Refining Felicity

by Beaton, M. C.

  M. C. Beaton is the author of the hugely successful Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth series, as well as a quartet of Edwardian murder mysteries featuring heroine Lady Rose Summer, the Travelling Matchmaker and Six Sisters Regency romance series, and a stand-alone murder mystery, The Skeleton in the Closet – all published by Constable & Robinson. She left a full-time career in journalism to turn to writing, and now divides her time between the Cotswolds and Paris. Visit www.agatharaisin.com for more.

  Praise for the School for Manners series:

  ‘[M. C. Beaton] again charms and delights: a bonbon for those partial to Regency romances.’

  Kirkus

  ‘The Tribbles are charmers . . . Very highly recommended.’

  Library Journal

  ‘A delightful Regency sure to please . . . [Beaton] is a romance writer who deftly blends humour and adventure . . . [sustaining] her devoted audience to the last gasp.’

  Booklist

  ‘The Tribbles, with their salty exchanges and impossible schemes, provide delightful entertainment.’

  Publishers Weekly

  Titles by M. C. Beaton

  The School for Manners

  Refining Felicity • Perfecting Fiona • Enlightening Delilah

  Animating Maria • Finessing Clarissa • Marrying Harriet

  The Six Sisters

  Minerva • The Taming of Annabelle • Deirdre and Desire

  Daphne • Diana the Huntress • Frederica in Fashion

  The Edwardian Murder Mystery series

  Snobbery with Violence • Hasty Death • Sick of Shadows

  Our Lady of Pain

  The Travelling Matchmaker series

  Emily Goes to Exeter • Belinda Goes to Bath • Penelope Goes to Portsmouth

  Beatrice Goes to Brighton • Deborah Goes to Dover • Yvonne Goes to York

  The Agatha Raisin series

  Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death • Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet

  Agatha Raisin and the Potted Gardener • Agatha Raisin and the Walkers of Dembley

  Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage • Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist

  Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death • Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham

  Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden

  Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam • Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell

  Agatha Raisin and the Day the Floods Came

  Agatha Raisin and the Curious Curate • Agatha Raisin and the Haunted House

  Agatha Raisin and the Deadly Dance • Agatha Raisin and the Perfect Paragon

  Agatha Raisin and Love, Lies and Liquor

  Agatha Raisin and Kissing Christmas Goodbye

  Agatha Raisin and a Spoonful of Poison • Agatha Raisin: There Goes the Bride

  Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body • Agatha Raisin: As the Pig Turns

  The Hamish Macbeth series

  Death of a Gossip • Death of a Cad • Death of an Outsider

  Death of a Perfect Wife • Death of a Hussy • Death of a Snob

  Death of a Prankster • Death of a Glutton • Death of a Travelling Man

  Death of a Charming Man • Death of a Nag • Death of a Macho Man

  Death of a Dentist • Death of a Scriptwriter • Death of an Addict

  A Highland Christmas • Death of a Dustman • Death of a Celebrity

  Death of a Village • Death of a Poison Pen • Death of a Bore

  Death of a Dreamer • Death of a Maid • Death of a Gentle Lady

  Death of a Witch • Death of a Valentine • Death of a Sweep

  Death of a Kingfisher

  The Skeleton in the Closet

  Constable & Robinson Ltd

  55–56 Russell Square

  London WC1B 4HP

  www.constablerobinson.com

  First published in the US by St Martin’s Press, 1988

  This paperback edition published by Canvas, an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2012

  Copyright © M. C. Beaton, 1988

  The right of M. C. Beaton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in

  Publication Data is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-1-78033-311-3 (paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-78033-466-0 (ebook)

  Typeset by TW Typesetting, Plymouth, Devon

  Printed and bound in the UK

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  For Thelma Osmani

  1

  The great blessing of old age, the one that never fails, if all else fail, is a daughter.

  The Reverend Dr Opimian

  All daughters are not good.

  Mr Falconer

  – Thomas Love Peacock, Gryll Grange

  It is a sad fact that one’s insides do not keep pace with one’s outsides. Pains in the lower back, wrinkles round the eyes, soft puffiness under the chin, elasticity gone from the step; all the outward manifestations of growing old make up a pitifully hardening shell over the ever-youthful and hopeful soul.

  Such was the case of the Tribble sisters. Each Season came round with all the hopes and torments and joys they had experienced in their teens. They were twins and no one knew quite how old they were, but they were rumoured to have reached their half century. They still dreamt of beaux, and later, after drums and routs and balls and ridottos, in the privacy of their drawing room, discussed each killing glance and hopeful pressure of the hand.

  Euphemia, or Effy, Tribble had at least gained the false reputation of having once been a beauty. In her youth, she had been cursed with sandy hair, pale eyelashes, and a dumpy figure. Now her hair was a cloud of silver, her figure trim, and her eyelashes discreetly darkened with lampblack. Her delicate skin was only faintly lined and she had adopted all the mannerisms of a great beauty.

  Her twin, Amy, was a sharp contrast. She was tall and square-shouldered and mannish, with a leathery skin and masses of iron-grey hair. She was flat-chested and flat-bottomed and had great flat feet which flapped along like boards. Effy often sighed over the fact that she, Effy, had turned down proposals so as not to leave her dear Amy alone, and Amy, who thought little of herself, half believed this fiction, although it was Amy who had turned down two genuine proposals of marriage out of loyalty to Effy – who had clung to her and cried and had told her that the gentlemen were only playing with her affections.

  The fact that anyone at all had ever proposed to one of them was a miracle, for neither had any dowry to speak of. Their mother had died when they were young, and their father was a gambler who went to meet his Maker on a cloud of cigar fumes above the gaming tables of St James’s during a singularly bad run of luck.

  The house in the country was sold to pay the debts. The sisters would not have dreamt of parting with the house in Town, for Town meant the Season and the Season meant marriage.

  Such money as they had at their father’s death, they had put in the bank, drawing on it as they needed. Neither would hear of investing it, regarding the Stock Exchange as just another variety of gambling hell. And so the years passe
d and the money dwindled. One by one the servants were paid off, until there was only a daily scrubbing woman left.

  But they were kept merry with shared dreams, and added to that, they had hopes of financial security. Their aunt, a Mrs Cutworth, who lived in Streatham and who was vastly rich, had promised to leave them everything in her will. For years now the sisters had been travelling to Streatham to visit the horrible old lady, who always seemed to be at death’s door but would never pass through.

  One November day, when ice glittered in the parks, and a red sun low on the horizon stared at sooty London with a baleful eye, the Tribbles set out in a hired post-chaise, trying not to count the cost of all the post-chaises they had paid for over the years to take them to Streatham.

  Amy was warmly wrapped in a fur cloak. It was bald in places, but she had painted the bald spots with brown paint and hoped they did not show. On her head she wore a striped cap and on top of that a huge black felt hat like the kind worn by highwaymen. Effy was wrapped in so many trailing scarves and shawls, it was hard to make out what she was wearing underneath.

  Soon the sooty buildings gave way to small sooty cottages and hoardings advertising Warren’s Blacking – as if anything were needed to add to the general blackness. Blue shadows lay across the icy road in front of them as the sun sank lower. But they were warm with dreams of what they would do with the money when Mrs Cutworth died.

  ‘Coals,’ said Amy, flapping her great feet up and down on the carriage floor in her excitement. ‘We would have fires – even in the bedchambers.’

  ‘And a lady’s maid,’ said Effy. ‘Oh, and proper servants.’

  ‘And three meals a day,’ said Amy.

  ‘And dowries.’ Effy considered a good dowry more important than food or warmth.

  Effy was soft and timid on the outside and had a hard core of steel within, the hallmark of a truly feminine woman. Amy was crude and harsh and ungainly and swore on occasion quite dreadfully, but could be sentimental and impractical to a fault. She used to give money to beggars until Effy stopped her from carrying any, to curb such misplaced and feckless generosity.

  When their carriage lurched through the gates and up the short drive leading to Mrs Cutworth’s mansion, they saw the physician’s carriage outside.

  ‘Do you think . . . ?’ began Effy eagerly.

  ‘No, I don’t think,’ said Amy curtly. ‘She’s always calling the physician.’

  They climbed down from the carriage and Amy knocked at the door, a brisk tattoo which sounded through the house.

  The door was opened by a moon-faced butler with a lugubrious expression.

  ‘Sad news, ladies,’ he said in a mournful voice. ‘Madam has passed on.’

  ‘Gone out?’ said Amy.

  The butler pointed up. ‘She has gone to the angels.’

  Amy’s fine grey eyes sparkled as she looked beyond the butler and up the shadowy staircase as if seeing a vision of roast-beef dinners, warm rooms, and servants waiting at the top. Effy quickly put a handkerchief to her eyes to hide her excitement.

  ‘We shall pay our last respects,’ said Amy. The twins walked slowly up the steps, although they were tempted to break into a run.

  The doctor was just coming out of the bedchamber. ‘Buttered crab,’ he said. ‘I told her not to touch it, but she would have it, and it’s been the death of her.’

  As the Tribbles walked into the gloom of the bedchamber, Baxter, Mrs Cutworth’s lady’s maid, was just twitching the bed curtains back into place.

  She was a tall, gaunt, elderly woman, and when she saw the Tribbles, she began to cry, great ugly sobs racking her body.

  ‘There, there,’ said Amy. ‘It was not as if it was unexpected.’

  ‘Nothing,’ sobbed Baxter. ‘How could she do it to me? Not a brass farthing has she left me, her that promised me riches in her will.’

  ‘Do not cry,’ said Effy briskly. ‘We will take care of you, Baxter.’

  ‘What with?’ demanded the maid rudely. ‘She’s left you nothing as well.’

  Amy felt sick. ‘You are overwrought, Baxter,’ she said sharply. ‘How can you know this?’

  The maid scrubbed her eyes with a corner of her muslin apron. ‘Because I read her will, that’s why.’

  Effy pulled back the bed curtains and looked down on the dead face of her aunt. Mrs Cutworth had a smile on her face, as if savouring their dismay and mortification.

  ‘Where is this will?’

  ‘In her bureau,’ said Baxter. ‘I’ll show you.’

  She went to a flat-fronted bureau in the corner of the room and let down the flap. She took a roll of parchment tied with pink tape from one of the pigeon-holes and mutely held it out.

  Amy seized it and, followed by Effy, carried it to the window and jerked up the blind. Pale grey light crept into the room.

  With Effy peering round her arm, Amy read in horrified silence. Mrs Cutworth had left all her worldly goods to a Mr Desmond Callaghan.

  ‘Who is Mr Callaghan?’ she asked.

  ‘A fribble,’ said Baxter sourly. ‘A Pink of the ton. Been calling for over a year.’

  ‘Why didn’t you warn us?’ demanded Effy sharply.

  ‘I didn’t take it seriously,’ said Baxter. ‘He used to flirt with her and she’d laugh at him behind his back and say he was only after her money.’

  Amy’s hands tightened on the will. She noticed with irritation that her last pair of good gloves had a split on the index finger of the right hand. ‘I have a good mind to destroy this,’ she said.

  ‘I thought o’ that,’ said Baxter. ‘But she’s sent a copy to her lawyer. You could challenge the will. Mr Callaghan isn’t a relative. You could prove he only called to gull her.’

  ‘It would take money to fight this in the courts,’ said Effy. ‘And her lawyer would say she was of sound mind.’

  Baxter began to cry again. Amy patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. ‘I’ll give you a good reference, Baxter, and if the worst comes to the worst, you may come and starve along with us.’

  The sisters sat in silence as the post-chaise bumped over the frozen ruts on the road to London.

  At last Amy said passionately, ‘Bad cess to her. I hope she died slow.’

  ‘Tch! Tch!’ admonished Effy, shocked. ‘It may be God’s judgement on us. We never liked her, you know. We only pretended to like her to get her money.’

  ‘That is not entirely true,’ said Amy harshly. ‘We were kind to her. We put up with her spite and humours. We were the only living relatives she had. As far as we knew, the money would have come to us whether we visited her or not. We did go out of duty, and you know it! She was cruel and insulting to us. And yet, you know, quite a big part of our motive in seeing her was because we were sorry for her. She seemed so bitter and lonely. Besides, what ways are there for two gently bred women to find money? Society allows us only two options: marry, or wait for someone to die. I wish I were dead myself. No one is going to marry either of us.’

  Effy began to cry. Amy had at last voiced the hitherto unmentionable.

  Amy put an arm about her sister’s shoulders. ‘I’m a beast. Of course someone will marry you. You’re awfully pretty. The deuce! There must be something. What have we got to sell?’

  ‘Nothing,’ wailed Effy. ‘There is nothing left.’

  ‘There’s the house.’

  Effy looked stricken. She would rather die of starvation at a good address than live genteelly at an unfashionable one. She began to cry harder than ever.

  ‘Oh, dear. Forget I spoke,’ said Amy desperately. Then her face lit up. ‘By George! We have got something to sell. We can sell ourselves.’

  ‘As courtesans?’ asked Effy, drying her eyes and looking more cheerful at the prospect of a really interesting fantasy. ‘We could be like Harriet Wilson and have the Duke of Wellington paying for our services.’

  ‘No, no. We can be chaperones. Look here! We have the right connections. We are good ton.’

  ‘You ca
n’t eat good ton,’ said Effy crossly.

  ‘Listen. There are many counter-jumpers and mushrooms who would pay for the chance of getting into society.’

  ‘But how do we find these people?’ asked Effy. ‘I mean, it might take ages and ages. We don’t know any common people.’

  ‘We advertise, damme. We advertise. Just like Warren’s Blacking.’

  A few weeks later, Mr Benjamin Haddon stood hesitantly on the pavement outside the Tribbles’ home in Holles Street. He felt lost and strange. He had been away from London for many years. He had worked long and hard for the East India Company, until a trifling service to a rich raja and the resultant munificent reward had given him fortune and freedom. Before turning into Holles Street, he had walked along Oxford Street, dazed by the glitter of the shops. He wondered if the crowds who swarmed down it ever thought of the time, not so very long ago, when it was a dismal trench of a road, a Via Dolorosa, along which the unfortunate were taken to the Triple Tree, as the scaffold at Tyburn was called. It was estimated five hundred thousand had gone to their deaths on that terrible scaffold, but now it looked as if it had never existed. Everything was new and different. Even fashions had changed. The ladies wore next to nothing, and he found it hard to tell prostitute from gentlewoman. That was why he had thought of the Tribble sisters. He was sure they would not have changed. They were a fixed part of his memories of the London he had known before he sailed to India.

  Although he had been a not-very-well-off young man, he was of good family and had been invited to various social events. But his clothes had been sadly countrified and the ladies were apt to shun him. All except the Tribbles. Amy and Effy Tribble could always be counted on to look delighted when he asked one of them to dance. In his innocence and still wrapped in fond memories of his youth, Mr Haddon did not realize the Tribbles would have been delighted to dance with anyone at all, both the girls being tired of the long evenings spent with the other wallflowers. He remembered them as being safe and friendly. He wondered if they were still alive and still lived in Holles Street. But the brass plate at the door, dating from the last century, before street numbers were invented, said tribble quite clearly. He knocked at the door.