Rainbird's Revenge: HFTS6

by M C Beaton

  Chapter

  Seven

  What a parcel of fools and dastards have I nourished in my house, that not one of them will avenge me of this one upstart clerk!

  —King Henry II of England

  Various friends of the duke called next day and the staff were kept busy. Rainbird had learned that the duke was to go to the theatre and suffered a momentary stab of fear, but when he asked Fergus whether the duke might by any chance be going to the Spa Theatre in Islington, Fergus had looked surprised and said he was sure his master would not attend such an undistinguished place.

  Lizzie, too afraid to take Dave into her confidence in case the pot boy considered it his duty to tell his beloved Rainbird that she was writing notes to a Frenchman, had managed to slip across the street and pay a page who worked in one of the houses opposite to go with her letter to Manchester Square.

  At one moment, the front parlour seemed to be full of gentlemen who appeared to have settled in for the wholeday, but the next they were gone, and the duke was hurrying into his evening clothes.

  The day had been very hot, not bright and brisk and breezy as it had during the previous days, but still and sultry.

  The kitchen and servants’ hall were like an oven. To add to the misery, the fire in the kitchen had been kept burning all day as Angus had been baking biscuits and cakes for the visitors, and it was now stoked up again to supply cans of water for the duke’s bath.

  Rainbird said he was leaving. Joseph let out a squawk and pointed out he would need help to empty the duke’s bath and carry it downstairs again, but Rainbird did not seem to hear him.

  “Are you performing at a children’s party, Mr. Rainbird?” asked Lizzie, as she saw Dave slinging the butler’s box of tricks, a relic of the days when he used to perform at fairs, up on his shoulder.

  “No … yes,” said Rainbird, and dived up the stairs with Dave at his heels.

  All the way over to Islington, Rainbird found himself hoping that the resident harlequin would throw a scene and refuse to stand down, that the rest of the cast would refuse to accept him.

  But when he arrived at the Spa Theatre, it was to find that the harlequin was in a drunken stupor and could not have performed anyway, and that the rest of the actors had been warned of his forthcoming performance. He went into a huddle with his fellow actors; Columbine, played by a muscular young man called Jeremy Trip, and Pantaloon, Billy Bright, an old actor with a Falstaffian build. They were to go through the usual pattern of the harlequinade, with which Rainbird, as were most of the British population, waswell acquainted. But there were still the long gaps to be filled in by the harlequin with patter and tricks. He asked Mr. Frank if he could have some of the other actors for the opening scene, and Mr. Frank smiled and told him that as long as he did not expect them to learn any lines, he could have as many as he liked.

  The evening was so uncomfortably hot that Rainbird kept hoping very few would attend. Surely it would be better to be out in the fresh air on such an evening than sweltering inside this theatre. Rainbird did not know that playbills advertising “The Best Harlequin Since Grimaldi” with the ink still wet on them were being circulated through the streets. Mr. Frank was a gambler and had put a lot of money into getting the playbills out at the last minute. He had even hired two strong men to guard the stage door in case the wrathful Duke of Pelham should try to get to his servant.

  As the Duke of Pelham climbed into his carriage, he saw his friend, Lord Paul, emerging from Number 71 with Lady Letitia and Jenny Sutherland. Miss Sutherland stood for a moment on the steps, the folds of her flimsy white gown hanging motionless on her body in the suffocating air. She looked very beautiful and very sad. Lady Letitia and Lord Paul smiled and waved. The duke smiled and waved back. Miss Sutherland gave him a chilly nod, a little dip of the head.

  Well, she had no doubt learned of his savaging of her character. He could not expect her to behave otherwise. But her sad face upset him. Had she looked angry and haughty, it would not have bothered him in the slightest. He drove off, trying to put her out of his mind, but he could not help contrasting her present sadness with the happy enjoyment of the girl who had danced in his servants’ hall.

  Jenny was being taken to yet another Season’s engagement, a turtle dinner. She was glad Mrs. Freemantle was going to play cards somewhere else, for Jenny wilted before that robust lady’s disapproval. Mrs. Freemantle had not yet forgiven Jenny for having caused her aunt so much unnecessary distress.

  As they drove off, Jenny saw the chambermaid Jenny at Number 67, standing at the top of the area steps, and as she looked down from the carriage, prepared to smile, the chambermaid gave her an angry, glowering look before turning around and going downstairs again.

  Nobody likes me, thought Jenny Sutherland wretchedly. Oh, I must see if I can do something for those servants at Sixty-seven. How can I get to Holborn in the dead of night? Even if I wear very plain clothes and try to look like a servant, I shall be in danger of being attacked.

  After turning the problem over in her mind, she said to Lord Paul, “We are fortunate to belong to a class who can afford servants to escort us everywhere. Say some poor girl had to make her way through the streets of London in dead of night, surely she would be in great peril.”

  “It depends whereabouts in London,” said Lord Paul.

  “Holborn, say.”

  “Yes, very dangerous. I would suggest this poor girl of yours save up her pennies for a hack.”

  Of course, thought Jenny, a hackney carriage was just the thing. She had plenty of pin money left. She would tell the driver to wait for her. Now, all she had to do was hope this tiresome dinner would not last too long.

  In Holborn, Jonas Palmer worked over his books. Finally, he threw down his quill pen with a sigh. There was no way he could excuse the bad state of the tenants’ cottages on the duke’s estates. To put everything in order, even supposing he had the time, would mean paying out of his own pocket. For Palmer had come to consider all the money he had stolen from the duke’s estates as his own. He went to a corner of his office and lifted up a loose floorboard and took out the bags of gold he had hidden there and looked at them.

  He could buy himself a passage to America and start a new life there. He had enjoyed the power he had had over the duke’s dependents more than he had enjoyed getting the money, but he now knew he would be extremely foolish to stay in the country for much longer. He had enjoyed keeping the two sets of books, the real ones showing how he had cleverly managed to feather his own nest. Now, he would have to get rid of them.

  He took out one small bag of gold and slid it into his pocket. He would go home and get a good night’s sleep. He would book himself a place on the stage-coach to Bristol in the morning and then return, take the gold, and destroy the books.

  Joseph minced through the London streets, looking for a breath of cool air. The sun was going down, but the air was still hot and breathless. There was an odd feeling of anticipation in the air, as if the whole large city were holding its breath.

  He decided to go to The Running Footman before the heat took any more of the starch out of his cravat. The pub would be hot, but not very much hotter than the scorching streets. He could even feel the heat of the pavements burning through the thin soles of his flat-heeled black pumps.

  And then, all at once, he saw Lizzie. She was walkingalong on the other side of Oxford Street on the arm of a gentleman. She was wearing her best green gown. She was looking up into the man’s face with a silly, doting look—or rather, that was how Joseph described it to himself.

  The footman was very angry indeed. Here he had been miserable with guilt at the thought of taking that job with Lord Charteris, and all because he thought Lizzie would be heart-broken. And here she was, obviously the mistress of some foreign-looking gentleman.

  “Wait till Rainbird hears about this!” said Joseph aloud, and then glared awfully at a lady who was giggling at him.

  A little memory of the old Lizzie
who used to look up at him with just such an expression on her face tugged at his heart, and his eyes filled with tears. But he brushed them angrily away, and by the time he had reached The Running Footman, the relief at having a way out of his predicament had banished all sentimentality. He would blame Lizzie’s faithlessness for his decision not to join them in the pub venture. That should make the flighty scullery maid suffer every bit as much as she deserved.

  “It’s just not fair!” said chambermaid Jenny, sitting down on a park bench and bursting into tears. Angus and Mrs. Middleton, who had been walking along in a world of their own, swung about in surprise.

  “Whatever do you mean, dear?” asked Mrs. Middleton. The housekeeper sat down on one side of Jenny and the cook on the other.

  “I saw her, that other Jenny, that Miss Sutherland, going out for the evening,” sobbed the chambermaid, “and it seems wrong that someone with my name should have allthe parties and pretty dresses and yet I have nothing to look forward to but a life of servitude. And I’ll be alone, mark my words! Alice don’t see anything but that Fergus.”

  She scrubbed her eyes with the back of her hand and glared defiantly at the setting sun.

  “But ye’re going to be an independent lady. We’ll all be free in a few weeks’ time,” said the cook. “Anyway, God puts us in our appointed stations and it’s no use wanting to be a débutante.”

  “I’ll be scrubbing floors and gettin’ my hands redder and redder and waiting table. Nothing’ll change,” said the chambermaid fiercely.

  “But ye’ll be workin’ for yerself,” said the cook.

  “I’m tired of working,” said Jenny with a catch in her voice. “I want to get married.”

  Mrs. Middleton thought long afterwards that her new status of engaged lady must have activated her brain wonderfully, for in the past she had always turned to Rainbird in time of trouble.

  She put a comforting arm about Jenny’s shoulders. “I am going to tell you a great secret,” she said. “Angus and I are to be married.”

  “I’m happy for you,” said Jenny, gallantly trying to look cheerful.

  “I’ve just had an idea,” said the housekeeper, slowly feeling her way. “If Mr. MacGregor has no objection, we will adopt you.”

  “Here!” cried Angus.

  “Yes, adopt you,” said Mrs. Middleton firmly. “As our daughter, you would be looked after by us, and we would find suitable young men for you, and you would have the status of the young lady of the house. Your parents are dead, are they not?”

  “I s’pose so,” said Jenny. “Never knew who they was anyways. But to adopt me!”

  “You may have a fine idea there, Mrs. Middleton,” said the cook, recovering from his initial surprise. “Aye, I can see mysel’ in the part o’ the heavy father.” He straightened up and glared awfully. “So ye want tae take ma daughter out walking, Mr. Blank? Well, what are your prospects?”

  “But what of Alice and Lizzie?” asked Jenny.

  “Well, Lizzie has Joseph, and now it looks as if Alice has Fergus. Now you have us,” said Mrs. Middleton. “Think, Jenny, it could be fun. Mr. Rainbird says there is not much work to do to put the place in order. Angus is such a superb cook, we shall soon prosper. As our daughter—the daughter of a thriving establishment—you will become much sought after.”

  Jenny looked at the housekeeper in a dazed way. “And wear pretty gowns?”

  “The prettiest we can afford. No more servants’ dress. As the daughter of the house, you do not even need to wear an apron.”

  “Do you really mean it?” asked Jenny, pressing her work-worn hands tightly together.

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Middleton. “So don’t go envying the Miss Jenny Sutherlands of this world. That one will end up like most of the débutantes at the Season—having to take some man her aunt chooses for her. Whereas you will be able to choose whom you please.”

  “I’ve never had a mother and father,” said Jenny. “Not to know, that is.”

  “Weel, you have now,” said the cook with a grin. “You’re a wicked woman, Mrs. Middleton. You’ve made me a father before I even get ye tae the altar. Come along. This calls for a celebration.”

  * * *

  The Duke of Pelham’s initial pleasure in finding himself quite at ease in Lady Bellisle’s company had begun to wane as the undistinguished play dragged on. At first, he had been relieved that she had seemed to have put his proposal of marriage completely out of her mind. Now he was bored. But his companion did not seem in the least fatigued or exhausted by the long and boring play or by the dreadful heat of the theatre, which was augmented by hundreds and hundreds of candles blazing in a great chandelier overhead.

  The play, which was to him pedestrian and cliché’d, appeared to delight her. He began to wonder if the evening would ever end. But at long last, there were the actors taking their bows. The duke clapped dutifully and then half-rose to his feet.

  “Your grace!” said Lady Bellisle. “You have forgot. It is the harlequinade with this new harlequin, Rainbird.”

  He sat back in his chair with a sigh. “I have a butler of that name,” he said. He looked at his watch. A harlequinade usually lasted an hour. The effects of his bath had long worn off and he felt gritty, uncomfortable, and hot. It was all very well for the ladies, dressed as they were in near-transparent muslin, but for a man in a starched cravat, waistcoat, tightly tailored coat, and knee breeches, it was hell.

  The theatre had been only three-quarters full, but now it was filling up. Everyone wanted to see the new harlequin.

  The curtain rose and the audience sat in puzzled silence. It was not like the beginning of any harlequinade they had ever seen. A group of actors dressed as aristocrats sat in a half-circle in a drawing room in front of the fireplace.

  The door at the side of the “drawing room” opened and Rainbird walked onto the stage. He was dressed as a hussar officer, complete with powdered hair, scarlet uniform, and a sword that reached to his heels, and he was carrying a large muff.

  He then proceeded to try to perform that society trick known as “breaking the circle.” In an age of horrendously strict etiquette, where gentlemen would pay an instructor for an hour’s lesson on How to Take Off Your Hat and Replace It, breaking the circle was considered the most difficult etiquette of all, and gentlemen of fashion paid a great deal of money to learn the art. First you had to penetrate this circle and make a slight inclination as you walked round it. Then you had to make your way to your hostess, and retire with dignity, while coping with hat, sword, and large muff.

  So pompous was Rainbird’s expression, so magnificent his fake sideburns, so gabbling and strangulated his voice, that the duke did not recognise his butler. As the hussar, Rainbird tried to break into the circle, but as soon as he approached, the actors would move their chairs close together so that there was no way through. His antics with his huge muff and his sword, which kept tangling itself up between his legs, delighted the audience. The sheer silliness of it all became funnier and funnier. The duke laughed harder and longer than he had ever done in his life. It was not really what Rainbird did, but his whole personality that was so funny, and when he suddenly cleared the heads of the actors in a flying leap and landed at his hostess’s feet in a heap, the house roared and cheered.

  Then the curtains were closed and the Columbine appeared to sing about Sally in the alley in a cracked falsetto.

  Rainbird had whipped out of his hussar costume andhad just picked up his juggling equipment when little Dave seized his arm.

  “’E’s ‘ere,” he whispered.

  “Who?”

  “The duke.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “In that side box up there wiff a lady.”

  “Oh, Lor’. What am I to do?” said Rainbird wretchedly. “He’ll dismiss me.”

  “Don’t matter,” said Dave urgently. “We always got the pub.”

  “Yes,” said Rainbird slowly. “But I’ll never know about Palmer now.”
/>   “You told me you heard him tell the duke we had low wages. You told me to forgit about it.”

  “But I’ve been thinking,” said Rainbird. “Suppose—just suppose—he was cheating. Suppose the wages were even lower than the ones he told the duke about. The duke seems a fair man. I’ll swear if he really knew what we were getting, he would have been so surprised he would have sent for me right away.”

  “What’s the matter?” Mr. Frank appeared, sweating. “Jeremy’s finished and they’ll bring the house down about my ears if you don’t hurry up.”

  “Give me two ledgers out of the office, Mr. Frank,” said Rainbird urgently, “and stop—let me see—Mr. Isaacs from changing out of his costume. He has one line, tell him. When I look at him so, he’s to say, ‘Let me see the books, Palmer.’ Get Jeremy to sing another song.”

  The miserable Columbine was shoved out again to the jeers and catcalls of the audience. In despair, he began to sing “The Roast Beef of Old England” in his normal voice, which was quite deep. This started the audience laughing and kept them in a good humour.

  Someone called to him from the wings, and with a graceful curtsy, Jeremy thankfully made his exit.

  The audience cheered as Rainbird came on again. The duke sat forward in his chair and cried, “It is my butler. Wait here, Lady Bellisle. I am going to get that fellow.”

  “He knows you are here,” hissed Lady Bellisle. “He looked right at you. Wait! You can shout at him afterwards all you want, but you are not going to spoil the performance of the best comedian I have seen.”

  The duke sank back in his chair and glared at Rainbird. If only he had listened to Palmer’s warnings about these servants’ being Radical. “Radical” was not the word for it. They were mad!

  Rainbird was dressed in sober livery. He was carrying a large ledger under each arm.

  Mr. Isaacs minced in. “Where are the books, Palmer?”