Finessing Clarissa

by Beaton, M. C.

  ‘Sit here, dear Miss Vevian,’ said Angela, indicating a chair in front of the drawn window curtains.

  Clarissa sat down. Amy made to sit beside her. ‘No, no,’ said Angela, ‘you must allow me the pleasure of conversing with Miss Vevian.’

  Clarissa sniffed the air. ‘There is a strong smell of oil, my lady,’ she said. ‘Are you sure one of the lamps is not leaking?’

  ‘I scented this room with rose-water myself,’ said Angela stiffly.

  Clarissa, flustered, apologized.

  She looked across the room and caught Chloris staring at her with a rather nasty look in her eyes. Now what have I done? thought Clarissa miserably.

  She would have been amazed if she had known that Chloris was bitterly jealous of her. In vain did Chloris try to remind herself that red hair was not fashionable. The rich coils and curls of Clarissa’s tresses, set off by the soft gleam of the strings of pearls wound through them, were enough to set any man dreaming. Her gown had been cut to show off the splendour of her white bosom. Her elbows were perfect. Chloris, whose elbows were like nutmeg graters, wondered what Clarissa used to keep them so smooth and white. Everyone knew that any man could be seduced by the sight of a perfect pair of elbows. But Clarissa did have big feet, reflected Chloris, looking down at her own small plump feet in satisfaction. Of course, there was no denying Clarissa’s feet were very well shaped and set off to advantage in a pair of gilt Roman sandals.

  ‘Shall we promenade about the room, Miss Vevian?’ asked the countess.

  ‘Gladly.’ Clarissa put down the netting-box she had just drawn out of her reticule and proceeded to walk up and down with Angela. She caught Amy’s eye and walked slowly and kept her head up. Angela raised her hand as she passed Bella. It was a signal to remind her daughter that as soon as the gentlemen entered the room, she was to contrive to set Clarissa’s long gauze scarf alight, but to make it look as if Clarissa had carelessly allowed it to float out over a candle. It was to be done as they were promenading back towards the chair by the curtains. With any luck, Clarissa would throw her scarf in the direction of the curtains.

  The room was very hot, thought Clarissa. The fire was roaring up the chimney and there seemed to be lighted candles everywhere. Not only were there candles blazing in the candelabrum over her head, but there were candles burning on sticks on various low tables. Quite dangerous, thought Clarissa, making sure neither her dress nor her scarf went anywhere near one of the many burning flames.

  Angela’s plan was totally hare-brained. Although she had soaked the bottoms of the curtains in oil and the floorboards around the edges of the room, there was no reason why Clarissa should simply not stamp out the flames of her scarf – providing, of course, Bella managed to light it unseen.

  But Bella was helped by the effect the arrival of the gentlemen had on the ladies. Clarissa had eyes only for the earl, as had Chloris Deveney and her mother. Amy and Effy each suspected Angela of having designs on either Mr Haddon or Mr Randolph and both rushed forward to stake their claim to one or the other gentleman.

  Bella deftly caught one end of Clarissa’s scarf and held it over a candle. It took but a second.

  ‘You have set yourself alight!’ screamed Bella, seizing Clarissa and pretending to try to beat out the flames as she edged Clarissa towards the window. Clarissa tore off the scarf. The now blazing scarf landed on the floorboards by the window. The next moment, there was a roaring wall of flame.

  The earl caught Clarissa around the waist and dragged her back. ‘Everyone out,’ he called. ‘Out of the room.’

  When they were all out, he slammed the door shut and took off his coat and stuffed it along the bottom. ‘If we can starve the room of oxygen, the fire might extinguish itself,’ he said.

  Servants had gone off running to fetch the fire brigade.

  The earl drove them all before him out into the street. ‘Did you leave any windows in the drawing room open?’ he snapped at Angela.

  ‘No,’ said Angela. ‘The shutters are closed tight as well.’

  ‘Good!’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ whispered Angela fiercely to Bella when the earl had moved away. ‘I thought air would put the fire out.’

  The men of the Phoenix Fire Brigade came charging up the street, pulling their manual fire-engine. The fire-plug in the street was pulled up. The Phoenix boasted the most powerful fire-engine of the time, but it could only throw a ton of water a minute through a three-quarter-inch nozzle. But other pumps were already being wheeled up in front of the house. ‘Get at it, men,’ screamed the fire chief. ‘This is a five-shilling-per-cent job!’

  ‘Take the hose inside,’ shouted the earl. ‘The shutters are closed.’ The firemen ran inside and up the stairs. The servants formed a long line up the stairs, passing buckets of water from hand to hand. The earl opened the drawing-room door and fell back as a great cloud of black smoke rolled out.

  Down in the street, everyone waited anxiously. A large crowd was gathering. A gingerbread man was already hawking his wares and a juggler was entertaining the gathering.

  Clarissa felt sick with shame. She had done it again. Amy put a comforting arm about her. She was clumsy herself and knew how easy it was to cause disaster with one thoughtless movement.

  ‘I think,’ said Mr Haddon, coming up to Amy, ‘that perhaps it might be a good idea to offer to house the earl and his party.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Amy dismally. It was the only thing to be done, she realized that. But to have Angela with her delicate flirty ways in residence? No more pleasant card evenings. It was too bad. But she gritted her teeth, and when the earl appeared again, she reluctantly invited him to stay.

  ‘Thank you,’ said the earl. ‘The fire is out, by some miracle. Only the drawing room is damaged. Mr Haddon, Mr Randolph, if you will escort the ladies to Holles Street, my servants will follow with the luggage.’ He broke off. Bella’s lady’s maid and Angela’s lady’s maid were standing together with jewel boxes and lace boxes at their feet.

  ‘You are fortunate your maids got those out,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Angela. ‘So brave of them to go and fetch them.’

  ‘It was my lady’s premonition,’ said Angela’s lady’s maid. ‘She had a dream there might be a fire and told us to have the jewel boxes and lace boxes standing ready in the hall.’

  ‘Silly goose,’ said Angela. ‘I said no such thing.’

  ‘We will talk about the fire later,’ said the earl curtly. ‘Off with you.’ He turned to a servant. ‘Make sure those firemen keep all the other doors in the house tight shut until the smoke dies down or all our clothes will be ruined.’

  Soon the party was assembled in the Tribbles’ drawing room. ‘So brave of you to take on such dangerous charges,’ murmured Angela to Effy. ‘I mean, such a clumsy and stupid thing to do!’

  Clarissa heard her and sat miserably with her head hanging. Amy was wondering how much all this would cost. The building was insured, but now she would have to provide food and wine for the earl, his stepmother, and half-sister.

  Mr Haddon and Mr Randolph had returned to the earl’s home to see what they could do. Mrs Deveney and Chloris, who had accompanied the stricken party to Holles Street, finally took their leave.

  At midnight, the earl came into the drawing room with Mr Haddon and Mr Randolph. ‘It might have been worse,’ he said.

  ‘I am so very sorry,’ whispered Clarissa brokenly. ‘I am a danger to society.’ She turned to Amy and Effy. ‘I think, you know, I should go home to Bath.’

  ‘What a very good idea,’ said Angela brightly.

  The earl looked at her for a long time and then his gaze turned to Bella. Then he said, ‘Please retire and take Bella with you. There are some things I wish to discuss in private with the Misses Tribble. Gentlemen’ – to Mr Haddon and Mr Randolph – ‘I would be grateful if you too could leave me in private with these ladies.’

  Clarissa began to tremble. Amy walked over to where Clarissa was
sitting on the sofa and sat down and put an arm about her.

  The earl closed the drawing-room door and faced the small group.

  ‘Tell me exactly what happened, Miss Vevian, and leave nothing out.’

  ‘I . . . I . . .’ began Clarissa and burst into tears.

  ‘Give her some brandy,’ said the earl. He waited patiently while Amy soothed Clarissa, patted her clumsily on the back, and then held a glass of brandy to her lips.

  ‘Now, Miss Vevian,’ said the earl.

  ‘I went to the drawing room after dinner with the ladies,’ said Clarissa in a tired, flat voice. ‘Lady Angela asked me to sit by the window. I took out my netting-box and then she asked me if I would promenade with her. I was nervous because I had asked her if one of her lamps might be leaking – the room smelt of oil, you see – and Lady Angela said she had scented the room that day with rose-water. I felt very gauche and that may have been what made me clumsy. There were so many candles burning on low tables that I did try to be careful. Then . . . let me see . . . you, my lord, and the other gentlemen came into the room and Lady Bella cried out I was on fire and hustled me across the room . . .’

  ‘In the direction of the window?’ asked the earl.

  ‘Why, yes. But I am not quite clear in my mind. Suddenly there was this roaring sheet of flame and you know the rest.’

  ‘Yes, I do know the rest,’ said the earl, obviously furious.

  Amy got to her feet and stood between the earl and Clarissa. ‘Careful, my lord,’ she said quietly. ‘Miss Vevian is at the end of her tether as it is.’

  ‘And I am at the end of mine,’ he raged. ‘Do you not see what happened? No, of course not. How can you? Angela had been plaguing me to buy new furnishings for the drawing room, which she regards as her preserve. I refused. I think she soaked the floorboards and curtains in oil and then staged that so-called accident. It shames me to tell you this, ladies. Miss Vevian, I beg you to forgive me, or rather to forgive my wretched family.’ He moved round Amy and knelt in front of Clarissa and looked into her tearful face.

  ‘You mean I am not responsible?’ asked Clarissa.

  ‘No, Miss Vevian. You are the victim of a malicious plot.’

  Clarissa started to smile, a wide happy smile.

  He got to his feet. ‘Excuse me, ladies,’ he said. ‘I must see my relatives immediately.’

  He went out and closed the door. There was a long silence.

  Then, ‘Hurray!’ cried Amy, slumping down in a chair and kicking off her shoes. ‘Champagne! Get Harris and bring champagne. My dear Clarissa, I may call you that, may I not? My dear, dear Clarissa, the bad days are over for you. We shall drink to your success at the Season. Think, my chuck, in all your misspent life, you must admit you have never done anything half as bad as the Dowager Countess of Greystone.’

  Harris brought in champagne. The three ladies raised their glasses. ‘To the best Season the Tribbles ever had!’ cried Amy.

  They solemnly drank the toast while from above came the sound of noisy weeping and the Earl of Greystone’s voice raised in anger.

  5

  O never let the lying poets be believed,

  who ’tice men from the cheerful haunts

  of streets . . . A garden was the

  primitive prison till man with

  promethean felicity and boldness

  luckily sinned himself out of it. Thence

  followed Babylon, Nineveh, Venice,

  London, haberdashers, goldsmiths,

  taverns, playhouses, satires, epigrams,

  puns – these all came in on the town

  part and thither side of innocence.

  Charles Lamb

  Sir Jason Pym heard about the fire, as did everyone else in the West End of London. He strolled past the earl’s house the next day and saw squads of workmen and servants already busy cleaning up the mess.

  By gossiping to various aristocratic passers-by, he was able to learn that Clarissa and the Tribbles had been guests of the earl’s, and that the earl and his family had been taken to reside with the Tribbles in Holles Street.

  He felt his luck was in. Some way and somehow, Clarissa had not discovered those papers. Now that Bella was in the same household, it should surely be easy to persuade her to get them for him.

  Sir Jason’s one chink in his selfish armour was to believe himself irresistible to women. Bella had sent him a pathetic little note the day before to say how much she missed him and how terribly harsh she thought the earl’s behaviour was. She begged him to meet her in St James’s Park at three o’clock tomorrow – now today. Blinded by vanity, Sir Jason did not realize that Bella was fickle and that she would probably have spurned him had not her brother’s interference added a necessary spice of intrigue to the liaison.

  He dressed in his dandified best, from high starched collar to gleaming boots and clouded cane, and waited in the park at the spot where the dairymaids sold fresh milk, which was where Bella had said she would meet him.

  Promptly at three o’clock, he saw her hurrying towards him. He recognized her figure, for Bella, alive to the dramatics of the situation, was heavily veiled. Bella flicked a gloved hand at her maid to indicate the woman was to make herself scarce for a short while.

  ‘I am glad you are safe,’ said Sir Jason in what he prided himself was a voice throbbing with passion. ‘I heard about the fire.’

  Bella put back her veil. ‘The most horrid thing,’ she said. ‘It was all the fault of that great lummox, Clarissa Vevian. She set her scarf alight and in doing so set the whole drawing room burning. Crispin then accused me and Mama of having deliberately engineered the fire so as to get the drawing room refurbished. He is a monster! He is not even in love with this Miss Vevian, for I observed them closely. He is sorry for her.’

  ‘Why is he sorry for her, my heart?’ asked Sir Jason. ‘She is a very rich young lady of good family.’

  ‘She is notoriously clumsy and endangers the life and limb of all who come near her. That is why she has been sent to the Tribbles for schooling. They are an odd frowsty couple, terribly old. Mama is to try to persuade Crispin to let us go to a hotel until the town house is ready. She will find it difficult, for he has employed builders and carpenters and decorators to work night and day and says he expects the house to be habitable again in a week.’

  ‘My poor crushed blossom,’ said Sir Jason huskily. ‘Would I had the right to protect you. Would I could make you mine.’

  Bella thought it was all very romantic. She fluttered her eyelashes at him and sighed. ‘Alas, that can never be so.’

  ‘My heart is breaking!’ cried Sir Jason, putting a white hand to his enamelled brow.

  Bella quite warmed to him. He was behaving just as he ought. ‘Dear Sir Jason,’ she said, allowing him to press her hand, ‘I wish there was something I could do to alleviate your pain.’

  ‘There is, my life, a trifling service it might be easy to perform for me.’

  ‘And what is that, sir?’

  ‘A servant of mine, a thief, had taken some of my belongings and was hiding out at an inn. Miss Vevian stopped at that inn on her road to London. The authorities came to search for my wicked servant and he hid my belongings in various rooms about the inn and made his escape. All things belonging to me were recovered except for a packet of love letters. I caught the fellow myself and got him to confess. He said he hid the letters in the bottom of Miss Vevian’s jewel box.’

  ‘Then you have only to ask her for them,’ said Bella pettishly. Love letters, indeed. Men in love with Bella were not supposed ever to have been in love with anyone else.

  ‘I cannot trust her not to read them,’ he said, ‘but I can trust you’ – which all went to show what a bad judge of character Sir Jason was when he thought some female was besotted with him.

  ‘What are these love letters?’ asked Bella.

  ‘I had an indiscreet affair with a certain royal personage. She wrote me passionate letters. It would ruin her if the
y were found. The packet is stitched tightly closed. It is an oilskin packet.’

  Bella looked at him with cold eyes. The nerve of the man. To drag her out to this dingy park – Bella had forgotten it was she who had suggested the meeting – and to tell her lies about letters from some royal person! They were probably from some tart like Harriet Wilson and he wanted to destroy them. To dare to ask her to get back his love letters when he was supposed to be in love with her!

  She dropped her veil. ‘I must go,’ she said, turning away.

  ‘But the letters?’

  ‘I suggest you ask Miss Vevian for them yourself,’ said Bella huffily. ‘You had better not come near me again. Crispin would not like it.’

  She summoned her maid and tripped off down one of the walks, leaving him glaring after her.

  Sir Jason walked up and down the park for some time, fretting and fuming. Then he remembered his latest recruit and his face lightened. Young Lord Sandford was the answer. None but Sir Crispin knew how badly in debt the young man was. He was handsome, of good family, and had a charming manner. He had lazily said he would do anything at all for money. He should start to pay off his debts by dancing attendance on Clarissa.

  Clarissa was searching in her jewel box for a set of clasps to give to Yvette to put on a dress. Her fingers touched the oilskin packet at the bottom, but it was a large packet that exactly fitted the bottom of the jewel box and so she thought it was some sort of padding her maid had put there.

  Bella appeared in the doorway of Clarissa’s bed-chamber. ‘Found anything?’ she asked.

  ‘I am looking for some sapphire clasps,’ said Clarissa. ‘I think I must have left them at home.’

  ‘I suppose you hide your love letters in there,’ teased Bella, moving into the room and looking down curiously at the contents of the box. ‘There is nothing in here but jewellery,’ said Clarissa. ‘I am not fortunate enough to have love letters.’