by M. C. Beaton
“Convey my thanks to your master and tell him I am unable to accept this,” she said, backing away from the huge box.
“Begging your pardon, miss,” said one, “my lord told us you might say that, and said to urge you to examine the contents before you refused.”
“Very well,” said Henrietta, “but I shall probably send it back just the same.”
With the help of the two servants, she opened the box and then looked with amazement at the contents. Never before, surely, had a gentleman sent a lady such an un-romantic gift.
In the box were all the ingredients to make ices. There was a large tub, big enough to hold a bushel of ice, a freezing pot made of pewter, a bright spaddle made of copper, and even a cellaret where the ices could be stored for a short time.
To Henrietta, blinking away sudden tears, it seemed as if the earl, by his gift, had declared his approval of her being in trade. She had not realized until that moment how very much she had minded the censure of society.
“Thank my lord very much,” she said. “And tell him I am delighted to accept his gift.”
Henrietta sang to herself as she went about her work that day. Mr. Clifford and Lord Charles arrived at their usual time. Josephine and Charlotte were lucky. There was a lull in business, and they were able to engage in brief conversations with the gentlemen.
But soon the little shop was busy again, and Mr. Clifford and Lord Charles took their leave. Henrietta found herself glancing hopefully at the door each time the little bell above it tinkled to announce a new customer. The earl must surely come, if only to find out how she liked her gift. But by closing time there was no sign of his tall figure.
After the daily maids had cleaned up, and Josephine, Charlotte, Esau, and Miss Hissop had retired to the back shop to take tea, Henrietta sat behind the counter of the shop and looked out onto Half Moon Street.
Esau appeared briefly to ask if he might put up the shutters, but Henrietta told him to leave them for the moment and sent him back to join the others.
Snow was beginning to fall gently. What a cold spring! It was now March. The Season began in April. One profitable Season might bring them their dowries, mused Henrietta. But although many of the aristocracy ordered set pieces that were expensive to prepare and took long hours to make, they seemed reluctant to pay their bills. There must be some way of getting them to pay, thought Henrietta, without offending them.
Her heart gave a lurch as she recognized the earl’s footman, the one who had followed them to church on Sunday. He walked up the steps and rapped on the door. Henrietta ran to open it. He handed her a letter, touched his hat, and left.
Henrietta carried the letter back into the circle of candlelight and broke open the seal. The contents were brief and businesslike:
Dear Miss Bascombe,
I am giving an entertainment this Friday at my town house at 12 Upper Brook Street. I wish to order a centerpiece. The subject I shall leave to your imagination.
Carrisdowne
Well, thought Henrietta breathlessly, what else did I expect? It is a business letter to a businesswoman, nothing more.
For one moment, she felt very young and alone. It flashed through her mind that it would be wonderful to go to the earl’s as a guest, not as a shopkeeper making deliveries, to return to a pleasant town house with her parents afterward, instead of back to her place of work, to be loved and cossetted, instead of having to be responsible for, love, and cosset her companions.
Then she shrugged away these odd thoughts. Tonight she would try to make her first ices. Then she would need to create a very special centerpiece, something to show him she was an artist as well as a tradeswoman.
She had not even thanked him for the machinery he had sent! Henrietta rushed to find pen and paper.
As she composed the stiff, formal phrases of thanks, her mind drifted off, wondering what the earl’s entertainment would be like. What a pity she could not go herself. But Esau would deliver the centerpiece in the new handcart she had recently bought, with BASCOMBE’S in curly gold letters on the side.
Then she remembered one of the customers telling her that Gunter’s confectioner often went himself and put the finishing touches to the centerpiece just before it was carried to the table. But that would get her only as far as the kitchen.
Would he have a hostess? Henrietta drifted off into a rosy dream where she was standing by the earl’s side, receiving his guests. She finally gave herself a little shake, signed the letter, sanded it, and sealed it. Her only interest in the earl, she told herself firmly, was to keep him amused and attracted enough to keep Bascombe’s fashionable. Still… if she took the centerpiece along herself, she might be able to catch a glimpse of the ladies and see what they were like and what they were wearing. How could she know what kind of lady the earl found attractive if she never saw him with any?
Chapter 6
A further formal note from the Earl of Carrisdowne requested that Miss Bascombe bring the centerpiece to his house at seven on Friday evening so that it might be displayed to advantage in the refreshment room.
Henrietta toiled through the long nights before that Friday creating her masterpiece. The subject was the famous “Battle of Salamanca,” which had taken place the previous July. It was the battle that did for Wellington what none of his previous battles had achieved. The world realized he had become “almost a Marlborough”—to use the expression of General Foy, the only French commander to survive the battle with his corps intact.
As Josephine, Charlotte, Miss Hissop, and Esau watched, fascinated, the university city of Salamanca rose under Henrietta’s inspired fingers. She had read long descriptions of the battle in the newspapers. There were the three forts, built out of the ruins of twenty colleges and thirteen convents, which had been garrisoned by Marmount when he retired from Salamanca at Wellington’s approach, all made out of spun sugar and colored with caramel. There, created in miniature, was the River Torres with its green mats of waterweed, its sandbanks, and ancient water mills. A tiny, beautifully sculptured figure of Wellington on his horse stood in the plaza mayor while dainty Spanish ladies held out bouquets of flowers to him.
The Spanish ladies were all dressed in the fashion of Regency England because although the accounts that Henrietta had read of the battle were very extensive, none were detailed enough to sidetrack into a dissertation on the gowns worn by the ladies of Salamanca. Still, the confectionery figures wore mantillas of spun sugar and had black eyes made of tiny pieces of currant, so that their high-waisted gowns did not make them look so terribly un-Spanish.
Esau became worried again. He was jealous of the love and concentration Henrietta was lavishing on the centerpiece. Surely love for the earl, and only love, could inspire her thus. Esau had nightmares of Henrietta leaving on the arm of the Earl of Carrisdowne and not even throwing him one backward glance.
By Friday, Henrietta was finished and knew she had achieved something so great that she could never hope to repeat it.
The snow had melted and a soft wind, harbinger of spring, was blowing through the drying London streets. Blackbirds were caroling on the sooty roofs, and the sky above the twisted chimneys was a delicate violet as Henrietta and Esau set out with Henrietta’s “miracle” packed in layers of tissue paper on the handcart.
Henrietta had chosen to wear one of Josephine’s warmer gowns. It was of gold velvet, high-waisted and buttoned with little velvet-covered buttons up to a small lace ruff at the neck. Over it, she wore a heavy blue-wool cloak of her own.
When they reached the earl’s house on Upper Brook Street, Henrietta felt her mouth grow dry with nerves.
Obviously she and Esau should maneuver the centerpiece down the area steps, which led under the main entrance to the kitchens below. But she persuaded herself that so much artistry should at least be rewarded by seeing the earl’s reaction to it.
She left Esau on the pavement with the handcart and boldly mounted the front steps and sounded a brisk tatto
o on the knocker.
The butler opened the door, looked at Henrietta, hatless and wrapped in a cloak that had seen better days, and demanded frostily, “Yes?”
“I am come at Lord Carrisdowne’s request,” said Henrietta grandly. She presented a visiting card turned down at the corner to show that she had called in person. “Be so good as to take this card to his lordship.”
Impressed by her manner, the butler bowed and took the card. Then he saw Esau squinting up at him from the pavement. “You, boy,” said the butler. “Be off with you, and don’t stand there gawking.”
“That is my servant,” said Henrietta. “Be so good as to take my card immediately to his lordship.”
The butler’s face cleared. “You’re Bascombe’s,” he said, looking at the curly lettering on the side of the cart. “That must be the centerpiece. Wait there, and I’ll send a footman to help you down to the kitchens with it.”
But, having come so far, Henrietta was not going to back down. “I think,” she said sweetly, “you will find his lordship expects to see me in person.” The butler hesitated. “And,” went on Henrietta, “I am sure he will be most annoyed if you keep me waiting out in the street much longer.”
“Very well,” said the butler reluctantly. He stood back and held open the door.
Henrietta blushed as she realized she would first have to help Esau lift the handcart up the shallow steps.
“I don’t know as I should be allowing you to bring that in the front door,” muttered the butler as they trundled the cart past him. He turned and went up the stairs, leaving Henrietta and Esau standing in the hall.
Esau looked about him in awe. Apart from the cheerful crackling of logs in the hall fire, the town house was very hushed and quiet. The black and white tiles of the floor gleamed like glass. A chandelier of Waterford crystal sent prisms of colored light over the pictures and wood paneling. A clock in the corner suddenly began to boom out seven o’clock, and Esau jumped.
And then they heard the earl’s voice. “It is all right, Yarwood,” he said. “Miss Bascombe is a friend of mine.”
The earl came slowly down the stairs, followed by his butler. He was already dressed for the evening in a black coat, black knee breeches, and shoes with diamond buckles. A large diamond flashed among the snowy folds of his cravat, and diamond rings sparkled on his fingers. His black hair was brushed and pomaded until it shone like a raven’s wing.
Esau executed a clumsy bow from the waist, and Henrietta sank into a deep curtsy.
“Good evening, Miss Bascombe,” said the earl. “The dining room—that is the door on your left—is to be used as a supper room this evening. If your servant will bring the centerpiece in there, we can arrange it to advantage.”
His manner was courteous and formal. Henrietta felt she had made a terrible mistake by entering by the front door. He led the way, and she turned to help Esau lift the centerpiece in its wrapping from the cart.
“My footmen will do that,” he said sharply.
But Henrietta shook her head. “It is too fragile. Esau and I are used to handling these delicate confects.”
He gave an infinitesimal shrug and held open the door of the dining room. There was a long table against the wall, laden with plates, glasses, and knives and forks. Other long tables, spread with white-linen cloths, were set about the rest of the room.
“The food will be here,” said the earl, pointing to the table against the wall. “My guests will fill their plates and then find a place at one of the other tables. The centerpiece goes on that raised platform in the middle of the table. I hope it is large enough?”
“Yes,” said Henrietta. Her heart was beating hard as she and Esau unwrapped the centerpiece and then lifted it gently onto the platform.
The earl was putting a log in the fire when Henrietta said, “Do but look, my lord. I hope you are pleased with it.”
The earl turned and walked slowly back to where Henrietta was standing. He looked at the centerpiece, at the little figures, at the forts and the green river of angelica, at the Spanish ladies, and then at Wellington on his horse.
He looked at it a long time without saying a word. Henrietta felt tears start to her eyes. He did not like it! And oh, how very tired she was.
“It is a masterpiece,” said the earl at last.
“You like it?” Henrietta blinked away her tears.
He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.
“I was there,” he said, “at Salamanca. You might have been there yourself, your work is so very good. It is amazing to think all this art is merely sugar to be eaten. How can I bear to let my guests even touch it? Miss Bascombe, please be my guest this evening. An artist such as yourself must see my friends’ faces when they look on your work.”
“I should like that above all things,” exclaimed Henrietta. Then her face fell. “But will it not be considered very odd to entertain your confectioner?”
He smiled. “I think genius transcends social laws.”
“Perhaps if I am not of the party but merely sit in a corner and observe,” said Henrietta seriously, “it would not be considered very odd.”
“As you will. My guests will sit down to supper at midnight. Come before then if you wish.”
“Midnight will do very well.”
“Good-bye, Miss Bascombe,” said the earl formally, his face once more unreadable.
After Henrietta and Esau had left, the Earl of Carrisdowne stood looking thoughtfully at the centerpiece. I cannot put her out of business, he thought. Such artistry must surely come before any plans to prevent a mistake by Charles or Guy. I am sure their intentions are not serious. They appear content to carry on mild flirtations. Perhaps I should mind my own business for a change.
Like Cinderella in reverse, Henrietta sat demurely in a corner of the Earl of Carrisdowne’s dining room. When the clock struck twelve, her moment of glory would come.
She had been instructed by Josephine and Charlotte to observe Lord Charles and Mr. Clifford and see which ladies they conversed with, and if either of them favored any one in particular.
Henrietta was wearing a pink-satin slip with a Grecian frock of white Persian gauze, fastened up the front with silver filigree. The bottom was trimmed with a deep flounce of Vandyke lace. Everything she had on had been culled from all their wardrobes at the confectioner’s. The gown was Josephine’s, and the pearls around her neck belonged to Charlotte. They were Charlotte’s most prized possession and the very last valuable thing she owned, all the rest having been sold. The silk flowers in Henrietta’s glossy hair had been saved by Miss Hissop for twenty years and, unlike most of that poor lady’s belongings, were as good as new, Miss Hissop having had to wear caps since her twenty-third birthday as befitted her spinster state.
The earl had ordered his servants to carry the food in after the guests were all in the dining room. He did not want anything to detract from the centerpiece.
The clock struck twelve.
Two liveried footmen opened the double doors.
The Earl of Carrisdowne entered with a beautiful lady on his arm. Behind him came the rest of his guests. They clustered around the centerpiece, exclaiming in wonder and admiration.
But Henrietta heard none of it. There was a queer little ache at her heart as she watched the earl’s handsome head next to the calm oval face of the beautiful woman. Who was she?
Not, thought Henrietta firmly, that I have a tendre for Carrisdowne or anything stupid like that. It is just… it is just that it would be wonderful to belong somewhere, instead of being a sort of strange social animal on the fringes of society.
Servants began carrying in dishes of meat, fruit, sweetmeats, and jellies. Henrietta’s stomach gave a miserable rumble. She had been too excited to eat anything before leaving the shop.
Mr. Clifford and Lord Charles were surrounded by a bevy of delightful-looking debutantes. “And how can I tell either Josephine or Charlotte that?” worried Henrietta.
Henri
etta sat as still as a statue in a dark corner of the room, partly hidden by a lacquered screen. The earl appeared to have forgotten her presence.
Henrietta would have been amazed had she known that he was aware of her presence during every minute of that supper.
Time dragged on. Henrietta wished she had not come.
Then finally the earl rose to his feet and proposed a toast to the King, the Prince Regent, and to the Duke of Wellington. He signaled to a servant to fill his glass again and said, “My final toast of the evening is to the genius of Miss Bascombe, who created the centerpiece. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you… Miss Henrietta Bascombe.”
“Miss Henrietta Bascombe,” they all murmured.
Lord Charles, following his brother’s gaze, cried, “Why, there she is, over in that corner!”
Henrietta blushed with embarrassment and hung her head as every curious eye in the room turned in her direction.
The beautiful lady seated next to the earl broke the silence that followed Lord Charles’s announcement.
“Well, it is for eating, isn’t it?” she demanded.
“Lady Clara, it is much too beautiful to touch,” protested Mr. Clifford.
“Nonsense,” said Lady Clara. She rose gracefully to her feet and walked over to the centerpiece. “See!” she cried, picking up the Duke of Wellington. “I shall let you all know if our Iron Duke tastes of iron or sugar.” She bit off the little figure’s head.
Almost everyone laughed, got to his or her feet and started snatching at pieces of the confection.
Lady Clara who? thought Henrietta. Miss Hissop will know.
Henrietta, sensing that the people in the room had forgotten her existence once more, felt more at ease than she had earlier. She carefully observed Lord Charles and Mr. Clifford. They did not seem at all interested in any of the ladies present. They had not rushed to help destroy the centerpiece, nor had the earl. Of course, this was not really seeing society at its best, thought Henrietta charitably. A great number of them, the ladies as well as the gentlemen, were in varying stages of intoxication. And why should she, Henrietta Bascombe, take such a fierce dislike to that Lady Clara?
