The Waverly Women Series (3-Book Bundle)

by M C Beaton

  The gin shops of the last century had brought about a staggering rise in crime in London. It was only when the Prince of Wales was robbed in Hay Hill in Mayfair, and highwaymen started to operate in St. James’s Square, that the public at last listened to that great reformer, Patrick Colquoun. He had tried to get them to accept a professional police force that was dependent on central government. This was going too far, but they set up paid magistrates—they had hitherto been unpaid—in each parish and increased the amount of constables.

  There was still, however, no central organization or direction, no sense of a comprehensive metropolitan police force designed to deal with London as a whole. Each London district now had its own local magistrates, officials, and constables, and their authority was essentially parochial. So, although the police forces, both professional and amateur, at the disposal of the authorities was greatly enlarged, the system was effective only in dealing with local crimes, and often no one even bothered to pursue suspects into a neighboring parish.

  The watchmen were often old and infirm men who were only too happy to look the other way if a robbery were in progress. And so this family of thieves, though less bold than they might have been in the climate of a few decades ago, were nonetheless encouraged to take risks—provided the stakes were high enough.

  Happy that she had her family’s full attention and the threat of violence had passed, Annie seized a pig’s trotter from a dish on the table and began to munch it. With her fat face and snout of a nose, she looked like a sort of cannibalistic porker.

  “Well, go on, then,” urged Mr. Souter, picking at his blackened teeth with a quill. “Tell us more.”

  Annie put down the chewed pig’s trotter and wiped her mouth on her shawl. “They’ve got these here jewels all over the house. And no menservants, mind! But I got better news. The house next door is empty. You could break in the back.”

  “And what would that do?” asked her mother, aiming an ineffectual kick at a lean dog who was sniffing under the table.

  “They way I see it,” said Annie, “is you could loosen the bricks in one o’ the walls in that house, get through next door, and surprise them in their beds.”

  They all stared at her.

  “You sure there’s all them jewels?” asked her father.

  “Thousands and thousands o’ pounds worth,” said Annie.

  The Souter family began to argue the pros and cons while Annie, thrilled to be the center of attention, drank gin and dreamed of Mrs. Waverley’s horrified face as she watched all her precious jewels being taken away.

  ***

  Two days after her adventure, Mrs. Waverley was told that Lady Harriet Danger had called.

  “Are you sure it is not Lord Harry Danger?” she asked Mrs. Ricketts.

  “No, mum. A lady she is.”

  Mrs. Waverley sighed. “I hope she is not so feckless and flighty as her brother. There was a levity in that young man I did not like. Show her up.”

  Frederica and Felicity looked up from their books with interest. “Lady Harriet Danger,” called Mrs. Ricketts.

  They saw before them a plump, well-dressed lady in a modish hat. It was her eyes that Frederica noticed first. They were certainly fine eyes, being large and golden brown, but it was the expression in them that caught Frederica’s attention. Aristocrats usually had a haughty damn-you stare. It was not affected. It came from a way of life which led you to believe that most of the people in the world were beneath you. “I am looking down on you from a great height,” said that stare. But Lady Harriet’s eyes held a peculiar mixture of intelligence, wariness, and kindness.

  After the introductions had been effected and tea served, Lady Harriet, said, “I believe you met my brother the other night?”

  “Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Waverley. “A very brave young man. He saved our lives.”

  “I think our dignity was more in danger than our lives,” said Frederica.

  “Do not correct me,” said Mrs. Waverley in the tones of a schoolteacher. “It is very rude to disagree with anyone in public.”

  So this was Frederica. Lady Harriet’s eyes turned on the figure sitting behind the great pile of books. She saw a young slim girl with masses of slate-colored hair, bound with a gold fillet, and beautiful blue eyes, which were now looking at her with an unsettling mixture of interest and amusement.

  “I have called,” said Lady Harriet, “because Harry tells me you champion the rights of women. This is a subject very close to my heart.” She raised her eyebrows in surprise as she found that Mrs. Waverley was regarding her with a certain cynicism. Mrs. Waverley was remembering Lady Artemis, who had claimed an interest in freedom for women simply to catch the interest of the Earl of Tredair—the Earl of Tredair who had run off with Fanny.

  “I hope that is the case,” said Mrs. Waverley. “Sisters can be very devoted and affectionate, and I trust Lord Harry has not sent you along to—er—gull me, Lady Harriet, with a view to striking up an acquaintance with one of my girls.”

  I did not think she would be so sharp, thought the actress, Caroline James, behind the mask of Lady Harriet. I am being myself and that will not answer. Let me see, I played the Duchess of Worthing in that play in 1802. That’ll do.

  “I beg your pardon,” said Lady Harriet icily.

  Frederica was amazed at the change. The comfortably human person who had been sitting there had disappeared—to be replaced by a haughty aristocrat. Now the eyes were as hard as glass.

  “I am sorry, my lady,” said Mrs. Waverley, sounding flustered.

  “And so you should be,” said Lady Harriet awfully. “How can you be of assistance to women if you cannot trust them? I am interested to hear your teachings, and the best way to start is by questioning your pupils. You, miss,” she said, turning slightly to Frederica, “what are your views on marriage?”

  “Ambivalent,” said Frederica.

  “How so?”

  “Logic battles with emotion and tradition. Logic tells me that marriage in this day and age can never be a partnership between equals. Once all the pretty words are said and the courtship is over, a woman must submerge her personality and agree with her lord’s every view and every whim. She is told her sole purpose in life is to cosset and minister to some man. On the other hand,” she said wistfully, “I cannot help wishing sometimes that all the romances were true. That great love and romance and passion should settle down through the years to a joint life of companionship and mutual respect.” She grinned suddenly. “In short, what I am trying to say is that part of me still wishes that the knight on the white charger would bear me off to a life free of responsibility and care.”

  “I would say your mother has seen to it that you are at present free from responsibility and care,” said Lady Harriet.

  Frederica was silent.

  “Men fight battles, go to war, engage in commerce,” pursued Lady Harriet. “Women are made to bear children. Is it not true that men are our masters and know better?”

  “Such a gallant picture,” said Felicity, “all the men in England bravely riding off to war. But most of them, you know, spend their days in coffeehouses, clubs, and taverns and fight England’s battles from the safety of a comfortable chair. A woman, when she marries, not only loses her independence, but, if she is not aristocratic and does not have a marriage settlement, all her money and property become her husband’s, and so she cannot leave him else she would starve.”

  “And what is your solution to this problem? It is no use trying to change the existing order unless you are prepared to put something in its place!”

  “I think greater education for women is important. Change only comes through education. I would like to see a day when women retained their independence after marriage,” said Frederica, “where a man who beats his wife is subjected to the full penalty of the law, just as if he had assaulted a stranger. I would like to see the cult of the pretty, useless, female toy exploded. But, alas, there always will be women who will betray thei
r own sex by behaving like morons.”

  Lady Harriet laughed. It was a joyous, rippling laugh, a famous laugh which had once charmed London audiences. “You must argue with my brother,” she said. “He shares your views, Miss Frederica.”

  Frederica thought of the handsome, beautifully tailored, and languid Lord Harry. “I find that hard to believe, my lady.”

  “Are you calling me a liar?” The Duchess of Worthing was back on stage.

  “N-no,” said Frederica, taken aback. “I was merely funning.”

  “Come,” said Lady Harriet imperiously. “You shall come riding with me, Miss Frederica.”

  Frederica jumped to her feet and ran from the room to get her bonnet before Mrs. Waverley could protest. But Mrs. Waverley was delighted that a titled lady should show such interest in Frederica.

  During that short drive, Frederica found Lady Harriet an odd mixture of personalities. At times she would be warm and amusing, laughing at Frederica’s stories about London society, now knowing they were all out of date, Frederica having not been allowed any social life since Fanny’s elopement. At other times, she would look tired and wan and fall silent. And at others again, she would turn back into the haughty aristocrat.

  She seemed very fond of her brother and insisted he was unusual among men as he agreed with Mrs. Waverley’s views. She asked Frederica why it was she called her mother Mrs. Waverley, and Frederica, surprised, explained that she and Felicity had been adopted by Mrs. Waverley. Frederica was surprised because she thought that was a piece of London gossip known by everyone in the town.

  At last, Frederica confided that she led a maddeningly restricted life. Lady Harriet pressed her hand and said she would take her driving on the following day.

  She called in at the house when she returned with Frederica to gain permission for the further drive, and to Frederica’s surprise, that permission was granted. “If your ladyship does not find me too forward,” said Frederica hurriedly, “I would like to suggest that Felicity should accompany us.”

  “By all means,” said Lady Harriet graciously, and then drove off, glad to be Caroline James again.

  Her apartment in Covent Garden was above a baker’s shop. Despite Covent Garden’s well-deserved unsavory reputation, Caroline liked being so near the theaters and being able to watch the carts bearing their burdens of flowers and fruit and vegetables to the market. The apartment was surprisingly spacious and well lit, filled with a mixture of furniture styles, Caroline having furnished it piece by piece in the days when she first started to earn money as an actress. She had been one of a family of fifteen boys and girls, and, at the age of thirty, was now the sole survivor. Her father, a mercer, and her mother, had died of smallpox, and consumption and influenza had carried off the children. Mr. James’s shop had been in Covent Garden. Caroline had sold it and the stock to pay his debts and for the subsequent family burials, and then had gone on the stage. She had no acting experience, but she was young and very beautiful. At first she was only given small parts, but then the manager had discovered her acting ability and she had gone from strength to strength on the stage—and lover to lover off it. Before she had contracted consumption, she had known she could never bear children.

  She had just unpinned her bonnet when her little maid entered to say that Colonel Bridie was asking permission to come up.

  “What the deuce is he doing back so soon?” asked Caroline. “Never mind, Betty, send him up. I hope that splendid curricle has been taken to the stables out of sight.”

  “Yes, mum.”

  “Very well. Bring a bottle of the best port and some biscuits.”

  Caroline arranged herself gracefully in a chair just as the colonel entered. He was a fiery, choleric man in his mid-fifties. He was tall and slightly corpulent, and he still had all his own hair and some of his own teeth. He spent a great deal of time outdoors on his estates and his face was baked walnut brown. He had shaggy eyebrows which Caroline longed to trim, and a pair of small, restless gray eyes.

  He clicked his heels and kissed her hand. “I called earlier,” he said. “Where were you?”

  “I was paying a visit to a certain Mrs. Waverley in Hanover Square.”

  “Waverley? Waverley! That’s that demned female who caused a fuss last year. Adopted bastards out of an orphanage and preaches against men—and yet one of ’em is now the Countess of Tredair. Don’t have anything to do with her!”

  “Very well, dear, if you say so. But I find her most interesting.”

  “Won’t do at all. You’ll get your mind addled with all her rubbish. Easily influenced creatures, women.”

  “I am quite capable of making up my own mind about people,” said Caroline.

  The colonel leaned forward and patted her hand. “Silly puss,” he said. “You have not the first idea of how to take care of yourself. Well, those days are over, and you’ve got me to do the thinking for you.”

  “Yes, dear,” said Caroline.

  ***

  Lord Harry Danger paid a call on his mother, the Dowager Duchess of Tarrington. The Tarrington town house was occupied by the duchess’s eldest son, the present duke and his duchess, but the duchess had found a town house of her own in Park Lane. She was a tall, thin, nervous, faded woman. Everything about her looked washed out. She had pale, myopic blue eyes and pale, fair hair, a long white face, and a long, thin, flat-chested body.

  “Why have you come to see me?” asked the duchess nervously. “If you want me to do something, I shan’t do it, so there!”

  “I am not here to ask you to do anything,” said Lord Harry sympathetically. “Michael been bothering you?” Michael was his elder brother, the present duke.

  “He won’t leave me alone,” said the dowager feebly. “Quite like your poor father. Always red in the face with temper, and always laying down the law about something. He complains that this house costs too much and that I should retire to the dower house in the country. I can tell you, Harry, it took a deal of courage to tell him I would not.”

  “You told him off! I should like to have heard that.”

  “I cannot lie to you, Harry. I confess I finished the lecture by pretending to faint. Stay for tea, Harry. You are such an elegant, restful creature.” The duchess smiled fondly on her youngest. Lord Harry was lounging negligently in a chair. He had thick, fair hair arranged in a mass of artistically disarrayed curls. He had a tall, thin, muscular body covered in Weston’s tailoring and ending in the shiniest of Hessian boots. His rather heavy lids over startlingly emerald green eyes gave his face a sensuous look.

  “How goes the world with you these days, Mama?” asked Lord Harry. “Found out who you are yet?”

  “I think I am a scared rabbit,” said the duchess, ordering tea from a hovering footman. “But if everyone—well, not you, dear—but the rest of the well-meaning bullies would leave me alone, I should get along splendidly. I want to do all those exciting things I was never able to do before—like stare vacantly at the wall, or eat cream cakes at two in the morning, or leave off my stays.”

  Lord Harry’s father had died four months earlier in a fit of bad temper. He had been an autocratic bully, ten years older than his wife. He had married her when she was seventeen and had proceeded to bully her into submission. She had to do exactly what he wanted, think like him, share his interests, and remain constantly at his side. Other wives had respites when their husbands went to their clubs or the House of Lords, but the late duke, from the day he had taken his bride off to his palace in the country, had kept her there, under his thumb and under the constant scrutiny of his choleric eye. When he had died, the duchess had prayed nightly to God to send her down a personality, for she had become unused to thinking any individual thought or taking any individual action. The house in Park Lane had been her first rebellion, prompted by the fact that her eldest son, despite marriage and ten children, showed alarming symptoms of taking over where his father had left off. The late duke had detested Lord Harry, and Lord Harry had grow
n up nimble and athletic from running through the grounds of his father’s estate at an early age, pursued either by the enraged duke or by a posse of servants sent to give him a whipping.

  “It is kind of you to call,” said his mother, pouring tea. “You are sure you are not going to nag me out of this house?”

  “Not I,” said Lord Harry lazily. “I am setting up my own town house now that I have inherited Aunt Matilda’s fortune. My lodgings in Jermyn Street are a trifle cramped.

  “Where do you plan to live?”

  “I haven’t settled on anything to buy. I am renting Barton’s place in Hanover Square, a very large, gloomy place, but ideally situated. Next door lives a Mrs. Waverley with two girls, the eldest—I think—being called Frederica. This Miss Frederica is out of the common way, so much so that I have decided to marry her.”

  The duchess’s hand, holding her teacup, shook and hot tea spilled onto her lap. She dabbed at it miserably with her napkin.

  “Oh, Harry, you are going to ask me to do something. You are going to ask me to call on this Waverley woman. I have heard of her. She is a militant lady who adopted three girls out of an orphanage. It is said they are bastards, but one of them married Tredair. Gretna. Had to elope.”

  Lord Harry raised his thin eyebrows. “For such a recluse, you are singularly well informed, Mama. So Frederica is not her daughter. It does not matter. Our line could do with some fresh blood… and if her blood is common, so much the better. If she survived an orphanage, she must be made of strong stuff. Do you know that I went on the board of an orphanage to do something with my miserable life? No, of course you did not, for I did not tell you. Well, I found that out of five hundred orphans last year only one hundred and fifty survived… and the governors were proud of their record! Anyway, I do not expect you to call on the Waverleys, although it might do you no harm to hear their bluestocking views. Do you not think women should be allowed more freedom in marriage?”

  “I don’t think anything yet, Harry. You know that.”