Belinda Goes to Bath

by M C Beaton

  ‘He told me about the castle and how a room in Robert’s Tower was haunted by the ghost of a governess. He offered to show me the torture chamber but I said such things did not interest me, that the days of chivalry were in fact very cruel, and he said surely this age was cruel and commanded me to observe the bodies on the gibbet.’

  ‘How eccentric!’ said Hannah. ‘He cannot have been trying to endear himself to you. Besides, these modern times are very humane, no racking or crushing or gouging or pouring boiling oil on people. He must have been teasing you.’

  After Hannah had left, Belinda lay looking at the bed-hangings, seeing mocking faces in the patterns made by the brocade. All her elation had gone. He had only been flirting. He could not have meant anything warmer, not with his nearly-to-be fiancée as a guest. Then, despite her troubled thoughts, Belinda fell asleep.

  Hannah visited the Judds in their quarters. She could see Mrs Judd had been crying. Hannah’s temper snapped and she rounded on Mr Judd. ‘Will you never be done with tormenting your wife?’ she exclaimed. Mr Judd’s face turned dark with anger and he took a menacing step towards Hannah. ‘Just you try it,’ said Hannah. ‘I have strong arms and strong muscles, and besides that, if you lay one finger on me, I am like to brain you with the poker. Fie, for shame, you monster! Ruining your future career. One would think you had no interest in money.’

  ‘Money!’ The angry colour slowly died out of Mr Judd’s face.

  ‘Money,’ echoed Mrs Judd in a whisper.

  For money had been the cause of this latest marital row. Mr Judd had said his wife had cut a shabby figure at the marquess’s supper table compared to the other ladies, and she had shouted at him that they had no money at all for finery and how could he be such a half-witted baboon? Aghast at his wife’s temerity, Mr Judd had had no inclination to hit her, but then she had begun to cringe and cry and beg his pardon, and so he had struck her and immediately felt so guilty that he was sure his guilt must be her fault, and so he had struck her again.

  ‘Sit down, both of you,’ said Hannah, ‘and listen to me. Your vanity, Mr Judd, does not seem to stretch to your playing and singing. Nor do you seem aware that your wife has a first-rate voice.’

  ‘What has all this to do with anything?’ demanded Mr Judd, his temper rising again, although he did sit down and eyed Hannah warily as if facing a dog liable to bite.

  ‘I could not help noticing how entranced the marquess was with your singing. A couple such as you, I have heard, can command a great deal of money for a drawing-room performance, provided that couple has a patron. If you play your cards aright, you could perhaps have the marquess as that patron.’

  Mr Judd looked at her open-mouthed and Mrs Judd in dawning hope.

  ‘What is your history?’ asked Hannah. ‘I am not being impertinent. I only want to help.’

  ‘It is a dreary story,’ said Mr Judd. ‘My father was a successful lawyer and I had a comfortable upbringing. I studied music and singing for my own pleasure. Then I met Persephone.’

  What an exotic name for the frightened Mrs Judd to have, thought Hannah.

  ‘I am from The Bath. Persephone was music teacher at the seminary where I now teach. My father disapproved of my interest in her. He had high hopes for me and wished me to enter the law. Persephone’s parents had no money at all. Nonetheless, I was in love and I married her and my father turned me out.’

  ‘And your mother?’

  Mr Judd looked surprised. ‘Women have no say in such matters,’ he said. ‘In any case, the seminary promised to engage us both, but after we had both been there for a week, they said they could not afford the two of us and so they told my wife to leave. My father and mother died a year later, both of the fever, and he had cut me out of his will. Persephone’s parents are also dead. And so we struggled on. We had been to London to see if we could both find employ in different educational establishments, but we met with failure.’

  Hannah turned to Mrs Judd. ‘And you, where did you learn to sing so beautifully?’

  ‘My father was a dancing master,’ said Mrs Judd, ‘but he had ambitions to make me an opera singer and to that end he hired the best tutors he could afford. Oh, Miss Pym, do you really think we could find a patron?’

  ‘There is hope,’ said Hannah, ‘and I will have a word with his lordship myself when the time is right. But there is one thing you must do or I cannot help you.’

  ‘That being?’ demanded Mr Judd.

  ‘No one is going to be interested in furthering the career of a constantly quarrelling couple. You must appear at all times affectionate. You must start practising in private. A woman must obey her husband, everyone knows that, but all dislike a bully, Mr Judd, and forgive me, but that is how you appear, and an unpleasant one at that.’ She raised her hand to stall an angry retort from Mr Judd.

  ‘Come now, you are not going to protest that you don’t bully your wife when I and everyone else must know that you do.’

  ‘He is really very kind,’ said Mrs Judd, flying to her husband’s defence.

  ‘Then let him show that side of his character or I cannot help you,’ said Hannah roundly.

  There was a long silence after Hannah had left.

  ‘Strange woman,’ said Mr Judd gruffly.

  Mrs Judd clasped her hands tightly. ‘Do you think she meant what she said?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ he said slowly. Then he gave an awkward laugh. ‘I don’t really bully you, do I, my sweet?’

  The usual meek denial trembled on Mrs Judd’s lips. Then she thought about the money they could make instead of scrimping and saving and rowing on the pittance paid to her husband by the seminary.

  ‘Yes, you do, Mr Judd,’ she said firmly. ‘You are become a monster. You nag and criticize me for every little fault and my life is wretched.’

  Mr Judd looked uneasily round as if expecting to find the marquess or Hannah Pym listening.

  To apologize for or to admit to his bad behaviour would be going too far. And yet there was a steely determination in his little wife’s eyes that had not been there before.

  ‘And if you do anything to jeopardize our future by indulging your bad temper,’ said Mrs Judd, ‘I shall leave you.’

  He looked as startled as if some mild-mannered family pet had suddenly decided to savage him. ‘We’ll see how it goes,’ he mumbled, and Mrs Judd, knowing her husband well, realized that was as near an apology and a promise of reform as she was likely to get.

  Hannah went into Miss Wimple’s bedchamber and was reassured to see that lady looking much recovered.

  ‘How is Belinda?’ demanded Miss Wimple in stern accents.

  ‘Very well,’ said Hannah. Her eyes sharpened. ‘Have you had a visit from his lordship?’

  Miss Wimple put a hand to her brow. ‘I recall he came to see me last night.’

  ‘And what did you say?’

  Miss Wimple bridled. ‘I do not see that what I said or did not say is any of your concern, Miss Pym.’

  ‘But Miss Earle should be your concern, Miss Wimple. That, after all, is what you are being paid for. You did not, by any chance, let fall to his lordship about Miss Earle’s unfortunate episode with the footman?’

  ‘I cannot remember what I said,’ said Miss Wimple huffily. ‘My head aches. Go away.’

  ‘I wish to counsel you to hold your tongue on that matter in future,’ said Hannah, ‘for the young lady may arrive in Bath with a reputation already ruined and, if that be the case, I shall have no hesitation in telling her parents the reason for her downfall. If you did let fall anything indiscreet about your charge, then I suggest you tell his lordship as soon as possible that you were rambling.’

  Miss Wimple lay very still after Hannah had left. She did recall what she had said to the marquess. She had felt it her duty, thought Miss Wimple defiantly, not knowing that she had been prompted by the jealousy of an unmarried middle-aged woman of small means for a young lady of fortune. She would not eat her words when she saw the marquess
, but mindful of her job and Miss Pym’s threat, she would beg him to keep silent on the matter.

  And so it came about that Miss Wimple did more damage to Belinda’s reputation than she had done before. She sent for the marquess and begged him so emotionally never to speak of Belinda’s affair with the footman that she left him thinking that Miss Earle must have behaved very shockingly indeed.

  Dinner was served at four in the afternoon, so at three-thirty all were assembled in the Cedar Room, Belinda having been carried in by two footmen.

  With the single-mindedness of the aristocrat, the marquess studied Belinda Earle quite openly, unaware of the consternation he was causing in the Jordan family. She attracted him and he still remembered that kiss vividly and wanted more. But to seduce, say, a London widow who knew very well what she was about was one thing. To go to the bedchamber of a gently reared girl whom her family was obviously trying to reform was another. In some way, Belinda must show him she knew what she was doing and was prepared to face the consequences.

  Hannah saw that studied look and her heart fell. There was something more of the predator about it than the lover. Her mind went back to a certain groom who had worked for Mr Clarence. Hannah had been courted and then rejected by a perfidious under-butler and had been left feeling raw and stupid. The groom, Harry Bates, was rumoured to be the bastard son of a noble. He had a certain aristocratic elegance, strange in a groom, and more intelligence than was usual. He was witty and made Hannah laugh at a time when she did not feel like laughing at anything. It was well known among the staff at Thornton Hall that Hannah rose very early before the rest to spend a little time by herself in the servants’ hall. It was there Harry had approached her one morning. She had been delighted to see him, but he had sat down very close to her at the table, and then he had taken her hand and gazed into her eyes. In his eyes, Hannah had seen the same look that the marquess had in his when he studied Belinda – that authoritative air of reaching out and taking what he wanted. And all in that moment, Hannah had realized that Harry thought she had had an affair with the under-butler and so was fair game.

  She had snatched her hand away, and with her face flaming had said, ‘I am still a virgin,’ and had walked out of the servants’ hall. Harry had never come near her again.

  In her heart, she cursed Miss Wimple. She was sure the companion had gossipped about Belinda. The Jordans, she noticed, were looking furious. Little did they know they had nothing to be furious about, thought Hannah gloomily.

  And Belinda! A pox on the girl! Hannah felt quite savage. Belinda was glowing and her looks had taken on a radiance.

  ‘I hear Miss Wimple is all but recovered,’ said Penelope in a thin voice. ‘You will soon be able to take your leave.’

  ‘Not in this weather,’ said Hannah.

  ‘But the weather has changed,’ said Sir Henry with satisfaction. ‘Listen!’

  They all listened, and sure enough, instead of snow whispering at the windows, they heard the sound of drumming rain.

  ‘The roads will be flooded for days,’ Hannah pointed out.

  ‘But not as far as the nearest inn, where no doubt your stage is waiting,’ put in Lady Jordan.

  ‘Come now,’ chided the marquess, ‘you must not be in such a hurry to speed our guests on their way. I, for one, am hoping that Mr and Mrs Judd will entertain us again this evening.’

  ‘Gladly,’ said the Judds in chorus.

  Dinner was announced and the guests filed through to the dining-room. Once more, Belinda was seated beside the marquess.

  ‘I am amazed, Miss Earle,’ said the marquess, almost as soon as they were seated, ‘that you were not besieged with suitors during your Season.’

  ‘I do not remember you at the Season,’ said Penelope, forgetting her manners in her anger and talking directly across the table.

  ‘I was mostly hidden from view,’ said Belinda with a gurgle of laughter. ‘I used to take a book with me and try to hide behind a potted plant to while away the tedium of the evening.’

  ‘Penelope,’ said Sir Henry heavily, ‘was never without partners.’

  The marquess frowned. He could hardly be so rude as to remind them of the conventions and urge them to talk only to the people on either side. The unsophisticated Judds had taken a leaf out of the Jordans’ book and were talking openly to all at the table, inoffensive chit-chat about the weather and the perils of the English roads.

  Penelope saw her advantage and took it. She began to talk directly to the marquess about people they both knew, leaving Belinda and Hannah excluded.

  Belinda had never been jealous in her life, but now she was shaken to the very core of her being. She hated Penelope Jordan. He had kissed her, not Penelope, and he had said she enchanted him. Belinda craved some sign from him that he cared for her. Her strict upbringing was being undermined with jealousy and all her usual common sense had fled. This was agony! She would ask to see him alone and, yes, she would ask him if he loved her.

  Things were worse when they retired to the Cedar Room. The Judds gave a virtuoso performance, each liquid note of their voices tearing at Belinda’s heart. Mrs Judd was so very happy and it showed in her singing. It was obvious to Hannah that the Judds had taken her advice, but she was so worried about Belinda that it gave her little satisfaction.

  Belinda had fallen helplessly in love, and she did not know what to do. The marquess looked so very handsome, but unapproachable. His hair was powdered and he was dressed in fine silk and the jewels in his cravat and at his fingers winked and blazed in the candle-light. His eyes gave nothing away. He seemed totally wrapped up in the music, as indeed he was.

  Hannah edged her chair closer to that of the marquess and when the Judds had finished one number and were looking through their music, she said softly, ‘It is a pity two such fine singers should languish forgotten. They need a patron.’

  ‘Meaning I should sponsor them,’ he said, looking amused.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Why not, indeed, Miss Pym. I shall speak to them about it.’

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ said Hannah. ‘Did … did Miss Wimple mention anything to you about Miss Earle?’

  ‘Such as?’ His eyes were quite blank.

  ‘I feel Miss Wimple is not a suitable companion for Miss Earle,’ said Hannah. ‘She …’

  But he held up his hand for silence, for the Judds had begun to sing again.

  Belinda decided she would write him a note, asking him to meet her. She would do it as soon as she retired and give the note to one of the servants. But Miss Pym must not know.

  At last the evening was over. The marquess suggested Belinda might like to retire to rest her injured ankle and his glance included the other stage-coach passengers. He was sitting beside Penelope, engrossed in conversation, when Belinda and Hannah left the room. Belinda hobbled and leaned on Hannah’s arm, for she felt being carried by footmen presented too undignified a spectacle. She twisted her head and looked back. Penelope was smiling at something the marquess was saying and leaning towards him, creating an island of intimacy, while her parents beamed on the pair as if already blessing the newly-weds.

  After Belinda had said good night to Hannah, she went to her room. She dismissed the maid, saying she would prepare herself for bed. Instead, she sat down at a tiny escritoire in the corner and wrote a short note, asking the Marquess of Frenton to exchange a few words with her before he retired for the night. She sanded the letter and sealed it. She reached out a hand to the bell-rope and then paused. Miss Pym might hear the sound of the bell and come to see if anything was wrong.

  She gently opened her bedroom door and walked along the corridor. A small boy was trimming one of the lamps that stood in an embrasure. Belinda handed him the letter and told him to take it to the marquess and then returned to her room, feeling very alone and frightened and wondering if she had run mad.

  The lamp-boy was too inferior a being to convey a message to the marquess directly. He gave it to the fourth footman,
who took it down to the servants’ hall and gave it to the butler in front of everyone, saying it was from Miss Earle to the marquess. The butler put on his coat, put the letter on a silver tray, and carried it upstairs.

  The Jordans were in the Cedar Room and on the point of saying their good-nights to the marquess. The butler handed him the letter, but, being a good servant and scenting an intrigue, he did not say who had sent it.

  The marquess turned away slightly and scanned the short note. His lips curled in a smile.

  Penelope Jordan found out who had sent that letter as her maid prepared her for bed. All the servants knew. So she, too, wrote a letter and sent her maid with it to Hannah Pym.

  ‘As you are obviously concerned for the welfare of your fellow passenger,’ she wrote, ‘I suggest you stop Miss Earle writing letters to the Marquess of Frenton proposing assignations.’ Penelope of course did not know what Belinda’s letter had said but felt sure that as Belinda had written something she could obviously not say in public, that meant an assignation. ‘I beg you to tell the silly child that I am engaged to Frenton and any attempts on her part to secure his affections would only lead to ridicule.’

  5

  Sweet maid of the inn,

  ’Tis surely no sin,

  To toast such a beautiful bar pet;

  Believe me, my dear,

  Your feet would appear

  At home on a nobleman’s carpet.

  Anonymous

  Belinda looked at the little gilt clock on the mantel which was flanked by a shepherd and shepherdess. Midnight!

  Surely he would come.

  She bit her lip remembering the conversation she had had with Hannah Pym before that lady retired for the night. Miss Pym had said roundly that the marquess’s intentions were definitely dishonourable, doubly so as he had kissed Belinda while courting another. Belinda had only pretended to listen, as she had in the past when someone was giving her a jaw-me-dead.

  But Hannah’s words echoed in her brain. If he was an honourable man, then he should have called on her immediately after reading her note. If he was dishonourable, then he would wait until he was sure everyone was asleep and then call on her. That could not be the case. He must be waiting until morning.