Finessing Clarissa

by Beaton, M. C.

  ‘You are not my father,’ said Clarissa huffily. ‘I shall do as I please.’

  Amy came into the room. The earl released Clarissa’s hands. Clarissa, assuming Amy would want to apologize to him in private, curtsied and left the room.

  To Amy’s relief, the earl seemed more amused than angry. He gracefully accepted her apologies and told her that he was going upstairs to ask Bella and Angela to make ready to leave.

  ‘I am going to the country tomorrow,’ he said to Amy. ‘I have a favour to ask you. If Lord Sandford proposes marriage to Clarissa, do not let Clarissa accept the proposal until I return.’

  ‘Nothing to do with you,’ said Amy roundly. She sniffed. ‘You and your brotherly love! Since Clarissa met that young man at the ball last night, she has not dropped anything. The admiration of a handsome man is just what she needs. As a matter of fact,’ said Amy airily, but watching the earl closely, ‘Sandford was sounding me out today, you know, to find out how the land lies and if you entertained any warm feelings towards Clarissa. “Not a bit of it,” said I. “Looks on her as a sister.” “How can it be,” says he to me, “that any man in his right mind can share the same roof as Clarissa Vevian and look on her as a sister?” “Gentlemen,” says I, “gets staid and sober when they are as old as the Earl of Greystone.”’ Amy finished, feeling quite exhausted at having delivered herself of so many lies in such a short space of time.

  ‘And did Miss Vevian also go out of her way to tell you about her sisterly feelings towards me?’ demanded the earl acidly.

  ‘Oh, no. Mind you, there was a time when I hoped . . .’

  ‘You hoped what?’

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ said Amy. ‘Young Sandford is just what she needs. He tells her she’s beautiful almost in every second breath and it works with Clarissa like magic. Why, it’s like seeing a clumsy, rusty piece of machinery being oiled and put into good working order. She presided over the tea table while he was here and you have never seen such dexterity and grace! Love has done what neither we nor her tutors could achieve.’

  ‘I have reasons for asking you to be wary of Sandford,’ said the earl.

  ‘I suppose you must have good reasons,’ said Amy. ‘Not as if a man of your years could be jealous.’

  ‘Dammit! I am thirty-two.’

  ‘Pity,’ said the incorrigible Amy, shaking her head. ‘But there’s none of us can turn back the clock.’

  ‘Good evening, madam,’ said the earl frostily. He marched up the stairs to tell Angela the good news about moving to a hotel. But instead of going to Angela’s room, he went straight into Clarissa’s without even bothering to knock. She was sitting at her toilet table, brushing her hair, which cascaded like a gleaming red waterfall down to her waist.

  He stood behind her and put his hands on her shoulders and studied her reflection in the glass. ‘Don’t do anything to encourage Sandford until I get back,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’ demanded Clarissa.

  His grip on her shoulders tightened. ‘Because I say so, Miss Vevian. Because I . . .’

  She stared at the glass and saw his mouth descend to her cheek. She sat very still. ‘Do this for me,’ he said huskily.

  ‘But I like him,’ whispered Clarissa. ‘He makes me feel pretty.’

  His hands moved from her shoulders and buried themselves in the perfumed masses of her hair. He thought of Sandford kissing her and suddenly could not bear it. His head moved round, blotting out Clarissa’s wide-eyed reflection in the glass and his lips found hers. His mouth was hard and firm and then soft and caressing. She twisted around in his arms and put her own arms around his neck.

  Amy stood in the open doorway and surveyed the embrace with deep satisfaction. Then she crept off along the passage, rubbing her hands gleefully.

  Effy listened breathlessly while Amy told her what had happened.

  ‘But he might go too far,’ she cried. ‘We had better go and see what is going on. His intentions may be totally dishonourable, for all we know.’

  ‘Spoilsport, leave ’em alone,’ said Amy with a grin. ‘The door’s open.’

  ‘Now, kiss me properly,’ the Earl of Greystone was saying as he closed Clarissa’s bedroom door and locked it. She walked back into his arms and he held her closely for a long moment and then began to kiss her passionately. He lifted her in his arms, and, still kissing her, carried her to the bed and laid her down on it and stretched out beside her.

  His lips moved to her neck and then slowly down to the top of her breasts. ‘He hasn’t said anything about loving you,’ said a high, clear voice somewhere inside Clarissa’s brain. One hand slid round her back and loosened the tapes of her gown. Then he pulled down her gown and began to kiss her breasts.

  ‘Clarissa! Open this door immediately.’ Amy’s voice, high and angry. She had been urged back by Effy and had been shocked to find the door shut.

  The earl pulled up Clarissa’s gown and retied the tapes and then helped her from the bed. Clarissa stood, her hair tumbled about her shoulders, looking the very picture of shame.

  ‘Don’t let any man near you when I am gone,’ he whispered fiercely. ‘Not even Sandford, especially Sandford. You are mine, and I love you.’

  Clarissa’s head came up and her eyes blazed with a mixture of love and relief. The Earl of Greystone unlocked the door.

  ‘Ladies,’ he said, ‘I wish to ask your permission to pay my addresses to Miss Clarissa Vevian.’

  ‘Looks like you have already been paying very warm addresses, my lord,’ said Amy, peering over his shoulder. ‘Yes, of course you may.’

  Lady Angela was in a bad mood. She and Bella had longed to get away from the Tribbles and into a fashionable hotel. So here they were and they were not happy one bit. The Tribbles’ household was very well run, the servants were deferential, and the food was excellent. Johnson’s Hotel catered for the nobility, but employed all the sharp practices of the lower order of London hotels. You picked up a vase and it came apart in your hands, because it had been cunningly glued to do just that. You rang for another vase and they promptly supplied it and put the price of it on your bill. Rabbit was served up under a heavy sauce and called chicken and a great many other dishes had long and fancy French names to add tone to the mess they actually were. Angela’s chamber-pot had fallen into two halves at a crucial moment.

  It was not the discomforts of hotel life, which they had brought on themselves, that was so galling, nor the humiliating scene with Amy; it was the feeling that the earl and Clarissa were up to something. There had been a great air of excitement about the house when they left. Angela had never seen Crispin look so elated or so happy, and those wretched Tribbles had looked triumphant.

  ‘She can’t have lured Greystone into marriage, can she?’ wailed Angela. ‘A big giantess like that will probably breed and breed, and there’ll be nothing left for poor Tom or Peregrine.’

  ‘Not to mention me,’ said Bella acidly.

  ‘She seemed set on Sandford only the other day,’ wailed Angela. ‘Though how Sandford could even look at her with you in the room, Bella, I do not know.’

  ‘I think,’ said Bella slowly, ‘that Sandford has proposed and been accepted. That is why those horrible Tribbles were looking so pleased with themselves. Clarissa is to be at the Herveys’ breakfast this afternoon. We will be able to observe her there.’

  ‘Sandford only met her for the first time at the ball. He can’t have proposed. It must be Crispin.’

  ‘Come, Mama, he would surely have told us.’

  ‘No, he wouldn’t; nasty, secretive thing,’ said Angela. ‘Let us see if there is some way we can shame her at the breakfast. It would get back to Crispin’s ears and might give him a disgust of her.’

  Lord Sandford looked up rather guiltily as he found Sir Jason looming over him in the coffee room of the club to which they both belonged.

  ‘Well, Sandford?’ demanded Sir Jason. ‘Where are the papers?’

  ‘You are rushing me,’ said Lord Sand
ford. ‘I cannot just say to a girl I danced with only a short time ago, “Take me up to your bedroom and let me see your jewel box.”’

  ‘Where is your fire and passion, man? Tell her they are love letters stolen from you and you must have them back. I told you what to say. Time is running out. Do you want money or don’t you? One word from me, and all the duns and debtors will be on your father’s doorstep.’

  ‘Why are you threatening me?’ asked Lord Sandford plaintively. ‘I thought all this was a lark. I mean, no one in their right mind would want to help Boney. If I thought for a minute he had one hope, I would have nothing to do with it.’

  Sir Jason sat down and hitched his chair close. ‘She goes to the Herveys’ breakfast. Be there. Promise her marriage, promise her anything, but get those papers or it will be the worse for you.’

  Lord Sandford recoiled from the vicious painted face thrust so close to his own. ‘I say,’ he said weakly. ‘No need to turn nasty. I’ll get them. She’s already eating out of my hand.’

  7

  For if my libations exceed three,

  I feel my heart becomes so sympathetic,

  That I must have recourse to black Bohee;

  ’Tis pity wine should be so deleterious,

  For tea and coffee leave us much more serious.

  Lord Byron

  As the earl rode out early the next morning, he was still amazed that he had had the good sense to find out he was in love with Clarissa.

  He had been prepared to see her marry someone else, had looked on her with affection and admiration, and then Amy had goaded him. A smile curved his lips. He wondered now if Amy had goaded him deliberately. Was that part of their job? To jog the minds and affections of their ‘impossibles” suitors? Perhaps if he had left things one more day, Sandford might have proposed and Clarissa might have accepted.

  Sandford! He spurred his horse. It would probably turn out that Sir Jason made his money card-sharping and that Sandford was a respectable young man.

  His thoughts turned again to Clarissa. He wished now he had exercised more control in his love-making. She was a virgin but she had answered his kisses with such passion that he had forgotten himself. He almost turned on the road at that point and headed straight back to London. For the thought came into his mind that surely his happiness with Clarissa mattered more than hunting down spies. But telling himself he was being downright unpatriotic and sending up a prayer for Clarissa’s safety while he was gone, he bent over the horse’s neck and rode like the wind.

  When he reached The Bell he was weary from the journey, weary of changing horses, aching to see Clarissa again with a longing that was so sharp it was close to pain.

  He ordered a room and then asked the waiter to send the landlord up to see him.

  The landlord came in, wiping his hands on his apron, and looking anxiously at the earl. ‘I trust everything is to your liking, my lord?’

  ‘Yes, splendid. Come here, man, I wish to ask you a few questions, that is all.’

  The landlord walked forward and stood at attention. The earl looked at him with some amusement. ‘An old army man?’

  ‘Yes, my lord, Twenty-sixth Foot.’

  ‘How long since you left?’

  ‘Ten years, my lord. I was in India with Wellington’s troops. Got enough prize money to buy this inn.’

  ‘And your name?’

  ‘Sam Budgee, my lord.’

  ‘Well, Mr Budgee, this is what I want to know. You may remember that I paid for a room for a young lady some time ago. She stayed here on the night the troops were searching for those missing government papers.’

  ‘I remember that evening well, my lord.’

  ‘You may also recall a certain young man who had an accident. He fell down the stairs, I believe.’

  ‘A Mr Epsom. Yes, my lord.’

  The earl searched his memory. Epsom. Then he remembered during one of his leaves meeting a certain Mr Epsom at Watier’s. A weak, rabbity-looking fellow who gambled deep.

  ‘Did he recover from his fall?’

  ‘Seems he did, my lord, although I thought it folly for him to go on the road so soon after recovering consciousness; but a gentleman came for him and bore him off.’

  ‘This gentleman, what did he look like?’

  ‘I ain’t one for describing people proper, my lord. Very much the aristocrat, begging your parding. Very grand and haughty-like.’

  ‘Hair? Colouring?’

  ‘His hair was powdered white and worn long in the old-fashioned way. He had black eyes and his face was painted white. He had a coat of some light-blue cloth.’

  ‘I know the gentleman of whom you speak,’ said the earl. ‘When they left here, which way did they go?’

  ‘Out towards Bath, or so the ostlers told me.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Budgee, that will be all.’ Money changed hands and the landlord beamed and bowed.

  ‘Will I set dinner for you now, my lord?’

  ‘Not yet. Have a horse saddled and ready for me. I want to ride out for a little.’

  Soon he was riding out on the Bath road. He had taken a description of Sir Jason’s carriage. He planned to ask at houses on the Bath road if anyone had noticed the occupants of the carriage or had heard what they said. He had not much hope of success, but he was not hungry and felt spurred to take some sort of action.

  The gibbet stood up beside the road in the fading light. Normally, he would have averted his eyes from the poor wretches, but something made him look up as he rode underneath. He gave a sharp exclamation and reined in his horse. Three bodies were stinking and rotting. One at the end was also beginning to decay but the contorted face was vaguely familiar. The rain had washed it clean. He was sure it was Epsom.

  He rode a little way away from the gibbet, his handkerchief over his nose and mouth so as not to breathe in the sickeningly sweet smell of rotting flesh.

  If that body was Epsom’s, then why was he up on that gibbet? He had left with Sir Jason, and Clarissa had not charged him with any crime.

  Then a sinister little voice in his brain said, ‘What a wonderful place to hide a body.’

  He rode back to the inn and sent for the local magistrate.

  Breakfasts were always held at three in the afternoon and the one Clarissa attended was no exception. The day was once more fine, unusual considering the customary fickleness of the English spring. The Herveys lived in a pleasant mansion overlooking the Green Park and the tables had been set on a long terrace outside in the open air.

  Amy was looking very fine in a short spencer worn over a gown of green-and-white stripes. Effy was in pale blue muslin, her shoulders swathed in her favourite blue gauze and a wide-brimmed bonnet decorated with silk roses and marguerites on her head. Clarissa was in pale green muslin with a green silk pelisse. Her straw hat was in the shape of a man’s curly-brimmed beaver with the crown decorated with a broad green silk ribbon, the long ends, or streamers, hanging down her back.

  She would have been enjoying herself immensely had not her partner at the table been Lord Sandford. Clarissa could think only of the earl. For the first time, she found Lord Sandford a trifle boring and thought that he bragged too much. She resented his proprietorial air but having encouraged him just the day before did not know how to go about repressing him.

  His many compliments, which had done so much for her self-esteem before, now made her feel awkward and embarrassed. She dropped her fork, and when a waiter brought her another one, she dropped that as well. Lord Sandford was drinking heavily, Clarissa noticed, and his eyes shone with a hectic light.

  From her watching post, farther down the table, Amy noticed Clarissa’s confusion. Lord Sandford must be told as soon as possible that Clarissa was spoken for. Why didn’t the girl tell him herself? She obviously had not, for he was constantly leaning towards her and whispering in her ear and totally ignoring the lady on his other side. Amy also noticed that Bella and Angela were watching Clarissa and exchanging occasional looks. Th
ey were plotting something, of that Amy was sure. Some way, she must put them out of action.

  At last the meal came to an end and the guests were invited to take a stroll in the long gardens, which ran down to the park below the terrace.

  Amy seized Effy and drew her aside. ‘I must deal with Sandford,’ she whispered. ‘But Bella and Angela are plotting mischief. While I cope with Sandford, you make sure they don’t get near her.’

  ‘What shall we do?’ Bella was asking her mother eagerly, and they moved to the head of the steps among the other guests who were anxious to see the gardens.

  ‘I have been thinking,’ said Angela. ‘Do you mark that goldfish pond? If we could cause her to fall in, then she would have to leave the party, and you, my love, could try your wiles on Sandford. She would look like such a fool and Crispin would get to hear of it.’

  ‘She is with Sandford just now,’ whispered Bella. ‘How do we get near her?’

  ‘We’ll follow them and look for an opportunity.’

  They were unaware that Effy was standing behind them, listening to every word.

  Effy looked at the back of Angela’s head, her eyes burning with hate. She followed them to the top of the stairs and seized her parasol. She was about to drive it into Angela’s back, therefore causing her to take a tumble, but common sense stopped her at the last minute. The flight of steps was short and Angela would only fall onto the springy turf, pick herself up and be ready for action.

  Angela and Bella moved down into the gardens and Effy followed them closely.

  Amy came up to where Lord Sandford was standing with Clarissa beside the goldfish pond and hailed him cheerfully. ‘Pleasant afternoon, Sandford.’

  Lord Sandford turned, quickly hiding his irritation at the intrusion, and bowed. ‘I have been telling Miss Vevian her eyes are like the sky.’

  Amy squinted upwards. ‘No, they ain’t. Sky’s blue, her eyes are grey.’

  ‘But they change like the ever shifting sky.’

  ‘Bad simile,’ said Amy. ‘You mean the sea.’

  He waved an expansive arm. ‘The sea, the sky, all of nature reminds me of Miss Vevian.’