Deborah Goes to Dover (9 page)

His journey, had he but known it, was not really necessary. Lady Carsey had already been told to leave, Sir Paul Langford and his lady giving the usual excuse to speed the unwanted guest by saying that they were leaving on a visit elsewhere. Lady Carsey had fallen victim to the lady’s-maid grapevine.

When it came to relating gossip abovestairs, the lady’s-maids were quite a power. Lady Carsey had a new lady’s maid, Francine, a flighty creature who had
taken a dislike to her mistress shortly after she was engaged. But she was clever and sly and pretended to dote on her. From Lady Carsey’s other servants, particularly the ones she had dismissed, she had quickly learned all the scandals connected with her mistress and, by flirting with the estate agent, had found out about Lady Carsey’s ruin.

But an impoverished mistress was something to be kept quiet about, as any of Lady Carsey’s servants would lose consequence as a result of it, and so Francine had kept all she knew to herself. But that morning, Lady Carsey had been in a foul temper. She had taken to drinking heavily but concealed it well. She vaguely remembered sending John Fotheringay off to murder Miss Pym and Benjamin, and, in the cold light of day and with a pounding headache, she wondered if she had run mad. Great wealth was a good protection against the law of the land. England, unlike France, refused to countenance a police force, and so the law was carried out by Bow Street Runners, who were more like thieves themselves, and parish constables who did their duty for only a month before handing over to someone else who equally resented the duty, and the elderly men of the watch, who were often too old and infirm to be interested in anything other than staying alive.

So when Francine clumsily dropped a scent bottle and the smell of the spilt contents crept around the room, making Lady Carsey feel even more ill, she unleashed the worst of her temper on the lady’s-maid for the first time.

Francine sponged up the mess, opened the
windows,
and then went down to the servants’ hall and proceeded to murder her mistress’s reputation. She told of the attempt to have Benjamin tried and hanged for a theft he did not commit, of his subsequent abduction, and ended with saying that Lady Carsey had left to visit the Langfords to get away from the duns on her doorstep.

Lady Langford’s lady’s-maid, Betty, told her
mistress
the whole while dressing her head with flowers and feathers. Appalled, Lady Langford sent for her husband, who gave her the usual lecture about listening to servants’ gossip, and then proceeded to discuss with his wife the best way of speeding the parting guest.

‘Tell her we’re off to stay with the Chawleys tomorrow,’ said Lady Langford, ‘and she’ll need to leave first thing in the morning.’

Lady Carsey was feeling much restored by the time she descended to the drawing-room to pass that tedious country-house time before dinner. One of the other guests, aMr Frederick Jolly, was sitting on a sofa staring into space.

Lady Carsey sat down next to him. He was a fish-faced young dandy who looked as if he had been blown into his clothes, they were so very tight and so very shiny. He was corseted and padded and
nip-waisted
and painted, and so dead-faced, he looked like a dummy.

‘The weather has been unseasonably cold,’ essayed Lady Carsey.

‘Yaas,’ he said, staring straight ahead. ‘The weather has been unseasonably cold.’

‘Do you live in this county?’ pursued Lady Carsey.

‘No, I do not live in this county,’ replied Mr Jolly.

Lady Carsey gave a sigh and rose and went to join old Lord Rothers, who was stooped over the fire. He was a short, square, ugly man like John Bull. ‘How have you passed your day?’ asked Lady Carsey gaily.

He gave her a terrified look, straightened up and bundled his great red hands into fists.

‘Well … ahem … rumph! … don’t you know … ahem … garrumph!’

‘Quite,’ said Lady Carsey faintly.

The door opened and Sir Paul and Lady Langford walked in. They stood on the threshold, very close together. ‘Lady Carsey,’ yelled Sir Paul, and then flushed and lowered his voice. ‘Lady Carsey, we are going on a visit to the Chawleys in the morning. I am afraid you will have to leave first thing.’

‘What a pity,’ said Lady Carsey lightly.

Mr Jolly and Lord Rothers looked startled,
recognizing
the time-honoured way of getting rid of the unwanted and each wondering feverishly what they had done to offend. The Langfords had decided to sacrifice both of them in the good cause of getting shot of Lady Carsey.

The footmen came in with the before-dinner drinks. Now Lady Carsey was aware of an
atmosphere
of contempt, of unease. The footmen looked at her with bold curiosity instead of lowering their eyes as they were supposed to do before their betters, and 
Sir Paul and his lady were sitting as far away from Lady Carsey as they could get. There is nothing more abhorrent to the British aristocracy than the sight of someone in financial difficulties. Lady Carsey could have been rumoured to have been guilty of all sorts of skulduggery without raising the same disgust in the Langford soul.

Dinner was a poor affair, the Langfords having told their cook not to go to any special effort. Lady Carsey proceeded to drink too much. The two other guests were incapable of conversation and the Langfords seemed determined not to offer any. The butler came in with the bleached old mail-bag and began to hand out letters, saying the mail had just come up from Rochester.

Lady Carsey murmured an excuse and broke open the seal containing her nephew’s letter. She could feel a clammy sweat breaking out on her brow. Miss Pym, she remembered, had powerful friends. Now she wanted the evening to end. But the butler reappeared to announce the arrival of the Earl of Ashton. Lady Carsey brightened, but her face fell when the butler added that Lord Ashton wished to see the master privately.

Sir Paul departed and returned half an hour later, looking grim. He told the gentlemen that they were welcome to sit up over their port but he himself had the headache and meant to lie down.

Soon Lady Carsey, fortified with a bottle of brandy, was back in her room again. She told Francine that they would leave in the morning and told that young
lady to report for duty at six o’clock and begin to pack. Francine sulkily prepared her for bed and then flounced out, leaving her mistress to her thoughts and her brandy.

The more brandy Lady Carsey drank, the more she became convinced she could trap the Earl of Ashton. Instead of returning to Esher direct, she would call at his home on some pretext.

She had almost forgotten about Miss Pym and that footman. With a smile on her lips, she drifted off to sleep.

William and Deborah were down below in the Langfords’ kitchens, sitting at the scrubbed deal table eating hot biscuits, baked for them by the old cook, who treated both the twins as if they were still the tousle-headed scamps who used to ride over to see her.

They were regaled with all the gossip about Lady Carsey and how she had been sent packing, and so William was able to find out that she was in the Blue Room, which was just off the back stairs.

Deborah, looking at her brother’s flushed and happy face as he munched biscuits and teased the cook, thought that he appeared now like her younger brother. She did not want to go ahead with the masquerade, which stuck her now as horrible, while William appeared to think it was a jape. What would Ashton think if he found out? She had an impatient longing to see the earl treat her like an adult, a woman. She remembered the careless way he had
ruffled her curls. That sweet and passionate kiss must have been sweet and passionate only on her side. He has probably kissed scores of women, thought
Deborah,
miserably crumbling a biscuit and wishing the night’s escapade were over.

At last William rose to leave, with many promises to come again. They went quietly out into the grounds, but only as far as a gazebo a little way away from the house, where they had hidden their
disguises.

Normally they would have talked and joked to pass the time, but Deborah kept falling silent. Perhaps, she thought guiltily, someone like Clarissa was just what her brother needed to make him grow up.

One by one, the candles and oil-lamps in the mansion were put out. The twins waited an hour longer, beginning to shiver with nerves and cold.

‘Now,’ said William, lighting a dark lantern, ‘on with our disguises.’

Soon he was dressed in livery and with the slouched hat pulled down to hide his face. Deborah put on the sandy wig and a plain grey gown. ‘We’ll put the grease-paint on in the servants’ hall. There’s a mirror there,’ said William.

They crept towards the house and in by the little-used door at the side which the butler always forgot to lock and made their way to the servants’ hall. Fortunately for William and Deborah, the Langfords treated their servants well and there was no one sleeping on the floor.

They painted their faces with white grease-paint
and dusted their clothes down with flour. ‘It’s a pity there aren’t any chains,’ said William.

‘It’s just as well there aren’t,’ pointed out Deborah. ‘We have to get up the back stairs to her room
quietly
. Leave your shoes. We’re not supposed to make a noise. What are you doing with that omelette pan?’

‘Magnesium powder,’ said William with a grin. ‘We light this just when we finish our haunting. There’ll be a tremendous flash. Got to light it in the pan and take the pan away with us so as to leave no clues that we are human.’

Lady Carsey had fallen into a heavy drunken sleep, which, like most heavy drunken sleeps, only lasted an hour. She began to twist and turn, beset with worries. Why had she sent John Fotheringay off to kill that pair? It had been different at Portsmouth, when he had hired smugglers to try to do the dirty work. Her own nephew! She sat up. If John were caught, then he would talk and talk.

Francine had made up the fire before she went to bed, and red flickering flames set the shadows dancing.

And then she distinctly heard a low moan. She put one white hand up to her throat and stared wildly around and then reached for the bell-pull beside the bed. But before she could even touch it, they were there in the shadowy corner of her room, two terrible figures, their faces blanched and white, their dark clothes outlined in white.

‘Woooo!’ said a sepulchral voice. ‘I am Benjamin Stubbs, most foully murdered.’

‘And I too. I am Hannah Pym,’ wailed the female figure.

Lady Carsey opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out.

‘We will haunt you until the day you die,’ moaned the Benjamin ghost.

‘Till you die,’ echoed the Miss Pym ghost.

Like nearly everyone in this modern age of 1800, Lady Carsey still believed in ghosts. ‘Go,’ she
whispered.
‘It was a joke. A little chloral.’

‘We will drag you down to hell,’ said William. He was beginning to enjoy himself immensely. Then he thought he heard a footfall somewhere in the house. He motioned Deborah to stand in front of him and bent down and lit a taper at the fire.

‘We will return,’ he moaned and lit the magnesium powder. There was a hellish flash, William having been over-generous with the powder. Lady Carsey screamed and screamed as the twins made their escape.

Francine came running in, her lace nightcap askew. ‘Ghosts,’ whispered Lady Carsey. ‘There. By the fire.’

‘You’ve had a bad dream, my lady.’

‘But the smoke. The foul smell of the pit.’

Francine wrinkled her small nose. A coal from the fire was lying smoking on the hearth. She picked it up with the tongs and put it back on the fire. ‘Nothing but a burning coal, mem,’ she said scornfully, and flapped at the smoke from the magnesium powder, which was still drifting about the room. ‘I saw them, I tell you,’ muttered Lady Carsey, her teeth chattering.

‘Nobody there, mem,’ said Francine. ‘I tell you, you’ve had a bad dream.’ She cast a speaking look at the nearly empty brandy bottle beside the bed.

‘I
didn’t
. They were there,’ muttered Lady Carsey. ‘I cannot be left alone this night. Get into bed with me.’

Francine backed away. She had heard all about Lady Carsey’s odd tastes and, like most servants, learned more about sexual vagaries in her youth than most ladies would learn in a lifetime. ‘Oh, no,’ said Francine. ‘You’ll feel better in the morning,’ and fled from the room.

Lady Carsey lay back against the pillows,
trembling.
She forced herself to rise and to light every candle in the room. Then she dressed and sat shivering, waiting desperately for daylight, when ghosts
returned
to their dark world.

‘So,’ said the Earl of Ashton the next morning at breakfast, ‘I shall ride over to Rochester today and arrange seats for you all on the Dover coach which leaves the day after tomorrow. I do not think you are in any danger. The fact is, or so Langford tells me, that Lady Carsey has fallen on hard times and will find it difficult to evade justice in future.’

‘Another day,’ said Abigail softly.

‘Yes,’ said her mother and then, deliberately misunderstanding her daughter, she added, ‘My pet is anxious to meet her beau.’

Hannah noticed that the captain looked gloomy and Abigail miserable and hoped that sister Jane was
the competitive minx that Abigail had led her to believe she was.

‘Have you any objection to lending me one of your hunters?’ asked the captain abruptly. ‘I would like to take a ride about the estate. I have a mind to end my military days and purchase a little property of my own.’

Mrs Conningham put down the piece of toast she had been about to munch and stared at him. ‘A ride around this magnificent estate will not give you any idea of how to run a cottage and garden,’ she said.

The captain ignored her. ‘I had in mind a tidy little estate, nothing like this, but with some good fishing and rough shooting.’

‘Indeed!’ The earl looked at him in surprise. ‘Travers’s place over at Spurry Ridge is due to go under the hammer. He’s in sore need of funds and you could probably have it lock, stock and barrel for a bargain. Let me see, there’s one hundred and fifty acres of quite good land, three farms in need of some cash being pumped into them, good stables and outbuildings. All Travers’s money went on the hunt. Three thousand a year he spent on his hounds. Take my advice, Captain, and avoid hunting if you want to stay solvent.’