by M C Beaton
“Yes, but I cannot seem to change his mind about Mrs. Budge. Dreadful woman. She eats like a horse. And her language? I swear she is related to half the costermongers in London. I wonder if Sir Philip is telling her to economize. That should be interesting.”
***
Sir Philip was trying to do just that. Mrs. Budge was sitting before the fire in the sitting-room of the apartment which the poor relations rented. A table was spread with an assortment of pies and jellies and bottles of wine. Sir Philip, who enjoyed his love’s Falstaffian appetite, nonetheless shuddered at the thought of the cost.
“But, my heart,” said Mrs. Budge between mouthfuls, “you told me this was your hotel.”
“Well, it is, but in partnership.”
“So who are the others?”
“Why, Lady Fortescue, Colonel Sandhurst and Miss Tonks.”
“But that’s only four of you, and you must be coining money in a place like this.”
He took one of her plump hands in his despite the fact that it was holding a fork. “It costs a lot to keep a place like this going,” he pleaded. “You know what society’s like. Never pay their bills.”
“So why bother about paying yours?”
“Because they are my friends.”
“Fine friends they’ve turned out to be.”
“Now, my heart, I won’t let them criticize you, but I also won’t let you criticize them.”
She leaned forward and gave him a smacking kiss on the mouth which tasted of apple pie from the crumbs on her lips. “You worry too much,” she said softly. “It’s just as well you’ve got me to look after you.”
He smiled at her weakly and placed one of his small, white, well-cared-for manicured hands on one of her enormous breasts. She playfully slapped his hand away. “Let me eat first,” she said.
He got to his feet. “Where are you going?” she asked.
“I’m going to see if I can find a client to take the missing rooms. Limmer’s often has a few dissatisfied guests. I’ll go there.”
“Wait until I finish eating and I’ll come with you.”
“Limmer’s is not the place for ladies. I will not be long.”
After he had gone, Mrs. Budge ate everything in sight. Betty and John, Lady Fortescue’s old servants, were supposed to wait on the poor relations, but Mrs. Budge knew from experience that if she rang the bell they would refuse to answer. Marriage was the solution. But perhaps first she should see if she could get Sir Philip to buy her some jewelry. Jewelry was better than money in the bank any day.
***
Lady Fortescue and Miss Tonks showed Lady Carruthers and Arabella to their new quarters. “Don’t let any of these hotel servants put on airs,” Arabella’s mother had told her. “They may be of good background, but now they are in trade, and don’t you forget it.” So Arabella was amused to see that Lady Fortescue’s grand manner was reducing her mother to something approaching civility.
“We will dine in our sitting-room this evening,” said Lady Carruthers.
“Dinner for all is served in the dining-room, Lady Carruthers.”
“Am I to eat in a common dining-room?”
“The Prince Regent was not too high in the instep to do so.” Lady Fortescue moved to the door. “Dinner is at eight.”
“Eight!” exclaimed Arabella after she had gone. “Dinner in the country is at four.”
“You must get used to London ways.”
“Talking about getting used to London ways, Mama, I have been meaning to ask you: When am I making my come-out?”
“My dear child, you are too young!”
“I am all of nineteen.”
Lady Carruthers winced and then said with an affected vagueness. “You surprise me.”
“But it is true, and I am still in these dreadful frocks and with my hair down.”
Arabella privately thought her mother’s wardrobe of jeune fille gowns should be altered to fit herself while her mother dressed her age.
“The point is,” said Lady Carruthers, “that it is hard to remember your age when I look so young. I am used to the state of marriage and do not like being a widow. That is why we are come to London.”
“I do not understand you, Mama.”
Her mother gave a well-practised trill of laughter. “Why, it is my come-out. I cannot appear at the Season like a débutante. So much more discreet to come to London now. There are plenty of eligible men around.”
Arabella thought of the handsome man she had seen with a sort of despair. She would never get out in society. Mama would fail and they would return to the country for the long winter and then back to Town for Mama to try again while she, Arabella, grew older and dowdier and the earl married someone else. Of course, he might be married already. She almost hoped he were then she would not have to think about him every minute, which is what she had been doing since she had seen him.
She missed having friends. It would be wonderful to have a friend to confide in, to talk to about the earl, to share her dreams.
She thought wearily that she would probably never see the earl again.
***
Sir Philip made his way into Limmer’s coffee room. It was thin of company but he took a table, ordered a bottle of wine and looked about him with his sharp old eyes. Limmer’s catered for the sporting fraternity, and there were two Corinthians slouched at one table. One of them had his muddy boots up on the seat opposite and the other had his teeth filed to a point so that he could spit through them like a coachman. There were three men in the livery of the Four-in-Hand Club at another table, talking horseflesh in loud, drawling voices. Sir Philip knew them all. Not much hope there, he thought.
And then a tall man walked in and stood in the centre of the room, looking about him with an easy air of authority. His golden hair curled under the rim of his curly-brimmed beaver, which he had not removed, showing he did not plan to stay in the coffee room above ten minutes, as did the stick and gloves he held in one white hand. His face was classically handsome. Sir Philip judged him to be in his early thirties. He summoned the waiter and asked in an urgent whisper who the newcomer was.
“The Earl of Denby,” whispered the waiter. “Resident here.”
Sir Philip rose to his feet, bared his china teeth in an ingratiating smile, and said, “Lord Denby! What a pleasure to see you, my lord.”
The earl looked in surprise at the old gentleman who was leering at him. Must be some friend of mother’s, he thought. He crossed to Sir Philip’s table.
“Your servant, sir,” he said. “But I have a poor memory and you have the advantage of me.”
“Sir Philip Sommerville, at your service. Pray join me in a glass of wine.”
The earl sat down reluctantly.
“When did we meet?” he asked. “Was it at my mother’s?”
“Ah, that would be it,” said Sir Philip mendaciously. “I am surprised to see you in a hotel such as this, my lord. Town house being repaired?”
“My mother is in residence there. I mostly spend my days in the country, and so I see no reason to disrupt her household by joining her. But you have a point. This hotel is none too clean.”
“I am part owner of the Poor Relation,” said Sir Philip.
The earl’s handsome face stiffened slightly. “And no doubt you are about to tell me I would be better there?”
“Why not?” demanded Sir Philip with a cheek that the earl found himself admiring. “The food’s the talk of London, the sheets are clean, the rooms well-appointed. You are about to freeze up and say, ‘How dare you tout your wares?’ but I am a businessman now and must make the best of it.”
“You are a very impertinent old businessman,” said the earl. “So what are you offering in return for my distinguished presence? Free meals? Half price?”
“I am not offering cut rates of any kind, my lord. Our hotel speaks for itself. Either you choose to suffer here or you come where the atmosphere is elegant, and the food a veritable poem.”
&nb
sp; The earl opened his mouth to refuse but at that moment one of the Corinthians, the one with his muddy boots on the chair, spat noisily on the floor.
“Perhaps I will accept your offer after all,” said the earl faintly. “But I will inspect the accommodation first.”
“Gladly,” said Sir Philip, creaking to his feet, creaking because he was laced into a new Apollo corset, a vanity which had brought down the scorn of Lady Fortescue on his head. She had pointed out that the fatter his love became, paradoxically the thinner Sir Philip seemed to wish to appear.
***
Sir Philip found it pleasant to be in favour again as he handed over his trophy in the form of one elegant earl to Lady Fortescue and the colonel.
The earl declared himself satisfied with the apartment and said he would send his man for his luggage. This proved to be quite a considerable amount even for such a notable as a handsome earl, a fact which puzzled the poor relations, for they had been asking about and no one could remember the earl’s having favoured London much in the past, preferring his estates in the country, which hardly made him a Fashionable. Just before dinner, Sir Philip returned with the intelligence that the earl, although in his early thirties, was a widower. His wife had died four years ago and it was romantically assumed that he had gone into deep mourning for her, although a great deal of luggage in a London hotel suggested the dandy. Certainly the earl was exquisitely dressed, and yet there was little of the fop about him. He did not wear paint and his hair was all his own. At first Sir Philip had said waspishly that such glorious hair must be a wig, and only when the earl was seated at the best table in the dining-room—the Poor Relation boasted separate tables instead of communal long ones—that Sir Philip, by dint of staring very hard at the back of the earl’s head through his quizzing-glass, admitted finally that the hair was real.
The earl looked up as two guests entered the room. The lady, he noticed, was hardly anywhere near the bloom of youth and yet was dressed like a débutante in a white muslin gown with puffed sleeves. The young miss with her looked familiar, and he was sure he had seen her before and recently. This was borne out by the fact that she gave him a slight and surprised smile of recognition before following her mother, who was in turn being led by Colonel Sandhurst to a table in the corner.
The waiting at table by these aristocratic owners of the hotel, which was much vaunted, consisted, the earl noticed, of Sir Philip, Lady Fortescue and the colonel courteously serving a few plates of soup and then they contented themselves with supervising the work of the waiters.
The food was excellent. The earl made a good meal but could not help noticing that the schoolgirl miss with the wide hazel eyes only picked at hers. He would have been amazed had he known that he was the reason for her loss of appetite.
“Do try to eat your food,” Lady Carruthers was saying. “It is not like you to be so nice.”
“How would you know, Mama?” asked Arabella. “I cannot remember the last time we dined together.”
Even in London, before the roof fell in, Arabella had been expected to eat her meals in the schoolroom there, just as she ate her meals alone in the schoolroom at home.
“I wonder who that extraordinarily handsome man is,” mused Lady Carruthers. She raised an imperious hand and summoned Lady Fortescue, who looked at her thoughtfully and who in turn summoned Sir Philip, who advanced on Lady Carruthers.
“Yes, my lady?” demanded Sir Philip testily. He wanted to be with his beloved next door, not creaking around the dining-room being summoned by an under-dressed doxy, which was how he privately damned Lady Carruthers.
“Tell me, who is that handsome gentleman over there?”
“That is the Earl of Denby.”
“Thank you, you may go.”
This high-handed dismissal was enough to put Sir Philip’s back up. He turned to Arabella. “You have made a poor meal of it,” he said. “Can I perhaps get you something else?”
“No, thank you, Sir Philip,” said Arabella, whose innate courtesy had prompted her to find out the names of the owners of the hotel. “This food is indeed excellent. I am a trifle out of sorts.”
“Then after dinner I shall send our Miss Tonks to you. She is excellent at brewing possets, having learned the recipes from our Mrs. Budley.”
“That will not be necessary,” said Lady Carruthers, but Sir Philip had turned on his heel and walked away.
Denby, thought Lady Carruthers. Estates in Denby-shire, prosperous; wait a bit, married. No, wife dead; I remember taking note of that. Early thirties, yes, but I look like a young miss.
She smiled at her daughter. “I saw the earl look this way. He probably thinks we are sisters.”
Her eyes were glowing. Arabella realized with a sinking heart that her mother was about to pursue the man of her, Arabella’s, dreams.
Chapter Two
It’s a very odd thing—
As odd as can be—
That whatever Miss T. eats
Turns into Miss T.
Porridge and apples,
Mince, muffins and mutton,
Jam, junket, jumbles—
Not a rap, not a button
It matters; the moment
They’re out of her plate,
Though shared by Miss Butcher
And sour Mr. Bate,
Tiny and cheerful,
And neat as can be,
Whatever Miss T. eats
Turns into Miss T.
—WALTER DE LA MARE
Lady Carruthers had retired to bed, but Arabella was sitting reading in the small sitting-room allotted to them when Miss Tonks was admitted and asked if there was anything she could do to help Miss Carruthers.
Miss Tonks was fashionably dressed in rustling brown silk shot with gold. Her sheeplike face was earnest and non-threatening, so Arabella smiled and said that Miss Tonks was most kind but there was nothing she required.
At that moment Lady Carruthers opened her bedroom door and demanded waspishly if Arabella meant to keep her awake all night chattering with the servants, and then slammed the door with force.
“I do apologize,” said Arabella, flushing slightly, “Mama is a trifle fatigued.”
“I find,” said Miss Tonks hesitatingly, “that an impairment of the appetite is often caused by worry or love. I myself have been eating badly lately. But I must not keep you talking, although”—she looked shyly at the floor—“we have a charming sitting-room upstairs and there is no one there at the moment, if you would like a comfortable coze.”
If Arabella had said no at that point, her life might have turned out differently, but intrigued and amused, she stood up and said, “Lead the way, Miss Tonks.”
When they reached the “staff” sitting-room, Miss Tonks ordered tea and cakes, for she wondered if Miss Carruthers’s dreadful mama might have something to do with the girl’s loss of appetite.
“Is anything worrying you at the moment?” asked Miss Tonks when they were seated in front of a bright but tiny fire.
“I do not think I am exactly worried about anything,” said Arabella cautiously. “But you did say that your own appetite was bad because of worry. I am not in the way of talking to anyone, but that makes me a good confidante.”
Miss Tonks looked doubtfully at the young face, the girlish dress and the long hair.
“I am nineteen,” said Arabella with a quaint dignity.
Miss Tonks hesitated, but only for a moment. She missed her friend, Mrs. Budley. The desire to unburden herself was great.
“Did you mark Sir Philip Sommerville?” she began.
“The elderly gentleman, yes.”
Miss Tonks gave a faint sigh. “Yes, he is elderly, I suppose. When my friend Eliza Budley married recently—she was part-owner here—Sir Philip and I went to the wedding in Warwickshire. We had a great adventure on the road there. A highwayman stopped our coach and our coachman and groom ran away. I shot him, and Sir Philip was so proud of me instead of being waspish and unkind as he usuall
y is. On the road home, we were very friendly, very close, and like a fool, I began to dream of marriage.”
“But is there not a great distance between your ages?” asked Arabella, who correctly judged Miss Tonks to be in her forties.
“Oh, yes, a vast difference, my dear. But you see, I am become so weary of being a spinster. At your age, one dreams of handsome young men, and then, later on, perhaps of someone of the same age, then of a widower, and then, I suppose when all hope has fled, anyone will do. It was then that Sir Philip, while we were companionable together at an inn in Chipping Norton, yes, Sir Philip, he read in the newspapers that the Prince Regent had been a guest in the dining-room. He became incensed. He thought Colonel Sandhurst and Lady Fortescue should somehow have got news to us, although, as they did not know where we could be found, I do not know how he could have expected them to manage. But he was in a foul temper all the way to London and he threw a scene when we got here and stormed off. He came back with Mrs. Mary Budge, a coarse and common widow-woman with a huge appetite. He said she would help us but she does nothing but sit and eat and yet he can find no fault with her. He looks at me with all the old scorn. I… I cannot bear it.”
Miss Tonks began to cry quietly. Arabella perched on the arm of the spinster’s chair and gave her a hug. “You surely deserve better than the attentions of an old rake. Come, Miss Tonks, I have seen Sir Philip. He looks like a tortoise.”
Miss Tonks gave a faint giggle and dried her eyes just as Jack, the footman, entered with a tea-tray. When he had left, Miss Tonks composed herself and poured tea, noticing with satisfaction that Arabella had started to eat the cakes with every evidence of a healthy appetite. “I have made such a fool of myself,” said Miss Tonks shyly.
“Not at all,” said Arabella. “I am not versed in the ways of the world, but you are obviously too much of a lady to be pining away over such as Sir Philip. Still, if you need help, help is what you will have. Perhaps a plan of action would help. Have any of you seriously tried to dislodge this Mrs. Budge?”
“No, not really. Lady Fortescue has insisted that he pay all Mrs. Budge’s bills, but even that does not seem to move him to get rid of her.”
