by M C Beaton
‘Ho, them,’ said the landlord. ‘They’s here, right enough. Room at the top o’ the stairs.’
Belinda made a dart for the stairs but the marquess drew her back. ‘Pray give them my card, landlord, and ask them to step below, if you would be so good.’
Belinda waited impatiently while the landlord backed towards the stairs with many low bows. ‘Why do we not go up?’ she asked.
‘Age and passion do not mix in your young mind,’ said the marquess. ‘You might find yourself faced with a highly embarrassing tableau were you to burst into their room.’
There were sounds of a sharp altercation from above and then the landlord returned. ‘Take a seat in the tap, my lord, my ladies, and they’ll be down direct.’
‘There is no back way by which they might escape?’ asked the marquess.
‘No, my lord. Window’s too small for a gurt woman like her.’
They waited uneasily in the tap, sitting in front of a log fire.
After half an hour, Mr Biles and Miss Wimple entered. He had abandoned his clericals and was dressed in a coat with a high velvet collar and brass buttons. Miss Wimple was wearing a white-striped cotton dress printed in a tiny flowing floral pattern in red and blue and yellow. On her head, she wore a splendid cap of the same material. Both looked mulish and defiant.
Belinda rose and ran forward and took her companion’s hands in her own. ‘Miss Wimple,’ she said, ‘you have been sadly deceived. This man is married.’
‘I know,’ said Miss Wimple crossly, tugging her hands free.
‘But Miss Wimple! What of all your strictures, your moralizing?’
‘My love for this gentleman is pure,’ said Miss Wimple, her eyes flashing. ‘Hardly a love that such as you, Miss Earle, would understand.’
‘Mr Biles,’ said the marquess, ‘what do you plan to do about your unfortunate wife?’
‘Miss Wimple is now my wife, before God,’ said Mr Biles, raising his hands to heaven.
‘But not before man,’ said the marquess drily. ‘I repeat, what of your wife?’
‘She may divorce me,’ he said coldly. ‘She has her own money. She will not starve.’
‘But Miss Wimple may do so,’ said the marquess, ‘if your fickle fancy lights on another lady.’
‘Never!’ cried the pair in unison.
The marquess looked at Belinda, who gave a little despairing shrug.
‘Then all I can do,’ said the marquess, ‘is counsel you to get as far away from the Earl of Twitterton as possible. For although you returned his carriage, in his eyes you may have stolen it, if only for a brief time, and if he presses charges against you, you will be transported.’
‘You sully our great love with your warnings and fears,’ said Miss Wimple grandly.
‘Tcha!’ snorted Hannah Pym. ‘We are wasting our time here. You are a fallen woman, Miss Wimple, and I am only amazed that you can still try to hang on to the high moral ground. Come, Miss Earle.’
Belinda was glad to escape. As they stood together beside the marquess’s carriage, she said in an amazed voice, ‘And I thought she would be so grateful to be rescued. Where now?’
‘To Lady Bellamy,’ said the marquess. ‘Journey’s end and life’s beginning.’
She’s made a romantic of him, thought Hannah.
Belinda looked at Hannah shyly. ‘Miss Pym, would you do me the very great honour of residing with me for a few days? I confess I dread to think of being alone with my aunt.’
‘Gladly,’ said Hannah. ‘But you must not enter Bath on the box of his lordship’s carriage. That would not do at all.’
Tired and weary, they reached Lady Bellamy’s in Glossop Street. The marquess told Belinda he would call on her great-aunt that afternoon, kissed her hand, and then mounted to the box of the carriage again.
Hannah rapped on the door. An old butler opened it and informed them that Lady Bellamy was in the Green Saloon on the first floor.
Belinda clutched Hannah’s arm as they mounted the stairs. ‘I am feeling unaccountably nervous,’ she said, glancing around. ‘This place is like a prison.’
Hannah nodded in agreement. The hall had been bare except for one side-table. The staircase was uncarpeted, which was not unusual, but there were no pictures on the walls and the window on the landing above them was barred.
The butler opened the double doors, took their cards, and announced them in a surprisingly loud voice.
Belinda’s heart sank right down to her little green kid slippers when she saw her great-aunt. Lady Bellamy had always been a hard-faced, austere woman, but she looked even more grim and disapproving than Belinda remembered her to be. The first thing Hannah noticed was not her ladyship, but the fact that the windows of the Green Saloon were barred as well.
She then turned her attention to Lady Bellamy. She was a tall, gaunt woman dressed in a gown that looked like sackcloth. A Bible lay on a small table beside her. She put out a hand and rested it on the cover of the Bible and Hannah noticed that hand was so thin, it was almost transparent. Her eyes were black and glittering, as if she had a fever.
‘So the fallen one has come,’ said Lady Bellamy in a deep voice that had a hollow ring to it, as if sounded from the depths of a tomb.
‘Miss Earle is here, yes,’ said Hannah.
‘And who are you?’
‘I am Miss Hannah Pym of Kensington,’ said Hannah, meeting that black, glittering gaze with a steady one of her own. ‘Unfortunately, Miss Earle’s companion has fallen from grace. She is run off with a Methodist preacher. Miss Earle has requested that I stay with her for a few days.’
‘That you may not.’ Lady Bellamy’s glance dismissed Hannah and fastened on Belinda. ‘I shall soon teach you the error of your ways, young miss. Running off with a footman, indeed! Too much food. Nothing like starvation to purge the soul.’
Belinda flashed a scared look at Hannah, and then said, ‘My lady, I have good news. Lord Frenton, the Marquess of Frenton, has done me the honour to offer me his hand in marriage and I have accepted. He is to call upon you this afternoon to ask leave to pay his addresses.’
‘Frenton? Frenton of Baddell Castle?’
‘The same.’
‘You poor child. Do not worry. I shall keep you pure.’
‘Mad,’ Hannah mouthed to Belinda.
Aloud, she said to Lady Bellamy, ‘Your great-niece has secured a fine match for herself. Surely congratulations are the order of the day.’
‘Never!’ cried Lady Bellamy. ‘What is this year?’
‘Eighteen hundred,’ said Hannah impatiently, wondering how soon she could get Belinda away from this madwoman.
‘Then let me see … it was in ninety-two that Frenton caused such a scandal in our fair city. Lady Devine had been widowed but two years when he dragged her into his bed. They lived together quite openly.’
Belinda turned pale. ‘And where is Lady Devine now?’
‘She married the Duke of Minster. The wicked flourish like the green bay tree.’ She looked at Hannah. ‘Miss What’s-your-name, take yourself off.’
‘I shall just see Miss Pym to the door,’ said Belinda, clutching Hannah even harder.
Lady Bellamy jerked the bell-rope twice. The aged butler and two young footmen appeared. ‘Bradfield,’ said Lady Bellamy to the butler, ‘show this lady out. You two, James and Henry, take Miss Earle to her bedchamber and lock her in. You know I have everything prepared for her arrival.’
Hannah was carrying her trusty umbrella. It was a heavy thing, covered in green waxcloth and with iron spokes. She raised it menacingly and stood in front of Belinda. ‘Stand aside,’ she shouted. ‘I am taking Miss Earle with me.’
Lady Bellamy seemed indifferent. ‘Lock them in together,’ she commanded.
The two footmen approached. Belinda darted for the door, wrenched her bad ankle and collapsed to the ground with a cry of pain. Hannah dropped her umbrella and ran to her.
She helped Belinda to her feet. She could not start a
fight and risk injuring Belinda further. As long as she was to be locked in with Belinda, they might plan something between them.
Urged forward by the footmen, Hannah, her arm around Belinda’s waist, helped her up the stairs. They were thrust into a room and the door was locked behind them.
Both stood still, looking helplessly around. ‘Mad,’ said Belinda, beginning to cry. ‘She’s gone raving mad.’
Hannah nodded gloomily. There was an old double bed without curtains or posts, covered in a ragged quilt. Apart from that, there was no other furniture except a prie-dieu in the corner. The windows were barred.
‘Now what are we going to do?’ said Hannah Pym.
8
Adventure is to the adventurous.
Benjamin Disraeli
The marquess, reluctant all at once to see his sister and to have to explain his sudden engagement and endure all the questions he knew she would throw at him, put up at the Pelican Inn.
He bathed and washed the powder out of his hair and dressed with great care. He felt a lightness of spirit, an absence of loneliness. Soon he would see Belinda again.
He made his way on foot to Glossop Street. An elderly butler answered the door and said courteously that the ladies were not at home, they were out walking.
The marquess was angry. He had said he would call. ‘I am staying at the Pelican,’ he said stiffly, handing over his card. ‘Be so good as to tell the ladies to send for me when they find themselves available to receive me.’
He walked away huffily, his spirits low. What could have happened?
He returned in the evening and looked bewildered when he was met with the same reply. He noticed the old butler could not meet his eyes. So they were lying. Belinda had changed her mind. A pox on all women.
He returned to the Pelican and ordered a bottle of wine and sat moodily in the tap. And then he saw Colonel Harry Audley bearing down on him. He knew the colonel of old and damned him as the biggest bore in Bath.
‘Just come to the city, Frenton?’ asked the colonel, sitting down beside him without asking permission.
‘Yes, and enjoying my own company,’ said the marquess pointedly.
The colonel ignored him and began to prose on about who was in society in Bath and what they had said to him and what he had said to them. The marquess half-closed his eyes and drank his wine and waited for the colonel to dry up and go away.
Dimly, the colonel’s voice penetrated his worried brain. ‘… and quite mad, if you ask me. When old Bellamy died she came to The Bath and we were all prepared to be kind to her, but she got seized with a sort of religious mania. Then she began to see thieves and burglars everywhere. That house of hers in Glossop Street is like a prison.’
‘Whose house?’ asked the marquess suddenly.
‘Ain’t I been telling you, dear boy? Lady Bellamy.’
‘Tell me again.’
The colonel looked gratified at having secured an interested audience at last. ‘Mad as Dick’s hatband is Lady Bellamy. You should take a walk down Glossop Street and have a look at her house. Bars on every window. She occasionally walks out and has two strong footmen to guard her, just as if she expected one of the invalids of The Bath to savage her. Why, I call to mind—’
‘Good evening,’ said the marquess, got to his feet, and hurried out.
Sharp anxiety stabbed at his heart. He now did not believe for a moment that Belinda was avoiding him.
Hannah and Belinda sat miserably in the cold, dark room that was their prison.
‘She hasn’t come yet,’ said Hannah. ‘I am so hungry and thirsty. Wait until I see that aunt and uncle of yours. When I reach London, if I ever reach London, I am going straight to them and I am going to give them a piece of my mind. How dare they send you here? That woman is mad. It must be well known in Bath. When did you last see her?’
‘Seven years ago,’ said Belinda. ‘She was all right in her head then, but very moralizing. The whole of Sunday was taken up with readings from the Bible and sermons.’
‘And what can Frenton be thinking of?’ demanded Hannah. ‘He will have called. He cannot believe we would not see him.’
Belinda turned her head away. ‘He may prefer the charms of Lady Devine.’
‘Now, don’t start that!’ cried Hannah. ‘Ain’t we miserable enough? Mark my words, he pleasured himself with a willing widow who can’t have had her reputation damned by the liaison because she’s now a duchess. Get some sense in your head and refute everything that madwoman has told you.’
A voice sounded behind the door. It was Lady Bellamy. ‘I hope you are praying for the salvation of your souls,’ she said sonorously. ‘You will be allowed a morsel of bread and water, which will be brought to you in five minutes. My footman will be armed, so do not make any trouble. Tomorrow, I shall come and read to you.’
Belinda and Hannah looked at each other in the gloom.
‘At least we’ll get a drink of water,’ said Belinda.
Hannah’s eyes fell on her trusty umbrellas, propped in a corner. She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘When this footman comes, I will stand behind the door and hit him on the head with my umbrella. It should be easy to stun him. The umbrella has a silver knob.’
‘What if you hit too hard and kill him?’ asked Belinda with a shiver. ‘Or what if you do not hit hard enough and he shoots me?’
‘Quite simple,’ said the ever-practical Hannah Pym. ‘You dart to one side just as I strike him.’
Belinda began to tremble. ‘I am afraid of guns,’ she said.
‘Courage. We must have courage,’ said Hannah firmly, ‘else we shall be kept here and go as mad as that lunatic great-aunt of yours.’
Belinda wrinkled her brow in thought. Then she said slowly, ‘Great-Aunt Harriet is mad, but the footman is not. They are just two strong young men who are being well paid to perform their duties. The footman who is bringing us the bread and water may be armed, but he will not shoot us. He would not dare.’
‘True,’ said Hannah. ‘But I do not think we can risk it. He may just fire without thinking.’
The Marquess of Frenton knocked at Lady Bellamy’s door again. Again the butler opened it, but this time the marquess lifted him up by the elbows and set him aside, then walked past him. ‘Help!’ shouted the butler.
The marquess bounded up the stairs.
At the same time, the footman unlocked the door of Belinda and Hannah’s room and entered, carrying a tray in one hand and a gun in the other.
The room was in darkness and he could only make out the blurred whiteness of a face in the far corner.
‘Now!’ cried Hannah Pym, bringing her umbrella down on his head with all her might. Belinda dived under the bed. There was an almighty crash as the tray and the gun went flying and the footman measured his length on the floor.
The marquess heard that crash but found his way barred by the other footman. He only paused for a moment and then ran up as the footman spread out his arms to bar the way. For a split second, the marquess thought ruefully of his knuckles, already bruised from having punched Lord Frederick, and then he drove his fist full in the footman’s stomach. The footman doubled up. The marquess swerved past him and went up to where the sound of the crash had come from.
His heart was beating hard against his ribs as he saw a dark figure stretched on the floor. Hannah saw his silhouette in the gloom and raised her umbrella again.
‘Belinda!’ called the marquess. The umbrella dropped from Hannah’s suddenly nerveless fingers. ‘Here, my lord,’ she called.
‘Where is Belinda?’
‘Under the bed.’
‘Who is that on the floor?’
‘A footman. I hit him.’
‘Light. We must have light.’ The marquess went into the passage. An oil-lamp was burning in a niche at the far end. He brought it into the room and held it high. Belinda crawled out from under the bed. ‘Get us out of here, Richard,’ she begged. ‘Great-Aunt Harriet is run mad.’
The footman on the floor groaned and stirred. ‘Thank God,’ whispered Hannah. ‘I have not killed him.’
‘Follow me,’ ordered the marquess. He caught Belinda around the waist as she hobbled up to him and kissed her quickly on the mouth.
They followed him down the shadowy stairs past the footman the marquess had struck. He was sitting on the stairs holding his stomach. As they went down to the hall, Hannah said, ‘Wait! I am going to give that Lady Bellamy a piece of my mind.’
‘No!’ said the marquess. ‘That can come later. Outside.’
‘I command you to stay,’ called a voice from the stairs.
They turned and looked up.
Lady Bellamy was standing on the upper landing, holding a candle under her chin so that her white face and glittering black eyes appeared to be suspended in the blackness.
The marquess threw her one horrified look and shoved both Hannah and Belinda outside into the street.
‘We will go to the Pelican,’ he said. ‘Then we will decide what to do.’ He put his arm around Belinda again and helped her along and she leaned against him and felt she had been transported from hell to heaven.
They all had an enormous supper at the Pelican and then the marquess excused himself, saying there were things he had to do.
Belinda and Hannah, who were sharing a room, waited for his return anxiously.
He came back about midnight, with two of the inn servants carrying Belinda’s and Hannah’s luggage.
‘How did you get it?’ asked Belinda, wide-eyed.
‘I returned with two of the parish constables and the watch. Lady Bellamy was all help and charm. She showed them a letter from your parents, Belinda, in which they had urged her to chastise you as she saw fit. Locking young relatives up in rooms with only bread and water is an everyday happening. She showered the constables and the watchman with gold and apologized for having caused them to be brought out so late at night. I asked for your luggage and she ordered a footman, one with a bandaged head, Miss Pym, to bring the trunks.’
