by M C Beaton
‘So they probably took the key, ransacked the room, and put it back.’
‘Why would I expect such a thing to happen?’ said the greengrocer defensively. ‘Folks around here is law-abiding. I shouldn’t ha’ let to a foreigner in the first place.’
‘It was not the foreigner’s fault, was it? Here, I will leave you a note for Mr Grenier. Should he return, he will know where to find me. Until then, keep that key somewhere safe, and should those two gentlemen come back, let me know.’ The marquis took out one of his cards and scribbled the name of the Pelican on the back of it. Then he produced a notepad and wrote a short note to Monsieur Grenier, telling him that his daughter was at the inn.
He went out to join Yvonne. ‘Things are looking better,’ he said as they walked along the road. He told her of the visit to the greengrocer’s of what had obviously been Ashton and Petit. ‘Had your father been there, there would have been some sort of a struggle,’ he said. ‘The greengrocer would have heard something. There is no back way out of that building that I can see.’
A thin soft rain was falling. ‘No hacks in this district,’ he said, looking about. ‘Your pretty bonnet will be ruined.’
‘I am beyond worrying about clothes,’ sighed Yvonne as he hurried her along.
They walked in silence back the way they had come.
Hannah and Benjamin were in the coffee-room and both looked startled to see Yvonne. Quickly the marquis explained what had happened.
Benjamin’s eyes lit up. Here was a way to make himself useful. ‘I’ll start right away, my lord,’ he said eagerly. ‘They’re bound to be at some inn in the city.’
‘See what you can do,’ said the marquis. ‘I think we should dine, Miss Pym – that is, if you have not already eaten?’
Hannah shook her head.
Yvonne leaned back in a chair, her eyes closed as the marquis ordered food to be served to them in a private parlour, her mind dimly registering again that the marquis did not seem to be impoverished in the slightest.
Benjamin went straight to the Bull, hoping to find Monsieur Petit and his friend Ashton, but not only were they not there but never had been. He trudged on around several more coaching-inns without success until it occurred to him that such as Petit, who could afford to hire a post-chaise from Grantham, might be found at a posting-house.
But at posting-house after posting-house he met the same reply. No one called Smith answering to the description of Petit and no one called Ashton either.
The earlier drizzle had changed to a steady downpour and Benjamin was weary and wet when he turned in at the welcoming door of a tavern on the outskirts of the town. He had already decided he did not like York. So many old buildings. So many wood-and-wattle houses. London was much more modern, thought Benjamin, forgetting that the Great Fire had done much to get rid of a vast number of antique buildings in the capital.
After taking off his wet coat and hanging it up to dry and shaking the raindrops from his beaver hat, Benjamin approached the cubby-hole of a bar and asked the pretty girl behind it to fetch him a tankard of shrub. While she was getting it, he turned around and surveyed the low-raftered, smoky room. A fire had just been lit in the grate, and fat raindrops dropped clear down the old chimney and hissed on the flames. Two men were seated by the fire, conversing in low voices. Benjamin turned back and was just about to pass the time in a little gentle dalliance with the serving maid when he distinctly heard one of the men at the fire curse in French. He recognized it as French, for he had heard Monsieur Petit use the same word when the marquis had chided him on his bad language. So he picked up his tankard and ambled over to the fireplace and said cheerfully, ‘Any room for me? The fine weather has broken and I confess to being chilled.’
The two men were seated at a small table in front of the fire. They reluctantly made way for him, but glancing pointedly at all the other empty seats in the room.
They continued to converse in low voices, but in English.
‘Really nasty weather,’ volunteered Benjamin cheerfully, wondering if he had imagined that French oath.
‘Yes, very,’ agreed one of the men, and Benjamin brightened at the sound of the heavily accented English.
‘Are you French?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ came the reluctant reply.
‘Must introduce myself. Benjamin Chubb, footman.’ Benjamin held out his hand. First one and then the other shook it.
‘Our names are Chevenix and Deville,’ said Monsieur Deville.
‘Honoured. I see your glasses are empty. What’ll it be, gentlemen?’
‘Well …’ The two Frenchmen looked gratified, not being used to friendly treatment from Englishmen; despite the fact that there were thousands of French emigrés now resident in England, Messieurs Deville and Chevenix were used to being looked on with surly suspicion.
‘Yes, of course you will,’ said Benjamin, getting to his feet. ‘What you having, then?’
‘Claret, if you please.’
Benjamin called over to the serving girl, who brought a jug of claret and three glasses.
‘Now,’ said Benjamin, pouring wine for them, but deciding his own tankard of shrub was more to his taste, ‘confusion to Napoleon.’ The Frenchmen gravely drank the toast.
‘In London,’ said Benjamin, ‘lot of you people live in the one quarter. I mean like in Cavendish Square and over in Sommers Town. Would there be a sort of French quarter in York?’
‘Not really a quarter,’ said Monsieur Deville. ‘We all live in one narrow street, not a very romantic name, Bucket Lane.’
‘You wouldn’t happen to have seen a tall Frenchman recently – white hair, pale eyes, yellar teeth, goes by the name of Monsieur Petit?’
Monsieur Deville shook his head. ‘A very common name. What does he do?’
Benjamin wrinkled his brow, thinking of what Yvonne had said. ‘Works in Paris, some sort o’ judge on a tribunal.’
Both men shot to their feet. Monsieur Chevenix was trembling. ‘Jacques Petit … here,’ he whispered.
‘Sit down, sit down,’ begged Benjamin. ‘I ain’t no friend o’ his. Fact is, he’s after someone my mistress wants to help. Sit down. I’ll tell you.’
Both men sat down gingerly, looking at Benjamin warily. He told them as much as he knew – how Yvonne had gone in search of her father, only to find him gone and his room rifled.
‘So you see,’ ended Benjamin urgently, ‘maybe this Petit has got hold of Grenier. So I’ve got to find him.’
‘We both know Claude Grenier,’ said Monsieur Deville after a long silence. ‘He left our street a couple of months ago. He did say he was expecting his daughter, but that someone had got a message to him saying his life might be in danger, so he decided to move away from us other French people where he might feel safer. I am afraid that is all we know. But Monsieur Petit cannot openly come among us, for we would kill him. Where he can be, I do not know.’
Benjamin finished his tankard of shrub, thanked them and left. Outside, the rain had stopped falling and a gusty wind was blowing shreds of paper and straw up to the overhanging eaves of the old houses.
He stood under the flickering light of a parish lamp and took a cheroot out from a case in his pocket and after much fumbling with a tinder-box managed to light it. He did not dare smoke in front of Hannah, who was even more stern in her admonitions against smoking than King James the First had been.
Where, oh where could he find Ashton and Petit? He did not want to return to Hannah with so little news. Ashton! He had forgotten that Ashton might have been the one to choose a place to stay. And what would a fop like Ashton do, who scrounged and primped and preened? Why, he would try to get them accepted as house guests in some comfortable household. But which one and where?
The livery stables, he thought suddenly. They might have hired some sort of carriage or gig. His quarry would not continue to use a post-chaise for town visits. He walked back towards the centre of town and asked where he might find the largest l
ivery stable and was directed to a mews near the Minster. Big livery stables, as Benjamin knew, hardly ever closed down for the night, York being a main centre on the road down from Scotland. An ostler told him he was lucky. Mr Peartree, who owned the stables, was working late in his office.
Mr Peartree was bent over his ledgers, a small wizened man who smelled strongly of horse. He nonetheless considered himself a cut above speaking to servants and only treated Benjamin civilly because Benjamin was no ordinary servant but a liveried footman and might have a powerful master.
Benjamin knew that the name of Hannah Pym would carry little weight and claimed the Marquis of Ware as his master. He wondered, said Benjamin, whether two gentlemen had called a short time ago to hire some sort of carriage. He gave a rapid and unflattering description of both Ashton and Petit.
He waited anxiously while Mr Peartree explored his wig meditatively with his quill-pen. Then Mr Peartree said, ‘I bring ’em to mind now. Old feller didn’t say much but the young one was all airs and graces and wanting a curricle at gig prices. What was it he said? We are going to Lord Wetherby’s at Bradfield Park.’ I says I didn’t care where they was going, I wasn’t letting my best curricle and horses out at cheap rates. So he paid up and the curricle came back all right, for they took one of my coachmen. Had he been going to drive it himself, I wouldn’t have let it go, not for any money, for he had a shifty look. When coachee told me he had dropped them at Bradfield Park, I confess I was surprised, them not looking like the type Lord Wetherby would entertain.’
Benjamin thanked him and strode back towards the Pelican. He felt he had been out all night, but the Minster clock boomed out ten strokes.
He found Hannah and Yvonne sitting in the private parlour, sewing. Hannah was neatly darning a hole in a stocking heel and Yvonne was adding a flounce to the hem of a gown.
Benjamin told them of what he had learned and Hannah’s eyes flashed green. ‘Find Lord Ware,’ urged Hannah. ‘He will know what to do.’
The marquis proved to be gone from the inn, and so they waited anxiously for his return.
It was nearly midnight when he came back. He listened carefully to Benjamin’s story and then said, ‘You have had more success than I. But I do have a little news. I went back to the greengrocer’s and hid in a doorway opposite and watched the shop. Ashton arrived and went in. The greengrocer saw him and started shouting, ‘Murderer!’ at the top of his voice, and Ashton took to his heels and fled. I ran after him but he managed to lose me. It might mean he wanted to have a look through those papers again.’
‘So what do we do now?’ asked Hannah. ‘Shall we go to the authorities and tell them what we know?’
The marquis paced up and down. ‘There is a slim chance they may have Monsieur Grenier under lock and key. If we have them arrested, we may never find him. Let me think. Wetherby. Thin, taciturn fellow, fat wife and, ah, a daughter of marriageable age.’ He suddenly smiled. ‘We shall call on Wetherby tomorrow.’
‘But you forget,’ protested Hannah, ‘Petit and Ashton will be in residence.’
‘And what can they say or do to us? Let us confront the enemy and keep a watch on him.’
‘But you are putting Miss Grenier at risk!’
The marquis’s eyes rested on Yvonne. ‘I think not. We will make sure she is never alone. Now we should all go to bed so we shall be fresh for our adventures in the morning. More adventures for you, Miss Pym.’
And no one to tell them to, thought Hannah suddenly, thinking of her lost love. Yvonne saw the sad look on Hannah’s face.
As they were leaving the parlour, Yvonne put a timid hand on the marquis’s sleeve and said quietly, ‘A word with you in private, milord.’
Hannah looked back anxiously but Yvonne called, ‘I will be with you shortly.’
The marquis leaned his broad shoulders against the panelled wall and smiled down at her in a way that made her feel weak. ‘What is it, Miss Grenier?’
‘It is about Mees … Miss Pym.’
‘You disappoint me. Go ahead. What about Miss Pym?’
‘If you remember the gossip about Miss Pym and Sir George?’
He nodded.
‘Could you please, would you please, call on Sir George on your return to London and make sure he knows how distressed she is about the rumour? About how she fears she has lost his friendship?’
‘For you, Miss Grenier,’ he said lightly and mockingly, ‘anything in the world.’
She threw her head back. ‘Miss Pym is sad and worried. I owe her much. Do not take this request as a jest.’
He straightened up and raised her hand to his lips and deposited a fleeting kiss on the back of it. ‘Be assured, I will do all in my power to secure Miss Pym’s happiness.’
Yvonne slowly withdrew her hand and dropped him a low curtsy. She had to pass very close to him to leave the room and she was intensely aware of him and of her own wicked hopes that he would pull her to him and kiss her.
But he made no move and so, with a breathless little ‘Good night,’ she went to see Hannah.
Hannah looked at her curiously as she entered the room. ‘What was all that about?’ she asked.
‘Just a personal matter,’ said Yvonne. ‘This business of calling on Lord Wetherby worries me. I do not think Lord Ware knows him very well at all. What do the aristocracy do if they do not want unwelcome guests?’
Hannah laughed. ‘They cannot really do much provided the unwanted guest is titled. They can pretend to be out, but that is difficult unless they have seen the arrival of the guests and warned the servants. Or they can say they are just leaving on a visit. I should think an acquaintanceship with the Marquis of Ware might hold a certain amount of social distinction, and as the marquis himself pointed out, they do have a marriageable daughter.’
A shadow crossed Yvonne’s face and Hannah wondered whether it was because she was thinking of meeting Monsieur Petit again or whether she was wondering about the marquis and that marriageable daughter.
‘You had better get some sleep,’ she said gently. ‘Things will not seem so bad in the morning. I am sure you will see your father again soon. Just think! A resourceful gentleman like your father who arranged escapes out of France will know how to survive.’
Yvonne gave Hannah an impulsive hug and then went off to her own room.
Hannah stirred up the coals in the fire. There were so many things she should have asked the marquis. Did he plan to confront Petit as soon as he got there? Did he plan to warn Lord Wetherby about the nature of the guests under his roof? She felt unusually weary. Usually before going to sleep, she read a chapter of the Bible, and then she would think about Sir George, would rehearse her stories, dreaming of seeing his sparkling blue eyes. But to think of him at all now gave her such an aching feeling of loss. How furious he must be with her!
It was two in the morning in London as Sir George Clarence walked slowly back from his club. In his pocket was Benjamin’s letter. His first reaction on reading it had been disgust and distaste. But being a meticulous and fastidious man who knew that the target of any piece of gossip is usually the last to know, he had set out for his club with the express purpose of finding out what was being said.
He had, he realized at first, called at a bad time to find out anything, for all the gamblers, which meant, as far as he could see, all the present members of White’s, were engrossed in gaming. He watched the play, waiting to see if some society gossip would give up and drop out, but it was not until after midnight when his patience was rewarded. Sir Paul Disley, a foppish and waspish baronet, rose from the table in disgust. Sir George waylaid him. ‘What about joining me in a bottle of port, Disley?’
‘As long as it goes on your bill,’ said the baronet. ‘Deuced bunch of card sharks. I swear the cards are marked. Did ever a fellow have such monumental bad luck!’
Soon they were settled with a bottle of port between them. For the first time, Sir Paul seemed to realize the identity of his host. Sir George usually
shunned types such as the fops and fribbles of society and was therefore damned as a ‘dry old stick’. Sir Paul reflected that the company of such as Sir George Clarence was a fitting end to a disastrous evening.
‘What have you been doin’ with yourself?’ he asked Sir George languidly and then his eyes sharpened as he remembered that delicious piece of gossip he had heard about the old diplomat.
Sir George leaned back in his chair. ‘I am here to find out about a certain rumour which has been circulating society about me and a certain lady.’
Sir Paul looked as uncomfortable as if his companion had just been able to read his thoughts. ‘Lots of rumours,’ he said evasively. ‘Pay ’em no heed. I never do.’
‘Ah, but you see, the lady is not in town to defend herself. Pray tell me what you have heard.’
Sir Paul wriggled in his chair and his eyes roved around the room looking for help. He had never come across a situation like this before and felt Sir George was behaving in a highly indecent manner. Everyone knew you talked about people behind their backs. It was flying in the face of good ton to ask them direct – or so went his rather incoherent thoughts.
‘Oh, well, don’t you know,’ he said helplessly.
‘No, I do not know.’ Sir George’s voice was clear and incisive. ‘I am waiting for you to tell me.’
Sir Paul leaned forward. ‘They’re saying as how you’ve got a certain Miss Pym in keeping, and that she used to be your brother’s housekeeper.’
‘Ah,’ Sir George leaned back in his chair. Behind him in the other room, a game of hazard had just broken up and the players were beginning to filter through to the room in which he was sitting with Sir Paul. He raised his voice. ‘My dear Sir Paul,’ he said in carrying tones, ‘by coincidence my late brother had a housekeeper called Pym. I have a friend, a Miss Pym who is a distant relative of Mrs Clarence, my sister-in-law. She is a gentlewoman of refinement and delicacy. I am going to seek out anyone who spreads libel and slander on Miss Pym’s good name and take that person to court!’
