A Sister's Secret

by Mary Jane Staples

  ‘All the same, I vow you devilish yourself to speak so of my bodice,’ breathed Annabelle, ‘for it surely was dreadfully disconcerting. And the duke was quite gentlemanly, offering to drive us all home in his coach. I said how kind that was, but that you were taking Caroline and me in her carriage. He laughed and asked if you knew how to handle a pair.’

  Captain Burnside laughed himself at that.

  As the evening progressed, Caroline and Annabelle danced with various gentlemen to whom they were promised for certain promenades. In between, Caroline alternated with Robert and Mr Wingrove, while Annabelle was attended exclusively by Captain Burnside, who was playing his role to perfection. Annabelle declared to her sister that he was a delicious man.

  ‘Your opinion is shared by Lady Chesterfield’s precocious niece,’ said Caroline, ‘but really, it is all of flamboyant, attaching himself excessively to you and paying not a single compliment to Cecilia, who has been sociable enough to join us.’

  ‘Oh my, you’re vexed,’ said Annabelle. ‘There, I will tell him he simply must partner Cecilia, that she is dying to stand up with him.’

  ‘No, that is not the thing at all,’ said Caroline, but Annabelle insisted on claiming the captain’s receptive ear, with the result that he partnered Cecilia in a most popular dance, a minuet. Conversing with him during a slow movement, she asked him what he was doing in London, away from his regiment, and was the fact that he was staying with Caroline indicative of a romantic attachment?

  ‘I’ve extended leave,’ said the captain airily, ‘and couldn’t for the life of me resist Caroline’s offer of hospitality. If she ain’t the most gracious and beautiful woman in London, then who is? Which ain’t to say you don’t make a magnificent picture yourself, dear lady, for so you do.’

  Cecilia, her fulsome figure sheathed in crimson silk, accepted the compliment with the smile of a woman who knew it to be no more than the truth, for was not her figure a pleasure to the most majestic man in the land, Cumberland himself?

  Gracefully, she went through the most complicated steps of the minuet with Captain Burnside before saying, ‘In your admiration of Clarence’s widow, are you confiding to me that you have hopes concerning her?’

  ‘Assure you,’ he said, ‘my only hopes are that she won’t turn me out before I’ve found a place of my own, for I’m living like a king. And ain’t it true that it’s Mr Wingrove who has promising expectations?’

  Dear me, thought Cecilia, here is the most evasive gentleman I have ever encountered, for he sidesteps every question. I have gained nothing from either him or Caroline.

  ‘Ah, is it Annabelle you favour, then?’ she smiled.

  ‘A sweet girl,’ said the captain, ‘but I ain’t set on trying to outrival gentlemen of higher estate.’

  Cecilia thought he had been trying to do that most of the evening, but she refrained from saying so.

  The minuet over, scores of jewelled fans came into play as ladies cooled their flushed faces, giving the impression they had attracted the attentions of a multitude of colourful butterflies. Everyone awaited the finale, a prolonged cotillion. Mr Wingrove began to extol the merits of such a finale. Caroline came to her feet and drifted aside, standing to fan herself and to observe Cumberland saying goodnight to his hosts, Lord and Lady Chesterfield. She was at least grateful that he had not pressed his unwelcome self on her tonight. Indeed, he had given the impression that his interest had abruptly ended. It was typical of him to leave before the finale. It enabled him to avoid being caught up in the melee as everyone left at the same time. A melee to Cumberland was a mob, a rabble.

  Mr Wingrove was at her elbow. She felt he meant, quite naturally, to establish his claim for the last cotillion. If she had gone aside in order to avoid this, she must reproach herself for such unkindness. He began a preamble to what was obviously going to be the rhetorical question of a privileged escort, then turned his head as Annabelle called to him. She smiled and beckoned. He excused himself to Caroline, and she watched him rejoin her sister. Captain Burnside seemed to have disappeared.

  ‘Your Ladyship?’ murmured the captain from her blind side. She jumped.

  ‘You startled me,’ she said.

  ‘So sorry.’ The captain looked suitably apologetic. ‘But Cumberland’s departed, d’you see, and without carrying off Annabelle. She being safe, therefore, I thought … ah, I’m not sure, considering circumstances, that I ain’t being importunate.’

  ‘If you will tell me what you are about, sir, I will give you my opinion.’

  ‘Well, marm—’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said, and shook her fan at him.

  ‘Well, Lady Caroline, concerning the final promenade, I fancy Mr Wingrove is already fretting to get back to you, and I ain’t sure how long Annabelle can detain him.’

  Caroline stared at him. He made an observation of her hair.

  ‘Captain Burnside, Annabelle is detaining Mr Wingrove at your request?’

  ‘I ain’t going to deny it, for I can’t. Now, though we’ve come to this friendly term in our relationship, I’d not want to take the privileges of friendship for granted, you understand.’

  ‘Favour me, please, by coming to the point,’ said Caroline, noting that Mr Wingrove had risen from Annabelle’s side.

  ‘I ain’t sure, of course, whether or not Mr Wingrove hasn’t already—’

  ‘Oh, fiddle-de-dee,’ she breathed in open impatience, ‘I am astonished you cannot speak up.’

  ‘Caroline?’ Mr Wingrove was back. ‘I thought the cotillion should not be missed, not by any of us.’

  ‘No, it should not and must not,’ said Caroline, ‘for it will cap a most magnificent ball. We must all participate. Captain Burnside has offered me his arm, and Robert, of course, will stand up with Cecilia. So if you have engaged to advance with Annabelle, I shan’t mind in the least. You have been so agreeable all evening.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Mr Wingrove, a little taken aback. But gentlemanly and correct to the last, he made no quibble and attached himself for the finale to Annabelle, who had gurgled with delight when Captain Burnside confided to her that he would like to outdo Caroline’s faultless and estimable gentleman friend.

  ‘Oh, but poor Mr Wingrove,’ she had said, ‘he is so very agreeable – ah, isn’t he?’

  ‘Faith, he is, sweet Annabelle, and my fondest hope is that he’ll enjoy a very agreeable future.’

  The cotillion marking the end of the ball was danced with great elan, becoming a spectacle of perpetual motion, wherein a multitude of whirling colours produced ever-changing patterns. Young ladies were in exaltation, for only at such a ball and in such a dance could they be so free-limbed and extrovert without being reproved for a loss of ladylike gentility and deportment. Led by the gentlemen, they pirouetted as if delight attended on their limbs. Gowns and petticoats swirled like foamy clouds dancing amid rainbows, and delicate, gauzy pantaloons flirted around silken-clad legs. If ladies’ legs were destined to disappear during the Victorian era, no man was unaware of their existence when George III’s son was Prince of Wales.

  ‘Heavens,’ murmured Captain Burnside.

  Lady Caroline was superbly the vision. Enraptured again, she had capitulated to the infectious nature of the dance. The rhythm, the music and the gaiety of laughing voices, all induced headiness. Again, the pleasure was of a kind she had not known since the devastating disillusionment had killed her zest for life. There was no degenerate husband to shame her. There was only Captain Burnside with his firm handclasp and his whimsical awareness of her limbs showing amid swirling clouds of froth. Oh, it was sickening that a man who might have been a true gentleman should own such disreputable traits.

  Her breath escaped blissfully, and there was the brilliance of life in her eyes and delight on her face. It was a prolonged finale, and when the end eventually arrived a concerted sigh rose from all the ladies, followed immediately by tremendous applause throughout the ballroom. The orchestra rose and bowed. Car
oline drew deep breaths. Captain Burnside smiled.

  ‘After that,’ he said, ‘perhaps I should apologize to Mr Wingrove for depriving him of so much pleasure. It was, I fancy, his entitlement.’

  ‘No, he will simply accept he was a laggard,’ said Caroline, ‘and I did not mind standing up with you.’ Slightly teasing, such was her animation, she added, ‘One could not say you are less accomplished than Mr Wingrove, even if you do lack an academy diploma.’

  ‘What one can say, Your Gifted Ladyship, is that you’ve few equals in the cotillion. If it’s agreeable to you, I’ll now bring round the carriage, while you and Annabelle prepare yourselves for departure.’

  ‘Thank you, Captain Burnside,’ said Caroline.

  Lord and Lady Chesterfield said goodbye to every guest at the open front doors. A positive tangle of coaches and carriages filled the street, grooms at the reins, but when Caroline and Annabelle emerged from the handsome house, their carriage, an elegant barouche, was immediately outside, Captain Burnside up on the box, Sammy beside him. Sammy jumped down to assist the ladies into their seats, gossamer shawls around their shoulders.

  The barouche moved off, Captain Burnside at the reins. It was past three in the morning, and most of London was sleeping.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Captain Burnside drove at a smart trot through the quiet streets, the following traffic from the ball dispersing at intervals. The darkness of the night was touched by the crescent moon’s limited light. Caroline and Annabelle exchanged dreamy comments about the ball and its magnificence, and about guests who had made impressions on them. Annabelle vowed she would beseech their parents to accustom themselves to her preference for England. Then, to please her sister, she said Mr Wingrove’s sociability had been all of civilized. Such a pleasant and personable gentleman could not fail to be a far better husband than Lord Clarence.

  ‘I will surely hope, sister, that he will offer for you, since you are affectionately attached to him. Charles and I agreed he has a degree of culture that would make the two of you happily compatible.’

  Caroline sat up. ‘How dare he!’

  ‘Caroline?’ Annabelle was at her most demure.

  ‘I don’t require Captain Burnside to advise me on marital compatibility,’ said Caroline. ‘What does he know of such things? Or you?’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Annabelle.

  ‘As for Mr Wingrove, it is ridiculous to suppose I see him as a husband. I do not. He is merely an agreeable friend.’

  ‘Well, dearest sister, Charles and I both declared there is no gentleman more agreeable. Charles regretted that he himself did not own such pleasant characteristics, though I think he shouldn’t be as modest as that.’

  ‘Modest?’ Caroline was finely sceptical. ‘Modest? Captain Burnside?’

  ‘He is adorable, don’t you think so?’ murmured Annabelle.

  ‘Oh, fiddle-de-dee,’ said Caroline. She sat up again. ‘Annabelle, don’t you dare fall in love with him.’

  ‘Goodness me, I—’

  ‘He is penniless except for his officer’s pay.’

  ‘Mercy, poor Charles,’ said Annabelle. ‘Oh, I do confess that wouldn’t suit me at all. But how sweet and kind you surely are, putting him up until he finds an apartment he can afford.’

  The carriage was slowing. They were only a hundred yards from home. Out from a side street, four horsemen had emerged, spurring to block Captain Burnside. They were dark figures, black-cloaked and black-masked. The handsome thoroughfare was quiet, and there was no sight or sound of any night watch. Captain Burnside glimpsed long-barrelled pistols.

  Sammy glimpsed them too. ‘Blind me, it’s flash nightingales, guv’nor,’ he gasped, ‘highway coves in the middle of London, and the ladies wearing a mint of sparklers.’

  The masked horsemen came at them, pistols levelled. One man issued an order: ‘Pull up. Keep quiet. Get down.’

  Captain Burnside had slowed, but had no intention of pulling up, not now.

  He heard another man fling hissing words: ‘Damnation, there’s two on the box!’

  The captain, convinced it would be fatal to stop, whipped up the pair. Well trained, and owning a great deal of mettle when a gallop was called for, the coach horses sprang forward and raced away. The barouche shuddered and jerked at the sudden, forceful pull, and inside Annabelle and Caroline floundered and gasped protests. The vehicle swept the horsemen aside as Captain Burnside burst through. A flurry of oaths and curses desecrated the warm summer night. The captain, surmising those pistols would not be fired, gave the horses their heads and they ran with the vigour and power of their kind, exulting in the exercise. They reached a surging gallop in quick time. The four horsemen, recovering, elected for pursuit.

  ‘Set up a hullabaloo, Sammy,’ said Captain Burnside crisply.

  ‘That I will, sir,’ said Sammy, and began to shout and bellow.

  The captain made for the wide Strand, off which lay Bow Street and the headquarters of the Runners. The barouche travelled at alarming speed, and Caroline and Annabelle hung on to the handstraps for dear life.

  ‘What is happening?’ gasped Annabelle.

  Caroline pulled down the window and shouted, ‘Captain Burnside! What are you about? Halt this carriage, do you hear?’

  ‘Hang on, Your Ladyship!’ called the captain.

  Caroline heard Sammy bellowing. ‘Thieves! Flash coves! Highway nobblers!’

  The horsemen were up with them. Caroline caught sight of the shadowy figure of one galloping alongside the box before he reached out and dug the barrel of his pistol in Captain Burnside’s ribs. The pair galloped on, their hoofbeats a drumming echo on the sanded road. The captain’s whip whistled and cracked, and the thong bit at the masked face of his assailant. He reeled in his saddle and dropped back.

  ‘Thieves!’ shouted Sammy. ‘Bow Street, we’re a’coming! Wake up, you Runners!’

  The cursing horsemen pulled up. They turned and rode away, fast. Captain Burnside brought the barouche to a halt. He got down, leaving Sammy with the reins, and Sammy gentled the excited pair.

  ‘Lady Caroline?’ Captain Burnside appeared at the open window.

  ‘Sir,’ said Caroline, breathless but valiant, ‘why has it been necessary to drive like a madman and to wake up the whole of London?’

  Faces and lighted candles at the windows of houses offered proof that her question, allowing for exaggeration, was quite justified.

  ‘We suffered a small alarm, no more,’ said the captain.

  ‘Small? Small?’ Annabelle found her voice. ‘I thought the carriage would overturn and break our bones. Charles, I’m in need of smelling salts for the first time in my life.’

  ‘So sorry, sweet girl,’ murmured the captain, and Caroline compressed her lips at the endearment.

  ‘Explain,’ she demanded.

  ‘We encountered a footpad or two. They’re now dispersed. Sammy has a capital pair of lungs. Are you badly shaken up?’

  ‘Captain Burnside,’ said Caroline, ‘I have been shaken up, I have been shaken about, and I have been shaken from head to foot. Sir, did you say footpads?’

  ‘Much to my regret.’ The captain shook his head in sorrow. ‘What is London coming to?’

  ‘They were riding horses, were they not?’ asked Caroline.

  ‘Damn me, so they were,’ said the captain, as if that fact had only just occurred to him. ‘There’s a devilish development for you, footpads on horseback in the Strand. But all is well now, Lady Caroline, and I’ll drive you home at a pace you’ll find gentle and soothing.’

  He was being evasive, but as people in night attire were peering from open doors, Caroline let it go for the moment.

  ‘Yes, please take us home,’ she said.

  A thickset man in a neckerchief and bulky coat, and carrying a stout stick, appeared at Captain Burnside’s elbow. ‘What’s to do, eh, what’s to do?’ he asked.

  ‘Ah, you’re a Bow Street officer?’ enquired Captain Burnside.
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br />   ‘That I am, day and night I am, and werry conscientious, sir. So hearing what I did hear, I says to myself, hello and what’s a-goin’ on here? And what is a-goin’ on here?’

  ‘We’re on our way home from Lady Chesterfield’s ball,’ said the captain. ‘This is Lady Clarence Percival. Our pair suffered a fright, but they’ve quietened down now.’

  ‘Ah, hosses is nervous critturs,’ said the Bow Street Runner, ‘and werry like to shy at the flutter of a pigeon’s ving.’ Through the window, he regarded Caroline in the dim interior of the coach. It was not so dark that he was not at once aware of magnificence. ‘Vell, them critturs of yours be standin’ quiet enough now, as this gentleman and officer has pointed out, m’lady. So seeing there’s no trouble requiring of my assistance, I’ll see you safe on your way, then noses and fingers von’t have anything to point at and can go back indoors.’

  ‘Thank you, Officer,’ said Caroline. ‘Goodnight.’

  Captain Burnside returned to the box, took the reins from Sammy and set the pair in motion. He chose an alternative route back to the house. Sammy kept alert watch, but there were no signs of the aggressive highwaymen. The captain doubted they were highwaymen. Being the professional he was, he felt the intended hold-up was of a highly suspect kind. No gentlemen of the road would venture into a salubrious quarter of London flourishing their pistols between three and four in the morning. They might be found haggling with greasy fences in the dim taverns of the riverside stewpots, but they did not carry on their trade in the residential areas inhabited by the quality. Their pickings came from travellers on the post-chaise highways.

  The captain could only surmise that the four masked men had been engaged on a venture of a different kind. Something clicked in his active mind. Cumberland. Now why had Britain’s dark prince offered to drive Lady Caroline and her party home? He would know she would be using her own carriage. Annabelle had confirmed this, and had also told Cumberland that he, Captain Burnside, would be driving. She had not mentioned Sammy would be in attendance. Something else clicked, something relating to an involuntary hiss of words.