Back in Society (The Poor Relation series)

by Beaton, M. C.

  Harriet read the letter carefully to the end. She remembered her days at the Poor Relation with affection, the scares, the excitement, the warmth and the friendship, and gave a little sigh. To anyone else, Miss Tonks’s suggestion would seem absolutely mad, but to Harriet, remembering her friends with affection, it was just the sort of idea they would dream up.

  Why not? she thought suddenly. Why not find something unusual like this to occupy her mind instead of sitting and grieving for her lost child, and feeling guilty about her estranged husband?

  She went to her writing-desk and penned a letter to Miss Tonks saying that she would be in London in two weeks’ time and that they would discuss the matter then. Harriet did not want to give a definite yes until she had seen this Lady Jane. Anyone who did something so terrible, so drastic as trying to commit suicide might be mentally unbalanced.

  Miss Jane North, as she was now called, submitted dutifully to the outings arranged for her by Miss Tonks and Mr Davy, who appeared to have been appointed her guardians. She tried hard to return their kindness by appearing cheerful, but she seemed to carry a greyness around with her, a remoteness. They promenaded around the shops, drove in the parks, took tea at Gunter’s in Berkeley Square and went to the playhouse, where Mr Davy escorted them backstage and introduced them to the actors. Jane, who had never known any such freedom, could not yet appreciate any of it. She went everywhere heavily veiled, her eyes cast down, speaking in a low voice and only when spoken to.

  Miss Tonks began to feel at her wits’ end. Mr Davy said soothingly that it would take time. Someone who had so recently been in such despair as to want to commit suicide did not recover overnight. Jane had dutifully written to her old nurse, enclosing money and two letters for her father, one to be posted on immediately, the other in two weeks’ time. But she did this on instruction, as she did everything else they told her to do.

  And then the Duchess of Rowcester’s letter arrived and Miss Tonks took it first to Lady Fortescue.

  ‘Our cautious Harriet,’ said Lady Fortescue, after she had read it carefully. ‘And quite right to be cautious, too. She may decide against bringing out a young female who always looks as if she is about to attend her own funeral. The sad fact is that I find Lady Jane something of a bore.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ exclaimed Miss Tonks, clasping her thin hands together. ‘She is always sad, but so good and so very beautiful.’

  ‘You have always had a weakness for beauty,’ said Lady Fortescue sympathetically. ‘But there is nothing in her at the moment to attract any man. Even when she ate in the dining room, she failed to catch the eye of our most susceptible prince. Just in case Jane North, as we now must call her, has any hope left in her, we should not tell her about Harriet until Harriet has seen her and made up her mind what to do. Harriet may very well decide it is not worth the effort. The weather has been dreadful of late. If this incessant rain ever ceases, Jane might come about. Having to go abroad wearing calash and pattens is very lowering. Sensible dress does have a lowering effect on the spirits.

  ‘Normally I would suggest putting her to work in the hotel, although we now do little work ourselves. Work might give her an interest. On the other hand, should Harriet decide to sponsor her, then having been seen about the hotel working would ruin her social chances. Then, of course, for it actually to work out, Jane has to be lucky enough to find a suitor able to stand up to her father, and one rich enough not to care if he decides not to give her a dowry. Where are you taking her on this awful day?’

  ‘We are going to the Park in a closed carriage.’

  ‘The day is depressing enough without being confined in a closed carriage and looking out at a lot of muddy trees. I think perhaps Sir Philip should take her in hand.’

  Miss Tonks primmed her lips in disapproval. ‘Sir Philip is enough to drive anyone to suicide.’

  ‘He can be waspish and irritating. But perhaps the girl has been treated to too much kindness and understanding.’

  Miss Tonks was about to protest, but then she thought that a day without Jane would mean she could go to the Park with Mr Davy alone. ‘I do not know how Sir Philip will entertain her,’ she said instead. ‘He will probably take her to a cock-fight.’

  Sir Philip received Lady Fortescue’s suggestion without enthusiasm. ‘I don’t know where to take her,’ he grumbled. ‘Why should I waste time escorting a Friday-faced antidote? And she goes about so heavily veiled, it’s like speaking to one of those horrors out of a Gothic romance. Oh, well, I can see from that militant look in your eye that there is no escape. And talking about Friday-faced antidotes, where is our Miss Tonks?’

  ‘I think she is going out with Mr Davy.’

  ‘Meaning you know she is going out with Mr Davy, as usual. She is wasting her time on that mountebank and becoming skittish and frivolous, which is disgusting in a lady of her years.’

  ‘Then,’ said Lady Fortescue drily, ‘it follows that you are even more disgusting when you are skittish and frivolous because you are nearly twice her age. With any luck, at the end of the next Season, we will all be able to sell up and retire. You seem to harbour some odd notion of marriage to Miss Tonks. It would not serve.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I shall put it crudely and bluntly. Miss Tonks is a genteel virgin and you are an old rip with carnal lusts which seem to increase with age. One would have thought lust would have turned to rust by now.’

  ‘We should all stay together,’ said Sir Philip sulkily. ‘Davy’s an interloper.’

  ‘Mr Davy is one of us. He has proved his worth by being a most efficient debt collector. We have not one outstanding debt now. And now that the prince is here and his secretary is paying everything at the end of each week, we have no worries on that score. Mr Davy has earned a holiday, as have we all.’

  ‘He was not with us from the beginning,’ protested Sir Philip. ‘He has had an easy time of it.’

  ‘I am not going to waste any more time talking to you.’ Lady Fortescue rose to her feet. ‘Do what you can for Jane. You are a kind man at heart, Sir Philip, so stop trying to pretend otherwise.’

  Sir Philip found Jane in the room she shared with Miss Tonks. She was wearing a carriage dress and the inevitable depressing hat with a heavy veil.

  ‘I’m taking you out, see?’ said Sir Philip, ‘So I’ll wait for you in the hotel office next door while you change.’

  ‘Change?’ asked the voice softly from behind the veil.

  ‘Yes, change. You’re going out with a fashionable gentleman, so put on something pretty and leave off that demned veil!’

  Sir Philip walked out before she could reply.

  Jane rose stiffly – she always moved stiffly these days, as if the mental pain inside her head had affected her movements – a rheumatism of the very soul – and went to the large carved press next to the fireplace and opened it. There were four new gowns which had arrived from the dressmaker’s, neatly folded. On the top shelf were new hat-boxes. Although she had stood patiently while she was fitted for her new clothes, she had not worn any of them.

  She selected a morning gown of white lace and muslin and a pelisse of apricot silk lined with fur. On her head she put an apricot velvet hat with a low crown and wide brim. She studied herself in the long mirror, not really seeing herself, not noticing the fashion plate that looked back at her, searching only for bits of loose thread or hair that might be caught in her clothes.

  Sir Philip, when he saw her entering the office, surveyed her with delight. ‘Now you look more the thing,’ he crowed. ‘And bless us all, but the sun has begun to shine.’

  ‘Has it?’ asked Jane. ‘I did not notice.’

  He clicked his tongue in impatience. ‘I have ordered an open carriage. I tried to persuade the others that it was time we had our own carriage instead of running up an enormous bill at the livery stables. But would they listen? Not them. Cheeseparing when they don’t have to be, and profligate when times are hard. Come.’ He held out his arm and she
dutifully placed her gloved hand on it. Sir Philip led her out into the hallway just as Prince Hugo was arriving. Prince Hugo was a large, ebullient man with bushy sidewhiskers and Slav eyes, intense blue eyes of an almost oriental cast. Those eyes fell on Jane and widened slightly. The prince’s hand went up to his whiskers and gave them a twirl.

  ‘Present me, Sommerville,’ he said.

  ‘Miss Jane North, Your Highness,’ said Sir Philip.

  The prince kissed Jane’s gloved hand. She curtsied low. Sir Philip held out his arm again and they left the hotel while the prince stared after them.

  ‘Made a conquest there,’ said Sir Philip cheerfully as Jack helped them both into the carriage. ‘Drive us around where we can be seen,’ he instructed the coachman.

  Jane sat rigidly beside him, missing the protection of her veil. So many people seemed to stop on the pavements to stare at her. She wondered if she had a smut on her nose.

  She had never been told she was beautiful. It had been dinned into her mind from an early age that she was plain, and any hopes she had of attracting a man must be supplied by her rank and her dowry. At last the stares became too much.

  ‘Sir Philip,’ she said to that elderly gentleman, who was sitting with his arms folded, looking all about him with a complacent air. ‘Why do people stare so? Do I have a mark on my face?’

  ‘Pay them no heed and worry only when they stop staring. They like staring at beauties.’

  He glanced at her astonished face and gave a cackle of laughter. ‘No wonder you didn’t know you were beautiful, moping around behind a veil and wishing you were dead because of some nasty old tyrant of a father.’

  A faint flush rose up in her pale face. Had either Miss Tonks or Mr Davy told her she was beautiful, she would not have believed them, would have thought they were being kind. But Sir Philip’s blunt remarks had the ring of truth. She looked about her with a sort of wonder. A tall guardsman stopped short on the pavement and looked at her in open admiration and raised his hat. Jane gave a polite bow.

  ‘Here now,’ admonished Sir Philip. ‘If you haven’t been introduced to ’em, you don’t notice ’em. Where will I take you to blow the cobwebs out of your brain? We’ll go down to the river.’

  He called to the coachman to take them to Westminster Bridge, and when they reached there ordered Jane to dismount and told the driver to wait.

  They walked along the bridge and into one of the semi-circular bays which overlooked the river. London lay covered in a misty haze through which a warm sun shone, turning everything to gold. Upstream lay the terraces of trees and grey houses in front of Westminster Hall, the new Millbank Penitentiary, and low banks lined with willow trees. Downstream were the ramshackle taverns and the warehouses of Scotland Yard, the gardens of Northumberland House, the conical water-tower of York Buildings, Somerset House rising above the water, and St Paul’s dome, dominating all the houses and spires. They stood in silence. The great stream flowed below them, green and grey, boats with white and brown sails scudding across it.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ said Jane.

  ‘Nice enough on a good day,’ said Sir Philip. ‘I know, we’ll go to the tea-gardens at Chelsea and enjoy the sunshine.’

  The King’s Road in Chelsea was a depressing sight with wounded soldiers standing outside the taverns, leaning on their crutches, their eyes wild with drink. But once Sir Philip and Jane were ensconced in the quiet of the tea-gardens, war seemed very far away, and Napoleon a forgotten ogre.

  ‘Thank you. This is very pleasant,’ said Jane. ‘I am indebted to you, as I am to your friends.’

  ‘Then you can repay us by stopping feeling so disgustingly sorry for yourself,’ said Sir Philip.

  She stared at him, shocked, and then said coldly, ‘Perhaps we should be getting back.’

  ‘Not till I’ve said my piece.’ Sir Philip tapped his cup with his spoon. ‘You have had a hard time of it, no doubt about that, but society is full of folk who were whipped by their parents, shut up in the cellar, and, yes, girls who were forced into marriage with men they don’t like. It’s the way of the world. But you lack bottom. If the rest of society were like you, there would be corpses from end to end of London. And what of those poor soldiers? Maimed and hobbled and on a pension of sixpence a day. The whole of life is compromise. You take what the Good Lord has handed you and make the most of it. Look at you! You are beautiful and titled and well fed and well gowned. Come to think of it,’ he went on cheerfully, ‘you ought to be ashamed of yourself.’

  Jane looked at him steadily, a high colour on her cheeks. ‘I must think about what you have just said.’ And she turned her gaze away from him and looked across the gardens.

  It was just as well for her that Sir Philip’s attention had been caught by the charms of a buxom waitress. He raised his quizzing-glass and for the moment forgot about his companion.

  Jane struggled for words to explain why she had tried to commit suicide. How could she explain the cruel reality of being isolated in her father’s mansion from any normal life? The only servant to ever show her any kindness, her nurse, had been dismissed. Her aunt, the earl’s sister, was mostly in residence and ignored Jane as if she did not exist. Jane’s young life had been ordered by the cruel tyranny of her governess. And having escaped from home burdened with guilt, lost in a strange world outside her ‘prison,’ she had felt without hope.

  She felt a burning sensation of pure rage at this horrible old man opposite who was ogling the waitress. ‘How dare you, sir!’ she cried. ‘How dare you mock me?’

  Sir Philip reluctantly transferred his gaze from the waitress. ‘I wasn’t mocking you. I just got tired of seeing you mewing and whimpering.’

  ‘Have you considered what my plight will be when my father finds me?’

  Sir Philip sighed. ‘He hasn’t found you yet, and when he does, you’ve got all my soft-hearted friends to fight for you. Get it through your pretty head, you are not alone any more. Start living! Wake up! Drink your tea and let me feast my eyes on that shapely waitress.’

  Jane glared at him but he appeared to have forgotten her again.

  The sun continued to shine, and the river running at the foot of the gardens sparkled in the sun.

  Still fuming and fretting over what Sir Philip had said to her, she turned her attention to the other people in the tea-garden.

  And then a tall man entered the gardens with a stately lady on his arm. He was extremely handsome in a rakish and dissipated way. He had golden hair curling under a beaver hat. His clothes were beautifully tailored and his Hessian boots shone like the sun. He had broad shoulders and a trim waist and excellent legs. His eyes were very blue and heavy-lidded, which gave his mobile face a mocking look.

  The lady was treating him with cold disdain, something which seemed to amuse him.

  And then her voice, clear and carrying, reached Jane’s ears. ‘Is this your idea of entertainment, Monsieur le Comte? To take me to a common tea-garden and place me among common people?’

  The comte’s eyes ranged lazily about the garden and fell on Jane and widened slightly. Jane tried to look away, as she knew she ought, but felt trapped by that blue gaze. The lady with the comte followed his gaze and looked at Jane as well. Then she got to her feet. ‘Take me home,’ she ordered sharply. ‘This place is a confounded bore.’

  The comte dutifully rose to his feet. He bowed in Jane’s direction and swept off his hat. The lady walked out of the tea-garden, her head held high. The comte flashed Jane a comical, rueful look and followed her.

  Sir Philip’s waitress disappeared indoors to the kitchen and he turned to Jane. He saw her face was flushed and her large eyes sparkling.

  ‘You’re still in a rage,’ he said in a kind voice. ‘I don’t mind. Angry people don’t try to top themselves. I’ll take you back.’

  The Comte de Mornay greeted his friend, Jamie Ferguson, in a coffee house in Pall Mall later that day.

  ‘Sit down, mon ami,’ he said, pulling out a ch
air with his foot. ‘I am in love.’

  ‘Again?’ said Jamie with a grin. He was a tall, thin man with a clever, fox-like face, pale green eyes and sandy hair. ‘What happened to the fair Clarissa?’

  ‘I took her to a tea-garden in Chelsea.’

  ‘What were you about? Only the best will do for Clarissa Vardey. What was wrong with Gunter’s or the Poor Relation?’

  ‘I knew she would not like it,’ said the comte. ‘I had begun to take her to unfashionable places. But although she did not like the tea-garden, I knew I could not move her from my side. So I used my most lethal weapon on her.’

  ‘That being?’

  ‘I told her I had lost all my money on ’Change.’

  ‘She surely did not believe you!’

  ‘Oh, but she did. I explained most carefully that the reason she had been recently subjected to the indignity of meeting me in such low places was because I could not afford anything higher. And just in case she might not believe me, I explained that she could help my life considerably by giving me back the diamond-and-sapphire necklace I gave her for her birthday. She took fright and went back to her husband like any good wife should.’

  ‘So what is this about love?’ asked Jamie, amused.

  ‘While we were in the tea-gardens, I saw the most beautiful creature in the world. A face to dream about. She was with some old rip, her father or uncle, no doubt.’

  ‘Or her protector,’ said Jamie cynically.

  ‘Never! She had an untouched air about her. I must find her again. She was exquisitely gowned, I mean gowned like a lady. And young. Not yet twenty.’