‘It’s all your stupid fault,’ came Lord Bremmer’s anguished voice. ‘You would take the ribbons. Drive to an inch! Pah!’
‘I can drive to an inch,’ howled Felicity furiously, ‘but John Lade himself would have fallen into that hole in this light.’
The marquess darted towards Felicity and clipped her round the waist in a strong grasp from behind. She screamed and twisted and struggled until he clipped her on the back of the head and told her to be quiet.
‘Now, Bremmer,’ said the marquess. ‘You will both get into my carriage and come with me to the nearest posting house till I find out how we can keep your escapade a secret.’
He frog-marched Felicity to his open carriage, shouting over his shoulder to Lord Bremmer, ‘Leave those cursed horses alone. We’ll send an ostler for them.’
Felicity stopped struggling and sat sullenly beside the marquess. Lord Bremmer climbed in and sat next to her.
‘Ravenswood,’ he cried. ‘I must explain—’
‘Not a word,’ snapped the marquess, inching his team round both hole and carriage, ‘until we get to Barnet.’
At the inn, he demanded a private parlour and then ushered the guilty couple up the stairs in front of him.
Wine was brought in and the inn servants dismissed before the marquess began in an even voice, ‘Now, Bremmer, since you could have had her in church, I assume the elopement must have been her idea.’
Lord Bremmer made a brave stand although, with a sinking heart, he was already sure everything Felicity had told him was a pack of lies.
Without looking at Felicity, he said, ‘She told me you wanted her for yourself.’
The marquess flicked a contemptuous look at Felicity, who was still dressed in men’s clothes. ‘You must be mad,’ he said. ‘My engagement to Miss Andrews has just been announced.’
‘Lady Felicity said that was because she had spurned your advances,’ said Lord Bremmer, blushing to the roots of his hair. He looked pleadingly at the marquess’s hard face. ‘Well, she did, and she said although you were to marry Miss Andrews, you had sworn that no other man should have her and had given those sisters instructions to repulse any proposal.’
The marquess took a sip of wine and leaned back in his chair. His eyes glittered in the candlelight. ‘And do you still believe that?’ he asked softly.
Lord Bremmer struck the table. ‘No, by Gad!’ he said. ‘Not a word of it.’
‘Then,’ said the marquess in a deceptively mild voice, ‘perhaps you will be more cautious in future and take what your wife says with a pinch of salt.’
‘Wife?’ Lord Bremmer’s mouth fell open in dismay.
‘Yes, wife. You shall marry her in church with your parents’ blessing after asking both the Tribbles and Lady Baronsheath formally for their permission to pay your addresses to Lady Felicity. Which is what you should have done in the first place. This sorry episode will be hushed up. Do I make myself clear?’
‘I can’t marry her!’ cried Lord Bremmer. ‘You must save me from her, Ravenswood.’
Felicity, who had been sitting with her head bowed, jerked upright at that and stared at Lord Bremmer with a shocked look on her face.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ snapped the marquess. ‘You were so much in love with the creature that you ran off with her.’
‘But I did not know what she was like,’ cried Lord Bremmer. ‘Oh God, believe me, Ravenswood, she was so winsome, so womanly, and so charming, I—’
‘And then unfortunately a fox-hunt threw itself in your path,’ said the marquess.
‘Oh, yes, and she became like a demon,’ said Lord Bremmer. ‘We rode and rode and she was shouting and cheering and swearing . . . well, I have never heard such language. But it was a good hunt and we nearly had our fox when she disappeared. I cursed her but separated from the hunt to look for her. I saw her! I saw what she did.’
‘What?’ asked the marquess, glancing curiously at Felicity, whose face had become as red as fire.
‘She had a red herring on a string. She must have stolen it from the inn kitchen. She dragged it across the ground and then threw it into a spinney. The hounds picked up the smell of herring and by the time the whole hunt descended on that spinney, she was at the back of them, looking as innocent as anything. Lord! The master’s face when his dogs came out of the spinney, quarrelling over that herring! I nearly died of shame.’
‘I never could stand the kill,’ said Felicity in a suffocated voice.
‘I am glad you have some womanly feelings, however idiotic,’ said the marquess. ‘Do you not know the damage foxes do, and you a countrywoman?’
Felicity hung her head.
‘Then,’ said Lord Bremmer, ‘she drank a bottle of port, and when we set out again, she insisted on taking the reins. I tried to stop her, but she laughed at me and forced me to let her have her way by threatening to get down and walk home.’
‘You may have the schooling of her when you are married,’ said the marquess.
‘I won’t marry her,’ said Lord Bremmer. ‘Oh, my poor father and mother. Oh, poor Marian, who thought I loved her, and I spurned her and all because of this hoyden. Ravenswood, I beg of you, please do not force me into marriage. I will do anything. I am so ashamed. Please, my lord. Oh, have mercy on me.’
Lord Bremmer let out a choked sob and buried his face in his handkerchief.
Felicity was now as white as she had been red a moment before. She had sworn to show the marquess that some man could be mad with passion for her. All she had presented him with was a young man, broken in spirit and near tears at the very idea of having her as his wife.
She felt a hard lump rising in her throat. But she would not cry. The worst was over.
But Felicity was wrong.
‘Call on me tomorrow, Bremmer,’ said the marquess, ‘and we will discuss this further. Meanwhile, we shall leave you here to attend to the repairs to your carriage. Felicity, finish your wine and come with me.’
Felicity would have liked to protest, but she was sure if she said anything, her control would snap and she would burst into tears.
The tears came at last on the road home. But because of the darkness, the marquess was not aware of them. He talked on and on.
‘And did you never think, Lady Felicity,’ he said, his voice harsh with anger, ‘of the fate of all those nurses and governesses you are reputed to have had dismissed? Turned off from a noble household? And what of the Tribbles? But it is of no use, and I may as well save my breath. If only the Tribbles or your mother would listen to me! I would tell them to send you to a convent in Belgium and to leave you there until some sense was driven into your head.’
Felicity found her voice. ‘We are not Catholic,’ she said, ‘so such talk of a convent is nonsense.’
‘Talk of any reformation is a waste of time,’ he snapped. ‘You are a disgrace to your sex.’
To Felicity’s relief he fell silent. But her relief was short-lived. For in the ensuing silence, she had time to reflect on the events of the day, to remember the horror and disgust on Lord Bremmer’s face. Surely it was all somebody else’s fault. But Felicity could not think of any excuse and she ached with shame. All she could pray for was a hasty retreat to her room and the oblivion of sleep.
As they drove through the streets of London in the marquess’s open carriage, Felicity was achingly conscious of her appearance. She felt sure everyone looking at her would know she was a girl dressed as a man.
As they drove through the Mayfair streets, they approached a house where a rout was in progress. When holding a rout, it was the tradition to have all the curtains at the windows pulled back. As they came abreast of the mansion, the marquess slowed to allow a lumbering brewer’s sledge to cross in front of him. Felicity glanced at the house. A group of people were standing on the steps, waiting for their carriage to be brought round. One of the group was Miss Betty Andrews. She looked full at Felicity and the marquess and her eyes widened. Felicity turned her head away a
nd at that moment the marquess, finding the road clear, flicked the reins and his carriage moved on.
Miss Andrews had been wearing a spangled gown and some sort of sparkling headdress. The marquess had not seen her. Felicity could not help contrasting her own appearance with that of Miss Andrews. She felt she ought to warn the marquess they had been seen, and that she was prepared to swear blind, should Miss Andrews ask, that she was her own mythical brother.
They arrived at Holles Street. There was no hope that the sisters had gone to bed. Lights shone at the windows, and as soon as Felicity climbed down, the door opened and Effy and Amy came out on the step.
Tears blurred Felicity’s eyes. She brushed past them and hurtled up the stairs to her room. ‘Let her go,’ called the marquess to Amy, who was about to follow Felicity. ‘Time enough tomorrow to sort things out.’
The sisters waited anxiously in the drawing room while the marquess saw to the stabling of the horses.
‘Do you think there is any hope for us?’ asked Effy. ‘He has brought her back, but what of the scandal?’
‘We must wait and see,’ replied Amy, twisting a pleat in her gown with large hands. ‘We must have been mad to ever hope that Ravenswood would even look kindly on the girl.’
The door of the drawing room opened and the marquess came in. He looked tired and cross. The sisters fussed round him, making him sit in a chair by the fire and plying him with wine and cake.
‘Well?’ demanded Amy at last. ‘Are we still in business?’
‘Yes, I should think so,’ said the marquess, leaning his head against the back of the chair and half-closing his eyes. ‘If today doesn’t cure her, then nothing will.’
‘But the scandal!’ cried Effy.
‘I do not think there will be any scandal,’ said the marquess. ‘Bremmer is terrified he might have to marry her. Listen, I shall tell you all.’
The sisters listened in growing amazement to his tale of the elopement, the hunt, and the accident, and Bremmer’s sobbing at the very idea of having to marry Felicity.
‘But as to what you are to say to her tomorrow, I do not know,’ ended the marquess.
‘I will speak to her,’ said Effy firmly. ‘She should be whipped!’
Amy shifted her large feet uneasily. Felicity had admittedly behaved disgracefully, but Amy could not help admiring her. How wonderful it must be to behave really badly, just once.
‘And Miss Andrews was here earlier,’ added Effy, ‘and asking such questions – where were you, where was Felicity, when were you expected back, and so on, and Mrs Andrews was worse. Mrs Andrews thought you should have called in person to give your apologies. Mrs Andrews wanted to know what you were doing living here. Mrs Andrews wanted to know a deal of things.’
The marquess frowned. ‘I hope Mrs Andrews realizes that after I am married, I will not tolerate a mama-in-law being underfoot for most of the day. Lord, I am so tired.’
He rose to his feet. Effy studied his broad shoulders, handsome face, long limbs, and let out a little sigh and fluttered her eyelashes at him. He smiled and kissed her hand and she giggled and blushed while Amy scowled.
After Effy had gone to bed, Amy sat at her toilet table, brushing her hair and wondering what to do about Felicity. At last, she threw down the brush, and pulling a wrapper over her nightgown, she picked up a candle and made her way to Felicity’s bedchamber and listened at the door.
She was just about to turn away when she heard a strangled sob coming from inside the room. She pushed open the door and went in.
Felicity was lying face down on the bed, still dressed in her men’s clothes.
Amy set her candle down on the table beside the bed and drew up a chair. She took one of Felicity’s hands in her own and held it tight.
‘There now,’ said Amy, as if trying to quieten a frightened horse. ‘Steady, girl.’
Felicity turned a blotched and anguished face up from the pillow. ‘Bremmer was begging not to have to marry me,’ she said.
‘Well, you did give him a fright,’ said Amy reasonably. ‘Gentlemen are very romantical, you know, and quite put out when you insist on joining a hunt in the middle of an elopement. Something like that once happened to me. You won’t tell anyone?’
Felicity dumbly shook her head, surprise drying her eyes. She released her hand from Amy’s and twisted round on her back.
‘It’s a long time ago,’ sighed Amy. ‘There was a Mr Peterson was interested in me and asked Papa permission to take me on a drive to Richmond. It was a fine sunny day, and the further we got from London, the more carefree I felt. I had never been driven very fast, don’t you know, and I begged him to go faster and faster, until we were flying along. I had never before felt so happy or so free. I felt drunk. I began to sing at the top of my voice. I was so happy, I did not realize what I was singing. It was a coarse hunting song. I had heard the grooms sing it in the mews and it had amused me and I had learned the words to shock Effy. The long and the short of it was I gave him a disgust of me, and I was very attracted to him, you know. Very. We never got to Richmond. He simply turned his team about and started back to London. I kept pleading with him to tell me what was wrong, although I knew very well what was wrong. He would not say one word, simply drove me straight home and dumped me off and cut me the next time he saw me. Lord, how I cried and cried. You see, Felicity, it is all very well for the gentlemen to go roistering or fall down drunk or smash all the windows in Bond Street with their whips; but for us, all must be decorum. But there are marriages, don’t you know, where the husband allows his wife quite a lot of freedom, but in order to secure that freedom, one must play the social game first and make sure the gentleman falls very deeply in love. Do you understand?’
Felicity nodded, and then said, ‘Why aren’t you shouting at me?’
‘Because of what you did?’ Amy shrugged. ‘Lord, I don’t know. Perhaps it is because all your rotten behaviour strikes a sympathetic chord in my heart. But do not go on treating me and Effy like enemies. What were your parents about, not to school you earlier?’
‘Papa did not want a girl,’ said Felicity. ‘He wanted a son, and I tried to be the sort of son he would have wanted. The wilder I grew, the more he admired me, and I felt I was making up to him for not being a boy.’
‘But it can be fun being a woman,’ said Amy, although wondering at the same time what was fun about leading such a restricted life. ‘When I feel I cannot cope with something, I pretend I am an actress, playing a part. Now, say, why not pretend you are a charming and beautiful woman who can drive men mad, and then practise your wiles on Ravenswood.’
Felicity shuddered. ‘He was worse than Bremmer,’ she said. ‘I hate him.’
‘All the more reason to tease him a bit, I would have thought,’ said Amy. ‘Oh, I do not like that Miss Andrews.’
‘She saw me,’ said Felicity miserably.
‘The deuce! When?’
Felicity told her.
‘We must warn Ravenswood,’ said Amy. ‘Let us get you prepared for bed. Where is Wanstead?’
‘I told her to go away.’
‘Well, I am sure you are perfectly well able to put yourself to bed,’ said Amy, rising and making for the door. ‘Now, try to behave tomorrow, and I will try to ensure that everything goes on as if nothing had happened.’
Feeling comforted, Felicity, after Amy had gone, washed and changed into a clean nightgown. She climbed into bed and fell asleep almost immediately, plunging straight down into a nightmare where all those dismissed governesses and nurses were standing in a circle round her with rocks in their hands, ready to stone her to death.
7
Ladies of a certain age,
Means, age uncertain.
Lord Byron, Don Juan
Effy was told by Amy that Felicity had been well and truly lectured and to leave matters alone.
Having tossed and turned most of the night, rehearsing a quite terrible lecture to deliver to Felicity, Effy felt cheated, an
d she kept saying she was sure Amy had been too soft-hearted.
But Felicity’s behaviour soon silenced her. Even Amy would never have dreamt for a moment that Felicity would apologize for her conduct. But apologize she did, and in such a low and shaking voice that Effy’s heart was touched and she gave the girl an impulsive hug and told her to forget all about it and that they would all begin afresh.
‘I have noticed,’ said Effy bracingly, ‘that you have not yet learned the gentle art of entertaining someone to tea. Sit over there, Felicity, and I shall instruct you.’
While Effy had the teapoy, teapot, kettle, and everything else necessary brought in and showed Felicity how to warm the pot, how to leave the tea-leaves to infuse for ten minutes before pouring in the boiling water, and how to hold the cup and saucer, Amy was free to turn her mind to more interesting things, and one of the most interesting things lined up for that day was a visit from Mr Haddon. She had so many exciting things to tell him and was determined that, this time, Effy should not upstage her.
Mr Haddon was comfortably seated beside the tea-tray at three o’clock that afternoon. Felicity was quietly playing a haunting little tune on the pianoforte; the marquess was leaning back in a chair, studying her thoughtfully. He felt he should rejoice in her crushed and quiet demeanour, but he could not help wishing irrationally that some of the old Felicity would surface. He wondered what it was she was playing as the sad little tune wound its way round his brain. Effy was chattering away to Mr Haddon, flirting with her eyes and playing with her fan.
There came a sound of footsteps on the stairs. ‘That will be Amy,’ said Effy brightly.
But it was Miss Andrews and her mother who were ushered in.
The marquess thought disloyally that had he taken up residence in his own Town house, then the Andrewses could not have called on him the way they could at the Tribbles’ where he was chaperoned. Felicity stopped playing to rise and make her curtsy. She was wearing a gown of white muslin over which she wore a very fine Kashmir shawl in golds and reds which was draped over one shoulder and tied in at the waist. Fine Kashmir shawls were much coveted, and Miss Andrews’ beautiful eyes narrowed somewhat as she looked at Felicity.
Refining Felicity Page 9
