Back in Society (The Poor Relation series)

by Beaton, M. C.

  ‘Do sit down, my lady,’ urged Sir Philip. ‘May we offer you some tea, or wine? Perhaps a glass of negus or ratafia?’

  ‘Nothing, I thank you.’ She sat down with an unconscious grace. ‘I believe you have business to discuss with me. What is it?’

  ‘We have a new policy in this hotel,’ said Sir Philip, speaking very slowly and hoping Lady Fortescue and Miss Tonks were fast about their work. ‘We expect bills to be settled at the end of each month. I hope this does not disturb you.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Lady Jane with the fleeting shadow of a smile. ‘Is there anything else?’ She began to rise.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said the colonel hurriedly. ‘We hope you will not consider this an impertinence, my lady, but because of your extreme youth and because you are unchaperoned, we are naturally concerned for you.’

  Her voice was quiet and even.

  ‘I do consider it an impertinence.’

  Mr Davy spoke for the first time. His voice was kind. ‘Do not be angry with us. We have noticed your sad looks. When one feels most alone, one should always remember that there is someone to help.’

  Lady Jane’s eyes were lit with a flash of anger. Why couldn’t they leave her alone? She was angriest at Mr Davy for his kindness, for arousing that anger in her, for she preferred to stay wrapped in dull numb misery which would make what she had to do the easier.

  She rose to her feet. Making an obvious effort, she said, ‘I thank you for your concern, but it is not necessary, I assure you. Good day, gentlemen.’

  ‘And that’s that,’ said Sir Philip gloomily. ‘I hope she doesn’t run into Lady Fortescue and Miss Tonks in her rooms.’

  Lady Jane actually met both of them in the corridor outside. Lady Fortescue and Miss Tonks smiled and curtsied. She bowed her head and scurried past them and into her rooms. She locked the door behind her and then went to the writing-table. She sharpened the quill with swift, efficient strokes and drew sheets of writing-paper towards her. Should she blame her father for what she was about to do? No, she could not leave him with that misery. Perhaps he thought he had been doing only what was best for her. When she had turned out of her home, she had told him defiantly that she was going to stay with her old nurse in Yorkshire. The nurse, Nancy Thistlethwaite, had been the only person in her short life who had ever been kind to her and who had been fired as a result. Her father had laughed at her and had said that a poor existence in a cottage with that fool Nancy was just what was needed to bring her to her senses and agree to the marriage he had arranged for her.

  So she wrote a letter saying simply that she had taken her own life and that she would like him to settle her hotel bill. Then she wrote another letter to Sir Philip Sommerville, apologizing for having committed suicide in the hotel and assuring him that her father would settle her bill. She sanded and sealed both letters and propped them up on the writing-table.

  Then she brushed down her hair and took off her clothes and put on her nightgown. She poured the contents of both bottles into two glasses and, pinching her nose, swallowed down the contents, one glassful after the other.

  She lay down carefully on top of the bed and sent a prayer up for forgiveness. She could feel herself becoming sleepy, and suddenly she began to fight against it. Out of nowhere came an intense desire to live. She dragged herself from the bed onto the floor. But a wave of misery hit her again and the desire to sleep was so very great. She would close her eyes just for a moment . . .

  Jack, the footman, pressed his ear hard against the panel of the door. He thought he had heard a faint crash but Lady Jane’s sitting room was on the other side of the door, not her bedchamber. He listened and listened but the following silence was absolute.

  ‘Anything?’ whispered Sir Philip behind him, making him jump.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Then scratch the door and go in, man. Use your wits. Say it’s a cold day and you wondered whether she would like the fires lit.’

  Jack scratched at the panels and then turned the handle. ‘It’s locked!’

  ‘Run and get the spare key our of the office, demme, and get the ladies up here.’

  He fretted and chewed his knuckles in impatience. Jack returned, after what seemed to Sir Philip like an age, with not only the ladies but Colonel Sandhurst and Mr Davy as well. ‘Now open the door,’ whispered Sir Philip. ‘You go in, Jack, and if all is well, ask her about the fires. If she’s dead, call us.’

  ‘She can’t be dead,’ said Lady Fortescue crossly. ‘We emptied out most of the contents of the bottles and replaced them with plain water.

  Jack unlocked the door and went in, very nervously. He hoped she would be in the sitting room, for if she was not, that meant she would be in the bedroom and might have locked the door to her room for no more sinister reason than because she wanted to change her clothes.

  But the sitting room was empty. With a dry mouth he approached the open bedroom door and peered around it. No one. He gave a little sigh of relief and was about to turn away when he noticed one small bare foot sticking out from the floor on the far side of the bed. He walked round the bed and stared down at the still form of Lady Jane Fremney.

  He rushed back through the sitting room, babbling, ‘She’s gone and done it. Oh, she’s gone and done it.’

  The others came in and crowded into the bedroom. Miss Tonks knelt down and bent over the girl. ‘She is sleeping peacefully. God be thanked.’

  Sir Philip retreated to the sitting room, where he found the two letters. He opened the one addressed to the hotel and let out a crow of triumph. ‘We’ve got her!’ he cried. He scuttled into the bedroom, waving the letter. ‘And there’s one addressed to her father.’

  ‘Poor child,’ murmured Lady Fortescue. ‘Lift her onto the bed, Jack, and cover her with the quilt. Miss Tonks and I will be here when she awakes.’

  Lady Jane slowly came awake. Her mind was immediately flooded with the realization of what she had done, of what she had tried to do. She was torn between misery that she was alive with her problems and relief that she was still alive. She struggled up against the pillows and her dazed eyes looked into those of Lady Fortescue and Miss Tonks, who were sitting beside the bed.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked faintly.

  Lady Fortescue ignored her. ‘Tell Jack to bring the others here,’ she ordered Miss Tonks.

  ‘I must get up,’ said Lady Jane feebly. She had just remembered the letters on the writing-desk.

  Lady Fortescue held up one thin hand. ‘In a moment. We know about the letters.’

  Miss Tonks returned, followed by the colonel, Sir Philip and Mr Davy.

  Lady lane stared at them defiantly. She was beginning to remember falling on the floor. Someone had lifted her onto the bed and covered her.

  ‘Now we are all here,’ said Lady Fortescue, ‘we would like to know how you came to take your own life.’

  ‘A demned selfish action, too,’ growled Sir Philip. ‘Did you never think of us? A suicide could ruin us.’

  ‘Do you mean the money for these rooms is all-important to you?’ asked Lady Jane.

  ‘Not the money – the scandal, the superstition. The next thing people would be seeing your ghost. Did it never dawn on you that your poor family would have to see you interred at the crossroads, with a stake through your heart?’ complained Sir Philip, describing how suicides of the early-nineteenth century were buried.

  ‘And did you not think of your immortal soul?’ chided the colonel gently. ‘What you planned on doing was a sin against God.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Lady Jane wretchedly. ‘But what else could I do?’

  ‘You could tell us how we may help you.’ Miss Tonks pressed Lady Jane’s hand. ‘We are concerned for your plight.’

  Lady Jane looked at the circle of faces around the bed.

  ‘Very well, I will tell you. I had a most unhappy childhood. My problems really began when my father engaged a governess, a Miss Stamp, to educate me. Miss Stamp d
elighted in tormenting me and bullying me. When I appealed to my father, he told her about my complaint and suggested she beat me the harder because I was becoming wilful and spoilt. But I endured – how I endured! – for one day I knew her services would no longer be required and I would make my come-out and at least I would have a brief time when I could meet girls of my own age. But Miss Stamp was raised to the rank of companion and still had the schooling of me in etiquette and conversation. Still, there was hope of marriage to perhaps a kind man who would free me from bondage. I was allowed to attend balls at neighbouring houses, but always with Miss Stamp. I danced with some agreeable men, but when they came to call I was never allowed to entertain them.

  ‘The final blow came when my father summoned me to his study and told me there would be no need to take me to London for a Season, for he had found a husband for me. This man he had chosen for me was Sir Guy Parrish, his friend, a man in his fifties, small and wizened, a five-bottle-a-day man. I said I would not marry him. I said I had lasted, had endured the tyranny of Miss Stamp, had endured his tyranny because one day, I thought, I would at least have a Season and a chance to find a man of my choice. He ordered me from the house, only allowing me to take one trunk. I took my jewel box, which had been emptied, and weighted it down with stones, for I knew what I meant to do. I would die in the London that had been forbidden to me. But I told him that I was going to stay with my old nurse in Yorkshire. He laughed and said a spell of poverty – for he knew Nancy, my old nurse, to be poor – was just what I needed to bring me to my senses. And so I came to you. I am so very sorry.’ She turned her head away and tears rolled down her cheeks.

  Sir Philip often admitted to himself that he was given to over-sentimentality. He surprised the others by saying in a rallying voice, ‘Here, now. We are here to look after you. All you need, dear lady, is a little fun. I am the first to admit you have the dreariest apartment in the hotel and you should not be alone here. Not fitting. You can move in with Miss Tonks in our apartment next door.’

  ‘Yes, do,’ said Miss Tonks. ‘We can have chats and look at the shops together.’

  ‘Too kind,’ said Lady Jane faintly, ‘but I have no claim on you. You do not owe me anything. On the contrary . . .’

  ‘It would amuse us,’ said Lady Fortescue. ‘I know that people of our rank are not allowed to talk about money, but we, being in trade, feel free to discuss our funds as much as we please. And we are in funds, thanks to the munificence of Prince Hugo. I think we should order some gowns for you. Gowns are very important in times of distress. We shall leave you to dress and pack. Miss Tonks will return in an hour to conduct you to your new quarters.’

  The hoteliers left her and went down to the office for a council of war.

  ‘She won’t try it again, will she?’ asked Sir Philip anxiously.

  ‘I do not think so,’ said Lady Fortescue. ‘You are to be praised, Sir Philip, for the generosity of your nature.’ She smiled at him, her black eyes almost flirtatious, and the colonel scowled. Sir Philip smiled back and then kissed her hand, remembering that not so long ago he had rather fancied Lady Fortescue.

  ‘It is a pity that she cannot have a Season.’ Miss Tonks looked wistful. ‘She is so very beautiful, she could be all the rage.’

  ‘She cannot.’ Lady Fortescue looked around the small group. ‘We are now pretty much socially acceptable again, although we are in trade. I am invited to several small functions, as is Colonel Sandhurst. But that is not the same. Besides, even if we could bring her out, her father would read her name in the social columns and post south to take her home. He may yet come looking for her. She is supposed to be with that nurse in Yorkshire, is she not? Then I suggest we give her some money to send to her old nurse and letters to post to her father, harsh letters which will keep him at bay for a little. If she learns how to enjoy herself – it will strengthen her character. Too much adversity, as we know, is very weakening.’

  ‘She need not use her own name,’ suggested Miss Tonks hopefully. ‘No one knows she is in London.’

  ‘We can’t call her Lady Anything Else,’ jeered Sir Philip. ‘The peerage would soon come alive to the fact they had an impostor in their midst.’

  ‘She doesn’t need to be titled. Something like Miss Jane North, heiress,’ said Miss Tonks.

  Lady Fortescue smiled at the middle-aged spinster indulgently. ‘You are a matchmaker, Miss Tonks. You have dreams of finding her an eligible gentleman before her father finds her. But how could she be presented in society? Another ball here? We cannot while our prince is in residence.’

  ‘What about Harriet?’ asked Miss Tonks, looking eagerly around.

  ‘The Duchess of Rowcester!’ exclaimed Sir Philip. Harriet had been their cook when they first started the hotel. She had been a poor relation like the rest of them. Then the Duke of Rowcester had married her. She wrote to them all from time to time.

  ‘Even if we should consider entertaining such a far-fetched idea,’ said Lady Fortescue gently, ‘you forget Harriet lost her child nearly a year ago.’

  There was a sad little silence. Harriet’s beloved baby daughter had been carried off in a typhoid epidemic.

  ‘But don’t you see,’ said Miss Tonks stubbornly, ‘helping Lady Jane would brighten her up. Give her an interest.’

  ‘Her husband is her interest,’ said Sir Philip, beginning to chew his knuckles, a sign he was worried. The others did not know that the necessary funds to start the hotel had been supplied by Sir Philip from a necklace he had stolen from the Duke of Rowcester before he married Harriet. He had substituted a clever fake. He knew the real necklace had not been sold, for he had been paying the jeweller from time to time to keep it intact until such time as he might have enough to reclaim it. But of late he had forgotten to make the payments. He did not want to have anything to do with the formidable duke again.

  ‘But the duke is abroad in Italy. Some elderly relative’s funeral,’ protested Miss Tonks. ‘I read that in the newspapers. We could write to dear Harriet. She has only to refuse. I mean, we are not constraining her to come.’

  ‘What ridiculous fustian,’ snapped Sir Philip. ‘What rubbish. The girl’s lucky to be alive. Oh, amuse yourself for a little by taking her about and buying her gowns. But we have no need to become involved in plots and plans and schemes any more.’

  ‘I would like to see Harriet again,’ said the colonel. ‘You could write, Miss Tonks, and send her our love and explain Lady Jane’s situation.’

  ‘I forbid it!’ shouted Sir Philip, startling them all.

  Had he not been so vehement in his protest, the others might, on sober reflection, have dropped the idea.

  But Mr Davy said in a chiding voice, ‘I really think what you want or do not want does not enter into the matter, Sir Philip. If Miss Tonks wishes to write to the Duchess of Rowcester, then that is her decision.’

  This incensed Sir Philip the more. ‘Miss Letitia Tonks used to be a quiet and respectable female before you came here with your nasty actor ways,’ he said. ‘You’re always filling her mind with trash.’

  ‘Please don’t,’ whispered Miss Tonks and began to cry.

  ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ raged the colonel.

  ‘A pox on the lot of you,’ howled Sir Philip and slammed out of the room.

  ‘Do not cry,’ said Mr Davy, putting an arm around Miss Tonks’s shaking shoulders. ‘You do what you think best.’

  And the feel of that comforting arm sent Miss Tonks straight from the depths of misery to heaven.

  TWO

  I regard you with an indifference closely bordering on aversion.

  ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

  Harriet, Duchess of Rowcester, walked slowly along the terrace and thought of her husband. Things had been uneasy between them since the death of Emily, their beloved daughter. A peacock on the lawn in front of her let out a harsh scream and turned its moulting feathers to the sun.

  She reflected that she had been glad to see hi
m leave for Italy, for she could no longer feel affectionate towards him and shrank from his embrace. He had said that he would keep to his own bedchamber until she was fully recovered from the death of their child. Guilt and concern for him made her feel like a bad wife, and yet she could not bring herself to approach him, to heal the ever-widening breach she sensed between them.

  She heard the post-boy’s horn and wondered whether the duke had written to her from Dover, although he had said he would write when he reached Milan, his destination. But she hurried through the house, hoping all the same that he might have written, that he might have forgiven her. She stopped short in the middle of the Yellow Saloon as the awful thought struck her that he might never forgive her. She shook her head as if to dismiss it, but it obstinately would not go away. She had known for the past few months that his kindness and consideration towards her were slowly fading, to be replaced by resentment.

  Sadly she walked on, through the chain of rooms, and so into the hall. The butler was arranging a small pile of letters on a silver tray.

  ‘I will take them now,’ said Harriet. She picked up the letters and retreated to the small morning room, which she had made her own. She put aside the ones addressed to her husband. There were three for herself. One was a bill from a London dressmaker, one a mercer’s bill for a bolt of figured silk, and the third was from Letitia Tonks.

  She opened Miss Tonks’s letter, which was crossed and recrossed and difficult to read, Miss Tonks having written first across the paper and then diagonally one way and then the other. It started with news of how well they were doing since the prince had arrived, and then there was a long piece about how delightful a companion Mr Davy was and what an asset to the hotel. I wonder what happened there, thought Harriet, pausing in her reading and remembering an effusive letter a while ago in which a rapturous Miss Tonks had claimed that Sir Philip Sommerville was about to propose marriage to her. She tilted the page and started on the crossed writing. It took her some time to work out that it was a description of the attempted suicide of a certain Lady Jane Fremney, daughter of the Earl of Durby. Harriet read on through the long description of Lady Jane’s running away from home, her penury, her desire for a Season, Miss Tonks’s grand idea that if the young woman assumed another name and if someone like dear Harriet felt like opening up her town house and bringing Lady Jane out, then perhaps the dear girl might find herself a suitable husband instead of ‘that monster’ her father had chosen for her.