The Daring Debutantes Bundle

by M C Beaton

  “You’ve got to,” said Sally grimly. “I must have a chaperon.”

  Both women were sitting in the living room of their Bloomsbury flat, and Miss Frimp was visiting a cousin. On the table between them lay the invitation to the Earl and Countess of Harrington and their ward, Lady Cecily.

  “We’ll be found out,” moaned Miss Fleming. “I mean, we’re expected to stay there a day before the ball. Ample time for anyone to discover we’re impostors. Think, Sally. If someone wrote asking you for your advice in this matter, you would tell them very sternly to forget about the whole thing.”

  “I’m in love with him,” said Sally flatly, as if this admission answered all protests.

  “Aren’t you just in love with the title?” pleaded Miss Fleming. “Then there’s my job to consider. What will I tell Mr. Wingles?”

  “You forget,” pointed out Sally ruthlessly, “that you told me Mr. Wingles was going on holiday next week and that you planned to take a few days off.”

  “But—”

  “No one will find out,” said Sally earnestly. “No one.”

  “What has Mr. Barton to say about all this?”

  “Nothing,” said Sally blithely, “because I didn’t tell him. He doesn’t care where I work, so long as I work.”

  “But the cost—”

  “I have money saved,” said Sally. “Enough to pay for two simply ripping ball gowns. Just think! A real live ducal ball!”

  Miss Matilda Fleming looked wonderingly at her young friend. Sally looked as pretty and elf-like as she had done on that hot day when she had arrived in Fleet Street. She was, however, Miss Fleming reflected, as tough as old boots under that misleading exterior. Miss Fleming had always prided herself on being a tough businesswoman, but little Sally, she thought with surprise, was by far the stronger personality.

  But she took one last stand. “I won’t do it,” she said grimly. “Just wait till Jessie Frimp hears of this!”

  But later on, to Miss Fleming’s dismay, Miss Frimp thought there was no harm in the impersonation of Lady Cecily, not knowing that Miss Frimp was frightened that if Miss Fleming did not go then she, Miss Frimp, would be nagged into it by Sally, already having a better assessment of the force of Sally’s personality than Miss Fleming.

  “It’s not a crime, after all,” said Miss Frimp.

  “I thought impersonating a peer of the realm was a crime,” said Miss Fleming.

  “Well, you’ll only be going as a sort of companion,” urged Miss Frimp. “Anyway, it says peer of the realm, not peeress.”

  “Same thing,” said Miss Fleming gloomily.

  “And what if they do find out?” demanded Sally, striding up and down the room and waving her arms in her excitement. “The whole focus will be on me, not you. I tell you what, Matilda. I’ll accept the invitation, say my guardians, the earl and countess, are indisposed, but that I shall be arriving with my chaperon, Miss Matilda Fleming. There! That way you won’t be impersonating anyone. And… and… I could always say you didn’t know I wasn’t Lady Cecily.”

  “It’s no use,” said Matilda. “I just can’t do it.”

  The Bath train rattled through the bleak November landscape. “I just can’t do it,” Miss Fleming was still saying. “My dear, did you see some of the other guests on this train? The clothes, the maids, the footmen.”

  “We look very grand,” said Sally stoutly, although privately her heart misgave her. Her savings had not been nearly enough to equip them with an adequate wardrobe, although Miss Fleming had insisted on paying for her own ball gown.

  Sally had had to buy most of the other clothes secondhand, and their luggage smelled suspiciously of gasoline and stale bread crumbs—the gasoline to clean the wool frocks, and the stale bread crumbs to clean Sally’s white silk ball gown.

  Sally’s only jewelry was a small dog collar of pearls. No one wore diamonds in the country, she told herself firmly. All the etiquette books said so. But she was sure, somehow, that the rest of the guests did not read etiquette books, or if they did, they paid them not the slightest heed.

  How fast the train seemed to be going. How it bore them inexorably nearer to their destination.

  Smoke billowed out over the ridges of the plowed fields, and flocks of rooks wheeled against the lowering sky.

  Sally tried to remember the handsome marquess, and found she could not. Her whole stay at the palace seemed to have been some extraordinary dream. She had told Miss Fleming about Mrs. Stuart threatening to kill her husband and the duke’s infatuation for the barmaid, and Miss Fleming had said forthrightly that they all sounded mad and that there was probably inbreeding somewhere in the duke’s family.

  Carriages were waiting to convey the guests to the palace. Only a few, of which Lady Cecily was one, had been honored with an invitation to stay before and after the ball. Sally had accepted the invitation, saying that the earl and countess were indisposed, but that her companion, Miss Matilda Fleming, would be accompanying her.

  But Sally did not grasp quite how ridiculous, quite how hopeless, her situation was until she saw her traveling companions. For sharing the carriage to the palace with Sally and Miss Fleming were the Guthrie sisters. The Guthrie sisters were not of good family, in fact, their father had begun his career with a small bicycle shop in Cambridge. But he had opened his shop right at the beginning of the heyday of that machine, and his business had grown and prospered until he became very wealthy indeed. To add to his dizzy success, he had launched on society his two beautiful daughters, Daisy and Dolly.

  Although it was still considered “unfortunate” to be blond, no one could find any fault with the Guthrie sisters. Their beauty was of the blond, porcelain type. They had delicate little noses and delicate arched brows over large, well-shaped blue eyes. Their busts were large and their waists tiny, and it was whispered that their exquisite hourglass figures were all their own, neither of them having to resort to horsehair pads to achieve the fashionable silhouette.

  But their crowning beauty was that both were quite brainless, and in a society that viewed intelligence with distrust, this was the final seal of acceptability. The jealous might mutter over the Guthrie sisters’ plebeian origins, but for the most part society adored them both.

  Stupid they might have been in the worlds of books, music, art, and politics, but in the worlds of romance, husbands, and ballrooms, they had native animal cunning. They were natural hunters and had learned at an early age how to kill with a flashing glance, how to wound with a haughty turn of the head, and how to raise wild hopes with a small sigh.

  Daisy and Dolly did not have much time for other women, unless they were the sisters or mothers of eligible men, and so they prattled on as if Sally and Miss Fleming were invisible. Sally wondered why two such diamonds of the first water had managed to come through one Season unwed, but it soon transpired that both sisters hoped to marry the marquess, and both were confident of success.

  Although there was a year between their ages, they looked remarkably alike, except that Daisy’s hair was somewhat darker.

  I am cursed with blondes, thought Sally gloomily. I was mad to come. Even poor Miss Wyndham won’t stand a chance with this precious pair around.

  Dolly and Daisy, unlike Miss Wyndham, were blessed with pussycat naughtiness. Certainly their girlish wriggles, shrieks, and giggles annoyed Sally immensely, but she was clever enough to realize that most gentlemen would interpret it all as innocent charm.

  “We have an ally on our side,” Dolly was saying. “The duchess told Lady Brainwater, and she told Mama, that the duchess wants Paul—duveen name—to settle for one of us.”

  Daisy wrinkled her pretty brow. “But he’s got ever such a reputation, Doll’. He was keeping that opera singer for ever so long.”

  Dolly shrugged. “Better they have mistresses before they’re married than after.”

  Miss Fleming shot the girls a repressive glance, and the Guthrie sisters stared back at her impertinently and then collapsed in
to girlish giggles.

  Sally was glad when they arrived, for she had decided what to do.

  She would hide behind the other guests, send Miss Fleming with a message to the duchess, to say that Lady Cecily was indisposed and had to return immediately to town—and escape.

  Her clothes felt shabbier and dowdier and more secondhand by the minute. Now, Sally was a very pretty girl, but even the prettiest women need someone around to tell them so. Emily had always been considered the beauty of the family, and when Sally had taken her hair out of braids and made her transformation from ugly duckling into swan, there was no fond mother to tell her so. She had become so accustomed to the role of Aunt Mabel that sometimes her mind played tricks on her, and she felt as if she really were a little old lady with specs and wrinkles.

  As they shuffled into line behind the other guests who were being greeted by the duke and duchess in the main hall, Sally muttered her plan of escape to Miss Fleming, and that austere lady looked noticeably relieved.

  But the duke and duchess were joined suddenly by the marquess just as the Guthrie sisters were tripping forward, little rosebud mouths uttering birdlike cries of welcome, eyes flashing killing glances in the direction of the marquess.

  Sally’s heart did several somersaults, and she gazed in open adoration at the marquess until Miss Fleming brought her to her senses by jabbing a bony elbow in her ribs.

  Wonder of wonders! The Guthrie sisters were fluttering and charming for all they were worth, and a faint shadow of boredom crossed the marquess’s handsome face.

  Gone was Sally’s thought of escape. Hope burst forth anew.

  When it was Sally’s turn she introduced herself as Lady Cecily Trevelyn, apologized for the absence of her guardians, and presented with pretty grace Miss Fleming. Miss Fleming noticed sourly that the marquess had taken Sally’s little hand in his and showed no sign of releasing it. Miss Fleming thought Sally a very pretty girl indeed, but she had never told her so, considering that it was rather vulgar to make personal comments to one’s friends.

  “Do you ride, Lady Cecily?” the marquess was asking.

  “Of course,” lied Sally. Unusual in a girl of her age and Indian background, but Sally had never learned to ride. The Misses Lelongs had frowned on riding lessons, considering that horses did quite terrible things to the hymen, sidesaddle or not. Not that they would have dreamed of voicing such a coarse idea, for they contented themselves with conveying the dangers by solemn shakes of the head.

  So Sally had never ridden. But she was not going to say so, for she was sure it was all terribly easy. All one did was sit on the beast and let it carry one along.

  “I thought of going for a canter before tea, Lady Cecily,” said the marquess. “Around four o’clock. Perhaps you might like to join me? I can show you something of the estate.”

  “I would love to,” said Sally fervently.

  His face became a well-bred blank, and Sally cursed inwardly. She had been too eager.

  “I don’t have a riding habit,” said Sally truthfully—and untruthfully. “My maid forgot to pack it.”

  “Mother will find you something,” said the marquess.

  “Yes, indeed,” said the duchess, coming forward. “But, Paul, is the whole party going out riding, or just you and Lady Cecily?”

  Now, the marquess had just been regretting asking Sally, since she seemed overly eager, and had been about to extend his invitation to several of the others. Since his mother showed every sign of putting a spoke in his wheel, he decided that Lady Cecily was as charming as he had initially thought and wished again to see her on her own.

  “No, just Lady Cecily,” he said. “You have invited so many attractive young women, Mother, that you can’t expect me to entertain them all at once.”

  The duchess looked as if she were about to protest, but fortunately more guests arrived, and Sally promised to meet the marquess at the stables at four and made her escape with Miss Fleming.

  The rooms allocated to them were not so grand as the ones given to Aunt Mabel, but they were prettily furnished for all that. Miss Fleming stood looking grimly at their trunks. “I shall tell the maid not to unpack,” she said.

  “But we’re staying now,” said Sally. “Don’t you see how easily they accepted me? And in two hours time I’ll be going riding with Paul.”

  “With… oh, the Marquess of Seudenham. And then we leave,” said Miss Fleming hopefully.

  Sally avoided her gaze. “We’ll see,” she mumbled. “Wasn’t it marvelous the way he looked so bored with the gushings of the Guthrie sisters?”

  “Sophisticated young men about town often look bored with that sort of nonsense,” commented Miss Fleming, “but they marry them just the same. Makes them feel superior. Little woman, and all that. Besides, the Guthrie girls have considerable dowries.”

  “The marquess is very rich. He doesn’t need to marry for money,” pointed out Sally, sitting down by the fire.

  “My dear child,” said Miss Fleming acidly, beginning to remove her hatpins. “Whenever did an English aristocrat sneer at money? The marquess has considerable estates of his own, and they must cost a mint to keep up.”

  “I thought he lived here,” said Sally naively.

  Miss Fleming gave a superior titter. “Oh, no. The marquess lives at Seudenham Manor in Surrey. It’s almost as big as this place.”

  Sally looked at her friend, round-eyed. It seemed… well… indecent to have parents who owned all this, and yet to have nearly as much yourself.

  Miss Fleming, having divested herself of her beaver hat, announced she was going to lie down until five o’clock tea. Miss Fleming was accustomed to country house visits. When the owner of the Daily Bugle summoned the editor, Mr. Wingles, to a house party, Mr. Wingles always took Miss Fleming along by way of protection.

  The great palace seemed much livelier than before, with the voices of the other guests rising and falling from the nearby rooms.

  Sally looked out of the window. They were at the top of the house, on the fourth floor, under the attics in the west wing. Over to the left she could see the clock tower over the stables, and up above the clock tower loomed a darkening sky.

  Oh, please don’t let it rain, prayed Sally, or I won’t have a chance!

  Two hours seemed a long time to wait. But a maid arrived with a smart black gaberdine and velvet riding habit over one arm and a smart black riding topper to go with it—“… compliments of Her Grace.”

  The outfit looked brand new, and Sally was to find out later that it belonged to Miss Wyndham, who went riding as little as possible.

  She spent most of the two hours trying it on and pacing mannishly up and down the room, feeling like a heroine in a novel. She weaved all sorts of fantasies around the forthcoming ride. In some, she would be thrown from her horse, and the marquis would clasp her in his arms and say he loved her. In others, he would be thrown from his horse, and she would clasp him in her arms and cradle his poor bloodied head on her lap, and then spend endless gorgeous days nursing him back to health.

  At precisely ten minutes to four Sally left the palace by a side entrance and made her way by a sort of circular road that led to the stables.

  The marquess was already there, talking to the head groom. He gave her a somewhat indifferent nod by way of a greeting, and Sally’s heart fell. The marquess was, in fact, wondering what had come over him to single out Lady Cecily for this honor. He had learned that his mother had put it about that he was looking for a wife, and he was beginning to feel hunted. The duchess had invited quite a bevy of beauties, and everywhere he went in the palace, glowing eyes stared at him from rooms and corridors.

  While he continued to chat with the groom, Sally eyed the tall, nasty looking horse the groom was holding and wondered how she could mount something like that in what she was wearing. The riding habit had been made by John Barker of Kensington for 105 shillings—a top price. The dress itself had a very tightly cut bodice, lightly boned to the waist, a
nd the skirt was cut to accommodate the right knee when mounting sidesaddle.

  Over the bodice went a very tightly cut waistcoat. Now, most ladies “buttoned up” after they were mounted, but, of course, no one had told Sally that, and she was already having difficulty breathing.

  At last the marquess turned his gaze on her. Sally preened a little. She knew that for once she was wearing something that became her.

  “Sanders,” said the marquess, leading the groom forward, “we need a mount for Lady Cecily.”

  “I’ve put the sidesaddle on Thunderbird,” said Sanders.

  “Is that Thunderbird?” asked Sally faintly, looking up at the black snorting animal.

  “Yes, my lady,” said Sanders. “Quiet as a lamb.”

  Sally bit her lip. “H-haven’t y-you anything smaller?”

  The marquess had fortunately gone off to attend to his own mount. A faint look of scorn flickered across Sanders’s mahogany face. “Well, I dunno, my lady. Reckon there’s that slug, Dandelion.”

  “Dandelion will do perfectly, Sanders,” said Sally in what she hoped was a very autocratic manner.

  Sanders gave a faint shrug and led Thunder-bird away toward the stables.

  Dandelion, when at last saddled up, proved to be what Sally hoped he would be from his nursery name. He was a broad-backed piebald horse with an expression of patient suffering.

  “As long as you’re happy, my lady,” said Sanders as Sally walked to the mounting block. “Dandelion’s an old broken-down show jumper and a bit sluggish.”

  Meanwhile the marquess had swung himself easily into the saddle of an enormous hunter. Sally, more by good luck than anything else, succeeded in getting herself into the sidesaddle on Dandelion’s back without much mishap, apart from the fact that her waistcoat buttons snapped under the strain and shot off all around the stable yard like bullets.

  Master and groom averted their eyes and politely refrained from comment.

  Sally and the marquess ambled out of the stable yard, and all Sally’s fears left her. There was nothing to this horse riding after all. She relaxed her feverish grip on the reins and looked about her with pleasure. She had recovered quickly from the embarrassment of the popping buttons.