by M C Beaton
Earlier that day, Lord William had heard the rumble of carriage wheels and looked out of the window of the morning-room, which commanded a good view of the drive. With a sinking heart, he recognized the Earl of Ashton, driving his racing curricle. Then, as the earl got down, he took a piece of smoke-blackened paper out of his pocket and studied it before marching up the steps and ringing the bell.
William flew down to the hall. ‘Silvers,’ he hissed urgently to the butler. ‘That is Ashton. You must tell him that Lady Deborah and I have gone out for a day’s fishing and are not expected back until late. And warn all the other servants.’
He darted back up the stairs and hid on the landing. He could hear the earl’s angry voice and Silvers’s quiet one. Then, to his relief, he heard the closing of the door and the sound of the earl’s driving off.
‘What are you doing there?’ came his sister’s voice behind him, making him jump.
‘I was stooping down to tie my lace,’ said William. ‘Noon’s too late to leave, sis. Let’s go now.’
‘After I have breakfasted,’ replied Deborah.
‘I say, let’s have breakfast on the Dover road.’
Deborah hesitated. The words the earl had written came back into her mind. How could she even begin to think about eating?
‘Yes, let us go,’ she said and William ran downstairs to order the carriage.
Soon they were off on the road and then their coachman was negotiating the press of traffic in the centre of Rochester. One of the earl’s elderly footmen was creaking past. He was glad to be away from Ashton Park and out on an errand, for the earl was in a foul temper. He was like a bear with a sore head. Some said it was because his servants had had the temerity to think he was the devil incarnate, others that it was because Lady Deborah and Lord William had left in the middle of the night. The fun of believing the earl was the devil had been verbally knocked out of the servants after the earl’s lecture, leaving them facing a master who constantly berated them on superstition combined with down-right laziness. The footman looked up and recognized the Earl of Staye’s coachman. ‘Whither bound?’ he called.
‘Dover,’ replied the coachman, and seeing a gap in the traffic, moved on. Silvers had forgotten to tell the stable staff that Lord William and Lady Deborah were supposed to be out fishing.
The footman drove the Ashton Park gig back to the earl’s home, hoping his master had recovered his humour. He was just crossing the hall when the butler told him that the earl had left for Downs Abbey in a fury, in fact worse than ever.
‘Then he’ll be awful when he returns,’ said the footman with gloomy relish, ‘for I saw ’em, Lord William and Lady Deborah, in a coach bound for Dover.’
The earl’s staff crept about their duties dreading his return.
He came back in the afternoon and strode in with a face like thunder and called for brandy. ‘Judd,’ he said to his butler, ‘tell them to change the horses and have the carriage ready, for I mean to return to Downs Abbey this night.’
‘But, my lord,’ quavered the butler. ‘Footman Charles do say as how Lord William and Lady Deborah are on their way to Dover, for he saw their coach pass through Rochester.’
The earl swore awfully. ‘I leave now,’ he snapped. ‘Let me know as soon as a fresh team is hitched up.’
Hannah Pym entered the inn with a light step. Captain Beltravers had eventually emerged to give her the good news.
She told Benjamin to have an early night, that she would see him in the morning; and she walked up to her bedchamber.
Lady Deborah, who had been sitting by the fire, rose to meet her.
‘What are you doing here?’ cried Hannah. ‘You should be there.’
‘I need to see you, Miss Pym,’ said Deborah in a low voice. ‘The most dreadful thing happened.’
William, who knew his sister was waiting to see Miss Pym and had been going to join her, stopped short outside the door, listening hard. Deborah would tell Miss Pym about that letter and Miss Pym would counsel her to forget about the earl and that would be an end of it. He had not thought about Clarissa recently, but now he did. He felt what he needed was to be flattered and flirted with. Perhaps after a few days in Dover, he could persuade Deborah to go to Aunt Jill’s in London.
He pressed one ear harder against a panel of the door.
Deborah was telling Miss Pym about the letter.
‘I know all about that,’ said Hannah, and William stiffened in surprise. ‘I could not understand why you both chose to leave in the middle of the night and so I sent Benjamin to search your rooms to see if there was any clue. The portion of the letter you describe, Benjamin found thrust into the fire in Lord William’s room. The intention had obviously been to burn it, but it was still legible. Now let me tell you, Lady Deborah, I am convinced that Lord Ashton would never have written such words about the daughter of an old friend. Never! And why should this portion be in your brother’s room? Would he stoop to forgery?’
‘William? How can you say such a thing, Miss Pym?’
‘Well,’ said Hannah stubbornly, ‘I was so convinced that it was not written by the Earl of Ashton that before we left for the inn at Rochester to join the stage, I sent Benjamin with it to the earl.’
William stood outside, biting his thumb. He knew the earl had it but had assumed he had found it in the fireplace.
He could only pray that Deb would still believe that Ashton had written it. Downstairs there was a great bustle. Some notable had arrived, for the landlord was crying, ‘Show Concord’ – Concord being the bedchamber assigned to the very important. ‘My lord’s valise and hot water to Concord. You will find a good fire of sea coal, my lord. This way, my lord. Make way for the Earl of Ashton!’
William scampered back to his room and stuffed his clothes into his trunk. He would flee to that old friend of his in Dover and demand sanctuary.
As the earl’s valet unpacked his clothes, the earl rang for the waiter and asked if Lord William and Lady Deborah Western were guests at the inn, and being told they were, demanded they present themselves before him immediately. The waiter returned to say neither was in their room.
‘Pym,’ said the earl suddenly. ‘A Miss Pym.’
‘Yes, my lord. In Defiance, my lord.’
‘Then tell her … no, show me the way.’
The waiter led the way to Defiance, the rooms being named after ships of His Majesty’s navy. The earl opened the door and walked straight in.
Deborah started up at the sight of him.
‘Why,’ said the earl, his green eyes gleaming with a furious light, ‘was this piece of filth found in your brother’s room, Lady Deborah?’ He shook the piece of paper at her.
‘Miss Pym told me about it. In fact, William showed me the whole letter to Mr Carruthers and his sister.’
‘And you believed I would write such a thing?’ Hannah sidled quietly to the door, opened it and crept out.
Tears started in Lady Deborah’s eyes. ‘What else could I think? William told me you had written it.’
‘William is going to get a horsewhipping. Why did you not simply tax me with it? Do I stand so low in your opinion?’
‘I could not believe else,’ whispered Deborah. ‘My brother. How could I disbelieve him?’
‘Just wait until I get my hands on him. Good God. Reading my private correspondence was bad enough! And as for you …’
He jerked her up to her feet and looked down into her blue eyes which were swimming with tears. ‘Oh, Deborah,’ he said thickly, ‘you drive me mad.’ He gathered her in his arms and began to kiss her as if he would never stop. He lifted her up and then they fell together on top of the bed and on top of Hannah Pym’s chaste and virginal night-dress. ‘Oh, God,’ he said, caressing one soft breast, ‘when are you going to marry me?’
‘Whenever you want,’ said Deborah. ‘Kiss me again.’
Hannah Pym, waiting in the corridor, heard the bed-springs creak. One scandalized step brought her to the door.
She wrenched it open and stared appalled at the spectacle of the writhing couple on the bed. She was reminded of the Duchess of Marlborough in the last century who had written proudly in her diary that the duke returning from the wars had ‘pleasured’ her ‘in his boots’ several times before breakfast. Her spinster mind could only be glad they still had all their clothes on, although the earl’s hands were where no bachelor hands should be.
‘Get off that bed immediately,’ roared Hannah Pym.
The couple started up and laughed when they saw her, neither showing the least trace of embarrassment or shame. ‘We are to be married, Miss Pym,’ cried Deborah.
Hannah Pym folded her arms and glared at them. ‘And so I should hope,’ she said. ‘So I should hope!’
William’s disappearance was soon discovered but no one seemed to mind. The earl, the next day, said he would take Deborah home and then write to her father and ask his permission to wed her. Hannah fervently hoped the letter and its reply would not take too long, for the passionate couple could hardly keep their hands off each other. The earl offered to take Hannah back as far as Rochester, but she primly refused. Other people’s passion is very lowering to a spinster, and Hannah could only be glad when they had left.
The Royal George was very expensive indeed and so Hannah spent only one day exploring Dover before calling on Abigail in the evening to say that she and Benjamin would be taking the coach to London in the morning.
Abigail shyly pressed Hannah to attend her wedding. Hannah accepted, thinking of all the weddings she would have to attend that year.
As she sat eating a solitary dinner in the Royal George that evening, her thoughts turned to home, home and Sir George Clarence. What adventures she had to tell him! Would he come to see her as he usually did, or, horror of horrors, might he call, as he had done the time before, to say that he was engaged to be married? She was anxious to be gone. Already the characters of the stage-coach were fading from her mind. The long road to London lay before her.
The coach did not leave until ten the following morning. Hannah frowned. Should she buy Sir George a little present? It was customary for ladies to make gentlemen presents such as netted purses and things like that, but Hannah had only a few sewing items with her. Perhaps some trifle, something from Dover.
The following morning, she went out early with Benjamin to explore the little shops, shaking her head in dismay over each item. Some were too cheap and tawdry and some too expensive. At last, she settled on a ship in a bottle, a little frigate under full sail. Benjamin had fallen in love with it and urged her to buy it.
When they returned to the inn they packed and went back down to the inn yard. Captain Beltravers and Abigail were waiting for them.
‘I forgot to return the gown and bracelets and headdress to Lady Deborah,’ said Abigail shyly.
‘I would keep them,’ said Hannah, thinking in a bewildered way that Abigail and the captain were like ghosts, so firmly had she cut them from her mind in her desire to look forward now, not back. ‘If Lady Deborah wants them, she will write to you. She has your address.’
Abigail laughed. ‘I am to have a truly splendid wedding and Jane is furious with me. Captain Beltravers has generously offered to pay for it.’
‘Is Jane regretting her engagement to Mr Clegg?’ asked Hannah.
‘Oh, she is pouting and flouncing and competing with me on every occasion,’ said Abigail, ‘but Mr Clegg is enchanted with her and will give her everything she wants. She is persuading him to pay for a bigger wedding than mine!’
Hannah kissed her on the cheek, shook hands with the captain and then climbed aboard the coach.
Abigail and her captain stood holding hands, watching the flutter of Hannah’s handkerchief at the window until they could see it no more.
‘Such a fine lady,’ sighed Abigail. ‘I wish she could find a man worthy of her.’
‘You are a romantic,’ teased the captain. ‘Miss Pym marry? How ridiculous!’
8
The endearing elegance of female friendship.
Samuel Johnson
Mrs Angela Courtney leaned closer to her looking glass, holding a little box of lip salve in one hand and a brush in the other. She carefully etched in a small mouth in the middle of her bigger one and then coloured it red.
She then sat back and surveyed her own reflection complacently. Her maid had recently dyed Mrs Courtney’s greying hair to a rich shade of nut-brown and she was sure it took years off her. She felt a very dashing widow.
The Season, however, had been sadly flat. Mrs Courtney felt she had been a widow long enough. She kept a book with the names of eligible widowers, and one by one she had had to score them off as they succumbed to the wiles of other females or dropped dead. Her last hope, Sir Giles Cavendish, a tall thin man prone to delirium tremens and consumption, had inconveniently gone to meet his Maker the week before.
‘Bring me my book, Janet,’ she called to her maid, still admiring her own reflection. The maid did not need to ask, ‘Which book?’ Her mistress never read anything else.
Mrs Courtney ran her eyes down the now painfully short list of names. Then she saw the name of Sir George Clarence, which had a thin line scored through it. She frowned. She had scored his name out when her grapevine had told her he was on the point of proposing to a Miss Bearcroft, but that had come to nothing.
Sir George Clarence.
She carefully wrote his name in again and looked at it thoughtfully. A handsome man and a bachelor. Of course, middle-aged bachelors were notoriously difficult to catch and then the last time she had seen him he had been taking tea in Gunter’s with some odd creature who looked vaguely familiar.
Mrs Courtney tapped the end of her quill against her newly painted mouth. That woman with him. She had looked very familiar. Now where had she seen those odd eyes and that crooked nose before?
And then, all at once, she remembered.
Thornton Hall.
A housekeeper in cap and bombazine dress. That was it! Miss Pym, that had been the creature’s name. And taking tea with Sir George, just as if she belonged in one of London’s most fashionable establishments!
Did Sir George know? But then, of course he must. He was that gloomy old stick, Clarence’s brother, after all. What could he be about to entertain a servant in Gunter’s?
She had tried inviting Sir George to various entertainments, all of which that gentleman had refused, even a turtle dinner. People said he did not go out much in the world any more. How could she get to him?
‘Janet!’ she called again. ‘I am going to write down the address of Sir George Clarence. I want you to go to his house and discreetly watch his comings and goings and report to me.’
‘Certainly,’ said the delighted Janet. The weather had turned fine and it was a great opportunity to spend time out of doors.
‘What does he look like, madam?’ asked Janet.
‘Very distinguished. Tall and with a good profile, slim figure and very blue eyes. Elegant dresser.’
The sharp little maid enjoyed herself thoroughly out and about in the streets of London for the next few days before giving her anxious mistress her report. Sir George walked in the park at ten o’clock every morning, without fail.
Ten o’clock was a hideous early hour of the day for the fashionable Mrs Courtney, but she felt the strong lure of the chase.
There was no time to have a new walking-dress made, but she felt the best one she had would do nicely. It was of plain muslin, the front of the bodice and the sleeves being made rather full, the latter gathered with a band and finished with a bow of ribbon. On her head, on her newly brown curls, she placed a chip-straw bonnet in the cottage style with a round crown of lavender-blossom silk.
Convention made it necessary for her to take her maid, but Janet was told that once the prey was in view, she was to walk as far away as possible.
Mrs Courtney stationed herself at the gates of Hyde Park in the shadow of the high brick wall and waited
. Then she saw him approaching and walked quickly into the park, only to turn about after she had gone several yards so that she might ‘accidentally’ meet him as he came in.
‘I think I dropped my handkerchief somewhere over there,’ said Mrs Courtney to her maid, just as Sir George’s tall figure came into view.
‘I shall go back and look, madam,’ said Janet with a grin, immediately understanding the ruse.
Mrs Courtney sailed forward and then pretended to start with surprise. ‘Why, Sir George!’ she cooed. ‘How delightful to meet you again.’
He bowed quickly to mask the frown of displeasure on his face. He enjoyed these morning walks, as he usually had the whole of the park to himself.
‘Your servant, madam,’ he said stiffly.
Mrs Courtney, to his irritation, wheeled about and fell into step beside him. ‘Such a beautiful morning,’ said Mrs Courtney. ‘Ah, such sylvan rapture. I quite dote on Nature.’
‘Indeed.’ Sir George quickened his step, and she quickened hers accordingly.
‘Now when did we last meet?’ mused Mrs Courtney. She had rehearsed this, had practised an Attitude, where she would stand on one foot and playfully put one finger on the point of her chin – or where it used to be – and put her head on one side. But he was pressing on and so she practically had to run along beside him.
‘Ah, I have it!’ she cried. ‘’Twas most odd. You was entertaining some servant to tea in Gunter’s.’
Sir George stopped abruptly.
‘Are your wits wandering?’ he demanded icily.
‘But,’ faltered Mrs Courtney, ‘it was her, Miss Pym, that odd housekeeper from Thornton Hall.’
Sir George’s face cleared and his eyes began to dance. ‘Oh, that Miss Pym,’ he said. ‘Yes, she is a great friend of mine.’
