by M. C. Beaton
The sound of another carriage arriving made her dry her eyes quickly. This would undoubtedly be Lord Berham.
His tall figure seemed to fill the little parlor. He began without preamble.
“I have heard a distressing tale from my servants of your visit to the seminary in Lamstowe,” he began, his black eyes resting on Miss Manson’s averted face. “They say that one of the Misses Hope was a coarse, fat woman who abused you most shamefully.”
“Indeed, my lord?”
“You do not think so?”
“There was a certain altercation,” said Miss Manson in a low voice, “but nothing to become exercised over.”
“And did Miss Armstrong seem as if she would be happy there?”
“She was… was naturally much distressed. We had become close friends. It is understandable. One does not think of putting a female of eighteen years of age in a seminary.”
“But I was given to understand it was more of a school for deportment.”
“Yes, my lord, you could call it that.”
There was a short silence. Then the earl said, “Are you very sure that Miss Armstrong will be happy there?”
“This is a very pleasant cottage, don’t you think, my lord?” said Miss Manson, apparently inconsequentially.
“Yes,” said the earl, surprised. “It is. But I beg you to answer my question.”
Miss Manson took a deep breath. “Miss Armstrong will be returning for the Easter holidays, my lord. It is a short time away. I think you can safely leave matters until then. If Miss Armstrong is unhappy, she will tell you. Of that I am sure.”
“Very well,” said the earl, giving her a somewhat puzzled look. “We will wait until then. And now here is payment for your services, Miss Manson.” He placed a wallet on the table.
“Thank you,” she whispered, tears starting to her eyes.
He looked at her curiously, waiting to see if she would say anything further, but she merely stood before him with her head bowed.
He left, feeling uneasy.
A letter which arrived from Freddie a week later should have been comforting, but the earl could only puzzle and wonder over it. First of all, the handwriting was small and crabbed and did not seem to belong to someone with Freddie’s generous spirit. Although her grandfather’s lawyers had implied that Freddie’s schooling had not been of the best and that an entry to Oxford University would require an enrollment in a crammer first, the earl had not thought that the girl’s grammar or spelling would be quite so bad.
The letter read:
My dear Lord Berham, Things is Very Nice here what with the wether becoming more mild. Do not send for me at Eester since I am Very Happy to stay with my beluvd Misses Hope who are that kind to me it would bring Tears to your Eyes could you see it. Please send money. Always your faithful and obeddent ward, Frederica.
But then, ladies were never famous for their spelling or grammar, as the earl very well knew, having been the recipient of many love letters.
He resolved to send her money and tell her that he would nonetheless visit her at Easter. Then he took Lady Rennenord out driving in his curricle. She fascinated him more and more each day. Her calm face and eyes seemed to belie the ripe promise of her figure. Her caressing ways and delicate movements, which all seemed every day to reveal a new charm of her body to his eyes, almost made him forget the worry about his ward. He had meant to mention Freddie’s strange letter to Lady Rennenord but did not want to break the magic spell of their outing.
Lady Rennenord always seemed distressed when he mentioned Freddie’s name, and he felt sure it was because she was as worried over the choice of seminary as he was.
That evening he called on Miss Manson again, but the cottage was locked and barred. Neighbors told him that Miss Manson had said she was going on a short visit to relatives. So that was that.
He was sure that he was worrying about nothing. Freddie was probably laughing and joking with her new friends, without a care in the world.
At that moment Freddie was locked down in the coal cellar of the seminary. She had been there all day.
She had thought long and hard over the earl’s thoughtless treatment of her and finally had come to the conclusion that there must have been some mistake.
And so she had gone to the study of the Misses Hope directly after breakfast and demanded to see his letter. Miss Mary had railed at her for her insolence and, seizing the birch rod from the corner, had proceeded to lash Freddie. Freddie had finally wrested the rod from her, broken it over her knee, and thrown the pieces in Miss Mary’s face. The “gardeners,” or wardens, as Freddie thought of them, had come rushing in to the study in answer to Miss Mary’s screams, and Freddie had been thrown down into the coal cellar.
She was wretched with cold and hunger. She began to wonder if they meant to starve her to death. All the long day Freddie had been searching for a way out. There was a small glassless window up at ground level, but it was barred.
She looked miserably at the coal and wondered if it would be possible to eat it. The only thing to cheer her imprisonment had been the discovery of a candle and a lucifer. At least she could have some light. But she hesitated to light the candle so soon. It would have to last the night.
How she wished she had tried to escape instead of feeling so crushed and defeated by Lord Berham’s seeming indifference to her fate!
The cellar grew blacker. Freddie lit the candle and tried not to think of rats.
There was a rustling in the undergrowth outside. No doubt some nocturnal animal, thought Freddie, free to roam and prowl.
A faint voice whispered, “Frederica.”
Freddie stiffened and then sighed. It was the wind in the trees. Nothing more.
“I hope I am not going mad with hunger,” she said worriedly.
And then it came again. “Frederica!”
“I’m here!” cried Freddie urgently, hoping she was not calling out to a figment of her imagination.
A face suddenly appeared at the small, barred window. Freddie seized the candle and held it up.
A gypsy woman with her head tied up in a ragged scarlet scarf, her swarthy face looking evil in the flickering light, stared back. Freddie nearly dropped the candle in her fright.
“Don’t you recognize me?” said the gypsy woman plaintively. “It is I, Miss Manson.”
“Miss Manson!” shrieked Freddie. “How…”
“Shhhh!” said Miss Manson urgently. “They’ll hear us.”
Freddie looked about and saw a box, which she carried under the window to stand upon. Miss Manson was lying on the ground outside, her face on a level with the barred window.
“Lord Berham gave me money for escorting you,” she whispered, “so I decided to take the mail coach and come and see you. I called here yesterday, but I could not think how I was to see you without letting the Hope women see me. For they would write to Lady Rennenord, and I would lose my cottage.”
She saw the puzzled expression on Freddie’s face and added hurriedly, “Never mind that now. Today I was out on the moor dressed like this. It is a good disguise, is it not? People are frightened of gypsies and do not like to come too close.
“I saw the girls being marched across the moor for their exercise by one of the menservants. I sat by the side of the path. They all walked past me, averting their eyes, but one of the ones at the end stumbled. She had fair hair and a very red nose.”
“Jane Haddington,” whispered Freddie. “Go on.”
“I muttered to her low, ‘Where is Frederica?’ and she said, ‘In the coal cellar, locked up.’ Then the manservant started shouting at her, and she ran to join the others. He asked her if I had said anything, and—Jane, is it?—said, to my relief, ‘She just wanted to tell my fortune.’ I waited until now and, well, here I am.”
“Oh, Miss Manson,” said Freddie urgently, “you cannot know how grateful I am to see you. This is a truly dreadful place. Does Lord Berham know how very dreadful it is?”
Freddie’s eyes glistened as a large pasty was edged sideways through the bars, followed by a bottle of wine.
“Gently with the wine,” urged Miss Manson, “or you will spill it. I have taken out the cork.”
She waited anxiously while Freddie fell on the food and drank the whole bottle of wine.
“I was so thirsty,” Freddie explained, grinning drunkenly. “At least I shall sleep like the dead.”
“Do you think they will let you out tonight?”
“No,” said Freddie. “Perhaps tomorrow. I shall be truly servile and humble and repentant, and then, once I am out, I shall fetch my boy’s clothes from under my mattress and meet you tomorrow when they are all asleep.”
“The house is all locked and barred,” said Miss Manson urgently. “How will you escape?”
“Somehow,” said Freddie. “I will meet you outside the gates at midnight. Go now, before they find you.”
As the evening shadows lengthened on the next day, Freddie began to lose hope. Maybe they really did want her to starve to death. She was dreadfully hungry, and the wine of the night before had given her a raging thirst.
But just before supper the door was unlocked. Freddie was dragged out by one of the menservants, and then she was paraded in front of the other girls as an example of what would happen to any girl who dared to be insolent.
She looked a pathetic and dirty sight, covered as she was with coal dust.
But she was allowed bread and water for supper and was sent to her room before the other girls, which suited Freddie very well. She carefully removed her bag of guineas from its hiding place and put them under her pillow. Then she undressed, got into bed, and turned her face to the wall. She pretended to be asleep when the other girls returned.
She stayed like that while the other girls undressed, talking in low whispers about “poor Frederica” and Jane told about the strange gypsy woman who had asked for her.
Freddie lay waiting until at last she was sure that all the girls were asleep. She cursed herself for having made the arrangement to meet Miss Manson at midnight. How on earth could she, Freddie, tell when midnight was?
She quietly drew out her suit of clothes, first putting on her chest binder of linen and buckram. Then she wrapped herself in her cloak and fastened her sword at her side. Next she tied the bag of guineas onto her belt.
She took a last look at the sleeping figures of the other girls, feeling a pang of pity. She had not become close friends with any of them, since the girls were like prisoners, grumbling about the same things day in and day out in a sort of hopeless monotone.
Freddie felt her way down the stairs to the hall, her heart leaping into her mouth every time a board creaked.
She hesitated in the hall. At the back of the hall, the study door stood invitingly open, revealed by the thin shafts of moonlight striking through the tall narrow panes of glass on either side of the front door.
Freddie was overcome by a burning desire to see the correspondence about her. She crept into the study. The remains of a fire glowed on the hearth. Freddie lit a candle and then approached the large mahogany desk in the corner. She began to search through the drawers. Nothing here but old receipts and household accounts. One large drawer at the bottom was locked.
Freddie picked up the poker from the hearth, wedged it into the drawer, and snapped the lock, waiting and listening while the crack of splintering wood seemed to reverberate through the house. For some time all she could hear was the pounding of her own heart. No one called out.
Freddie gently slid out the drawer. There were twelve files, each marked with a girl’s name. It was then that Freddie saw an old carpetbag in the corner, and the glimmerings of an idea came to her. She quickly stuffed all the files into the bag and then silently left the study.
The front door had to be tackled. All its many bolts and chains had to be dealt with slowly, one at a time, until at last the door stood open.
The weedy drive to freedom stretched out in front of her in the moonlight.
The gates at the end of the drive were locked, but Freddie quickly scaled them, negotiating the spikes at the top with ease. She dropped down on the other side, holding the carpetbag and looking about eagerly.
Miss Manson, dressed in her normal clothes, quickly detached herself from the shadow of the wall.
Freddie put a finger to her lips, and together both women began to hurry along the cliff path and then down into the town of Lamstowe.
Chapter 5
The earl sat at his ease in Mrs. Bellisle’s garden, admiring the turn of Lady Rennenord’s wrist as she poured tea into thin china cups.
Sun and shadow dappled her face. A light spring breeze lazily moved the thin folds of her muslin gown and set the fringes of her stole dancing.
The earl felt remarkably at peace with the world. No more odd letters had arrived from Lamstowe. He planned to propose marriage to Lady Rennenord and at the same time suggest removing Frederica from the seminary and giving her a Season in London.
The arrival of Lady Rennenord’s brother, Harry Struthers-Benton, had marred the earl’s sylvan idyll slightly. He was all the earl detested in a man. He usually dressed in what he considered the ultra-pitch of fashion, collared like the leader of a four horse team, pinched in the middle like an hourglass, and wearing cravats as ample as tablecloths.
He larded his conversation with names of the rich and famous.
He had fair hair back-combed until it stood up like the feathers of a Friesland hen. Like his sister, he was quite stupid, but unlike her, he had not learned to conceal the fact.
He was mercifully absent on that sunny day, and the earl was finally beginning to think he had put off proposing to Lady Rennenord long enough.
What saved Lady Rennenord from making the same social mistakes as her brother was a sort of shrewdness which in a peasant would be referred to as native cunning. She was as narcissistic as her brother, but she had a good dress sense and practiced for hours in front of the long glass in her bedroom until she had every seductive movement perfected. The earl did not know that when she bent down to tie the satin ribbon of her slipper, thereby causing the thin muslin of her gown to strain against her breasts, it was a movement that had been as well rehearsed as any speech by Mrs. Siddons.
If Lady Rennenord had been a clever woman, she would have let Freddie stay, for the nature of the seminary to which Freddie had been sent was bound to come out sooner or later. But Lady Rennenord planned to be married to the earl by then, and marriage, to her, was an end in itself. Her late husband had been a bluff, handsome man who had never quite got over finding out that the pretty, delicate girl he had married was a coldhearted shrew who did not care a rap for him. From being in love with her, he became equally afraid of her and her malicious tongue, and so she was allowed to do as she pleased. Lady Rennenord fully believed she could handle the earl in the same way.
“Where is Mrs. Bellisle?” asked the earl.
“She is gone to make calls in the town.”
“And your brother?”
“Harry has gone to attend to some business.” Harry had been all but forcibly ejected from the house ten minutes before the earl’s arrival.
“Good.” The earl smiled. “There is something I have to say to you, Clarissa. Something of great importance.”
A warm tide of victory swept over Clarissa Rennenord. This was it!
She unfurled a lace parasol, leaned back in her chair, and smiled sweetly on the earl. “Yes, my lord?” she murmured.
“I…” began the earl, and then stopped.
The sound of a horse being ridden hard up the drive came to their ears. Then there was a tremendous pounding at the front door, which was on the other side of the house from where they were sitting.
The sounds of a loud altercation came to their ears.
“I think perhaps we had better find out who is disturbing the peace,” said the earl.
Mrs. Bellisle’s butler came walking towards them, his face flushed.
“My lady,” he said, “a certain individual has called. He will not go until he has spoken to you personally. He says after you have seen this letter, you will have a reply for him.”
Lady Rennenord took the letter and smiled apologetically at the earl. “If you will forgive me, my lord. This will not take long. I cannot think…”
She broke off and stared down at the letter she had opened. Miss Cassandra Hope’s semiliterate scrawl seemed to leap off the page:
Dear Lady Rennenord, We are in Such distress that hell-cat Frederica having escaped and taken all the letters from us and gone the Lord knows where. She must not reach Lord Berham for raisins that are obvious. Tell him she stole the Silver which is what we have told the majestrate at Lamstowe. My sister has the palpitashuns Bad. Your servent, Cassandra Hope.”
“Bad news?” said the earl with quick concern, noticing that the color had drained completely from his fair companion’s face.
“Oh, ’tis nothing,” said her ladyship with a shrill laugh. “I shall speak to this fellow. Pray do not leave.”
Lady Rennenord hurried into the house. The servant from the seminary was waiting in the hall. “I shall give you my reply directly,” said Lady Rennenord.
She went into the drawing room, sat down at a writing desk, and drew a sheet of paper towards herself. The door opened, and her brother ambled in. Lady Rennenord swung round. “I told you to keep out of the way, Harry,” she snapped. “Lord Berham was about to propose, and this arrived.” She held out Cassandra’s letter with a shaking hand.
Harry put up his glass and studied the letter. “Who’s Frederica?” he asked.
“Oh, of course you don’t know,” said his sister. Quickly she outlined the details of Freddie’s masquerade and the plot to keep her in the seminary until she, Lady Rennenord, became the countess of Berham. “What am I to do?” wailed Lady Rennenord. “She may already be on her way to Berham with that letter I wrote.”