by M C Beaton
“So little Henrietta will marry for love,” he teased, while Henrietta stared mesmerised at their joined hands and felt about to faint from an excess of emotion. “Well, some fellow will indeed be lucky. I declare you grow prettier each day.”
He twisted his head to look at her. In the flickering light of the candle, Henrietta’s eyes looked enormous and her heavy hair spilled over her shoulders in a shining, golden cloud.
Their eyes met and held, tawny eyes staring into hazel ones with an intent, troubled, searching stare. Lord Reckford gave himself a slight shake and asked, “What on earth were you laughing about this evening?”
Henrietta told him all about the Belding nose and, to her relief, the Beau began to laugh. Then they both began to laugh wholeheartedly, the elegant Beau and the vicar’s sister, till the tears ran down their cheeks.
“This is ridiculous,” finally gasped Lord Reckford. “I must leave. I have a feeling that nothing will happen to disturb you tonight.” Poor Henrietta decided that she had never felt so disturbed in all her life. Lord Reckford blew out the candle, left the bed and slipped noiselessly into his clothes. Henrietta lay rigid, with her eyes closed tight. She felt a shape looming over her, a light kiss was dropped on her cheek… and he was gone. Long into the night, Henrietta lay awake, thinking how hopeless was the idea of Lord Reckford falling in love with her. For all Lord Reckford cared, thought Henrietta, he could have been sharing a bed with… with… a young brother!
She would have been reassured had she known that Lord Reckford had passed an equally troubled night. Only when he had reached his own bedchamber and felt his head swimming did he realize he had drunk far too much at dinner. He poured a pitcher of cold water over his head and felt worse. He could not explain his strange behavior, even to himself. He should have quit the girl’s chamber as soon as he had found her in bed.
But he had never been on such easy, friendly terms with a young lady… a respectable young lady before and at the time, he had not felt at all strange or embarrassed.
To his relief, when he met Henrietta at the breakfast table, she had merely given him a placid smile and commented that it was a fine day for their return to London.
Miss Scattersworth fluttered in still in all the glory of transparent muslin. She was wearing one of the new scanty petticoats beneath it. Everyone, with the exception of Sir Percival, hurriedly stared at their plates. Henrietta sighed. She really must tell Miss Mattie that her mode of dress was unsuitable and do it in such a way as not to hurt the elderly spinster’s feelings. Fortunately for her and unfortunately for Miss Mattie, Henrietta was spared that distasteful task.
Sir Percival was conveying Miss Mattie in his open carriage to the house in Brook Street. As his horses picked their way disdainfully through a poorer quarter of the city, some street urchins began to point and stare at Miss Mattie. “Cor… look at ’er. Hey, missus, we kin see everythin’ wot you ’as got.” This was followed by a stream of insult, mercifully for Miss Mattie in too broad a cant for her to understand, but Sir Percival went red to the ears and told her in a brusk voice to “cover herself up.”
Miss Mattie descended from the carriage and went in to the house in Brook Street after a subdued farewell to Sir Percival. But her ordeal was not over. She threw down her wraps in the hall and went in to the drawingroom… and presented herself in her full glory to the scandalized gaze of the curate, Mr. John Symes. The curate got to his feet and addressed a Buhl cabinet in the corner of the room.
“I did not realize it was so late, Miss Scattersworth. I only stayed to have a word with the vicar.”
“He will be here directly,” pleaded Miss Mattie. “Do allow me to offer you some refreshment Some tea…”
She broke off in confusion as the curate sidled to the door, his eyes still fixed on the cabinet. “No, indeed. So kind must leave… so kind.” His groping hand found the door knob and with an audible gasp of relief, he flung open the door and scuttled off across the hall and out into the safety of the street.
Henrietta found Miss Mattie in floods of tears. “I am a shameless woman,” she sobbed, flinging herself down on a hard unyielding sofa. “Mr. Symes would not even look at me.”
“Well, my dear, it is perhaps too outré a mode for you.”
“I know, I know,” sobbed the broken-hearted Mattie. “But… but Sir Percival seemed to like dashing women. Alas, I have thrown myself away on a man who is nothing more than an elderly roué.”
Henrietta sighed. “Believe me, when Mr. Symes next sees you looking your usual self, he will forget all about it. Or better still, tell him there was an accident to your trunk and your clothes were ruined and that one of the ladies of the party who was of your size lent you that dress.”
Mattie’s tears fled like magic. “I never did really care for Sir Percival,” she said shyly. “I was merely dazzled by his worldly manner.”
“Let us both forget the visit to Lady Haddington’s. Too many unpleasant things happened there.”
But try as she would, Henrietta could not banish the memory of that awful face among the trees or Lord Reckford’s bewildering lack of embarrassment when he had shared her bed.
***
The other members of the late house party were also chewing over their visit to Lady Haddington in their respective homes.
Mr. Edmund Ralston and his mother were sitting in their elegant drawing room. Mrs. Ralston eyed her exquisite son with a shrewd, hard and calculating look which changed like quicksilver to one of pure maternal affection when her son looked across at her. Her body, which had appeared rigid and masculine a moment before, seemed to lose its muscles and bones and become soft and vulnerable.
“You owe it to me, Edmund, you really do,” sniffed Mrs. Ralston. “Are you to be wed or no? Have you considered my delicate nerves—my sensibilities. To have to live with a madwoman?”
The pale green eyes of her son opened wide in surprise. “But I must marry, Henrietta, mama. She has my money. And I want my money.”
Mrs. Ralston shifted uncomfortably on her seat. Sometimes, she found herself wondering if her precious son were quite sane. At that moment, a stray beam of sunlight shone like a halo on Edmund’s golden curls as he still stared wide-eyed at his mother. The look of maternal love became genuine. Mrs. Ralston sighed. She could never resist her son’s wide-eyed appeal. “If you want her why, then you shall have her,” she promised; Edmund gave her a seraphic smile. Mama would see that everything was all right. She always had, from his first rocking horse to his membership of the exclusive White’s Club in St. James.
***
Alice Belding’s admirers would have been hard put to recognize her. Her pretty face was contorted with fury, her hair was dishevelled and her voice was strident as she berated her mother. Few but her servants would have recognized the proud and domineering Lady Belding as she cringed like a schoolgirl before her irate daughter.
“Can’t you do anything,” screamed Alice, pacing up and down the saloon of their town house. “Lord Reckford is going to marry that fat nobody from the vicarage unless you put a stop to it. I thought I had made myself plain. I want to be my Lady Reckford and if you do not do something about it quickly, I shall… I shall kill myself.”
“My dear,” said her mother in a faltering voice. “My dear, dear child. You know I am only doing my best…”
“Your best is not good enough, ma’am,” snapped her angry daughter, stopping her pacing and coming to a stop before her agitated parent. “You never do anything, you silly old frump. You—” Suddenly Alice’s stormy furious face changed in the twinkling of an eye and she sank to the floor beside her mother’s chair and twined her arms around the anxious woman’s waist. With a melting expression, she looked up at her mother. “Please, mama,” she said in a little-girl voice. “You must get Lord Reckford for me. You really must. Don’t let howwid Henrietta take him away from your Alice.”
Lady Belding clasped her daughter tightly, her severe patrician features softened wi
th love. “Leave everything to mama.” she said grimly. “I shall do everything in my power to put a curb on Henrietta Sandford’s ambitions.”
***
Henry Sandford was tooling his curricle at a smart pace along the Nethercote Road. Beside him sat his curate, Mr. John Symes, who seemed more than ever cowed and subdued.
“Well, have you nothing to say for yourself?” snapped Henry, finally becoming annoyed by his partner’s silence. “I declare I have worries enough about my sister’s state of mind without having you go into the sulks.” The curate raised a faint murmur of protest but was drowned out by his more voluble superior. “She must get rid of that peculiar companion of hers for a start. You should have seen her dress. Disgraceful! Utterly disgraceful! Miss Mattie Scattersworth indeed!”
“I don’t think Miss Scattersworth meant any harm by it,” ventured Mr. Symes timidly. “It was extreme perhaps but I think poor Miss Scattersworth was only trying to follow current fashion. When she comes to her senses—”
“Pah! That one will never come to her senses. Nor my poor sister either. You should have heard her laughing last night. Wild maniacal laughter for no reason at all! I am all concern for my sister as you know, John. She has not the stability of mind to be in charge of such a great fortune. Not that she has been ungenerous. By no means!”
“No, indeed,” said Mr. Symes feverently. “Her munificence… her donations to the poor are all that is marvellous.”
“Well, well… there is much in what you say, my dear John, but you know we do hold opposing points of view. I do not consider it anyone’s duty to help the poor. Poverty is a disease. They’re simply lazy, mark my words. Poverty, indeed! Nothing up with them that a good day’s work wouldn’t cure,” said the vicar forgetting that most of his tennants worked long and hard hours each day and still did not have enough to keep body and soul together.
“But to return to the more interesting subject of my sister. When I return to town, I shall try to persuade her to see a doctor. I am sorry to leave you with so much of the parish work but blood is thicker than water.” Mr. Symes fought down a nasty, uncharitable thought that Henrietta’s blood must have been very thin indeed when she had no money.
***
Mr. Jeremy Holmes and Lord Reckford had repaired to the Cocoa Tree. That famous coffee house seemed to be packed to capacity but, for the moment, both were content to survey the scene around them. Suddenly Lord Reckford felt a hand tugging at his sleeve and turned round. A small, thin man was bending over him. He was tricked out in tarnished finery from the enormous silver buttons on his soup-stained velvet coat to the glittering rings of paste and pinchbeck which embellished his long, dirty, tapering fingers. “What is it?” demanded Lord Reckford, recoiling slightly from the sour-wine breath of the man.
“Would your lordship be prepared for to buy information relating to a certain young lady?”
“What young lady?” demanded the Beau, twisting round in his chair.
His friend, Mr. Holmes, unfortunately decided that Lord Reckford was being annoyed. “What’s going on? What’s your business, fellow?”
Heads began to turn for Mr. Holmes’ voice had carried to every corner of the room. The man gave a wild look round and then darted like an eel through the crowd and disappeared.
Lord Reckford swore. “Damme, Jeremy, the fellow had some information for me and you scared him off.”
Mr. Holmes looked contrite. “I’m truly sorry, Guy. Thought he was bothering you.”
“Now, I’ll never know what he had to tell me,” sighed the Beau. “Someone is playing dangerous and malicious tricks on Miss Sandford and I mean to find out who it is. Everyone looks suspicious… that terrible Mrs. Ralston and her peculiar son… Alice and her mother….”
“I would have you know that I shortly hope to have the honor of making Miss Belding my wife,” said Mr. Holmes stiffly.
“Never say she has accepted you?”
“And why not?” demanded Mr. Holmes. ‘Truth to say I have not yet had the courage to approach Lady Belding for her permission. But I am by no means a pauper and my line is as old as theirs.”
“Ah, but do you have the nose,” teased his lordship and then regaled his friend with the story of the Belding Nose.
Mr. Holmes laughed reluctantly. “All these old families have their idiosyncracies. But none of that makes my Alice any less fair.”
“She is an extremely beautiful girl,” agreed the Beau. “When I first met her, I must admit that I suspected she was spoiled and demanding. But her behaviour has been all that is nice of late and she has been an exceeding good friend to Henrietta.”
“There you are then,” exclaimed Mr. Holmes. “She would not harm Miss Sandford in any way. By the way, is the vicar’s sister shortly to realize her ambition?”
“Fustian!” drawled his lordship. “I am sure Miss Sandford had no such ambition. The idea that she wished to marry me was put about, I am sure, by that romantic companion of hers. Miss Sandford is like a sister to me. I think highly of her and enjoy her companionship and am intrigued by the mystery that surrounds her. That is all.”
Mr. Holmes was silent. With a delicacy and tact foreign to his usual forthright nature, he did not point out to his friend that the look in Henrietta’s eyes betokened anything but simple friendship.
He was roused from his reverie by his lordship’s asking, “Well, and when do you plan to propose to the fair Alice?”
“I am to call on Lady Belding at five o’clock. I hope my courage will not fail. I did not state my reasons for calling.”
The Beau’s harsh features softened as he surveyed the anxious expression on his friend’s cherubic countenance. “You look as fine as fivepence, Jeremy. I am sure you will soften even Lady Belding’s flinty heart.”
“My appearance won’t,” said his friend dryly. “But mayhap my fortune will.”
Nonetheless it was an unusually dithering and anxious Jeremy Holmes who presented himself at the Belding household. To his relief, the butler informed him that Lord Belding had come to town and was at present in the study.
This was better, thought Jeremy. He should not have to face the terrifying mother after all. Accordingly, he followed the butler to the study where he found Lord Belding fortifying himself from the brandy decanter.
Lord Belding did not share his wife’s aristocratic looks. Lady Belding was also his second cousin and had all the Belding aristocratic hauteur. Lord Belding looked, on the other hand, for all the world like a farmer. He had a round red face with white bushy eyebrows and a short stubby nose. He wore an old-fashioned bagwig and knee breeches. His pale, bulbous blood-shot eyes surveyed Mr. Holmes with surprise, taking in all the glory of his appearance from his pomaded curls to his shiny hessians and the lacings on his breeches.
“Well,” demanded Lord Belding finally. “What brings you here, Holmes?”
Jeremy eased a finger into his cravat. “I am come to ask your permission to pay my addresses to your daughter.”
“Oh, is that all,” said his lordship. “Thought you was goin’ to ask for money. Sit down, m’boy and take a glass with me.” Jeremy raised his hand to protest but Lord Belding had already seized the decanter and was pouring a liberal measure into a goblet. “Drink up, m’boy. I’ll send for Alice.” He gave the bellrope a massive tug and, when the butler appeared, instructed him to fetch Miss Alice directly, with so many nods and winks that the butler only gave one significant look at the decanter before departing on his errand.
“Well,” said Lord Belding raising his glass. “What yer waitin’ for. No heel taps.”
“No heel taps,” said Jeremy faintly, draining the massive goblet and feeling his head beginning to reel. Why, it must have held at least a pint! And he had had several glasses of madeira to fortify himself for his ordeal before he had even left his house.
He blinked to clear his head and then stumbled to his feet and he found himself confronted with the beautiful vision that was Alice Belding.
“Leave you two young things alone,” said Lord Belding with an awful leer, and lumbered towards the door. He nearly collided with his wife who stood majestically on the threshold, her bosom thrust forward like the figurehead on a frigate.
“Alice! What is going on here!” demanded Lady Belding.
“Why, mama, I know not,” said Alice, dimpling adorably.
“Holmes’s come to propose,” said Lord Belding.
“Nonsense!” said Lady Belding, seizing Alice by the arm. “I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous. My Alice marry a plain Mister! Come child. They have been been… drinking.”
She thrust her reluctant daughter from the room, leaving both men feeling extremely foolish. To her surprise, Lady Belding was subjected to one of her daughter’s worst fits of tantrums. Alice did not want to marry Mr. Holmes. But she felt that her mama could at least have given her an opportunity of breaking the young man’s heart.
Jeremy and Lord Belding found refuge from the weary world of women in the bottom of the decanter and two hours later, with unsteady gait and a head that felt as if it were stuffed full of gun cotton, Jeremy remembered that he was to attend a ball at the Duke of Westerland’s. With a groan, he weaved homewards to change.
***
Henrietta stood at the top of the staircase leading down into the ballroom at the Duke of Westerland’s magnificent town house… and blinked. She found herself looking down on a sea of silks and satins, feathers and jewels. Diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires dazzled and sparkled in the light. The smell of the ballroom compounded of flowers, scent, snuff, pomades and bear grease rose around her like incense. One of the lengthy, exhausting country dances had just come to an end as Henrietta descended the staircase with a much subdued and severely dressed Miss Mattie in her wake.
Heads began to turn in their direction and Henrietta felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Was there something odd about her appearance? She was dressed in a slim gown of burgundy crēpe cut low over the bosom. The full puffed sleeves were slashed to reveal silk insets and the gown fell in straight Empire lines to six deep flounces from knee to hem. Her fair hair was dressed à la Sappho, lending height to her slim figure. For Henrietta had finally achieved the sylph-like figure of her dreams. Her wide eyes sparkled with animation and, in all, she had never looked better. Heads nodded and voices whispered. The vicar’s sister had style!
