by M C Beaton
“I would rather hear it no matter what,” said Henrietta quietly.
Miss Mattie sighed. She began, “Remember I told you that Lucinda Braintree went off with the Marquis of Glenmorrison. Well, it seems that after a year, she had a hankering to see Beau Reckford and managed to get herself invited to a house party at which he was to be present. It was somewhere in Essex, I forget the name of the people. Anyway, it seemed as if the affair was to begin again. Lucinda certainly seemed eager enough but after a few days, Lord Reckford was obviously trying not to be alone in her company.
“Then one night, Lucinda could be heard sobbing and screaming in Lord Reckford’s bedroom. The following days, she avoided everyone, but could be seen walking and walking round the grounds with her dress muddy and her hair in a mess. Lord Reckford cut short his visit and returned to Town and afterwards she went completely berserk. She ran down the driveway after his carriage, cursing and screaming and he… he never even turned his head.
“Lucinda grew worse and worse and was finally committed to the madhouse.”
Henrietta heaved a sigh of relief. “Come now, Mattie, women don’t just turn mad over night.”
Miss Scattersworth looked at her doubtfully. She said, “But, my dear, I can see it all. Perhaps they were in a great Gothic castle with… well, you know… bats flying from the battlements and dead gnarled trees all over the park.
“‘I spurn you,’ says the handsome lord. ‘Have pity on me,’ she screams. ‘’Tis only you I love.’ ‘Away, woman,’ he snarls. And her poor mind becomes unhinged and…”
“Really, Mattie, if you go on in this strain I shall think that your mind has become unhinged. I shall forget about the whole business. After all, Lord Reckford has been a victim himself. Do you not remember when his staff was drugged and he was imprisoned in his room?”
Miss Mattie shook her brassy curls, “We have only his word for it. He could have made the whole thing up in order to worm his way into our confidence. Perhaps, I could investigate…”
“Enough!” cried Henrietta, getting to her feet. “Not another word. I am very grateful to you for your efforts, but please let the subject be forgotten.” She paused in the doorway but Miss Mattie was engrossed in removing her tortured foot from its Roman sandal and did not look up.
Perhaps Miss Mattie would have dropped her latest role of Bow Street Runner had it not been for the unexpected visit of Mr. Symes. Mr. Symes explained that the vicar had kindly let him have a free hour in Town while he visited his tailor. He did not, however, explain that Henry Sandford had the irritating habit of using his curate to carry his many parcels back to Nethercote.
“And how do you go on, Miss Scattersworth?” asked the curate politely as be seated himself primly on the edge of the sofa.
“Oh, tol rol,” said Miss Mattie, gaily waving her fingers. “I am become all the crack you know. Mr. Brummell himself says I am a notable wit.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed Mr. Symes, and repeated “Indeed!” in a more startled voice as he took in the full glory of Miss Scattersworth’s hair.
“I am not up to the latest fashions, Miss Scattersworth,” he added. “You are wearing a wig, I see.”
Miss Mattie blushed. “N-no… not exactly,” she stammered.
“You have dyed your hair!” shouted the curate, springing to his feet. “This is too much. I cannot stand by and see what used to be a stately lady comporting herself like a… like a lightskirt.”
Miss Scattersworth leaped to her feet, trembling with a mixture of shame and rage. “Get out!” she shouted. “You have no right to be so insulting. Why, you are nothing but a meek little curate who knows nothing of the ways of the world.”
Mr. Symes stood with his hand on the doorknob. He seemed to have grown suddenly taller. “I know enough of the world,” he said with icy hauteur, “to mark that it is time you re-hennaed your hair. The roots are black. Good day to you.”
After he had gone, Miss Mattie cried very long and loudly. Then she dried her tears. She would never marry. Her role was to be protector to Henrietta.
***
Lord Reckford sat in his library, staring unseeingly at the book in front of him. He wondered if he should have given the magistrate all the facts. He was sure the unfortunate imposter had not committed suicide. More and more the evidence was pointing to someone close to Henrietta. And if there was another incident and Henrietta herself told the magistrates everything, then he himself would fall under suspicion.
His thoughts were interrupted by a discreet cough from the butler. “Excuse me, my lord, but there is an odd person questioning the staff in the kitchen.”
Lord Reckford threw down his book. “What kind of person?”
“A strange-looking woman, my lord, who says she is a representative of the Foreign Office. She is here, she says, to ascertain whether we harbor Bonapartist spies on the premises.”
“She does, by God!”
“Exactly, my lord. But what is very strange is that when I assured this person that we had no suspicious persons on our staff, she began to question me about the night that your lordship was locked in his room.”
“Bring her here immediately,” rapped out his lordship. “And should she show reluctance… drag her!”
“Very good, my lord.”
At last, thought the Beau, at last I shall be able to get my hands on someone connected with this plot.
There were screams and scuffles and thumps in the hall outside. Then the library door shot open and an elderly female was dragged in by two burly footmen.
Lord Reckford, who had raised his quizzing glass, let it drop with a sigh. He waved his hand in dismissal and his servants left. When the door had closed behind them, Lord Reckford surveyed the female before him and said in a deceptively mild voice, “And to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit… Miss Scattersworth?”
Miss Scattersworth blushed like a seventeen year old and stared at the carpet.
Lord Reckford’s voice took on an angry edge. “Out with it,” he snapped.
Miss Scattersworth clutched a chair back and faced him. “Never, my lord. Never! Though you throw me in your deepest dungeon, though you brand me with irons. Never!” She threw back her head and closed her eyes.
“We do not have dungeons in Mayfair, Miss Scattersworth nor do we use red hot irons in this enlightened beginning to the nineteenth century. But if you do not hurry and explain your presence in my home then I shall be sorely tempted to put you over my knee and give you a good hiding.”
“And drive me mad like poor Lucinda,” retorted Miss Mattie.
Lord Reckford surveyed the trembling spinster for a few minutes while his mind worked furiously. Then he said in a kindly voice, “Sit down, Miss Scattersworth. So the note about me driving Lucinda mad was not burnt?”
Miss Scattersworth mutely nodded her head.
“And where is it now?”
“Miss Sandford destroyed it.”
“And is Miss Sandford aware of your spying activities?”
“Oh, no,” said Miss Scattersworth, recovering her poise. “It was my own idea entirely. Should we not leave the door open, my lord. We are unchaperoned.”
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake,” snapped his lordship. “I may have gained a reputation as a rake but I have not yet got as far as raping elderly spinsters.”
To his horror, Miss Scattersworth burst into tears. “Nobody finds me attractive,” she sobbed.
Lord Reckford was sorely tempted to order his carriage and take her back to Henrietta then and there.
Miss Scattersworth gave a loud sob, a gulp, and then began to pour out a long explanation about the cruelty of Mr. Symes and her subsequent determination to devote her life to aiding Henrietta.
With her usual mercurial change of mood, she brightened considerably when she reached the end of her tale. “Tell me honestly, my lord, do I look like a lightskirt?”
Lord Reckford bit his lip to hide a smile. “Indeed not, Miss Scattersworth, but your
blonde curls are somewhat aging.”
The spinster clutched her hair and let out a faint moan. “I suggest,” his lordship went on in a soothing voice, “that you find an excellent hairdresser to dye your hair back to its natural color and then inform Mr. Symes that you made the sacrifice on his behalf.”
“Oh, thank you,” she gulped, getting to her feet. “I should have known that with your experience of the ladies that you would know exactly what to do.”
Lord Reckford let that go past. “Now, I will send for my carriage and escort you home. I am anxious to see that Miss Sandford is in good health despite her experience.”
Miss Scattersworth paused on the threshold. “You must forgive me, my lord, but I am Miss Sandford’s chaperone as well as her friend. Pray, what are your intentions regarding Henrietta?”
“Intentions! I have no intentions regarding Miss Sandford. I fear I am a confirmed bachelor.”
Miss Scattersworth peered anxiously into his face. “And you do not feel anything for Miss Sandford… apart from feelings of friendship that is…?”
“Nothing at all,” he remarked lightly, collecting his hat and his cane from the butler.
“Now why,” he wondered, as the carriage lurched over the cobbles… “why did I say that? But surely that is what I feel. After all, the girl will marry some day but that will surely not affect me in the slightest.” Having convinced himself of the platonic nature of his feelings, he settled his head back against the squabs and listened with half an ear to Miss Scattersworth’s prattling.
He was, therefore, unprepared for the violence of his feelings when he came upon Henrietta and Jeremy Holmes with their blonde heads close together, arguing about the mystery.
“You were, if I recollect rightly, preparing to call on Miss Belding this morning,” he said with a lightness he did not feel. “You were taking flowers to her, were you not.” He cast an acid look at the bouquet in Henrietta’s hands.
Mr. Holmes flushed. “I got half way there, Guy, and I suddenly felt I could not face it. Lady Belding is always so disapproving, you know. And then sometimes Alice is so charming and sometimes it seems she don’t want to see me at all. Then, I sort of thought, what fun it would be to call on Henrietta instead.”
“Miss Sandford,” corrected the Beau in a schoolmasterly voice.
“Oh, fudge!” declared his friend happily. “You can’t go fishing with a girl and then keep calling her by her surname. Henrietta don’t care for the formalities.”
“Then it is time she did,” said Lord Reckford coldly. “You are both in this room unchaperoned… and with the door closed.”
Jeremy cast his outraged friend a mischievous look. “Turned governess, Guy?”
His lordship did not deign to reply. In awesome accents, he reminded Henrietta that she was engaged to drive with him that afternoon, made a magnificent leg and quickly departed.
“Now, what has put him in such a rage?” said Henrietta wonderingly. “Did you meet him on the doorstep, Mattie?”
Miss Scattersworth murmured something which sounded like “so… sorry… dear… hairdresser….” and fled.
Mr. Ralston was the next caller and it appeared that he too disapproved of Henrietta’s friendship with Mr. Holmes. His pale green eyes stared at them and his rosebud mouth pouted like a disappointed child’s.
“My dear Miss Sandford,” he exclaimed at last. “You must not play fast and loose with my affections. Mama wishes to know when we are to send a notice of our forthcoming nuptials to the Gazette.”
“We are not to be married. I’ve told you and told you,” said Henrietta. Mr. Holmes thought her reply was rather sharp but Henrietta knew that nothing really would divert the single-minded track of Mr. Ralston’s thoughts. And indeed her protest did not.
“Coy as ever,” said Mr. Ralston vaguely. “I see you have bought a new vase.” He picked it up and turned it gently round, tapping it with his long polished nails.
“Ming!” he exclaimed, replacing it on its stand with a nerve-wracking thump. “This must stop.”
“What must?” said Henrietta.
“All this wasting of money. I should decide how to spend it, not you. It is my money, after all. Shame on you Henrietta.”
“Be damned to you,” said Jeremy getting to his feet. “Get out of here you little wart before I land you a facer.” He grasped hold of Mr. Ralston’s sleeve and tried to drag him towards the door.
Edmund Ralston went quite white under his paint. “Take your filthy clodhopper hands off me,” he hissed. And before either Henrietta or Jeremy realized his intent, he had tugged a small dagger from his pocket and slashed Jeremy Holmes over the back of his knuckles. Then he sat down and began to cry.
Jeremy stared at the blood welling from his hand and turned crimson with fury.
“By God, you shall answer for this!” Jeremy picked up his glove and struck Edmund Ralston across the face. “Name your seconds, sir.”
Edmund stared up at him. The tears continued to well out of his eyes and pour down his cheeks. He opened his painted mouth and let out a thin, high cry, “Mother!”
As if on cue, the door burst open and Mrs. Ralston ran into the room. She moved like lightning. The bewildered Henrietta estimated it must have taken Mrs. Ralston less than a minute to dry her son’s eyes, hug him, swipe Mr. Holmes across the face with her large reticule, and drag her son from the room.
Jeremy and Henrietta regarded each other in shocked silence. Henrietta’s excellent butler, Hobbard, had appeared as if by magic with salves and bandages and was already binding up the injured hand. “He’s the one,” declared Jeremy finally. “Why, he’s stark raving mad!”
Henrietta shook her head. “He has neither the ruthlessness nor the intellect to carry out any of the attempts on my sanity. I tell you this, Jeremy. For some reason, I do not feel so frightened. I think the death of that poor girl marked the end of my troubles.”
“Talking about troubles,” said Jeremy. “Everyone’s talking about you and Reckford. Say you’re going to make a match of it.”
Henrietta blushed and said in a small voice. “Lord Reckford thinks of me as a… a sister.”
“He does, does he,” said Jeremy with a grin. “Then why did he poker up when he found us together, heh? Never known old Guy to be so stuffy.”
Henrietta clutched at his injured hand, making him wince. “Oh, do you think… do you really think…”
“Now don’t go getting all excited,” said Jeremy. “I might be wrong. Anyway, it ain’t as if you’ll die an old maid. I mean to say, take me for instance. We get along pretty well together don’t we?”
“You surely aren’t proposing to me, Jeremy?”
“Not yet, I ain’t,” he said cheerfully. “But you never know….”
“What about Alice?”
“Oh, Alice. Oh, yes, almost forgot. Love her to distraction,” said Jeremy.
Henrietta retired to her room after he had left and rang for her maid and began the long elaborate toilette she considered essential for driving out with the Beau.
Various outfits were inspected and dismissed until Henrietta settled on a demure grey driving dress of a mannish cut, flattering to her trim figure. A dashing little hat with one of the new veils was placed on her elaborate curls and she sat stiffly in front of her looking glass, frightened to move in case she disarranged so much as a hair, waiting for the magic hour to arrive.
At two minutes to three, she made a stately descent to the drawing room, to be informed that her brother was waiting to see her. She bit her lip with annoyance and then, composing her features into a smile of welcome, followed Hobbard into the room.
Henry wheezed to his feet and tried to clasp her to him in a brotherly embrace, but only succeeded in bumping her backwards with his enormous whalebone-encased stomach. It would be interesting, mused Henrietta to see what some anthropologist from the future will make of us. Like the strange embrace of the Eskimo who rub noses, he would probably observe that the me
n and women of the nineteenth century bumped stomachs when they met.
“I have come to offer my services as an escort,” said Henry. “There are some prodigious mind-improving books in Hatchard’s.”
“Then they must wait to improve my mind on another day. I am about to drive out with Lord Reckford.”
Henry moved his chair forward and clasped her knee with a pudgy hand. “You must be careful, my sister. Lord Reckford has a bad reputation. Tell him that you do not wish to go. Blood is thicker than water, eh!”
Henrietta was about to reply when Lord Reckford was announced. Henry got to his feet with a determined glint in his eye. “My sister will not be able to accompany you. She is to come with me to Hatchard’s.”
To his fury, the Beau simply ignored him and addressed his remarks solely to Henrietta. “No, Miss Sandford. Absolutely no. I have my reputation to consider. I refuse to be seen driving a lady wearing a veil.”
“But it is the latest thing,” said Henrietta crossly.
“The latest thing is not always the most flattering. I shall wait while you find something else.”
Henrietta was as furious as only a very feminine woman can be after spending time, money and effort on an article of fashion only to be told that her taste is in error. “I suggest you go without me.” She tried to make her voice as disdainful as his lordship’s but it came out sounding petulant and disappointed. But she would not have gone had not Henry suddenly demanded that she accompany him instead. She flounced to her room and crammed an attractive bérgére confection on her head only to find that it did not complement her driving dress. In despair, she put on a simple sprigged muslin and found that it was much too tight across the bosom and certainly too low. But she would not change. She had a sudden panicky feeling that Henry might persuade Lord Reckford to leave. She hurriedly tied a fichu round her shoulders and descended the staircase in a most unladylike manner by sliding down the bannister.
There was a silence when she re-entered the room. Henry was looking flushed and furious and the Beau enigmatic. “How charming you look,” said Lord Reckford gallantly, mentally thinking that Henrietta had had her clothes thrown onto her from a long distance. “Bid you good day, Sandford,” he said over his shoulder. Henry followed them into the hall, entreating Henrietta to stay and, by the time she was handed up into his lordship’s carriage, she felt hot, untidy, flustered and embarrassed. Lord Reckford had ignored her brother throughout the whole and he drove off without turning his head to even glance at the vicar who was babbling on the pavement.
