Penelope (14 page)

Penelope suddenly realised she was very hungry indeed and, apart from that, she no longer cared much what happened to her so she allowed herself to be led into the coach.

Her newfound friends kept a tactful silence until they were all seated round a table in the upstairs parlor of the nearest hostelry.

Mr. Jennings was a complete contrast to his buxom, jolly wife. He was a thin, ascetic gentleman with a dry, scholarly voice. He refused to let Penelope speak until she had eaten a substantial meal, conversing instead with his garrulous wife. Penelope gathered that the couple was setting out from Bath on the long journey to their home in Dover. Mr. Jennings had been taking the waters at Bath for a liver complaint. The visit to Bath had effected a cure, caused, claimed Mr. Jennings, by the rest from work and strict diet rather than by the sulphurous waters of Bath.

When the covers were finally removed, he called for a churchwarden, and once the long clay pipe had been lit, turned to Penelope and asked her in his dry, precise voice if there was any way in which he could be of service to her.

The former sparkling innocence of Penelope’s blue eyes had fled to be replaced by a wary, hurt look. The Jenningses seemed kind, but who could tell? Perhaps they had hopes of marrying her off to the richest man in Dover to further their social ambitions!

Nonetheless she related baldly, in a tired little voice, that she had been seeking her former employment at the Misses Fry’s seminary, without success. She made no mention of the Earl, only stating that she was returning to Bath after a brief stay with her aunt in London. She and her aunt had had a certain disagreement. No, she had no other relatives or friends who would aid her. She thanked them for their hospitality but insisted she must be on her way.

“Oh, but …” burst out Mrs. Jennings and was silenced by a look from her more phlegmatic husband.

“Now, Miss Vesey,” he said, puffing on his long pipe. “It so happens that we can help you. We have two daughters, Jane and Alice, who are at a seminary in Dover. They are just finishing but are in need of some town bronze before their come out. Nothing very grand, you understand. They will only be attending the local assemblies and parties. I am a lawyer by profession and we do not move much in very elevated society.

“My wife is kept too busy to train the girls herself. She …”

“Come now,” interrupted his wife with a jolly laugh. “You know well, Mr. Jennings, that I’m too rough and ready. I’m all thumbs in grand society.”

“But with a very beautiful soul,” said Mr. Jennings simply, and his wife blushed like a girl.

Why, they are in love! thought Penelope in wonder. Love in London society seemed to be an exclusively extramarital emotion.

“In any case, Miss Vesey,” went on the lawyer in his dry, precise voice, “I would have you understand I am not offering you charity. We are in need of a governess to train our girls in the social arts. As I say, we are not very grand people but my wife runs a comfortable home. I shall give you a few minutes to think about it.”

Penelope did not need long to ponder her answer. She simply had nowhere else to go.

Soon the Jenningses’ coach rolled away from the inn, down the dusty road on the first part of the long journey south, taking Penelope with it to a new and unknown home.

A
UGUSTA
H
ARVEY WAS
suffering from the full weight of the Earl of Hestleton’s dislike. With his patronage removed, society discovered that Augusta was as common as they had formerly thought.

Since that fatal evening at Clarence House, no cards had arrived at Brook Street and there were no more homes of the powerful and influential for Augusta to snoop around.

She had paid a visit to the Comte in Barnet, only to find that gentleman engaged in his packing. In a panic Augusta had insisted that the Comte take her to France with him.

“But Napoleon is, alas, still on Elba,” the Comte had said. “I fear you are premature.”

“I’m going,” Augusta had said mulishly. “I ain’t staying here after all my work for France to be snubbed at and jeered at. You’re taking me along.”

The Comte had at last wearily agreed. There was a certain Captain Jessey, he had said, whose ship, the
Mary Jane
, would drop them on the coast of France. Augusta must make her own way to Dover and he would meet her at the Green sure that Miss Harvey fell over the side of his ship before it reached the other side of the Channel.

He shuddered to think what Augusta would say—or do—should she find that there was as little chance of her becoming a Countess in France as there was in England, or that the Bonapartistes had never even heard of Augusta, the Comte having taken the full credit for all of Augusta’s information. Augusta, on her last visit to France, had been hoodwinked by a visit to a chateau in the Loire valley—empty except for the heavily bribed servants. She had spent a pleasant day touring what she believed to be her future estates.

Now Augusta was sitting among her corded trunks, awaiting the arrival of the travelling coach she had hired. She thanked her lucky stars for the day she had overheard the Comte and the Viscount talking. Without her promise of a French title, then life would be bitter indeed. What a waste of time and money that little slut Penelope had been! Fortunately the magnificent diamond pendant Lord Barrington had given Penelope had more than covered the expense of that girl’s wardrobe. Who would have thought that Penelope with all her airs and graces would have fallen so easily from her pedestal of virginity!

She looked up in impatience as Miss Stride was announced. Miss Stride had two angry spots of color burning on her cheeks which owed nothing to rouge. In her hand she clutched a sheaf of bills.

“What is this, Miss Harvey?” she burst out. “My mantua maker has returned these bills to me saying that you have refused to honor them.”

“Quite right,” said Augusta.

“How dare you!” said Miss Stride, beginning to tremble with rage. “The humiliation! And after all I’ve done for you.”

“You! What have you ever done for me, except teach me not to eat peas with my knife?” sneered Augusta. “When Hestleton took agin me, there was nothing you could do, Euphie, for all your airs and graces.”

“If you will give me some time …” began Miss Stride, cracks beginning to show in her new veneer of assertion.

“I ain’t got the time,” said Augusta. “I’m taking a trip to France and I won’t be back for a long time.”

“But I have no money,” wailed Euphemia Stride. “You have furthermore encouraged me to run up these bills and although several of them may be in my name, I would remind you they were gowns ordered for you.”

“Then it might teach you a bit of worldly wisdom,” laughed Augusta. She suddenly pushed her large face towards the spinster.

“Lookee here, Euphie,” she said. “You’ve simpered and talked of the importance of having aristocratic connections and a good name. Well, then, I suggest you take your good name and go and live off somebody else. Remember, the good Lord says that unto them that hath, shall be given, an’ I hath, Euphie, and you hathent. So there!”

“You’re heartless,” said Miss Stride, beginning to cry. “You don’t even care what became of that niece of yours.”

“No, I don’t. Any more than I care what happens to you,” said Augusta with her smile at its widest.

“You see, it all comes of being too trusting. Now I—I am
never
trusting. Look at that idiot Penelope.

She needs must go and fall in love with Hestleton and so she ends up in the gutter. Anyway, he didn’t drop Penelope ‘cause she had a bit of a roll in the hay with him. It was all on account of that brother of his, dying like that.”

“But it was a seizure,” gasped Miss Stride, momentarily diverted from her own troubles.

“Ho! That was no seizure. Why, that silly Charles takes a pistol and blows his brains out and he leaves this silly letter …” Augusta bit her fat lip and her protruding eyes bulged from her head in alarm. She had nearly gone too far.

“What were you about to say?” said Miss Stride sharply.

“Nothing,” muttered Augusta.

“You had something to do with Charles’s death,” said Miss Stride, her voice suddenly becoming stronger. “Pay these bills, Augusta, or I shall … I shall …”

“You’ll what?”

“I’ll … I’ll go straight to the Earl of Hestleton and tell him what you told me!”

“Go ahead,” said Augusta with massive indifference, “I won’t be around when his lordship comes calling.”

“You’d better not,” said Euphemia Stride as she turned towards the door, “because I am going right to the Earl this minute and … and … don’t ever come back to London again, Augusta, or it will be the worse for you.”

“Get out of here before I kill you,” said Augusta quietly.

Miss Stride looked at her ex-patroness, and what she saw in Augusta’s green eyes made her pick up her skirts with a squeak of alarm and run from the house.

Rourke, the butler, looked disapprovingly at the flustered spinster standing in the Earl’s hallway. A lady like Miss Stride, he thought, should know better than to go calling on a gentleman in his town house.

“But it is very important,” Miss Stride was insisting. “I have news for my lord concerning Miss Vesey.”

“In that case,” said Rourke, his face hardening, “my lord is most definitely not at home.”

“What is it, Rourke?”

The butler and Miss Stride swung round. The Earl was standing at the top of the stairs, dressed to go out. Miss Stride scurried round the butler. “My lord,” she called, “my lord! ‘Tis vastly important. I have news of Miss Vesey.”

A shutter seemed to close down over the Earl’s face. He descended the stairs slowly, drawing on his driving gloves. “I am going out, Miss Stride,” he said in a flat voice. “I beg you to excuse me.”

“But Penelope …”

Rourke was already holding up the Earl’s many-caped driving coat.

“But it also concerns your brother,” wailed Miss Stride. “About that letter … and about Charles shooting himself.”

The Earl paused, frozen, one arm in the sleeve of his coat. Rourke’s face was like wood.

The Earl slowly withdrew his arm.

“Follow me, Miss Stride,” he said abruptly and led the way upstairs to his private sitting room.

Miss Stride followed him in and sat down on the edge of a rope-backed chair. The Earl looked very grim. She began to wish she had not come.

“Very well,” said the Earl, sitting down opposite her. “Proceed!”

“Well … well …” faltered Miss Stride. “It’s like this.”

She told the Earl Augusta’s strange remarks about Charles’s death and the letter, ending up with the outburst of, “Augusta’s a wicked woman. She has no delicacy, no
feeling
. She even sneered at poor Penelope for having fallen in love with you …”

Miss Stride broke off. The Earl’s eyes had the hard, silver shine of mercury. “I’ll kill her,” grated the Earl, and Miss Stride realised with a gasp of relief that his rage was directed toward Augusta and not herself.

“Where is Miss Vesey now?” demanded the Earl.

“I-I d-don’t know,” stammered Miss Stride. “She disappeared after the Clarence House ball. She had no money, not a penny. She did not even take the diamond pendant that my Lord Barrington had given her. I have no money, my lord, or I would endeavour to find her whereabouts.”

“You can have all my money an’ you find Miss Vesey,” said the Earl grimly, well aware that the spinster lived on her wits.

Hope activated Miss Stride’s nimble brain. “Perhaps Miss Vesey has returned to the seminary in Bath, though she would have had to walk. Perhaps I could travel there myself …”

“I will go,” said the Earl. He crossed to his desk and scribbled rapidly. “There you are, Miss Stride—a draft on my bank and thank you for your information. I shall call on Miss Harvey first.”

Miss Stride carefully deposited the draft in her reticule before she spoke. “I fear Miss Harvey has already left,” she said. “She said she was leaving for France.”

“Then after I have found Miss Vesey’s whereabouts,” said the Earl, “I shall follow Miss Harvey to France and personally wring her fat neck. You may go, Miss Stride.” He tugged at the bell, but Miss Stride would not even wait for the servant. She fled from the room.

Outside she paused and took a deep breath and then slowly drew the Earl’s note from her reticule and blinked at the enormous sum. Euphemia Stride’s troubles and woes fled like magic to be replaced by a fierce gratitude. She would repay the Earl, who was obviously still in love with Penelope. Then, she, Euphemia Stride would help the couple in the only way she could. She would use her busy tongue to tell the
ton
that Penelope Vesey had been grossly misjudged, rouse their wrath against Augusta, and make sure that should Miss Vesey return to London, society would at least have a welcome for her.

The Earl sat in silence after she had left, his mind racing. He was suddenly sure that Penelope had had nothing to do with the blackmailing of Charles. He should have known all along, but the shock of his brother’s death had turned his mind. He groaned aloud. He was as bad as Augusta. And Augusta had said that Penelope had loved him! In his bitterness and hate, in his misguided attempts to save his brother’s name, he had condemned the only girl he had ever really loved … to what?

He suddenly sprang to his feet and, calling loudly for his racing curricle to be brought round from the stables, started to make hasty preparations for a journey to Bath. Augusta Harvey could await his vengeance. The most important thing was to find Penelope. Whatever had become of her?

Penelope had survived, although at times the Jennings had feared she would not. After the rigors of the journey to the Jenningses’ comfortable home in the small village of Wold outside Dover, after the settling in, after the introductions to Mr. Jennings’s two buxom daughters, Penelope had suddenly collapsed from delayed shock. Up till then the need to survive had sustained her. But in the relaxing and comfortable atmosphere of the Jenningses’ home all the memories had come tumbling back. As she tossed and turned at night, the Earl’s voice sneered along the corridors of her dreams, “I would not touch her for a hundred pounds.”