by M C Beaton
Hannah turned away and walked on. She was determined to stay away as long as possible. Benjamin had asked for the afternoon off, but Hannah did not mind being on her own. Lady Beatrice was left at home and, with any luck, thought Hannah, Lord Alistair might call, and something might come of that.
Mrs Cambridge paused and took out a prepared letter and gave it to her maid. ‘Run with that to Sir Geoffrey Handford,’ she ordered. The letter told Sir Geoffrey that he might find Lady Beatrice alone if he called immediately. Now, thought Mrs Cambridge, to try to keep that Pym woman from returning home too soon.
Hannah sat gloomily at the table by the window of the pastry cook’s where she had sat before with Lord Alistair and Lady Beatrice. She felt very flat and depressed, but glad for the first time that Lady Beatrice was not with her. Being with Lady Beatrice, reflected Hannah, was rather like becoming invisible. Lady Beatrice was so very beautiful that all stared at her and no one seemed to notice plain Miss Pym at her side, particularly now that Miss Pym was no longer a subject of gossip. Hannah thought of entertaining Sir George Clarence to tea. She could see him in her mind’s eye, his silver hair, his piercing blue eyes, but those blue eyes, instead of resting on her, were resting with admiration on Lady Beatrice’s beautiful face.
I must get rid of her, thought Hannah. Why did I ever ask her to live with me? I have not finished my journeys. I have not seen England. She herself, she knew, could learn to become content with a quiet life in some English village. But what of Lady Beatrice? Surely she would soon become restless and bored. Besides, the rent on the flat in South Audley Street had been paid for a year. It was a very fashionable address, but continuing to live there with Lady Beatrice meant putting Lady Beatrice next to Sir George, who lived hard by. Not that Lady Beatrice would surely be interested in a retired diplomat in his fifties. But could he possibly remain uninterested in her?
There must be some way to throw Lady Beatrice and Lord Alistair together.
A shadow fell across her and she looked up. A veiled woman was standing there. She threw back her veil and Hannah immediately recognized Mrs Cambridge.
‘Do not be angry,’ said Mrs Cambridge. ‘I desire to speak to you.’
‘About what?’ demanded Hannah suspiciously.
‘You must forgive me for my appalling behaviour, but you see, I was so convinced that you had deliberately set out to make fools of us all.’
‘Pray be seated.’ Hannah indicated a chair opposite. She felt somewhat mollified. After all, it was Benjamin’s lie to the dressmaker which had started all the fuss.
‘I confess,’ said Hannah, after ordering tea for Mrs Cambridge, ‘that I was very angry indeed, but now, on cooler reflection, I can understand why you became so exercised on the matter.’
‘We shall put it behind us,’ said Mrs Cambridge, ‘and talk of other things. How long do you and Lady Beatrice intend to remain in Brighton?’
‘About a week,’ said Hannah, although her mind was beginning to race. Why should Mrs Cambridge be interested in the length of their stay? The most normal thing to have asked was all about the attempted abduction of Lady Beatrice.
‘Indeed. Brighton will be sorry to lose you. How do you intend to travel? I believe you came on the stage. How original.’
Hannah glanced at Mrs Cambridge’s heavy veil, which was now hanging down about her shoulders, pulled back over her hat to reveal her face. She remembered the two heavily veiled women standing a little way away from her. Mrs Cambridge and her maid?
‘Do you know Sir Geoffrey Handford?’ asked Hannah, ignoring the last question.
Mrs Cambridge affected surprise. ‘Slightly,’ she said dismissively. ‘Have you known Lady Beatrice long?’
‘Only since I came to Brighton,’ replied Hannah, thinking suddenly that she had left Lady Beatrice alone apart from the remaining servants. And where was Mrs Cambridge’s maid?
‘Where is your maid?’ asked Hannah.
‘What has that got to do with how long you have known Lady Beatrice?’ countered Mrs Cambridge.
‘Nothing,’ said Hannah, eyeing her. ‘Again, I ask, where is your maid?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mrs Cambridge pettishly. ‘Oh, I remember, I sent her to match silks for me.’
‘I am curious. I also wonder why you are both so heavily veiled. I saw you and your maid a little way away from me on the promenade,’ said Hannah.
‘It is the rough wind.’ Mrs Cambridge began to look even more uneasy. ‘So rough and blustery and so bad for the complexion.’
Hannah got to her feet. ‘I really must go,’ she said abruptly, and strode out of the pastry cook’s, leaving an infuriated Mrs Cambridge to pay the bill.
She did not trust Mrs Cambridge. Alert to possible danger on all sides, Hannah felt sure that Mrs Cambridge had been spying on her. She was now very worried that she had left Lady Beatrice alone.
* * *
Lady Beatrice was at that moment confronting Sir Geoffrey Handford. He had pushed his way past her servants, who obviously did not know what to do to restrain him.
‘You may think you have had the better of me, madam,’ raged Sir Geoffrey, ‘but you shall pay for it.’
‘With my life?’ demanded Lady Beatrice.
He stopped in mid-tirade and looked at her with his mouth open.
‘I am not stupid, Sir Geoffrey, and know that you hired those ruffians to abduct me. You cannot do anything to me now with all my servants listening at the door.’
He began to pace up and down. He suddenly regretted his impetuousness. The minute he had received that note from Mrs Cambridge’s maid, he had come dashing round. His desire for her had not waned in the least. Rather, it had become an obsession.
He looked at her in baffled fury.
‘And now you may take your leave.’ Lady Beatrice looked at him in contempt. ‘And do not try to harm me again, Sir Geoffrey, or it will be the worse for you.’
‘And who will stop me?’ he jeered. ‘The few servants you have left? One faded spinster and her cheeky footman?’
‘No, but I will stop you,’ said a quiet voice from the doorway.
Sir Geoffrey wheeled round. Lord Alistair Munro stood there, tall and elegant as ever.
‘So she has caught you in her wiles, like every other poor fool that has had anything to do with her,’ shouted Sir Geoffrey, beside himself with rage and jealousy. ‘She plays with us all like a cat plays with a mouse. Well, more fool you, Munro. Take her, and be damned to you!’
He thrust his way past Lord Alistair and past the gaping servants and stormed out of the house.
There was a long silence. The servants retreated to go about their duties, talking in excited whispers.
‘Thank you,’ said Lady Beatrice at last. ‘Thank you again. Your arrival was most timely.’
‘I am grateful to be of service.’ He swept her a low bow.
‘Pray be seated, my lord,’ said Lady Beatrice, ‘and I will get you some refreshment. Wine? We have a very good claret.’
He looked at her thoughtfully. She was wearing a blue muslin gown, cunningly cut and shaped to her handsome figure. Her hair was dressed high on her head but one black curl had been allowed to fall on the whiteness of her shoulder. He felt a surge of desire and was impatient with himself. That churl, Handford, had the right of it. Lady Beatrice was a witch.
‘I have calls to make,’ he said. ‘I see Miss Pym is not here. I am disappointed. A most entertaining lady.’
Lady Beatrice suddenly felt jealous of the absent Hannah. ‘Then I shall not detain you, my lord.’
He bowed again, and backed into Hannah, who had come flying up the stairs.
‘My lord!’ cried Hannah. ‘I am so very glad to see you. I was detained by Mrs Cambridge and had the maddest idea she was doing it deliberately.’
‘That might have been the case,’ said Lord Alistair. ‘Handford did call, but left in a fury.’
‘Because you were here?’
‘Yes,’ put in Lad
y Beatrice, ‘most certainly because Lord Alistair arrived.’
‘But you cannot leave now!’ said Hannah to Lord Alistair. ‘You must stay and take a dish of tea with us.’
To Lady Beatrice’s mortification, Lord Alistair smiled and said he would be delighted.
‘I thought you had urgent calls to make,’ snapped Lady Beatrice.
He smiled at her lazily. ‘None that take precedence over tea with Miss Pym.’
Hannah watched the couple covertly all the while she was telling them about the veiled Mrs Cambridge who had accosted her at the pastry cook’s. Lady Beatrice handed Lord Alistair a plate of cakes. His hand inadvertently brushed against her own and Lady Beatrice’s own hand shook.
‘There is no doubt,’ said Lord Alistair when Hannah had finished talking, ‘that Handford has people watching you. You must leave Brighton as soon as possible.’
‘He might pursue us,’ said Hannah anxiously.
‘In that case, may I offer you my escort?’
‘Gladly,’ said Hannah quickly, before Lady Beatrice could speak.
‘In that case, I would suggest we leave tomorrow evening, at, say, six o’clock.’
‘Splendid!’ Hannah clapped her hands.
Lady Beatrice said in a voice that sounded pettish to her own ears, ‘But I have much to arrange. The servants …’
‘The servants, the few that are left, can be sent to London in the morning,’ said Hannah eagerly. ‘I am very good at organizing things, Lady Beatrice. Do, I beg of you, let me arrange all.’
Lady Beatrice frowned. She found the very presence of Lord Alistair made her heart ache. He held her in contempt. He had not considered her important enough to put before his other calls and yet he had stayed for Miss Pym. But to protest would mean explaining why, and that she could not possibly do.
And so it was all settled. Lord Alistair would call for them in his travelling carriage at six o’clock the following evening.
After he had left and Hannah had gone off to arrange the servants’ affairs, Lady Beatrice rested her head on her hand and for the first time thought bleakly of the future. She would be trapped for life in some quaint English village with the domineering Miss Pym. Miss Pym would no doubt be supremely happy, but what of herself?
7
Love is like the measles, we all have to go through it.
Jerome K. Jerome
Hannah, her arrangements completed, told Benjamin that evening that she wished to take the air and he was to accompany her. Benjamin looked startled, for the rain was rattling against the shutters and a gale howled mournfully in from the sea.
‘The almanac says the weather is going to be fine tomorrow, modom,’ said Benjamin in injured tones. ‘Why not wait until then?’
‘When will you ever learn to obey an order?’ shouted Hannah, and Lady Beatrice looked up from the book she was reading in surprise.
Benjamin, injured, stalked off like an offended cat to get his coat and hat. Hannah, already dressed to go out, made for the door. ‘I have arranged everything for your removal to London,’ said Hannah, turning on the threshold. ‘The servants will go ahead first thing in the morning, Lady Beatrice.’
‘Thank you,’ said Lady Beatrice in a tired voice. ‘You are indefatigable, Miss Pym.’
‘I have great energy,’ said Hannah. ‘Do not worry. We shall not be bored in our little village, whichever one we choose. I have great schemes. It has always been my desire to help Fallen Women, and then there are clothes to be made for the poor, and oh, so many things.’ She walked out and left Lady Beatrice to her gloomy thoughts.
It was all very well to want to atone for a rather selfish and dissolute past, thought Lady Beatrice miserably, but somehow the thought of doing good works under the eagle eye of Hannah Pym was very lowering. She could picture herself stitching away busily by candlelight in some poky cottage, occasionally reviving the tedium of the long winter evenings by reading in the social columns how London’s most eligible bachelor, Lord Alistair Munro, was charming society during the Little Season. She would have been amazed had she but known that Hannah had set out deliberately to give her a dreary picture of their life together. It was not the idea of good works that was so depressing, thought Lady Beatrice, but the idea of being bossed around for the rest of her life by Miss Hannah Pym.
Meanwhile, Hannah strode along the beach, her boots crunching in the shingle, followed by Benjamin. A particularly large wave washed over Benjamin’s feet and he cursed and jumped back.
‘Tide’s coming in,’ he shouted against the wind.
‘We must find somewhere where we can talk,’ said Hannah, turning to face him. ‘There is much to be planned.’
‘I know a nice warm tavern,’ said Benjamin hopefully. ‘You’ll catch your death being out on a night like this.’
The tavern to which Benjamin led Hannah was a modest one. The coffee room served as the dining-room, but dinner had been served long ago and it was empty save for a prim gentleman in the corner smoking a long clay pipe and reading the newspapers.
‘You may sit down with me, Benjamin,’ said Hannah. Benjamin gratefully sank down in a chair next to her. Hannah ordered ratafia for herself and beer for Benjamin and then regarded him thoughtfully.
‘I do not want to spend the rest of my life with Lady Beatrice,’ she said. ‘I feel she would become bossy and domineering.’
Benjamin put a hand up to his mouth to hide a smile.
‘I feel that she may be enamoured of Lord Alistair Munro.’
‘Don’t think they care for each other meself,’ said Benjamin, burying his nose in his tankard.
‘I think you are wrong,’ said Hannah. ‘Besides, he was naked in her bathing box.’ Hannah coloured faintly. ‘It is only fitting they should wed. He is, I believe, immensely rich. ’Twould be all that is suitable, and even her greedy parents would come round.’
‘Mayhap something will happen on the road to London,’ said Benjamin comfortably. ‘I went around to talk to Lord Alistair’s coachman. Bang-up rig, he’s got. Fifteen-mile-an-hour nags and the best-sprung travelling carriage you ever did see. Better’n a nasty smelly old stage anydays. Brought down from London a few days ago.’
‘I do not think we shall be travelling with Lord Alistair.’
‘But you said …’
‘I didn’t say anything, Benjamin. I think we should go quietly ourselves on the stage. There is one that leaves Brighton at six.’
‘But, modom!’ wailed Benjamin in protest.
‘Listen! Propinquity is the answer. Without us, they will be forced to travel together, to talk to each other, to get to know each other better.’
‘Could not they do that in London?’ protested Benjamin, who still hoped to be able to journey in Lord Alistair’s splendid travelling carriage.
‘No, no. They will go their separate ways. Cast off by her parents and living with me will put Lady Beatrice effectively out of society and she will have no chance to see him again. We must hope and pray. Benjamin. Let us go to the booking-office now.’
A particularly vicious gust of wind drove rain against the windows of the coffee room. Benjamin shivered. ‘I’ll go first thing in the morning, modom.’
‘Very well.’ Hannah looked reluctant. ‘Have your things packed and ready. Lady Beatrice does not rise until late. We will take our baggage to the Ship and will simply leave the house during the afternoon and then have a letter delivered to Lady Beatrice at ten minutes to six, saying she must go ahead without us.’
They finished their drinks and walked back together through the windy rain-swept streets under the swinging oil lamps.
Mrs Cambridge was on a diet. Although plumpness was in fashion, fat was not, and she had suddenly begun to grow rounder and rounder. Layers of fat had crept up her back, where it hung in ugly creases, and her diamond choker would need to be altered to fit her neck. Mrs Cambridge sighed. She would never have believed that her very neck could put on weight.
She rose very ea
rly, ate a beefsteak and washed it down with a pint of old port and set out to take her morning’s constitutional along the beach. She did not take a maid or a footman, for such villains as Brighton possessed were still sleeping off the dissipations of the night and the streets were empty.
Mrs Cambridge was approaching the Ship Inn and telling herself that a plate of shrimps could hardly be counted as eating, when she saw the tall figure of Benjamin going towards the coaching booking-office. She waited around a corner until she saw him emerge and then entered the booking-office herself. She asked about fares to various places and then demanded idly, ‘I thought I recognized Miss Pym’s footman. Is she taking the stage? We are very dear friends and I might be persuaded to go with her.’
The clerk said that the footman had booked tickets on the London stage, which was to depart at six o’clock that very evening.
‘Perhaps I should consult her first,’ said Mrs Cambridge airily and took her leave.
So, thought Mrs Cambridge, Sir Geoffrey will be most interested in this piece of news. For Mrs Cambridge assumed that Lady Beatrice would be travelling with Miss Pym. To celebrate her successful bit of spying, she entered the Ship and ordered those shrimps.
It was much later in the morning when she reached Sir Geoffrey’s, for an obstacle in the shape of a pastry cook’s had loomed in her path and she felt she deserved some cakes after all her exertions. Sir Geoffrey listened to her closely. Mrs Handford said, with an air of relief, ‘She is beyond your reach now, Geoffrey. You cannot descend on her in London and make jealous scenes.’
