Penelope Goes to Portsmouth

by M C Beaton

  Benjamin, who was carrying Hannah’s reticule, fished in it and produced a vinaigrette that he held under Miss Trenton’s nose. The attention rather than the smell seemed to rally her. Then she clutched her head with a wail. ‘My bonnet!’

  Benjamin bowed and went into the coach and then emerged carrying the bonnet. Hannah looked at her footman sharply. For the bonnet was not only crushed but looked as if it had just been jumped on.

  Miss Trenton began to yowl and moan again. ‘Heavens!’ snapped Hannah. ‘If you have not another hat in your luggage, you may have one of mine.’

  ‘My hair,’ said Miss Trenton when she could.

  ‘What is up with it?’

  ‘It is red!’

  ‘And a very fine colour, too, you stupid woman,’ expostulated Mr Cato.

  But Hannah and Penelope looked at the stricken Miss Trenton sympathetically. Red hair was highly unfashionable, the Scottish race being prone to that colour, and the Scots had not yet been forgiven, not only for the rebellion of ’45, but for travelling to the south in great numbers and taking all the best jobs, or so the prejudice claimed.

  ‘It is not ordinary,’ said Hannah bracingly. ‘Now, my hair is sandy, and not at all the thing. But yours, Miss Trenton, is of great beauty. You should not hide it.’

  Miss Trenton put a shaky hand up to arrange her tumbled tresses.

  Benjamin had found a carriage rug, made a pillow of it and put it under the coachman’s head. The wind howled mournfully about them and great ragged clouds tumbled across the sky.

  Mr Cato fetched other rugs and spread them on the grass beside the road and everyone sat down and waited for Lord Augustus to return with help.

  ‘I hate this climate,’ said Mr Cato passionately. ‘I wish I were back home.’

  ‘Home will surely be England,’ said Miss Trenton. ‘You Americans will come to your senses soon enough.’

  ‘We came to our senses in ’76,’ growled Mr Cato.

  ‘Were you born in America?’ asked Hannah curiously.

  ‘No, I was in Bristol and a good and loyal subject to King George. I went out as a bonded servant. Worked as groom to Mr Josiah Baxter, a tobacco planter. He took kindly to me and when my seven years were up, he trained me in the working of the plantations. Soon I began to see why the colonists had rebelled.’

  ‘Taxes?’ asked Penelope.

  ‘Geography,’ replied Mr Cato succinctly. ‘It’s so big, America. So vast. So free. After a bit, England seems small and grubby and petty.’

  ‘And yet you have slaves,’ snapped Hannah, who could not bear to hear such criticism.

  ‘I’m a good master. I see them all right,’ growled Mr Cato. ‘You in England dirty your hands with the trading of them. Don’t come hoity-toity with me, ma’am.’

  ‘And yet you came back,’ pointed out Hannah. ‘Why?’

  Mr Cato’s red face became even redder. ‘That’s my affair.’ He rounded on Miss Trenton. ‘Bad manners in you, Miss Trenton, to claim to be so ashamed of red hair when I have a quantity of the stuff myself.’

  ‘It’s different for a man,’ said Miss Trenton. ‘Men do not need to look beautiful.’

  ‘How I wish Lord Augustus would come back,’ said Penelope hurriedly to avert a row. ‘It is tedious waiting here.’

  Benjamin produced hazard dice from his pocket and began to roll them on the ground. Mr Cato’s eyes gleamed. The guard edged closer. Hannah scribbled frantically on a piece of paper, ‘I will not tolerate gambling,’ and tried to pass it to Benjamin but found the paper twitched out of her hand by Mr Cato. ‘Don’t stop him,’ said the American. ‘Best way to pass the time.’

  Hannah rose to her feet. She would deal with Benjamin later. ‘Walk with me, Miss Wilkins.’ Penelope obediently got up and they walked a little way away from the coach.

  ‘Are all men in London society like Lord Augustus?’ asked Penelope.

  ‘No,’ said Hannah. ‘Quite a number of them are ill-featured and few are so amiable.’

  ‘But such a wasted life!’

  ‘My dear Miss Wilkins, Lord Augustus was not bred to work unless he chooses the military or the Church. Where did you come by such odd notions?’

  ‘My father.’ Penelope gave a little sigh. ‘I declare I was quite shocked when he sent me to the seminary and told me I must be groomed for a Season so that I could catch a title.’

  ‘Even the most radical of parents becomes ambitious when he finds himself with a pretty daughter.’

  ‘I am pretty in a common way,’ said Penelope reflectively. ‘They told me that at the seminary. It is the nose, you see. I lie in bed sometimes and dream that when I awake, I will find I have sprouted a patrician nose during the night. My mouth also is a trifle big. Miss Jasper went on – Miss Jasper at the seminary, that is – as if my mouth were all my fault. She made me say my Prunes and Prisms by the hour.’ Penelope pursed her lips. ‘Bit it is seh hird to tuck.’

  ‘Then do not try to talk with your mouth screwed up. You have a very pretty mouth.’

  ‘Someone’s coming,’ said Penelope.

  Sure enough, Lord Augustus appeared riding the leader and followed by inn servants and two post-chaises.

  He swung himself down from the saddle and said, ‘The landlord of the Thorn Tree is ready and waiting for us. How is our coachman?’

  As if in reply, the coachman stirred and mumbled. Lord Augustus knelt down beside him and held a flask of brandy to his lips. The coachman feebly drank some and seized the flask from Lord Augustus’s hand and took a great swig and then struggled up with a groan.

  ‘He’ll do,’ said Lord Augustus cheerfully, relieved that he no longer was plagued with the vision of a dangerously injured coachman on his conscience. ‘In the carriages, everyone.’

  Benjamin pocketed his dice. He was looking very pleased with himself while the guard looked sullen and Mr Cato furious.

  The Thorn Tree was quickly reached. Everything had been arranged for them. Bedchambers had been aired, fires lit, and the landlord said that dinner would be served directly. A physician arrived to attend to the coachman.

  To Hannah’s embarrassment, Benjamin entered her room and began to take out her clothes and underthings and put them away. Odd to be so embarrassed when she had been a servant herself.

  ‘I wish you could talk or even hear what I am saying,’ grumbled Hannah aloud. ‘I would like to talk to you, Benjamin, for I am tired of writing notes. This is my third journey on the Flying Machine, and on the two previous journeys, I pride myself that I was instrumental in making matches for two couples … three,’ she added, thinking of a certain widow and a shabby lawyer. ‘But there is no scope on this journey. Even if Miss Wilkins should form a tendresse for Lord Augustus, it would not answer. That father of hers thinks he wants a lord for a son-in-law, but what would he make of the indolent Lord Augustus? And Miss Wilkins has been raised in too plebeian, well, normal, a background to understand a husband who might have affairs and whose whole life is given over to the pursuit of fur, feather, and female. Why, what is this, Benjamin?’

  The footman had pulled a handful of silver and copper out of his pocket and was holding it out to her. He mimed shaking and throwing dice and thrust the money at her.

  Hannah sighed and took out her notebook and wrote that she did not approve of gambling and could not therefore take his winnings. Benjamin threw her a scornful look and thrust the money at her again.

  Hannah capitulated. ‘Very well, Benjamin, I will keep it for your board, for I am not wealthy.’ She eyed him narrowly. ‘You appear to understand what I say!’

  Benjamin mimed that he could read lips. ‘I had forgot that,’ exclaimed Hannah, looking relieved. She faced him squarely and said, ‘So if I look at you direct and say something, you will understand me?’

  The footman nodded vigorously.

  ‘Well, that’s a mercy. Leave me until I change my gown.’

  Penelope in her bedchamber took out a delicate gown of pink India muslin and put
it on. The inn was warm, and therefore it would be possible to wear one of those dreadfully scanty creations, so fashionable in 1800. Odd, mused Penelope, that Miss Jasper, so strict in all things, had bowed to fashion and had not even raised an eyebrow when Penelope and the other girls marched to church with the hems of their gowns looped over their arms, showing delectable visions of pink-silk-clad legs.

  She brushed her hair until it shone, wishing her hair had a more definite colour than a kind of duskiness, neither black nor brown. But it had a natural curl and she never had to suffer the discomfort of sleeping in curl-papers.

  Lord Augustus paused in the corridor as Penelope left her bedchamber. She turned and looked up at him, her eyes wide. He caught his breath. She was so very young and so very beautiful. High-fashion sticklers might damn her nose but Lord Augustus reflected it gave an appealing kittenish air to her face. Her bosom was beautifully formed and quite a bit of it was revealed by the low cut of her gown. He felt his senses quicken.

  ‘Why do you stare at me so?’ said the vision crossly. ‘Have I a smut on my nose?’

  He sighed. The vision was cursed with plain-speaking to a fault. Ladies were supposed to blush and lower their eyes under his admiring gaze.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and strolled off down the corridor. Penelope let out a squawk of dismay and dived back into her room.

  She appeared at the dinner-table shortly after Lord Augustus and glared at him. ‘I did not have a smut on my nose,’ she said.

  ‘The corridor was dim,’ drawled Lord Augustus. ‘Possibly it was a shadow thrown on your face by one of these huge spiders which seem to infest this inn.’

  Miss Trenton screamed in horror. Hannah gave Lord Augustus a reproachful look, and Penelope said scornfully, ‘I have not seen one spider in this inn.’

  Benjamin was standing behind Hannah’s chair. She looked at the delicious meal spread in front of them and wished she could ask Benjamin to sit down and join them, but that would be worse than inviting an outside passenger to the table. The coachman, fully recovered, could be seen through in the tap, drinking brandy with the guard.

  ‘The men are working on the coach now,’ said Mr Cato. ‘Coachee says we’ll be off in the morning. B’Gad, if I miss my ship, I shall charge the coach company for whatever expenses I may incur in waiting in Portsmouth for another. You do not eat, Miss Trenton.’

  Miss Trenton, who had found a muslin cap to wear over her flaming hair, simpered and said, ‘I have an appetite like a bird.’ And so she did, thought Hannah, amazed, as the meal progressed. A vulture. As was the fashion of the day, all the courses were served at once. The diners helped themselves to whatever they fancied, one plate doing for everything. They had stewed lamb, fresh young codling, steamed cabbage, pork, a large turbot, mussels, roast veal, a heap of cress, potatoes in thick brown sauce, and a salad and pastries. Miss Trenton put a tiny amount on her plate and as soon as the others had started to eat, she put a large helping of everything in front of her and demolished it with amazing rapidity.

  Lord Augustus was seated next to Penelope. He was sharply aware of her, bemused to find that what had been a rather common and tiresome female earlier in the day had mysteriously become an enchantress to stir his blood. He could hardly take his eyes off her, off the turn of her dimpled arm as she raised the wineglass to her soft lips, off the glory of an errant curl that lay against the whiteness of one shoulder.

  Only Miss Trenton, chewing and swallowing assiduously, noticed Lord Augustus’s new preoccupation with Penelope and felt the sour bile of jealousy beginning to spoil her meal. It was always thus, had always been thus. Her own strength of character and what she considered her own unusual beauty had always been ignored by the gentlemen. She did not, as the other passengers had correctly guessed, have a private carriage. She had been a governess at a seminary in London and had recently lost her post, and all because of a girl such as Penelope. The girl had been a young Miss Coates, rich daughter of a banker, who had tearfully complained to her father that Miss Trent was making her life a misery. Miss Trent had therefore been dismissed. She was travelling to Portsmouth because an old friend ran a seminary there and she hoped to find a new post. She had very little money and was glad that Mr Cato seemed prepared to pay her inn bills. Although it was expected that gentlemen in a stage-coach party should pay for the ladies, such was not always the case.

  When Lord Augustus raised his glass and smiled down at Penelope and said, ‘Will you take wine with me?’ Miss Trenton felt a stab of pure fury. Penelope’s obvious lack of interest in the noble lord did nothing to allay Miss Trenton’s fury. Penelope would return to that father of hers and all would be forgiven. Mr Wilkins would no doubt blame the seminary.

  After dinner, Mr Cato surprised the company by saying he would entertain them to a song or two. He started off with,

  ‘There was a maid went to a mill,

  Sing trolly, lolly, lolly, lo,

  The mill turn’d round but the maid stood still,

  Oh, Oh, ho! Oh, ho! Oh, oh! did she so?’

  He received some polite applause and went on with,

  ‘Sing dyllum, dyllum, dyllum, dyllum,

  I can tell you and I will,

  Of my lady’s water-mill.’

  ‘Steady on!’ cried Lord Augustus in alarm, but Mr Cato was launched on the next verse.

  ‘It was a maid of brenten arse,

  She rode to mill upon a horse,

  Yet she was a maiden never the worse.’

  ‘Mr Cato!’ shouted Lord Augustus, who knew the rest of the song only too well. ‘Ladies present!’

  Mr Cato looked sheepish. ‘Forgot,’ he said. ‘A million apologies. Not used to the company of ladies. You sing something, my lord.’

  Urged on by the others, Lord Augustus rose to his feet. He did not want to sing. He wanted to go on examining the effect Penelope was having on his senses. He chose the first song that came into his head. His clear tenor voice fell with disastrous clarity on the listening ears.

  ‘Yankee Doodle went to town,

  He rode a little pony,

  He stuck a feather in his hat

  And called it macaroni.

  Yankee Doodle fa, so, la,

  Yankee Doodle dandy.

  Yankee Doodle fa, so, la,

  Buttermilk and brandy.’

  Mr Cato leaped to his feet, his fists swinging. ‘You shall answer for that,’ he shouted.

  Lord Augustus looked at him in horror, realizing for the first time what he had just sung. ‘Yankee Doodle’, that ballad used by British soldiers to taunt the New Englanders with aspirations to fashion, who thought they looked like Macaronies simply by putting feathers in their hats, and could only afford to ride ponies, had been a slur in ’76, but as the years had passed, had simply become a popular ballad. He also realized the infuriated American was quite drunk.

  ‘My apologies,’ said Lord Augustus as Mr Cato staggered around the table towards him. ‘Fie, sir, we have all had too much to drink. You are not a New Englander. Come, sir. You may sing an American song if you wish.’

  Mr Cato stood in front of Lord Augustus. His red face was now so very red he looked about to explode.

  ‘You did, after all, win the war.’ Lord Augustus raised his glass. ‘A toast! To General George Washington.’

  Mr Cato looked bemused. Hannah thrust a glass of wine into his hand.

  ‘General George Washington,’ roared everyone.

  Mr Cato drank, the fire dying out of his cheeks. Mollified, he said, ‘I thought you was making a fool of me, my lord.’

  ‘We have both had a disastrous choice of songs this night. Let the ladies entertain us. Miss Trenton!’

  Miss Trenton blushed and disclaimed. She had a poor voice, she said. But urged on, she rose to her feet and sang ‘Drink to Me Only’ in a surprisingly pretty voice. Mr Cato and Lord Augustus resumed their seats. Miss Trenton was wildly applauded, not so much for the beauty of her singing, but because everyone was relieved that a nas
ty row had been averted. Mr Cato urged Miss Trenton to take wine with him, and the more wine Miss Trenton drank, the more jealous she became of Penelope.

  The party moved their chairs to sit around the fire and Miss Trenton found herself beside Lord Augustus.

  ‘Ahem,’ she said, clearing her throat genteelly to catch his attention. ‘Sad business about Miss Wilkins.’

  Lord Augustus looked amused. ‘Being sent home? I think she has a doting father and all will be forgiven.’

  ‘Perhaps not this time,’ said Miss Trenton darkly.

  He looked at her malicious little eyes and felt he should turn away. But his interest in Penelope was becoming very great. He waited.

  ‘I said nothing at the time,’ went on Miss Trenton, ‘but I know that seminary in Esher and heard of Miss Wilkins’s downfall.’

  ‘Driving some poor music master to behave in a silly way can hardly be called a downfall.’

  Miss Trenton leaned closer to Lord Augustus and whispered, ‘But Miss Wilkins let the music master have his way with her. The poor man then felt he had to propose.’

  Lord Augustus turned away from her and began to talk to Hannah while all the time his mind raced. The sensible side of it told him that Miss Trenton was a spiteful spinster. The rakish side of his mind almost wanted to believe her. There was something so, well, sensuous, about Penelope.

  He looked across at her to where she sat on the other side of the fireplace. At that moment, Penelope, who had been thinking uneasily about the spiders he had described, thought she felt something crawling over her ankle and raised the hem of her skirt. To Lord Augustus it appeared as if Penelope had deliberately raised her skirts to afford him a glimpse of tantalizing ankles.

  Penelope was becoming increasingly aware of Lord Augustus as a man. Despite his air of frivolity and his impeccably tailored clothes, he was undoubtedly very strong and masculine. The firelight played on the strong muscles of his legs stretched out on the hearth. Hannah could have told Penelope that there was nothing more seductive than a man with good legs. Gentleman Jackson, the famous boxer, was hardly an Adonis, but no one talked about his face; all sighed over the beauty of his legs.