by M C Beaton
‘Are you going to stay in your room?’ she asked.
Hannah shook herself and her eyes flashed green. ‘No, I am not. I have decided that this journey is to be my last adventure. I shall retire to somewhere quiet in the country and no more will I have the opportunity of being entertained by lords and ladies, so I plan to make the most of this. There is the dressing-bell. They keep country hours. Let us put on our finest, Miss Grenier, and amuse ourselves by watching the young ladies in hot pursuit of our marquis!’
They assembled in the drawing-room before dinner, which was to be served at four in the afternoon. There was no sign of Benjamin, and Hannah hoped her mortified footman had not run off and left her. Letty and Clarrie were seated on a sofa on either side of the marquis, curls bobbing, faces animated as they vied for his attention. The marquis raised his eyes and looked at Yvonne, a long, enigmatic look, and she quickly veiled her own eyes, feeling her heart beginning to thud.
The marquis led Letty into dinner, Letty being the elder daughter. Conversation at the table was mostly led by Lord Trant, who talked endlessly about crops and fertilizers. Yvonne felt her head beginning to ache. All at once, she longed to be with her father and away from this disturbing aristocrat with the silvery eyes who made her heart beat so hard, and made her lips ache with the memory of that kiss.
But after dinner, there was a long time ahead, during which Letty played the harp and displayed her portfolio of water-colours and Clarrie looked at her with raging jealousy.
Benjamin had returned, but after one sharp look at him, Hannah had ordered him to bed. She was sure her footman was thoroughly drunk, although he was trying gamely to conceal it.
After a game of Pope Joan, supper was served, and after it, Yvonne, with relief, saw Hannah rising to retire for the night and prettily thanked Lord and Lady Trant for their hospitality. The marquis said he had ordered a carriage from Grantham to collect them at six in the morning. He kissed Hannah’s hand but only gave Yvonne the briefest of bows.
A little of Hannah’s misery was beginning to ease as she thought about the journey to come. York lay ahead and perhaps somewhere in York was Mrs Clarence, and if only she could find Mrs Clarence, Hannah felt that would go a long way towards easing the grief she felt over the loss of her dreams about Sir George.
5
Quit, quit, for shame, this will not move,
This cannot take her.
If of herself she will not love,
Nothing can make her.
The devil take her!
Sir John Suckling
Long shafts of dawn sunlight streamed through the park of Hadley Hall as the marquis, Yvonne, Hannah, and Benjamin left for York. Mist was coiling around the holes of the trees, birds were carolling, the well-sprung coach swayed gently, and each one of the travellers began to feel that life might hold promise after all. It was a rare English summer morning, fresh and perfect, heavy with the scent of flowers and grass. Out on the road, bowling past fields of corn, through the golden veils of rising mist, it was hard for Yvonne to think of darkness and danger. Villainy, like all bad things, belonged to the night.
She voiced this thought aloud and the marquis’s eyes glinted with amusement as he murmured, ‘Not all bad things.’ Yvonne flushed and looked down. Hannah glanced quickly from one to the other, her match-maker’s senses quickening.
‘I meant to ask you, Miss Grenier,’ said Hannah, ‘what pomatum you use on your hair. It is so soft and shiny.’
‘Nothing but soap and water,’ replied Yvonne.
‘You wash your whole head?’
‘Certainly.’
‘But have you not considered the dangers? Dampness permeating to the brain? Neuralgia? Toothache?’
‘There is no danger unless you sit around with wet hair in a draught,’ said Yvonne.
Hannah poked at her sandy hair under her bonnet. She had given up washing her hair, considering it to be a rather common thing to do. Besides, refined ladies were delicate and subject to ills which servants, being of a coarser fibre, escaped. Refined ladies never washed their hair, thought Hannah, forgetting in her anxiety to be a real lady that a great part of the British population neither cleaned nor washed their hair at all.
She usually cleaned her hair by brushing fuller’s earth through it and sponging it with cologne. Perhaps when they stopped next she would wash it and it might have some of the lustre of Yvonne’s. And Sir George might perhaps admire … But Sir George would no longer be part of her life. The sun continued to shine outside. Smoke rose in thin columns from cottage chimneys. But inside Hannah’s soul, a darkness settled down again. To console herself, she thought of Mrs Clarence. Once Yvonne’s problems were solved, she would stay a few days in York and see if she could find that lady.
But as the miles flew past, her spirits began to rise again and her natural optimism to take over. Benjamin gave an exclamation and pulled that newspaper from his pocket and handed it to her, pointing to the obituary. He had hitherto been very quiet, knowing that his correct place was on the backstrap outside but feeling that if he did not remind the marquis of his presence, then he could stay inside in comfort.
Hannah read the obituary notice and sighed with relief. ‘Well, Benjamin, there’s an end to her and I can only wonder that she died in her bed.’
Intrigued, Yvonne pressed her for an explanation and so Hannah settled back and told Yvonne and the marquis about the wicked Lady Carsey, she who had tried to have Benjamin hanged for a crime he had not committed and who had pursued them to Portsmouth and had tried to drown them. How the terrible twins, Lord William and Lady Deborah, had pretended to be Hannah and Benjamin, risen from the dead, and had frightened Lady Carsey out of her wits.
And for the rest of that day, until they arrived at their last overnight stage on the road, Yvonne pressed Hannah for more tales of her adventures while Benjamin beamed with pride on his mistress and silently prayed that Sir George would find some way to make things all right.
Courtesy of the marquis, they all put up for the night at a posting-house which was too grand to accommodate mere stage-coach passengers.
They took their supper in a private parlour. The marquis said they should start early and they would be in York in the morning. ‘And then what?’ he asked, his eyes resting on Yvonne. ‘Do we take you to your father?’
Yvonne shook her head. ‘I am most grateful to you, my lord, for all your help, but I will go to my father alone.’
‘Is that wise? Petit and Ashton will be scouring York for you.’
‘I can take care of myself,’ said Yvonne with a little sigh, and he wanted to say that he would take care of her, but felt he could not. He was not ready to commit himself to anything on the strength of that one kiss.
Hannah visited Yvonne in her bedchamber before they retired for the night. The marquis’s generosity had meant separate bedchambers. Yvonne was sitting in front of the toilet-table, unpinning a fichu from her dress. ‘I came to bid you good night,’ said Hannah, ‘and to beg you to reconsider your decision to go to your father alone. Would you not be better with the protection of Benjamin or Lord Ware?’
Yvonne shook her head. ‘It is better I go on with my own life and not see my lord again. But if you will give me your direction in London, I shall write to you and let you know what happens.’
In vain did Hannah probe delicately to see if the Frenchwoman was at all interested romantically in the marquis. Yvonne would only say, rather primly, that she would always be grateful to Lord Ware, but showed no signs of any warmth at the mention of his name.
Hannah went back to her own room. She decided to wash her hair. Sir George would never see it, but with luck, Mrs Clarence might, if Hannah could find her. She rang the bell and asked for extra cans of hot water and soft soap and then got to work, diligently drying her hair with a towel when she had finished and then rolling it in curl-papers.
Sleep did not come easily that night. She tossed and turned, occasionally dropping off into a fit
ful sleep, tormented by dreams of Sir George.
She woke in the morning, heavy-eyed, took out the curl-papers and brushed out her hair, too tired and depressed to admire the glossy result.
It was a sad party who climbed aboard the carriage. Benjamin took one look at his mistress’s sad face and his conscience smote him afresh; the marquis was silent and withdrawn; and Yvonne looked heavy-eyed, as if she had enjoyed as little sleep as Hannah.
The weather was still fine. The splendid sight of the towers of York Minster rising above the fields did little to allay the gloom in the carriage. I should say something, the marquis was thinking. I should make some arrangement to call on her or I may never see her again. But he turned his mind to the immediate problem of her safety. He put his head out of the window and directed the coachman to take them to a posting-house near the Minster, at the centre of the town.
‘No use in racking up at a coaching-inn,’ he said, sitting down. ‘Petit and Ashton will be watching all arrivals.’
Soon the coach was rumbling over the cobbles of the twisting streets of York, the sun hidden above the overhanging medieval buildings.
The marquis noticed that Yvonne had taken some sort of map out of her reticule and was studying it closely. ‘I repeat my offer,’ he said gently. ‘You should not go alone.’
She folded up the map quickly and put it back in her reticule. ‘I will do very well,’ she said, turning her face away but not before the watching Hannah had seen the glint of tears in her eyes.
The carriage rolled in under the arch of a posting-house called the Pelican and the passengers alighted. It had been a short journey that morning to York, but what with all the miles they had travelled from London, they felt shaky and wobbly like passengers alighting from a ship. It was as if their brief stay at Hadley Hall had never taken place.
Yvonne collected her small serviceable trunk and asked the marquis if she could leave it at the inn until she sent for it. Then she stood irresolute before holding out her hand to Hannah. ‘Goodbye, Miss Pym,’ she said. ‘I shall not forget you.’
She curtsied to the marquis and then turned away. They stood helplessly, watching her slight figure disappear into the darkness of the arch and then out into a shaft of sunlight striking down between the buildings on the street. And then she was gone.
‘What now?’ asked Hannah bleakly.
‘I will follow her,’ said the marquis. ‘Order rooms in my name, Miss Pym, and keep Miss Grenier’s luggage with your own.’ He moved off quickly.
He stood outside in the street, looking to right and left, and was just in time to see Yvonne turning down a narrow street some distance away, holding that map in her hand. He ran lightly after her. Once she turned and looked back and he darted quickly into a doorway, and then, when she had continued her journey, followed her again.
A thin veil of cloud was beginning to cover the sun and he felt a dampness against his cheek that told him that rain was coming. On Yvonne walked, and on the marquis followed. She was approaching the outskirts of the town. People and houses were becoming fewer and he hoped she would not look back again.
And then she stopped. He drew back into the shadow of a small church. She was looking up at a shop and consulting her map. She went into the shop. The marquis waited a little. Yvonne came out of the shop and disappeared into a doorway next door to it.
The marquis left the church porch and hurried up to the building. At street level was a greengrocer’s. Beside the shop was a doorway, obviously leading to flats above the shop. He tentatively pushed open the door in time to hear a scream of dismay. He darted up the stairs.
Yvonne was standing at the open door of a flat on the first floor, her hands to her mouth, staring in. He joined her.
He found himself looking into a living-room-cum-bedroom which had been well and truly ransacked. Papers were strewn everywhere, books had been tumbled from shelves, drawers ripped open, and the gutted mattress lay crazily, half off the bed, stuffing spilling out on the floor.
‘Your father?’ asked the marquis.
She gave a scream and jumped and then her fear died as she saw who it was.
‘Gone,’ she said. ‘They must have found him.’
He stepped past her into the room and stood looking at the debris.
‘Whoever did this was looking for something,’ he said. ‘They may not have got Monsieur Grenier. Your father may have escaped them. Wait here. I’ll ask that greengrocer.’
He went downstairs and out into the street again and then into the fruit-and-vegetable-smelling darkness of the greengrocer’s. The greengrocer, who appeared to be covered in as much earth as his potatoes, came shuffling forward. ‘What can I do for your honour?’ he said, his little eyes taking in the richness of the marquis’s clothes.
‘The gentleman who lived in the room above the shop?’ demanded the marquis.
‘The Frenchie? Dunno. Ain’t he above, Guv’ner?’
‘No, he is not, and his room has been ransacked. Did you see anyone?’
‘Not a soul, nor heard nothing either. I don’t live over the shop. Got a place a bit away. Mr Grenny that would be. Quiet gennelman, sir. No trouble. Pays reg’lar. Best get the parish constable.’
The marquis went back to Yvonne, who was automatically trying to straighten things. ‘They must have taken him,’ she said desperately as soon as she saw the marquis. ‘His clothes are here.’
‘His razor?’ asked the marquis. ‘His wallet? Personal papers?’
Yvonne searched thoroughly and then said with a rising note of hope in her voice, ‘His razor is gone and his toilet-case. Also, a miniature of Mama.’ Her face fell. ‘But this could be the burglary, non?’
‘Burglars would not have left clothes behind, nor would they have rifled his papers. If your father escaped Petit, then why were they so interested in his papers?’
‘Perhaps they were looking for his escape routes from France,’ said Yvonne.
‘Perhaps.’ The marquis turned as the parish constable entered the room. He was a large bull-necked man with an expression of bovine stupidity. Yvonne was suddenly glad the marquis was with her. The fact that she and her missing father were both French made the constable suspicious from the outset. But to Yvonne’s surprise, the marquis reported it as a burglary and possible assault. He made no mention of either Monsieur Petit or Mr Ashton. Yvonne let him do all the talking while the policeman promised to report the matter to the authorities but managed to convey he intended to do nothing about it. Unlike France, Britain did not have a regular police force. Locals took turns at being parish constable, and most did as little as possible to enforce law and order during their spell of duty.
When they were alone again, Yvonne demanded, ‘Why did you not tell them of Petit?’
‘To start talking about French spies to that thickhead would not get us anywhere, and Petit, if found by the authorities, might blacken your father’s name. We must search for your father ourselves … if he is still at liberty. I shall search for Petit. If I find him, and he has not your father with him, then that means your father did escape.’
She looked at him helplessly. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
He put his arms around her and drew her close. For a moment, she leaned against him and he could hear the beating of her heart. ‘I will take care of you,’ he said huskily.
She pulled free, her face flaming. ‘I am quite well able to take care of myself,’ she said tearfully, ‘without stooping to become some English aristocrat’s kept creature!’
He had meant it as a proposal of marriage, he realized in a dazed way, but she was looking at him with such disgust mixed with fury that he found his temper rising. Be damned to her!
‘I merely meant that I will fund your keep in York if you have not sufficient money,’ he said icily. ‘Then, when your father is found, he may repay me if he wishes.’
‘Oh, I am sorry,’ she said weakly. ‘Of course, I am grateful to you. You see,’ she said timidly, looking up i
nto his bleak eyes, ‘in the households where I work I am in the way of being propositioned.’
This had the effect of making him angrier than ever as a sharp stab of jealousy shot through him. But he forced himself to say quietly, ‘I will now escort you back to the inn. The policeman knows where to find us if he wants us. You will feel better once you have seen Miss Pym again. Was the door of the room standing open?’
‘No, I got the key from the greengrocer’s.’ She held it out. He took it and locked the door securely.
When he returned the key to the greengrocer after telling Yvonne to wait for him outside the shop, he asked the man, ‘Is this a spare key? Would Mr Grenier have the other?’
‘No, your honour, the key’s right there with t’others on a nail on the wall by the door.’
‘Not very safe, is it?’ commented the marquis. ‘Anyone could help themselves.’
‘I’m here in the shop from six in the morning till late. Mr Grenny, he says to leave the key there ’cos it’s a big one to carry around and the other rooms are empty.’
‘Did anyone ask about the keys? Any visitors?’
The greengrocer wrinkled his earth-smeared brow. ‘Well, blessed if I ain’t forgotten. It was a young chap, dressed very grand, come in one evening late and starts chatting and I was getting angry ’cos he wasn’t buying nothing. Kept poking about with his cane. He points to the keys and says, “What’s them for?” Told him for the rooms above and which ones were for what door but that there ain’t no one up there but a foreign gennelman. He goes away but then I sees him talking to an older man outside. Next thing, the older man comes in with the younger and the older one starts talking about the weather and I don’t know what. Next thing, Mrs Battersby down the road comes in for leeks and after I’d served her, the fine gents is gone. Demme if they didn’t come back as I was putting up the shutters and the old one says as how he would like oranges. So I went to serve him, like.’
