Dancing on the Wind (The Regency Intrigue Series Book 8)

by M C Beaton

  The marquess frowned. Surely there was only one other female in London with such eyes. But it could hardly be Polly Jones. And he was certainly not going to remind Colonel Anderson of her existence, for the colonel was apt to tease and refer to his friend’s dramatic Tyburn rescue as “Canonby’s Folly.” One of the marquess’s servants reported that he had seen “Miss Peterson” cross the square and move off in the company of two unsavory characters, one of whom had had only one eye. Polly had obviously left him to go back to those villains from Mrs. Blanchard’s. If they had indeed left the brothel, then they were no doubt engaged in some other criminal activity and would drag Polly down with them. That fop, Pargeter, obviously suspected Polly was still alive, but Pargeter was nothing more than an idle gossip and mischief-maker.

  Just then, the colonel slapped his brow. “She gave me her name! I remember. Lady Mary Peters. And it was Hallworthy himself who introduced us.”

  “Then we shall ask Hallworthy,” said the marquess, feeling obscurely disappointed that he had been right and that the unknown could not have been Polly Jones.

  But Lord Hallworthy claimed he had never seen the lady before that evening. He sent for his secretary who pointed out that no such person had been invited.

  To the marquess’s relief, the colonel gave up the pursuit. It was best to forget about Polly Jones, who had run away from his household without even stopping to say goodbye. But he danced and flirted absentmindedly for the rest of the night, trying to banish a little image of Polly from his mind.

  When he finally left the Hallworthys’ to walk home, the whole of London still seemed to be riotously awake despite the fact that it was four in the morning: a London of pleasure and gambling and vice, strung up from morning to night with a hectic air. And somewhere in its teeming streets was Polly Jones.

  “Forget her,” said the marquess aloud. “In such company, she will not live long.”

  Some three weeks after the ridotto, Miss Smith and her two brothers took up residence in Biddeford Row in Bloomsbury in a snug apartment which boasted a minuscule hall, parlor, a cupboard of a kitchen and two bedrooms. Polly still did not know the surnames of her two companions; she had agreed to adopt their alias of Smith. The days were cozy and pleasant. They had plenty of money for coal and food. Before she started to furnish the apartment to her taste, Polly had refurnished both Barney and Jake, deaf to their wails of protest. Jake now boasted a smart black silk patch over his missing eye. Both men were soberly attired in the garb of city merchants: plain good dark coats, knee breeches, clean linen, buckled shoes, wigs and three-cornered hats.

  Polly had pointed out that as they had enough money for the moment it was dangerous for them to waste their time in petty thieving and risk getting caught. She herself spent most of her time stitching and sewing an elaborate ensemble where the quilted petticoat was stitched onto a flexible hoop. They had one servant, a grumpy woman who did not live in but came daily to wash their clothes and clean the rooms.

  Jake settled quickly into this new life of ease, passing his time drinking and playing skittles in the local tavern. Barney, on the other hand, missed the danger and excitement of the underworld. He felt bored and restless and went for long walks.

  One day he was strolling through the city when a sedan chair passed quite close; and in the sedan chair was Mrs. Blanchard. She looked at him in an unseeing way, but Barney, not knowing she would hardly recognize him in his new respectable clothes and wig, dived into a coffee house for shelter. It was full of merchants and lawyers and men from the stock exchange. Everyone seemed to be haggling and dealing as if at a horse fair.

  Although they were obviously not criminals, there was something familiar in the air to Barney, a hectic feeling of perilous living. He found himself a chair and ordered a tankard of mulled wine, for the day was cold.

  The man next to him seemed a little island of calm among all this business trading as he smoked his long churchwarden and read the newspaper.

  At last he put down the paper and said to Barney, “Monstrous cold, is it not?”

  “Yes, sir,” agreed Barney politely.

  “My name is White,” said the gentleman. “I have a feeling we have met before.”

  “No, not possible,” said Barney, wondering all the while whether he had at one time picked this gentleman’s pocket.

  “And yet your face looks familiar. Do you work in the city, Mr. … er …?”

  “Smith,” said Barney, wishing he could escape. “No, I’m a gentleman o’ leisure at the moment.”

  “You are fortunate, Mr. Smith, and yet I would not like a life of idleness. I am a tea merchant. I have spent a weary morning here interviewing applicants for a clerking job. I am having an amazing hard time finding someone who can add up sums. For example, I start with an easy question … what is eight and eight?”

  “Sixteen,” said Barney automatically.

  “And another sixteen?”

  “Thirty-two.”

  “And subtract nine?”

  “Twenty-one.”

  “And multiply by seven?”

  “A hundred and forty-seven,” said Barney.

  “Oh, bravo, Mr. Smith. But how unfortunate I am. Here I am prepared to pay a goodly sum for someone to keep my books, and the only person who seems to know the first thing about mathematics is a gentleman of leisure.”

  “Frankly,” said Barney, beginning to feel at ease for he had enjoyed showing off his ability, “I am not a gentleman. I jist don’t work.”

  Mr. White hitched his chair forward. “Could I not persuade you to work for me for a little, just until I find someone suitable?”

  “Wot? Adding and subtracting, like?”

  “Yes, keeping the books.”

  “I couldn’t do that,” said Barney. “Never kept no books before.”

  “My counting house is only a little way away, Mr. Smith. Perhaps you could just step along and look at the books. But then, perhaps you are too busy.”

  Barney thought of the long, empty day stretching ahead—another long, empty day. “Don’t mind,” he said. “No harm in taking a look.”

  Two hours later, Mr. Barney Smith found himself employed as bookkeeper in the tea merchant’s business. He himself couldn’t see what Mr. White was making such a fuss about. Barney could add and subtract sums in his sleep. He had to admit he was tickled at the idea of having a job. A clerk had called him “Mr. Smith, sir,” as he had served him with a cup of tea.

  But I daren’t tell Polly, thought Barney. Whatever would she say if she knew’d I’d turned respectable!

  CHAPTER NINE

  As winter finally gave way to spring, Polly led a life which would have driven any other resident of that hectic city mad with boredom. But Polly had not become so accustomed to the luxuries of security, food, and peace to want change. Jake had been spending a great deal on gambling and she herself had expended a lot of money on books and material for gowns. Soon, she would have to return to a life of crime.

  She was often alone. Barney had grown very silent and taciturn and would not say where he went. Jake spent all his time in the taverns.

  It was Jake who eventually found out Barney’s secret. He followed him one morning and saw him turn in at the respectable doors of a city tea merchant’s establishment. Jake waited and waited, curiosity mounting, as Barney did not reappear.

  After two hours, he had just decided that Barney had known he was being followed and had escaped into this building only to exit by the back door, when Barney came out, accompanied by three clerks. He did not see Jake, who followed the four men until they entered a coffee house.

  After some hesitation, he pushed open the door and went in. Barney and his companions were deep in animated discussion over the coffee cups. Jake could hear Barney’s voice, which had taken on an oddly refined cadence. “I said to Mr. White, I said, if you invest in limes, you’ll make a killing,” Barney was saying. “Seems they stop the sailors’ scurvy on the long voyages. Of course, most
of the captains pooh-pooh the idea, but I says it makes sense. I …”

  Barney broke off as he suddenly saw Jake. He muttered an excuse, rose and crossed the room to where Jake was standing by the door. “So now you know,” hissed Barney. “You tell Poll, and I’ll murder you.”

  “Tell ’er what?” said Jake. “What you a-doing of?”

  Barney sighed. “I got a job. I keep the books at a tea merchant’s.”

  “Work!” exclaimed Jake, appalled.

  “Why not?” said Barney. “Passes the time and you gets paid for it. Get along with you, Jake. We’ll talk this evening.”

  But Barney should have guessed that Jake was too much in awe of Polly to keep his secret. When he returned that evening, it was to find that Polly knew all about it.

  “I think it is wonderful,” said Polly, cutting through his excuses.

  “Never thought you’d take it that way,” said Barney. “But you see what it means? I can keep the lot o’ us, if Jake here’ll stop blowing all the money on bets.”

  “Oh, but it is your money, Barney,” said Polly. “I have been reading the newspapers again. Soon Ranelagh and Vauxhall will be open again, and the Season will begin. I only need to take a few things and I can be set for a while.”

  “Stealing’s wrong!” Barney burst out and then turned brick-red with embarrassment.

  “Don’t you listen to him, Poll,” said Jake hotly. “Betraying our way of life, that’s what he’s doing.”

  “I think it is wrong to steal from people who cannot afford to lose what you take,” said Polly. “But I do not see there is anything wrong in relieving the rich aristocracy of a few of their favors. But tell me about your job.”

  Barney plunged in, bragging about his mathematical ability and how he was valued, the fun they had in the City, and cozy suppers after work. “And we’re all taking a barge on the river next Monday and we can bring our families,” he ended. “Say you’ll come, Polly, you and Jake.”

  Polly hesitated. “I go in fear that someone might recognize me.”

  “Stuff,” said Barney. “Polly Jones is dead. Most of the crowd that was at Tyburn that day saw you as a little figure miles away on the scaffold. You powder your hair and put on a fine gown and no one’s going to recognize you.”

  Polly would have refused had the days suddenly not become warmer. And with the warmth came langorous female dreams of falling in love. Polly dreamt of some strong man who would marry her and look after her and protect her from the world. And though she knew they were only dreams and that she would probably always have to fend for herself, they made her restless. The marquess of Canonby and Drusilla had made her long for a man from the class from which her birth excluded her.

  So when Monday dawned a perfect day, Polly agreed to go. She put on her new quilted petticoat over a modest round hoop. The petticoat was a miracle of embroidery. Green leaves and flowers of nasturtium, periwinkle and honeysuckle twined in an embroidered riot over the white silk. Over it, she wore an apple-green damask sack gown with a thin edging of lace at the low square neckline and foaming lace at the ends of the three-quarter-length sleeves. Her powdered hair was dressed a la mouton, that is, short tight curls at the back of her head and longer rolled curls at the front and sides.

  Barney was resplendent in a light-colored broadcloth coat with pearl buttons, breeches of black satin, swansdown vest, muslin undervest, black silk hose, and silver-buckled shoes with high heels. He had painted his face white through which the darkness of his ever-incipient beard loomed like a thundercloud. Jake, at first taken aback with all this magnificence, threw himself into the spirit of the party and had Polly stitch gold braid onto his tricorne and ran out and bought himself a long walking cane which he embellished with gold ribbons.

  Work had changed Barney, thought Polly. The brutishness of his appearance had gone and he looked more and more like a prosperous city gentleman. Jake, however, appeared like a villain masquerading as a city gentleman.

  “I just heard of a good lay, Polly,” muttered Jake as they were setting out. “I dress as a porter and hire one of them little street urchins to hide in the basket on my head. When we passes a gent with a good wig on, I raps the basket and the imp leans down and snatches the wig, but when the gent looks round, there’s nothing but me with a basket on me head.”

  “No,” said Polly firmly. “We do not take even a handkerchief from people unless we know they are vastly rich. I plan to make one more foray and find enough to set us up for a few years.”

  “But I’m getting tired of doing nothing,” wailed Jake.

  “Then get a job like Barney.”

  “You need your mouth washed out with soap, Polly,” said Jake huffily. “Why don’t you get a job yourself?”

  “Because I’m a woman, that’s why,” said Polly fiercely. “And what is there for me but to work and slave in some household for the rest of my days.”

  “If you’re a thief, you’re a thief, and that’s all,” protested Jake.

  “No, it is not all. I am not really a thief,” said Polly. “I am simply righting the balance in an unfair world.”

  “Don’t argue,” pleaded Barney. “It’s such a lovely day.”

  They hired a sedan chair for Polly and Barney and Jake walked along beside it until they reached the steps leading down to the river below. They were late in arriving, and most of the party were already seated in the barge. The wives and daughters stared open-mouthed at Polly, and she looked at their more sober gowns and unpowdered hair and realized she had dressed for the aristocracy and not for the working city classes.

  Polly and Jake were introduced to Mr. White. His open admiration of her made Polly feel more at ease, and for a minute she felt she really was Barney’s sister; she glowed with pride when Mr. White enthused over his employee’s amazing gift of mathematical ability. Seeing that the head of the firm was delighted with Polly, the other men urged their wives to court her company, and soon Polly was happily sipping the claret cup and talking about delightfully safe things like dressmaking and housework. When the ladies learned she had embroidered the petticoat herself, the last barrier came down.

  But Polly was in for a surprise. She was just basking in the sheer ordinariness and respectability of her company when she received a rude shock.

  The river was full of pleasure craft. A feature of London life on the river was the surprising flow of insult between the watermen and passengers of one boat to another. Polly was to learn later that even the royal family when they came on the River Thames were abused with insults which would have landed the perpetrators in prison had they shouted such abuse at royalty on the streets.

  Her first introduction to this strange custom happened as a boatload of young men and women passed near them on the water. One young man stood up and pointed at Mr. White and yelled, “Look at that queer old putt. Isn’t he ashamed to go wenching at his years?”

  To Polly’s amazement, a city clerk’s wife—Mrs. Tally, a small and faded lady of great gentility—immediately broke off a discussion with Polly about the best way to clean silver, jumped to her feet, puffed out her meager chest and began to bellow: “You treacherous sons of Bridewell bastards who are pimps to your own mothers and cock-bawds to the rest of your relations, who were begot by huffling and christened out of a piss pot, how dare you show your ugly faces on the River Thames!”

  Both boatloads cheered this tremendous performance. Mrs. Tally sat down, cleared her throat with a delicate cough and leaned toward Polly. “As I was saying, Miss Smith, I really do think jeweller’s rouge is the best cleaning agent for silver.”

  Soon Polly learned to turn a deaf ear to the verbal battles. The soft warm wind was pleasant. The company, leaving their waterman to continue the verbal onslaught alone, settled down to a picnic of wine, cold roasted stuffed pigeons, wine-roasted gammon, garnished turbot, and a dessert of buttered meringue a la Pompadour.

  Their waterman had been drinking well and deep to lubricate his vocal cords. P
olly glanced up and saw a boatload of richly dressed people approaching. They were being slowly borne forward on a decorated barge covered with a canopy of gold and silver. An orchestra was playing and the scent of musk drifted across the water.

  Mr. White saw the waterman opening his mouth and jumped up with an alarmed cry of, “Be quiet, fellow.”

  Royalty might pretend not to hear insults but aristocrats such as these often drew blood in revenge. But as the barge full of the aristocracy came alongside, the waterman launched forth with a glad cry of: “You dirty creeping brood of night-walkers and shoplifters. Have a care of your cheeks, you whores, we shall have you branded at the next sessions that the world may see your trade in your faces. You are lately come from the hemp and hammer. You lousy starved crew of worm-pickers and snail-catchers. You offspring of a dunghill and brothers to a pumpkin. You …”