Belinda Goes to Bath (11 page)

6

Had Belinda still been at the inn, the marquess might have begun to wonder at the folly of calling on her. But by the time he arrived at the Queen Bess, it was to learn the stage-coach had left.

He was as annoyed as if Belinda had deliberately avoided him. He returned to the castle, ordered his travelling carriage, and set out in pursuit. He traced them as far as Beckhampton to find they had left an hour before and learned they would probably be stopping next at Shepherd’s Shore.

He drove on, and as the ground began to rise, so he found himself enveloped in the same snowstorm that
had beset the passengers. They were not at Shepherd’s Shore and he wondered whether this stage coachman was as crazy as the last had been and had forged on to Bath. He began to worry, seeing in his mind’s eye Belinda lying in a snow-drift, calling for help.

He came to the lodge-gates and remembered that the Earl of Twitterton had a hunting-box there. He stopped and inquired at the lodge and was told that the stage-coach had gone up to the house.

He was driving the carriage himself. His valet was warmly ensconsed inside and one complaining tiger hung on the backstrap.

The marquess jumped down and told his tiger to take carriage and horses to the stables. The snow was still falling fast, but it had become wetter and the air was perceptibly warmer.

He presented his card to the butler, who answered the door. The earl himself came out to meet him. He was a bluff, soldierly man who had met the marquess before on several occasions and gave him a warm welcome, not asking the reason for the unexpected visit, assuming the marquess was taking shelter from the storm.

The earl said they had already dined and that the servants would prepare something for him, but the marquess had eaten a hasty meal at Beckhampton and so he said he would change out of his travelling clothes and then join the family. As his valet laid out his evening clothes and powdered his master’s hair, the marquess wondered how Belinda would look when she saw him again. Would she blush? Would
she look angry? No doubt the stern Miss Pym had read her a lecture on the folly of her ways.

He found to his surprise that he was nervous. A footman led the way down to the first floor, saying the family and guests were in the drawing-room.

The double doors were thrown wide and the marquess’s name was announced. The marquess raised his quizzing-glass and studied the faces turned towards him. His heart sank.

The earl’s son, Lord Frederick, a brutish-looking young man, was standing by the fireplace. Seated beside the fire was Penelope Jordan. On a sofa, side by side, were her parents, both glaring at him. In a corner was some sort of poor relation, a faded lady netting a purse. The Countess of Twitterton rose to meet him. She was a thin, hard, horsy woman, wearing a row of false curls over her forehead. She should not have gained such a name by marriage as Twitterton, thought the earl. ‘Twitterton’ suggested a vague, dithering sort of female. The countess should have been called ‘Basher’ or ‘Floggem’. She looked like a man masquerading as a woman.

She was an excellent shot, the marquess remembered, and killed anything furred or feathered with a deadly aim. Perhaps that was why this drawing-room, albeit a drawing-room in a hunting-box, did not show any feminine frills or china. Trophies of the countess’s hunting prowess stared glassily down from the walls. All the animals she had killed looked as if they had died in a fit of boredom. There were also various bad oil paintings of slaughtered game. There was one
painting of the countess herself over the fireplace. She was dressed in a filmy blue gown, her hair powdered. The artist had done his best to romanticize his subject, painting broken columns in the background, a Greek temple, and an approaching thunderstorm. But he had painted the expression in her eyes perfectly so that the painted countess surveyed the gathering in much the same way as the real-life one was doing – with a hard, autocratic, judgemental stare.

‘Didn’t think a little bit of snow would drive you off the road, Frenton,’ she said. ‘May I introduce …?’

‘I already know the Jordan family,’ said the marquess. Penelope struck an Attitude. It was meant to represent The Broken Heart. She put one hand on her bosom, stretched the other hand out and cast her eyes up to the ceiling.

‘Got indigestion, Miss Jordan?’ demanded the countess. ‘Rhubarb pills, that’s the thing. Shouldn’t have, though. Got a splendid chef, Frenton. That venison we had for dinner was hung till the maggots were crawling out of it. Sit down, Frenton. How’s hunting?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the marquess. ‘Don’t hunt.’

‘But your papa kept the best pack in the county!’

‘One of his many extravagances,’ murmured the marquess. He looked around pointedly. ‘The lodge-keeper told me the stage-coach had descended on you.’

‘Yes, and a confounded nuisance it was, too.’

‘Hah,’ said Sir Henry in a voice he hoped was laden with sarcasm. ‘Ha! Ho!’

‘And where are the passengers?’ asked the marquess.

‘In the kitchens where they belong.’

‘Is the coach The Quicksilver?’

‘Yes,’ said the countess. ‘Why?’

‘They took refuge with me for a few days.’

‘There you are,’ said the earl. ‘Just proves what I’m always saying. This stage-coach business has got to stop. Not only does it allow the common people freedom to move hither and thither about the countryside, but come a little bit of bad weather, and they think they have the right to thrust their noses inside the door of every noble mansion.’

‘You are behind the times,’ said the marquess. ‘It is not only commoners who use the stage-coach.’

‘Go along with you,’ said the countess. ‘This lot’s got a Methody among ’em.’

‘I escaped that pleasure,’ said the marquess. ‘I entertained them as guests.’

‘With no concern whatsoever for my daughter’s feelings,’ barked Sir Henry. ‘Told you so.’

‘You don’t need to do that sort of thing any more, Frenton,’ said Lord Frederick.

‘What sort of thing?’

‘Well, let a lot of commoners put their thick boots under your dining-table, don’t you see. I mean, it was different when we thought the French Terror would spread over here, but they ain’t going to rise up and hang us from the lamp-posts, so we don’t need to be pleasant to ’em any more. And a damned good thing, too. Beg pardon, ladies.’

‘How refreshingly unsophisticated you all are,’ said the marquess. He raised his quizzing-glass, studied the cut of Lord Frederick’s coat, and sadly shook his head. ‘Now I am not so high in the instep, and by having these stage-coach people in my company, I found a treasure.’

‘Going too far. Too far,’ roared Sir Henry.

The marquess treated him to an icy stare. ‘By which I mean I discovered two of the best voices in the country.’

The countess regarded him suspiciously. ‘Mean that opera caterwauling?’

‘Anything you like,’ said the marquess. ‘They have an enormous repertoire.’

‘Have ’em up,’ said Lord Frederick. ‘Bit of fun. Bit of a lark, hey?’

Lady Jordan stepped into the breach. ‘I do not think you would enjoy these persons’ company
at all
.’

The countess, who had been about to refuse to send for the passengers, turned contrary and glared at Lady Jordan. ‘I’ll have ’em here if I want.’

Belinda and the passengers were eating a late supper in the servants’ hall. They all knew the Jordans were staying as guests. Belinda was glad that they were confined belowstairs.

It was therefore with a sinking heart that she heard the summons from the butler that they were all, except the coachman and guard, to go up to the drawing-room.

She smoothed down the creases in her gown as she stood up. She wished there were some way she could change into evening dress, but the butler was waiting
impatiently and so, keeping very close to Hannah, she mounted the stairs.

When she reached the drawing-room, she half-turned to flee. There was the Marquess of Frenton, there the Jordans. They must have come together, thought Belinda. He must mean to marry her if he has started taking her about with him on visits.

Penelope was wearing a white silk slip of a gown with a silver gauze overdress fastened with gold clasps. A heavy gold-and-garnet necklace emphasized the whiteness of her throat and her glossy brown curls were bound by a gold filet. Her gown was looped over her arm as she stood up, revealing a surprisingly thick leg and shapeless ankle. A thin ray of sunlight shone into the gloom of Belinda’s mind as she saw that leg. Also, Belinda had taken off her pelisse before leaving the kitchen and knew that her muslin morning gown was ruffed and vandyked with the finest lace, and for almost the first time she took comfort in the armour of expensive fashion.

The marquess made the introductions. ‘Yes, yes,’ said the countess impatiently. ‘Which are the singers?’ The Judds edged forward, holding hands.

‘Then sing!’ commanded the countess, waving her hand imperiously towards a spinet in the corner. Hannah went with them and pretended to be helping them by lighting the candles that stood on top. ‘Sing something John Bullish and patriotic,’ she hissed.

She returned and took a seat in the corner next to the poor relation, who turned out to be a Miss Forbes, a fourth cousin of the countess.

‘I do hope they don’t put Lady Twitterton in a taking,’ whispered Miss Forbes. ‘When she was but a gel, she threw a vase of flowers at an Italian opera singer’s head.’

And indeed, it did look as if the countess was regretting her invitation. ‘One song and that’s that,’ she muttered in an aside to her son.

This time it was Mrs Judd who played the accompaniment. Mr Judd stood with one hand in his waistcoat pocket and the other resting on the edge of the spinet. He threw back his head, stuck out his chest, and began to sing:

The Judds looked considerably taken aback, but then delighted as the Earl and Countess of Twitterton and their son began to roar out the chorus. Hannah saw the stark disapproval on the Jordan family’s faces and gleefully prepared to join in.

‘Heart of oak are our ships,’ screeched the countess.

‘Heart of oak are our men,’ bawled the earl.

‘We always are ready; Steady boys, steady,’ roared Lord Frederick in a deep bass.

And then the Twitterton family, Hannah, Miss Wimple, Mr Biles, Belinda, and the marquess all joined together in the last of the refrain:

‘We’ll fight and we’ll conquer again and again.’

Mr Judd’s performance was cheered. Much emboldened, he went on to sing: ‘Oh, the roast beef of England, And England’s roast beef!’

The countess was noisy in her delight and called to Mrs Judd to sing something. Hannah almost held her breath. She hoped Mrs Judd would not sing something operatic. To her relief, Mrs Judd threw a rather saucy look at the earl and began to sing merrily:

Then, when the company had finished laughing at the plight of Miss Bailey’s ghost, Mrs Judd sang a sentimental ballad. This, too, pleased the countess immensely.

Penelope looked covertly at Belinda Earle. But the girl was still not beautiful at all; in fact, she looked crushed and diminished. Why was it then that Frenton appeared to be trying to seem unaware of her and Lord Frederick kept beaming at Belinda with a silly smile on his face? Then, horror of horrors, Lord Frederick left his post by the fire-place and drew up a chair next to Belinda’s. Before the arrival of the
marquess and these hell-sent stage-coach passengers Lord Frederick had been behaving with Penelope just as he ought. He had paid court to her beauty and found every opportunity to be in her company.

Penelope could not know what was going on in Lord Frederick’s rather simple brain. He had been thinking what a rare treat this evening must be for a common lady like Belinda and how she would no doubt cherish it forever and talk to her grandchildren in later years about the evening she spent in a noble household. It made him feel grand and sort of Lord Bountiful-ish. In a pause in the musical recital, he asked Belinda what she thought of the hunting-box. Her reply startled him. ‘It always amazes me,’ said Belinda, ‘that a building called a mere “box” should always be so very large and grand. Mind you, my lord, I have only stayed at one before and that was at Lord Bellamy’s near Nottingham.’

‘Coach break down there as well?’ he asked sympathetically.