by M. C. Beaton
“You must not trouble yourself,” said Miss Sinclair. “I shall take it with me.”
“No, no,” said Miss Simpkin, pushing her toward the door with surprising force. “I shall bring it to you.”
When she had gone, Miss Simpkin took down the green glass bottle, poured a large spoonful into a teacup, and then added the tea, which was strong and dark in color.
Nanny Evans cackled again.
Lord Charles entered the ballroom with Emily on his arm. Emily had merely told him that Patricia had refused her help. She felt it would not be ladylike to criticize Miss Patricia to her guardian.
To her disappointment, Lord Charles bowed and left her before the next dance had even started.
Lord Charles made his way around the room, looking for Patricia. The ballroom was very crowded. There were children playing among the feet of the guests. There were elderly couples sitting in corners, talking to their friends Young country bucks were ogling pretty girls, and there was a sprinkling of scarlet coats showing that a regiment was billeted nearby.
It took Lord Charles some time to realize there was no sign of either Patricia or the young captain who had taken her in for supper.
The assembly was held in the ballroom of Barminster’s best inn. Lord Charles searched all the anterooms and even the cloakrooms set aside for the ladies. No Patricia.
Anxious to avert any scandal and convinced now that she was dallying in the courtyard outside with her military gallant, Lord Charles decided to go outside and look for them himself.
There had been a fresh shower of snow during the evening, but once more the sky was clear and a bright moon shone down on the sparkling courtyard. Unlike at a London ball, guests at a country assembly came at the beginning and left at the very end. The ostlers, grooms, and coachmen were all snug in the tap.
Only two pairs of footprints marred the pristine white of the snow, one set made by a woman with small feet wearing slippers, the other by a man wearing dancing pumps. Lord Charles followed the trail through the silent night streets of Barminster. At times the prints were crossed and recrossed by other steps, but there were so few people abroad it was easy to follow the original prints.
At one stage, the prints disappeared altogether, or so he thought. He stood, puzzled, looking this way and that. A link boy passed with his torch on the other side of the street under the overhanging eaves of the old buildings, and Lord Charles saw the prints again, on the opposite side of the street. The marks on the road itself had been blurred by passing carts and carriages.
He followed them down a mean, narrow sidestreet as far as the door of a sleazy-looking inn. There were loud voices and coarse laughter coming from the tap. He hesitated only for a moment, wishing he had his cloak to cover his jewels and evening finery, before going into the inn.
There was a small dark hall with the door to the tap on one side and the door to the coffee room on the other. Straight ahead was a rickety flight of stairs.
The open door of the coffee room showed it to be deserted. Patricia would hardly be in the tap and in such company. A voice was raised in a bawdy song.
Lord Charles began to mount the stairs.
Everything had seemed like a marvelous adventure to Patricia, until she reached the outside of the inn.
“Does it have to be here?” she asked, drawing back a little. “It looks very dirty.”
“Only for one night,” said Captain Peter Oxford. “I’ll move you to somewhere better tomorrow, but the big hunt will be on tonight. The landlord here will never give us away. I’ll pay him well to keep his mouth shut.”
For one moment, Patricia thought of turning around and running away. But then she remembered that smacking, and set her lips in a firm line and let the captain usher her into the hallway.
“You stay here,” said the captain. “Be back in a moment.”
Patricia waited anxiously, listening to the loud voices in the tap. Fortunately, she did not have to wait long. The captain came out of the tap brandishing a large key and with two bottles of brandy under his arm.
“All set,” he said cheerfully. “We’ve got a room.”
Patricia stumbled up the dark stair after him. He groped around until he found the keyhole, and then led her into a room barred with moonlight from the curtainless window.
He kicked the door shut behind them and after several fumblings and scrapings with his tinderbox managed to light a candle.
The room was very bare. There was a large bed in one corner without curtains or canopy, a deal table, and two chairs. A fire was laid in the grate which the captain lit.
He then pulled two thick tumblers out of his pockets.
“We cannot stay here together,” said Patricia, shivering. “We are not married yet.”
“It’s only for one night,” said the captain, tossing his hat on the bed. “Nobody will know we’ve been here and the landlord won’t talk.”
“But we cannot share a bed.”
He looked at her impatiently. “You sleep in it, and I’ll lie on top of the cover.” He poured himself a large tumbler of brandy, tossed it off, and then poured himself another.
To add to her troubles, Patricia realized she was in a certain amount of physical discomfort.
“I am afraid I must… I have to… oh, I cannot explain.”
“What?”
“I have to… you know.”
“There’s a chamberpot under the bed.”
“Sir!”
“Very well. It’s downstairs and out through the back, in the yard.”
“But what if I meet some of those terrible men from the tap?”
“You won’t. They go out in the street.” He poured himself another glass of brandy.
Patricia lit another candle and made her way downstairs and into the freezing cold of the yard.
She knew now she could not go through with it. She would tell him so as soon as she got back upstairs, and then make her escape. She did not know what excuse she was going to give Lord Charles for her absence, but she was sure she would be able to think of something before she saw him again.
She hurried up the stairs again, quickening her step as she heard the sound of voices below.
She let herself into the bedroom and then stood appalled. She had not been away very long, but in that short time the captain had taken off all his clothes, fallen naked on the bed over next to the wall, and gone to sleep; or more likely, thought Patricia looking at the remains of the brandy, passed out.
She gave a shocked squeak and averted her eyes from his naked body.
She would just need to leave without speaking to him.
But, as she went down the stairs, three men emerged from the tap, all very drunk. She shrank back into the shadow of the staircase.
The captain simply must wake up, must help her.
Patricia retreated back into the room.
Fresh air. That was the thing. She opened the window and let a blast of icy air into the room.
Then, half-closing her eyes, she crossed to the bed and seized one naked shoulder and shook hard.
“Wake up!” she said. “Oh, please wake up.”
But Captain Oxford had had a great deal to drink before he even went to the ball and much more at it. He was one of those young men who can drink much and appear sober for some hours before collapsing, suddenly and dramatically, dead drunk.
Patricia seized the water jug and poured the contents over the captain.
He leaped out of bed shouting a string of oaths.
“You must get me out of here!” screamed Patricia.
He looked at her in a dazed way, looked at his naked body, stretched out his arms, and said, “Darling, you were wonderful.”
“You’re drunk!” raged Patricia. “We never did anything. Oh, get your clothes on.”
He stood staring at her stupidly, rocking backward and forward on the balls of his feet.
There came the sound of someone mounting the stairs. Patricia whirled about, ran to t
he door, and turned the key in the lock.
“Patricia!” came Lord Charles’s voice.
“What have I done?” she whispered. “He’ll kill us.”
“Who… he?” demanded the captain, blinking like an owl.
“Get your clothes on,” said Patricia desperately, as an angry fist started pounding at the door.
Like a man moving in a dream, he pulled on his shirt and drawers and stockings.
“Oh, hurry,” said Patricia, ashen with fright.
“Breeches. Where?” demanded the captain, looking about the room.
“Here!” Patricia picked them up. “I will help you. Get them on.”
He sat down in a chair and pulled on his breeches and then stood up with them at half mast.
Patricia seized the Inexpressibles and tried to pull them up around his waist.
“My sweet,” murmured the captain drunkenly, kissing the back of her neck.
With a terrible crack the lock splintered and the door flew wide.
The scene that met Lord Charles’s eyes was worse than anything he had anticipated. Patricia appeared to be fumbling with the captain’s breeches while he kissed the back of her neck.
All in that moment, the captain looked up. He saw the naked fury in Lord Charles’s eyes, saw his fist come up, and sobered in an instant.
He turned and made a flying leap through the window.
Patricia ran and looked out. The captain was lying on his back in the snow, staring up in an amazed way at the moon. Then, as Lord Charles dragged Patricia aside and looked out himself, the captain staggered to his feet and lurched off into the darkness.
Lord Charles left the window to run down the stairs, but his way was blocked by the burly landlord who was clutching a cudgel.
“Break my property, would ’ee?” he said. His eyes fastened on Lord Charles’s diamonds and a look of pure greed lit up his eyes.
He lumbered forward, raising the cudgel. Lord Charles sprang nimbly to one side as the cudgel came down, whirled about, and drove his fist hard into the landlord’s face. The landlord sat down with a surprised grunt.
Lord Charles seized Patricia roughly by the arm. “Come, you slut… jade… slut!” He dragged her down the stairs, shouldering his way past a group of men who had gathered at the bottom, and then hauled her out into the night.
“I have left my mantle,” said Patricia, shivering with cold and fright.
“That is not all you have left,” he said grimly. “Was ever a man so plagued?”
She tried to escape him, but he twisted her arm behind her back and hustled her along in the direction of the assembly.
Once there, he rousted his coachman and grooms out of the tap, still holding firmly on to Patricia. He held her while the coach was being brought around, and then he wrenched open the door and threw her inside.
“You are ruined!” he said savagely. “Do you realize that?”
“Nothing happened,” said Patricia, scared but defiant. “We are to be married.”
“No, you are not. What is his name? I shall see that young man’s commanding officer in the morning.”
Patricia set her lips in a mutinous line. She had not known until the last moments that the captain was drunk. She felt responsible for his mad behavior. She felt a stubborn loyalty toward the foolish young officer.
“We shall go into this matter further,” grated Lord Charles.
It was a miserable journey home for Patricia. She felt cold and wretched. Her rosy, wine-induced dream of freedom had gone. She felt guilty, she felt dirty and soiled. Since the weight of guilt was almost too much to bear, she alleviated it by hating Lord Charles the more. If he had not humiliated her, it would never have happened.
He had erupted into her happy, sunny, carefree life and torn it apart. She would never forgive him.
Lord Charles sat gloomily beside her, wondering what on earth to do. He would go see the commanding officer in the morning. Would the young man keep quiet about the affair, or would he need to be paid to keep his mouth shut? But what if the wretched Patricia was pregnant?
Then he thought of Miss Sinclair and heaved a sigh of relief. He was sure she would know exactly what to do.
Lord Charles did not believe in servants working all hours of the night simply because their master was out enjoying himself. He had told Firkin that none of the servants need wake up.
He led Patricia up to her room and locked her in. He then went in search of Miss Sinclair whose room, he was sure, was off the landing between the floor he was on and the floor above. She had made a passing reference to the fact that her room was neither on the family floor nor upstairs on the servants’ floor, but tactfully somewhere in between.
Sure enough, there was a polished wood door on a half landing.
He tapped gently on it. “Miss Sinclair!” he called.
He tried again and again. Miss Sinclair was obviously a heavy sleeper.
He was too worried and anxious, too much in need of some sensible advice, to think of rousing a female servant to open Miss Sinclair’s door and investigate.
He gently turned the handle and went in. He saw a dim figure on the bed and called again. The figure did not move.
Worried in case the governess might be ill, he lit a candle and held it up.
Miss Sinclair was lying fully clothed on the bed. Her mouth was hanging open and she was snoring.
Alarmed, he shook her shoulder. Her eyes slowly opened and she looked up at him. “Charles, my love,” she said in a slurred voice, and then fell asleep again.
“Drunk!” muttered Lord Charles, feeling as if his last prop had been knocked out from under him.
He was suddenly very tired. He blew out the candle and went slowly down to his own room.
Women!
A whole household of useless, senseless women! He clutched his hair in despair.
Something had to be done about Patricia.
The next day, the nightmare continued for Patricia. Lord Charles returned with the commanding officer of the regiment and together they questioned her. She bravely admitted to being drunk. She said she did not know the name of the officer, only that he had said he was a captain. The guest list of the assembly had already been checked by Lord Charles, who had found to his despair that a simple invitation had gone out to the commanding officer inviting himself and fifteen of his officers. “Then let the fifteen be brought before me,” Lord Charles had demanded, sure that he would recognize Patricia’s officer when he saw him. But the fifteen had all been the worse for wear, and at least seven of them were tall with brown hair. All denied having danced or dined with Patricia. Looking at their faces, and seeing the occasional sly glances exchanged between them, Lord Charles had come to the conclusion that they were banding together to protect the culprit. Now, from the commanding officer’s embarrassed face and half-hearted questions, Lord Charles knew he did not really want to get one of his men into trouble.
So the problem of what to do with Patricia remained.
Miss Sinclair had to find out from Patricia herself what had happened. To her amazement, Lord Charles showed no sign of asking her advice. Feeling slightly groggy and wondering why she had slept so heavily—and with her clothes on, too!—Miss Sinclair could not enjoy Patricia’s disgrace since it had not encouraged Lord Charles to seek her, Miss Sinclair, out.
Orders came up to the schoolroom that in future Patricia was to have her meals in the nursery and was not to be allowed downstairs.
Miss Sinclair brightened. Rosy fantasies of intimate meals with Lord Charles floated through her head. She presented herself in her best brown silk in the drawing room half an hour before dinner. No Lord Charles. On hearing the dinner bell, she went through to the dining room. Lord Charles was just about to sit down at table. He looked at her with an expression of surprise, mixed with faint distaste.
“Miss Sinclair,” he said, “I thought I made it clear that Miss Patricia was to take her meals in the nursery.”
“Bu
t, my lord, I did not think you meant me as well,” Miss Sinclair blurted out.
He looked at her thoughtfully and she turned scarlet.
Then he picked up his knife and fork and began to eat.
Stammering apologies, Miss Sinclair backed out of the room. She shared a silent meal in the nursery.
Miss Simpkin felt her beloved Patricia’s disgrace keenly. She had tried to romanticize the whole thing, but Patricia had snapped at her that she did not want to think about that disgraceful evening.
Miss Sinclair was just about to retire to bed when Firkin came up to say my lord wished to see her in the drawing room. Hope sprang in her bosom again. She ran so quickly downstairs, she was pink and breathless when she at last stood before Lord Charles.
“Before I begin to discuss the problem of Patricia,” he said, “I think we had better discuss your problem.”
“My problem, my lord?”
“I was so worried that I went to your room last night. You were asleep fully clothed.”
Miss Sinclair hung her head. “I must have been very tired. I remember having a cup of tea, and then nothing afterward.”
“Do you drink to excess?”
“No! Never!”
Her shock was very real. He studied her face. She certainly showed no physical signs of hard drinking.
“Well, to Patricia. The assemblies in Barminster are organized by a committee of local ladies—a miniature Almack’s, in fact. The chief organizer is Lady Clitheroe, wife of a local squire. Now it seems that Patricia’s name was neatly embroidered on the inside of her mantle. The ruffian who owns the inn where I found Patricia visited Lady Clitheroe today, brandishing the mantle and demanding to know Patricia’s address, leering and saying that the young lady had gone to one of his rooms with a soldier and would no doubt pay well for his silence. He had earlier sworn to the authorities he did not know the name of the soldier. Lady Clitheroe, quite rightly, told him she would turn him over to the local magistrate for attempting to extract money with menaces. The landlord fled and the inn is now closed. It is by way of being a thieves’ kitchen and the landlord has been skillful in the past at absenting himself from the town at the first sign of trouble. Why the place is not closed down… Never mind.
