Deborah Goes to Dover (14 page)

‘Now, now,’ said Uncle Henry, waving a playful finger. ‘Enough of that after you’re married.’

Out in the street, in front of the house, Hannah shivered. ‘Come along, modom,’ said Benjamin. ‘No need to wait.’

There was a bright flash of lightning followed by a peal of thunder and then the rain came bucketing down. Hannah unfurled her umbrella and
commanded
Benjamin to share its shelter. ‘I am going to wait here until I hear the happy ending, even if it takes all night,’ said Hannah. ‘Oh, if only things could work out well now for Lady Deborah.’

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

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.’

‘Sir George!’

‘Good day to you.’ He touched his hat and strode off across the park at a great rate.

He did not slacken his pace until he was sure he had left her far behind. Dreadful woman, he thought. And what harm was there in his entertaining Miss Pym if he so chose? It was not as if he were going to
marry
her.

Benjamin cursed Sir George under his breath. He thought Hannah was becoming dangerously
overexcited.
The small flat he shared with her in South 
Audley Street had been cleaned about ten times over to his reckoning. She was talking about buying the finest tea and the finest cakes and she had not yet had the courage to invite the man to tea.

He was used to his mistress’s being calm and resolute. He did not like to see her in this dithering, anxious state.

The footman was now on his way to see Sir George Clarence. Benjamin had decided to take matters into his own hands. He had told Hannah he was tired of scrubbing and polishing and was desperately in need of fresh air. This had worked, Hannah being a great believer in the efficacy of fresh air.

Benjamin’s footsteps slowed to a lagging pace as he approached Sir George’s house. Perhaps it would be better to hang about and pretend to bump into him. The day was fine, but he was getting very tired of walking from one end of the street to the other when he finally saw Sir George emerge.

He strolled towards him. ‘Good day, Sir George,’ said Benjamin, raising a white-gloved finger to his powdered hair.

Sir George nodded and walked on, paying no more attention to Benjamin than he would have paid to any other liveried footman.

Benjamin sprinted round the streets and back again. A more direct approach was needed.

‘Why, Sir George!’ he cried, stopping in
amazement.
‘The mistress was just talking about you.’

Contrary to Mrs Courtney’s now sour beliefs, Sir George did not talk to servants, nor was he used to
any of the breed daring to try to strike up a conversation with him. He nodded again, swerved round Benjamin, and continued on his way. From behind him came an exasperated Cockney voice. ‘Bleedin’ blind old fool. I give up.’

He swung round in a fury. The liveried footman was moodily kicking a dustbin outside an area gate.

He marched back. ‘What did you say, young man?’ he demanded.

‘I was talking to meself, Sir George,’ said Benjamin hurriedly. ‘I was thinking of a character Miss Pym met on her road to Dover.’

‘Why, Benjamin!’ said Sir George. ‘I did not recognize you. Miss Pym is returned?’

‘Yes, sir, ’deed she has.’

‘Well, well, I must call on her.’

Benjamin winced. Miss Pym would be thrown into a worse flutter if she had to wait for Sir George to call. The footman could gloomily imagine more scrubbing and cleaning, not to mention all the rushing to the windows at every sound of a carriage in the street.

‘I would like the mistress to find larger quarters, sir,’ he said earnestly. ‘So cramped for entertaining, like.’

‘I found Miss Pym’s apartment so charming,’ said Sir George, ‘that I really did not notice the size of it. I would not like her to go to any trouble on my behalf. Of course, I can take her out. Tell your mistress I will call for her at three o’clock tomorrow. If that is not suitable, you may let me know. If you do not, then I shall be there at three as promised.’

‘Very good, sir.’ Benjamin bowed until his nose was almost touching his knee.

Sir George turned and walked away. Odd fellow, that footman, he thought and turned and looked back in time to see Benjamin dancing down the street, occasionally performing a leap in the air and kicking his heels together.

Hannah listened breathlessly to Benjamin’s tale of how he had happened to bump into Sir George purely by accident and of Sir George’s invitation.

‘Good heavens,’ said Hannah. ‘What an odd coincidence when you think of all the people there are in London.’

Hannah did not sleep much that night and rose at a painfully early hour, looking at the clock and reflecting that she had to live through a good few hours before three o’clock arrived.

Benjamin stayed in his room for as long as possible. He knew Hannah would be fussing and fretting and trying on one dress after the other. By noon, he was too hungry to stay in bed any longer. He rose and put on the new – or rather, new to him – livery he had bought in Monmouth Street. It had belonged to a duke’s footman who had run away from his employ and had sold the livery. Benjamin had taken off the crested buttons and replaced them with plain ones. The livery was of red plush with epaulettes of gold like a field marshal’s. There were gold buckles at the knees and the coat was edged with gold braid. He felt he had put what was left of the prize-money after he paid his
debt to good effect. He then opened a box and carefully took out a spun-glass wig and tried it on. No more powdering for him!

Hannah stared in amazement when the grandeur that was Benjamin emerged from his room.

‘You do look a trifle
gaudy
,’ said Hannah doubtfully.

‘Me!’ screeched Benjamin outraged. ‘I look as fine as fivepence.’

‘Yes, yes, Benjamin,’ said Hannah soothingly. ‘Perhaps I shall become accustomed to it. You make me look quite dowdy.’

‘You’ve done a good enough job yourself,’ said Benjamin, looking at Hannah’s plain brown gown. ‘What are you about, modom?’

‘I look very well,’ snapped Hannah. She went back into her room and stared at herself in the long mirror. The truth was that she had been trying on one gown after the other and could not make up her mind and so had settled for one of her old gowns, thinking in despair that it all did not matter anyway. He could never be interested in her.

Benjamin followed her in. ‘Come now,’ he said coaxingly. ‘The green silk’s just the thing with that pelisse to match.’ He walked to the wardrobe and hooked it down. ‘Does wonders for you, if I may say so, modom.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Sure as eggs is eggs. Put it on.’

Sir George, arriving promptly at three, could not have guessed as he bent over the hand of the fashionably dressed lady in the green gown and
pelisse what near hysteria had taken place just before his arrival, Hannah screaming that the gown was too vulgar-grand and trying to take it off, and Benjamin preventing her by tying the tapes at the back so tightly that she could not get the dress unfastened.

Hannah did not protest as the uninvited Benjamin climbed onto the back of Sir George’s carriage. She felt now she needed her footman’s support.

‘Gunter’s again, I think,’ said Sir George and Hannah’s soul burst out of her body, shot up into the sky like a rocket and cascaded its happy blessing over the west end of London in a shower of golden rain.

When they were seated at Gunter’s, Benjamin removed himself to stand with the other footmen outside, for the famous confectioner’s was too small to allow the presence of servants as well.

Hannah recounted her adventures and Sir George listened, amazed, while his untouched tea grew cold. The green dress, had Hannah but known it, had been an excellent choice, for when she was excited her odd eyes glowed green. Her hair, instead of sandy, looked the rich colour of an autumn leaf, and her sallow skin, like warm honey. She was like an interesting
landscape
, thought Sir George, as he watched her as she spoke: at first quite plain until you began to notice a beautiful tree and a tumbling river and the richness of the leaves on the trees.