by M C Beaton
It was then, as Euphemia surveyed Miss Harvey’s gown, that she noticed the first disaster of the evening.
“My dear Augusta,” she whispered desperately, “you have straw clinging to your hem. Do but remove it before anyone sees.”
“Pooh! What does it matter?” said Miss Harvey, plucking off the offending straw. But with a sinking heart Miss Stride noticed several of the chaperones had already noticed the straw and were whispering together, turbans and feathers nodding. The damage was done. Straw on one’s skirt meant that one had arrived in a hack, which was exactly what the cheeseparing Augusta had done, instead of renting a carriage as Euphemia had earnestly advised.
In fact, reflected Miss Euphemia Stride bitterly, Augusta could well afford to keep her own carriage. Goodness knows, the way Augusta had gained her wealth was disgraceful and scandalous enough without attracting the added censure of society.
Augusta Harvey had been nurse and housekeeper to a wealthy mill owner whom she had bullied into an apoplexy. He had conveniently died from it, leaving her sole heir to his great fortune. His relatives had unsuccessfully tried to contest the will and had claimed that Augusta had poisoned the old man. But the triumphant Augusta had left them to their fury and had travelled to London to realise her lifelong ambition—to become a society lady.
But society had been strangely reluctant to allow her past their doors; Miss Stride had been the only one who would even take a bribe. And luckily for Augusta, the woman was a distant relative of the Courtlands, whose ball, two weeks before the official opening of the London Season, was held to be a great event.
Augusta’s gooseberry green eyes surveyed the ballroom. She had arrived late in order to make an entrance and had just realised that by so doing she had missed being received by her hostess. She accordingly urged the shrinking Euphemia to present her to Lady Courtland.
Miss Stride looked to right and left like a trapped animal, but since she desperately needed the money Augusta was to pay her, she stiffened her threadbare velvet spine and led Augusta towards where Lady Courtland was standing.
An extremely tall woman, the Lady looked down at Augusta’s crocodile smile with eyes that were as hard and sparkling as her diamonds. Miss Stride gave an apologetic cough and made the introductions. Lady Courtland haughtily held out one finger for Miss Harvey to shake. Augusta, however, seized Lady Courtland by the whole hand and wrung it fervently.
“So pleased,” she simpered awfully. “ ‘Tis so kind of your la’ship to invite me on this montrous genteel occasion.”
“I did not invite you,” snapped Lady Courtland. “I was under the impression that Miss Stride was bringing a friend.”
“And so she did, Lor’ bless her,” said Augusta, putting a fat arm round the cringing Euphemia Stride. “Me and Euphie is the dearest of friends.”
Now Miss Harvey was a prey to flatulence, and her embarrassing malady suddenly decided to overtake her. A sound worthy of Wellington’s artillery at Salamanca rattled from beneath her skirts and slowly raising a perfumed handkerchief to her nose, Lady Courtland turned and walked majestically away. Euphemia dragged Augusta to the side of the ballroom.
Miss Stride resolved to make the best of things. She would suffer the evening, take Augusta’s money, and never, never set eyes on that repellent woman again. But first she had to earn her money. She set herself to please by pointing out various notables. There was my Lord Alvanley and there was the Countess Lieven and that very handsome man was the Earl of Hestleton. And there was little Miss Parsey …
“Parseys are in trade. Merchants,” said Miss Harvey. “How did she get here?”
“Because,” explained Miss Stride, “Miss Parsey is engaged to young Lord Wellcombe and that makes a difference. One can often get entrée to the best families through marriage. Now if you were younger …” Miss Stride’s voice trailed off, and she allowed herself the luxury of a malicious titter.
“Well, I ain’t,” said Augusta slowly, “but Penelope is.”
“Who’s Penelope?”
“Niece of mine,” remarked Miss Augusta, staring at the dancing figures. “She’s working at some seminary in Bath as a governess. Beautiful girl. An orphan. Do you think she …?”
“Oh, of course! What a good idea!” exclaimed Euphemia Stride, who privately thought that Miss Harvey would need a great deal more than a beautiful niece to make even the smallest crack in the social world.
“I’ll see,” said Augusta. “I’ll see. Meanwhile I may as well move about and meet these grand folks.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” exclaimed Miss Stride in dismay.
“Why not?” said Miss Harvey. “You saw how civil Lady Courtland was with me.” And to Miss Stride’s horror she wandered off in the direction of the row of chaperones.
“How do,” said Augusta cheerfully, smiling her widest until her teeth seemed to stretch to her ears. “May I present myself? I am a great friend of Lady Courtland.”
The lady she had addressed sat looking up into Augusta’s glittering smile as if she could not believe her eyes. Now the Baroness Delsey was not a particularly aggressive or malicious woman, but the sight of the beaming Augusta was too much for her.
“Go away. Shooo!” said the Baroness, flapping her fan. “I declare, the Courtlands’ cook has come a-visiting!” The hard eyes of the row of chaperones bored into Augusta’s protruding green ones and even the thick-skinned Augusta felt obliged to retreat.
She swept through the double doors of the ballroom and stood irresolute in the hall. When Penelope was married to a Duke, why, then, they would sing a different tune. She realised with a start that in her mind she had already invited Penelope to London.
And to make up for some of the cost of bringing her niece to town, she would cut Euphemia’s fee by half, that she would! The woman should have organised things better.
Still smarting from humiliation, Augusta decided to indulge in her favorite hobby—that of poking her nose into every room and drawer in someone else’s house. The upper floors of the house were silent and deserted, every available servant having been pressed into service downstairs. Though the house was mainly early Georgian in design, it had had a good few bits and pieces of annexes tacked on since it was first built. It was much larger than even the imposing frontage on Grosvenor Square had led Miss Harvey to expect.
She pottered through bedroom and study, her nimble, podgy fingers slipping various little objects into her reticule, a snuffbox here, a fan there. She ambled along the silent corridors, occasionally cocking her great befeathered head for the footsteps of an approaching servant. Ambling into a private sitting room, she immediately noticed a pretty little enamelled snuffbox on an occasional table in front of a blazing fire and a silver tray with several decanters. She helped herself to the snuffbox and then to a goblet of brandy.
Despite the crackling fire and the decanters, the sitting room carried the musty, airless smell of disuse. Had probably not been used since the Courtlands’ ball last year, thought Augusta, and was now only put in readiness for some houseguest. She had just withdrawn the snuffbox from her now bulging reticule to assess its value when she heard the sound of voices in the corridor outside. Clutching the snuffbox, she looked round wildly and then espied a Chinese lacquered screen in the shadowy corner over by the fire. When the door swung open, she was safely behind it, trying to control her heavy breathing.
Two men entered the room. A cultured English voice spoke first.
“I’m glad of the money, demmit, but mark you, it don’t seem like treason to me, what with Boney safely locked up in Elba.”
“He will return, dear Charles,” replied a sibilant, mocking voice with a slight French accent. “In the meantime it is necessary to know the strength of the British forces. You have the list of the regiments in America and the West Indies, I believe.”
“Got them here,” said the English voice sulkily. “Now hand over the money. I don’t know what my brother would say an’ he should ever hear o
f this.”
“Your so dear brother, the Earl of Hestleton, would shoot you, dear Charles. Make sure you play our game and keep your mouth shut,” intoned the Frenchman with a certain amused indifference.
There was a rustling of paper and the clink of gold. Miss Harvey felt she would die from excitement. A spy! And brother to the Earl of Hestleton at that! Charles. Charles who? Miss Harvey’s mind rattled through the pages of the peerage. Viscount Charles Clairmont, that was it! Famous. Behind that screen lay the key to society. But wait a bit. The Hestleton family was famous for their wealth. Why should the Viscount need money?
As if in answer to her unspoken question, the Frenchman went on, “It was indeed lucky for me that you are such an inveterate gambler, dear Charles. Even Charles Fox at his worst could not lose so much money of an evening as you. And promising that stern brother of yours that you would never gamble again was quite silly; it sent you straight into our hands.”
“Damn you, you whoreson,” grated the Viscount. “If I thought there was any possibility of Napoleon ever escaping from Elba, I would shoot myself. Take your damned, curst, jeering face away. You’ve got what you want.”
“Until the next time,” mocked the Frenchman’s voice. “Au revoir.”
The sitting room door slammed.
Miss Harvey edged her large bulk round the screen.
Viscount Clairmont was sitting in front of the fire with his head buried in his hands.
She gave a genteel cough, and the young Viscount straightened up and stared at her in horror.
“Naughty boy!” crowed the apparition in front of him, roguishly wagging a fat finger.
He saw before him a fat woman dressed in green crêpe. She had protruding eyes and a wide mouth which seemed to stretch from ear to ear.
“Let me introduce myself,” she beamed. “I am Augusta Harvey and you, I take it, are Viscount Clairmont—a Bonapartiste spy.”
“Thank God it’s all over,” said Viscount Clairmont, getting wearily to his feet and pouring himself a glass of wine. “You may tell my brother what you will, madame.”
Miss Harvey kept on smiling. The youth in front of her was, she judged, about nineteen years old, although lines of dissipation had already left their mark on his thin, white face. And as her crafty eyes noticed the weak mouth and thin, trembling feminine hands, her smile stretched wider and wider.
“But your brother need never know,” she said softly.
He gave her a wild look of hope and then his face fell. He said in a flat voice, “I can’t pay you. You no doubt heard I am betraying my country to pay my gambling debts, madame.”
“Oh, I don’t want money,” purred Miss Harvey. “No, I’ve enough of that. But I need an entrée to your household—and your brother.”
“Why, in God’s name?”
“Because,” said Miss Harvey, coming close to him, “I need all your help. I am going to invite my little niece, Penelope, to London. I am going to bring her out. And you are going to do everything you can to help her marry your brother.”
The Viscount nearly dropped his glass. “Marry Roger? You must be mad! Roger will never marry. He’s five and thirty and has had every debutante and matchmaking mama chasing him since he was out of short coats.”
Miss Harvey looked baffled and then mutinous. “Your brother’s attitude toward marriage is quite well known. Yet you must do everything in your power to throw your brother and my Penelope together. Or I shall tell him of your spying activities.”
For one brave second Charles was on the threshold of telling this ghastly old frump to go to the devil. But surely a little matchmaking was not much to ask?
“Very well, then,” he sighed. He looked full at the triumphant Miss Harvey and gave a shudder. “But Roger will think I’m mad.”
Sometime later that evening Roger, 6th Earl of Hestleton, looked across the ballroom and found a strange fat lady in green simpering and winking at him.
“Who on earth is that?” he asked his friend, Guy Manton.
Mr. Manton put up his quizzing glass and then lowered it hurriedly. “Looks just like a crocodile, don’t she. That’s the famous Miss Harvey. Most vulgar, pushing woman anyone has ever met. For God’s sake, don’t look at her or she’ll be round, shoving her way into your house in the morning.”
“Relax, my friend,” laughed the Earl. “That monstrosity will never set foot in any home of mine!”
Chapter Two
Penelope Vesey was not, in fact, a fully fledged governess. Having been orphaned at the age of sixteen, she was left by her penniless father to the tender mercies of the Misses Fry’s Seminary for Young Ladies in Bath, who took in the orphan as an articled pupil. Her pay was some few guineas a year, her duty to teach music to the pupils, and her lot little better than a servant’s.
Her father had been Sir James Vesey’s youngest son and had disgraced himself at an early age by marrying Penelope’s mother, a woman whose connections were considered to be vulgar in the extreme. The sight of Augusta Harvey grinning and simpering at the wedding had been enough for Sir James to vow never to set a foot across his son’s threshold, damning all his in-laws as common. He had allowed him a meager yearly allowance and, on the death of his son, the allowance had ceased, Sir James seeming to care nothing for the orphaned Penelope.
Penelope’s mother had died of cancer when Penelope was still in her cradle. Her father, a weak and feckless man, had left Penelope to be brought up by a series of slatternly servants. A few days before his death, he had assumed some sort of responsibility towards his daughter by petitioning the Misses Fry to take care of his child should anything happen to him. He died of consumption, coughing up his last breath while his terrified little daughter clutched his hand.
The only relative to attend the funeral was Augusta Harvey who seemed massively indifferent to the plight of the girl. But the Misses Fry had fulfilled their promise—only after discovering that the young Penelope Vesey was an expert musician.
She was popular with the pupils and did not eat much; therefore she was allowed to stay. Her beauty—although unfashionably fair—was at first considered a disadvantage, but since Miss Vesey was not likely to meet any men, with the exception of the elderly dancing master, the Misses Fry coped with that problem by making Penelope wear a series of unbecoming caps and, goodness knows, her dresses were dowdy enough. Her only refuge from the stultifying round of walks and lessons and bad food was in playing the pianoforte in the cold and drafty music room.
It was there that Penelope was sitting one spring day, idly running her fingers over the keys and feeling very sorry for herself indeed. The day was her eighteenth birthday, and she was human enough to resent the fact that it should be a day like any other. “We do not encourage the poorer members of our staff to celebrate their birthdays,” the Misses Harriet and Frederica Fry had told her, “lest our more affluent pupils think that they may be soliciting gifts.”
I didn’t want a gift, thought Penelope, striking a jarring chord. “I only wanted someone to say, Happy Birthday.”
She quickly got to her feet, walked over to the window and opened it with a jerk. A light, sweet wind danced into the room, bringing with it all the smells of May; lilac, hyacinth, and hawthorn. The old crab apple tree at the bottom of the garden moved its great branches in the soft wind, sending down a flurry of pink and white blossom across the scrubby lawn. Overcome by a great yearning for she knew not what, she impatiently removed her cap and let the breeze play through her hair.
Penelope began to dream that this tall, narrow, Queen Anne house with its tall, narrow, dark rooms was her own. The music room behind her changed in her mind’s eye as she busily decorated it and furnished it. The bare sanded floor would be waxed to a high shine and covered with oriental rugs. The furniture would be light and spindly, and a great fire would crackle on the hearth to banish the permanent chill of the house. Delicate china bowls, so translucent that you could see your fingers through them, would be filled with spring
flowers. There would be fine paintings like Canalettos on the walls, blazing with richness and color. And the door would open. And he would be standing there … that vague suitor of her dreams.
She gave a guilty start as she heard the door behind her open, and she turned slowly round.
The eldest of the Fry sisters, Miss Harriet, stood framed in the doorway. A small, dumpy woman who affected a hideous style in turbans, she always addressed her remarks to some piece of furniture rather than the person she was supposed to be talking to.
“Miss Vesey,” she told the piano severely, “put on your cap and come to my study immediately. My sister and I have some tremendous news for you.”
Miss Fry waited nervously until Penelope had extinguished her bright gold curls under her cap. Really the girl’s looks were too flamboyant for a teacher.
Penelope meekly followed her to the dark, airless study at the back of the house where Miss Harriet and Miss Frederica Fry held court. Miss Frederica was younger than her sister by two years but was often taken for her twin. She was equally dumpy and furtive and had the same irritating mannerisms as her sister.
“Come in, Penelope,” she told the fire irons. “You shall take a dish of Bohea with us to strengthen your nerves for the Great Shock.”
Penelope looked at her in a bewildered way and then reflected that having lost a mother and father at least had its grim compensations. There was no one left in the world that she cared for now, so the “Great Shock” could not be the death of a dear one.
Penelope sat primly on the edge of a high-backed chair and accepted a cup of tea. The sisters sat on either side of her. At last Miss Frederica began.
“My dear Penelope. We have incredible news for you. Yes. Incredible,” she assured the teapot. “Is it not so, Harriet?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Harriet earnestly to a bust of Plato. “I declare, I was set all of a tremble.”
