Rainbird's Revenge: HFTS6

by M C Beaton

  Lizzie had planned to go to St. Patrick’s Church in Soho Square, trying to persuade herself she had been sadly lacking in her religious duties, but hoping all the while for a glimpse of Mr. Gendreau. Alice and Jenny were going to look at the shops, Angus and Mrs. Middleton were to take a walk by the Serpentine, Joseph was going to The Running Footman for a gossip, and Dave announced firmly he was going with Rainbird.

  They all waited eagerly until they heard the duke and Fergus leave, and then they set about preparing to enjoy the day.

  Rainbird hired a post-chaise, took the strong-box with their money, and, accompanied by Dave, set out for Highgate. The day was so fine and so sparkling that Rainbird wished they could have afforded to hire an open carriage instead of being confined inside a stuffy, smelly post-chaise.

  The inn called The Holly Bush was on the far side of Highgate, on the north road out of that village. It was owned, among other run-down properties, by a certain Squire James, who lived in the village. He was a gross, slovenly man, who showed alarming signs of wishing to show them about in person, swearing the place was double the money. But Rainbird said firmly they would judge matters better on their own and would return shortly and let him know their decision.

  Having dismissed the post-chaise, they walked out to The Holly Bush. It was a Tudor pub with a thatched roof. To Rainbird’s surprise, the thatch was in good repair and the glass in all the windows was unbroken. But inside, the tap was a squalid, disgusting mess. It looked as if there had been an almighty brawl on its last night, and no one had bothered to clean it up. There were four bedrooms upstairs. There was a weedy garden at the back with a muddy pond choked with reeds. But to Rainbird’s surprise, the fabric of the building was sound, and the floors were good and solid. The pond could be cleaned, and tables and chairs could be arranged in the garden. Short of cleaning and scrubbing inside, there would be remarkably little to be done to get it ready.

  Much cheered, Rainbird and Dave made their way back to the squire’s. Squire James was smelling strongly of freshly taken brandy when they went in. Rainbird, with a long and solemn face, immediately began to run down the pub and complain about the mess. The squire protested furiously and told them to go. Rainbird hummed and hawed and said he might consider buying it if the squire would take hard cash and dispense with the formality of lawyers, who were a useless and expensive breed, a sentiment with which the squire heartily agreed.

  Rainbird sat down with the squire and an hour of haggling ensued, until Rainbird clinched the deal by producing bags of guineas from the strong-box and letting them spill out on the table. As he saw the squire’s eyes light up greedily at the sight of the gold, Rainbird was glad he had changed all their notes into guineas. Paper money never inspired the same greed in men as did the sight of gold. And so the squire eagerly sold the pub for a lesser sum that he had first demanded. The papers and documents were handed over and all the spare keys.

  Rainbird walked away with a light heart. Down below them swam London in a soft golden haze, like a magic city in a dream.

  “A good day’s work, Dave,” said Rainbird cheerfully, “and money still in hand. Come, my lad, and we will have food and drink somewhere pleasant.”

  They settled for a pub called The Grenadier, soon to be their rival, and had a meal of cold roast beef and porter out in the inn garden under the cool shade of a chestnut tree.

  “Will you entertain the customers, Mr. Rainbird?” asked Dave wistfully.

  “No, I shall be a pompous landlord, mine host to the life.” Rainbird leapt to his feet and strutted up and down the grass, pushing out an imaginary paunch.

  Dave crowed with laughter. “There’s no one but us in the garden, Mr. Rainbird,” he leaded. “Do some of your tricks.”

  Rainbird shrugged and smiled. He picked some walnuts from a bowl on the table and began to juggle them. “Can you imagine the Duke of Pelham behaving thus?” Rainbird laughed. He fixed Dave with a haughty, glacial eye and then glared at the circle of juggled walnuts with horror, as if wondering how they had got into his hands. He mimed a pompous aristocrat desperately trying to get rid of the offending things while little Dave wiped his tears of laughter away on his sleeve.

  Rainbird tossed the walnuts back in the bowl and then cart-wheeled round the garden, finishing upside down on the table-top, legs straight up in the air, propped up on one hand.

  The sound of applause from the doorway leading to the garden made Rainbird jump back into his seat and assume the expression of a man who had absolutely nothing to do with the antics he had just performed.

  “My dear sir,” said a fat, florid, and jolly man who had been applauding. “You could rival Grimaldi.” Grimaldi was the famous clown of the Regency patnomime.

  “With your permission?” Without waiting for a reply, the man sat down at the table. “I am stage manager of the Spa Theatre in Islington. I am also the owner. We are sadly in need of a harlequin for our pantomime. If you would be consider joining our band of players, I would pay you well.”

  Rainbird smiled and shook his head. Harlequins were at the bottom of the theatrical scale. He had read in the newspapers recently that Grimaldi himself could only earn four pounds a week.

  “You are kind, Mr. —?”

  “Frank.”

  “Mr. Frank. I have just bought a pub. I am a gentleman of independent means, and harlequins earn too little to tempt me.”

  “Nonsense, Mr. —?”

  “Rainbird. John Rainbird.”

  “You will make your name. You can earn generous sums of money touring the provinces, as much as fourteen thousand pounds in four weeks and one hundred pounds on benefit nights. If you joined our troupe, you could count on a percentage of the takings as well.”

  “It seems a great sum for a few tricks.”

  “Few have the ability to make others laugh. You have what I want, what I need, Mr. John Rainbird. What! Slave in a pub and never hear the roar of the audience in your ears?”

  “Oh, Mr. Rainbird,” breathed Dave. “There’s enough o’ the others to run the pub.”

  Rainbird shook his head. “I have duty to my friends to consider,” he said. “Besides, I might prove a failure.”

  Mr. Frank hitched his chair closer. “Just one night,” he wheedled. “You could try one night. It’s not as if there are any lines to rehearse.”

  The theatrical performances of the Regency were very long, about five or six hours, and the play was always followed by a harlequinade in which Harlequin danced in pursuit of Columbine, was opposed by Pantaloon, but finally, with the aid of his wooden sword or bat, defeated his enemies and won the girl. There was always a comic chase, and Harlequin was expected to entertain the audience with tricks and juggling and songs and a running patter on the events of the day.

  Rainbird looked around the sunny garden. It would be wonderful to perform in a theatre before he settled down. Just once.

  “I am at the moment butler to the Duke of Pelham. My time is his. It would be very hard to escape for the evening. Which evening had you in mind?”

  “Sooner the better. You pick your evening. The harlequin we have is old and drunk. You turn up and we’ll take him off for the night.”

  Rainbird bit his knuckles in sudden agitation. “But to walk onto a stage in front of all these people with a cast who do not even know me!”

  “You make ’em laugh, and they won’t care what you do. The audience, I mean. You make ’em laugh, and the cast will just have to try to follow you.”

  “Let me think about it,” said Rainbird. Dave looked at him anxiously. The butler had turned quite white and his hands shook.

  “Do that, Mr. Rainbird. Here is my card. What have you to lose? If you are a success, the world lies before you. If you fail, then you go to your pub and forget about it.”

  He clapped Rainbird on the shoulder and ambled off.

  Rainbird stared down at the card. “Oh dear,” he whispered to Dave. “Whatever shall I do? You never think a dream will eve
r become reality. To dream about going on the stage is one thing, but to actually have that dream here in my grasp, and not to be able to hold it, is very hard. I wish we had never met Mr. Frank. I shall make a very discontented landlord.”

  Dave put a grubby hand on Rainbird’s sleeve. “Please, Mr. Rainbird,” he said, “try just one night. I’ll come along ’o you. Dave’ll be there. Please, Mr. Rainbird. Like the man said, you can try the one evening. One evening’s not much.”

  Joseph, in black-and-gold livery and with his hair powdered, strolled in the direction of The Running Footman. He walked with his constricted feet pointing outwards like a fencing master. In one white-gloved hand he carried a lace-edged handkerchief. His blue eyes surveyed the world with pleasure. He rounded the corner of Clarges Street and nearly bumped into Miss Jenny Sutherland, who was returning home from a shopping expedition accompanied by her maid, Cooper.

  Joseph bowed slightly and would have walked past, notwanting to embarrass Miss Sutherland, but to his surprise Jenny stopped dead and hailed him with a cheerful “Good day, Joseph. How goes it?”

  “Very well,” said Joseph, noticing the startled look on the maid’s face.

  “Take my packages home, Cooper,” said Jenny. “Oh, don’t look so shocked. I shall follow you directly.”

  When the maid had reluctantly walked away, Jenny said, “Last night your master appeared to be quite a different gentleman from the one I first met. Not at all proud.”

  Rainbird would have told Miss Sutherland firmly that she was in danger of disgracing herself by standing talking to servants in the street, but Joseph had such a high opinion of himself that he saw nothing wrong in it, although all the glory of chatting with a supremely beautiful lady of fashion went right to his head.

  “He’s proud enough to keep us et stervation level,” said the gossipy Joseph, enjoying the startled look of curiosity in Jenny’s eyes. Jenny’s stopping to talk to Joseph was part of her new plan to take an interest in others, no matter who they might be.

  “What do you mean?” she asked. “Are your wages so very low?”

  Joseph outlined how little they all got. “But that is shocking … shocking,” said Jenny.

  “Mind you,” said Joseph, “Mr. Rainbird says es how he thinks thet Palmer, the duke’s agent, is cheating his mester. He thinks thet Palmer gives us one set of wages, marks higher ones in the duke’s books, and pockets the difference.” Rainbird had not told the others about what he had heard going on between Palmer and the duke, for he had temporarily forgotten about it in the excitement of setting out with Dave to see the pub.

  “I shall speak to the duke,” said Jenny firmly.

  “No, don’t do thet, miss,” said Joseph, alarmed. “See ‘ere, it’s like this,” he said, forgetting his genteel accent. “If we could find a way of getting proof on paper of what he was actually paying us, and have a look at them books, or somethink like that, then we could tell the duke about Palmer. But what if it’s really the duke hisself who is paying them low wages?”

  “You must break into this Palmer’s office and steal his books!” cried Jenny.

  “Naw!” squawked Joseph. “I wasn’t supposed to talk about it. You wont’ tell anyone, miss?”

  “Oh, fiddle, there’s Cooper coming for me.” Jenny hurried off down the street.

  Joseph looked after her, feeling awkward and uneasy. Then he reassured himself with the hope that Miss Sutherland would forget about the whole thing.

  By the time he pushed open the door of The Running Footman—pausing on the threshold so that the upper servants in the tap should behold the full glory of lace handkerchief, shining pumps, and white silk stockings—Joseph had forgotten about his encounter with Miss Sutherland.

  “Over here, Joseph,” called a familiar voice. Joseph preened. Mr. Blenkinsop, Lord Charteris’s butler from next door, was waving to him. Casting a covert look round to make sure the other footmen in the pub knew he was being invited by a butler, Joseph minced up to where Blenkinsop was sitting, and slid gracefully into the chair opposite.

  Mr. Blenkinsop was more what Joseph considered a butler should be—fat and portly and not very clever. Rainbird had often too sharp a tongue for Joseph’s comfort.

  “What will you have, Joseph?” asked Mr. Blenkinsop expansively.

  “A pint of shrub, an’ it please you, Mr. Blenkinsop,” said Joseph, much gratified, for butlers like Blenkinsop usually expected the lower orders to pay for their drinks.

  When Joseph had been served, Mr. Blenkinsop said, “We never heard no more word o’ that rascal, Luke.”

  Joseph’s face darkened. “Running off wiff all o’ our money like that,” he said furiously. “’E deserves to be ‘anged.”

  The footman then blushed. He could never understand why his genteel accents, so carefully cultivated, should suddenly run away and leave him with a cockney whine.

  “He’ll come to a bad end, never fear,” said Mr. Blenkinsop, burying his nose in his pewter mug of light ale. His weak eyes then peered craftily over the top of the mug at Joseph. “We ain’t got a first footman,” he added.

  “I thought the next-in-line would have got the job,” said Joseph.

  Mr. Blenkinsop put down his mug and prodded Joseph in the region of the waistcoat with a fat finger. “None of them have got it,” he said. “I need a first footman with a certain jenny-say-quite.”

  “Exactly,” said Joseph.

  “A chap like yourself, for example, would fit the post.”

  “Lord Charteris would never let you take me on,” said Joseph. “I may as well tell you, Mr. Blenkinsop, as I know how you can keep a secret, that Palmer, the duke’s agent, says as how he would give me a bad reference and tell any employer how it was me what stole from the Bishop of Burnham. But it wasn’t,” said Joseph passionately. “It was that wife o’ his.”

  Blenkinsop laughed, a fat, chuckling laugh. “Don’t everyone know about her?” he said. “Why, only t’ other weekshe had a snuff-box offa Lord Charteris. He knows she steals.”

  “What!” screeched Joseph, red with outrage. “Here’s me bin starvin’ for years in that slum in Clarges Street on the worst wages a footman could have, and all because I thought no one knew about the bishop’s wife’s stealing.”

  “You ain’t done too bad,” said Benkinsop, cynically regarding the footman’s expensive livery.

  “Well, we was lucky with the tenants,” admitted Joseph reluctantly. “That why we’s all going to buy this pub.” Then he went red as fire again, and pleaded, “I shouldn’t have told you. Don’t tell Mr. Rainbird or he’ll thrash me.”

  “It’s my opinion,” said Blenkinsop, “that a man like John Rainbird don’t appreciate the delicate feelings of a chap like yourself.”

  “That’s true. Very true,” said Joseph.

  “But if you’re all going to be independent and buy pubs, well, there’s no point in offering you a job.”

  “It’s very tempting,” said Joseph. “I would like to be a first footman.”

  Blenkinsop leaned back in his chair and watched the battle going on behind Joseph’s wide blue eyes. He had no intention of telling Joseph that he, Joseph, had caught the wandering eye of that raddled old harridan, Lady Charteris, and it was my lady who had suggested Joseph should be engaged as first footman.

  Unlike the others, Joseph had not come to be discontented with his life as a servant, only with the fact he did not have any proper status in that democratic servants’ hall in Clarges Street. But in a house such as Lord Charteris’s he would have all the respect due to his position from the other servants. He would be waited on by the lower servants. Lord and Lady Charteris went about in society, and Lady Charteris liked to have the most senior footman always in attendance. Damn the pub, thought Joseph. He would need to ruin his hands and suffer that affectionate, contemptuous look in Rainbird’s eyes and see Lizzie drifting farther away from him—pulled away from him by a long chain of books. Like many of his betters, Joseph was inclined t
o think that education for the lower orders was a dangerous thing.

  “If only I could,” he said.

  “What’s the arrangement with this pub, then?” asked Blenkinsop.

  “Well, we’re all equal partners,” said Joseph.

  “That’s very fair of John Rainbird.”

  “I s’pose,” said Joseph reluctantly. “But I hates the country, and this pub is in Highgate,” he said as if Highgate were in Outer Mongolia.

  “You’re like me, lad.” Blenkinsop sighed. “I like a London life. We remove to the country in the winter, mind. But we’re treated well and we’re never expected to poke our noses outdoors. They’ve got plenty of outdoor staff. Besides, I’ll be retiring soon and that’ll leave my job vacant. It would be fine to be able to train my successor.”

  Joseph’s round eyes grew rounder.

  “See here,” said Blenkinsop. “You could always let them have your share of the money. Tell ‘em, if the pub succeeds, to put a little bit by for you. Look on it as an investment. They don’t need you. There’s plenty o’ them to run it as it is.”

  Mrs. Middleton walked sedately along by the Serpentine with the cook, Angus MacGregor. Although all this idea of a pub of their own was very exciting, it left one great black hole in the housekeeper’s ambitions. The “Mrs.” wasa courtesy title. Daughter of an impoverished country curate, Mrs. Middleton was a spinster who had long dreamt of being married to Mr. John Rainbird when they all had their independence. But Mr. Rainbird, she realised with a sigh, showed no signs of wanting to be married to her, or indeed anyone. Not these days. Not since he had made a fool of himself over some useless French lady’s maid who had not wanted him.

  “Weel, we’ll soon be free,” she realised Angus MacGregor was saying.

  “Yes, it seems strange,” she said. “I once read of a man who had spent years in a debtor’s prison, and when friends finally raised the money to get him out, he was so bewildered and lost in the world outside that he gambled and gambled until he was back in prison again. I wonder whether I shall feel like that.”