by M C Beaton
But she looked so small and defenseless, lying beside him on the large bed. He felt a momentary pang as he thought of her beauty, her youth and her many endearing ways. His mind closed down like a steel trap on these soft thoughts as being the mawkish weakness of a fool.
He was not surprised at her passionate response of the night. He was expert enough to arouse genuine passion in the bosom of even the most hardened courtesan. That rare and magic gift of love was not to be his. He wished he had never touched her.
He would never touch her again.
Chapter Eight
Sunlight blazed down on the dusty streets of London. It was another perfect summer’s day.
Jennie slowly awoke and immediately turned to the other side of the bed, but her husband had gone.
She smiled lazily to herself. What a fool she had been. She was in love with her husband, had been in love with him all along.
She became aware that someone was moving about the room and sat up in bed, clutching the covers to her neck. A prim elderly lady in a print dress had emerged from the dressing room with an armful of clothes over her arm, which she proceeded to lay out on a day bed by the window.
Seeing Jennie awake, the retainer dropped a low curtsey. “I am Jeffries, my lady,” she said. “Your ladyship’s new lady’s maid.”
She bustled forward with the bed tray containing Jennie’s chocolate. Jennie looked up at her new maid’s severe, wrinkled face and thought pettishly that her husband might at least have consulted her wishes before employing the woman. She would have preferred someone much younger and much prettier.
Then something about the maid’s name struck her as being familiar.
“Jeffries,” she murmured. “Now, where have I heard that name before?”
“My brother it was, ma’am,” said the maid. “He was dear Lord Charles’ footman and, when he died, your dear lord—your husband—he calls on me finding out somehow as how I had been retired from my previous employ and he offers me a good pension. Well, I was taken aback but I told him that I would not feel right taking the money without working for it and he said as how his lady wife was looking for a lady’s maid.”
Jennie bit her lip in vexation. She had not yet mastered enough worldly poise to muster up the courage to apologize to a servant and therefore felt doubly guilty. How on earth could she have forgotten poor old Jeffries! But her eyes filled with tears and that was enough mark of respect for the lady’s maid who said quickly, “There is no need for you to upset yourself, my lady. My brother enjoyed his life and he was indeed very old when he died. And he would have liked to die in harness, so to speak.”
Jennie climbed out of bed and allowed Jeffries to help her into a pretty morning gown of figured lilac silk.
Her hair was cleverly combed into artistic disarray and she looked at her image in the mirror with pleased satisfaction. “You have done wonders, Jeffries,” she said warmly. Much as she longed to rush to her husband’s arms, a slightly more mature Jennie curbed her impatience and asked the lady’s maid many questions about her welfare and told her that the rest of the old servants were well looked after at Charrington Court, but pined for Runbury Manor, which they still looked on as home.
“I thought I should perhaps sell the property,” said Jennie, half to herself, “but my husband will not hear of it and already has a steward in residence to supervise repairs to the building and to the tenants’ property.”
“Oh, his lordship would never sell Runbury, my lady,” exclaimed Jeffries. “’Tis a good sound property and he will be wanting it for his heirs.”
The thought of heirs and of how pleasurable it was to go about begetting them made Jennie blush rosily and hasten from the room, no longer able to check her impatience to see her husband.
To her disappointment, Chemmy was dressed to go out and was standing by the street door talking to Roberts, the butler.
She paused to admire him, wondering how she could ever have possibly found him foppish. His curly brimmed beaver was perched on his golden hair and his great height set off his magnificent coat of Bath superfine to perfection.
Then his light pleasant drawl carried to her ears with dreadful clarity.
“Very well, Roberts,” the Marquis was saying, “I think you understand my instructions. Mr. Guy Chalmers is to be admitted at all times.”
Jennie stared in amazement. Then she gave herself a mental shake. Of course! Chemmy had no longer any reason to be jealous of Guy after last night.
With a smile on her lips, she ran lightly down the rest of the stairs, crying, “Where are you going so early, my love?”
The Marquis turned very slowly and looked at her over the head of his butler. Gone was the sleepy, teasing amiability. His eyes were as cold as the winter sea.
“Good morning, madam,” he said with bone-chilling formality. “I did not expect your presence so early but perhaps it is just as well. Pray step into the morning room, madam. I would have a few words with you.”
Nervous and silent, Jennie walked past him into the room as he held open the door. He followed her in and politely drew forward a chair for her.
“Please, Chemmy…” began Jennie, beginning to plead for she knew not what.
“The time has come for us to put our cards on the table, madam,” said Chemmy, still standing.
“You have made it perfectly clear that you married me for my money. Had your grandfather died in time, you would have had no need of it. You have also gone to considerable lengths to try to start an affair with Guy Chalmers and I, in turn, believing you to be only guilty of an immature infatuation, went to considerable lengths to see that it did not happen.
“I believed you to be a young lady of good breeding, of heart. This seemed to me to be borne out by your evidently real grief after the death of your grandparents. But even this was a sham. So I took revenge on you, but it turned against me and I feel even more sick and bitter now than I did last night. Ours shall be the marriage of convenience you wished. You will, however, keep your affairs well away from polite society or I shall seek a divorce. Come, my dear, smile and be happy! You have what you wanted.”
Overcome by fear, Jennie broke her promise to Guy. “What about the Charrington diamonds?” she cried.
Chemmy looked at her in utter contempt.
“Come with me,” he said abruptly. He strode from the room and Jennie walked after him, feeling as if she were moving in a nightmare.
He marched up the stairs and along to his bedroom, opening the door and propelling Jennie into the room.
He walked to a strong box in the corner, took some keys from his pocket and, after examining them carefully, selected one, inserted it in the lock and then threw open the lid. His long fingers scrabbled among cases and boxes and then he turned around, a tiara in one hand and a necklace in the other.
While Jennie stood, rigid with shock, he walked forward and gently placed the tiara on her hair and clasped the ice cold weight of the necklace around her neck and then stood back and surveyed his handiwork.
“There you are,” he said. “Now you have everything you want.”
He marched out, leaving Jennie, still standing, the diamonds flashing and blazing and burning in her hair and on her breast.
Far away downstairs, the street door banged—far away in another country of warmth and laughter and normality. She could hear her husband calling to John, the groom, then the rattle of carriage wheels and the sound of horses hooves moving off over the cobbles.
How long she stood there, she did now know. After some time, she became aware that the butler was standing framed in the doorway. He showed no surprise at being confronted by the glittering spectacle that was Jennie. “Mr. Chalmers awaits you below, my lady,” he said in a colorless voice.
Jennie started. She must see Guy. She must have Guy’s permission to tell Chemmy that it was he, Guy, who had told her the Charrington diamonds had been given to Alice Waring and that she had been subsequently jealous. Chemmy now obviously thought she had de
manded the diamonds out of greed.
She raised her shaking hands and removed the tiara and necklace and handed them to the butler. “Please keep these safe, Roberts, until my husband returns,” said Jennie. “I do not wish to see them again.”
“Very good, my lady,” said Roberts woodenly. Then he seemed to notice for the first time the pinched and drawn look on Jennie’s face.
“Shall I tell Mr. Chalmers you are not at home, my lady?” he asked.
“Oh… oh, no,” said Jennie. “I must see him.”
“Certainly, my lady,” said Roberts, his mouth drawing in slightly at the corners.
Guy was lounging in the drawing room when Jennie burst in. He jumped to his feet and flung his arms around her. “Jennie! You look more ravishing than ever,” said Guy.
Jennie quietly disengaged herself from his embrace and looked intensely up into his eyes. “Guy,” she said slowly, “the diamonds that Alice was wearing were not the Charrington diamonds. I must have your permission to tell Chemmy how the misunderstanding came about.”
“Well, you can’t,” said Guy, looking everywhere but into her eyes. “You gave me your word. I can’t help it if some malicious gossip misled me. I didn’t want to tell you in the first place but you wouldn’t leave me alone. You silly goose! What happened?”
Leaving out her experience of the night, Jennie told him the rest, word for word. “So you see,” she finished miserably. “I must tell Chemmy. He believes me to be mercenary.”
“What about me?” asked Guy. “We can be together now. That butler let me in for the first time.”
“Do you mean to say he used to refuse you permission. Oooooh! Now Chemmy doesn’t care what I do.”
“Well, that’s all to the good,” said Guy in a caressing voice. He tried to draw her into his arms again but she shrank away.
“D-don’t, Guy,” stammered Jennie. “I know now I don’t feel that for you. I am exceedingly fond of you… as a brother… no more. I-I I-love my husband.”
“Miss Byles,” said Roberts from the doorway.
“Gad’s ’oonds!” swore Guy to himself as Jennie pinned a smile of welcome on her face. “I must do something quickly or the countryside will soon be crawling with little Charringtons. That’s the trouble with these healthy country girls, they breed like damned rabbits.”
Aloud, he said, “I must take my leave, Jennie. Your servant, Miss Byles.”
Sally watched his retreating back. “I never did like Guy Chalmers,” she said as soon as that young man was out of earshot. “He’s all smiles on the outside and I think he’s rotten in the inside. Just like a whited sulphurator.”
“Not sulphurator,” corrected Jennie. “Sepulchre.”
“Oh,” said Sally, much disappointed. “I thought it was sulphurator. You know, because of sulphur being sort of hellish and going with brimstone and all that. Sepulchre, dear me, not the same. But then, our Bishop speaks so quietly, ’tis hard to make out the words. Oh, Jennie, I do so need your advice, and not about whited sulphurators either!”
Jennie tried to banish her own troubles to the back of her mind. Perhaps if she concentrated on Sally’s, she could forget a little of her own.
“It’s about Perry,” burst out Sally. “I can’t marry him!”
“Why?” Jennie stared at her friend in dismay.
“It’s clothes, clothes, clothes,” wailed Sally. “Perry says I have no taste and says he will choose my trousseau. What do you think of this dress?”
Sally was wearing a modish walking gown of flaming scarlet taffeta. The color was perhaps a little daring, but it had a demurely high neckline with a little starched Elizabethan frill of lace and the bodice was intricately tucked. It made Sally’s slightly sallow skin look golden and was complimented by the intense blue color of her eyes. Her brown ringlets were neatly arranged under a fetching poke bonnet and, in all, she looked as if she had stepped from the pages of La Belle Assemblée.
“I think you look very fine,” said Jennie wonderingly.
“Well, Perry says my taste in colors is fast,” said Sally, her eyes filling with tears. “And… and he says that when we are married, I must wear nothing but pastels. He-he is even going to choose the more intimate items of apparel and suggested I buy a stock of flannel nightgowns since flannel prevents the ague and silk and satin in the bedchamber are only suitable for a member of the Fashionable Impure. And… and… oh!… there is worse!”
“There is?” said Jennie weakly.
“Yes. My parents allow us some time together since we are to be married after all. And Perry was wont to kiss me a lot and it was so very exciting and I began to kiss him back, so passionately, and he d-drew a-way f-from m-me in h-horror and s-said, ‘Madam, wh-what d-do you think y-you are doing?’ and I feel awful!” ended Sally, collapsing into a burst of noisy tears.
Jennie gently untied the strings of her friend’s bonnet, took it off and laid it on the sofa. Then she held a vinaigrette under Sally’s nose and said helplessly, “There, there. Don’t take on so. I am sure you refine too much on it,” and all the while her mind was remembering Chemmy as she had first seen him at Runbury Manor, when he had held the vinaigrette under his nose and she had called him a fop.
“How can I help?” she asked, after Sally had at last composed herself.
“I thought perhaps you could ask Chemmy for advice,” said Sally. “Perhaps he could talk to Perry for me.”
“I’m afraid I can’t,” said Jennie. “Chemmy hates m-me and th-thinks I m-married him for his money.” She burst into tears. Sally burst into sympathetic tears as well and the two girls hugged each other and cried their eyes out.
Their feelings somewhat relieved, they were finally able to drink some tea and Sally heard the whole story of Jennie’s misunderstanding with Chemmy.
“It’s Guy, that’s who it is,” said Sally. “He’s the one who is jealous, mark my words. He’s out to make trouble.”
But Jennie would still not hear a word against Guy. He had been thoughtless in repeating malicious gossip, nothing more.
“Mr. Porteous, your tutor, is here,” said Roberts, suddenly appearing.
“A tutor!” cried Sally. “Never say you are turned bluestocking, Jennie?”
But Jennie felt she had divulged enough secrets for the morning and did not want to tell her friend that a tutor had been employed to teach her to read and write. Although Jennie had long since mastered both these skills, the clever Mr. Porteous had given her a thirst for knowledge and Jennie had remained interested in the business of expanding the horizons of her mind and Mr. Porteous had remained employed.
“Show him in, Roberts,” said Jennie. “I think I shall forego my lessons today, Sally. Perhaps we could go for a walk in this beautiful sunshine. Ah, Mr. Porteous. Sally, allow me to present my tutor, Mr. Porteous. Mr. Porteous, Miss Byles.”
To Jennie’s surprise, the tutor bent over Sally’s hand with some elegance. “I am charmed,” said Mr. Porteous, “to meet such a young and pretty leddy with such an eye for the fashion. I may be a crusty old dominie, Miss Byles, but I pride myself on having a good eye for color.”
Sally blushed and flashed a triumphant look at Jennie from under her lashes.
“Tell me, Mr. Porteous,” said Sally dimpling up at him. “Would you say that a gentleman should have the right to dictate to his wife on the matter of fashion?”
Mr. Porteous’ shaggy brows drew together as he appeared to give the matter great thought. “Weel, no, Miss Byles,” he said after a long silence. “Provided one has enough money, clothes are, I would say, an extension of one’s personality. Now if someone tries to change another’s style of dress, he is saying, ‘I am not content with you as you are. I do not love you for yourself. I only love you for what I think I can change you into.’ I get a great enjoyment out of seeing a weel-dressed, pretty leddy, Miss Byles… such as yourself, for example… but in the way I would enjoy looking at a rare piece of porcelain or a fine chair. It appeals to ma aesthet
ic senses.”
“But if you were in love?” demanded Sally intensely, while Jennie gazed from one to the other in amazement.
“Aye, then, that’s another matter,” said Mr. Porteous. “I doubt if I would see the clothes, or the eyes, or the lips or the hair. I would simply see someone who would make the sun rise for me when she entered the room and bring down the black night when she left. Aye, just so.”
Jennie began to feel uncomfortable. She coughed gently to get Sally’s attention.
“Sally… if we are to go for that walk, we had best get started now,” she said.
“No lessons, my leddy?” queried Mr. Porteous.
“No lessons today,” smiled Jennie, despite the lump of ice in her stomach.
“I shall not keep you, then,” said the tutor wistfully. “I take a few dauners through the Park myself from time to time but I have not much of an acquaintance in London having but recently come to town. Aye, it is not quite the same to be out in the flowers and the sunshine on one’s own.”
“Then you shall walk with us!” cried Sally, while Jennie stared at her friend in dismay. What a conniving old devil Mr. Porteous was turning out to be! But urged by her friend, she left to find her bonnet and shawl. Perhaps she might see her husband’s tall figure. She could no longer wait until he came home. Damn Guy! Her happiness was at stake and she would not keep her word. And Chemmy would smile on her again with that seductive sleepy amiability and she would feel his arms holding her once more. Having come to this decision, it was a considerably more cheerful Jennie who set out into the sunshine with Sally and Mr. Porteous.
Mr. Porteous turned out to be a pleasant and informative companion and Sally had recovered her spirits, although Jennie was amazed at the boldness of her friend who seemed to be flirting in an extremely fast way with the tutor.
They spent much longer on their walk than they had intended and Jennie became suddenly anxious to return home quickly in case Chemmy was there.
Mr. Porteous suggested they could take a shortcut through Vole Lane and so save some time and, after some hesitation, the ladies agreed. No one ever knew quite how Vole Lane had managed to survive in all its sinister dirt and squalor among the stately streets and squares of the fashionable West End. It was short and dark and smelly, with crowded old tenements leaning drunkenly on either side. It was thankfully deserted and the ladies hurried along, holding their skirts high out of the mud which always seemed to infest Vole Lane, no matter how hot the summer.
