you know.”
She leaned back smiling as the girls chorused their thanks. Mrs. Waverley was happier than she had ever been before. She was loved by her girls. It was good that Fanny was gone. Fanny must have been the disruptive influence.
Then her face hardened. “There is Mr. Fordyce,” she said. “Cut him!”
The girls turned their faces away, but Mr. Fordyce rode along beside the carriage.
“Great news from Gretna!” he cried. “Tredair and Fanny are married.”
Mrs. Waverley’s head jerked around to face him as if on wires. “You must be mistaken. Stop!” she called to the coachman.
Mr. Fordyce pulled a newspaper from a capacious pocket. “It’s in the evening paper,” he said. “You may have it.” He dropped it on Mrs. Waverley’s lap and rode off.
“Is it true?” asked Frederica.
Mrs. Waverley slowly read the account. There it all was. The Earl of Tredair and Miss Fanny Waverley were married at Gretna by the blacksmith over the anvil. The earl was quoted as saying he would marry his countess again in church as soon as she reached her majority.
Frederica snatched the paper from Mrs. Waverley and Felicity, and she read it with their heads together.
A witness at the wedding was quoted as saying he had never seen a couple so much in love.
Frederica felt betrayed, not by Fanny, but by Mrs. Waverley.
“Move on,” cried Mrs. Waverley to the coachman. She avoided the girls’ eyes.
“Got to stay where we are for a bit, madam,” called the coachman. “Seems His Royal Highness is approaching.”
“Drive on! I command you!” cried Mrs. Waverley, turning quite white.
