by M C Beaton
“Yes,” agreed Rainbird. “And a right mess we’d have been in if it hadn’t been for that young miss who warned us.”
“Wonder who she was?” said Lizzie. “She was ever so pretty. A real lady.”
“Garn!” said little Dave. “Real ladies wouldn’t go to such an effort!”
“Oh yes, they would,” said Rainbird. “It’s the would-be ladies who don’t bother about servants.”
Chapter
Three
Come, and trip it, as you go,
On the light fantastic toe.
—John Milton
“Now, dear Agnes,” said Lady Letitia with all the air of someone winding up a long and most satisfactory gossip, “we must nurse the ground for little Jenny so that she may have an entrée to the best houses.”
“I have already been at work,” shouted Mrs. Freemantle.” Clarinda Bessamy—you know, one of the Kentish Bessamys—is having a little family affair. She said that should you arrive in time, I must not stand on ceremony but bring you and your niece along. “Twill be a modest little party, but there will be cards and some dancing for the young people.”
“Splendid!” said Lady Letitia. “And when is this party?”
“This very evening.”
“Could not be better. Jenny has a some very fine gowns and will not appear provincial. You must go and lie down, Jenny, and rest, before your first London engagement.”
Jenny left the room, trying not to look as sulky as she felt. How could she realise any of her dreams of being courted by Lord Paul and of snubbing the Duke of Pelham if she was not to move in the same circles? Mrs. Freemantle was an eccentric fright, mourned Jenny to herself as she climbed the stairs. Lady Letitia, so mondaine and elegant in the country, must really be a provincial at heart to have such a friend.
Suddenly tired after the journey, Jenny climbed into bed, quite resolved to say that evening that she had the headache and could not attend this Mrs. Bessamy’s undistinguished romp.
Then she sat upright, put her hands to her white cheeks, and screamed and screamed.
Cooper, the lady’s maid, came running in. Ashen-faced, Jenny pointed at the end of the bed. Seizing the poker in case it should prove to be a rat, the maid advanced cautiously on the bed, peered around the bed-hangings of the four-poster, and began to scream even louder than Jenny.
Giles came creaking in, followed by his mistress.
“Oh dear,” boomed Mrs. Freemantle, “you’ve found them, have you? My late husband was a great traveller and I have never had the heart to throw any of his collection away. They are merely some eastern masks he brought back from his travels.”
Jenny cautiously peered through her fingers. The terrible glaring faces hung at the end of her bed below the canopy proved to be nothing but grinning masks of wood and hair.
“Take them away, please,” said Jenny.
Mrs. Freemantle instructed Giles to unhitch the masks and then followed her butler out, grumbling that she did not know where she could possibly put them now.
Lady Letitia then appeared to smooth Jenny’s hair back from her brow and urge her to sleep.
“How can I possibly sleep in such a dreadful place?” complained Jenny, looking around the cluttered room. Her eye fell on an elephant’s foot that held a swath of withered pampas grass, and she shuddered.
Lady Letitia slid a hand under the blankets. “The sheets have been aired, child,” she said, “and the bed feels comfortable. Sleep, now, or you will not be looking your best for this evening.”
After she had gone, Jenny stared up at the canopy and resolved with renewed determination not to go to this party. Then her eyes closed and she fell fast asleep.
She was awakened by the urgent cries of the lady’s maid and Lady Letitia. They had forgotten to arouse her earlier, Lady Letitia explained. She must rush. Groggy with sleep, Jenny allowed herself to be bathed and dressed and curled and pomaded, and by the time she was fully awake and remembered about that headache she had meant to manufacture, it was too late.
The sight of Mrs. Freemantle in her evening finery was enough to make Jenny’s heart sink right down to her little blue kid slippers.
That lady was wearing a ball dress of plain crêpe over a white satin slip of dancing length. It was trimmed round the bottom, on the sleeves, and at the waist with white velvet ribbon thickly spangled with gold. It was cut very low on the bosom, exposing an unattractive area of yellowish skin and sharp bone. She wore a fine muslin cap trimmed with priceless lace over a nut-brown wig of the cheapest variety, which looked as if it had been made from horsehair.
It was a gown designed for a daring young miss in her teens, but hardly the outfit for an old lady. Lady Letitia was wearing a dull-scarlet satin gown with a heavy necklace of antique gold. On her head was a dashing turban of pleated scarlet silk fastened with a gold-and-ruby brooch.
Jenny glanced at her own appearance in the long mirror in the hall, but the sight of her own beauty failed to raise her spirits. Her gown of delicate blue muslin with its pretty frills and tucks over a chemisette of white embroidered lawn had never been worn before. She remembered crossly how many dreams she had woven about this gown and how she had been saving it for a very special occasion.
Now it would be exposed to the vulgar stare of a bunch of Nobodies!
At that moment, the Duke of Pelham was critically surveying his own appearance in the glass at Number 67 Clarges Street. He was wearing an evening coat of dull-green silk with gold buttons over a waistcoat of green-and-gold-striped marseilles. His cravat was tied in the Mathematical. His breeches of double-milled stocking were stretched over his powerful thighs like a second skin and tied at the knee with gold ribbons—sixteen “strings,” as they were called, to each knee. He hung his dress sword at his side and tucked his bicorne under his arm.
“Have you my bits and pieces?” he said over his shoulder to Fergus.
“Yes, your grace. I have your scent bottle and fan, card money, and two clean handkerchiefs.”
“Good. We are set. I wish I had not said I would go. But I let Mannering coerce me into it.”
The duke shook his head as he thought of the eventsof the day. He had refused all leave from the wars until now, feeling it his duty to fight for his country for as long as he was able. But a severe bout of fever had landed him in hospital, and he had been urged to take his long-overdue leave. Feeling weak and sick and helpless, he had taken a ship at Portugal, only to find that all the benefits of sun and fresh air on a good journey home had completely restored him to health. But he was homesick and anxious to see England again. He also felt it was high time he found a wife and started his nursery. He had forgotten the extravagance of dress and the oddity of manners of London society, which now struck him as weird and wonderful.
He had even forgotten the fashion for weeping copiously on all occasions. A gentleman was expected to have “bottom”—meaning courage, coolness, and solidity. But a gentleman was also expected to have sensibility. It was an age in which the diarist Thomas Creevey coined the phrase “not a dry eye in the house,” by which he meant the House of Commons, where politicians would vie with each other to see who could cry the most.
The jealousy of accomplished weepers was not confined to the men. Even that brilliant and frivolous novelist, Fanny Burney, herself an accomplished weeper, could not bear to be beaten and became quite cattish over a certain Sophy Streatfield, who seemed to be able to weep at will.
An elderly lord had dropped dead in White’s a bare half hour before the duke’s arrival there earlier in the day, and all the members were roaring and bawling and crying as if he had been their dearest, closest relative, instead of a crusty old gentleman of loose morals who had risen to meet his Maker in a cloud of brandy fumes.
So the duke, accustomed to the stern faces and stoic courage of the battlefield, was quite appalled, and there-fore relieved, to find the one dry-eyed member of the club, Lord Paul Mannering, seated in the coffee room.
&nb
sp; Lord Paul, like the duke, had just come to Town, but said he had encountered Mrs. Bessamy in Pall Mall, and that lady had urged him to attend her little party and to bring Pelham along as well.
“How does she know of me?” the duke had asked.
“Because I told her I met you on the road to London,” explained Lord Paul. “Do say you will come. London seems a devilish strange place to me, all primping men and half-naked women.”
It had seemed like a good idea to the duke, and he had asked Rainbird for his dinner to be set before him at six o’clock.
But that dinner had proved to be the most exquisite he had ever tasted. The house was clean and smelled sweet. The servants moved efficiently and unobtrusively about their duties. The ghost of his dead father did not rise to plague him. For the first time in his life, he had an odd feeling of being at home. He felt he should question that Rainbird fellow about his Radical views, but somehow could not bring himself to spoil the family atmosphere. Yes, that’s what is was! It was not like being the master of a house full of strange servants, but of being a well-loved relative arriving home at last. Odd. He wished with all his heart he had not agreed to go out.
“Quarters all right, Fergus?” he finally remembered to ask his servant.
“Yes, very comfortable, your grace.”
“Are the other servants courteous to you and mindful of your rank as my personal servant?”
Fergus turned away to hide a grin. It was his opinion that that odd bunch downstairs were, underneath, not particularly mindful of any rank. And then there was Alice. Sweet, beautiful, golden Alice, the housemaid, whose voice as soft as Cornish cream fell easily on his ears. Anxious all of a sudden to see himself through Alice’s eyes, Fergus peered over his master’s shoulder and looked in the glass. He was dressed in his new livery of pale blue velvet with silver lacing. He was thirty-five, but he noticed that the silvering of his hair at the temples made him appear older. A little judicious application of dye might perhaps help, he thought, turning his head from side to side. His face was too brown; the wars had carved deep lines on either side of his mouth, and his brown eyes had a wary look. But he had a good figure, a straight nose, and a firm mouth. His legs did not require false calves or padding. His …
“Do tell me if I am blocking your view,” said the duke acidly.
“No, your grace,” said Fergus, falling back a pace. “I was only checking to make sure I did you justice.”
“When did you ever trouble about your appearance before, my Fergus?” The duke laughed. “Which one is it? The inestimable housekeeper with the large cap?”
“She is too old for me,” said Fergus sharply. The duke gave his servant an amused smile and turned to leave.
Feeling thoroughly depressed, Fergus followed his master from the room.
Still sulky, Jenny Sutherland picked up her filmy skirts and followed her aunt and hostess into the carriage. She prepared herself for a long journey to some undistinguished part of town. Bloomsbury, perhaps. Oh, horrors!
She was amazed to find they had gone only a short distance when the carriage rolled to a halt. Wondering, Jenny stepped down onto the pavement. She was facing agreat town house with lights blazing from every window. A line of powdered footmen with stiffened gold-embroidered skirts to their coats and wearing gold swords lined the steps on either side of the entrance.
“Gracious!” said Jenny. “Is this Mrs. Bessamy’s?”
“Of course, my love,” said Lady Letitia, flashing a cynical look at her niece. “What did you expect? Mrs. Bessamy is very good ton.”
“But she does not have a title?”
“Shhh! Do not betray your lack of sophistication to Mrs. Freemantle. Often the untitled members of society hold more sway that the titled. After all, Brummell is plain ‘mister.’”
In a daze, Jenny followed her chaperones up a curved staircase to a chain of saloons on the first floor. Mrs. Bessamy was a small, fussy blonde woman, plump and undistinguished in appearance, but covered from head to foot in jewels that looked as if they had been thrown at her by her dresser, rather like throwing darts. She even had diamond brooches pinned randomly over the skirts of her gown. She wore a great, heavy tiara, a mixture of diamonds, rubies, and several semi-precious stones. Her fat face under it was small and creased with parallel wrinkles, so that it looked as if it might spring back into its normal shape once the weight of the great tiara was removed.
Mrs. Freemantle was welcomed warmly. Jenny was introduced to a bewildering selection of people. Powder was often still worn in the country, but most gentlemen wore their own hair. A combination of the iniquitous flour tax and the fact that Wellington had stopped the army from buying sixty-five hundred tons of flour a year for powdering had made a difference. Some regretted its passing and longed for what they considered the more elegant dayswhen the Prince de Kaunitz, who wore satin stays, would pass a portion of every morning walking up and down a room in which four valets puffed a cloud of scented powder at his head, each of a different colour, in order that it might fall and amalgamate into the exact nuance that best suited their master’s taste.
Jenny had lost much of her usual poise. It was an odd world where such freaks as Mrs. Bessamy and Mrs. Freemantle were hailed with affection, and yet titled and beautiful ladies were not rated nearly so high.
The London voices of the ton were different from what Jenny had expected, and so she listened hard so as to try to copy this strange accent. Spoil, for example, was pronounced “spile,” Lord Byron as “Lord Birron,” London as “Lonnon.” “Contemplate” and “balcony” had the emphasis on the first syllable, which was very odd to Jenny, who had, hithertofore, heard the gentry speak only of balco Nies and of con TEM plating something or other. Tea was still pronounced “tay.” At least no one had tried to change that, and probably never would, thought Jenny.
She walked sedately through the saloons between Lady Letitia and Mrs. Freemantle and kept her eyes and ears open. She had never before been in rooms so brightly lit or so opulently furnished, so decorated with flowers and swathes of silk. In one of the main saloons was a little marble fountain spouting champagne instead of water. “Quite silly, really,” boomed Mrs. Freemantle. “Takes out all the fizz. Would you like some, Jenny?”
“Thank you, Mrs. Freemantle,” said Jenny politely. “I am most obleeged.”
“No, no, no,” said Mrs. Freemantle in a stage whisper that nonetheless carried from end to end of the rooms. “You must not say ‘obleeged.’ Obliged, my girl. Obliged.”
“But the Prince Regent himself is reported to say ‘obleeged,’” said Jenny crossly.
“Not by the time his elocution teacher, John Kemble, has finished with him, he won’t,” said Mrs. Freemantle, slapping her hip with her fan and roaring with laughter. “Why, only t’other day, Kemble said, ’Sir, may I beseech your Royal Highness to open your royal jaws and say ‘oblige’?’
Mrs. Bessamy came hurrying up. “Prinny will be here shortly, Mrs. Freemantle. Was there ever such a pest of a man? He was not invited, you know.”
Jenny stood round-eyed with wonder. The Prince Regent himself was to attend, and yet this hostess was not pleased!
Then she saw Lord Paul Mannering walking towards them, forgot she hardly knew him, and called to him, quite boldly, “Do but come and see this pretty fountain, my lord.”
“Jenny,” hissed Lady Letitia, quite distressed.
But Lord Paul came up to them, smiled at Jenny, and bowed low before Lady Letitia. “I believe there is to be dancing,” he said. “May I hope you will do me the honour …”
“Of course, my lord,” said Jenny, all dimples and smiles, and then wondered what there was about her acceptance of his invitation to make him look so startled and make her aunt frown.
Lord Paul looked away from Jenny as if embarrassed, and then his face lit up. “Here is Pelham,” he cried. “I am so glad he decided to come.”
The duke smiled a welcome to Lord Paul, bowed to Lady Letitia and Mrs. Fr
eemantle, and ignored Jenny, who blushed furiously.
A stentorian voice from the doorway announced the arrival of the Prince Regent. The guests shuffled into two lines.
The prince was a corpulent man, and his blue eyes held the watery glitter of the habitual drinker. “‘Tis a mercy he only likes ladies old enough to be his grandmother,” Jenny heard Lady Letitia mutter. “My Jenny will be safe enough.”
“Your niece is so beautiful,” whispered Lord Paul, “that I doubt if she will be safe from anyone this evening, even Prinny.”
Jenny’s eyes shone like stars at the compliment. She straightened her spine and when the Prince Regent approached her, she sank into a graceful curtsy.
“Hey, who have we here?” cried the prince.
“Miss Jenny Sutherland,” said Mrs. Bessamy. “One of our newest débutantes.”
It was true the Prince Regent did not usually bother with young misses, but there was something about Jenny’s fresh beauty and the blue of her gown that touched a sentimental chord in his fat royal heart.
“I shall take pretty Miss Sutherland to waltz,” said the prince with great good humour. “Music, hey!”
The orchestra at the end of the room struck up, and the guests moved to the side of the floor as the prince put his arm around Jenny’s waist to lead her in the steps of the dance. “You must do exactly what his Royal Highness does,” she heard her aunt whisper desperately.
It did not take Jenny long to realise her royal partner was very drunk. He reeled and staggered, and to her mortification, he forced her to reel and stagger as well. She looked desperately to her aunt for guidance and received a quick nod to indicate she was doing just as she ought. If the Prince Regent danced drunkenly, then any lady dancing with him must appear to be drunk as well. Such was the peculiar etiquette. It was dreadful to hear the titters as they staggered and swayed and stumbled.
After this had been going on for an agonising ten minutes, the prince became bored, stopped and turned away, and called, “Bring my toy, and let us see how the ladies perform.”
