by M C Beaton
The colonel had found out she had come unescorted and quickly secured permission from Lady Dexter to escort Miss Waverley home by riding alongside her carriage.
He promised to take her driving on the following day. Felicity smiled as she undressed for bed that night. Bernard was forgotten. She did not care if the colonel was an impostor. He was kind and funny and he made her laugh. And then, all at once, the smile died on her lips. She could feel the presence of the Marquess of Darkwater so strongly that she looked wildly about the room. With a little shiver, she climbed into bed, feeling haunted.
At that very same moment, the Marquess of Darkwater finished a letter to the Earl of Hopetoun telling that peer there was a certain Colonel Macdonald in London who was not only claiming to be M.P. for Linlithgowshire but to be a cousin of the earl. He sanded the letter and decided to send his servant off with it in the morning to catch the royal mail to Edinburgh. The new fast coaches only took thirty-four-and-a-half hours to reach the capital of Scotland. He had paid for a return reply. With any luck, he should hear from Hopetoun before another week was out. Damn Felicity Waverley. He should leave her to her fate. But somehow, he just could not get that girl out of his mind. …
Felicity decided to spend the earlier part of the following afternoon as Miss Callow and then change back to herself to go driving with the colonel.
Her first caller, to her surprise, was Bernard Anderson. When he learned Felicity was “out,” he looked ready to flee rather than spend any time with Miss Callow, but Felicity in her role as her own aunt pressed him to stay for tea.
“You look very disturbed, young man,” she croaked. “What is amiss?”
“I had hoped to see Miss Felicity,” said Bernard wretchedly. “You see …”
He broke off and got to his feet in blushing confusion as the famous actress Caroline James was announced. Caroline’s blue eyes twinkled as she surveyed Felicity in the guise of Miss Callow.
“I am delighted to see you,” said Felicity. “Felicity is out at the moment. She will be devastated to have missed you. May I present Mr. Bernard Anderson to you? Mr. Anderson, Miss Caroline James.”
“I say,” said Bernard, thanking his stars his mother was not present. “I have seen you many times on the stage, Miss James. Such divine acting! Your Lady Macbeth quite frightened me.”
“Thank you,” said Caroline. “I mean, I should have hated to have played a Lady Macbeth people actually liked. Do you attend the playhouse often, Mr. Anderson?”
“When I can,” said Bernard eagerly. He meant when he could escape from his matchmaking mama.
“I am sorry not to see Felicity,” said Caroline. “It may surprise you to learn, Mr. Anderson, that Miss Waverley was the one who gave me the courage to go back on the stage instead of entering into a marriage that would, I am now convinced, have made me miserable. Of course, this all may seem strange to a young bachelor like yourself. Men do not know what it is like to be constrained to marry someone out of fear of insecurity or because a pushing parent demands the sacrifice.”
“Oh, yes, they do,” said Bernard in a hollow voice, and Caroline looked at him curiously.
Tea was brought in by Mrs. Ricketts. Felicity sank back into the shadow of her wing chair and watched with amusement as Bernard began to relax and talk easily in Caroline’s company. Caroline was looking particularly fine in a blue velvet carriage dress with a wide-brimmed black velvet hat on her head. Felicity found she was glad she had not had to meet Bernard as herself. It had been a stupid idea even to think of marrying him. He was too puppyish, too naive, and too much under the thumb of his mother. The colonel on the other hand was tall and mature and very amusing. One would never be bored. She roused herself with a glance at the clock and realized she would need to get rid of her guests, for it would take her a full hour to take off her disguise.
Bernard and Caroline left together. “I do not have my carriage, ma’am,” said Bernard eagerly, “but I would be honored to escort you.”
“Very well,” said Caroline, and Bernard waved down a passing hack.
When they reached Caroline’s address in Covent Garden, Bernard helped her down, paid the hack, and stood on the pavement with a sort of extinguished look on his face that went straight to Caroline’s heart.
“Something is troubling you,” she said gently. “I do not have to be at the theater for two hours yet. Come upstairs and we can sit and chat.”
Her flat was a modest apartment above a bakery. It was all exotic and exciting to Bernard—the cozy parlor with a screen in the corner plastered with playbills, various theatrical costumes and plays lying about, the cheerful fire, the noises of the street coming up from outside and the general feeling of freedom.
He drank wine and looked dreamily at the fire while Caroline went into her bedroom and changed into a loose-flowing gown and then came back and sat on the other side of the fire and said, “Now tell me all about it.”
And Bernard did. All about his mother, all about how he was being forced into marriage with Lady Artemis—“and she frightens me,” he said. “She is such a knowing sort of lady.”
“Did you hope to court Felicity?” asked Caroline.
“I don’t know now,” said Bernard. “I thought it would be jolly to have a friend my own age, but Mama … Well, there you are. She holds the purse strings.”
“What would you do if … I mean, say you were free to work for your living; what would you do?”
Bernard ran his hands through his thick fair hair and stared at her wildly. “What would I do? Oh, ma’am, I would be a carpenter.”
“A worthy trade. You would need to serve an apprenticeship.”
“But I have,” exclaimed Bernard. “When my father was alive, we lived in Mealchin in Berkshire. There was a carpenter in the village and he taught me all his skills. My father—he died two years ago—was amused by my enthusiasm, but my mother was furious. She could not do anything to stop me when father was alive, but when he died, well, it transpired she had set her heart on me marrying an heiress and so we moved to town. I am a simple sort of chap, really, and would have made an excellent tradesman. Life is very unfair. There is probably some poor carpenter somewhere who dreams of how wonderful life would be if he could only be a gentleman of leisure and go to all the ton parties.”
“No doubt. I am afraid you must excuse me now, Mr. Anderson. I am due at the playhouse.”
Bernard thought of his mother’s disapproving face; he thought of Lady Artemis, who made him feel so awkward and clumsy and gauche. He clasped his hands together and stared at Caroline James. “Oh, how I would love to watch you from the wings,” he said. “To be a part of the theater. To be behind the scenes.”
“That can most certainly be arranged,” said Caroline. “But your mother will be waiting for you.”
“Let her wait,” said Bernard. “Please …”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty.”
“A great age,” said Caroline with a mocking smile.
“I am a man,” declared Bernard, standing up and striking his breast in the best Haymarket manner.
“And I am turned thirty,” said Caroline, “an old lady compared to your youth. Oh, very well. You may come with me. But do not get in anyone’s way!”
The play in which Caroline was appearing was called The Beau’s Delight or Miss Polly’s Fancy, a lightweight piece of nonsense that was drawing large crowds. At several points in her performance, she remembered Bernard and glanced toward the wings, both right and left, but of her young cavalier, there was no sign. It was the last night of the play, and the theater was crowded to the gods. When it was over, she sat in her dressing room removing her makeup. The manager of the playhouse entered. “I want to talk to you about that young fellow you brought along,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” said Caroline quickly. “He is in love with the theater. I thought it would do no harm. I assume he made a nuisance of himself and you sent him packing.”
“On the contrary,” said the manager, Mr. Josiah Biggs, drawing up a chair and sitting down by the small coal fire, “he has made himself very useful. That is what I want to talk to you about. He repaired some scenery for me in a trice. So deft and busy with his fingers! I fell into conversation with him. We began to talk about transformation scenes, and he got some paper and a pencil and drew out plans for a stupendous waterfall operated by a clockwork device, not like that tin thing at Vauxhall, but using real water.”
“You would flood the stage and drown the harlequin,” said Caroline.
“Not the way your Mr. Anderson has planned it. Is he really a gentleman?”
“I am afraid so, and one with a mother who would tear you limb from limb.”
“I could be the talk of the nation with such a device as that waterfall,” said the manager dreamily. “You gave up marriage to a baron to stay on the stage. Why should not this Mr. Anderson amuse himself by working with us for a little?”
“Colonel Bridie was not a baron when I knew him,” said Caroline, “although I would have given him up just the same. But this is different. I was an actress in my youth and returned to the theater. It would not answer.”
“I have given him the offer of a job.”
“He cannot take it. He goes in fear of his mother.”
But Bernard, who joined the party in the Green Room that night, appeared to have forgotten his mother’s very existence. His eyes were shining, there was sawdust on his coat, and he was talking happily to various members of the cast. When Caroline took her leave, she found Bernard at her elbow.
“I am going to escort you home,” said Bernard firmly. He appeared to have grown in stature in one evening.
When Caroline reached the baker’s shop under her flat, she turned to Bernard and held out her hand. “Good night, Mr. Anderson,” she said firmly.
Bernard held tightly onto her hand. “I was offered a job this evening,” he said proudly.
“So I heard,” said Caroline, trying to tug her hand free.
“Might I not come up with you and talk about it for a little?”
Caroline’s face hardened. “Certainly not!”
“Oh, just for a little, please, Miss James. This has been the most wonderful evening of my life.”
Caroline relaxed. Mr. Anderson really just wanted to talk.
“Just for a little,” she said, “and then you really must be on your way.”
Mrs. Anderson paced up and down the hall of her town house all night long, listening to the hoarse call of the watch, waiting for her son to come home. She had had to attend a rout on her own. Lady Artemis Verity had been there, and because of Bernard’s absence, Lady Artemis had spent most of her time talking to that ex-fiancé of hers, Mr. Fordyce. Pale dawn light began to creep into the hall. Mrs. Anderson began to feel seriously alarmed. Bernard must have been attacked by footpads.
And then at six o’clock she heard his key in the lock. Bernard came in quietly. “Morning, Mother,” he said coolly, and made for the stairs.
Mrs. Anderson’s massive bosom swelled. “Have you nothing to say to me?” she cried, head back, eyes flashing fire.
“No, Mother,” said Bernard quietly. “Nothing at all.”
Speechless with amazement, she watched him mount the stairs to his room.
Chapter Four
While Bernard Anderson fell into a dreamless sleep, Felicity awoke. She drew back the bed hangings and looked at the little French gilt clock on the mantelpiece. She turned over on her side and tried to go back to sleep, but her mind was racing.
Fragments of conversation with Colonel Macdonald floated through her head. “I have never been married. I never before found anyone I was willing to share my life with … until now.”
It was as good as a proposal of marriage. She had spent last evening in a mood of happy elation. But what now of all her previous strictures and beliefs about that prison called marriage? She had always considered marriage a sort of genteel serfdom. But life with the colonel would never be dull. He was so happy and carefree. He had admitted with an endearingly rueful smile that he had little money. Felicity had confessed that although she did not have a bank balance, she did have the Waverley jewels and was about to start selling a few in order to pay the servants and to cover the daily expenses of running the house. Colonel Macdonald had promptly said if she would trust him with them, he could get her a very good price, so Felicity had agreed to hand a few items to him that very afternoon.
The Marquess of Darkwater’s handsome, saturnine face rose in her mind’s eye again, and his caution rang in her ears. Had she been too trusting? Everyone knew about the Marquess of Darkwater, his unlucky marriage and his background. No one seemed to know much about the colonel apart from what he told them. Lady Dexter had sung the colonel’s praises, but when Felicity had pointed out the colonel was a very odd sort of politician in that he seemed to fight shy of political subjects, Lady Dexter had laughed and said he never bored the ladies with tedious discussions. Felicity was lonely. She realized that was the root of her problem.
Felicity frowned. She should really write to either Frederica or Fanny, begging their forgiveness and so put an end to loneliness. But she was an independent lady, a published author. She should not be so weak-kneed.
But as the time for the colonel’s call approached, Felicity, sorting out a few jewels, became more and more worried about Colonel Macdonald. It certainly would not hurt to lose such a few trinkets when she had so many, yet, because she was a woman and alone, pride made her want to be sure she was not being gulled.
As a young miss, she could hardly interrogate the colonel. But in the guise of her aunt, Miss Callow, she could ask as many searching questions as she wanted.
With great care, she donned her disguise and then went down to the drawing room and waited for the colonel to arrive. On a small table beside her, she placed two fine rings, one ruby and one sapphire, and a collar of diamonds. Mrs. Ricketts was ordered to draw the curtains but to light only one candle and to place it on the table next to the jewels. Felicity wanted to keep the colonel’s attention on the flashing jewels and not on herself.
The colonel was ushered in. At first he looked taken aback to find “Miss Callow” and not Felicity, but then his eye fell on the jewels and he found he could not look away.
He was sorely in need of money. Triumphant and sure of Felicity, he had gambled heavily the night before and had lost a large sum of money to a Mr. Herd, a wealthy landowner. But the colonel had already lost money on a previous occasion to this same Mr. Herd, and Mr. Herd coldly said he expected to be paid promptly. The colonel had promised to meet him after he had seen Felicity. He would use the money for the jewels to pay Mr. Herd, tell Felicity the jeweler would pay a sum the following week, and then in the intervening week, do his damnedest to get her to promise to marry him.
“My appointment was with Miss Felicity,” he said to the little old lady in the high wing chair.
“I know,” said Felicity, “and I know why you are come.”
The colonel wrenched his eyes away from the jewels and looked at her directly and then quickly averted his gaze. Gad! What an ugly birthmark. Had Felicity changed her mind?
“Sit down,” commanded Miss Callow. “I believe you have offered to sell a few items of jewelry for us.”
Colonel Macdonald heaved a sigh of relief. The game was still on.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I would do anything to be of service to Miss Felicity.” He was about to boldly add he had also come to ask leave to pay his respects, but then no doubt Miss Callow would proceed to ask him all about his income and prospects. Better persuade Felicity herself.
Felicity shrank back further into the shadows in order to study him better. She could see he was nervous and uneasy, but it did not seem the uneasiness of the lover.
She leaned slightly forward. “Felicity tells me you are a Member of Parliament.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“There is a
bill at present being read in the House that interests me. It is—”
“Ah, sure,” he interrupted quickly, “you must not be bothering your poor head with such things, ma’am. You see, I can get a good deal for those jewels if I get them to the man quickly.” He half rose.
“Please remain seated,” said Felicity. She felt a wave of sadness engulf her. The colonel was not interested in turning his charm on what he thought was an ugly old woman, and his eyes, which were fastened on the jewels, held a naked look of avarice. Thank goodness I have discovered what he is really like in time, thought Felicity. Aloud she said, “I do not see any need for haste, Mr. Macdonald. Nor do I now wish the Waverley jewels to go to some anonymous jeweler. I shall take them myself to Rundell & Bridge. So much safer to deal with a known and reputable firm.”
The colonel felt a sharp stab of fear somewhere in the pit of his stomach. He had put it about society that he was in easy circumstances. If he did not pay his gambling debts, then he would need to flee London. He had become accustomed to luxuries. His credit with his tailor, his club, his grocers, and his wine merchants had run out. He did not want to start off again penniless in some provincial city. He looked at the jewels again. He could raise enough on those to take him to Paris, and there he could emerge with a new identity and play the field. It was a pity about Felicity, for it would have been grand to have had the pleasure of such a beauty in his bed.
Still, he tried. “Come now, ma’am,” he cajoled. “Let me be speaking with Miss Felicity herself, and she will vouch for my good character.”
“Miss Felicity is guided by me in all matters,” said Felicity. “I wish to retire.” She reached out a hand for the bell.
“Don’t touch that, or it will be the worse for ye!”
Felicity looked up in amazement. Colonel Macdonald had got to his feet and was drawing a wicked-looking knife from his pocket.