by M C Beaton
Finally Mr. Souter said expansively, “Now what’s this here—er—business?”
“Involves a little work, but the pay’s good provided you keep your mouths shut,” said Brock. “Follow me.”
They followed him like sheep to a rickety building in Petticoat Lane and up the stairs to a dingy room.
“Now here’s what you do,” said Brock. “Sit round this table.” The Souter family obeyed. He put a shilling on the table before them, gave them metal, a file, scissors, and other tools and told them to copy the design of the shilling.
“This here’s forgery!” exclaimed Mr. Souter, as indignant and furious as only a respectable stealer of handkerchiefs could be.
“Good money in it,” said Brock. “Think about it while I go and get another bottle.”
The Souters winked at one another. They had no intentions of taking up the career of forgery. The Souter men occasionally knifed and killed during their thieving expeditions, and so when Brock had left, they decided to stab him on his return and take any valuables they could find from his body.
But when Brock returned, he was carrying not a bottle but a large pistol. With him was the other constable, Pelham, and a third law officer. “Forgers,” cried Brock, and arrested all the Souters in the king’s name.
And so the three constables were able to supplement their wages with the “blood money” they got for catching such wicked forgers as the Souters, and the Waverley women remained blissfully unaware that the Souters, who had never given up plotting against them, were sentenced to transportation to Botany Bay.
Chapter Seven
Lord Harry waited for Frederica in his garden. He wondered whether she would come, for it was raining steadily, dismal, chilling rain, which drummed on the leaves on the sooty trees.
But she appeared over the wall, wearing a large calash over her bonnet.
“Can I persuade you to step into the house?” asked Lord Harry, but Frederica shook her head.
He told her he had not been able to get anywhere at the orphanage. He wondered whether to tell her about his suspicions—that he was sure there was some mystery about her and the other two girls—but decided against it. He wanted to marry Frederica, and did not want that marriage put off while she continued her search.
“Mrs. Waverley found out you had been there,” said Frederica. “But unlike the time that Tredair went, she did not shout or rage. In fact, she has been looking very white and worried ever since. I wish you had not gone. I do not like to see Mrs. Waverley distressed.”
“You must be very fond of her,” said Lord Harry.
“I should be,” said Frederica sadly. “But she has been more like a stern schoolteacher to us than any kind of mother. She occasionally demands and expects affection, and yet has never given anything other than a kind of demanding possessiveness when she feels her little empire threatened by the outside. She also, until recently, would try to set us against each other, as if frightened that our shared affection would take away any we might have for her. I do not know who Mrs. Waverley is, who Mr. Waverley was, or where she comes from, or where she gets her money. She has a man of business in the City, but he does not come to the house. She goes to him.”
“Mrs. Waverley may marry again.”
“To the colonel? Never! She says that no woman of independent means should marry.”
“Perhaps she has letters or papers you could read…?”
“Spy on her? I could never do that. I do respect her and her views, although I am not so committed to them as Felicity.”
“And what of you? We could be married, you know, and then you would be free.”
Frederica looked at him sadly. Even on this dingy London day, he looked a golden and elegant creature. She felt very young and drab. It might amuse him for a little to be married to her, but then he would take a mistress, and she suddenly felt that no amount of freedom would make up for that.
“I must go,” she said quietly. “It is of no use proposing to me. I am determined not to marry. You must find someone else.”
He looked at her seriously, and then his lips curved in a smile. “Very well, Miss Frederica, I will try.”
She felt a wrench of pain at her heart. Felicity had been right. He had been amusing himself.
***
The Countess of Heatherington looked around her ballroom and felt she would like to wring Caroline James’s neck. Why on earth had that actress creature decided to make her triumphant return to the stage on this night of all nights? Society had flocked in droves to see her in Macbeth. If they came at all, it would be after the performance was over. Her prize of the evening—Mrs. Waverley and Colonel Bridie—had arrived, and the two Waverley girls, but apart from them, there was only an undistinguished group of young people and their chaperones.
Frederica and Felicity were enjoying themselves immensely. There were no threatening dandies or leaders of the ton present, no Lord Harry, only cheerful and amusing young people. Mrs. Waverley seemed happy to sit in a corner and talk to her colonel, but she did approach the girls at one point to say they would probably leave at eleven o’clock and take a late supper at home.
But at eleven, when Mrs. Waverley tried to leave, she found her way barred by an almost hysterical Countess of Heatherington. The guests would soon be arriving, said the countess. Mrs. Waverley must not leave. She was the guest of honor.
Had it not been for the colonel, Mrs. Waverley probably would have insisted on going. But the colonel had been looking forward to a bit of praise and adulation from the notables and managed to persuade her to stay.
Shortly after the curtain had been rung down on what the critics were to describe as the best performance of Lady Macbeth ever seen, the heavyweights of society began to file in.
Before their arrival, the ball had had the pleasant, informal air of a country-house party for young people. But the regiment of society was upon them, with their hard eyes and high, drawling voices, their restless hands flicking the lids of snuffboxes and waving silk handkerchiefs the size of bed sheets with great flourishing gestures.
The colonel and Mrs. Waverley were soon the center of attention and the colonel was telling his story with many dramatic embellishments.
And then Lord Harry Danger arrived with a party of people. He had an elegant lady on his arm and seemed quite fascinated by her. “You see?” whispered Felicity fiercely in Frederica’s ear, and Frederica felt her soul wither and die. The hundreds of candles lighting the ballroom shimmered and shone through the sudden veil of tears that covered her eyes. Her own popularity appeared a sham. She was one of the Waverleys, those pets of society, those odd people to be feted and talked about like the latest craze, such as a prize boxer or a clever dwarf, but never to be taken seriously, never to be married.
She almost hated Mrs. Waverley for having taken them out of the orphanage, only to place them in some time limbo where one was in society but never of society. Lord Harry had just put his hand at the elegant lady’s waist to lead her in the steps of the waltz, and Frederica herself had taken the floor with her latest partner, when the Prince Regent was announced. The music ceased and the guests shuffled into two long receiving lines. The Countess of Heatherington fluttered about to make sure that the highest in rank were at the head of each line and that no upstart had forgotten his or her place.
That massive contradiction that was the Prince Regent was in high good humor. He was a gross sensualist, a drunk, a glutton, and yet had a great love of the arts and appreciation of them. He had been to Caroline’s performance and was still elated by the tremendous acting he had seen.
Frederica and Felicity were standing with the colonel and Mrs. Waverley. When the prince approached, the countess said, “Here is our hero of the evening, Your Royal Highness. May I present Colonel James Bridie, he who shot the highwayman in Hanover Square.”
The prince’s good humor appeared to vanish. He gave the colonel two fingers to shake. But he held out his whole hand to Mrs. Waverley, his
large, red-veined eyes holding a hint of sadness. She dropped a curtsy and kissed the fat hand. Then she turned an alarming color and fainted dead away.
“Your royal presence has overcome the poor lady,” said the countess as a group of people, including the colonel and the Waverley girls, supported the stricken Mrs. Waverley.
“We wish to leave,” said the prince petulantly. “Where’s Alvanley?”
“Oh, Your Royal Highness,” pleaded the countess, “we were about to sit down to supper—and we have some fine reindeer’s tongues from Lapland and little Gunter has created a most divine sugar castle especially for me, and the champagne is properly iced.”
The prince walked on while the countess fluttered nervously about him like a pale moth.
“We shall be pleased to stay,” he said suddenly. “But be sure each knows his place. One hostess put a Cit in my vicinity because the vulgar merchant had paid for the honor. Keep common people well away from me.”
His turned briefly and looked back at Mrs. Waverley, who was slowly recovering her senses.
There was no hope of the Waverleys leaving, or anyone else for that matter, until the Prince Regent decided to do so.
Sensing that for some reason His Royal Highness did not approve of Mrs. Waverley’s presence, the countess had her party seated in the furthest corner of the supper room. The colonel put Mrs. Waverley’s distress down to womanly sensibilities. He himself was so overcome at having met the Prince Regent that his own good humor was unimpaired and he regaled his little audience with a great many long and boring stories of his bravery.
The supper dragged on and still the prince stayed at the table. Lord Harry and his lady were seated next to the prince. At one point the prince said something and Lord Harry and the elegant lady both laughed, looking very much like a well-suited couple. Frederica felt excluded from that dazzling world, and yes, shamed. She had been an amusing flirtation, nothing more.
And why was it that the very sight of the prince made the normally redoubtable Mrs. Waverley turn faint?
When the supper was over, it transpired the prince wished to dance. He led Lord Harry’s lady friend to the floor; Frederica found Lord Harry at her side. “The waltz again,” he said. “Prinny is not in a state to try anything more energetic. Will you honor me with this dance?”
Frederica turned to look to Mrs. Waverley for help, but that lady was in low-voiced conversation with the colonel.
“I do not want to dance, sir,” said Frederica firmly.
“Don’t be silly,” said Lord Harry, exasperated. “I am not going to walk off, snubbed, and leave you here… you with your white face and glittering eyes. Come along, widgeon. March! Back to the supper room, sit down, drink champagne, and tell me what ails you.”
He put a firm hand under her arm and steered her back toward the supper room.
Waiters and footmen were clearing the dirty dishes from the table. The confectioner Gunter’s sugar castle lay in ruins, its walls having been broached by many greedy hands. One little sugar cannon hung drunkenly over the edge of the remains of a battlement.
“Sit down. Here!” said Lord Harry, dragging out two chairs at the end of one of the long tables.
“Waiter! Champagne! Now, Frederica, what is the matter with you?”
“I am tired, that is all.”
“Liar. Here is your glass of champagne. Drink it. A toast! Who or what shall we toast?”
Frederica’s eyes flashed. “Why do we not drink a toast to your fair companion?”
“Very well. Excellent idea. To Lady Gaunt, wife of my friend, Sir John Gaunt, at present stationed in Paris—-who wrote to me begging me to squire his beloved bride to a few events, which I had not done so to date because of dancing attendance on you.”
“Oh,” said Frederica in a small voice. “I thought you were going to look for someone else.”
“I may do so. But not this evening. Why did that amazon, Mrs. Waverley, faint at the sight of the prince?”
“I do not know.” Frederica turned anxious eyes up to his. He looked into the blue intensity of their depths and felt his heart turn over. “It happened before,”* said Frederica. “I think she must have once known him.”
“In the biblical sense?”
Frederica blushed. “No, of course not. Can you imagine Mrs. Waverley having a wild affair with anyone?”
“Not when I look at her as she is today. She might have been very beautiful once. Perhaps the root of the mystery that surrounds you lies with the Prince Regent.” Lord Harry silently cursed himself. He did not care about Frederica’s parentage and was sure she might marry him if only she could stop caring about it herself. She looked so worried and distressed that he put his gloved hand over her own. That simple touch sent a tingling up his arm, and then filled his whole body with a feeling of exhilaration. “Think of it,” he said urgently. “I could pick you up in my arms this minute and run off with you and marry you. We could travel. Would you like that? We could go to Paris now that that monster had been defeated. We could go to Italy or go to Greece and look at the ruins. We could leave dingy, dark, rainy London behind and travel to the sun.”
Frederica half closed her eyes. His voice went on like a siren’s song. “We could see Venice, drowned Venice, and sail between the houses, or go to Constantinople and cruise up the Bosporus, where the white marble steps of the palaces descend down into the blue water. We could smell the hot smells of pine and tamarisk and mimosa instead of the drains of London. We would be together, alone, in each other’s arms, all the world we need.”
“Frederica!”
Frederica’s eyes flew wide open at the sound of Mrs. Waverley’s stern voice. All the golden pictures whirled away and she was suddenly back in the real world. She disengaged her hand from Lord Harry’s.
“We are going,” said Mrs. Waverley.
“So the prince has left,” said Lord Harry, rising to his feet. “That must be a great relief.”
“I do not know what you mean, Lord Harry,” said Mrs. Waverley. “You have no business to be holding Frederica’s hand.”
“I would make it my business,” he said, “were it not for your constant and unreasonable interference.”
“Come, Frederica,” said Felicity, her voice sharp with disapproval.
Frederica rose and curtsied to Lord Harry. Her eyes were warm and happy.
Mrs. Waverley and Felicity, like warders on either side of her, marched her off and down the stairs to the carriage where the colonel was already waiting.
Frederica remained wrapped in a happy dream all the way home. She floated up the stairs to her room and then hummed a few bars of the waltz the orchestra had been playing while she had sat in the supper room and learned that Lord Harry’s companion was only the wife of one of his friends. She unpinned her hair and unfastened the simple necklace of seed pearls that she had worn, Mrs. Waverley having been finally persuaded by the colonel of the folly of being seen in public wearing too many jewels.
Felicity came in and stood for a moment watching her.
“I have to tell you this,” she said. “Do you know the name of that lady who was with Lord Harry this evening?”
“Yes,” said Frederica happily. “Lady Gaunt, wife of one of his friends, Sir John Gaunt, at present stationed in Paris.”
“And did you know that Lady Gaunt, before her marriage to Sir John, was a widow, a Mrs. Sommerville, and that she was Lord Harry Danger’s mistress?”
“That cannot be true,” said Frederica fiercely. “Sir John wrote to Lord Harry and asked him to escort his wife.”
“That does not alter the fact that she was his mistress and may still be amusing herself with him. At least five people told me the gossip while you were languishing in the supper room with him.”
“People are amazingly jealous.”
“It was the dowagers who told me, not the young misses. I made it my business to find out who she was.”
“I do not believe a word of it!”
&nbs
p; “Then ask him!” cried Felicity. “He cannot deny what most of London society—with the exception of such an innocent as yourself—knows very well.”
“I shall ask him and you will look a silly, vindictive, and interfering fool.”
“Is that what you think of me?” said Felicity sadly. “I do worry about you, Freddy, and would not see you hurt.”
“Go away,” said Frederica fiercely. “You are nothing but a troublemaker.”
When Felicity had left, Frederica sat down at her writing desk, wrote a note to Lord Harry, sealed it, tied it onto the poker, ran downstairs to the library and, raising the window, leaned out as far as she could and threw the poker and letter sideways over the garden wall. She had asked him to meet her at ten in the morning. It seemed like a lifetime away.
***
When she arrived in the neighboring garden the next morning, the rain had stopped, but the skies were gray and a chilly wind was whispering and rustling among the leaves like so many society gossips. Poker and letter were gone, but she wondered if his servants were waiting until their master awoke before delivering her note.
But the door to the garden opened and he came out, wrapped in a huge quilted dressing gown.
He approached her with a smile on his face, a smile that soon faded when he saw how grim she looked.
“Now what?” he asked plaintively.
Frederica faced him, hands behind her back, head up. “I have reason to believe,” she said, “that Lady Gaunt was your mistress.”
“I had an affair with her before her marriage to John, yes.”
“And is Sir John aware of this fact?”
“I believe so.”
“And yet he trusts you with his wife?”
“Oh, yes. They are very much in love.”
“All this hopping from one bed to the other,” said Frederica wearily, “disgusts me.”
“You would have us all chaste and pure?”
“As you would have me. I am glad you have told me the truth.”
And then the elegant and sophisticated Lord Harry blundered badly. “I was never in love with her,” he said.