by M C Beaton
He looked up as the butler descended the stairs. “Madam will see you now,” he said in the gloomy voice good servants use to impart to visitors that if they had any sense they would have known better than to call.
They followed him up the winding staircase and into a light, airy drawing room.
Martha Grimes rose as they entered the room and surveyed the pair with some surprise. Sir Charles looked like a fine young man from the top of his thick, fair hair to his shiny Hessian boots. She thought he had more the face of a scholar than an army man: clever and sensitive, with fine gray eyes.
His wife was a pretty little thing who looked half scared, half tired. But Miss Grimes hardened her heart. She had had more than enough of the sponging Deveneys. Through long years of being subjected to the wiles of adventurers and various grasping relatives, she had learned to keep the extent of her wealth a secret. She and her sister had received equal amounts of money in their parents’ will. She had invested hers and made her money grow. Her sister had married Mr. Deveney and managed to squander the lot in only two Seasons.
She was a tall, hard-featured woman of forty-five. She had thick, brown hair, without a trace of gray, under a starched cap. Her brown eyes were very dark, almost black, the kind of eyes that give nothing away.
“Sit down,” she said, “and tell me why you are come … and why you think I should entertain you.”
Sir Charles, during his wait in the hall, had thought up all sorts of tales to tell her, but he suddenly decided that nothing less than the truth would do.
Miss Grimes heard him out as he told her everything, including his intention to masquerade as Fanny’s cousin and pretend to be rich.
When he had finished at last, she fought down an unaccustomed desire to laugh. But she said sternly, “I do not hold with cheating trades people. I will not have you living on credit.”
“But if we were thought to be very rich,” said Sir Charles patiently, “we would spend most of the Season being entertained at other peoples’ houses.”
“You would be lying … tricking people.”
“True, but only for a little, only until Fanny finds someone suitable.”
“And what is wrong with you?” asked Miss Grimes. She looked curiously at Fanny.
“Sir Charles is very kind, quite like a brother,” said Fanny. “But it would be wonderful to have some fun, if only for a little.”
“Both of us are in need of some larks,” said Sir Charles. “I am war-weary, and Fanny must not be denied a few pleasures because of her parents.”
“In order to maintain this fiction,” said Miss Grimes, “I would need to support it in every detail—to help you with your lies, to chaperon Lady Deveney. Did you think of that?”
Fanny bent her head. “No,” she whispered. “I do not think we did.”
Sir Charles reached out, took her hand, and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
Was ever a pair so admirably matched, marveled Miss Grimes, and yet so determined not to be tricked any further that they do not realize it?
And what would this deception entail? It would mean an end of her lonely days for a little, it would mean going back into society, the society she had shunned for so long, which, in fact, had also shunned her, a middle-aged spinster not being considered at all interesting. Had she broadcast the extent of her present fortune, her life would have changed, but she had no desire to be a target of leeches and adventurers.
None of her thoughts showed on her face, a face well schooled over years of loneliness and rejection to mask hurt or worry.
Sir Charles gave a little sigh. Miss Grimes had a certain dignity and decency that made him feel guilty he had ever put such a shameful scheme to her. He rose. “Come, Fanny,” he said.
Miss Grimes looked across at him. “Sit down, young man,” she said. “I haven’t finished with you,” and sank back into a thoughtful silence.
The cries of the hawkers filtered through from the street below. A brewer’s dray rumbled over the cobbles. The postman rang his bell. Inside the drawing room, a fire of sea coal spurted and flamed on the hearth.
“Very well,” said Miss Grimes, breaking her silence. “From now on you are the rich Sir Charles and the rich Miss Fanny Page. Are you sure there is no one in London who knows of your wedding?”
“Only my friend, Tommy Hawkes, and he won’t say anything.”
She tugged at the bell rope. “You will be shown to your rooms. I advise you to rest; we shall meet at dinner and discuss this matter further.”
As the couple left, following the housekeeper, Miss Grimes noticed the way Fanny clung trustingly to Sir Charles’s arm. Let the pair have a little fun. In a week’s time, they would be in love.
Sir Charles visited Fanny’s bedroom half an hour later. “Is not Miss Grimes a treasure?” cried Fanny. “We shall be so comfortable here. She is not at all what I expected. Not at all like your mama.”
“Had you not met her before?” asked Charles, stretching out on the bed and putting his hands behind his head.
“You should take off your boots,” chided Fanny, “if you are going to lie on my bed.”
“Goodness, I’m tired,” Sir Charles said, yawning. “You have definitely got the better bed, Fanny. Amazing soft.”
“Boots off,” said Fanny impatiently, and tugged off his Hessians and put them on the floor. “I am just going to find a suitable dress for dinner and lay it out, then you must go off to your own bed because I want to sleep as well.”
He mumbled something indistinct. Fanny selected a sprigged muslin. The house was well fired, but the dining room might be cold, so she put a colorful Indian shawl beside it, kid gloves, thin kid slippers, the dress and shawl arranged on the chair and the slippers underneath, and then, satisfied, turned to say something to her husband and found he had fallen asleep.
She looked down at him and decided it would be cruel to awaken him, so she climbed in the other side of the bed, put her head against his arm, and cuddled against him and fell asleep as well.
Miss Grimes came in an hour later to see how Fanny was and stood for a moment watching the sleeping pair. This will not do at all, she thought. Sir Charles had given their names to the butler as Sir Charles Deveney and Miss Fanny Page. What on earth would the servants think if they found them in bed together?
She shook Sir Charles awake.
He looked up at her stern face and then twisted round to find his wife snuggled up against him. “Oh. Lord,” he said. “I am sorry. I fell asleep on her bed—and she is such an innocent, she probably saw nothing wrong in sleeping beside me.”
“Don’t let it happen again,” whispered Miss Grimes severely.
Captain Tommy Hawkes was feeling ill done by. Like Sir Charles, he lived on his army pay. He was a younger son, so his family home and estates had gone to his elder brother, who did not encourage visitors. Tommy had been hoping for a pleasant stay with Sir Charles’s parents. He had not expected to be sent packing by the Deveneys immediately after the wedding. He was staying at Limmer’s Hotel in Bond Street—and had just been thinking gloomily that he had better face up to the fact that he could not afford to be on leave for much longer and had better rejoin his regiment—when a footman arrived with a letter summoning him to dinner at the home of Miss Martha Grimes. He remembered that the lady was Charles’s spinster aunt, and where the married couple was staying, and brightened at the thought of seeing his friend again.
He brushed and cleaned his dress uniform—glad that he never put on any weight, for he could not afford a new one—and then with his brown hair pomaded and his large feet in pumps, carefully painted to conceal the cracks of age, he set out to walk to Hanover Square, happy that the day had been dry, for a wet day would have meant having to pay for the cost of a hack so that his white stockings did not get spattered with mud.
Miss Grimes was a great believer in judging people by their friends, so she felt reassured that her decision to aid and abet Sir Charles had not been wrong when she first
set eyes on Capt. Tommy Hawkes. He was, she judged, only a few years younger than she was herself. He was a tall, ungainly man with powdered hair, bright blue eyes, a great beaky nose, a firm mouth, and a long chin.
He listened, amazed, as the plan of deception was outlined to him. “Of course, if you’ve gone and told anyone about our marriage,” said Sir Charles, “we’ll need to forget about the whole thing.”
“No, didn’t even tell Bohun, and I met him the other day. Don’t socialize,” said Tommy ruefully. “Not the sort of fellow who gets asked anywhere.”
“I am sure your association with the rich Sir Charles and the very rich Miss Page will bring you invitations to most houses,” said Miss Grimes.
“So,” said Tommy eagerly, “how goes the plan of action?”
Miss Grimes picked up a sheaf of notes from a side table. “I have not been out in the world for some time, but being the sponsor of a young heiress means I have something to sell, society being extremely cynical, or rather, I being extremely cynical about society. I wrote to a number of my old friends, now married, and bemoaned the fact that I felt myself unfit to do justice to bringing out a rich young lady. If I am not mistaken, I should start to receive calls by next week.”
Tommy’s face fell. “I would dearly love to stay and see the action, but I fear I must return soon to my regiment.”
Miss Grimes’s experienced eye took in the well-brushed but old coat and the carefully painted shoes. “We assumed you would be staying at Limmer’s. Perhaps you would aid us by being part of this scheme?”
“I would dearly like to,” said Tommy awkwardly, “but …”
“I have plenty of rooms here,” said Miss Grimes. “You are welcome to stay.”
“Please do,” said Fanny. “Charles would like it above all things, would you not, my dear?”
She put a hand on her husband’s arm and he covered her hand with his own and smiled down at her. “Oh, we must have Tommy,” he said.
Tommy threw Miss Grimes a startled look that she returned with an amused one. Sir Charles and Fanny looked the very picture of a happily married couple.
Dinner was a merry affair, Tommy, normally shy, feeling unusually at ease in such undemanding company. After dinner, they went back to the drawing room, where Fanny said she would play them something on the pianoforte, and Sir Charles stood beside her to turn the music.
“This is a rum do,” said Tommy in a low voice to Miss Grimes. “What on earth does she want to go husband hunting for? She’s perfect for Charles.”
“They will both find out very soon they are perfect for each other,” said Miss Grimes.
“I rely on your good sense,” replied Tommy warmly, and something stirred in the depths of Miss Grimes’s lonely soul, a little stab of pure happiness.
She would not have been so happy had she known that her optimistic plans for Sir Charles and Fanny would go disastrously wrong.
At first it all seemed plain sailing. Society matrons called, invitations began to come in, news of the wealth of the “cousins” spread through London like wildfire. The four plotted and planned in the evenings, played cribbage, dined, and talked, swapping stories about all the stratagems that were afoot to get the goodwill of this wealthy pair.
And then it was the day of their first social outing, Lord and Lady Varney’s ball in Grosvenor Square. Fanny had very few qualms about going, for she would be escorted by Sir Charles, she would have Sir Charles to talk to and laugh with, and after the ball they would all gather in Miss Grimes’s drawing room and exchange stories.
Both Sir Charles and Fanny were too involved in their own affairs to notice that Miss Grimes was subtly changing. Her severe face was more relaxed. Instead of hard starched muslin caps, she wore dainty lace ones. Her gown for the ball was of lilac silk shot with gold and of a modish cut. She wore a Turkish turban on her head of the same material.
Sir Charles had eyes only for Fanny. He thought she looked enchanting in a white silk gown with a silver gauze overdress and with silver flowers in her hair.
“You’ll be the belle of the ball,” he said proudly. But Fanny was not.
She was dancing the cotillion with Sir Charles when she suddenly noticed his eyes fixed on someone who had just entered the ballroom—and that he colored slightly and his steps faltered. Curious, she looked to see what had caught his attention.
A beautiful girl stood there, surrounded by courtiers. She was as fair as Sir Charles, springy golden curly hair framed her enchanting face like an aureole. Her blue eyes were flirting this way and that as she received compliments from the men around her. She looked, despite her youth, sophisticated and at ease.
Fanny did not know that Sir Charles had recognized the beautiful face he had first seen in the miniature his mother had sent him. She also did not know that the beautiful Miss Woodward, for it was she, had been told by her parents of this rich Sir Charles Deveney and had been told to enchant him.
Fanny only knew that she felt suddenly insecure and lonely. The huge ballroom with its crystal chandeliers and its banks of hothouse flowers, its throng of bejeweled dancers, became an alien world in which she had no part.
And yet because of the stories of her wealth, she was besieged by partners for the rest of the evening, and she laughed and flirted while her heart and feet began to ache. For Charles had danced twice with Miss Woodward—Fanny had discovered her name—and not once had he crossed to her side to ask her how she was getting on or to laugh or share any gossip.
“What is he playing at?” Miss Grimes asked Tommy Hawkes in alarm. “This whole scheme is to find a beau for Fanny, although I did hope that they would realize the folly of it and settle down into being a happily married couple. Why is he making a cake of himself over Miss Woodward?”
“I recognize her,” said Tommy bleakly. “You remember Charles told you that part of the way he was tricked into marriage was because the Pages sent him a miniature supposed to be of Fanny? Well, it was a miniature of Miss Woodward. He’s been carrying it about with him. I’ve seen him looking at it. And now he’s struck all of a heap. And only see the effect it is having on Fanny.”
When they returned home, a silent party, by common consent all went off to their respective rooms. Miss Grimes decided to have a severe talk with Sir Charles in the morning but was too depressed to tackle him that night.
Fanny went to her room and dismissed Miss Grimes’s lady’s maid, who was waiting up for her, and sat down in an armchair by the fire and stared bleakly into the flames.
The door opened and Sir Charles came quietly in. He sat down on the floor at her feet and clasped his arms round his knees. “I’ve found her at last,” he said simply.
“Have you?” asked Fanny in a small voice. She reached out a timid hand and stroked his fair hair; he almost absentmindedly reached up and took it and held it in a firm grip.
“Miss Woodward,” he said. “Hers was the face in the miniature your parents sent me, Fanny. That face has been haunting me … and suddenly there she was. I—I am taking her driving tomorrow. I—I think I am in love, Fanny.”
“I am glad you have found someone,” said Fanny. “Tell me more about her.”
He talked on while the flames in the fire sank down and Fanny held his hand tightly, wishing Miss Woodward at the devil.
“But I shall do nothing until you find someone first, Fanny,” he said, twisting round and looking up at her. “What is the matter, my dear? You look so sad.”
“I suppose it is like losing a brother,” said Fanny on a little sigh. “I have been so happy.”
“Fanny, I shall never leave you until this farce of a marriage is over. I am a beast to keep you up this late. You must go to bed.” He rose, drew her to her feet, and kissed her gently on the forehead.
“We are in this together, Fanny, this deception.”
“What will Miss Woodward say when she finds you do not have any money?” asked Fanny.
“We will cross that bridge when we come to it.”<
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Sir Charles enjoyed a pleasant drive with Miss Woodward, blissfully unaware that behind him in the house in Grosvenor Square, three people had been praying for rain. But the sun shone and Miss Woodward was enchanting. Occasionally a deep chord of warning sounded somewhere inside him, a note of dread telling him that a difficult road lay ahead and that Fanny’s happiness came first. But mostly he felt dizzy and elated. He was sure from the way she laughed at his sallies and looked up at him with her blue eyes that he had never been so witty or entertaining.
“Nice but dull,” Amanda Woodward said to her mother, sighing, when she arrived home. She untied the strings of her bonnet and tossed it petulantly into a corner.
“But so amiable, so rich,” said her mother.
“I thought we were rich enough.”
“Tsk! Only the vulgar talk about money,” said Mrs. Woodward, a small, fussy matron, proceeding then to talk about it herself. “The Woodwards have remained rich by marrying prudently. This is your second Season and you have already turned down several offers. You cannot have another Season. People are already beginning to damn you as a sad flirt.”
Miss Woodward’s eyes widened. “Yes, you did not know that, did you? And the gentlemen close ranks sooner or later against any female they consider to be merely flirting with them. Sir Charles Deveney can only help your standing. He is considered the best prize this year, for the other candidates are either too old or too poor. There’s Bohun, mind, but he has an unfortunate reputation. A sad crop this year,” commented Mrs. Woodward gloomily—like a farmer looking at a bad harvest.
“You must try to befriend that little cousin of his,” she went on, “and I will flatter that silly old woman, Martha Grimes.”
“What makes you think her silly?” asked Miss Woodward. “She looks uncommon sharp to me.”
“Any woman who hasn’t the wit to marry is stupid,” said Mrs. Woodward roundly.
While Sir Charles had been driving Miss Woodward in the Park, Fanny had gone out for a walk. Miss Grimes had wanted to buy china in Pall Mall and Tommy had volunteered to accompany her. Fanny did not want to go with them. She wanted to walk by herself and think. She knew that if she had mentioned his plan, Miss Grimes would have ordered a maid or footman to accompany her and Fanny wanted to be alone.
