Both resolved to put Miss Sinclair well and truly in her place just as soon as they retired to the drawing room. Mr Sinclair, morose over his untouched wine, read that resolve in their faces, saw the way they looked daggers at Fiona, and was determined to save his ward from embarrassment.
Lord Harrington had turned to talk to Lady Miles, feeling he had been paying Miss Sinclair more attention than was good for her. He sensed, rather than saw, that Fiona was happily engaged in entertaining the stammering captain. After some time, and when she showed no signs of wanting his conversation, Lord Harrington began to experience a feeling of pique.
‘I do so detest provincials,’ said Lady Miles sympathetically, seeing Lord Harrington’s attention beginning to stray in Fiona’s direction. ‘So naughty of Pardon to invite two such unsuitable persons to his table.’
‘Mr and Miss Sinclair are from Edinburgh . . . as you are yourself,’ said the earl.
‘Yes, but not in the same circle. I am going to London for the Season. Unthinkable that one should miss it.’
‘The Sinclairs are also travelling to London for the Season.’
‘Indeed! How presumptuous.’
‘Why is it presumption in them and not in yourself?’
‘My dear Harrington. Your wits are wandering. Only look at the girl’s shabby gown! You cannot compare such as I with such as Miss Sinclair.’
‘No,’ agreed Lord Harrington equably. ‘Miss Sinclair is very beautiful.’
The covers were removed and the wreck of the mountain taken away. Decanters and bowls of fruit and nuts were put on the polished wood of the table.
‘Miss Sinclair,’ essayed Lord Harrington. ‘May I ask your direction in London?’
To his annoyance, she turned her attention from the captain with obvious reluctance.
‘Clarges Street,’ said Fiona. ‘Sixty-seven Clarges Street.’
‘Who owns the house?’
‘I do not know.’
‘The Duke of Pelham has a house in Clarges Street which is said to be unlucky, and so his agent has been offering it at a very low rent. I hope that is not where you are bound.’
‘In all probability, it is . . . Papa being such a miser,’ said Fiona, sending another brilliant smile down the table to the morose Mr Sinclair.
Mr Sinclair saw Mrs Leech rising to her feet as a sign that the ladies were to retire. He hurriedly struggled to his own. ‘Thank you,’ he said to Mr Pardon, ‘but I fear I and my daughter must retire early. No doubt we shall be making an early start of it in the morning.’
‘Nonsense, Sinclair,’ said Mr Pardon with quick displeasure. ‘The night is young and we are desirous of your company.’
‘I fear I must insist,’ said Mr Sinclair, executing a clumsy bow and heading purposefully down the table to where Fiona was sitting. He heard Mr Pardon mutter, ‘Uncouth lout.’
Fiona rose gracefully at his approach, curtsied to the company, and followed him out of the dining room.
‘Not a word until we get upstairs,’ muttered Mr Sinclair in her ear, well aware of the listening footmen.
Once in the Yellow Room, he demanded to know how she had fared with Lord Harrington.
‘Very pleasantly,’ said Fiona demurely.
‘He was not overwarm in his attentions, I hope?’
Fiona wrinkled her brow as if thinking hard. The clocks ticked in the silence of the room. ‘No,’ she said at last.
Mr Sinclair shook his heavy head and looked at her fondly. ‘Poor silly wee thing,’ he said. ‘They must have wondered why we were so shabbily dressed, but I did not have an opportunity to explain. Ah well, I’m thinking we’re best out o’ company like that. It’s not for the likes of us, and I was mad ever to think it. We’ll just—’
‘But I did,’ said Fiona, spreading her hands out to the fire.
‘Did what?’
‘I explained why we were so shabbily dressed.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘I said you were a miser.’
‘What!’
‘I said you were a miser,’ repeated Fiona patiently.
‘Me! A miser! Me what’s been the most openhanded man in all of Edinburgh!’ Mr Sinclair clawed towards the ceiling in his rage. ‘To disgrace me in front of all these fine folk.’ He spluttered and cursed with fury, looking at Fiona’s beautiful face with hate-filled eyes, quite forgetting he had just been on the point of taking her back to Edinburgh to protect her from the evil, sinful fleshpots of London.
Fiona sank demurely into a chair while he cursed himself dry. Then, as if he had not spoken, she looked about her and said, ‘I do not like yellow.’
‘You . . . do . . . not . . . like . . . yellow,’ grated Mr Sinclair.
‘No,’ said Fiona. ‘It makes me feel quite bilious.’
‘The dell wi’ ye,’ screamed the overtired and over-wrought Mr Sinclair. ‘Go into ma room and see if blue suits ye better, ye stupid widgeon. Did ever a man hae such a millstone round his neck. Awa’ wi’ ye and take yer traps.’
Fiona picked up her small trunk, curtsied, said, ‘Good night, Papa,’ and meekly went out and into the Blue Room next door.
After a few moments, Mr Sinclair came crashing in after her, collected his trunk, and crashed out again. All that girl was fit for was marriage fodder, he grumbled to himself as he prepared for bed. ‘Pshaw!’ He rammed his nightcap down on his head, turned down the oil lamp, blew out the bed candle, and climbed into the bed, which creaked and protested under his weight.
He felt uncomfortably sober. He wished he had drunk his usual fill. As the hart desireth the water brooks, so did Mr Sinclair’s fatty heart long for a bumper of brandy.
He was lying, staring up at the tester, and wondering whether to ring for a servant when he suddenly fell asleep. He plunged straight down into a dream where he was attending an assembly at Almack’s. He was dancing with Lady Jersey and hoping madly she would not notice he had forgotten to put on his breeches, or, for that matter, any small clothes whatsoever.
It was all very embarrassing, for Lady Jersey, a faceless figure because he did not know what she looked like, was somehow becoming very amorous. She was murmuring endearments in his ear, and then, to his horror, she seized him and kissed him passionately.
And that was how Mr Sinclair started up out of his dream to find himself wrapped in the passionate embrace of his host, Mr Pardon. He knew it was Mr Pardon because the bed candle that gentleman had brought into the room was burning brightly on a table, illuminating all the startled disgust on Mr Pardon’s face.
Also the subsequent rapidly retreating voice was cursing in Mr Pardon’s inimitable tones, ‘A pox on all d— servants,’ it was saying. ‘They said the d— wench was in the d— Yellow Room.’
The door slammed. Shaken to the core, Mr Sinclair climbed out of bed, dressed hurriedly, and packed his few belongings. He roused Fiona and told her they were both going to spend the rest of the night in the kitchens ‘because the bedrooms are infested with rats’.
Somehow, Mr Sinclair, who was still seething inside over Fiona having described him as a miser, did not want to tell her about Mr Pardon’s attempted seduction. He was now determined to go through with the plan of taking her to London, and did not want to put her off by possibly making her think that all gentlemen were like their host. Also, he had a shrewd idea that if he accused Mr Pardon of trying to seduce his ‘daughter,’ then Pardon would claim he had mistaken the bedroom for that of his mistress. Moreover, all his hard-faced guests would believe him.
Fiona agreed mildly to meet him in his room as soon as she was dressed. They made their way downstairs some ten minutes later to join the rest of the passengers in the kitchens.
The coachman was relieved to see them. There had been a quick thaw, he said, and so now that Mr and Miss Sinclair had joined them, they need not wait for dawn before making their departure.
Roused from a deep sleep by the bustle outside, the Earl of Harrington drew his curtains and looked down fro
m his bedroom window. The outside passengers were climbing onto the roof of the mail. Fiona was being helped inside the coach by Mr Sinclair. She paused with her foot on the step, looked up at the window, and smiled. He was sure she could not see him, but he caught his breath at the beauty of her face, and raised his hand in a salute.
Mr Sinclair climbed in after Fiona and slammed the door. Soon the coach was bowling down the drive through a thin curtain of driving rain.
Lord Harrington closed the curtains and turned away. He would surely never see Fiona or her father again. Despite their social ambitions and good address, it was highly unlikely that society would care to invite that shabby miser and his daughter to dine at their tables.
FOUR
Alas! how deep and painful is all payment! They hate a murderer much less than a claimant . . . Kill a man’s family, and he may brook it – But keep your hands out of his breeches’ pocket.
LORD BYRON, DON JUAN
A great wind rushed through London, tossing straw from the streets up to the rushing clouds. The new leaves on the trees in Green Park trembled and shivered. Dust whirled everywhere, making little dust devils dance at the crossings. Society ladies determined to sport their best muslins turned strange red-and-blue-mottled colours. Smoke blew down from the jumbled chimneys in long grey streams and then whipped off down the streets of the West End, depositing a gritty film of soot on curtains and clothes, carriages and horses.
Only one little thread of soot trickled down from the kitchen chimney high above Number 67 Clarges Street. For the coming of the Sinclairs had brought neither warmth nor food. Nor had it brought any invitations.
Mr Sinclair had been in London for seven whole days, and already he was considering cutting his losses and going back to Scotland, away from this alien land.
He could not join a club. He knew no one to sponsor him: in fact no one showed any signs of wanting to know him. He had endured an uncomfortable interview with the butler, Rainbird, who had asked for an increase in the wages of the staff, and he had been forced to refuse him.
When he had first arrived, he had felt everything would prosper. The house was undoubtedly a gentleman’s residence. It was a typical town house of the period, tall and narrow, with three floors above a basement, each floor containing two rooms, one in the front and one in the back, with a staircase and passageway to the side. On the ground floor was a drawing room consisting of front and back parlours. On the first floor was a dining room with a bedroom at the back; on the second floor, two more bedrooms. The attic, or garret, was divided into five rooms for the servants.
He had naively supposed society would learn of their presence by a sort of osmosis and issue invitations, not knowing that matchmaking mamas arrived in London usually one whole month before the Season to ‘nurse’ the ground, as parliamentary candidates are said to nurse their constituents before an election.
It was all too evident that Rainbird and the rest of the staff despised the Sinclairs. Such food as was left over from the Sinclairs’ meagre table would barely have fed a cat, let alone the staff of a town house.
Relations had not improved between Mr Sinclair and Fiona. He still cursed her for having described him as a miser. He had allowed her money to buy cloth to make gowns because she had said calmly she was perfectly capable of making her own. Now while he sweated and worried and keenly felt the censure of the servants, Fiona appeared totally absorbed in stitching and cutting. She did not seem to have a care in the world, which, thought Mr Sinclair sourly, all went to show the benefits of a simple brain.
Over a tough dinner of stewed mutton, his temper at last broke. ‘I cannae stand yer stupid face ony mair,’ he howled, his accent broadening as it always did when he was in a passion. ‘Here we are, worse off than ever, barely enough to eat, and not a man in the whole of London interested enough to call.’
He put his heavy head in his plate and began to cry. ‘I’m sure it’s all because you said I was a miser,’ he sniffed.
‘As to that,’ said Fiona, raising up his head and sliding a napkin under it, ‘I fear Lord Harrington does not gossip. Sad to say, no one has heard you are a miser. Pity.’
Astonishment dried Mr Sinclair’s tears. ‘Pity? Pity! You daft girl!’
‘If society thought you a miser and thought me your sole heir,’ said Fiona, lifting up her glass of water and tilting it so that little waves ran up the side of the glass, ‘and if they thought you had a weak heart, why, then, invitations would arrive in droves.’
‘You fool,’ hissed Mr Sinclair, sitting bolt upright. ‘That poxy face of yours is all we have in the bank. Don’t talk fustian. Don’t . . .’
He stopped abruptly and stared at her while thoughts churned around in his head. First – he had not taken Fiona out walking. She had been accompanied by Joseph on her walking expeditions. Second – a reputation as a miser covered a multitude of threadbare signs of genteel poverty.
‘You have a piece of mutton stuck in your ear, Papa,’ said Fiona.
‘Leave me,’ said Mr Sinclair. ‘I must think.’
Fiona rose gracefully to her feet. She went out quietly and stood in the shadowy hall. She took a half step back towards the dining room and then changed her mind. Rainbird entered the hall. Fiona smiled at him vaguely and then tripped lightly up the stairs, holding up the skirts of her old crimson gown.
Rainbird went in to the dining room. ‘Will there be anything else?’ he asked.
‘No, no,’ said Mr Sinclair, dabbing at the meat and gravy stuck to the side of his face. ‘Bring me my port into the front parlour in, say, half an hour.’
‘Very good, sir,’ said Rainbird gloomily. He made a stately exit and went down to the servants’ hall.
‘Wants his port in half an hour,’ he said, throwing himself down at the table. ‘There’s only half a decanter left. Does he know that? Does he know we can barely feed them let alone ourselves on the housekeeping allowance? Mrs Middleton, tallow candles he wants. Tallow! No need for beeswax he said to me yesterday. Tcha!’
The staff were too cast down to answer him. Lizzie kept away from the others, sitting in a chair by the small smoky fire. It had been so wonderful just before Mr Sinclair had arrived. They had all been scrubbed and clean and shining and hopeful. Certainly their easy informality with each other had gone. They had fallen into their places in the servants’ hierarchy, which was as rigid and snobbish as that of the ton.
But they had all been pent up and excited, dreaming of the food they would have and the vails they would get. Rainbird had even been down to the mews at the end of the street to seek out likely grooms and a coachman in case the new tenant should not bring his own.
Rainbird was remembering, too, the excitement that had preceded the Sinclairs’ arrival. April first, the day when Palmer had told them Mr Sinclair would appear, Rainbird was out waiting on the step, preening himself a little under the watchful eyes of the servants in the neighbouring houses.
But the day faded into dusk, and there was still no sign of the Sinclairs. Excitement began to fade among the staff. Rainbird ate his evening meal and then went back out again for a last look.
A dusty hack pulled by a broken-down horse rounded the corner from Piccadilly and came to a stop in front of the house. Rainbird went forward to tell the driver to go away. God forbid that Mr Sinclair should arrive and see such a disgrace of a vehicle outside his residence.
‘Move on,’ he called to the jehu on the box.
‘Won’t,’ said the driver laconically. ‘This is the h’address what this ’ere cove in the back wants.’
A chill feeling of dread began to grow in the pit of the butler’s stomach. The carriage door opened, and a fat portly gentleman in old-fashioned clothes inched down backwards into the street. He held out his hand and helped down a female figure closely wrapped in a long hooded cloak.
The gentleman turned about and saw Rainbird. ‘You,’ he called. ‘Fetch the imperials.’
‘Mr Sinclair?’ asked Rain
bird faintly.
‘The same.’
‘Joseph!’ called Rainbird. Joseph came swanning out, one hand on his hip.
‘Fetch Mr Sinclair’s baggage. Quickly,’ added Rainbird as Joseph’s mouth fell open.
Mr Sinclair paid the hack, and there was an unpleasant scene as the driver howled over the paucity of the tip.
Rainbird shook his head and came back to the present. He wearily rose to his feet. May as well look out the port. He was sorry he would not have a chance of looking at Miss Sinclair. She was a dreamy, vague girl, but so dazzlingly fair that it eased the pain at his heart. Rainbird felt the humiliation of having a poverty-stricken master keenly because he felt responsible for the other servants. Already servants from the houses on either side were making jeering, slighting remarks.
Rainbird took the half decanter of port and climbed the stairs. Good servants never knock. He opened the door of the parlour and then stood stock still, staring at the scene before him.
Seemingly oblivious to his presence, Mr Sinclair was counting gold coins into a brass-bound strong box. Gold glittered through the old man’s fingers. ‘One hundred and one thousand,’ Mr Sinclair was muttering. ‘One hundred and one thousand and one . . .’
Then Mr Sinclair looked up and saw the butler. He shovelled the gold back into the box – ‘so much of it,’ as Rainbird was to say afterwards, ‘that it spilled down the sides.’
‘I am a poor man,’ gabbled Mr Sinclair. ‘You saw nothing . . . nothing.’
‘No, sir,’ said Rainbird impassively, although his heart was beating hard. He set the silver tray with decanter and glass on a table and withdrew.
He erupted into the kitchen, babbling of the gold he had seen. ‘Mountains of it,’ he gasped. ‘The man’s a miser!’
Slowly they all turned and looked at little Lizzie, who sat crouched in front of the fire. ‘This is what comes of listening to you and your papist beliefs,’ sniffed Mrs Middleton. ‘You will scrub the kitchen floor until it shines and that will do you more good than candles and painted images.’
Miser of Mayfair Page 5
