by M. C. Beaton
Emily, regal in a classic Greek gown of white muslin with gold key embroidery, presided at one end of the table and Mr. Goodenough at the other. As the guests ate heartily and cried their praises over the delicacy of the sauces, and Lord Agnesby enquired about the name of the cook and, on learning it, swore that only a man could produce such creations of genius, Emily began to feel for the first time as if she were part of high society. Outside stretched Mayfair, reduced in her mind to the comfortable proportions of an elegant village, a village to which she now belonged. Something had happened to her during that visit from Mrs. Otterley. A great deal of her timidity and fear had left her. She had organised this dinner party—and it was a success. And Emily had indeed joined the ranks of society with that thought, for she had forgotten for the moment that the success was almost entirely due to the staff of Number 67. She had become so used to accepting their advice on all matters great and small, to relying on Mrs. Middleton to tell her what to wear and how to converse, that the awkward shy Emily was a thing of the past, and she took the servants’ help for granted.
But that insecurity about the book, although reduced in her mind to a nagging little anxiety, was still there. She had been conversing in generalities to the Earl of Fleetwood for the first few courses, but with the arrival of the Floating Island pudding, Emily said lightly, “Have you, my lord, read a book about some chambermaid that is just published? The author does not dare give his name but simply has himself described on the title page as A Gentleman.”
“I have read the book, yes,” said the earl. “I assume you have, too. What did you think of it?”
“Very amusing,” said Emily, “but highly improbable. I could not quite believe in the wicked servants or think anyone described in the book could be someone I might meet in real life.”
“Bravo!” he said. “Very few people seem to understand all the characters are probably fictional in that undistinguished work.”
He sensed a tension in Emily ebbing away and wondered what he had said to ease her mind. She was looking like the princess society had believed her to be, he thought. She was beautiful and ladylike. Nor had she dropped one common expression. She was poised and assured and very much the hostess. But he sharply remembered the other Emily with a certain indefinable something in her eyes like a wary animal. What had brought about the change? Probably it was because she had been very countrified on her arrival in London, he decided. He became aware that she had turned the conversation from the subject of his book and was asking him what he thought of the latest production of The Magic Flute.
“Very well in its way,” he said. “That is—what I could hear of it.”
“Some of the music was so beautiful, it made me cry,” said Emily, “but I hardly believe Mozart wrote ‘The Roast Beef of Old England.’”
“The producer throws several popular English songs into the opera so that the audience can sing along as well. So it makes an evening at the opera rather like an evening in the Coal Hole.”
Emily looked puzzled, so he explained, “The Coal Hole is a tavern in the Strand where they have popular balladeers and other entertainments.”
“It would be lovely,” said Emily wistfully, “if there were an opera house in London for lovers of music, where people did not go simply because it is fashionable to do so.”
The earl affected shock. “You are an original, Miss Goodenough.” He turned to Miss Giles-Denton on his other side and said, “Miss Goodenough would have an opera house for music lovers only.”
Miss Giles-Denton struck an Attitude. It was of Minerva debating whether to inspire a writer or not. It involved a strained look about the eyes and one finger pointing to the middle of the forehead. The earl waited patiently.
“The ladies should not be interested in music,” pronounced Miss Giles-Denton at last. “Clothes are more important … and dancing.”
“Then why do we not confine our displays of clothes and dancing to Almack’s and leave the opera alone?” cried Emily.
“Pon rep,” said Lord Agnesby indulgently. “You will have us believe you to be a Blue Stocking, Miss Goodenough.”
“There must come a day when intelligence is fashionable,” said Emily.
“Not for the ladies,” said Lord Agnesby. “We adore the ladies. Die for ’em. Pretty little things.” He kissed his cochineal-dyed fingers and waved them in the air. “How could we gentlemen cope with the harsh realities of life were it not for some angel sustaining us with her innocent prattle?”
There was a murmur of agreement from all but the earl, who looked cynically amused. It was rumoured Lord Agnesby would be more inclined to die for a pretty boy than for any woman. Mrs. Middleton gave her nervous cough, a sign that Emily was in danger of making a cake of herself.
Emily looked down mulishly at the remains of her pudding.
“I see you do not agree,” said the earl.
“No, I don’t,” said Emily, but in a low voice meant for his ears alone. “I like wearing pretty gowns and receiving compliments, but I like books and music, and surely there is nothing wrong in that?”
“Nothing at all in the eyes of the ton—that is, if you confine your reading to trivia such as that book we have been discussing.”
“Oh, no.”
“Do you read romances?”
“No longer. I consider them mischievous books written for ladies and soldier-officers. They make love the main purpose of life and are, I am sure, responsible for rash engagements and unhappy marriages. Chivalry is quite another thing. I am confident that many can imbibe Don Quixote’s high-mindedness without catching his insanity.”
“You are right, and yet at this moment I confess love appears to me very important.”
Emily looked into his eyes and felt her own glance being trapped and held. Her body began to experience all those nasty, low, vulgar unladylike feelings she had felt in dreams.
“And newspapers,” she said breathlessly. “I read many of those.”
“There are now so many, the number is bewildering,” he said in a caressing, husky voice that seemed to be saying something else entirely.
“There is a poem about them all,” said Emily with a shaky laugh and wrenching her gaze away from his. “How does it go? Ah, I have it.
Alas! alas! the World is ruined quite!
The Sun comes out in the evening
And never gives any light.
Poor Albion is no more,
The Evening Star does not rise,
And the True Briton tells nothing but lies.
Should they supress the British Press,
There would be no harm done;
There is no hope that the Times will mend,
And it would be no matter,
If the Globe were at an end.”
“A neat epigram,” said the earl, “but not nearly long enough. There are at least 250 newspapers in the United Kingdom. Can you imagine a poem about them all?”
Fitz jealously watched the expressions on the couple’s faces as they conversed. He could hear what they were saying—they were talking about newspapers—but their eyes appeared to be carrying on a different conversation entirely. It was just like Fleetwood to talk casually and dismissively about Emily, and then steal a march on them all. Fitz had begun to think seriously about his chances of engaging Emily’s affections. She was so very beautiful that he did not think he had much hope. But the sight of his friend making love to her in that blatant, indecent way—and that was what Fleetwood was doing, even though he was now talking about literary magazines—had aroused a fierce spirit of competition in Fitz’s breast. He would have been amazed and disheartened had he known that Emily had taken two hours to recognise him, having not quite heard his name when he was announced, and assumed the new, clean, and paintless Fitz was another friend the earl had brought along in his place.
Across the table, Harriet Giles-Denton and Bessie Plumtree exchanged sour looks. They wished they had not come. It was miserable to be so outshone by this int
erloper into society. For they were sure Emily was an interloper. No one had ever heard of the Goodenoughs before. There had been some tarradiddle about her being a princess, but that had quickly died away. Jealousy sharpened their perceptions wonderfully. They noticed Emily’s speech, although clear and almost accentless. contained none of the French phrases or lisping baby talk currently fashionable among the débutantes. She held very odd views, almost radical. They both suspected Miss Emily Goodenough of being a Jacobite.
As the earl talked to Emily, the rest of the room went away. He was aware only of her. He wondered vaguely who she really was, and almost in the same moment decided it did not matter. Like most aristocrats, he could be extremely single-minded when he had set his heart on something.
By the close of the dinner party, as she stood up with one fluid, graceful movement to lead the ladies downstairs to the front parlour, which had been given the elevated title of drawing-room for that evening, he knew the something he wanted more than anything in the world was Miss Emily Goodenough.
No sooner were the ladies in the drawing-room than Miss Plumtree and Miss Giles-Denton begged Emily to play them something on the spinet in the back parlour. Emily, who had never been taught to play, threw a glance of appeal at Mrs. Middleton.
“I shall play for you, ladies,” said Mrs. Middleton stoutly. She had not played in years and was distressed to find when she sat down and looked at the music that she could remember the right hand very well—but what did one do with the left?
She fumbled away inexpertly while Emily sat down beside Lady Jammers and plunged into a long description of a play she had seen.
Bessie Plumtree and Harriet Giles-Denton were rapidly coming to the happy conclusion that Emily was quite plain. When one is jealous of some woman, one is not only in competition with her but looking down on her at the same time, which all makes the defect of jealousy almost unrecognisable in oneself. The brightness and largeness of her eyes they put down to an application of belladonna, the trimness of her waist to corsets, and the glory of her hair to a wig.
The gentlemen did not stay very long in the dining-room, but long enough for Bessie and Harriet to have decided Emily was nothing out of the common way. They were, therefore, amazed that the handsome earl should go straight to Emily’s side as soon as he entered the room.
Fitz tried to talk to Bessie and Harriet, but his eyes remained fixed on Emily and the earl. What were they saying? Would he have a chance to speak to Emily and persuade her to go driving with him? And what had she just said that had startled Fleetwood so?
Emily had just told the earl of his sister’s visit.
“I have no doubt,” he said furiously, “that she came to warn you I was a murderer.”
“Yes, she did,” said Emily.
“And you believed her,” he said bitterly. It was a statement, not a question.
“No,” said Emily. “I prefer to make up my own mind about people rather than listen to gossip, because that is how I would have people treat me.”
“You believe in blind trust?”
“To a certain extent, yes.”
“Will you marry me, Miss Goodenough?”
They were standing by the window. Emily clutched the curtain for support.
“My lord, you jest!”
“Not I. I am deadly serious. Will you marry me?”
Emily looked up into his blue eyes, at his handsome face, and longed to say yes.
“I am afraid of marriage,” she said, plucking nervously at the curtain. “I fear I am a romantic, and there is nothing romantic in furious sisters, marriage settlements, and lengthy arrangements.”
“We will be married by special licence and dispense with all the formalities,” he said promptly.
Fitz came up to them just then, but the earl flashed him an angry look and Emily did not look at him at all.
Fitz gloomily walked away and tried to show interest in Bessie and Harriet.
“But the announcement in the newspaper will cause a furor,” said Emily.
“Then we will announce our marriage after the wedding.”
Emily gave a shaky laugh. “I cannot believe this is happening. You know nothing about me.”
“If you are prepared to disbelieve my sister and take me on trust, then I am prepared to believe only the best of you. Marry me!”
“Oh, this is ridiculous … you should ask my uncle’s permission. And where should we live?”
“Anywhere. I have my home in the country, a shooting-box in Yorkshire, a crumbling castle in Scotland, that house in Grosvenor Square from which I will gladly eject my sister, my rented place in Park Lane, or—”
“Or here,” said Emily quietly.
“Here! My dear Miss Emily!”
But it had just dawned on Emily what a support and prop these odd rented servants at Number 67 were. How could she face a new and strange household staff so soon?
He shrugged. “If you wish. But only for a few weeks. I say, does that mean you will marry me?”
Emily felt exalted with triumph. She, the ex-chambermaid, would be a countess! In a few weeks, in a few months, the very fact she was a countess would stop anyone from questioning her background. And this earl was suggesting they should be married without publicity, notoriety, or fuss.
She took a deep breath.
“Yes,” she said.
The guests did not stay very long. Even by the gourmand standards of the beginning of the nineteenth century, all had eaten vast amounts, and, with the exception of the elated earl and the jealous Fitz, were becoming drowsy.
Rainbird stood in the hall to assist the guests into wraps and cloaks, his hand discreetly held out to collect tips. Lord and Lady Jammers were very generous—ten guineas; Bessie and Harriet, anxious to show this upstart they were monied ladies, almost equally so; Fitz gave five guineas because he was always generous; the earl gave twenty because he was walking on air; Lord Agnesby alone ignored Rainbird’s outstretched hand.
The earl told Mr. Goodenough he would call on him at noon the following day, and then they all disappeared into the night.
Mrs. Middleton thankfully stopped murdering Haydn and said she must go downstairs and attend to Angus.
“When you have seen to his comfort,” said Emily, “I wish all the staff to assemble in the parlour. I have an announcement to make.”
“What announcement, Emily?” asked Mr. Goodenough when they were alone.
“Fleetwood is going to marry me!” cried Emily, pirouetting around the room.
Mr. Goodenough sat down suddenly. “We can’t. You can’t,” he said in a shaky voice. “His lawyers will soon find us out.”
“Not they,” said Emily with a laugh and told him all about the earl’s odd proposal and the understanding the wedding should be in secret.”
Mr. Goodenough clasped his hands to stop their shaking. “But only think, Emily. After you are married, after the first flush of romance is over, then he will begin to ask questions—who were your parents, where is your home, all that sort of thing.”
“He trusts me,” said Emily stubbornly. “Oh, please be happy for me. And we are to stay here, for I need these odd servants to sustain me.”
“But this is only a rented house. We cannot rely on Rainbird and Mrs. Middleton forever.”
“Oh, be happy for me! Did we not come to London to find me a husband? Have I not found one? Do not lose courage now.”
Downstairs, the staff were gleefully counting out the takings. “I thought that skinflint, Lord Agnesby, might have parted with something,” mourned Rainbird, “but not even a threepenny bit!”
“But he did!” said Mrs. Middleton. “And not only that, he gave me a note for Mr. MacGregor. He gave me ten guineas and this letter which says … Wait a minute, I shall read it to Angus.”
She knelt down beside the cook where he lay on his makeshift bed. “Do but listen, Angus,” she said. “Lord Agnesby says, ‘My dear chef, You are a Genius, and your talents would raise the Dead. Neve
r have I enjoyed such exquisite Fare, Agnesby.’ There!”
Angus smiled weakly up at the housekeeper. “You did all the work, Mrs. Middleton,” he said. “You are as fine a lady as ever set foot in Mayfair.” He reached up a long hairy arm, clasped the startled housekeeper about the waist. drew her down to him, and deposited a smacking kiss on her lips.
The staff all cheered as Mrs. Middleton, flustered and dazed and straightening her cap with shaking fingers, stumbled to her feet.
“Now,” said Rainbird, “Miss Emily has an announcement to make and wants us all upstairs. But before we go, there is something I must tell you. Mr. Goodenough is an impostor.”
“That dear old man!” cried Lizzie. “Surely not.”
“He has suffered some sort of apoplexy which has twisted his face,” said Rainbird, “but I recently remembered where I had seen him before. His name was Spinks and he was butler to a certain Mr. Harry Jackson up in the north.”
“And Miss Emily?”
“I fear she is an adventuress.”
There was a stunned silence.
Then, “I don’t care,” said Mrs. Middleton. “She is a dear, sweet lady, and I am sure she has never done anything wrong.”
“We’ll talk about it later,” said Rainbird. “But I think we all must decide to be loyal to both of them. What they were before does not concern us.”
There was a murmur of agreement.
But their loyalty was badly shaken when Emily proudly made her announcement. If Emily was an adventuress, then she was flying too high. If she introduced common blood into the earl’s family through pretending to be someone else and was found out, she might go to prison—after the marriage was annulled.
Still, they all put a brave face on it and wished her well.
Emily began to tease the ladies about their marriage prospects, while Rainbird studied her radiant face and wondered if she had considered the fact that the days of the Mayfair Chapel where one could be married for a guinea and no questions asked were long past. She would need to produce papers proving she was who she said she was. As the servants began to joke and relax, he slipped from the room and went quietly up the stairs.
