by M C Beaton
“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 open-handed 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 deil wi’ ye,” screamed the overtired and overwrought 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 *** servants,” it was saying. “They said the *** wench was in the *** 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 from 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.
Chapter
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’ad-dress 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 Rainbird 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.”
Upstairs, Mr. Sinclair sadly pulled his waistcoat out of the strong box where he had stuffed it before putting his guineas on top to make it look like a miser’s hoard. He only hoped Rainbird would gossip to the neighbouring servants.
It would be quite dreadful if he did not!
But it was Joseph who started the gossip, Joseph who was so bitter and put down by that Luke next door who strutted up and down in his new pink livery with the gold lace.
Luke noticed with satisfaction Joseph’s envious glare and said, “Looking’s all you’re going to get, my fine buck. Your master couldn’t even afford one of my shoulder knots.”
“My master,” said Joseph passionately, “could buy and sell yours.”
“Gam!”
“ ’S the truth. He has a box with thousands and thousands of golden guineas. ’e’s a miser, that’s what ’e is.”
To Joseph’s gratification, Luke’s eyes grew rounder and rounder. “Mr. Blenkinsop,” called Luke to his own butler who was just emerging from Number 65. “Come here, Mr. Blenkinsop, please sir. You never did in all your born.”
Mr. Blenkinsop made his stately approach and inclined his head gravely to hear the tale of misers and guineas.
“Terrible, terrible,” he said ponderously. “Be so good, Joseph, as to step indoors and ask Mr. Rainbird if he would care to join me at The Running Footman for a tankard.”
And so Rainbird joined Mr. Blenkinsop, and, warmed by the fascinated interest of an appreciative audience in The Running Footman, which was the upper servants’ pub, he told the tale of the miser of Mayfair. So the gossip, like a stone dropped in a pond, spread out in ripp
les through the ranks of the servants from Grosvenor Square to St. James’s Square, and the servants talked to their masters and mistresses, who talked to each other.
The next day was a day to remember. Mr. Sinclair announced his intention of taking his “daughter” for a walk in Hyde Park at the fashionable hour.
At first the cynical servants, who had been told to expect Mr. Sinclair and his ward, were inclined to think that Fiona might be his chère-amie. But her vague air of innocence combined with Mr. Sinclair’s gruff treatment of her soon put that scandalous idea to rest.
Mr. Sinclair waited in the front parlour for Fiona, who had told him that she had completed her first ensemble and planned to wear it. He hoped she would not look like a country dowd. He wished now he had pressed her to take the advice of a fashionable couturier. But he had been so disappointed at their previous lack of success that he had jumped at the idea of saving money. Also, dim-witted though she was, Fiona at least appeared to be skilled in all the arts of housewifery. Mr. Sinclair had grown up in Edinburgh in the town’s heyday when it was called the Athens of the North and ladies were judged on their knowledge of metaphysics rather than their gowns. He believed that dressmaking and cooking came naturally to even the most feeble-minded.
Nonetheless, he looked at her in awe when she entered. She was wearing a pink crêpe dress, high-waisted and puff-sleeved and cut low enough at the neck to show she had an excellent bosom. A Circassian straw hat with the brim pinned up at one side to show her glossy black curls and slouched down at the other gave her a dashing and sophisticated appearance. She wore long gloves of a deeper rose pink, and a bunch of pink roses ornamented the crown of her hat.
“You dasher,“ breathed Mr. Sinclair.
“Let us hope I do not scare the birds from the trees,” said Fiona primly.
They entered the park, arm in arm, at the fashionable hour.
