The Adventuress: HFTS5

by M C Beaton

  “It may be them!” cried Rainbird. “Our new tenants!”

  He threw off his green baize apron, seized his coat from a peg at the door, and darted for the stairs.

  Chapter

  Two

  For the first three hours I was told it was a moonlight night, then it became cloudy, and at half past three o’clock was a rainy morning; so that I was well acquainted with every variation of the atmosphere as if I had been looking from the window all night long. A strange custom this, to pay men for telling them what the weather is every hour during the night, till they get so accustomed to the noise, that they sleep on and cannot hear what is said.

  —Robert Southey

  “This ’ere’s the butler,” said Palmer as Rainbird darted into the hall.

  The agent was standing with his stocky gaitered legs wide apart and his fat hands clasped behind his back. Beside him stood a lady and gentleman. The gentleman was tall and thin with hair so fine and so beautifully white, it looked like a spun-glass wig. His face was very odd, the nose pointing a little to the right, and the thin mouth screwed round in the same direction. He looked as if his face were desperately trying to turn a corner while the eyes remained firm, looking straight ahead. His clothes were sober and old-fashioned but of the finest material. He had a slight stoop and an oddly deferential air. Rainbird judged him to be in his fifties.

  Rainbird turned his clever bright eyes on the lady and then found he could not look away. Beauty is a powerful magnet. She had clear grey-blue eyes fringed with sooty lashes. Her skin was very white and translucent. Under her small fashionable bonnet, her curls were glossy and dark brown, highlighted with little threads of gold. Her mouth was pink and warm and generous. Her eyebrows were delicate and arched, like the brush strokes of a master. She had a straight nose, a graceful neck above a ruff of fine lace, and a figure to make a sensualist swoon. But the expression in her eyes was hard and haughty.

  “Slop gawking, Rainbird,” snapped Palmer. “Show us around. No need to wait for that fussy Middleton female. If Mr. and Miss Goodenough like the place, then you can line up the servants.”

  Rainbird led the way. In the front parlour, he darted about, seizing holland covers off the chairs, hoping to dispel that chill, unused atmosphere that had so repelled the Earl of Fleetwood. The fireplace was fine and Rainbird hoped they noticed it. It was marble-fronted and surmounted with a looking glass that was divided into three by gilt pillars which, in their turn, supported a gilt architrave. On either side of the fireplace were the new bell-ropes, made from coloured worsted during the winter months by Mrs. Middleton and finished by Angus, the cook, with knobs of polished spar.

  The chairs and tables were of that fashionable wood, mahogany, brought from Honduras. There was a bookcase on top of a chest of drawers with glazed doors and curtains of green silk within, which could be drawn closed to shield the unintellectual eye from the dreadful sight of naked literature.

  As he revealed all these wonders, Rainbird puzzled over his own odd feeling of familiarity, of recognition. He was sure he had seen this Mr. Goodenough before. That strange sideways face of his should be hard to forget. The couple said nothing as they were led from room to room, and Rainbird’s heart began to sink. If only Palmer could have warned him, then he would have suggested delaying the visit to the afternoon so that the rooms might be heated and decorated with flowers.

  He kept glancing at their faces, hoping to catch some hint of either approval or disapproval. But Mr. Goodenough’s eyes were blank and his thin mouth was screwed up sideways in a perpetual smile. In any case, the young lady with him—his daughter? had an air of frozen hauteur that gave nothing away.

  At last the tour was over and they stood in the hall, Palmer, the lady and gentleman, and Rainbird.

  “We shall take it,” said the young lady. Her voice was clear and accentless and very cold. “You, I know, are Rainbird, the butler. I am Miss Goodenough, and this is my uncle, Mr. Benjamin Goodenough. We shall reside here until the end of the Season on June fourth. Now, we should like to inspect the rest of the staff.”

  Rainbird opened the backstairs door to call the rest, but they were already crowded, waiting, on the other side of the door. He ushered them in.

  Mr. Goodenough had wandered back into the front parlour and was staring vacantly out into the street. The staff shuffled into line in front of Miss Goodenough.

  Her hard eye travelled down the line as Rainbird made the introductions. It came to rest on Joseph. “Brush your livery properly before you appear in front of me again,” said Miss Goodenough. The footman blushed and twisted his head round, noticing the flour on his coat for the first time. Then Miss Goodenough turned her attention to Mrs. Middleton. “I shall see you this afternoon at three o’clock, Mrs. Middleton,” she said. “Bring the housekeeping books with you and we shall go over them together. Thank you. That will be all.”

  “When,” said Palmer, “will you be moving in?”

  “Today,” said Miss Goodenough. “Come, Uncle Benjamin,” she called.

  Palmer was obviously in the throes of some inner conflict. He did not want to scare them away by demanding the rent. But, on the other hand, they had arrived out of the blue, and in a rented chaise, not a private carriage.

  “There is the matter of the rent,” said Palmer as the Goodenoughs were making for the door. Palmer glared fiercely at Rainbird as he said this, as if in the hope the butler might get the blame if the Goodenoughs considered his demand impertinent.

  “Ah, yes,” said Miss Goodenough. She opened a capacious reticule and drew out a thick wad of notes, which she riffled through. Rainbird thought there must have been at least five hundred pounds in that wad. She extracted eighty pounds in five-pound and two-pound notes.

  Palmer’s eyes bulged in his head. “There is a little mistake, miss,” he said with an ingratiating leer. “Eighty guineas is the sum.”

  “Such a pity,” said Miss Goodenough. “I never deal in guineas. Nasty, heavy things. I much prefer paper money.” She put the money back in her reticule. Her cool gaze rested for what seemed ages on Palmer’s beefy face.

  Then she said quietly, “You advertised this house at eighty pounds in The Morning Post. I believe you are greedily trying to chisel more money out of me. You are not getting a half farthing more. Furthermore, I have a good mind to take you to court.”

  “Oh, deary me!” cried Palmer, desperately feigning surprise. “My wits must be wandering. Eighty pounds it is.”

  “Seventy-six now,” said Miss Goodenough sweetly. “You tried to make a profit of four pounds. So you can take a loss of four pounds or I shall write to the Duke of Pelham and inform him of your chicanery.”

  “You cannot do this!” said Palmer.

  “I can and will,” said Miss Goodenough.

  Palmer shuffled his feet. The advertisement had now been in the newspaper for three months. The only person other than Miss Goodenough who had shown any interest was the Earl of Fleetwood, and he had decided against renting the place. Palmer looked at Miss Goodenough’s set face and was sure she would take him to court or write to the duke—nasty, overbearing, managing female that she was.

  “Very well,” he muttered. “Seventy-six it is.”

  Miss Goodenough once more opened her reticule, extracted the wad, peeled off the necessary sum, and paid him.

  “Now, Mr. Palmer,” she said, “I do not like your face or your manner. Make sure you do not set foot in this house again while we have the letting of it. Come, Uncle.”

  Palmer and the servants stood in silence until the Goodenoughs had left and closed the door behind them.

  The agent rounded savagely on the servants. “This is all your fault,” he grated. “I’ll make up that four pounds out of your wages.” Then he left as well.

  The servants shuffled back down to their hall to answer Dave’s excited questions.

  “She holds the purse-strings,” said Rainbird, “and that Miss Goodenough is going to be the most cl
utch-fisted tenant we’ve ever had.”

  “S’pose we’ve got to put up with them,” said Jenny. “Not as if there’s anyone else.”

  “But there might be,” said Angus MacGregor, “if we got rid of ’em fast.”

  “How can we do that?” asked Mrs. Middleton, who was already shaking in her shoes at the thought of the forthcoming interview with Miss Goodenough.

  “Easily,” said Rainbird thoughtfully. “It is very simple for servants to drive someone away. Palmer won’t listen to them. They’ve paid the money, he’s accepted, so they can’t take him to court. Good idea, Angus. But, by George, I have seen Mr. Goodenough somewhere before. If only I could remember where.”

  “There’s so much to do,” said Alice. “If they’re coming this afternoon, we’d better get the beds aired and the fires lit.”

  Rainbird leaned back in his chair. “Why?” he said with a grin. “If we want rid of them, we may as well begin right now by taking it easy. They’ll want tea and cakes. Whip them up something really horrible, Angus!”

  At The Bull’s Head in the City, Miss Emily Goodenough corded the last trunk and sat back on her heels. “Well, that’s that,” she said. “I think we are doing very nicely.”

  “I think you were a leetle too high and mighty for a young miss, my dear,” said Mr. Goodenough. “Mustn’t give the show away.”

  “But I could not let that repulsive Palmer get away with cheating me!”

  “And you said ‘chiselling.’ Ladies never talk about people chiselling people. You must try not to use common expressions. Us impostors must always be on our guard.”

  “We are not really impostors,” said Emily. “We changed our names by deed poll. We are now Mr. and Miss Goodenough, and you are my uncle. Forget you were the butler, Benjamin Spinks, forget I was ever that little chambermaid, Emily Jenkins. We are of the upper classes now.”

  “Outside,” said Mr. Goodenough gloomily. “But inside I still feel like a servant.”

  “But we are rich,” said Emily. “When old Sir Harry Jackson died and left you all his money, it was like the realisation of a dream. You always wanted to be a gentleman, and I always wanted to marry well.”

  “Have you thought, Emily, that if just one member of the ton recognizes either the former butler or the former chambermaid, we should be socially damned? That butler, Rainbird, looks familiar.”

  For a moment, Emily appeared very young and vulnerable and lost. In that moment, she wished they were servants again, living on dreams. Then she rallied. “Fustian,” she said bravely. “I shall make my début in society, and you shall meet the Prince of Wales, which is all you ever talked about. Courage, my uncle. We shall survive.”

  “I shall try to be brave,” said Mr. Goodenough. “Wait here and I shall fetch a servant to carry our trunks. The bell-wire is broken.”

  When her “uncle” had left, Emily rose to her feet and studied her face in the greenish old looking-glass over the fireplace. Surely she looked like a lady!

  But when she had been a servant, she had felt like a lady inside. Now she felt like a servant inside. Odd.

  Emily had been brought up by a spinster aunt. Her parents had died when she was very young. Her aunt had been a hard, unfeeling woman but prided herself on “knowing her duty.” Before her death, she had secured Emily the post of chambermaid at Blackstone Hall, home of Sir Harry Jackson, a childless bachelor of some sixty years. The butler, Spinks, now Mr. Goodenough, had taken her under his wing. Like Emily, he was a dreamer, and they would often walk in the grounds at the end of the day, planning fantastic futures for each other. Emily’s was always the same. Some rich lady would befriend her, bring her out as a débutante, and a rich lord would fall in love with her and marry her. The butler’s dreams were wilder and more fanciful. On some evenings as he walked with Emily, he would fantasise about being a pirate king or becoming a missionary or enlisting in the army, although the one dream he would return to over and over again was that of meeting the Prince of Wales, now Prince Regent.

  And while they walked and dreamt, neither guessed that old Sir Harry was shortly to die and leave all his fortune to his butler.

  Now that they were rich, now that they were on the threshold of that long-dreamt-of Season, Emily felt the stronger of the two. Mr. Goodenough was basically a timid man. Emily often suspected he missed his days of butling. When she was married and had a title, he could live with her always, decided Emily. The years would pass and he would become accustomed to being a gentleman and no longer dread exposure.

  “Pity we paid our shot in advance,” said Mr. Goodenough as he came back into the room. “But I did not expect to find anywhere so quickly.”

  “That house has been advertised for the past three months,” said Emily, “and at such a low rent. I wonder why no one else snapped it up.”

  “As to the matter of the rent,” said Mr. Goodenough cautiously, “I feel you should have paid the full eighty pounds. Oh, I know that dreadful Palmer needed a set-down, but it was done in front of the servants, and, if you but remember, we servants have a hearty contempt for anyone who appears miserly.”

  Emily laughed. “I think I am forgetting more quickly than you the thoughts of a servant. Do not worry. The staff at Clarges Street will have no cause to complain of my treatment.”

  But it was a tight-lipped Emily who stood in the front parlour at 67 Clarges Street an hour later. The fire had not been lit, and the holland covers still lay in a pile in the corner where Rainbird had thrown them that morning.

  She rang the bell and waited. And waited.

  After ten minutes, she gave it a savage pull.

  Rainbird sauntered in and stood looking at her, eyes bright with insolence.

  “You r-a-a-a-n-g?” he drawled.

  “Take your hands out of your pockets when you address me,” said Emily, turning pink with anger. “You will find our trunks still standing in the hall. Have them carried up to our rooms. We shall take the bedrooms on the second floor in case the large one on the first needs to be turned into a saloon. Light the fire here and light the fires everywhere else. Jump to it. And serve tea immediately!”

  Rainbird skipped out while Emily glared furiously after him.

  “My dear,” quavered Mr. Goodenough, “such studied insolence does, I fear, betoken that they have guessed our humble origins.”

  “Stuff!” said Emily roundly.

  They waited impatiently as oh-so-slowly Joseph lounged in and made up the fire, placing lumps of coal delicately in the hearth with the tongs, one piece at a time.

  Rainbird came in with the tea-tray and set it down on a console table with a loud crash that made the silver clatter against the china.

  But Emily brightened. For the array of cakes looked absolutely delicious. Her stomach gave an unmaidenly rumble.

  Rainbird began to skip off.

  “Stop!” cried Emily. “Cannot you leave a room in a civilised manner?”

  Rainbird turned hurt eyes on her. “You told me to jump to it, ma’am,” he said plaintively, “so I am jumping.”

  “When I have finished tea,” said Emily evenly, “I want you and the rest of the staff to assemble here. Such impertinence must cease immediately.”

  “Impertinence?” demanded Rainbird, folding his arms and leaning against the door jamb. “I—”

  He broke off as a resounding volley of knocks sounded on the street door.

  He sprang to answer it.

  The Earl of Fleetwood stood on the doorstep.

  “I am come for another look at this place,” he said, strolling in past Rainbird.

  “The house is taken,” cried Rainbird, but Lord Fleetwood had already entered the front parlour.

  He stopped short before the vision that was Emily.

  Emily looked at him, her eyes wandering from his handsome, clever face to his elegant dress, the large jewel sparkling in his cravat, and then down to those boots which had caused even Beau Brummell to turn green with envy.

 
; “My apologies, ma’am,” said the earl. “Am I to understand the house is let?”

  “Yes,” said Emily breathlessly. “To me.”

  “Me being?”

  “Introduce yourself first,” snapped Emily, who was quite overset by the insolence of the servants.

  He raised thin brows and looked at her haughtily. “My name is Fleetwood.”

  “Earl of,” prompted Mr. Goodenough sotto voce.

  “Well, Lord Fleetwood, I am Miss Emily Goodenough, and this is my uncle, Mr. Benjamin Goodenough.”

  “Your servant, Miss Goodenough. When did you decide to take the house?”

  “Today, my lord.”

  “And you are satisfied with it?”

  “Not quite,” said Emily with a baleful look at Rainbird, who was staring at the cakes in a most peculiar way. “I find the staff lacking in respect. Pray be seated, my lord.”

  Lord Fleetwood sat down. “I confess I do not like the servant class, Miss Goodenough,” he said. “I find them all prone to gossip and insolence.”

  Rainbird picked up the plate of cakes and headed for the door.

  “Put those cakes back down immediately,” said Emily crossly. “And go away, Rainbird. I shall speak to you later.”

  Rainbird slowly put the cakes back on the tray as Emily drew a chair up to the table and asked Lord Fleetwood if he took sugar and milk.

  The butler ran downstairs to the kitchen. “Angus,” he wailed, “that Lord Fleetwood has called and she is about to offer him those cakes. What did you put in them?”

  “Enough curry powder to blow his head off,” said the cook.

  “We must stop him eating them,” screamed Mrs. Middleton.

  “Why?” demanded the cook laconically. “I don’t like him either.”

  “Fleetwood is a leader of the ton, you lummox!” howled Rainbird. “This house is damned as unlucky, and now added to that will be the tale that the servants try to poison their masters. I must think of something.”