Colonel Sandhurst to the Rescue

by M C Beaton

  “Mr. Davy is sitting with me at my request,” said the captain sharply. “I suggest you go about your own business, sir.”

  Sir Philip gave a little ingratiating smile and retreated, but he marked down the captain as someone to get even with along with Mr. Davy.

  He hovered in the hall until he saw the captain leave and then went back in again. It had been forcibly borne in upon Sir Philip that his warning to Mr. Davy that Miss Tonks was promised to him had had no effect. Miss Tonks had followed Mr. Davy around at the ball like a silly old dog, thought Sir Philip viciously.

  He sidled up to Mr. Davy with his odd crabwise walk. “What did Manners want?” he asked.

  “A talk about things in general,” replied Mr. Davy with that pleasant unruffled air of his which never failed to get on Sir Philip’s nerves.

  “You really ought to make up your mind about our Miss Tonks,” said Sir Philip.

  “In what way?”

  “She is obviously eating her heart out over you, silly old fool that she is. The least you can do is to stop encouraging her attentions.” Both men were standing at the door to the coffee room. Neither noticed Miss Tonks lurking just outside the entrance.

  “I have no intention of encouraging Miss Tonks’s attentions,” said Mr. Davy, goaded at last.

  Miss Tonks slipped away quietly. She felt just as if she had been punched ferociously in the gut. She felt every bit as silly and old as Sir Philip had described her. She ran next door and gained the privacy of her room before the tears came.

  “That,” Mr. Davy had gone on, “does not stop me finding her a very good friend and a delightful lady of style and wisdom.” But, alas, poor Miss Tonks had not heard that and thought her little world had come to an end.

  ***

  Belinda was prettily gratified to learn that Captain Manners had invited some of his friends to tea. She smiled her curved complacent smile and glanced briefly in the direction of Lady Manners—who was looking suspicious—with a sort of I-told-you-so expression.

  The very best china was laid out and the teapoy, containing cannisters of teas, was at Lady Manners’s side, for she preferred to make the tea herself and not leave such a delicate art to servants. As they waited for the arrival of her son’s guests, she reflected uneasily that he could be recalled to his regiment at any time, and yet he had not fixed a date for the wedding. Not that she had not suggested several suitable dates to him, but all he would say was “I cannot think of it at the moment. I will talk to you later.” And then he never did.

  Belinda, thought Lady Manners, was looking at her best in a morning gown of fine muslin with a high collar and a yoke of old lace.

  The captain crossed to the window and looked down into the street. He was regretting his prank. Belinda was obviously excited—well, excited was too strong an emotion to apply to his fiancée—but certainly animated above usual at the thought of proving him wrong. Such a shame to disappoint her.

  He saw an open carriage draw up outside. Mr. Davy had done him proud. He could hear dimly their loud rough voices and he could see the swagger with which they walked up the steps. He retreated to the fireplace.

  Soon he could hear the clatter of spurs on the stairs and then the butler announced, “Mr. Trimington, Mr. Hadley, Mr. Jones, and Mr. Strange.”

  Quickly memorizing the names, the captain effected the introductions. At first he thought Mr. Davy himself had decided not to come until he recognized the actor under the disguise of Mr. Strange. Mr. Davy had powdered his hair, padded out his cheeks, and somehow managed to get a large, unsavory-looking pimple right on the end of his nose. All were dressed in the sort of coachman style affected by the worst of the Corinthians. “Mr. Strange” bent over Belinda’s hand and gave it a smacking kiss, and then, straightening up, leered into her eyes. Finally they were all seated except Mr. Trimington, who lounged on the floor at Belinda’s feet and picked his teeth with a goose-quill.

  Although Lady Manners was dispensing tea, she had arranged earlier that Belinda should act as hostess. She could not help wishing that Belinda would sit down, but Belinda considered she cut a better figure on her feet, and so every time she stood up, the men scrambled to their feet. At last even Belinda saw how ridiculous this was and sat down.

  “I am delighted to meet Captain Manners’s friends at last,” she fluted. She gave a merry laugh. “Captain Manners frightened me by trying to tell me you would all be so rough. But I now see you are all well-behaved gentlemen.”

  This frightened the actors, who did not know that the horrified Belinda was trying to make the best of a bad situation, and they decided they were not being uncouth enough and might lose their fee.

  “Manners was always one for the ladies,” drawled Mr. Davy. “Do you ’member that little señorita in Talavera, lads?”

  The other actors came in on cue. “Thought her parents were going to force you to marry her after the way you went on,” said Mr. Hadley. “Demme, when we marched off, there she was, hanging on to your stirrup, Manners, and crying her pretty eyes out.”

  “Foreign ladies are always so bold,” said Belinda primly.

  “Oh, it wasn’t just the foreign ladies,” put in Mr. Hadley gleefully. “Do you mind that major’s wife at Ciudad Rodrigo? Thought you were going to be facing cold steel at dawn, Manners.”

  “Enough!” said Mrs. Devenham suddenly. “Such topics are not fit for a lady’s drawing-room.”

  “It’s the tea,” said Mr. Davy apologetically. He scratched at the pimple on the end of his nose, then he took out a large handkerchief and spat into it. “Never could abide the stuff.”

  Belinda now had two angry spots of colour on her cheeks. “Perhaps you would prefer gin?” she demanded sarcastically.

  “That would be prime,” exclaimed Mr. Jones. “Glass of gin and hot. See you’ve got the hot water there, ma’am, so all we need is the gin.”

  In a voice shaking with suppressed rage, Lady Manners said to a hovering footman, “Gin, James, if you please.”

  There was a heavy silence until the gin bottle was brought in. It had been wrested from the housekeeper, there being no gin in the cellars.

  As soon as glasses were poured, Mr. Davy jumped to his feet. “Now, lads, let the ladies hear a regimental toast.” This they had rehearsed. They all stood solemnly and chanted, “A pox on the French, bravo for Britain, confusion to her enemies and string ’em all high!” With that the four actors drained their glasses—fine Waterford crystal glasses—and then threw them into the fireplace.

  The ladies sat in shocked and horrified silence, looking at the litter of broken glass on the hearth. Lady Manners said in a thin voice after what seemed to the captain hours of silence but was only a few moments, “I have a headache, Peter. Be so good as to see your friends to the door.”

  But Mr. Davy did not leave without kissing Belinda noisily on the cheek, a familiarity she had not even yet allowed her fiancé.

  “When you do your job, you do it well,” muttered the captain to Mr. Davy as he ushered them out into the street. “I doubt if I will ever be forgiven.”

  Mr. Davy looked up at him shrewdly. “I understood that was what you wanted.”

  The captain went slowly back up the stairs to the drawing-room. Three pairs of eyes glared at him as he entered.

  “My apologies,” he said. “But you would insist on meeting them.”

  “I do not understand,” said Belinda petulantly. “I do not understand at all. How can you consort with such… scum? Mr. Warren is all that is charming. I expected the same good manners from your other friends.”

  The captain felt a cold shiver running down his spine. He had forgotten to warn Jack. What if Jack should meet them at some function and say he had never heard of any of these soldiers? He was suddenly anxious to get away and track him down.

  “I did warn you,” he said.

  “I am disappointed in you, my son,” said Lady Manners severely. “We meet many military gentlemen at balls and parties, as you kn
ow, and none of them has ever proved to be as ill-mannered and uncouth as such as you have chosen to be your friends.”

  “They are brave men and fought well,” said Captain Manners, spurred by nagging guilt into adding more lies on to the ones he had already given them. He looked at Belinda. “When we are married and billeted in army quarters, you will be expected to entertain them.”

  That was when Mrs. Devenham had a Spasm and fainted.

  ***

  The captain walked into White’s and asked if Mr. Warren had been in that day and to his relief was told he was to be found in the coffee room.

  His unease was intensified when Jack hailed him with a cry of “How goes the fair Miss Devenham?”

  The captain sank down in a chair opposite him. “Miss Devenham is very angry with me.”

  “How so?”

  “I played a trick on her.”

  “That does not sound at all like you, and what has a gentle and sensitive lady such as Miss Devenham done to deserve having tricks played on her?”

  “My mother and Miss Devenham wish me to move into the family home rather than stay at a hotel.”

  “A perfectly reasonable wish,” said Jack.

  “I told them I preferred to stay at the Poor Relation to entertain my army friends, for they were a trifle… er… uncouth.”

  “Oh, thank you very much. Am I included in this catalogue of uncouth friends?”

  “No, no, I assure you. The ladies think you the pink of perfection.”

  “So what army friends do you have that are uncouth and unfit for a lady’s drawing-room? Besides, they are such high sticklers at that Poor Relation that anyone behaving with anything other than the strictest propriety would be shown the door.”

  “This is difficult to explain, Jack, but I crave my freedom, and living with three ladies one of whom is my mother and the other two my fiancée and her mother seems to be… to be… a trifle… suffocating. To that end, I hired actors to pretend to be officers and behave badly.”

  “If I were as fortunate as to have secured the hand in marriage of a dazzler like Belinda Devenham,” said Jack roundly, “then I should count myself the most fortunate of men.”

  “Humour me in this,” begged the captain, “and do not betray me.”

  “Of course. But I do not understand your behaviour or approve of it. This does not have anything to do with the pretty servant at the Poor Relation?”

  “What servant?”

  “I gather she is the beauty who was serving negus at the duchess’s party.”

  “Miss Frederica is a friend of the owners.”

  “That, nonetheless, puts her beyond the social pale. I trust you are not about to make a fool of yourself in that direction. It is all very well to set up an affair after you are married, but to neglect your betrothed and play pranks on her is a sad business.”

  The captain’s eyes were hard.

  “My business, dear fellow. My business is my business.”

  Jack changed the subject and they chatted about mutual friends. But all the while Jack’s thoughts kept returning to Belinda. He was bewildered at his friend’s mad behaviour. To him, Belinda Devenham was the epitome of English femininity. He liked her stately manners, and her conversation was just as it ought to be. Like most of his peers, Jack despised ladies who said anything that could be construed as either intelligent or original. As he surveyed the captain’s handsome features, he almost felt the beginnings of twinges of dislike. What man of breeding could even look at a servant with such as Belinda Devenham on the scene?

  Chapter Eight

  TO DIDDLE. To cheat. To defraud. The cull diddled me out of my dearee; the fellow robbed me of my sweetheart.

  —Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

  CAPTAIN GROSE

  Sir Philip went about his duties with an amiable smile on his old face, but all the while he was plotting revenge. Captain Manners was now included in these plans for revenge, for had not Captain Manners had the bad taste to befriend Mr. Davy?

  And so when the captain, who was feeling obscurely guilty about the trick he had played on Belinda, not to mention his own mother, approached him to reserve a table in the dining-room for that very evening for a party, he clicked his false teeth in a bigger and more ingratiating smile than usual and said with a question in his voice, “We shall be honoured to entertain your friends.”

  “The party will consist of Lady Manners, my mother, and my betrothed, Miss Devenham, and her mother, and my friend, Mr. Warren, so that will be five of us.”

  “Very good, sir.” Sir Philip bowed low and the captain looked suspiciously at the top of the old man’s nut-brown wig. It was not like Sir Philip to be so oily.

  Sir Philip retreated to the office to plot and plan. He bit his thumb and stared into space. There was no denying that the captain was spoony over Frederica. Sir Philip wondered what this Miss Devenham would think if she knew about that. Causing the captain embarrassment would get to Mr. Davy’s ears and upset him and that at least would be a start in Sir Philip’s campaign of revenge. Now if Frederica could wait table in the dining-room, that would distress the captain, and with any luck his infatuation for the girl might appear obvious to his mother and Miss Devenham. But Colonel Sandhurst and Lady Fortescue waited table and they would never allow such a thing. How was he to get rid of them for one evening?

  Nothing short of an invitation from the Prince Regent would dislodge them from the hotel. Also, it might punish Lady Fortescue a little for having forgiven Mr. Davy’s lies. Although, thought Sir Philip sourly, she had been proved right. The gossip about her being Prinny’s latest had died very quickly.

  Why not get the colonel and Lady Fortescue an invitation from the prince to Clarence House? They might find it odd to get such a last-minute invitation, but the honour of it all would wipe any doubts from their minds. Sir Philip picked up his hat, gloves, and stick and sauntered out. In the days of his poverty, he had come to know the criminal fraternity of London. He took a hack down to the edge of that notorious slum, Seven Dials, and went up the unsavoury, rickety steps of a tenement to the home of a forger, Johnny Connors.

  He rapped on the door, which was eventually opened a crack and a rheumy eye glared out at him. “Long time since we met, Johnny,” said Sir Philip cheerfully.

  “Welcome, your lordship,” cried the forger, opening the door wide and elevating Sir Philip to the ranks of the peerage. “We ain’t done business this age, and don’t you look a downy cull.” He fingered Sir Philip’s lapel. “Prime stuff there.”

  “Weston’s best superfine,” said Sir Philip airily. “Did you hear I’m a hotel owner?”

  The forger shuffled over to a table and jerked out two chairs. “Everyone’s heard that,” he said. Johnny Connors, Sir Philip realized with a pang, was looking singularly old and decrepit. Everyone he had ever known was slowly falling to bits with the passing years.

  “So what’s your pleasure?” asked Johnny.

  Sir Philip explained about the invitation.

  The forger sucked at his broken teeth. “It’ll cost you. Normal invitation, even from Lady Silly or somebody, ain’t much, but forging invitations from the prince is dangerous.”

  “The couple it’s meant for won’t get to the authorities,” said Sir Philip. “It’s for Lady Fortescue and Colonel Sandhurst, my partners, and they won’t go to the Runners. Need it now.”

  “Got to have the royal crest on it. That takes time.”

  Sir Philip smiled. “If you ain’t got a block in your print-shop with the royal crest on it, then I’m an idiot. You’ve been forging army papers and tax papers and customs papers for years.”

  “Got King George, long may he reign,” said the forger cautiously. “Prince of Wales is different.”

  Sir Philip took a couple of gold sovereigns out of his pocket and began to toss them idly up and down. “Bet you’ve got that as well,” he said.

  Johnny seemed hypnotized by the gold. He suddenly grinned and stood up. �
�We’ll go to the shop,” he said.

  ***

  “Sir Philip! Sir Philip!” Lady Fortescue’s imperative voice rang out through the hotel late that afternoon.

  Sir Philip scuttled out of the office. “This has just arrived,” said Lady Fortescue, holding out a crested invitation. “The colonel and I have been invited to Clarence House. This evening!”

  “Why have they not thought to invite me?” demanded Sir Philip with well-manufactured rage.

  “I neither know nor care,” snapped Lady Fortescue. “This is a royal summons, a very great honour. You will need to cope with the dining-room yourself tonight.”

  Sir Philip took the invitation from her. “How did this arrive?” he demanded suspiciously, thinking at the same time that he was surely a better actor than Mr. Davy.

  “That is what is so odd. It was Jack found it at the bottom of the post-bag. He says he was sure he emptied out the post-bag this morning, but it must have become lodged there. Goodness knows how long it has been there. We sent Jack along to Clarence House with our acceptance.”

  Sir Philip silently cursed. It was he who had told Jack to check the post-bag after having put the forged invitation in it. He should have realized that of course Lady Fortescue would send her acceptance. He could only hope and pray that no servant from Clarence House would arrive with a message from the Comptroller of the Royal Household to say that no such invitation had been sent.

  “You sure someone isn’t playing a joke on you?” he sneered. “I mean, why ask the pair of you?”

  “We are obviously in favour,” said Lady Fortescue haughtily. “I am sorry you have not been asked as well, but it is nonetheless an honour to all of us.”

  “Pah!” said Sir Philip and then hugged himself with glee as Lady Fortescue took back the invitation and swept off.

  Correctly assuming that Lady Fortescue and Colonel Sandhurst would be too busy getting ready for the big event to bother much about what was happening in the hotel, Sir Philip went down to the kitchens.

  Frederica was there, rolling out pastry and talking in bad French to Despard, who was correcting her and teasing her. She looked so young and pretty and innocent that the very sight of her made Sir Philip pause. For the first time he wondered what Frederica would think about having to wait table on Captain Manners and his party. But then he hardened his heart. Too late to turn back now.