Enlightening Delilah

by Beaton, M. C.

  M. C. Beaton is the author of the hugely successful Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth series, as well as a quartet of Edwardian murder mysteries featuring heroine Lady Rose Summer, the Travelling Matchmaker and Six Sisters Regency romance series, and a stand-alone murder mystery, The Skeleton in the Closet – all published by Constable & Robinson. She left a full-time career in journalism to turn to writing, and now divides her time between the Cotswolds and Paris. Visit www.agatharaisin.com for more.

  Praise for the School for Manners series:

  ‘[Beaton] displays a fine touch in creating an amusing set of calamities in her latest piece of frivolous fiction.’

  Booklist

  ‘The Tribbles, with their salty exchanges and impossible schemes, provide delightful entertainment.’

  Publishers Weekly

  ‘[M. C. Beaton] again charms and delights; a bonbon for those partial to Regency romances.’

  Kirkus

  ‘The Tribbles are charmers . . . Very highly recommended.’

  Library Journal

  Titles by M. C. Beaton

  The School for Manners

  Refining Felicity • Perfecting Fiona • Enlightening Delilah

  Animating Maria • Finessing Clarissa • Marrying Harriet

  The Six Sisters

  Minerva • The Taming of Annabelle • Deirdre and Desire

  Daphne • Diana the Huntress • Frederica in Fashion

  The Edwardian Murder Mystery series

  Snobbery with Violence • Hasty Death • Sick of Shadows

  Our Lady of Pain

  The Travelling Matchmaker series

  Emily Goes to Exeter • Belinda Goes to Bath • Penelope Goes to Portsmouth

  Beatrice Goes to Brighton • Deborah Goes to Dover • Yvonne Goes to York

  The Agatha Raisin series

  Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death • Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet

  Agatha Raisin and the Potted Gardener • Agatha Raisin and the Walkers of Dembley

  Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage • Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist

  Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death • Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham

  Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden

  Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam • Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell

  Agatha Raisin and the Day the Floods Came

  Agatha Raisin and the Curious Curate • Agatha Raisin and the Haunted House

  Agatha Raisin and the Deadly Dance • Agatha Raisin and the Perfect Paragon

  Agatha Raisin and Love, Lies and Liquor

  Agatha Raisin and Kissing Christmas Goodbye

  Agatha Raisin and a Spoonful of Poison • Agatha Raisin: There Goes the Bride

  Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body • Agatha Raisin: As the Pig Turns

  The Hamish Macbeth series

  Death of a Gossip • Death of a Cad • Death of an Outsider

  Death of a Perfect Wife • Death of a Hussy • Death of a Snob

  Death of a Prankster • Death of a Glutton • Death of a Travelling Man

  Death of a Charming Man • Death of a Nag • Death of a Macho Man

  Death of a Dentist • Death of a Scriptwriter • Death of an Addict

  A Highland Christmas • Death of a Dustman • Death of a Celebrity

  Death of a Village • Death of a Poison Pen • Death of a Bore

  Death of a Dreamer • Death of a Maid • Death of a Gentle Lady

  Death of a Witch • Death of a Valentine • Death of a Sweep

  Death of a Kingfisher

  The Skeleton in the Closet

  Constable & Robinson Ltd

  55–56 Russell Square

  London WC1B 4HP

  www.constablerobinson.com

  First published in the US by St Martin’s Press, 1989

  This paperback edition published by Canvas,

  an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2012

  Copyright © M. C. Beaton, 1989

  The right of M. C. Beaton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in

  Publication Data is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-1-78033-314-4 (paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-78033-469-1 (ebook)

  Typeset by TW Typesetting, Plymouth, Devon

  Printed and bound in the UK

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  1

  There is great happiness in the country, but it requires a visit to London every year to reassure yourself of this truth.

  Sydney Smith

  ‘Going up to town, m’dear,’ said Squire Simon Wraxall.

  His daughter, Delilah, looked at him, startled. ‘But you never go to London, Papa. You hate it.’

  ‘Pressing business,’ mumbled the squire, picking up his newspaper and barricading himself behind it.

  The couple were seated over breakfast in their comfortable country mansion. Early autumn sunshine shone through the diamond-shaped panes of the latticed windows and sparkled on the silver on the table. The coffee urn on the sideboard hissed like a cat. A fire crackled in the hearth.

  ‘Is it something to do with that letter from London you have just received?’ asked Delilah.

  ‘Eh, what?’ said the squire. ‘Yes, yes. That’s it.’

  ‘And who was the letter from?’

  ‘Fellow about phosphates. That lower field down by the river is in bad heart.’

  ‘Put down that newspaper,’ commanded his daughter imperiously.

  The squire reluctantly lowered the newspaper. He looked shifty. Delilah studied him for some moments, and then said, ‘I don’t mind, you know. Mama has been dead for some time. I suppose it was only to be expected.’

  ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said the squire, looking puzzled.

  ‘Do not tease me, Papa. That letter was addressed in a very feminine hand. Moreover, it smelled of scent. If you have a lady in London in whom you are interested, then I quite understand.’

  ‘I am not interested in any woman,’ howled the squire. ‘Mind your own business, Delilah. That’s the trouble with women, always gossiping and poking their noses into things that don’t concern them.’

  ‘Pooh! I am like a clam compared to you. You are a terrible old gossip. Still, if you wish to keep your guilty secret to yourself, then so be it.’

  She looked at her father hopefully, but he merely said, ‘Good,’ and raised his newspaper again.

  A small frown marred the alabaster white of Delilah’s brow. She rose and helped herself to another cup of coffee and sat down and began to wonder how she would feel with a stepmother. It took her very little time to decide she would not like it at all.

  Despite her startling beauty, Delilah Wraxall was twenty-three and still unwed. It was not through lack of opportunity. She had received many proposals of marriage and had turned them all down. She assumed herself to be content with her life. She ran her father’s home efficiently. He was very rich and so she could command the latest fashions from London and every trinket her
heart desired.

  Her father put down the newspaper and got to his feet. ‘Better be off,’ he said.

  ‘Won’t you tell me who she is?’ asked Delilah.

  ‘Now stop that nonsense,’ he growled, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. ‘Only be away a few days.’ He strode out of the room and Delilah heard him calling for his man, John, to bring down the luggage.

  The squire really did not think about women other than his daughter very much. Most women made him feel desperately shy. He had been devoted to his late wife, about whom his only complaint had been that she had insisted on calling their daughter Delilah. With a name like that, the squire often thought, one could only expect trouble. For Delilah Wraxall was a hardened flirt. Even at the great age of twenty-three, she was still stunningly beautiful with a white skin, jet black hair, and large hazel eyes fringed with silky lashes.

  There was a rumbling of wheels as the squire’s travelling carriage was brought round to the front of the house. Delilah went out onto the step and watched her father as he gave orders to the coachman.

  At the age of fifty, he was still a well-set-up man, six feet in height, and with a rather battered handsome face. His hair was snow-white but so thick and glossy that people often assumed it was a spun-glass wig. His eyes were very blue, wide and childlike.

  After he had driven off, Delilah went back indoors to put on a warm cloak. She would go for a walk and try to think what she was going to do should her father bring home a bride.

  As his carriage jolted along the road to London, the squire took out that letter and read it again. The Misses Tribble, twin sisters who claimed to be able to bring ‘difficult girls’ out at the Season and to find them husbands, had written to say they would grant him an interview. He had appealed to them in desperation after Delilah had turned down her last beau. It was not natural for such a beautiful girl as Delilah to remain unwed. The squire thought his neighbours blamed him for her unmarried state, believing him to be keeping her unmarried so as to have an unpaid housekeeper. He would have been very upset had he known that his neighbours all considered Delilah a terrible flirt, a minx, and pitied him accordingly.

  The squire was very much at ease in the country, particularly with his farm labourers and tenant farmers. He was passionately interested in all the latest innovations in agriculture and stock breeding. As Town approached, he began to feel like a country bumpkin. He was frightened of women. The fact that he was about to enter into a business arrangement with two of the creatures made him shudder. He wondered for the hundredth time what these Tribble sisters would be like, and for the hundredth time conjured up a picture of two mondaine, fashionably dressed ladies with hard stares and painted faces who would make him feel like a rustic.

  ‘In the name of a whoreson’s bastard, will you come downstairs or not?’ yelled Amy Tribble.

  Her sister, Effy, raised her hands to cover her ears. ‘Don’t swear and rant and shout, Amy,’ she said weakly. ‘I do not know why you cannot handle this matter yourself. He is only a country squire. I wrote the letter to tell him to come to London. You can surely do the rest.’

  ‘If he were a duke or a lord, you’d be knocking me over in your haste to get downstairs,’ said Amy. ‘It’s because he’s only a squire that you have decided it’s not worth your time. We were near starvation not so long ago, and could be again.’

  The Tribble sisters had indeed been on the verge of ruin before they, with the help of their nabob friend, Mr Haddon, had thought up a scheme to reform difficult girls and make them marriageable. So far, they had had two successes.

  The Tribbles were very different in manner and appearance. Amy was tall and bony and flat-chested with great hands and feet. She moved awkwardly and was forever falling over things. Effy was small and dainty with white hair, a pink-and-white complexion which was nearly all her own, and a neat figure.

  They were both rumoured to be in their early fifties. In an age when people did not live very long, Amy and Effy could be expected to be planning their funerals. But both still dreamt of marriage as they had dreamt of marriage down the loveless and spinster years. Behind the wrinkles and the fading eyesight, both had hearts as young as they had been when they were seventeen and trembling on the edge of the ballroom floor.

  They had become rivals for the affection of their old friend, Mr Haddon. He was to call at five in the afternoon, and Amy knew that that was also the reason Effy preferred to stay in her room with her hair in curl papers and cream on her face.

  ‘You are no support to me at all,’ said Amy, striding up and down the room. ‘You let me do all the work.’

  ‘That is not true,’ said Effy, and she began to cry. Amy should have known after all this time that her sister could cry at will, but for some reason Effy’s tears always made Amy feel like a brute.

  Amy stopped her pacing and looked at the clock. Nearly one! Squire Wraxall was due to arrive any minute. Amy cast a baffled look at her weeping sister and left the room.

  She went down to the drawing room. A housemaid was just finishing arranging bowls of chrysanthemums. Amy shuddered. Chrysanthemums were a new flower, recently imported for the first time and therefore considered fashionable, but Amy thought they smelled of autumn. Another autumn. Another year nearer the grave.

  The clocks were just chiming one o’clock when she heard a tattoo sounding on the street door knocker. She smoothed down her silk gown and adjusted her turban on her grey-streaked locks.

  After a few moments, the butler, Harris, threw open the door. ‘Mr Wraxall,’ he announced.

  Amy rose to meet the squire, tripping over a footstool as she walked forward, and regaining her balance by clutching hold of his sleeve. She blushed miserably and apologized and then indicated a chair by the fire. The squire sat down gingerly and Amy sat opposite.

  ‘I thank you for your letter, Mr Wraxall,’ said Amy. ‘I will need to ask you a few questions about your daughter.’

  Harris came in with the tea tray. Amy looked at the embarrassed and fidgeting squire and told Harris to take away the tea-things and bring in a decanter of the best port.

  ‘My daughter is a very beautiful girl,’ began the squire. ‘But she is not married. She is twenty-three.’

  ‘Does she have a good dowry?’ asked Amy.

  ‘Yes, very good, Miss Tribble.’

  ‘Has she had any offers of marriage?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Tribble. A great many.’

  ‘I assume, then,’ said Amy, ‘that she turned them all down. Why?’

  The squire looked at her miserably. He did not like to discuss his daughter with strangers.

  Amy looked at his blue eyes which were like the eyes of a troubled child. ‘This is so very hard for you, is it not?’ she said. ‘But, you see, I feel awkward myself. I am new to business and there always comes a point when I have to bring up the subject of money, and it makes me feel hot and prickly.’

  The squire studied her. He did not see Amy as she really was – a thin, gawky woman with a face like a horse; he saw only the concern in her eyes and admired her for her direct manner.

  He smiled suddenly and Amy blinked. That smile wiped away the years. She thought that Mr Wraxall must have been devastatingly handsome as a young man.

  ‘You drink your port,’ said Amy soothingly, ‘and I will outline what we do. Now, if the girl does not have the necessary accomplishments – by that I mean water-colouring, dancing, playing the pianoforte and so on – we hire tutors. Dress is no problem. We have a resident dressmaker, Yvette, who can make all the latest fashions. If the girl is too wild and unruly, we discipline her. If she is too shy, we train her in self-confidence. We teach the very necessary arts of flirting and conversation. We supply town bronze. You say your daughter is beautiful. Perhaps her head has been turned by too much attention?’

  ‘Not quite,’ said the squire.

  ‘Have another glass of port and take your time,’ said Amy.

  The room was sunny and warm and scented
pleasantly with the peppery smell of chrysanthemums mixed with wood smoke from the fire. There was a good landscape over the fireplace, a view of woods and trees, very like the squire’s beloved countryside. Amy was wearing a gown of some dull stuff, but she had a magnificent Kashmir shawl draped about her shoulders, its scarlets and golds adding a touch of barbaric colour. A backless sofa was the one concession to modernity. The chair in which the squire sat had been made in the reign of George II, when mahogany was still a newly discovered wood. It was very comfortable and big enough for his large frame. The other furniture was a pleasing mixture of styles. Each piece had obviously been put there because it was liked, rather than to follow the fashion of having a whole room done out in one of the latest crazes. The Egyptian mode, for example, often led the squire to think the Egyptians must have had a very uncomfortable time of it.

  He could feel the tension going out of his body. There was nothing to be afraid of here. He owed it to Delilah to do the best for her.

  ‘This is difficult,’ he said, ‘but I will do my best. Delilah was not always thus. I must tell you plain she has become a flirt. When she was seventeen, she was happy, gentle, and kind. She fell in love with a neighbour of mine, Sir Charles Digby, a baronet. Sir Charles was, is, a trifle too old for her. Or so it seemed then. He was twenty-eight. Delilah was very much in love with him. I was uneasy about it, for Sir Charles was very polished, very elegant, and rather haughty and cold. But I admit it all seemed very suitable. He was rich, handsome, his land bordered mine.’

  ‘You say “was”,’ prompted Amy. ‘Did he die?’

  ‘Worse than that,’ said the squire. ‘He went up to London. Delilah told me he would call on his return and ask leave to pay his addresses. He returned – in uniform. It was at the height of another scare about Napoleon invading Britain. He called to see me, but not to ask me if he could marry Delilah, but to say goodbye. I suggested he could serve his country just as well by joining one of the volunteer regiments, a part-time soldier, so to speak, but he said he had already made arrangements for his land to be looked after by a steward. I tried to broach the subject of Delilah, saying I thought there was an understanding there. He was icily surprised. He even went so far as to suggest Delilah had been reading too many romances. So off he went. When I told Delilah, she did not say much, but for weeks she was very silent and sad and I feared she would fall ill. I roused myself to take her to balls and assemblies. We may be in the heart of the countryside, but a great deal of entertaining goes on, particularly at the great houses in winter. She began to flirt, at first a little, then a lot. And so it went on. She gained a reputation, but with her beauty, men kept falling in love with her and putting the rumours about her down to jealousy on the part of less fortunate females. If I could be persuaded that her character had changed so much that she had become hard and unfeeling, I would not mind so much. But I am sure she is not happy. That is why I have decided to put her in your care. I know it is a long time until the next Season, but there is the Little Season almost upon us. Do you think you can do anything with her?’