Beatrice Goes to Brighton (6 page)

She had no sooner dressed again than Lord Alistair Munro called to tell her of his success with the Prince of Wales. He was on the point of telling Hannah also that it might not be a good idea for her to appear at the ball. Brighton society blamed her for tricking it and he knew several ladies who would go out of their way to be nasty to her, but Hannah looked so elated,
so happy at the idea of going that he did not have the heart to dim her pleasure.

‘Lady Beatrice Marsham,’ announced Benjamin in the strangulated and refined tones he used for polite company.

Lady Beatrice sailed in. She was wearing a modish bonnet with a high crown and a striped silk gown which flattered her excellent figure. She looked slightly taken aback to see Lord Alistair and Hannah noticed the shutter coming down over her eyes.

‘Lord Alistair has been to see the prince,’ cried Hannah, ‘and all is well. His Highness was vastly amused and not cross at all!’

‘Then you must have charmed him,’ said Lady Beatrice to Lord Alistair.

He laughed. ‘I was diplomacy at its best, I assure you,’ he said.

‘I had my first dip in the sea, my lord,’ said Hannah proudly, ‘and would not have dared had not Lady Beatrice elected to join me. It was the most liberating experience. I felt quite
wanton
!’

Lady Beatrice looked at Hannah with affection and Lord Alistair studied her curiously. Why had the haughty Lady Beatrice stooped to be kind to the undistinguished Miss Pym?

Hannah rang the bell and ordered Benjamin to bring in tea and cakes.

‘But we haven’t got no cakes, modom,’ said Benjamin in injured tones.

‘Then run and get them,’ snapped Hannah, thinking, not for the first time, that Benjamin had a lot to learn.

‘Stay!’ said Lord Alistair, holding up his hand. ‘Allow me to entertain you ladies at a pastry cook’s. There is a very good one near the pier, where we may sit and look out of the window at the waves.’

Lady Beatrice opened her mouth to refuse. But her eyes fell on Hannah, who looked like a child at Christmas and the refusal died on her lips.

Soon they were seated at a small round table at the bay window of the pastry cook’s. Hannah looked out at the fluttering muslins and fringed parasols of the ladies and the military strut of their gallants and beyond them to the magnificence of the restless sea. Her eyes glittered with tears and Lady Beatrice put out an impulsive hand. ‘What ails you, Miss Pym?’

Hannah took out a small but serviceable
handkerchief
and dried her eyes. ‘I was thinking of Sir George Clarence,’ she said.

‘Is he dead?’ Lady Beatrice looked anxious.

‘Oh, no.’ Hannah shook her head. ‘Sir George Clarence took me to tea at Gunter’s in Berkeley Square. It was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to me. I can still hear the chink of china and smell the confectionery …’

‘Of course you can,’ teased Lady Beatrice. ‘Are you not in a pastry cook’s?’

Hannah shook her head. ‘I was thinking how much my life has changed since that very day. I was thinking how very happy I am and I was praying that both of you could be as happy.’

Lord Alistair looked surprised. ‘You underrate the
charms of your company, Miss Pym. I am having a delightful time.’

A shadow fell across Lady Beatrice’s face and she studied the table. For she was suddenly and sharply aware that she had been enjoying herself that very day as she had never enjoyed a day since her late husband had led her to the altar. To her horror, tears welled up in her own eyes, and she brushed them angrily away.

Lord Alistair looked at her curiously. He had already damned her as a hard, cold bitch, devoid of feeling. Now all he could see was a beautiful woman in distress. Something tugged at his heart, but his mind told him angrily that Lady Beatrice was an experienced flirt and probably a good actress.

‘Getting like a wake,’ said Benjamin. Hannah sharply reproved him for impertinence, but Lord Alistair laughed and said, ‘That man of yours must have Scotch blood in him. No one can rival Scotch servants for speaking their minds.’

But Benjamin’s remark had the effect of lightening the atmosphere. Lord Alistair told them a story of two friends of the prince’s who had bet on a couple of geese to see which one would cross the road first. A certain Mr Rothmere won the bet and was so grateful to his winning bird that he adopted it and took it everywhere with him on a lead, just like a dog.

Lady Beatrice capped that by telling a story of her visit to a ladies’ gambling club in London, and how the women turned their pelisses and spencers inside out before playing, imitating the men who wore their coats inside out for luck, and how all had played with
the same intensity as their male counterparts, until a Lady James had won a great deal of money and one of her opponents accused her of cheating. Lady James had snatched off that opponent’s cap and jumped on it, and so a regular battle had broken out, with women screaming and tearing each other’s hair and gowns.

She had just finished her story when she glanced out of the window and saw Sir Geoffrey and his mother walking past. She shrank back in her seat. Lord Alistair twisted his head and looked to see what had frightened her. He recognized Sir Geoffrey.

‘That was your fiancé, I think,’ he said to Lady Beatrice. ‘Would you like me to call him?’

‘No, that is not necessary,’ said Lady Beatrice. ‘I shall no doubt see him this evening. I must go. No, do not rise, Miss Pym. You have not finished your tea.’

She hurried out, with her maid scurrying after her.

‘Now, what was all that about?’ Lord Alistair gave Hannah a quizzical look.

‘Oh, my lord,’ said Hannah earnestly, ‘I am sore worried about dear Lady Beatrice. She is being constrained to marry a monster.’

‘Impossible! She is a widow of independent means.’

Hannah shook her head. ‘You see, Blackstone left her nothing but debts. Her parents paid them and settled a comfortable income on her, but she has had only a year to enjoy her freedom. If she does not marry Sir Geoffrey, then her parents say they will cut her off without a shilling.’

‘How very Gothic,’ he commented drily. ‘Are you sure you are not being gulled?’

‘No, my lord. I am a good judge of character. Servants must be good judges of character, you know, for they are always being subjected to the whims of their employer or his guests. I got to know which ladies to be wary of. Once one of Mrs Clarence’s guests insisted on giving me two sovereigns. The following day she lost heavily at cards, and instead of just asking me for the money back, she told Mrs Clarence I had stolen money from her and demanded that my room be searched.’

‘Which Mrs Clarence did?’

‘Which Mrs Clarence did not. The guest was told to leave immediately.’

‘I wish I had met this Mrs Clarence,’ said Lord Alistair.

Hannah clasped her hands. ‘You would have liked her above all things, my lord. So gay and pretty and happy.’

‘And yet she ran off with a footman?’

‘Well, you know, he was a very handsome footman and a happy fellow, not much in the common way of footmen any more than my Benjamin is. I mean he was not vain or lazy. I believe – I hope – he truly loved her. And, do you see, Mr Clarence was so morose and withdrawn and given to criticizing her constantly. Yes, she did a wicked thing, but I cannot find it in my heart to blame her for it.’

‘Do you know where she is now?’

Hannah shook her head. ‘I often hope when I am on my travels to meet her.’

‘Would you recognize her? She may be vastly changed.’

Hannah looked stubborn. ‘I would know her anywhere.’

‘Your loyalty does you credit, as does your strange loyalty to Lady Beatrice.’

‘I like her and I wish I could help her,’ said Hannah. Her odd eyes flashed green as she studied Lord Alistair Munro from his guinea-gold curls to his embroidered waistcoat. ‘But
you
could surely help her, my lord.’

‘I? Fan me, ye winds! What on earth could
I
do?’

Hannah gripped the edge of the table and said in a measured voice, ‘You could marry her yourself, my lord.’

His blue eyes were icy and his voice cold as he said, ‘You forget yourself, Miss Pym. Pray talk of
something
else.’

Hannah blushed and looked so downcast that he felt as if he had just slapped a child. ‘Forgive me for being so harsh,’ he said gently, ‘but your recent successes in matchmaking may have gone to your head. I am that rarest of creatures, a genuinely happy bachelor. Were I not, I would still not look with any affection on such as Lady Beatrice, a cruel and heartless flirt.’

Hannah began to talk of other things and was happy that by the time he had taken his leave of her, he appeared to have forgotten her unfortunate remark.

That evening, Sir Geoffrey strode up and down Lady Beatrice’s drawing-room in a fury. ‘And so I find this
Miss Pym is some undistinguished female with no connections whatsoever. You are not to see her again, d’ye hear?’

Lady Beatrice let the piece of embroidery she had been working on fall to her lap. ‘You may constrain me to marry you, Sir Geoffrey, but I shall choose my own friends until we are married.’

‘Your parents shall hear of this, madam. Ho, yes. They will hear you are lowering yourself to common company.’

Lady Beatrice picked up her embroidery again and set a careful stitch. ‘I do not think Miss Pym at all common. She is full of surprises and has powerful friends. By all means tell my parents. I shall tell them in turn that you ordered me to befriend her with a view to getting a title. Now, my parents are after your money, as you very well know, but they are high sticklers, and although my ancestors got the title in the first place by ignoble means, they would not look kindly on your machinations.’

‘They are so anxious to get their hands on my money, they would put up with anything,’ said Sir Geoffrey brutally. ‘You’d best pack your traps and come back to Mother’s.’

‘Oh, no.’ Lady Beatrice looked at him coldly. ‘You are among my servants now, Sir Geoffrey, and I have only to call for help if you hold a gun to my head. I was a fool to go with you before, for I realize now, I am of no interest to you dead.’

He grinned at her. ‘You forget, sweeting, that if you do not do what I ask, I shall simply break off the
engagement and your parents will cast you off just as if you had broken it.’

‘I thought of that,’ remarked Lady Beatrice evenly. She selected a thread of purple silk and held it against the cloth, her head a little on one side. ‘My parents, as you so rightly point out, are anxious to get your money, and believe me, they are even more ruthless than you. Should you terminate this engagement, or try to, they would drag you through the courts. They would sue you for breach of promise. My parents love the courts. My father’s lawyers spend most of their time there, suing people over boundaries and tenancies. They would make your life a misery.’

‘They would not dare!’

‘You
have
met my parents, have you not? Ah, that gives you pause. You know I have the right of it. I shall continue to see Miss Pym. She makes me laugh. Good night, Sir Geoffrey!’

Lord Alistair Munro came across a party of acquaintances on the front the following day. They had telescopes trained on the ladies’ bathing machines.

Lord Alistair looked to see what the focus of their interest was. He had very good eyesight, and even without a telescope he recognized Lady Beatrice and Miss Pym in the water. They were splashing about like seals and their laughter faintly reached his ears. And then, as he watched, Lady Beatrice, with the help of the attendant, climbed out of the water up the short wooden ladder to the bathing machine. Her gown was moulded to her body. He felt a quickening of his
senses, and suddenly impatient with himself, he turned abruptly and began to walk away.

Miss Hannah Pym, without stays, ventured to take a walk, with Benjamin behind her, later that day. Lady Beatrice had had a summons from her parents, who had arrived in Brighton.

The feel of her own unrestricted body seemed somehow sinful, and Hannah felt she had gone too far. In fact, her thin, flat-chested figure looked just the same as it did when held by a long corset, but Hannah, although wearing a smart blue wool gown under a pelisse, for the day had turned chilly, was sure everyone was staring at her and everyone knew she had thrown off her stays.

She chided herself and told herself not to be ridiculous, but she was uneasily aware of hard glances cast in her direction. It came as almost a relief to see Mrs Cambridge approaching her with a party of ladies. But the welcoming smile died on Hannah’s lips as Mrs Cambridge came straight up to her and said haughtily, ‘You are an impostor and a charlatan. Do not have the temerity to appear at Southern’s ball or it will be the worse for you.’

Then she minced on, her friends casting many angry glances back at Hannah.

‘Cats!’ said Benjamin. But Hannah stood stock-still, a wave of misery flooding her. She had so wanted to go to that ball, but now she could not. The wind was rising and little grey clouds were scudding across the sun and the sea had a restless, angry look. At one
corner of the street, a ballad-seller was singing ‘Death and the Lady Margaret’s Ghost’, and at the other corner, another ballad-seller was competing by
singing
‘Chevy Chase’. Their voices rose and fell on the wind, sometimes a cacophony, sometimes in
unexpected
unison as they both hit the same note.

Hannah turned about and went slowly back to her lodgings. She left Benjamin to make tea and went to her bedchamber and put on her stays, feeling obscurely that God had sent Mrs Cambridge to punish the wanton.

Later, in the parlour, seated in front of a bright fire of sea coal, Hannah said dismally, ‘You may as well take a letter to Sir Alistair and tell him I cannot go to that ball, Benjamin.’

‘You got to go, modom,’ said Benjamin. ‘The prince will be there. Think o’ that? Ain’t that worth putting up wiff a few old cats, mouthing an’ staring? Lady Beatrice’ll be there and Lord Alistair is a friend o’ the prince’s, ain’t he? Well!’