Pretty Polly

by M C Beaton

  The next day, when Verity, accompanied by James, had gone out to exercise the pets, Charlotte crept quietly into Verity’s room and searched through her belongings until she found Verity’s money. She scooped it all up and took it away.

  When Verity returned and found her money missing, the alarm was raised. Charlotte cheerfully tried to blame the servants, but Verity could not bring herself to allow that. She had a very shrewd idea that Charlotte had taken the money herself. She sat down and wrote a letter to her father, explaining that her money had been stolen and begging for more.

  James was taking the letters to the post when Charlotte hailed him. “I am going out, James,” she said. “Hand me the letters and I will take them.”

  James passed them over. Charlotte waited until she was in her carriage with her maid and then scanned the letters. She gently extracted the one addressed to Mr. Bascombe and crushed it in her hand when her maid was not looking. The one to the Duke of Denbigh she took to the post.

  Unknown to Charlotte, by the end of a bare three weeks in London, Verity had become very well known. She was a familiar figure in Hyde Park, with her entourage of strange pets. Tray, the French greyhound, was slowly dwindling to a correct size and ran in circles in the park, barking with delight. Peter, the cat, was glossy and sleek. Above them sailed the great parrot, alighting occasionally on the back of the bench on which Verity sat. The elderly Dowager Countess of Wythe had taken a fancy to Verity and her pets and often sat with her on the park bench for part of the afternoon, if the day was fine. Lady Wythe was as slim and straight as a young girl although she was in her sixties. Her puckered and wrinkled crab-apple skin was heavily painted and rouged. Her back was ramrod-straight and she was proud of boasting that never once had it come into contact with the back of a chair. She detested the latest fashion of “lounging,” damning it as decadent. But apart from her occasionally acid tongue and her obvious dislike of Verity’s hostess, she was an amusing companion. It also transpired that she knew the Duke of Denbigh.

  “Tell me all you know about him,” asked Verity eagerly.

  The countess rolled one pale blue eye in Verity’s direction. “Aha! You have joined the ranks of ladies eager to grasp the title. No. Wait a bit. I have it! You say you are a country lawyer’s daughter with a negligible dowry, or rather, negligible by society’s standards. You have too much good sense to fly so high, but Mrs. Manners has not. It is said he proposed to her once and was turned down for lack of the ready. She hopes to try her luck with him and wishes you to aid her.”

  Verity spread her hands in a deprecating way but did not reply.

  “And since Mrs. Manners has no use for her own sex—unless they prove to be of some use to her—she will put an end to your London jaunt very quickly if you do not do something to help. Am I right?”

  “I wonder where that parrot has disappeared to?” said Verity, scanning the sky.

  “In other words, you will not discuss your hostess,” said the countess. “And very correct, too. I shall help you nonetheless, for I enjoy your company and wish more of it. Denbigh. Let me see. Devilishly handsome, and such legs.” The countess kissed her gloved fingertips. “He has a good, strong face, but is a trifle cynical about the mouth. His hair is pure gold and curls naturally. He is clever. You must wonder what a clever man was doing to propose to Mrs. Manners. But remember, he was twenty-four and had not been in love, or so I imagine. At that time, Mrs. Manners was being sponsored by her aunt, Lady Phillips. Now Lady Phillips was a high stickler if ever there was one. She told Charlotte—and in my hearing, mark you, for we were wont to take tea together—that she must keep her mouth shut at all times and confine her remarks to yes and no. Which she did. She had that dewy, untouched look that yet contained a hidden fire. It would have taken a very old and shrewd man to have guessed that the fires that lurked beneath her delectable bosom were the fires of ambition and frustration—frustration at having to keep her pretty mouth shut, don’t you see. So Denbigh was bewitched. Every man who saw her was bewitched. She did not have a very large dowry and she had a passion for French dressmakers. Manners may have guessed her secret. He was in trade, you know, and was a sharp businessman, and so it is possible he was better able to recognize cupidity when he came across it than Denbigh. He showered her with expensive presents, jeweled clockwork, nightingales, and the like. Lady Phillips sent them back. But clever Charlotte bribed her maid to collect them and hide them.

  “And so they were married, she and Manners.” The countess sighed and poked at the grass at her feet with the pointed end of her parasol. “Denbigh was most upset, you know. But it couldn’t have lasted very long—his upset, I mean. For I know he met her at a ball three months after she married Manners, and of course, don’t you see, she was talking to beat the band. It wasn’t that she was particularly silly—not more than most—but Denbigh, I should judge, had dreamed of a fount of wit and intelligence. Odd man. He likes intelligent women. It must be about the only thing about him that is unfashionable.”

  “Now he can marry whom he pleases,” said Verity, half to herself.

  “Even the daughter of a country lawyer?”

  “No, my lady, and I know you are teasing me. I am fortunate in that I have no need to marry. We are comfortably off and I keep house for Papa.”

  “Very sensible,” said the countess, staring straight ahead as she always did. Naturally, she considered screwing your head around to speak to the person next to you vulgar in the extreme. “When poor Wythe was taken, I found to my surprise that I was beginning to enjoy myself for the first time in my life. Such a pity I was too old to take a lover.”

  “My lady!”

  “Your generation is so mealy-mouthed.”

  Verity returned to Charlotte and told her that she, Verity, had learned that the duke favored intelligent women. “So perhaps you could hire a tutor, dear Charlotte, and learn to discuss all the clever things that will impress him.”

  Charlotte laughed and laughed at that. “You poor, dearest bumpkin,” she said at last, drying her eyes. “With beauty such as mine, I do not even need to open a book. Once he sees me, his defenses will collapse. But write your clever letters to lure him to London.”

  When Verity had left the room, Charlotte looked at the parrot and shrugged. “Why keep a dog and bark yourself?”

  Chapter Three

  The Duke of Denbigh picked up the latest Verity-Charlotte letter and took it out to the walled garden to read. The splendid weather had broken and although the day was sunny, it was also blustery and cold. The walled garden was one of his favorite retreats. He sat on a low stone bench at the south end where a peach tree, espaliered against the wall, turned its glossy leaves up to the sun.

  The high walls cut off the wind. The air was redolent of the fragrant smell of herbs, vegetables, and rich earth.

  He had replied to her letter about Kean’s performance with a reminiscence of having seen Mrs. Siddons in Monk Lewis’s melodrama, Veroni, or The Novice of St. Marks.

  He opened the letter eagerly. Charlotte had apparently met Monk Lewis.

  Matthew Gregory Lewis had been a twenty-year-old junior attaché working in The Hague when, inspired by the novels of Mrs. Radcliffe, he had written The Monk. It was at once attacked for vice and immorality by the critics, and that had ensured its success and gained the author his new name of Monk Lewis.

  Verity had written:

  I confess I was very excited when I set out for Mrs. Abernethy’s in Montagu Street We were to dine at seven, very fashionable. When we crossed Oxford Street, I could not help thinking that I would never get used to such a glittering sight as this famous place. Until eleven o’clock in the evening, it is as crowded as any fair. The long line of oil lamps down the center made it look on this misty night like some gigantic necklace. Come, my dear recluse, you must admit there is truth in Dr. Johnson’s remark that a man who is tired of London is tired of life.

  But to return to my muttons. There I was, trembling in t
he carriage at the thought of being so soon in the presence of the famous Mr. Monk Lewis. I imagined him as tall and gaunt and sinister and dressed all in black. His voice would be hollow, as if sounding from the inside of a marble tomb.

  Imagine my surprise to find Mr. Lewis was an odd-looking little man with a strangely boyish appearance, although he is quite old—thirty-something, I believe. He had queerish eyes, protruding, and like the eyes one sees on certain insects. He did not say anything very extraordinary although I only overheard a little of his conversation. He is not in the slightest interested in the ladies, you see, and shuns them. Mrs. Abernethy is a great favorite of his, however, and perhaps the only lady who is! It is said his chambers in Albany are cluttered with bric-a-brac and precious objects and that there are mirrors everywhere. It is rumored Lord Byron went to one of his parties and swore never to go again. He is reported to have said, “I never will dine with a middle-aged man who fills up his tables with young ensigns and has looking-glass panels to his bookcases.”

  The inclement weather means I have not seen quite as much of my dear Lady Wythe as I would wish. So when I take my oddity of pets to the park, I find I miss her very much. She has a sharp wit and yet has a generous spirit.

  The duke put down the letter and stared unseeingly across the pleasant garden. The letter was, in its way, the sort of gossipy letter he would have expected Charlotte to write. And yet a Charlotte who quoted Dr. Johnson did not tally with the image he had of her. But seven years had passed and so she had probably matured. He had misjudged her. She had probably loved Manners and her grief over his death had made her turn her mind to less frivolous ideas. He picked up the letter again.

  The letter went on to describe the wonders of the new gas lamps in parts of Pall Mall and Whitecross Street and how strange it was to stand under such a blaze of light instead of feeling one’s way under the weak lights of the parish lamps, which were always blowing out. But it was the ending of the letter that really startled the duke.

  I went, with great trepidation, accompanied by Lady Wythe, to Euston to take a ride in Mr. Trevithick’s Catch-me-who-can. It cost a shilling and we went round and round at fifteen miles an hour. Mr. Trevithick has evidently invented a steam boiler, which can work to a pressure of one hundred pounds. Lady Wythe said the speed was indecent and would cause damage to the brains of the already weak-minded, but I pointed out that the mail coaches reached that speed and my lady said that must explain why there were so many totty-headed young men about London, for they will ride on the roof of the mail coach and bribe the coachmen to let them take the reins.

  The duke tried to imagine Charlotte being interested in any piece of machinery and found he could not. Perhaps the pleasures of the Season had changed. There was no mention of balls, ridottos, drums, or routs.

  But he could not leave his estates. There was much to be done.

  Verity sat at her desk over a blank sheet of paper. She had been to Almack’s with Charlotte the evening before and wondered if the duke would appreciate a description of that. But then, he knew Almack’s famous assembly rooms in King Street very well. It was pointless to ask Charlotte for help, for Charlotte always shrugged and told her to write something amusing. Charlotte had even given up reading Verity’s letters although she waited eagerly for the duke’s replies, not because of the content of the letters but always to see if he would say something about coming to London.

  At Almack’s, there had been a great deal of gossip about the duke. Several young ladies had talked their parents into driving them to the duke’s estates and staging a carriage accident outside his gates. But in each case, the families had been taken to the house and courteously entertained by the housekeeper while the carriage was swiftly mended. The duke had not put in an appearance. People were beginning to say he had become a recluse.

  Charlotte came in and put a letter from Denbigh down in front of Verity. “You can read it,” said Charlotte, yawning, for she had lately risen and was still in her nightdress.

  Verity looked surprised. Usually Charlotte ripped open Denbigh’s letters as soon as they arrived.

  “I have lost interest,” said Charlotte, slumping down inelegantly in a spoon-back chair by the window. “It may have escaped your notice, since you have been jauntering around London with that old fright, Lady Wythe—how did you persuade such a tartar to take you anywhere so unfashionable as the Tower?—that the Earl of Veney has been courting me.”

  “No, I had noticed,” said Verity cautiously. “He is a trifle old for you, Charlotte, is he not?”

  “He is forty-five—no great age. He is an earl and very rich. Veney is considered a great catch. All are jealous of me.”

  “I am sure they are,” said Verity, ever diplomatic.

  “So there is no need for you to go on writing to Denbigh. I have decided to accept Veney.”

  “Very well,” said Verity, feeling depressed. Then she realized her usefulness to Charlotte was over, but Mr. Bascombe was still in Scotland and the house was shut up. “When do you wish me to return home, Charlotte?”

  “Oh, no need for that,” said Charlotte airily. “I am very fond of you, Verity. I thought you knew that.”

  Charlotte believed she spoke the truth, but the truth was that Verity had become very popular with society and Lord Veney had said that he knew Mrs. Manners to be an exceptional lady to have such an intelligent and pleasant companion. “You can always tell a lady by the company she keeps,” he had added sententiously. Lord Veney always said things like that. It was as if he felt pompous statements offset the lechery in his soul.

  Charlotte was convinced that any man who showed an interest in Verity was merely cultivating her friendship so as to get closer to her mistress. She had fallen into the habit of referring to Verity as her companion.

  “When do you think he will propose?” asked Verity.

  “This week, I think. He is already champing at the bit. But there are going to be no more proposals in the drawing room. The Yellow Saloon has just been redecorated. Pomfret will make sure no one goes near it but Lord Veney. The drawing room has long windows leading into that excuse for a garden at the back. I am persuaded some vicious female came by that way and poured poison into Chalfont’s ears. Chalfont, by the way, is gone from town, so you will not be able to question him. Fiddle. I go driving with Veney this afternoon, so I shan’t need you.”

  When she had gone, Verity slowly opened the letter.

  Dear Mrs. Manners,

  There is no longer reason for me to come to London, for I can live there through your vivid descriptions.

  Now, I know he is teasing, but Charlotte would not, thought Verity. The duke went on to give a detailed description of the work on his estates, his impatience with his tenant farmers who fought against using any of the new phosphates to enrich the land, and his battle with the local magistrates who would insist on cruel punishments for poachers. It was quite a long letter and ended with the hope of receiving further news from Charlotte.

  I am become spoiled by your letters, and find my magazines and newspapers tedious in comparison.

  But I cannot write any more, thought Verity. In her mind’s eye, she had made the duke look like that gentleman in the posting house she had seen so long ago. She had no money to pay postage herself. She could write a letter and leave it on the hall table where it would be dealt with along with the rest of the post, but Charlotte might see it. Verity hated not having any money at all. The trip on the Catch-me-who-can had cost a shilling and Lady Wythe had paid that. Verity wondered again whether Charlotte had taken her money.

  When she had told Lady Wythe of her loss, the dowager had immediately suggested that Charlotte had done it in order to keep her until her usefulness ran out.

  Verity spent a comfortable hour in the park with her old friend but could not tell her about the letters, for Verity felt that would be betraying her hostess.

  * * *

  The weather continued cold. Verity shivered indoors. Charlo
tte was parsimonious about things like fires. She never seemed to feel the cold herself and moved through the chilly rooms of her mansion dressed in the thinnest of muslin.

  Lord Veney was to call to ask for Charlotte’s hand in marriage the next day. As she had no parents to approach, she assumed that was his intent. “And after what he did to me at the back of the opera box,” said Charlotte, her face flushing, “then he had better.”

  “What did he do?” asked Verity.

  “When you were leaning over the box with a hand to your ear to catch every note, he stole a kiss.”

  “Was that so very bad?”

  “Wait. Then he plunged his hand down the front of my gown and tweaked my breast!”

  “Was he foxed? I mean, why would a gentleman do a thing like that?”

  Charlotte gave Verity an odd look. “You’ll find out one day,” she said. “Now, the earl is a bit of a rip, so I must dress accordingly. There is no need for you to be present.”

  “Charlotte, you will be spending the rest of your life with this man. Do you have affection and respect for him?”

  “Affection and respect for Veney? You odd girl. I tell you straight, he is a boor and a lecher. But once I am countess, he may find his pleasures elsewhere. After I breed, I shall be finished with that side of marriage—and let us hope he can manage it quickly, for I could not bear him in my bed for very long.”

  Pretty Polly wheezed and rattled the bars of its cage. “And keep that smelly parrot locked up while he is here,” said Charlotte, getting up and leaving the room.

  Verity went over to the toilet table, filled a basin with water, and bathed her hot cheeks. Charlotte often sounded like a strumpet.

  It appeared she was determined to dress like one for the proposal.

  That evening, she gave Verity a dress rehearsal, parading before her in a morning gown of pink spotted muslin. It was simple and correct in line, with little puff sleeves stiffened with cambric and with three deep flounces at the hem. But the muslin was nearly transparent and Charlotte had damped it so that it clung to her body.