by M. C. Beaton
She opened the door to the shop with her shoulder, saw the gentleman who was just entering, and swung back into the kitchen again. “It’s Carrisdowne!” she said.
“What does he want?” squeaked Charlotte.
“I do not know. Let me put this tray down.” Josephine opened the door and peered round it. “He is saying something to Henrietta. He is standing very close to her and whispering something.”
“Threats?”
“No, she is smiling. She is shaking hands with him. He has ordered something and is taking a table. Oh, Charlotte. Perhaps everything is going to be all right after all.”
Inside the shop, Henrietta busily served customers and wondered what had come over the Earl of Carrisdowne.
Her first thought when she saw his tall figure was that he had come to make trouble. But he had bent his handsome head very near to her own, so near that his breath had fanned her cheek, and had said in a low voice, “I am come to apologize for my boorish behavior. Please say you forgive me.” And then he had smiled into her eyes. Henrietta, feeling weak at the knees, had taken his proffered hand and mumbled that, yes, she forgave him.
He ordered a portion of orange salad and then, after greeting various acquaintances, went and sat down.
Henrietta nervously spooned the salad into a small glass dish. She had made it from oranges, muscatel raisins, brandy, and pounded sugar. She placed it in front of him, bobbed a curtsy, and would have left, but he looked about him as if searching for a topic of conversation. “Stay a moment,” he said. “Tell me, why do you not have ices?”
“Perhaps I might begin to make ices in a small way,” said Henrietta. “I have not even tried, because I am always aware of the great competition from Gunter’s. They ship their ice from Greenland. I could perhaps buy ice in London and the machinery to make ices—but the equipment costs a great deal of money, so perhaps I shall wait a little longer until my finances are more secure.”
The earl looked around the busy little shop. “I should have said they were secure already.”
“Not quite. People are ordering elaborate centerpieces for their tables. What if…” Henrietta paused. She had been about to say, “What if we should become unfashionable again?”
She said instead, “What if they cancel their orders? Even just one canceled order would mean a loss of money. I shall go carefully for the moment.”
“Very wise.” Again the earl smiled at her. “You do not work on Sundays?”
“Of course not,” said Henrietta. She blushed at the lie, for she knew that Sunday was the day she went over the accounts, but even in this godless age, the earl might find that rather shocking.
“I go to church, of course,” she added quickly.
“Then, in that case I should consider myself honored if you would allow me to escort you. Do you go to St. George’s?”
Henrietta shook her head. “Grosvenor Chapel.”
“And may I have your company?”
A customer behind Henrietta rapped angrily on the table with his fork for service. “I shall return in a moment, my lord,” she said.
As she busily attended to the needs of the other customers, Henrietta thought quickly. The earl’s presence in Bascombe’s, after all he had said about it, was occasioning pleased surprise and comment from the other customers. It would do no harm to encourage the earl. And what could be more respectable than attending church with him?
When there was a lull, she returned to his table. “I am most grateful to you, my lord,” she said. “I shall accept your escort. Do you mind escorting Miss Hissop as well? She never misses church service.”
“By all means, Miss Hissop, too,” he said, rising to his feet. He paid for his salad, made Henrietta a magnificent bow, and left.
Henrietta could hardly wait for the shop to close so that she could discuss this new development with the others.
Charlotte and Josephine were delighted. Esau said nothing, but he was privately worried. It would be just like a beauty like Miss Henrietta to go and get married, he thought. And then what would become of poor Esau? The horrors of the workhouse rose before his eyes. He remembered being subjected to blows, starvation, and putrid air, the lice, itch, and filth, and always surrounded by the plaintive cries of the dying. He ran a hand down the soft plush of his livery.
Henrietta must not marry. He had overheard her saying she did not want to.
Miss Hissop voiced her disapproval. “Dear child,” she exclaimed, “dear Henrietta. Only consider. Man in Carrisdowne’s position… don’t mean anything respectable. Ah, I see it now. The silks, the jewels, the apartment in Jermyn Street, the villa in Kensington… then, ‘You weary me, Miss Bascombe, I shall pass you on to Sir Evil Nasty’… then cheaper addresses and muslin, no carriage, one maid… then passed down to a merchant… then crying for shillings at the opera. Oh, my doomed child!”
Henrietta looked at Miss Hissop in exasperation. “I am not going to fall in love with the earl, Miss Hissop—only use him. Now that even he has been seen at Bascombe’s means assured success for us.
“And Charlotte and Josephine, I know you have formed certain tendres for Lord Charles and Mr. Clifford, but that is because you have not been in the way of meeting a variety of gentlemen.”
“Many gentlemen come to the confectioner’s,” said Charlotte stiffly. “Lord Charles and Mr. Clifford are the only two who treat us as ladies. The others treat us simply as shopgirls, and once they find out we are not interested in a dubious relationship with them, then they confine their interest to sweetmeats and leave us alone.”
“But listen!” cried Henrietta. “I have never outlined my plans for you and Josephine. If we make a great deal of money during the Season, then we shall go to Bath or some other fashionable watering spa and, with dowries apiece, we shall be able to choose husbands.”
“I thought you were not interested in marriage,” snapped Josephine.
“Not for myself. But for the both of you,” pleaded Henrietta. “Only give it a little time. Do you know”—she rested her chin on her hands and looked round at them with sparkling eyes—“it will be interesting to see if I can make the great Earl of Carrisdowne fall in love with me.”
Josephine and Charlotte exchanged glances. If only Henrietta herself would fall in love. Then she might not be so insensitive to their plight!
Chapter 5
For most of London society, Sunday was a boring twenty-four hours stretching between one gambling session and the next. Never had gambling fever been so great. Both men and women of society spent long hours at the tables.
Although Methodism and Evangelism flourished among the lesser breeds, the ton politely suffered God and all his angels on this one day of the week. There was a general uneasy feeling that religion had no place among the top ten thousand. It was enough that God had placed them in their exalted stations. They would much rather have gone on enjoying being exalted without the labor of sitting in a cold church, praying fervently for the service to end.
Henrietta was unfashionable enough to enjoy her weekly visits to church. She always left after the service feeling refreshed and with courage to face the week ahead once more renewed.
Josephine and Charlotte, however, had decided to stay in bed. They envied Henrietta her stamina. Despite the new addition to the staff of three daily kitchen maids, they found the long weeks of work beginning to take their toll.
Josephine had sleepily told Henrietta to help herself from her wardrobe. Josephine had the most fashionable clothes of the three girls. Determined to enchant the earl, Henrietta cheerfully selected one of Josephine’s best day ensembles.
It was a promenade dress consisting of a Spanish pelisse of white-and-lilac shot sarcenet, trimmed with Chinese scalloped binding, and worn over a white muslin gown. On her head she wore a woodland hat of lemon-colored chip straw, decorated with a curled ostrich feather of lilac and white. She was drawing on a pair of lemon-colored kid gloves and peering through the shop window for a sight of the
earl’s coach when Miss Hissop came down to join her.
Miss Hissop had, for the moment, forgotten her distrust of Lord Carrisdowne’s intentions and was happily excited at the idea of making her entrance in church on the arm of a member of the nobility. She was wearing a purple velvet walking dress, and on her head she wore a large black-velvet turban. Henrietta noted that Miss Hissop’s gown was sadly “seated” at the back where the velvet had grown shiny with age, and she was about to urge her to borrow one of Josephine’s shawls when the earl suddenly arrived. A quick glance out of the window showed no coach outside, and she realized with surprise that the earl had come on foot.
He offered an arm to each. He was in morning dress, the plated buttons of his coat of Bath superfine winking in the pale sunlight.
The day was very cold. The snow had melted during the night and had then frozen during the morning. As they walked along, Henrietta shivered miserably and wondered how on earth she had ever been stupid enough to think she could attract such a man as the Earl of Carrisdowne.
As they turned along Curzon Street in the direction of South Audley Street, Henrietta looked at the other ladies heading in the direction of the church. Some were attired in thinner clothing than herself, muslins fluttering in the biting wind.
“I shall never follow the dictates of fashion again—not on a cold day, at least,” said Henrietta.
The tall earl smiled down at her. “There is a tinge of lilac in your cheeks that matches the color of your pelisse.”
“Meaning I am blue with cold,” said Henrietta crossly.
He turned and raised his hand. His footman, whom Henrietta had not noticed, had been following some distance behind. The earl stepped aside and said a few words to him, and the servant hurried off.
Miss Hissop, who had been silent up till then, decided the time had come to show the earl that dear Henrietta had a protector. “I am surprised,” she said, “to hear you talking thus about fashion on the Sunday morn, Henrietta. You usually have a mind above such petty things. Henrietta,” she added, fixing the earl with a basilisk stare, “is very devout.”
The earl nodded politely.
“We never miss church on Sundays,” went on Miss Hissop. “Never. We go in the rain, the sleet, the snow, and the scorching days of summer. Always.”
“Miss Hissop,” said Henrietta in stifled tones, “I am sure my lord does not wish a sermon before he gets to church.”
“But you know it is true,” expostulated Miss Hissop. “I feel it is the only place—church, that is—where a young maiden is free from the perils of this loose and decadent society!”
As they reached the steps of Grosvenor Chapel, a pleasant little church built in 1730, the earl’s servant came hurrying up with a huge fur cape over his arm. The earl took it from him and put it around Henrietta’s shoulders. Henrietta felt she should protest, for several members of the ton were staring at them with open curiosity, but the warmth of the fur was so wonderful that she merely murmured her thanks.
Henrietta had forgotten that no one was equal in this house of the Lord. The rich had their pews near the pulpit. The servants and shopkeepers such as herself sat on plain benches at the back.
The Earl of Carrisdowne usually attended church service at St. George’s, Hanover Square. It was unthinkable that he should sit with the common folk at the rear of the church. In a whisper, Henrietta urged him to share the pew of one of his friends. But the earl replied in a low voice that, for his part, he really did not care where he sat.
Henrietta was conscious of the sensation they were causing as they sat down, although the earl appeared indifferent to it. Some of the nobility were standing up on the benches and leveling their quizzing glasses over the tops of their pews to get a better look at the Earl of Carrisdowne sitting with the common people.
“Didn’t know Carrisdowne was a Jacobite,” said the Duke of Gillingham, creaking down, after a good look at the earl, to sit beside his wife.
“He’s been away at the wars too long,” sniffed the duchess. “If he wants to make that confectioner girl his mistress, then he shouldn’t make a parade of the fact in church.”
Henrietta hugged the fur cape closely about her and decided to concentrate on the service. There would be no reading from the New Testament, of that she was sure. Society preferred the blood and thunder of the Old Testament, free from any nasty remarks about the rich having a hard time getting into the kingdom of heaven.
There was not much of a sermon. Even that relic of Puritanism was slowly disappearing, and the days when the sermon was the highlight of the service, to be discussed and debated afterward, had been slowly dying out.
But the feeling of content that Henrietta usually experienced in church would not come. She was very conscious of the earl as a man. He was very tall, very strong, and very masculine. He had removed his gloves to turn the pages of the hymnbook for her, and his hands were long-fingered and tanned, with square nails, a contrast to the hands of the other aristocrats, which were usually white-leaded on the backs to make them appear delicate, and painted pink on the palms with cochineal.
Why had he decided to be pleasant to her and seek her company? Had he some plot in mind? The more Henrietta thought about it, the more odd and out of character his apology appeared. She realized with a start that the church service was over and that she had not heard one word of it.
Miss Hissop was thoroughly embarrassed by all the attention. Like Henrietta, she had forgotten about the seating arrangements in the church. She had vaguely thought that, by his very presence, the earl would be able to conjure up a private pew.
The earl stopped outside the church to chat with various friends, all of whom were Henrietta’s customers. Each time, he drew Henrietta and Miss Hissop a little forward and introduced them. But hard eyes stared insolently, and hard voices said, “Hah, yes. Been to your shop.”
What if they think I do not know my place and will punish me by not coming to my shop? thought Henrietta miserably. Did the earl know this? Is that why he took me to church?
The earl was engaged in talking about the war in the peninsula to an elderly gentleman. He half turned to introduce Henrietta and Miss Hissop, but the old gentleman caught hold of his sleeve and asked him whether the war was not, as the Whigs declared, a monstrous waste of men and money.
The earl turned back, and Henrietta decided to escape. “Come along, Miss Hissop,” she whispered.
They hurried off down the street, but the earl caught up with them as they were rounding the corner into Curzon Street. “You should have known I meant to escort you back, Miss Bascombe,” he said severely, “if only to get my cloak back.”
“You were engaged in conversation,” said Henrietta. She drew a deep breath. “We occasioned too much comment by being seen in your company in the common seats, my lord.”
“You have already occasioned much comment by running a shop,” he replied, taking her arm and offering his other to Miss Hissop. “I was under the impression you did not trouble yourself over the rules of society.”
Alarmed that, by this statement, the earl meant he considered Henrietta an immoral hoyden, Miss Hissop burst into incoherent speech. “Not at all… dear Henrietta, very well brought up… would never tie her garter in public… strictly chaperoned… I did not realize my lord meant to join us at the back of the church…” and on she went until they reached the shop.
She finally ran out of breath as Henrietta opened the shop door. Swinging the cape from her shoulders, Henrietta handed it to the earl. “Thank you, my lord,” she said. “It was kind of you to escort me. I fear, however, I have made us both look ridiculous.”
He looked down at the dignified figure in the lilac pelisse. He saw the worry and concern in the large eyes looking so directly up into his. “It was not to make you unfashionable again,” he said gently. “On the contrary, those who have not yet met you will be beating a path to your door to have a look at you.”
“Nonetheless, it is all very
unpleasant,” said Henrietta firmly. “I do not wish to be such an object of curiosity. It makes me feel like one of those poor shabby animals in the Tower zoo.”
“My apologies,” he said. “I should have taken you to St. George’s, where my family has a pew. Come driving with me this afternoon, Miss Bascombe. There is nothing more respectable than a drive in the park at the fashionable hour.”
“No, thank you,” said Henrietta firmly. “I have caused sufficient comment for today. Besides, I have work to do.”
“Liar,” he mocked. “And you said you never worked on a Sunday.”
“I meant work at my prayers,” said Henrietta crossly. She curtsied to him and went into the shop and closed the door.
The earl stood with a half smile on his face. She certainly was an enchanting creature—but one who did not seem in the slightest interested in him.
He turned and walked away, signaling to his servant to take the heavy fur cape from him.
“It’s just like a battle,” he thought to himself. “The trouble is I have no real plan of campaign. First, I must earn her gratitude… .”
By the next morning Henrietta was already regretting having turned down the earl’s invitation to go driving in the park. Charlotte and Josephine had looked worried and anxious when she had told them. Secretly both had hoped that Mr. Clifford and Lord Charles would ask them to go driving if they saw the Earl of Carrisdowne was not too high in the instep to be seen around with Henrietta.
Just before the shop opened, two servants dressed in the Earl of Carrisdowne’s livery appeared at the shop door. They had, they said, a present for Miss Bascombe.
Henrietta looked at the huge parcel in dismay. Then the earl’s intentions were dishonorable. This should have come neither as a surprise, nor should it have caused such a sharp pain around the region of her heart, but Henrietta was upset nonetheless. Gentlemen might send bouquets of flowers or poems to a lady they admired. Only members of the demimonde received expensive presents.
