by M C Beaton
“I think it is ridiculous,” pouted Lady Sarah. “Skinny ladies are not the fashion, as well you know, Mama.”
“A certain pleasing roundness is one thing,” said the countess acidly. “Letting oneself become fat and spotty is quite another.”
“May I take your order, my lady?” asked Henrietta.
“No, you may not.” Then her harsh features softened. A sweet smile lighted up her face, reminding Henrietta painfully of her son. “I do not mean to be angry with you, miss…”
“Miss Bascombe, if it please your ladyship.”
“Ah, of course, you are Bascombe’s. Well, Miss Bascombe, I think it monstrous enterprising for such a young and obviously gently bred lady as yourself to make her own way in life. I always did admire spirit in a woman. But this silly girl of mine must be protected from herself. Nonetheless, I am giving a dinner in two weeks time—let me see, Friday the thirteenth—and would like you to send a centerpiece to my home. Nothing military. Something pretty will do very well. Do you know where I live?”
“Yes, my lady,” said Henrietta. “The Royal Crescent, number 9.”
Henrietta had once walked past the house, drawn there by lovesickness, dreaming of seeing the earl arriving to call on his mother, although the gossips said he avoided Bath like the plague.
“You may send me your bill along with the centerpiece,” added the countess. “I believe in settling my accounts promptly.”
“Dinner is at five—I do not believe in these newfangled hours—so have it to me by four in the afternoon at the latest. Come along, Sarah.”
Sarah trailed out miserably after her mother. They started arguing again as soon as they reached the street. Henrietta turned away to serve another customer and therefore did not hear the countess’s threat. “You are become unmanageable, Sarah. This is what befalls me for having a child so late in life. I am too weary to cope with your nonsense. I shall write to Rupert this day and tell him of your lies and of your visits to that confectioner’s.”
The Earl of Carrisdowne had just returned from Brighton. He had been summoned there by the Prince Regent to join the round of pleasure. Brighton had been one frivolity after another. Lady Clara had been there, her hungry eyes following him round the room when he had attended one of the assemblies at the Ship Inn. He began to wonder whether she might not be a trifle unbalanced, and that thought made him gloomier than ever. It appeared a female would need to have more than a touch of madness to fall in love with him.
He set about making preparations to move to his estates. Mr. Clifford and Lord Charles, who had also gone to Brighton, were still there. They had recovered some of their spirits, but they still shunned the earl.
How easily they seem to have forgotten, thought the earl. For his part, he was still plagued day and night by longing for Henrietta. The more he thought about her, the more bitterly ashamed he became of his easy belief in Esau’s story. The Duke of Gillingham and his duchess had also been in Brighton. He had observed them closely, and it was forcefully brought home to him that the old duke had no interest in any female whatsoever—even his wife.
He sat down to deal with the post that had piled up in his absence, separating bills from invitations and invitations from personal letters.
He started by reading his personal correspondence first. There were various letters from relatives and one from his mother. He recognized her heavy seal. The one from his mother would no doubt contain more complaints about Sarah. He decided to leave it to the last.
When he finally opened it after snapping the heavy seal and reflecting his mother must have used one whole stick of wax, the word Bascombe’s seemed to leap up out of the page. His hands shook slightly as he smoothed out the parchment and carefully read the letter.
In it, his mother, as usual, complained of Sarah’s gluttony. She added that Sarah had been frequenting a confectioner’s when she should have been at her music lessons. Not that it is not an exceptionally respectable establishment, the countess had written, and the little lady who runs Bascombe’s appears to be a superior type of person.
Bath!
The earl slowly lowered the letter. Henrietta was in Bath.
A bare two days before the earl had discovered the whereabouts of the missing Miss Bascombe, Lord Alisdair Sinclair sat in a Brighton coffeehouse, nursing an aching head. He could not tell whether the damage had been done by last night’s rack punch or last night’s wine or last night’s brandy.
A surly gentleman slumped down at the table beside him. Lord Alisdair raised red-rimmed eyes and looked into the unsavory blue-jowled features of the Honorable Toby Miles. “Under the weather, hey?” demanded Mr. Miles with a grin.
Lord Alisdair averted his eyes with a shudder. Mr. Miles’s teeth had all been filed to points—the latest fashion among the bloods, who wanted to spit through their teeth like coachmen.
“Bad as that,” said Mr. Miles. He fished in one of his large pockets. “Try that. Set you right in no time at all.”
Lord Alisdair took the little bottle Mr. Miles was holding out to him. His gaze sharpened as he read the legend BASCOMBE’S ELIXIR on the side.
“Where did you get this,” he asked as casually as he could.
“M’father sent me a dozen. Very old, m’father. In Bath to drink that filthy water. Got gout.”
“And he bought this in Bath?”
“Stand to reason, don’t it? Bascombe is probably some apothecary or quack. Place is crawlin’ with ’em.”
“There was a Bascombe’s on Half Moon Street,” said Lord Alisdair, “which sold an elixir.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know that, would I?” demanded Mr. Miles testily. “Never go near the place if I can help it. No race meetings in London; no prizefights neither.”
“And your father, has he been in London this year?”
“Not left Bath this twenty year past. Are you going to drink that stuff or aren’t you. ’Cos if you ain’t, I’ll have it back.”
“No,” said Lord Alisdair, sliding the bottle into his own pocket. “Take it later. Just remembered. Have an urgent appointment with my sister.”
Life had never been better for Esau. It was a warm August. Bath was bathed in sunlight. Henrietta appeared to have forgotten the earl, the business was flourishing, and he, Esau, was to have the honor of making the centerpiece for the Countess of Carrisdowne. At first he had hesitated, frightened of running into the earl. He made the excuse to Henrietta that he was frightened of Lord Carrisdowne, as only a frightful person would have treated Miss Bascombe so badly. Henrietta assured him the earl was not in Bath, and, from gossip she had overheard, was not likely to visit the place. He had said he detested the town.
Henrietta had drawn up the plans for the centerpiece, and Esau worked long days and nights over it. At last he had created Pan sitting by the toffee rushes playing his sugar pipe while shepherds and shepherdesses danced about. Sometimes his touch was still too clumsy, and Henrietta had to help him finish some of the figures, but most of it was all his own work, and he was very proud of it.
The only thing that marred his pleasure was that he had to deliver it on Friday the thirteenth. What could be more unlucky! But Henrietta said roundly that this fear of Friday was nothing more than an old superstition.
Henrietta decided to let Esau deliver the centerpiece alone. The sooner she forgot all about the Earl of Carrisdowne the better, and seeing members of his family would do nothing to help.
Esau set out to climb up the cobbled streets to the Royal Crescent, pushing the handcart with the centerpiece on it.
Like most religious people of his time, Esau was also deeply superstitious. Huge black thunderclouds were building up to the west, and the sky above was brassy. The farther he got from the shop, the more apprehensive he became. Thunder grumbled in the distance. Esau had an uneasy feeling he was being followed. From time to time, he stopped and turned about. It was always as if someone had just dived for cover before he was able to set eyes on him. The thund
ery air felt heavy with menace. Despite the heat, Esau shivered in his plush livery.
Then he heard the light patter of footsteps behind him.
“Young man!” called a hoarse voice.
Esau turned about and let out a squawk of fright. A Gypsy woman was standing there in her black and red clothes. Her black hair was coarse and matted under a scarf decorated with gold coins. The fringed edges of her shawl rose and fell in the hot, damp wind.
“What do you want of me?” demanded Esau, backing away.
“It’s Friday the thirteenth, Esau,” cackled the Gypsy.
“How do you know my name?”
“I know everything,” said the Gypsy. “I know there is bad luck everywhere this day. If you do not accept my help, your pretty sweetmeats in that cart will be mined.”
Esau rallied. “Then, you don’t know everything,” he said. “This here is a centerpiece what I made myself.”
“You are a good boy, Esau, and I would help you. Let me sprinkle a little magic sugar over it and all will be well.”
Esau relaxed. If that’s all she wanted to do, let her. A little sugar dusting wouldn’t mar the centerpiece. And he would be shot of her.”
“Oh, go ahead,” he said.
She took a silver sugar shaker out of her pocket. Esau gently parted the tissue paper wrapping, and the Gypsy shook the shaker over the centerpiece.
“Can I go now?” mumbled Esau.
“Go, and remember, you will thank me for my help before this day is over.”
She turned on her heel and strode away with long mannish strides. Esau picked up the handles of his cart and continued on his journey.
What a strange encounter! And yet, he felt happier as he quickened his pace to reach the Countess of Carrisdowne’s before the storm broke. Thank goodness he had left early. It was only three-thirty.
Miss Hissop glanced nervously up at the sky as she walked in the parade gardens. So kind of dear Henrietta to allow her so much free time, but it looked as if it might rain. She glanced at the watch pinned to her bosom. Five o’clock. Perhaps just a look at the river and then she would return to the shop. She always found it soothing to the nerves to watch the water tumbling over the weir.
As she stood behind a pillar on the promenade above the roaring water, she heard a man on the other side of the pillar call out, “There you are, sis. Well, the deed’s been done. You might have performed the murder yourself.”
“It isn’t murder, Alisdair,” answered a clear, high, arrogant voice. “Probably only make them sick. Where was the delivery going to?”
Miss Hissop stiffened.
“The Countess of Carrisdowne, no less.”
“Zooks! Would you poison the very man I am trying to marry?”
“Relax, my sweet. Carrisdowne was reported to be in London when we left Brighton. It is well-known he never comes to Bath. You do not care madly for his family.”
“No, I do not,” said the female voice. “The countess said in my hearing I was too bold a minx.”
“When was that?”
“Early this year.”
“Oh, the vengeance of Lady Clara.”
Miss Hissop trembled. This, then, must be Lady Clara Sinclair, and the man called Alisdair must be her brother. What had they done?”
As if in answer to her unspoken question, Lady Clara asked, “And how did you do your dark deed?”
“Well, as you know, we took turns watching the shop and found out the names of everyone in it, apart from La Bascombe. So when you told me their servant was setting out with a delivery, I rushed back to our lodgings and changed into that Gypsy-woman costume—you know, the one I wore to the Pantheon two years ago. I followed this Esau and told him to let me shake a little lucky sugar on what turned out to be a centerpiece. Of course he let me, being as superstitious as any other peasant. So not only will La Bascombe be ruined, but very probably hanged for murder as well. Nothing like a touch of arsenic to brighten up the dinner party.”
With wide frightened eyes Miss Hissop looked down at the watch on her bosom. Five-fifteen and Henrietta had said the dinner was at five!
Miss Hissop slid out from behind the pillar and started to run. There was no time to go to the shop first. She, Ismene Hissop, must save Henrietta from the gallows!
Chapter Thirteen
The Earl of Carrisdowne looked quite satanic, as one elderly guest at his mother’s dinner table remarked to her companion. He had arrived just before the dinner was about to begin and had been “press-ganged” as he put it to himself, by his mother to attend.
His original plan had been to change out of his traveling clothes and immediately walk down to the center of the town and seek out Henrietta. But the rain had begun to descend in torrents almost immediately after his arrival, and he did not want to be pestered by maternal exclamations over his desire to plunge back out into the storm. Because Bath was so hilly, very few used carriages and sedan chairs with their chairmen in dark-blue coats and cocked hats were a feature of the town. All the countess’s servants were on duty at the dinner party, and to send a footman down into the town to find a sedan would occasion even more surprise.
He attended the dinner party with great reluctance. Sarah, he noticed sourly, was fatter than ever. The rest of the guests, to his jaundiced eye, appeared to be in their dotage.
Great cracks of thunder following blinding flashes of lightning made the elderly guests twitter with alarm. At least, thought the earl, the dinner would not last very long. His mother did not believe in multiple courses. The meal had begun promptly at five. Surely it would soon be over and leave him free to look for Bascombe’s.
“I have a surprise for you,” he realized his mother was saying. She clapped her hands. The double doors to the dining room were thrown open, and two footmen carried in a centerpiece and placed it reverently in the middle of the long table. There were admiring oohs and aahs as the company creaked from their seats to gather around it for a better look.
“Isn’t Bascombe’s marvelous?” said the elderly lady next to the earl.
“I used to visit their shop when they were in London,” he said. “Miss Henrietta Bascombe was famous there for her centerpieces.”
“It seems such a shame to destroy it, but it is for eating,” said the countess. She signaled to the butler that the centerpiece was to be removed to a side table and cut up.
Two footmen walked forward to pick up the confectionery; the elderly guests resumed their seats; Lady Sarah eyed the centerpiece greedily. Then before the centerpiece could be removed there came a sound of crashing doors and a female voice screaming.
Everyone froze.
The earl rose half out of his seat.
There came the sounds of a scuffle from the hall outside.
Then the double doors burst open, and Miss Hissop stood on the threshold with a footman hanging tightly onto either arm. Her clothes were drenched and sticking to her body. Her face was a bluish color.
“Don’t eat it,” she wailed. “It is poisoned.”
“What is poisoned?” said the countess testily. “Who is this madwoman? Take her away. Ladies, gentlemen, we will continue with our meal as if nothing had happened.”
Before the earl could intercede, Miss Hissop screamed “No!” With the strength of the madwoman the countess believed her to be, she shook off the restraining arms of the footmen. She hurtled across the room and leaped into the air. With a cry of triumph, she landed belly-down right in the middle of the centerpiece. Smash! Pieces of confectionery flew about. A cloud of sugar dust rose in the air and hung like a nimbus around the candles.
Ladies fainted and screamed. Servants tried to drag Miss Hissop off the wreck of the centerpiece, but she clung on grimly, kicking out behind her at her tormentors with a serviceable pair of half boots.
“Leave her!” The Earl of Carrisdowne walked down the table and leaning down, peered into Miss Hissop’s contorted face.
“Miss Hissop,” he said mildly. “Are you tryi
ng to tell us that centerpiece is poisoned?”
“Yes,” gasped Miss Hissop. “Lady Clara and her brother tricked Esau, our servant… shook poison over it… Alisdair is her brother, is he not?”
“No one shall eat any of it,” said the earl firmly.
“Oh, thank goodness,” sobbed Miss Hissop. “They would have poisoned your family and guests and seen Henrietta hang.”
It all seemed so farfetched, so incredible. The guests were clamoring for explanations.
Lord Carrisdowne helped Miss Hissop from the table. She was a sorry mess, soaking clothes covered in sugar. He told the footmen to remove the centerpiece, to sweep up every bit of sugar, put it in a bag, and keep it in the kitchens.
“Will no one tell me what is going on?” cried the countess. “Who is this woman?”
“She is one of the ladies from Bascombe’s,” said the earl. “Go on with your dinner party, Mama. Let me take Miss Hissop into the study until I get to the bottom of this.”
They watched in silence as the earl led the now-weeping Miss Hissop from the room. Then as the doors closed behind them, a babble of noise broke out. The elderly guests were fast recovering and beginning to enjoy the unexpected excitement.
In the study, the earl placed Miss Hissop in a chair in front of the fire and then stood looking down at her. “I shall make sure you have a change of clothes and something to help you recover from your shock. But it appears to me you have made a very serious charge. Begin at the beginning. Take a deep breath and talk slowly and clearly.”
Miss Hissop did as she was bade. Although she still strongly disapproved of the earl, it was wonderful to feel that the terrible responsibility of dealing with the nightmare situation had been taken from her shoulders.
She took a deep breath and began. “I was walking by the river when…”
“Where is Miss Hissop?” said Henrietta. She opened the kitchen door and let in a breath of sweet rain-washed air.
“She probably took shelter during the storm,” said Charlotte. “It is only just over. She will be here presently.”
Henrietta leaned against the doorjamb and looked out into the weedy garden at the back of the shop. “I do hope the countess liked the centerpiece,” she said.
