The Daring Debutantes Bundle

by M C Beaton

  The leaves were turning red and gold just as they ought and the peasants were laboring hard in the fields around the town adding to his feeling of being some exalted being. The ladies of the town’s bourgeoisie fluttered around him—especially since he had carefully put about that the reason for his exile was a broken heart.

  With one languid beringed plump hand, he waved forward the local artist.

  Henry had his likeness taken almost daily. Not that he was vain, he had explained, but one must make sure these artist fellows earned their bread even if they were forced to draw such an unworthy subject as himself and the ladies fluttered their fans and exclaimed that he was too modest.

  The artist, a young man called Heinrich Schweitzer, often woke sweating during the night, dreaming that his multitude of pictures of Henry had come to life and that he was condemned to a lifetime of sketching an infinity of plump and arrogant Henrys.

  He had vainly tried to persuade the English milord to return to the land of his fathers. He felt that if he had to go on drawing portraits of Lord Henry that he would become ill. He could not refuse the commissions for my lord was now a social power in the town.

  Henry started disparaging himself in his usual way in order to hear the pretty disclaimers of the ladies who formed his court. “Well, Schweitzer old man, all set for another sitting? Must give you some training, all the same. After painting me, it will be a delight to sketch any of the fair beauties here.”

  Herr Schweitzer gave his hearty assent and then realized he had been too hearty. Henry’s plump mouth was forming into a pout The artist racked his brain for a new subject of conversation.

  “My lord,” he ventured hurriedly. “You will be interested to know that there is another pretty face in town. Arrived late last night.”

  “I fear since I was spurned by the Royal lady of my heart, I have little interest in ladies, pretty or otherwise.” He gave a fat sigh and his little court sighed sympathetically.

  “But this lady was not attractive in the common way,” said the artist. “Her features were too round for beauty but she has a certain elegance, an elusive attraction.

  “Well, well,” said Henry indulgently. “The fair charmer seems to have caught your attention.”

  Mr. Schweitzer searched in his portfolio. “I made a rapid sketch of her as she was descending from the carriage. I did it very rapidly of course, but I feel I have caught a good likeness.”

  Henry took the sketch from him. It was unmistakably Henrietta Sandford descending from a travelling coach. His face turned mottled and his breathing became rapid. He could see all his comfort of being lord of the town fading before his eyes. He hated his sister as he had never hated her before.

  “What is the matter, my lord?” cried the artist. “You look quite ill.”

  Henry thought quickly. “This strumpet,” he said heavily, “goes by the name of Sandford although she has no claim to our illustrious family name. She is, in fact, a by-blow of one of my uncles.

  “It was she who brought about the downfall of my hopes, my romance. She told the Royal prin… excuse me, the Royal lady I was to wed that I was a common country vicar, masquerading as a lord. And she was believed for my lady never went into society and was kept apart from the world.”

  The artist’s eyes narrowed speculatively. The fake Miss Sandford’s tale held an uncomfortable ring of truth. There was still a lot of the cleric about this English milord. But his court was shrieking and exclaiming in sympathetic dismay.

  “So, dear ladies,” said Henry, putting his handkerchief to his face, “I beg you to tell everyone in the town not to mention my presence to this… this person. My nerves are shattered. I am quite overset.”

  As he did indeed look quite faint, his sympathetic entourage assured him fervently of their support as he left to retreat to his house.

  Henrietta and Miss Scattersworth had planned to spend a leisurely day in Kirchenhause and leave early on the following morning. Henrietta was suddenly overcome with anxiety to reach home. Miss Scattersworth had contracted a minor stomach disorder and had decided to spend the day in bed, leaving Henrietta to her own devices. Accordingly, she asked the hotel manager if there were any sights of interest in the town.

  He looked at her in a most peculiar way, she thought, suggested she might like to view a Saxon church on the outskirts which was within easy walking distance, and then abruptly told her that he hoped she would be leaving in the morning as he urgently required her rooms.

  With some little surprise, Henrietta assured him that she had already made plans to depart in the morning and could not help noticing the man’s obvious relief. She and Miss Scattersworth were the only guests in the hotel so why the desperation for rooms? She decided the manager was eccentric and put the matter from her mind.

  ***

  Henry Sandford was sitting over his morning coffee. He decided he had been overwrought. The lady in the sketch could have been anyone. Why on earth should his sister be visiting this remote town anyway? Despite a certain itching in the big toe of his left foot which betokened the oncoming of another bout of gout, he felt quite cheerful as he sorted through the morning post, slitting open the letters with a thin silver Italian stiletto, a present from one of his admirers.

  He gazed at the opening words of Lady Belding’s letter and thought he would faint from rage and bitter despair. There was no doubt left in him. The lady at the hotel must be Henrietta. He crossed to the window, peering down into the sunny street through the Brussels lace curtains.

  And there she was!

  A poke bonnet with a high crown hid her face but there was no disguising her figure, her walk or the turn of her head.

  Her scarlet walking dress of merino wool was in the latest fashion and velvet half boots of the same color peeped out from beneath her skirts.

  The veins stood out on Henry’s forehead and he found he was still clutching the stiletto. He could see himself ending up a fugitive, fleeing from town to town across Europe. He had meant Luben to be his final destination since Lady Belding had so warmly recommended it but had settled happily into his present little kingdom instead. For one awful moment, he was quite sure that Lady Belding had stage-managed this whole disaster.

  Henrietta would have to be killed and immediately. His man was in London. Well, he would have to do the job himself.

  He searched busily in his wardrobe, cursing his girth and his tight clothes, looking for something which would enable him the maximum of movement. He came across a priest’s black robe, grim relic of the austere earlier days of his training in the Anglican church. Stripping down to his small clothes and sending his heavy corsets flying across the room, he quickly donned the robe, pulled the hood over his face and slipped down the backstairs into the street.

  Henrietta walked along briskly, enjoying the clear morning air. She soon left the town behind, feeling uneasy as she became aware of the stares of the peasants working in the fields. She had left her maid behind to attend to Miss Scattersworth, feeling it was not necessary to be accompanied in such innocent-seeming surroundings. But it was with a feeling of relief that she saw the square tower of the church a short distance ahead.

  The sun was becoming unusually hot for autumn, dispersing the early mists from the fields on either side.

  The hedgerows were alive with color, the scarlet of hips and haws mixing with the deep purple and black of brambles. A solitary white rose stood out bravely from the tangled bushes, last survivor of the summer. Henrietta plucked it from its stem and tucked it into her hair under her bonnet. Tall poplars stood sentinel along the road as it neared the church, their long, pencil-thin shadows stretching across the fields.

  She pushed open the churchyard gate and wandered around the moss-covered gravestones but it was a depressing place, rank with weeds and uncut grass and tall nettles.

  The heavy door of the church was stiff with disuse but eventually gave as she wrenched the handle. Inside all was cool and dim, the fight filtering through
the trees outside and the stained glass windows giving her a weird feeling of being in some subterraneous dwelling at the bottom of the sea. Henrietta wandered idly up the aisle, reflecting that there was hardly anything of interest to see. Perhaps she would climb the tower, admire the view, then walk slowly back to the hotel. The door to the tower stood at one side of the altar and proved as difficult to open as the church door. A long flight of wood steps led upward and creaked alarmingly under her tread.

  After what seemed to be an unconscionable amount of climbing, she emerged into the bell chamber and stared up at the black mouths of the bells. Motes of dust disturbed by her feet danced around the thin rays of fight in the bell chamber. A tottering, crumbling ladder in the corner must lead to the roof of the tower.

  But Henrietta was overcome by the mountaineer’s urge to go onwards and upwards and firmly set her foot on the bottom rung of the ladder. It ended at a trapdoor. She slid the heavy bolts across and put her shoulder to it. It gave and swung back with an almighty crash and she pulled herself up onto the roof, standing for a few moments to brush the dust from her clothes. A brisk wind had sprung up and tugged at the brim of her bonnet as she walked round the top of the tower admiring the view.

  The colors of autumn were emblazoned across the countryside as far as the eye could see, scarlet and yellow edging patchwork fields of green, umber and gold.

  Suddenly the ground beneath her gave an ominous cracking sound and she clung to the stone battlements of the tower and looked down at her feet For the first time, she realized with a pang of fright that the wooden floor of the tower was rotting and split Well, she would take one more look around and then cautiously make her descent.

  In the distance, on a road leading into the town, she could make out what appeared to be a grand travelling carriage moving at great speed. Then in the immediate foreground, she spied a figure in black, hurrying along the road. As Henrietta continued to watch, the black dot became larger until, as it halted for a moment outside the churchyard, she saw that it was a priest. Good! She would ask the good father about the history of the church.

  Below her, one of the bells moved gently sending out a high thin silver note like a warning. The priest must have brushed against one of the sallies, hanging in the room at the foot of the tower.

  Then she heard a far away creaking. He must be climbing up the tower. She would wait for him. That was the most sensible thing to do. She would ask for his help in the descent Henrietta turned back idly to look out over the countryside. The travelling carriage was now leaving the town and taking the road to the church. She turned as the cowled head of the priest appeared above the trapdoor.

  “I am glad you are come, Father,” she said as the priest hauled his heavy bulk onto the roof. “I had become fearful of the prospect of getting down again. This tower is in bad repair and not very safe.”

  “I wouldn’t let that worry you, my child,” said the priest And then throwing back his cowl, “You are not going anywhere.”

  “Henry!”

  “Yes, Henry,” he sneered, his plump features distorted with hate. The sun flickered wickedly on the stiletto he held in his hand. “You are about to meet your Maker, dear sister. Any last words? Scream away. No one will hear you here.”

  “But why?” stammered Henrietta. “Why? You are my brother. You always said that blood is thicker than water.”

  “True,” he remarked with a fat shrug. “And I’m going to spill some of yours. Why? ’Cause I hate you, Henrietta.

  “Always have. You killed our mother. She died giving birth to you. She would have loved me… cared for me. Father didn’t. Called me a pompous little windbag. Said I was greedy, said I wasn’t a man. Talked of nothing else on his deathbed but his darling baby, his Henrietta. You’ve always spoiled everything for me. You… you got Mrs. Tankerton’s money after I had slaved and run after her and flattered the horrible old frump.

  “You dance around London society, fêted on all sides and I… I am left to remain a country vicar, nothing more.”

  Henrietta backed away from him round the roof of the tower, her eyes wide with horror. Henry’s face was a mask of rage and hate. She had no hope. She stood still.

  “Very well, Henry. Do your worst!” said Henrietta, her back to the parapet.

  Henry lurched eagerly forward. There was a tremendous cracking sound as the floor of the tower split right open beneath his feet. His pudgy white hands clawed desperately at the edge of the rotten wood. “Help me!” he screamed. Henrietta stood paralysed with fear. For the rest of her life she would remember those two hands, clutching and scrabbling like two white rats until they disappeared from view.

  Henry Sandford’s heavy body plunged into the bell chamber, crashing against the bells on his way down and sending their frightening clamor sounding over the quiet fields.

  Henrietta sank down to her knees and inched her way to the split in the floor and looked down. Henry Sandford lay on the floor of the bell chamber, his head at an awkward angle, his black habit stretched out on either side of him over the sun splashed floor. There was the sound of horses hooves, then of shouting voices, then steps on the stairs.

  “Henrietta!” It was Lord Reckford’s voice from the bell chamber below. She would have run forward but his voice stopped her. “I daren’t risk mounting the tower or my added weight might make the floor give way altogether. Now I want you to edge forward to the trapdoor very, very slowly.”

  Feeling as if she were in a long black tunnel and crawling towards light and safety again, Henrietta moved slowly forward on her hands and knees, edging carefully round the hole. The roof creaked and groaned. The tower was now being buffeted by a strong wind and seemed to sway with every gust as the bells below sent out their high clear murmur of warning as they moved gently on their frayed and dusty ropes. Resisting the temptation to throw herself headlong through the trapdoor, Henrietta backed cautiously down the stairs.

  Lord Reckford wrapped his arms round her and held her as if he would never let her go. He called her his darling, his beloved. He bent his head and kissed her and they clung together as if to barricade themselves from the wicked world.

  Then he put her gently away from him and called to his footman.

  “Maxwell will take you back to your hotel,” he said quietly. “Leave me to arrange things here.”

  She looked at him with a question in her eyes, but he merely bowed formally and turned away.

  After she had gone, Lord Reckford paused at the foot of the stairs. The white rose Henrietta had been wearing in her hair lay in the dust. He bent slowly and picked it up and put it in his waistcoat.

  Crowds stood on the pavement outside the hotel to watch Henrietta being escorted in. Lord Reckford’s savage berating of the manager in which he had stated that Henry Sandford was a dangerous lunatic had spread like wildfire round the town.

  Miss Scattersworth was in their suite, dressed and waiting for Henrietta. “Come in, my dear and go straight to bed. So Henry’s dead, is he? How utterly marvellous!”

  Henrietta feebly opened her mouth to protest, to say that Henry was her brother, and then it all seemed so idiotic that she allowed Miss Scattersworth and the maid to undress her and give her a glass of mulled wine with a liberal dose of laudanum. As she drifted off to sleep, the last thing she remembered was Lord Reckford’s passionate words and the last worry she had was as to why he had seemed so cold and formal.

  Henrietta slept heavily until the next morning. When she was dressed and at breakfast, the burgomaster arrived to tell her in hushed tones that Lord Reckford had arranged all the legal formalities and the funeral. He had expressed a wish that Miss Sandford should leave this town so full of unhappy memories and proceed to Luben.

  “Luben!” exclaimed Henrietta in surprise. “What on earth does he mean? No doubt his lordship will explain the matter when he calls.”

  “But his lordship has already left,” said the burgomaster, “He said to present his compliments and something
about your love waiting for you at Luben.”

  How odd, mused Henrietta, after he had left. “What do you think he meant, Mattie?”

  “Why he meant himself,” said Miss Scattersworth cheerfully. “After what happened in the tower between you, he obviously means himself. He does not wish to declare himself in this atmosphere of scandal and murder.”

  Henrietta hesitated. “He is so considerate, Mattie. It is not like Lord Reckford to expect me to travel after such an experience.”

  “Oh, pooh!” said Miss Scattersworth with her eyes shining. “Love is inexplicable, my dear. Let us get packed directly.”

  Lord Reckford lounged in the corner of his carriage and stared out unseeingly at the passing countryside. He only hoped that fellow Evans realized what a treasure he had in Henrietta. God, he felt like turning round and going to Luben and kicking him into his beloved cesspool. Goodbye, Henrietta, he thought I shall take care I do not see you again.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Henrietta pirouetted in front of the long pier glass in the bedroom of her house in Brook Street. Her dress of heavy shot taffeta rustled round her ankles, her gold hair rioted over her head à la Medusa and a heavy necklace of opals shone at her throat.

  This, she decided, was to be her last ball. Then she would remove to the country, wear her caps again and take up Good Works.

  Miss Scattersworth came bounding into the room and Henrietta swung round, dropping her fan. Miss Scattersworth’s hair was frizzed fashionably at the front and had returned to its natural grey. But she had damped her petticoats and her wet skirts mercilessly outlined all the charms of her rather pitifully thin form.

  “Back in London again,” cried Miss Scattersworth twirling round the room. “Oh, what bliss. Back to the sophisticated surroundings in which we belong. Oh, that dreadful Luben. Nothing ever happened. I used to dream that the little hill behind the hotel was in fact a volcano and that one day it would erupt and pour molten lava down towards the town and some Count would dash to my rescue. He would throw me on his prancing steed and….”