Belinda Goes to Bath
Page 4
She helped Belinda through a pretty sitting-room decorated in the Chinese manner and into a bedroom where blue silk, blue wallpaper, and a four-poster bed and fire-place copied the red room in everything but colour.
Their trunks were brought in, followed very quickly by the baths, which were filled by the footmen, and then the two ladies were left in peace.
Hannah sat in the bath in front of the fireplace, carefully holding the guidebook clear of the water. ‘I have found it,’ she called through the open door to Belinda. ‘Baddell Castle. Ah, it used to belong to the Earls of Jesper. The last earl died in 1590 without children, his estates escheated to the Crown, and all the court rolls and records went to London and disappeared in the middle of the seventeenth century, so it was a castle without much history that anyone knows of or ghosts or what have you, so everyone forgot about it. It says that the present owner, the Marquess of Frenton, repels visitors.’
‘I am glad he did not repel us,’ called Belinda.
‘The Crown gave the first Marquess of Frenton the castle and estates.’
‘What shall I wear?’ asked Belinda. ‘If we are to dine here, we could dine in our undress.’
‘I think we should dress for a formal supper, just in case.’
‘The marquess is hardly likely to ask coach passengers to sit down with him,’ protested Belinda.
‘He did not need to take us into his home,’ Hannah pointed out. ‘He could have left us at some inn.’
As soon as they had bathed and dressed, servants appeared to remove the baths, and then a physician made his entrance. He said that Miss Wimple was still unconscious but he had hopes she would soon recover. He then examined Belinda’s ankle and confirmed that it was a bad sprain and strapped it up.
Then a lady’s maid came in. She said she was called Betty. Hannah thought it quite likely that she had some other name, for employers very frequently called their lady’s maids Betty.
Hannah enjoyed the luxury of having her hair done and her large shawl arranged tastefully on her shoulders. Then, while Belinda’s hair was being arranged, Hannah asked the maid, ‘When you have finished, can you take us to Miss Wimple? She is the lady who has suffered a bad accident.’
The maid nodded, and after she had dressed Belinda’s fine hair in one of the new Grecian styles, she led them out and along the corridor and into Miss Wimple’s bedchamber.
Miss Wimple was lying like one dead. Hannah felt her forehead and found it hot. A little chambermaid was piling logs on the fire. ‘The doctor said she would live,’ said the chambermaid.
A footman appeared in the doorway. ‘His lordship’s compliments,’ he said. ‘You are to follow me.’
‘I will stay here,’ said Hannah firmly.
‘Beg pardon, madam,’ said the footman. ‘Mrs James, the housekeeper, will soon be here to sit with the poor lady, and she will let you know as soon as there is any change.’
Belinda and Hannah followed him out, back along a chain of corridors, and then down the main staircase to the first floor. ‘His lordship is in the Cedar Room,’ said the footman, and flung open the double doors.
Belinda hesitated nervously in the doorway until Hannah gave her a little push.
The Cedar Room was enormous. The cedar-wood panelling which gave it its name was hung with family portraits. Huge chandeliers hung from the ornately designed ceiling. There was a large Adam fireplace in the centre of the opposite wall, and a French carpet covered the floor.
Huge windows had thick velvet curtains with heavy swags of fringe drawn against the winter’s night. The gigantic area of the room was dotted about with little islands of tables and chairs.
At the island nearest the fireplace sat a very beautiful lady and a middle-aged couple.
The marquess was standing by the fireplace. He was wearing an evening coat of dark-blue watered silk with a high collar and a ruffled shirt. His breeches of the same material were fastened at the knee with gold buckles. His silk stockings were of gold-and-white stripes and his black shoes had gold buckles. He had a fine sapphire in the snowy folds of his cravat and a large square sapphire ring on his finger.
Hannah shot a covert glance at Belinda and was glad that young lady was looking every bit as finely dressed as the marquess’s guests.
She was wearing a gown of pale lilac satin and a fine necklace of amethysts set in old gold. She had lilac silk heelless slippers to match with ribbons crossed across the ankles, and, on her arms, long gloves of lilac kid. Hannah had put on a fine and delicate muslin cap. She knew the Norfolk shawl about her shoulders was of the finest quality, as was her plum-coloured silk gown with matching silk gloves.
The marquess approached Belinda and Hannah, his eyes narrowing a little in surprise, for there was no denying the richness of the ladies’ gowns. He wondered briefly what they had been doing travelling on the stage.
He introduced them to Miss Penelope Jordan and her parents. Mr and Mrs Judd made their entrance, Mrs Judd clinging tightly to her husband’s arm. Belinda saw a mocking smile curving Penelope’s lips and the teasing look she threw the marquess as if to say, ‘My dear, what people!’
All in that moment, Belinda found herself disliking Penelope very much indeed.
The Judds were plainly and respectably dressed. But Mrs Judd’s gown was of an old-fashioned cut and Mr Judd was in morning dress, not having brought any evening dress with him, which, thought Belinda crossly, was perfectly understandable. She flashed a contemptuous look at Penelope and then realized the marquess was watching her and blushed faintly.
A butler and two footmen entered bearing trays of hot negus for the ladies and decanters of wine for the men.
All sat down on chairs arranged for them in a circle in front of the fire. Belinda sipped her negus and covertly studied the Jordans. Sir Henry Jordan was fat and florid with a jovial manner belied by the hardness of a pair of small brown eyes. Lady Jordan showed traces of an earlier beauty in thick, luxuriant, if grey-streaked hair, a statuesque figure, and large brown eyes. But little lines of discontent had caused her mouth to set in a permanent droop and two heavy vertical lines caused by frowning marred her forehead.
‘Why are you travelling on the stage, Miss Earle?’ demanded Penelope, her eyes flicking over the splendour of Belinda’s gown.
‘To get to The Bath,’ said Belinda calmly.
‘I would have thought you would have preferred to travel in your own carriage,’ pursued Penelope.
Seized with a mischievous desire to lower her social status to that of the Judds, Belinda said airily, ‘My family do not own a carriage.’ She turned to the marquess. ‘All my concern is for Miss Wimple, my poor companion.’
‘I have told the physician to return within the hour,’ said the marquess. ‘He will stay here for the night and so be available to help when he is required.’
‘Thank you, my lord. You are so very kind.’ Belinda’s face suddenly lit up in a charming smile. The marquess smiled back, oddly intrigued by this young lady with the wispy-fine slate-coloured hair and the wicked-looking sensual mouth.
‘You have a very fine place here, my lord,’ said Mr Judd nervously.
‘It’ll be something to tell your grandchildren, hey?’ said Sir Henry, all mock joviality. ‘I wager you never thought, considering your social station, to be the guest of an earl.’
Belinda winced and Hannah’s lips clamped tightly together in disapproval. How quaint, thought Penelope, amused. These upstarts of the stage-coach actually consider that Papa is being vulgar. But then she saw the chilly, calculating way in which the marquess was regarding her father and felt a stab of unease.
The marquess rose to escort them to supper. Penelope’s feeling of unease grew, for the marquess placed Belinda on his right hand and Hannah on his left. Moreover, the long dining-table had been replaced by a round one. The marquess had not liked the way Penelope had automatically taken the opposite end of the long table from him as if she were already established as his wife, and so
had ordered the round table and had had it delivered that very day.
Penelope’s beautiful eyes narrowed as they surveyed Belinda. There was something definitely odd about that young woman. Her arrival on the scene seemed just too opportune. Perhaps she had engineered the accident, thought Penelope pettishly, not stopping to consider that the idea of any young lady causing a coach to crash down in an icy river in the faint hope that the marquess would come riding by was stupid in the extreme.
Penelope had been told from her earliest days that she was beautiful beyond compare. She had practised a certain elegance of manner but had stopped there at improvement, considering her looks enough to contribute to any company.
Belinda, on the other hand, had assiduously practised the art of conversation to make up for what she felt was her own lack of attractions. She turned to the marquess and began to speak.
3
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault and hesitate dislike.
Alexander Pope
‘It is most generous of you, my lord,’ said Belinda, ‘to provide us with shelter and accommodation.’
‘My pleasure, I assure you, Miss Earle. Do you reside with family in The Bath?’
‘I am to stay with Great-Aunt Harriet.’
‘And shall you make your come-out there?’
‘I have already made my come-out, my lord, at the last Season. I am now going “in” again.’
He looked at her curiously. ‘And why is that?’ Belinda hesitated while vermicelli soup was served. She was aware of Penelope’s eyes resting on her, and somehow aware that Penelope’s shell-like ears were straining to catch every syllable. She must not tell this marquess or anyone about the footman. Who would understand, except perhaps someone like the odd Miss Pym? To say one had run away with a footman suggested a world of unladylike passion. ‘I did not take,’ she said calmly. ‘I am lucky to be only travelling as far as The Bath. I could just as well have been sent to India or to some battlefront in hope that my not-too-obvious charms might catch the eye of a homesick member of the East India Company or some war-weary soldier.’
‘You are very frank,’ commented the marquess, feeling sure he should disapprove of any lady who openly ran down her own attractions and appearance, and yet finding in himself an odd desire to instil some much-needed vanity into Miss Earle. ‘You should not disparage yourself,’ he pointed out. ‘People will take you at your own valuation. If you go about saying openly, “I am not attractive,” then you will, I may say, find that people think you so. Which would be a pity.’
‘How so?’ demanded Belinda, her eyes dancing.
‘They might then fail to notice that your figure is good and your eyes very fine.’
Belinda should have blushed and lowered her eyes. Instead she looked at him in open gratitude. ‘Do you really think so?’ she asked. Then her face fell. ‘But of course you do not. You are merely flirting with me as a matter of form.’
‘I never flirt,’ said the marquess frostily.
‘Do you not? I long to be able to flirt with ease, but I have an unfortunate habit of telling the truth. Not all the truth all of the time, don’t you see, for if you asked me if I were enjoying myself at present, I would be obliged to say, “Yes,” for it would be churlish to say else.’
‘Obviously then you are not enjoying yourself. What is wrong? You may speak freely. Your honesty amuses me.’
‘Well … well, it is just that I sense you have offended your guests by expecting them to dine with passengers from the stage.’
He stiffened. ‘My guests have too much breeding to betray either like or dislike.’
‘Unlike me, you see what you want to see.’ Belinda lowered her voice. ‘Regard how dainty Mrs Judd takes little sips of soup with a hand that trembles with nerves. Miss Jordan is aware of her discomfort and so she stares at her openly – that is, when she is not straining to hear what we are saying – in the hope of making her feel worse. Sir Henry and Lady Jordan maintain an icy silence.’
He had promised not to be offended, but he found he was becoming very angry with her indeed. ‘In that case,’ he said coldly, ‘I suggest you turn your attention to Mr Judd on your other side and I shall devote myself to Miss Pym.
As he turned away, he heard Belinda mutter, ‘I should have known you would be angry.’
The soup had been removed and fried whitebait was being served.
Hannah’s sharp ears had heard most of the interchange between the marquess and Belinda. She felt impatient with that young lady. If that was how she had gone on during her Season, then no wonder she had not found any suitable beaux.
‘Are you a friend of Miss Earle?’ She realised the marquess was asking her.
‘I am now, my lord,’ said Hannah. ‘But it is a friendship of very short duration, having only started when I joined the coach.’
‘I understand that you like to travel, Miss Pym?’
‘Oh, so very much,’ said Hannah. ‘It is an excellent way of meeting people.’
‘Odso! I was given to understand that although a variety of classes travel together on the stage, they hardly ever exchange a common civility.’
‘True,’ agreed Hannah. ‘But this is such an adventure.’ Her large strange eyes, which changed colour according to her mood, glowed green with excitement.
‘But wading through an icy river in winter is most people’s idea of hell rather than a gay adventure, Miss Pym.’
‘I am very tough,’ said Hannah. ‘I only hope the same can be said for poor Miss Wimple, and Mrs Judd is not at all strong in spirit.’
‘Have you always travelled?’
‘Oh, no, my lord. I always dreamt of it, but it did not become possible until this year, when I received a legacy from a relative. I plan to go the length and breadth of England. This is a wonderful castle. I thought such piles as this would have fallen into ruins.’
‘It amuses me to maintain it in its original splendour, on the outside at least,’ said the marquess. ‘I do not think I should find stone-flagged floors covered with rushes inside at all comfortable. But you do not take wine, Miss Pym.’
‘Although I have a great deal of stamina,’ said Hannah, ‘I fear, after the exhaustion caused by the recent accident, that wine would go straight to my head. The negus before supper was enough, I thank you.’
The marquess glanced across Hannah to where Belinda was making an obvious effort to put Mr Judd at his ease. Mr Judd, it appeared, was a music teacher at a ladies’ seminary in Bath. Belinda was saying teasingly that he must break the hearts of all his young ladies, and Mr Judd was growing visibly more expansive and swell-headed. For a young lady who claimed she did not know how to flirt, she was doing very well, reflected the marquess. He was aware that the Jordans were sitting in icy silence and felt impatient with them. He would expect, in any wife he chose, the same ease of manner with his tenants as with his peers. But the candle-light played softly on the whiteness of Penelope’s arms and on the glossy tresses of her hair and instead of blaming her for her cold behaviour, he felt obscurely it was all this Miss Earle’s fault. He could not, for example, possibly contemplate marriage to any female as farouche as Miss Earle. One would never know what to expect from her from one moment to the next. And on that thought followed another, treacherous one: that it was very boring to know exactly what anyone would say and do from one moment to the other.
‘I heard Miss Earle tell you she is being sent to Bath because she did not “take” at her last Season,’ said Hannah. ‘I find that most strange. She is a great heiress and has an openness and liveliness of mind I find enchanting.’
‘I did not think great heiresses ever remained unwed,’ said the marquess.
‘Miss Earle had several offers, but her aunt and uncle, who strike me as rather pushing sorts of people, were hanging out for a title.’
‘Do you know, I really think she was being mischievous when she said that. I happen to know that to be untrue. She arrived at the coaching inn in a very fine equipage.’
‘I cannot see why she should choose to lie.’
Hannah pulled her nose in embarrassment. The answer was that she felt sure Belinda had pretended to be on a social level with, say, the Judds in order to tease the Jordans.
She smiled at the marquess instead and turned to Sir Henry, who was on her other side. ‘I do hope Miss Wimple, Miss Earle’s companion, recovers soon so that we may continue our journey,’ said Hannah.
Sir Henry maintained a stony silence.
The marquess’s voice sounded sharp and clear. ‘Miss Pym has just said something to you, Sir Henry. Are you become deaf? Would you like me to repeat it for you?’
Sir Henry looked startled and then rallied. ‘Wits were wandering. Fact is, Miss Pym, I don’t know Miss Wimple, so it follows that I do not have any interest in her welfare.’
The marquess’s silvery-grey eyes shone with a frosty light. Good heavens, thought Penelope, this Miss Pym is outmanoeuvring us. Somehow, she is cleverly managing to make poor Papa look vulgar and unfeeling. Frenton obviously expects us to be civil to these commoners. What an odd fancy! But if I do not play my cards aright, he will take me in dislike as well.
She turned to Mrs Judd and said gently, ‘I fear you must be feeling fatigued after your experience. How shocking for you. You must have feared for your life.’
Mrs Judd blushed at the sudden attention and said in a faint voice that she was feeling overset. Hannah shrewdly judged that the gamecock on her plate with which Mrs Judd was struggling was upsetting her more than her dousing in the river. It showed a tendency to skid across her plate as she strove to a cut a piece from it.