by M C Beaton
“All is forgiven,” he said with a smile. “I should very much like to pay my respects to Miss Blessop.”
“Alas, she is lying down with the headache.”
This was said in a very grim voice so that Lord Eston began to wonder whether Mrs. Blessop was beginning to suspect he had been the highwayman. She did not offer him any refreshment, so after a few more courtesies he took his leave, feeling very disappointed.
He drove slowly along the road, remembering how Miss Tonks had tried to hold him up. What a dreary day it was, with a leaden sky threatening snow and a chill wind whistling through the hedges on either side with a thin keening note.
And then, as he approached the farm gate he had opened the night before, he heard a high voice singing drunkenly, “Tol rol, diddle dol.”
He stopped his carriage and jumped lightly down, tethering his horses to the gatepost. He vaulted over the gate and looked around.
Exactly where he and Miss Tonks had hidden the night before lay Edward Blessop on the frosty ground, a bottle in one hand and singing tunelessly.
“Good day, Mr. Blessop,” said Lord Eston. “No sport?”
“Lost ’em all,” said Edward, waving the bottle. “All gone. All the pretty birds flown.”
“You lost the hunt?”
“Lost, lost, lost. Letitia lost, Cassandra lost. All gone.”
Lord Eston crouched down beside him. “Where’s your mount?”
“All gone,” said Edward, looking at him stupidly. “Threw me in the six acre and trotted back to his stable. Gone, gone, gone.”
“I had better take you home, old man, or you will die with the cold. What will that pretty daughter of yours think if she sees you in this state?”
“All gone. Gone with Letitia. Gone in the night. Flown the coop,” said Edward as Lord Eston helped him to his feet.
“Do you mean your daughter has left with Miss Tonks?” demanded Lord Eston sharply. “No, throw the bottle away, there’s a good chap.”
“Shan’t,” said Edward. He took a swig out of it. “Whassat? Cassandra? Little Cassandra’s gone to that hotel. Ruined forever. Gone.”
“I have my carriage. Now through the gate we go,” said Lord Eston, propelling Edward. “Up you go. But you really should get rid of that bottle before your wife sees you.”
“Don’t care,” said Edward and then giggled and hiccuped.
He was fast asleep when Lord Eston reached Chapping Manor, so he told the anxious servants that their master had taken a toss on the hunting field and should be carried to bed without disturbing Mrs. Blessop.
Then he drove off in a high good humour. So little Cassandra had gone to the Poor Relation Hotel with her aunt!
How dark and cold the country was in winter. The lights of London beckoned—and a warm sweet pair of lips and a snub nose covered in freckles. He began to whistle as he went home to pack.
Chapter Three
Many speak the truth when they say that they despise riches, but they mean the riches possessed by other men.
—CHARLES CALEB COLTON
“I WONDER what that wretched woman is up to?” demanded Lady Fortescue.
“By which you mean Miss Tonks?” Sir Philip looked bored at the very idea of discussing the spinster.
“I wish you would not call her ‘that wretched woman,’” said Mrs. Budley with a rare show of spirit. “How we could ever have expected such a genteel lady to turn to crime is beyond me. The hotel is nearly full. We could, perhaps, be a trifle more vulgarly pressing as to the quick settlement of bills and then we could remain honest.”
Colonel Sandhurst heaved a heavy sigh. “When did the aristocracy ever settle their bills promptly? They delight in not settling them at all.”
The owners of the Poor Relation were in their sitting-room, formerly a schoolroom at the top of the house, which had been restored after the fire. They retired there late in the evening after dinner for conversation and tea served to them by Lady Fortescue’s old servants, Betty and John.
“My apologies, Mrs. Budley,” said Lady Fortescue, “but fear for Miss Tonks has made me a trifle acid about her. Such ladies of timid disposition have a craving to be found out. She will take some insignificant trifle which could not possibly keep us in candles for a week and be caught in the act.”
Sir Philip threw her a malicious look. “So ladies of timid disposition like to get found out, do they? Was that why your nephew, the Duke of Rowcester, caught you with those silver candlesticks?”
“Really, sir!” barked the colonel.
“I was unlucky,” said Lady Fortescue evenly. “How was I to know Rowcester would notice those candlesticks were missing? And while we’re on the subject, you never yet told us what it was you took from him.”
Sir Philip sat very still, like a lizard on a rock, staring at her unblinkingly. That gem-studded barbaric necklace he had stolen from the duke had been replaced by a clever fake. He had no intention of telling the others what it was he had stolen. But somehow he intended to buy it back from the villainous jeweller he had taken it to and to whom he was paying a small sum from time to time to keep the necklace unbroken and unsold.
“It is better you do not know,” he said sanctimoniously. “I am prepared to carry the blame if we are found out.”
Colonel Sandhurst’s blue eyes rested thoughtfully on Sir Philip. “That’s a noble thought,” he said. “And I don’t know why it is that the sound of you being noble makes me uneasy, but it does. We must all decide to be very kind to Miss Tonks. She will no doubt return to us empty-handed, and I for one hope she does.”
Lady Fortescue’s black eyes turned on him. “If you are so concerned for Miss Tonks’s welfare, perhaps you should marry her.”
“Perhaps I should,” retorted the colonel, and he and Lady Fortescue glared at each other.
Mrs. Budley stared at them in distress. They must both surely be in their seventies, a great age, and yet they fenced like lovers, and any time things looked like settling down between them was the time that the equally elderly Sir Philip would decide to flirt with Lady Fortescue, the jealous colonel would turn tetchy, and another row would erupt.
But she said aloud, “I wonder what Miss Tonks is doing now?”
“Probably cringing in some corner of her sister’s drawing-room, mending clothes, and praying for a miracle,” said Sir Philip.
Miss Tonks was, in fact, preparing for bed in a pretty room in an inn on the second night of their journey to London. Cassandra, she knew, was beginning to feel depressed, all the euphoria of escaping from home seeping away.
Using the bed curtains as a screen, Miss Tonks stripped down to her shift and then realized that she had not unpacked her night-gown and let out an exclamation of annoyance.
“What is the matter?” called Cassandra.
“I have forgot to unpack my night-rail.”
“I’ll get it for you.”
“Thank you, my dear.” And then she had a sudden picture of those jewels lying at the bottom of her trunk and cried, “No!” and shot round the bed and stood protectively over her belongings.
“I will get it myself,” she said. “Please go to bed.”
She looked so frightened and shaken, standing there in nothing but her shift, that Cassandra wondered what it was that Aunt Letitia had in the trunk that she did not want her to see. Probably a miniature of an old love or something like that, thought Cassandra.
She climbed into bed. Miss Tonks had covered the foot of it with the large bearskin rug which she had carried with her since they had left Chapping Manor.
Cassandra waited until Miss Tonks had climbed in beside her and then said, “This is a fine rug, but a trifle cumbersome. Do you always take it with you?”
“Oh, always,” said Miss Tonks firmly. “I never travel without it. Carriages can be so draughty. I hope you are not too worried about your parents.”
“I confess I am sorry to have hurt Papa, for he is always kind. But Mama must be shocked into seeing
sense. I have no wish to marry. Tell me more about these people with whom you work. Will they like me? Will I like them? Will they accept me?”
“So many questions,” sighed Miss Tonks, snuggling down under the blankets. “Well, I suppose the leader of our little family must be Lady Fortescue. She is very old indeed but tall and straight with white hair and the most piercing black eyes. Next comes Colonel Sandhurst, equally old. Such a fine figure of a man despite his age! Always impeccably dressed and a true gentleman. He has thick white hair and blue eyes and a kind face. Then,” went on Miss Tonks, her voice sharpening perceptibly, “there is Sir Philip Somerville. He is a nasty wizened creature, quite spiteful, and he often smells. Ladies are not supposed to notice when a gentleman smells, but he does use too much scent.”
“Why do you tolerate him?”
“To be fair, if there are difficulties with the guests in the hotel, he is the one who always copes admirably with the situation. Pay him no heed. He will not trouble you. He reserves his malice for me.”
“Anyone else?”
“Mrs. Budley, who is all that is pretty and charming and a very great friend. I am indeed fortunate. Cassandra, I hope I have not helped you to wreck your life. By this move you have put yourself beyond the pale. No gentleman will want to marry you.”
“I do not care for gentlemen,” said Cassandra. “There are other men in the world.”
Miss Tonks stiffened like a board. “You cannot possibly marry below your rank.”
“Why not?”
“Because people of low rank do not share our finer feelings and sensitivities.”
“Aunt Letitia, I cannot believe that to be true. I have observed that servants have the same feelings as we have.”
But Miss Tonks’s mind could not accept this heresy. Why else had she eked out a miserable penurious existence for all those years instead of finding work? Everyone knew God punished those who moved out of their appointed stations in life. Although she was in trade, her partners were not of the ungenteel.
“Try to go to sleep,” she said instead. “We will be in London tomorrow evening.”
But Cassandra lay awake, listening to the bustle of coaches arriving and coaches departing in the inn yard below. The inn was situated on the main Oxford road and so it resounded with perpetual stir and bustle: doors opening and shutting, bells ringing, voices calling to the waiter from every quarter, while he cried “Coming” to one room while hurrying off to another. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry, either arriving and impatient to be indoors, or rushing to depart homewards. Every now and then a carriage raided up to the main entrance with a rapidity that shook the house. The man who cleaned the boots was running in one direction, the barber with his powder bag in the other, then the barber’s boy with his hot water and razors, followed by the clumping feet of the washerwoman delivering clean laundry. A horn blew sharply to announce the arrival of the post.
Did these servants never sleep, thought Cassandra, and would she herself be expected to be on duty at the hotel day and night? Or were hotels more genteel and was there a period during the night when the guests were expected to sleep?
She thought of the highwayman again and felt his mouth against her own. He had been clean-shaven, and his lips, warm and sweet. But behind the mask, he was probably ugly and brutal-looking. Silly to dream of him. Silly to hope he would arrive again in her life one day and carry her off. But then what would her life be like? Consorting with criminals and their doxies in hedge taverns, fearing all the time that the Runners might arrive? If only life were like life in romances! Ah, then the highwayman would sell the jewels, become a gentleman and go in search of her. Cassandra stifled a giggle. And he would find her working in an hotel and think her far too much beneath him.
A stab of guilt about her parents went through her but she consoled herself with the thought that both knew where to find her. It was not as if she had run away and not told them where she was going. And here she was with her respectable aunt.
Beside her, Miss Tonks, too, lay awake. She tried to imagine what the jewels would fetch. Then she thought it such a pity that poor Cassandra in the first flush of youth should have to put romance behind her. Now if there was a way to bring her out at the Season, that would solve all the problems. Perhaps some man would love her so much that he would not mind the fact that she had run away from her family to live in an hotel. Her thoughts turned to Lord Eston. He had been so very kind and not at all shocked at the idea of holding up Honoria and taking her jewels. But young men were notoriously wild. He probably thought it no end of a joke. No, such as Lord Eston would not do.
The morning was bitter cold and snow was beginning to fall as Cassandra and Miss Tonks climbed into a post-chaise, the Blessop family carriage having been sent back as soon as they had been deposited at the local inn. Miss Tonks settled the bearskin rug over their knees. She would send it back to Lord Eston with a note of thanks. One gloved hand stroked the fur. Of course, she could always sell it. Lord Eston was very rich and probably travelled with a whole carriageful of dead animal skins.
“I hope we reach London before the snow gets too heavy,” said Cassandra as they moved off with that irritating jerk always inflicted on passengers by the drivers of post-chaises. Why did it happen? Did they startle the horses so that they leapt forward in the traces? Cassandra tried to keep her mind on such trivia to stop herself worrying about the immediate future. The other “poor relations” did not know of her imminent arrival. What if they sent her packing?
Snow was twisting and swirling outside, falling between the upraised skeletal arms of the winter trees. Thicker and thicker it fell as the carriage bumped along over ruts and holes in the road. All heat had gone from the bricks at their feet, and despite the heavy bearskin both began to shiver.
“We cannot go on,” said Miss Tonks. “We must find somewhere to stop.”
As if the driver had had the same thought, the postchaise crawled under an arch and into the courtyard of a posting-house. Miss Tonks rubbed the steam from the glass and peered out nervously. “It looks very expensive,” she said, fumbling in her reticule. “I do not know …”
“I have money with me,” said Cassandra.
Stiff with cold, both women alighted. But in the hall of the posting-house, they were met by the owner, Mr. Box, a tall, thin man with an expression of glacial snobbery. He surveyed the shivering pair and informed them that he had no rooms left.
“But you must have,” exclaimed Cassandra. Miss Tonks stood silently, hanging her head. The brave woman who had attempted to hold up a coach had gone, to be replaced by a spinster used to a life of cruel snubs.
“There is quait a comfortable inn half a mile along the road with modest prices,” said Mr. Box.
“Meaning that we cannot afford your prices, you popinjay,” exclaimed Cassandra furiously.
Lord Eston stood in the doorway in his many-caped greatcoat and raised his quizzing-glass. What other female in the whole of England had that blunt manner?
The owner of the posting-house saw the magnificent figure that was Lord Eston and rushed forward, contemptuously brushing past Miss Tonks as he did so. He bowed so low that his nose nearly touched the ground. “At your service, my lord,” he said, recognizing Lord Eston from previous visits that gentleman had made to the posting-house on his road to London. “Charles will take your lordship’s traps to his room.”
“A moment, if you please,” said Lord Eston. “I believe I espy two dear friends.” He walked forward. “Why, it is Miss Tonks and Miss Cassandra! Ladies, I am overjoyed. But why are you standing here like waifs next to your trunks?” He swung round and stared awfully at the owner.
“Fan me ye winds!” exclaimed Mr. Box, striking his forehead in a theatrical gesture. “I had quite forgot. We have a very good bedchamber available and the ladies are most welcome to it.”
“I don’t want it now,” said Cassandra. “Let us go.”
“Stay, Miss Cassandra,” urged Lord Eston. “Onl
y mark how poor Miss Tonks shivers so. You would not get very far in this dreadful weather.”
“Indeed! But this person has assured us that there is another inn close by with modest prices.”
“I would admire your determination for revenge at any other time.” Lord Eston looked down at her with affectionate amusement. “But you must not stand on your dignity in a snowstorm when the only alternative is an inn with bad food and worse beds.”
“Please let us stay here,” murmured Miss Tonks. “We need the protection of a gentleman. Ladies travelling alone are often subject to insult.”
Cassandra looked at Miss Tonks’s miserable face and capitulated.
“Very well,” she said stiffly. “Have our trunks carried upstairs.”
“I would be honoured if you would both join me for dinner.” Lord Eston smiled at Cassandra, who suddenly appeared to find the posting-house carpet every bit as fascinating as she had found the drawing-room carpet of her home when Lord Eston had first spoken to her.
“It will be laid for your lordship in a private parlour at four o’clock,” said Mr. Box.
“Oh, really!” Cassandra’s eyes flashed with contempt. “First there is no room, and now suddenly two bedchambers and a private parlour are available.”
“Cassandra,” said Miss Tonks miserably, “don’t squabble. My lord, we are honoured to accept your invitation.”
They were led upstairs to a charming bedchamber on the first floor overlooking the garden at the back. “Now this is more like it!” Miss Tonks spread her thin hands out in front of the fire. “Such a coincidence, Eston arriving when he did. And you must admit, Cassandra, it is handsome of him to offer to entertain us after you had snubbed him so dreadfully.”
“I amuse him for the moment,” retorted Cassandra. “Such as Lord Eston will do anything to be amused.”
Miss Tonks thought of Lord Eston cheerfully volunteering to hold up the coach and gave a shiver. For one brief moment, when she had noticed how affectionately he had looked at Cassandra, she had begun to hope that, after all, here might be the man for her, a man who would not be put off by the fact she had run away from home to work in an hotel. But she had to admit to the good sense of what Cassandra had said and so never noticed that Cassandra was spreading out a very pretty gown of thin muslin ready to put on, nor did she realize that a young lady who absolutely detested Lord Eston would hardly consider wearing thin muslin on such a day.
