by M C Beaton
“But, Alice,” said the Duke suddenly. “The child could read and write.”
“Urrr,” said Gadger, weaving again like some ancient cobra, hypnotized by the gold. “Curate’s missus taught child. Mistress Lovelace allus ’ad ideas above ’er station. Did curate’s laundry for naught, see, so’s babby could read.” Again he reached out but the Duke had one last hope.
“This Mrs. Lovelace who was Mrs. Abbot before her marriage. What were her antecedents?”
“Urrr?”
“Who were her parents?”
“Bert and Jessie Apple. Them’s dead too,” said Gadger sulkily, feeling he was being asked to do a powerful amount of work for the gold.
“And what was Bert Apple? What did he work at?”
“Footman to Sir ’Enry Baggot down at Five Mile wen ’e was a lad. But ’e drank somethin’ powerful after he married ’un and never worked again so Jessie Apple, she ’ad to labor to support ’im. Runs in families,” added Mr. Gadger and then quite amazed at his own philosophy, he muttered it over and over again, “Runs in families,” and almost forgot about the gold.
The Duke sighed heavily and rose to his feet after pressing the gold coin into the wrinkled, calloused hand. He had no shining respectable family to bring to his Alice as a wedding present, only a background of drudgery and death and pain and loss.
He had not stretched his mind out toward London for a long time, but as he flew over the sleeping buildings and fields on his way back to Wadham, the Duke felt that somewhere on the perimeter of his mind was a sad Alice, an Alice lost and lonely and in need of him. All that night long, he tried to banish her image from his mind. But just before dawn paled in the east, he decided wearily that it would do no harm to pay her one last visit.
Joshua Funk! What a name! What had taken the girl?
Mr. Joshua Funk eased his great girth in his easy chair and cast a baleful look at Miss Fadden who was sitting meekly in the corner of the drawing room, knitting as usual. His pretty fiancée had just entertained him to an excellent dinner and he felt that all that was needed to perfect the evening was that he should be left alone with Alice.
He had, he reflected sourly, never been alone with Alice. Even when he had proposed to her, Miss Fadden had been present He could not drive himself and Miss Fadden had pointed out meekly that it was not at all the thing for Alice to be in a closed carriage, unchaperoned, with any man. He looked at the beautiful face of his fiancée and wondered for the first time what she thought about.
Alice had cultivated a careful, masklike expression during the recent months behind which her brain worried about money and her heart mourned for her lost ghost.
She had not seen Sir Peregrine since the day Miss Fadden had sent him to the rightabout. Spurred on by her dwindling finances she had diligently searched for a husband. Mr. Bower had invested her money wisely, and for some time it looked as if Alice might not have to get married at all but she had not yet learned the difficult art of economy and since she was scrupulously honest and thought everyone else must be so, she was cheated shamelessly by the tradesmen and even by her own servants.
Perhaps she might have kept out of parson’s mousetrap had not Mr. Funk been so eminently suitable. He was a merchant, a widower, with a plump fatherly air about him. He had met Alice by chance on her last visit to the City to see Mr. Bower. Alice had sold her smart carriage in order to retrench a little and had been standing on the muddy pavement in the pouring rain, looking for a hack to convey her home. Mr. Funk, hearing the companion address her mistress as “my lady,” sprang into action, offering his own carriage, the escort of his person, and finally insinuating himself into the drawing room in Manchester Square.
He made no bones about the fact mat he was willing to exchange his great wealth for a wife’s aristocratic background and once the marriage bargain was struck, that had seemed enough. But half-forgotten lecherous thoughts were beginning to burgeon anew in Mr. Funk’s brain. His fiancée should at least allow him a squeeze or a kiss. But Alice was always polite and vague and formal—and always chaperoned.
She sat quietly opposite him, a fine diamond necklace blazing at her neck—some of the last of the late Duchess’s diamonds.
Mr. Funk wondered whether to pluck up courage and simply order Miss Fadden to leave them. But there was something about the quiet chaperone which rather frightened him. Furthermore, his Cumberland corsets which had felt comfortable before dinner, were making their presence felt. The starched points of his collar were cutting little grooves into his chubby cheeks and the ribbons on his stockings had been tied too tightly and were causing shooting pains in his fat calves.
Passion fled before the more seductive thought of getting home and letting his man prize him free of all this constriction and misery.
Accordingly he at last rose to his feet, kissed Alice’s hand with a rare burst of gallantry, heaved himself into his antiquated carriage and was borne off home to Bloomsbury. He was too sleepy to notice a smart little vis-à-vis following at a discreet distance.
When he entered his comfortable mansion in Russell Square and was just about to mount the stairs to his bedchamber, he heard someone rapping vigorously at the knocker.
He half turned, his hand on the banister, to watch his butler going to answer the summons. It was not necessary for him to issue orders that he was not at home. His well-trained staff anticipated his every wish.
He heard his butler’s muted apology and then a pompous voice raised in protest, “But I have just seen him go in. Tell him Lord Harold Webb wishes to have speech with him. Jump to it, fellow.”
Mr. Funk almost ran across the hall, so great was the magic of a title. “My dear Lord Harold Webb,” he said, thrusting his butler aside with one pudgy shoulder. “Come in! Come in! I was about to retire. But no matter. You shall take wine with me.”
As Webb walked into the hall, two men followed him. “My friends,” said Webb, not troubling to introduce the small weedy man and the tall, cadaverous one who followed him. But Mr. Funk was sure they were lords as well and led the way into an overstuffed sitting room, calling on his servants to bustle about and bring refreshment for the guests.
“And to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” asked Mr. Funk finally, when he had calmed down and seen to his guests’ comfort and had a breathing space to realize that strangers, lords or not, did not arrive unexpectedly late at night at a gentleman’s residence and demand admission.
He scratched at his nut-brown wig, carefully oiled with Rowlandson’s macassar so that a passing glance would take it for real hair, and looked slightly more warily at Lord Harold.
“Mr. Bessant,” said Webb, “is here to tell you an incredible story. You may need to brace yourself, sir, for even Mr. Russell—that’s my friend here—found the intelligence a shock.” Webb took a deep breath and pointed a finger straight at Mr. Funk’s crumpled, babyish face.
“You, sir, are being most dreadfully deceived.”
Mr. Funk’s small pouting mouth fell open in surprise. “Go ahead, Mr. Bessant,” said Webb, “and tell your story.”
And so the fat merchant listened in increasing amazement and mounting wrath as the tale of Alice, the scullery maid unfolded, a servant so wanton as to take one of the late Duke’s by-blows as a lover, steal the family jewels and set up in Town to trick the flower of the ton.
“I shall call the Runners!” gasped Mr. Funk when he could. “Oh, the shame of it. I shall be the laughingstock of the City. I was so proud of marrying a Countess. I…”
“I was engaged to the same woman myself,” said Harold Webb in a low ringing voice. He was enjoying himself immensely. “But I do not think there is any need for this disgraceful matter to receive any publicity at all.”
“You mean they are to go scot-free?” howled Mr. Funk, his heart hammering against his ribs and his blood pressure mounting to the troposphere.
“No,” said Mr. Bessant with a slow smile. “You leave it to us. We shall punish them and
after that we shall drive them out of the country.”
“It all seems very unorthodox,” frowned Mr. Funk. “But why have you waited so long? You say you have known of this scandal for some time.”
Lord Harold flushed slightly under Mr. Bessant’s measured stare. So long as matters had been left with him and Mr. Russell, they had been content to play spies, following Alice around, taking a note of her jewels and sending the information off to Bessant at Wadham Hall.
It had taken Bessant’s arrival in London on a week’s leave to spur them into action.
“It does not matter,” said Mr. Bessant. “The matter is being dealt with now. You will, of course, be obliged to help us.”
“I?” said Mr. Funk, looking startled. “How can I help?” His brain worked feverishly. What did they plan to do with Alice? He himself thirsted for revenge, but not the kind of revenge he felt they had in mind. On the other hand, should he take Alice to court, he would have to endure the ridicule of all his friends.
“We have a plan,” said Mr. Bessant. “You are to say nothing of this matter to Alice. You are to take her on a drive on Friday—in two days’ time—to an address we shall give you.
“You are to say that you are taking her to see a relative of yours. Make sure that Miss Fadden does not accompany you.”
“That will be extremely difficult,” bleated Mr. Funk. “I was never able to get rid of that woman.”
“You will get rid of Miss Fadden,” repeated Mr. Bessant coldly. “A shrewd businessman like yourself should be able to arrange the matter.”
“But I am not cut out for such abductions,” pleaded Mr. Funk, looking down at his portly form.
“You have only to deliver her to an address we will give you and, once she is safely inside, you may take yourself off.”
Mr. Funk hesitated. Webb looked all an aristocrat should be, but his friend, Mr. Russell, was unprepossessing, and Mr. Bessant frankly smelled of the servants’ hall.
“A gentleman like yourself,” said Webb suddenly, “will know that we are in the habit of meting out justice, just as our ancestors did, without resource to the courts.”
Mr. Bessant nodded, thinking of a long line of rapists, womanizers and sadists who had made some of the aristocratic families what they were at present. But Mr. Funk thought of chivalry and knights and family crests and all those things he held most dear and gave a reluctant nod in unison with Mr. Bessant.
“Very well,” said Harold Webb. “Friday it is. Now if you will furnish me with pen and parchment I will give you the direction and the time…”
The Duke had unfortunately delayed his visit to London until the following night or he might have discovered the plot against Alice. As it was, he arrived to find that Alice and Miss Fadden were attending the opera and made his way there.
He was pleased to note that Alice’s engagement to a Cit had not excluded her from a place at the opera. For the opera was as exclusive as Almack’s and money alone was not enough to gain you a seat there. There was a cult of deportment and snobbery which had begun at the opening of the century which was just beginning to reach its peak. Beau Brummel and his set ruled the clubs in St. James’s Street and represented the male autocracy of fashion. The lady patronesses at Almack’s Assembly Rooms in King Street represented the feminine. At the opera, they both united their forces to make sure that only the best, the most blue-blooded, the most elegant, had a claim to a seat The opera, in fact, like Almack’s, was a social function which completely outclassed the Court. A committee supervised the issue of every ticket and a man or a lady went to the opera, or did not, according to their social position. “Only sixteen officers of the Guards were found worthy of that honor.”
The opera itself took second place to the company. One went, after all, to see and be seen.
It was more exciting to crowd “Fop’s Alley” at the opera to see the peerless Mr. Brummell and the dandies—Mr. George Darner, Lord Foley, Mr. Henry Pierrepoint, Mr. Wellesley Pole, Mr. Charles Standish, Mr. Drummond and Mr. Lumley Skeffington—than to pay attention to the stage. The question of the evening was not, “Who is singing?” but “How well got up is Brummell?”
Alice was unsophisticated enough to enjoy the music but by now had enough town bronze to cleverly conceal the fact.
Music had charms to soothe the savage thoughts that normally plagued her—why was she getting married—would she see her ghost ever again?—why was Webb always about, always staring?
The opera was Mozart’s Magic Flute and although it is doubtful if the composer would have recognized much of his work since it had been rather John Bullified, Alice could find no fault with it and sat in a happy trance through the first act.
But at the interval she had to give attention to her small court of admirers and her mind began to race as she smiled and chatted. That she could retire to a small cottage in the country and live out the rest of her days on the little money that came from the investments made for her by Mr. Bower never crossed her innocent mind. The Duke had gone to great lengths to launch her in society so that she might find herself a rich husband and she felt honor bound to fulfill his wishes.
Then over the curled and pomaded heads of her court, she saw the Duke and her heart missed a beat. His blue eyes were as mocking as ever and his dress as exquisite. His fair hair was very short but teased into some semblance of a Brutus crop and several of the ladies in the nearby boxes were staring at him in open admiration.
“Gervase,” whispered Alice, but he raised a finger to his lips and she gave a little nod and turned her attention back to her admirers.
The Duke studied her court through his quizzing glass.
Now which of these men could be the lucky Mr. Funk? All were in their twenties and showed all the hallmarks of fashion and high living. He recognized three of them from previous social engagements and after an effort of memory, recalled their names. The fourth, then, must be Mr. Funk. He was a tall, elegant young man with an imposing military mustache and sideburns. Not so bad, admitted the Duke reluctantly. Not bad at all.
Miss Fadden had watched the silent exchange between the Duke and Alice and she wondered about it. There was an atmosphere between the two, mused the old lady, more like that between lovers than between uncle and niece—but the French were an odd race! It was a pity he was her uncle, reflected Miss Fadden. The companion eyed the “uncle’s” blazing jewels. A small fortune there. Surely Alice did not have to marry Mr. Funk. But Alice had said she had to and Alice should know.
Miss Fadden sometimes had her own ideas about this strange relative who only appeared after dark but even to herself, they seemed so wild, so gothic, that she shook her head and dismissed them from her mind.
And what would Uncle Gervase make of Alice’s obese and vulgar fiancé? Alice’s admirers had gone and the Duke had pulled up a chair close to Alice. Miss Fadden decided to listen to their conversation. There was some mystery about this pair and she was anxious to solve it. Miss Fadden felt that if she could find the answer to the mystery, then she would be able to prevent Alice, of whom she had grown very fond, from throwing herself away on a City merchant.
“I think Mr. Funk will do very well,” whispered the Duke to Alice as the curtain rose.
“You have seen him?” exclaimed Alice.
“Was not he that tall military-looking young man who was here a moment ago?”
“No. That was Sir Angus Baxter.”
“Then where is Mr. Funk?”
“At home, I believe,” said Alice slowly.
“You do not sound certain.”
“I don’t know. I think he is indisposed. He sent me a most odd note,” said Alice crossly. “My dear sir, I have not seen you in this age and all you can do is ask me about Mr. Funk!”
“Naturally,” he said in a low voice. “He is surely the most important thing in your life.”
Miss Fadden strained her ears. How English they both sounded. Alice’s French accent became less and less daily. At least she h
ad not reverted to the country burr of Alice, the scullery maid, but that was something even the sharp Miss Fadden did not know to listen for.
“We cannot talk here,” Alice was saying.
“I shall see you later,” replied the Duke. “I am going to pay a call on Mr. Funk.”
“Don’t,” said Alice in loud alarm and was shushed from the neighboring boxes.
“Why not?” he mocked. “What is his direction?”
“I don’t want to tell you.”
“Then I shall find it,” he said, rising. “Russell Square, I believe.”
Miss Fadden was determined to have a word in private with Alice’s uncle. Perhaps if he knew Alice was merely marrying for money, then he might help. As he left the box, she followed hard on his heels, murmuring an excuse to Alice. But no sooner was she in the long corridor that ran along the back of the boxes than she blinked in amazement. For there was no sign of the uncle. None whatsoever. He had completely disappeared into thin air.
