Penelope Goes to Portsmouth (14 page)

She looked at Benjamin and nodded reluctantly.

Hannah found she had fallen in love with her new abode. Here she was, right in the centre of fashionable London. She had written out her first cheque – one for the year’s rent – slowly and with great trepidation. Benjamin was installed in his cell. He had found a bed, a table, and a chair. As usual, he refused to accept any money from Hannah, a Hannah who, still smarting from Lord Abernethy’s remarks, complained crossly that her footman must stop treating her like a pauper. But then she suddenly became aware of the social advantage of having a footman. Benjamin could take a letter to Sir George Clarence and inform that gentleman of her return. Hannah wanted to remind him of his offer to take her to the opera, but did not dare.

Sir George Clarence was reading the newspapers when Benjamin arrived with Hannah’s letter. He read it and then looked up in surprise as his servant told him that Miss Pym’s footman was waiting in the hall in case there was any reply.

Sir George was at first startled and then assumed that Miss Pym had sent one of her own former colleagues to act as messenger. He remembered clearly having offered to take his brother’s exhousekeeper to the opera. He pulled forward a sheet of paper and then hesitated as he glanced at the address on Hannah’s letter – a very fashionable address. She would not keep much of her legacy at this rate, he thought. To take the housekeeper to Gunter’s was one thing, to appear with her at the opera was another. And yet he had promised, and he
remembered the way those odd eyes of hers had glowed with delight.

He would call on her, he decided. No need to make his mind up right away.

Hannah broke the seal of his letter impatiently while Benjamin regarded his mistress bursting with curiosity.

‘Thank you for going to Sir George Clarence,’ said Hannah. ‘Watch my mouth, Benjamin, and I will tell you how I came to meet him.’

She described her late employer, her legacy, and the kindness of Sir George. ‘And he is coming here this afternoon, Benjamin! What shall I give him?’

Benjamin held up his hand and then pointed to his chest, indicating he would handle everything.

Sir George had said he would call at three. By half past two, Hannah was seated and dressed, and in an agony of anticipation. She was wearing a white muslin gown with a blue spot under a Turkish vest of black velvet. On her sandy hair was a Turkish turban made of blue muslin with a falling edge fringed in gold. She had a pair of the latest shoes on her elegant feet, thin slippers of blue kid, without heels. She began to speak aloud, practising her vowels. No one said ‘obleege’ any more; it was now oblige. No one said ‘Lonnon’ these days; all pronounced it London.

And then she heard a knock at the street door and Benjamin pattering lightly down the stairs to answer it, Benjamin who had appeared that morning in a new pair of thin leather pumps to replace the heavy shoes Mr Cato had bought him.

Sir George’s first uneasy feeling was that Miss Pym had joined the ranks of the Fashionable Impure. First, there was the footman, not a colleague, but obviously Hannah’s servant. Then there was the elegant flat. And then there was Miss Pym, a Miss Pym on whom the fashionable clothes sat well. Before, he reflected, she had looked as if she had only borrowed them for the day.

But the minute she began to speak, he knew that Miss Pym was as respectable as ever. She was so open, so frank, so obviously delighted to see him. The day was chilly and a fire blazed on the clean hearth. The footman came in and put down a plate of thin sandwiches and a plate of cakes and then proceeded to make a pot of tea in an elegant pot and pour it into delicate cups.

Hannah wondered uneasily how Benjamin had come by the china.

Sir George pressed Hannah to tell him of her latest adventures and then leaned back in his chair and listened in amazement to a tale of hanging, wrecked carriage, kidnapped footman, burnt house and near drowning.

‘My dear Miss Pym,’ he exclaimed at last, ‘surely you have had your fill of adventures?’

‘I thought I had,’ said Hannah, thinking of her depression after Lord Abernethy’s call. ‘But I shall go on a little journey next time, perhaps to Brighton. Oh, to see the sea again, Sir George!’

Sir George looked at her with affection and decided on the spot that he would take her to the opera after
all. She amused him as no other woman had ever done and he often found the days of his retirement long and wearisome.

‘I have not forgotten my invitation to the opera,’ he said. ‘Would tomorrow night be too soon? I can call for you at eight.’

Hannah’s odd eyes glowed. ‘I would love to go,’ she said, and then, as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she realized she had nothing to wear. Fortunately, Sir George immediately took his leave and did not notice that Hannah was becoming more depressed by the minute.

‘Benjamin, what am I to do?’ wailed Hannah. ‘He has asked me to the opera and I have not a suitable gown. I took some of my late employer’s wife’s clothes – with permission, of course, but I did not imagine at the time that I would be going to places like the opera house.’

Benjamin looked at her, his head a little on one side, his eyes bright and intelligent.

‘And where did you find the china, Benjamin?’

The footman wrote down, ‘Borrowed.’

‘From whom?’ asked Hannah.

He wrote down, ‘Butler in household near here.’

‘I am surprised you know any servants at all,’ said Hannah. ‘For it is my belief that before Lady Carsey you had not worked in service.’

Benjamin looked hurt.

‘No, it is not an insult,’ said Hannah, ‘and you are the best of fellows. But you must remember I am a servant myself, or was one until recently. The women
are all very well, but footmen can be lazy and frivolous and not very bright.’ Her thoughts flew to Mrs Clarence. The footman she had run off with had been very handsome and charming but certainly not very intelligent. Then her thoughts returned abruptly to her present problem and she sighed.

‘I shall try to think of something, Benjamin, but I fear I am going to have to refuse Sir George’s invitation.’

Benjamin went silently away and cleaned and packed the borrowed china and took it to the butler two doors away. He had gambled with the butler and then asked for the loan of good china in lieu of payment. The butler looked immensely relieved to get it back.

The footman stood in the butler’s little pantry and slowly tossed the dice up and down. ‘No, you don’t,’ said the butler. ‘Once bitten …’ A bell clanged from upstairs. ‘That’s my lord and lady,’ exclaimed the butler. ‘Going out.’

Benjamin waited in the pantry for a few moments and then went out of the servants’ door and climbed the area steps. Lord and Lady French, the butler’s employers, were getting into their carriage. Benjamin studied Lady French with interest. She was a thin, spare, middle-aged woman, very fashionably dressed.

He darted back down the stairs. The butler exclaimed with annoyance when he returned. ‘It’s no use hanging around here, fellow. I think them dice you got was loaded.’

Benjamin wrote down, ‘Use any dice you like.’

The butler hesitated and then grinned. ‘Got an hour to spare,’ he said. ‘But
my
dice, this time.’

After an hour in the servants’ hall, the butler clutched his wig and moaned, ‘I must ha’ been mad. That’s half a year’s pay you’ve got off o’ me.’

Benjamin smiled at him gently and wrote down, ‘I need to borrow something else. Lend it to me and I’ll forget your debt.’

Hannah awoke the next day wondering why she felt so low. Then she remembered. She would need to pluck up courage and tell Sir George she could not go to the opera.

She sat up in bed and then stared in surprise at what lay across the bottom of it.

She slowly got up and went and picked up the splendid opera gown that was lying there. It was of rich plum-coloured velvet ornamented with gold embroidery. Beside it lay an opera cloak of gold lamé.

She went into Benjamin’s room and jerked her head as a signal that he was to follow her.

Benjamin, in his shirt-sleeves, breeches and bare feet, and yawning loudly, trailed after her.

Hannah pointed to the clothes. Benjamin disappeared and returned with a sheet of paper on which he had already written that he had managed to borrow the clothes but was sworn to secrecy as to where they came from and, no, he had not stolen them.

Hannah picked up the gown and held it against her. She somehow knew it would be a perfect fit. Her hand smoothed the beautiful material, and all in that
moment, she decided she did not care how Benjamin had come by it. She would go to the opera.

The opera was a blaze of light and jewels. Hannah felt just as nervous as if she were about to go on stage. She felt Sir George was looking overwhelmingly grand in a silk coat of dark blue with diamond buttons, a fall of lace at his throat, and a dress-sword with a jewelled hilt at his hip. His white hair gleamed silver in the candlelight and his blue eyes were warm and merry.

Hannah was in such a state of rapture, combined with acute nervousness, that she thought she might faint. She sat down very gingerly on the edge of her chair and looked around her with dazed eyes.

The opera was an Italian one by Giovanni Pergolesi called
La Serva Padrona
, which Sir George explained meant ‘The Maidservant Turned Mistress’.

Practically all of society went to the opera to see each other and to be seen. Sir George reflected it was a novelty to entertain a lady who had come to see what was on the stage. From the moment the curtain rose on the first act, Hannah was enchanted with the frothy plot of the maid-servant who tricks her master into marrying her. To her relief it was sung in English, so she could follow every word. Lord Abernethy’s harsh words were a thing of the past. Hannah had recovered all her child-like capacity of treasuring the moment. The voices of the opera singers coiled round her heart. At the interval, she was so proud of being escorted by such a fine gentleman as Sir George that she felt her happiness was close to tears.

But her evening did not end with the opera. There was a ball afterwards. Hannah knew how to dance, as the servants at Thornton Hall, when Mrs Clarence had been in residence, had enjoyed almost as many dances in the servants’ hall as their betters did abovestairs.

She danced a creditable minuet with Sir George and then sat at his side, where she enjoyed watching the other guests, too happy to be aware that speculative eyes were being cast in her direction and various dowagers were wondering sourly if that confirmed bachelor, Sir George, had fallen at last.

And then there was the carriage ride home in the small hours of the morning, the air of Covent Garden full of the smells of fruit and vegetables from the nurseries of Kensington as the market prepared for the morning’s trade.

But nothing, nothing at all in that whole magical evening could match the moment when Sir George helped Hannah down from his carriage in South Audley Street and raised her hand to his lips.

Benjamin was waiting at the top of the stairs to take Hannah’s cloak, to lead her to a seat by the fire, to lean forward and watch her lips as she poured out all the glories of the evening.

When she had at last fallen silent, Benjamin wrote down, ‘When will you see him again?’

Hannah clasped her hands. She knew she could not bear to wait in London hoping he would call. If he did not call, then she felt her heart would break.

‘After Brighton,’ she said. ‘We will go to Brighton, and
then
I shall see him again.’

Titles by M.C. Beaton

The Travelling Matchmaker series

Emily Goes to Exeter •
Belinda Goes to Bath

Penelope Goes to Portsmouth
•
Beatrice Goes to Brighton

Deborah Goes to Dover
•
Yvonne Goes to York

The Edwardian Murder Mystery series

Snobbery with Violence
•
Hasty Death

Sick of Shadows
•
Our Lady of Pain

The Agatha Raisin series

Agatha
Raisin and the Quiche of Death
•
Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet

Agatha
Raisin and the Potted Gardener
•
Agatha Raisin and the Walkers of Dembley

Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage

Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist

Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death

Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham

Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden

Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam

Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell

Agatha Raisin and the Day the Floods Came

Agatha
Raisin and the Curious Curate
•
Agatha Raisin and the Haunted House

Agatha
Raisin and the Deadly Dance
•
Agatha Raisin and the Perfect Paragon

Agatha Raisin and Love, Lies and Liquor

Agatha Raisin and Kissing Christmas Goodbye

Agatha
Raisin and a Spoonful of Poison
•
Agatha Raisin: There Goes the Bride

Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body

The Hamish Macbeth series

Death of a Gossip
•
Death of a Cad

Death of an Outsider
•
Death of a Perfect Wife

Death of a Hussy
•
Death of a Snob

Death of a Prankster
•
Death of a Glutton

Death of a Travelling Man
•
Death of a Charming Man

Death of a Nag
•
Death of a Macho Man

Death of a Dentist
•
Death of a Scriptwriter

Death of an Addict
•
A Highland Christmas

Death of a Dustman
•
Death of a Celebrity

Death of a Village
•
Death of a Poison Pen

Death of a Bore
•
Death of a Dreamer

Death of a Maid
•
Death of a Gentle Lady

Death of a Witch
•
Death of a Valentine

Death of a Sweep