by M C Beaton
Josephine said timidly that she was feeling very hungry, too, and alarmed that he should cause his beloved the slightest distress, Mr. Clifford picked the first lane that led to the nearest field and declared it was just the thing.
Stiffly they all climbed down from the carriages and looked about them. It was a square field bordered by a high thorn hedge, nothing more. No stream, no trees, no pretty prospect.
Above, the blue of the sky had changed to a milky color, and a scudding, irritating little wind had got up, snatching at hats and bonnets.
The servants spread rugs and cushions on the grass and began to unload all the impedimenta of spirit stove, hampers, and bottles.
The wind grew stronger. The earl suggested that they move everything to the edge of the field so that they might gain some shelter from the hedge. But Mr. Clifford, exhilarated with being in command for once, pooh-poohed the idea and said they were all to sharp-set to fuss.
Conversation grew desultory as bits of grass blew into glasses of wine, and the increasing chill of the wind cut through the muslins of the ladies.
“It will not do,” said Miss Hissop at last. “I am sure the damp from the ground is seeping through this rug. I shall catch the ague. Woe is me! Oh, that I must be snatched from this earth before my moment of glory!”
“What moment of glory?” demanded the earl, eyeing the steadily darkening sky uneasily. They had traveled in open carriages and he was now worried they would be soaked before they could reach London again.
“Everlasting glory,” said Henrietta, throwing Miss Hissop a warning look. She knew that Miss Hissop dreamed of attending all three girls as bridesmaid.
The earl, who had now heard Miss Hissop talking about her plans for her own funeral several times, accepted Henrietta’s explanation and assumed Miss Hissop was thinking of the hereafter, unaware that the spinster obviously expected her moment of glory to come in this world and not the next.
Henrietta was disappointed. She had looked forward to a sylvan setting where Charlotte and Josephine would stroll beside a little stream, talking to their beaux. She had never thought for a moment they would be attended by a retinue of servants. It made the whole business as formal as a dining room.
There were fortunately plenty of fur carriage rugs to supply cloaks for the ladies, but the wind was growing colder by the minute. With cold fingers, they nibbled at wafers of Westphalian ham and slices of chicken. No one felt like eating much in such uncomfortable circumstances.
At last the earl rose. “Walk with me a little,” he said to Henrietta. “I fear we must leave soon. I cannot blame Guy for his lack of organization. We were all mad to venture out on a picnic when the leaves are not yet on the trees. The poet Milton describes the souls of the condemned as being hurried from fiery into frozen regions. Perhaps his imagination was fired by such a day as this. I consider myself a sensible man, and yet, like most Englishmen, I am frequently surprised at the vagaries of the weather. We all put ourselves at the mercy of this fickle climate. Why do we not warm our rooms like the Germans, with a closed stove and pipes to carry the heat around the walls? Because we say we like to see the fire. ‘It is so dismal not to see the fire,’ we say. And so, for the sake of seeing the fire, we are frozen on one side and roasted on the other. We have more women and children killed because of hearth deaths, burned to death, in one year than all the heretics and witches who were ever burned at the stake. We—”
“If you wish to continue your speech,” interrupted Henrietta with a shiver, “pray let us go over by the hedge, where we may be sheltered from the wind.”
They walked over and stood by the tall thorn hedge. The wind moaned and hissed through its branches, making a desolate sound.
“There will be hot tea soon,” said the earl, looking along the line of trees to where his servants were crouched round the spirit stove, trying to shelter the flame from the wind.
“Poor things,” said Henrietta, meaning the servants. “They must be very cold. At least their carriage is covered, and they are not in danger of freezing on the road back. Being a sort of servant oneself changes one’s view of things very much.”
“I do not like to hear you talk thus.”
“But it is true,” said Henrietta, looking anxiously up into his face. “I now belong to the serving class. There is a poem on the kitchen wall left by the previous tenants. It goes:
Next, as we’re servants, Masters at our Hands
Expect obedience to all just Commands;
Which, if we rightly think is but their Due,
Nor more than we in Reason ought to do.
Purchas’d by annual Wages, Cloths, and Meat,
Theirs is our Time, our Hands, our Heads, our Feet:
We think, design, and act at their Command,
And, as their Pleasure varies, walk or stand;
Whilst we receive the convenanted Hire,
Active Obedience justly they require…
“I have forgotten the rest. But, you see, I cannot help noticing that your butler is quite blue with cold and that the serving maids do not have cloaks or pelisses to keep them warm.”
“I am not a monster,” said the earl impatiently. “My servants are well housed and well fed. The reason they are not more warmly dressed is for the same reason we are not warmly dressed. They are English, too, and like all the English, they have only to see a sunny mom to be convinced the day will remain fine until sundown.
“Were my Swiss here, he would now be muffled to the eyeballs, having brought along suitable clothes for at least six changes of climate. But if it distresses you to see cold servants, then warm servants you shall have.
I do not think we should freeze in this drafty field, waiting for tea. I shall send them all home, and I suggest we repair to the nearest inn and sit in front of a roaring fire and drink tea there.”
One large flake of snow spiraled down over the hedge and landed on Henrietta’s nose. He took out his handkerchief and brushed it away. “See what I mean?” he teased. “We are about to find ourselves in a sort of arctic if we do not move.” He walked away to order the servants to go.
Henrietta happily saw that Josephine and Charlotte now appeared impervious to the cold as they chatted to Lord Charles and Mr. Clifford. Charlotte looked a different girl from the pale beauty of the Charlotte of the village. Her cheeks were tinged with healthy pink, and her eyes sparkled. As Henrietta crossed the field to join them, the wind struck her with a roar, and the field all but disappeared in a roaring white blizzard.
The horses had been unharnessed from the carriages and allowed to graze. The earl called to Lord Charles and Mr. Clifford to help him harness them up so that the servants might be free to pack everything away in the fourgon.
The ladies were bundled up in rugs in the carriages. Miss Hissop was gasping and wailing that the end was nigh, and Henrietta resisted a strong temptation to slap her. Yet Henrietta was so busy mourning the wreck of the day for Josephine and Charlotte, she had little time to examine her own feelings.
She persuaded herself that she was glad the earl showed no signs of wanting to kiss her again. She admitted she enjoyed his company, but that was a good thing, and a bonus in a way, since her only interest in him lay in keeping Bascombe’s a fashionable establishment.
As they inched their way through the blinding, wet snow, the earl, on the other hand, was thinking a great deal about Henrietta, and had to admit to himself he was puzzled by her attitude.
Although she appeared pleased to be with him, there was a certain detachment about her. Remembering that kiss that had meant so much to him, he decided reluctantly that it had meant very little to her. She did not appear at all embarrassed or flustered in his company.
Only that morning the earl had thought it folly to take her out, feeling that was the sort of behavior expected of a gentleman who was courting a lady. He had not yet admitted to himself he would even consider marrying Henrietta.
But her very apparent indifference to hi
m made his great democratic gesture seem as nothing. He felt she might at least have shown some awareness of his great condescension. Since he had come into the title, he had been toadied to quite dreadfully and, not having had a very high opinion of women at any time, he assumed he had only to smile at one of them for her to flutter eagerly in his direction.
Through the snow, he saw the blurred image of an inn sign and turned into the courtyard. The servants would need to join them. The weather was too bad to allow them to risk trying to get to London by themselves.
It proved to be little more than a hedge tavern, but the landlord looked clean and decent and was overjoyed at a chance of entertaining members of the quality.
The little inn was empty of other customers because of the terrible weather, and soon they were seated by the tap in front of a roaring fire, drinking hot punch and feeling like a band of explorers who had come down from the glaciers. The servants were ensconced in the kitchen.
Mr. Clifford thought it all very romantic. He sat close to Josephine on a high-backed wooden settle beside the fire. She had placed her ruin of a bonnet over the poker to dry. Her springy chestnut hair shone with threads of gold in the firelight.
Mr. Clifford looked cautiously around. The earl was telling Miss Bascombe about one of the famous peninsular battles. Lord Charles was telling Charlotte all about Gentleman Jackson’s Boxing Saloon, and Charlotte was listening to him with as much interest as if he were telling her the latest court gossip. Miss Hissop had fallen asleep.
Mr. Clifford felt the time had come to declare his intentions. There was no need to ask little Miss Bascombe or Miss Hissop for permission. Their approval of him was all too evident. To compose himself and to find the right words, he stood up with his back to the fire. He would take Josephine’s hand, he decided, when no one was looking, and ask her what she thought about marriage. Yes, that would be a good start.
He went to sit down beside her again. But his breeches, his new leather breeches, had dried onto him like a second skin and refused to sit down when he did. He let out a cry of agony and slid down onto the floor.
In vain did he try to get up. Lord Charles and the Earl of Carrisdowne came over and hoisted him to his feet. But the wretched breeches seemed to be getting tighter by the minute. Mr. Clifford was now very white about the face and looked on the point of fainting.
“It’s those cursed breeches,” said Lord Charles. “You’ll need to get ’em off.”
“Shhh!” said Mr. Clifford feebly. “Ladies present.” he swayed, and the earl caught him just as he collapsed in a dead faint.
“Ladies,” said the earl, “Mr. Clifford is suffering badly from constriction. You must leave the room until we attend to him.”
The landlord was summoned and offered his own parlor as sanctuary for the ladies. They woke Miss Hissop, and then they all left the room.
“Now, lay him down on the floor,” said the earl, “and let’s get these things off him.”
But the buttons could not be moved. “Cut them off,” said Lord Charles. “It’s the only thing to do. He’s turning blue about the mouth.”
“When I was a boy,” said the earl, producing a penknife, “I used to see ladies get into this coil through too much tight lacing.” He cut the buttons and then had to saw the leather of the breeches on either side while Lord Charles held burning feathers under Mr. Clifford’s nose.
The landlord came in with a pewter bowl filled with snow, and they pressed some of it to the back of Mr. Clifford’s neck. He slowly recovered and then sat up clutching his head.
“Easy,” said the earl. “You had better wrap your nether limbs in a blanket, Guy. We had to send the ladies from the room.”
“And I was just on the point of proposing,” said Mr. Clifford dizzily.
“Drink some brandy,” urged the earl, “and then let us discuss the matter of marriage while the ladies are absent.” He waited while his brother hoisted Mr. Clifford back onto the settle and gave him a glass of brandy.
The color returned to Mr. Clifford’s cheeks. “Oh, my breeches,” he mourned.
“Never mind your demmed breeches,” drawled Lord Charles. “My dear brother is about to deliver himself of a jaw-me-dead about the folly of marrying into a shop.”
“I was merely going to point out the folly of leaping into marriage before you have properly courted the girl,” said the earl. “It is not fair to Miss Archer. What do you know of each other? Snatched conversations in a busy shop, one dinner, and one disastrous outing.”
Mr. Clifford scratched his head. “Seems to me it doesn’t really matter,” he said, puzzled. “Can’t say I’ve felt like this before. Never wanted to cherish any of the others, if you know what I mean.”
“Nonetheless, you must admit you were about to be hasty.”
“Perhaps you have the right of it,” said Mr. Clifford reluctantly. “I’m certainly not going to propose now, not with a blanket wrapped around me. So long as you’re not going to mess things up for me, Rupert, I don’t mind waiting.”
“I never messed things up, as you put it, for you before,” said the earl. “As I recall, you were deuced glad I came to the rescue.”
“Well, it ain’t that I’m not grateful,” said Mr. Clifford. “But it don’t follow I’m naturally about to make another mistake.”
“And what about you, Charles?” demanded the earl, fixing his brother with a steely look.
“Oh, I don’t mind biding my time,” said Lord Charles airily. “Early days yet.”
The earl looked at his younger brother suspiciously.
It was hard to tell half the time what Charles was really thinking.
“And what about you?” rejoined Lord Charles. “Never say you are squiring Miss Bascombe for the sole purpose of keeping an eye on the pair of us. Too Gothic.”
“I enjoy Miss Bascombe’s company, that is all,” said the earl repressively. Privately he thought things were moving too fast and was glad he had dissuaded Guy from proposing. What did they know of these women?
When Henrietta was next to him, the earl found it very hard to think clearly. But when she was not, all of his old caution and all his distaste for her manner of earning her living returned in full force.
The ladies were brought back in. Modesty forbade them from mentioning the reason for Mr. Clifford’s constriction. It was politely assumed his cravat had been too tight, and eyes were delicately averted from the blanket wrapped about his nether limbs.
The landlord appeared to say that the snow had changed to rain and that the roads were clearing fast. Soon they were able to arrange themselves in the carriages with rugs over their heads to make the journey back.
Because of the miserable weather, it was a silent journey home, the earl breaking the silence only once to beg Henrietta to attend a play with him the following evening.
Henrietta accepted, feeling as if spring had come at last. She felt warm and elated. Here was more proof that the earl had forgiven her for being in trade; for an outing to the playhouse was even better than a picnic. He would be seen with her before the eyes of society.
As the carriages with their sodden occupants turned into Half Moon Street, the sun burst through the ragged clouds, gilding the cobbles and shining on the golden pineapple above the door of Bascombe’s.
Josephine and Charlotte began to chatter like schoolgirls as they unwrapped themselves from the wet rugs. Lord Charles and Mr. Clifford were teasing them both and saying that if they had not both died from rheumatism by the morrow, they would take them driving at the fashionable hour. The earl jumped down and, after helping Miss Hissop, lifted Henrietta down from his carriage.
She felt the strength of his hands at her waist and noticed the evident reluctance with which he released her when he had set her on the ground. He raised her hand to his lips. “Tomorrow?” he asked.
“Yes, tomorrow,” said Henrietta huskily. He kissed her hand. He said, “The play begins at seven, but most of the ton do not attend until nine
.”
“I have never been to the playhouse before,” said Henrietta. “I should like to see the play from the beginning.”
“It is Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale. The performance is said to be very fine. I shall call for you at six-thirty.”
He bowed and jumped up into his carriage.
Mr. Clifford and Lord Charles were standing on the pavement laughing and joking with Josephine and Charlotte. Miss Hissop stood by the shop door, waiting for Henrietta to unlock it and wondering why the girl was still standing on the pavement, her hands to her lips, watching the earl drive away.
Chapter Nine
The next evening as Henrietta was preparing to go to the theater, Josephine and Charlotte sat on their beds to watch her dress for the great occasion.
Both girls had returned from the park, much elated at the success of their outing. The sun had shone, the afternoon had been fine, and it was evident from their report that both Mr. Clifford and Lord Charles had gone out of their way to present them to many leading members of the ton.
“And that must surely mean marriage,” ended Charlotte. “Lord Charles’s whole manner toward me is not that of a man who is seeking an idle affair.”
“Yes,” agreed Henrietta. “Both Lord Charles and Mr. Clifford appear to behave very prettily.”
“We all have beaux now,” said Josephine.
“Not I,” said Henrietta, twisting this way and that in front of the looking glass.
“But Carrisdowne is your beau,” protested Charlotte.
“I am merely allowing Lord Carrisdowne to squire me to the play because it keeps Bascombe’s in fashion.”
“Dear Henrietta,” said Josephine tentatively, “I should not like to think you were encouraging Lord Carrisdowne merely to promote the happiness of myself and Josephine. Although you say it is all for the sake of the shop, I know you have our welfare at heart. I think Lord Carrisdowne is a dangerous-looking man. So fierce! You must not play with his affections.”
