The Bath Trilogy

by Amanda Scott

  “Come, come, my dear,” Jarvis murmured gently, “surely you know that the offer was born of my fondness for you as well as my awareness that your life was sadly altered by the unfortunate events of last December. By my oath, I had not thought of marrying again after my previous sad experiences with that state, and if your dear father were still alive or your beloved brother in a position to support you, I could acknowledge that there were other prospects open to you. But in view of the reality, I could do no less than make what must be thought a generous offer.”

  He looked at Lady Flavia. “You must agree, ma’am, that she does herself no good by this stubborn disinclination to see where her fortune lies. I could not reconcile it with my conscience merely to allow her to dwindle into one of those poor women forced to batten on their more fortunate relations. Only think of her pride! Instead, to continue to be one of the Bradbournes of Highgate … well, what could be better? Of course, we must all wish to see young Nigel restored to his honors, but in the event that that cannot be—as I very much fear will prove to be the case—we must do what we can to see that Highgate does not suffer, or dearest Nell, either; for by my oath, no one believes that her father or her brother can have intended to ruin her prospects by their selfish actions.” He dabbed gently at his lips with a lace handkerchief and added dulcetly, “You will both forgive me, I know, if I speak frankly on that subject.”

  “I wonder,” Nell said, remembering one of Sir Mortimer’s more caustic comments, “if you will appreciate equal frankness, sir, when I tell you to your head that never did you receive the slightest encouragement to believe that I would accept your suit, nor even that I considered it to be as obliging an offer as you seem to believe. If I have been ruined by my father’s or Nigel’s act, so be it. I cannot imagine why you should wish to marry someone who bears such an aversion to you as I do.”

  “Perhaps,” he replied, still in that gentle tone, “because, being older and wiser than you are, my dear, I see more clearly than you do what perils lie ahead of one in your position, and care enough for you to wish to help you avoid them.”

  “Nonsense,” said Lady Flavia with her customary crispness of manner. “No young woman with Nell’s expectations can be thought to have ruined herself.”

  Nell cast her a warning look, but she was oblivious to it, having fixed her imperious gaze upon Mr. Bradbourne, challenging him to deny her words.

  He did not hesitate to do so. “You will find that you are mistaken, ma’am,” he said. “Once the beau monde discovers the entire truth about Cousin Jasper’s death, by which I mean to say the lurid details of dear Nigel’s overly impulsive act—”

  “Those persons who believe your version of it, you mean,” Nell snapped. “My brother did not fire his pistol before time!”

  He lifted one eyebrow. “As you wish, my dear. I should not dream of contradicting you, though I fear you will discover all too soon—if those facts should become known—that no family of rank will ally itself with one of such singular disrepute, even though the name be Bradbourne. Bad blood will out, you know.”

  Nell could not mistake his meaning. If the whole truth about Nigel’s duel was not yet known—and she had certainly gleaned no hint of scandal here in Bath—it was because Jarvis himself had hushed it up, and he was telling her now that what he had done he could undo. She looked at her great-aunt.

  “Poppycock,” declared Lady Flavia with asperity. “If the presence of bad blood made it impossible for one distinguished family to ally with another, there would soon be no member of the beau monde left who could form an eligible connection. Only think of that Marlborough lot, for goodness’ sake, or the Jerseys, or indeed, the royal family itself. At least, Nigel is not suspected of having secretly married his mistress before ever he married his wife, as the Regent is.”

  What Jarvis’s response to this might have been they were never to know, for at that moment the drawing-room door opened and to Nell’s astonishment, a stiff young man in livery at least two sizes too large for him, stepped in and in stentorian, even lofty, accents demanded, “What be ye wantin’, mum?”

  Lady Flavia said calmly, “Tend to the fire, Amos. It has nearly burned itself out, I fear.”

  “Right y’ are, mum,” the lad said, whereupon Nell recognized him as Botten’s nephew, the youth who had held Manningford’s horses for him in the square. He moved with a swiftness unseen in any seasoned footman, knelt by the fire, and dealt with the problem with dispatch, then straightened, turned to Lady Flavia, and said cheerfully, “Right, now, mum, what else be ye a-wantin’? That is,” he added hastily, his cheeks flushing red, “will there be aught else, m’lady?”

  “No, thank you,” she replied tranquilly, “that will be all. You may inform Sudbury that he is to announce dinner as soon as Mrs. Sudbury desires him to do so. We do not keep town hours, Jarvis, as you know,” she added for that gentleman’s benefit as the lad bowed himself awkwardly out of the room.”

  Jarvis was watching him through his quizzing glass, his expression one of disbelief, and when the door had shut again, he turned back to Lady Flavia. “By my oath, ma’am, what on earth was that?”

  “A footman, Jarvis,” she replied, “only a footman.”

  “I should never have known it. Surely, you do not parade that specimen before your lady friends.”

  “Pray, do not be absurd, Jarvis. Amos is a perfectly respectable young man, a connection of my dresser’s, in fact. After all, Botten has been with me for many years now, and footmen must train somewhere.”

  “Yes, as boots or pages!” Bradbourne grimaced. “It is to be hoped that he does not spill the soup on one of us at table.”

  If Nell or Lady Flavia harbored a different hope, they were disappointed, for Amos, though he had none of the attributes of a proper footman, acquitted himself well. Sudbury actually served them, a fact that Lady Flavia explained casually was no doubt due to his fearing much the same thing that Jarvis did. She took advantage of her years when the servants had left them alone and the meal was drawing to a close by informing him that since she seldom entertained gentlemen and had not been expecting him, there was no decent port in the house over which he might linger.

  “You will be wishing to get straight back to the inn, at all events, I daresay,” she said. “The York House, is it not? I trust they are treating you well there.”

  “Very well, ma’am, thank you.” Fastidiously, he blotted his lips with his napkin and placed it on the table, but showed no sign of being in any haste to depart. Smiling at Nell, he said, “I hope you will not object if I call upon you again, my dear. We really must decide what is to be done about your future, but in the meantime, I will arrange for you to receive a proper allowance while you are here.”

  “I do not want your money, Jarvis.”

  “Nonsense, ’tis none of mine but from the Highgate rents, for things are running in more proper train there now, and you will not be pretending to despise a proper allowance from that source, I hope!”

  With commendable calm, considering the state of her nerves by then, Nell said, “I shan’t take it if you intend to use the Highgate purse as a weapon, sir. In any case, there is no reason for you to put yourself out on my behalf. I am of age now and may be trusted to look out for myself. Indeed, I was accustomed to do so in many ways, long before my father passed away.”

  “Well, we shan’t quarrel now,” he said. “I shall remain here to see to some matters of business, so we will talk again. I should tell you, however, that I have encountered certain difficulties regarding Highgate affairs. Have you perhaps had any word from your brother, containing his direction?”

  “No,” Nell said, adding tersely, “I wish I had.”

  “If we do not hear from him soon,” Jarvis said with a sigh that did not fool her in the slightest, “I fear I shall have to present the fact of that wager before a Chancery Court. It is a course most repugnant to me, because one does not like admitting that one’s father and cousin treated such an est
ate so lightly, but if I can see no other course open to me to protect the estate, you must admit, I will have no choice.”

  Lady Flavia said hastily before Nell could speak, “Surely, we will hear from Nigel soon, Jarvis, and everything will be arranged as it should be. He must be grateful to you for your help that fatal night, and for your forbearance, as well, regarding that wicked wager.”

  He looked gratified. “I wondered if Nell had told you the truth of that matter, ma’am, since her father insisted that he had never meant to stake the estate at all, that it was an error in the wording. No need to concern yourself that I will take advantage whether that was the case or not, unless it becomes utterly necessary. I cannot agree with Nell that an error was made, however, for my father and Cousin Jasper were always making idiotic wagers with one another, were they not, and I know that my father, before his own death, expected to win Highgate, not merely a stupid hatchment. But since there has been even a suggestion that the thing was inscribed incorrectly in the betting book … well, I for one would hate to come into the property in such a way, and that is what I told Nell after her father so imprudently put a period to his life. Ah, forgive me,” he added, glancing at Nell’s expressive face. “I have been tactless again. But really, my love, even you cannot think your dear father acted with prudence, then or before.”

  Since the only thought in Nell’s mind just then was that Jarvis’s head would look rather fetching served up on a platter to a herd of wild dogs, it was just as well that, once again, Lady Flavia was the one to respond, telling him in exactly the same tone that she might have used had he not spoken a word out of the way, that she was sure it would all come right in the end and that she and Nell would leave him now. “Sudbury will show you out, sir. Nell, darling, bid your cousin goodnight.” And with those words and a swish of her wide skirts, she arose and stepped toward the door. Nell hastened to open it for her, leaving Jarvis half out of his chair.

  In the drawing room with the door safely shut behind them, Lady Flavia took her customary seat and said matter-of-factly when Nell did not follow suit, “What is it, my dear?”

  “What if he takes it into his head to wander about the house?” Nell demanded.

  “Sudbury will see that he does not. Do you fetch me my knitting from that chair yonder, my dear, and perhaps you will be so kind as to assist me to wind that new skein of pale-blue yarn into a ball. Yes, that is the one. You may sit on my stool if you like. There is room.” Obligingly, she moved her feet to one end, and Nell sat down before her, obediently taking the skein and arranging it on her hands so that Lady Flavia might wind her ball. “You ought not to show your hackles so easily, my dear,” the old lady said a moment later.

  “I know, but he infuriates me. I am certain that he is not what he pretends to be. He is too smooth, and one always senses a threat beneath his words.”

  “One does, of course. Also, one begins to believe that whatever took place that night was not as he described it.”

  They were silent after that until Sudbury came in to inform them that Jarvis had taken his leave, but when Nell moved the other wing chair up near the fire and sat down again, Lady Flavia remembered her early return to Laura Place that afternoon and demanded to know the reason for it.

  When this had been explained to her, she tut-tutted over Sir Mortimer’s volatile temper and agreed that it could not be good for him so often to be losing it, and when Nell hesitantly revealed Manningford’s suggestion that she ought to attempt to smooth over the rough places in Sir Mortimer’s story, to her surprise, her great-aunt agreed with enthusiasm that it was the very thing that she should do.

  “For one must own, my dear, that you have the skills necessary for such a task. Why, your letters have always been most amusing to read, you know, which encourages one to believe that you can make as good a job of it as that Miss Austen, who wrote Emma. ’Tis the very thing for you, and only think if one could actually make money by writing amusing little tales for others to read! One would be most astonished, I should think.”

  “Well, I should certainly be astonished,” Nell declared roundly. “I have never thought of such a thing in all my life, ma’am, and I cannot believe for one moment that Sir Mortimer would approve of my taking any such liberty with his work.”

  “Oh, piffle. He ought to be grateful, if what you say of his work is true, and I have no reason to doubt you, for I doubt he can ever have written anything worth the reading.”

  “Well, you will not say so when I tell you he wrote Cymbeline Sheridan,” Nell told her.

  The reaction was all she might have hoped. “Good gracious! Sir Mortimer wrote that? I should never have believed it if anyone but you had told me so. To think of it! But that settles it, my dear,” she added earnestly. “You must do your very best, for it will not do at all for the Prince Regent to be honored in a book that is not up to the standard he expects.”

  “But I am not asked to write a book, only to alter one, and indeed, ma’am, even that might well be beyond my powers!”

  “Nonsense, my dear. Anyone could write a book, I expect, if one but took the time to try. Why, what can be so difficult? ’Tis but a trifling business of putting words on a page.”

  Nell did not attempt to debate the matter, but she had a notion of her own that it would not prove to be so easy as that. Bidding her aunt goodnight soon thereafter, she took herself to her bedchamber, where she got out the pages Sir Mortimer had written before she had begun to work for him and those she had written for him, sat down at the little table that served her for a dressing table, cleared a space, and began to work.

  Several hours later, her back aching from sitting on the little stool that was all that had been provided with the table, she flung down her pen in frustration, wondering how anyone ever managed to write a novel. Though she had altered a good deal of Sir Mortimer’s work, she was by no means either finished or satisfied with her alterations, but she knew she would be sorry if she sat much longer without a better chair. Moreover, her standish was nearly empty, which seemed to her to be an excellent reason for stopping and going to bed. Deciding that she would try again in the morning, she straightened her pages and prepared for bed, unable to entertain the tiniest hope that Sir Mortimer or anyone else would approve of what she had done.

  The following day when Lady Flavia demanded to know how it had gone, Nell was diffident, and when her ladyship demanded to have the revision read aloud to her while she knitted, her first reaction was near terror. Knowing, however, that if the project were to succeed, she must accustom herself to others reading what she wrote, she agreed at last to fetch her work. But she insisted that Lady Flavia must read it for herself.

  “I could not bear it, ma’am, to be reading and wondering at the same time if what I am reading is making you perfectly ill.”

  “I am sure it will do no such thing,” Lady Flavia assured her staunchly. She received the pages with enthusiasm and began reading at once, muttering a little to herself from time to time in a way that made Nell want to leave the room and never return. But at last she raised her eyes from the pages and said, “You frequently write well, child, just as one would expect you to do, and some bits are most amusing, but do you not think you would do better to write about what you know and less of this fantastic stuff about foreign dukes and princes? I know nothing about such things, of course, so I cannot know that you are wrong in any of your details, but I must own that what makes Miss Austen’s tales so amusing is the fact that she knows her characters well enough to point out their absurdities without making them any less human.” She sighed. “’Tis an art, after all, one supposes.”

  Nell agreed. “I am afraid that the bits you like best are Sir Mortimer’s, ma’am, and I cannot pretend to write as well as he does, or Miss Austen either. I have tried to write it as he would wish me to, only to smooth it out and bring some sense to the whole. I thought the result rather awful, though.”

  “Oh, no,” Lady Flavia declared hastily, returning the
pages to her. “One merely thought to suggest … But there, I shall say no more. It must be for Mr. Manningford to decide if you are to show it to his father, after all. And you will not be seeing him until Monday, so you can work on it for two whole days, and no doubt you will be better pleased by then with the result.”

  Nell had already decided that she would have to do a great deal more work before she dared show it to Manningford, for the thought that he might despise it was nearly more than she could bear. It was odd though, she thought, how she had such a strong desire to fix Sir Mortimer’s ridiculous story, as though she had caught some peculiar disease, for now that she had begun, though frustrated, she did not want to stop. As soon as Lady Flavia was settled with her knitting, she took a seat at the elegantly carved escritoire near one tall, narrow window, discovered to her satisfaction that it contained a proper standish and an adequate supply of writing paper, nibs, and ink, and set to her work.

  It was slow going, but she forced herself to concentrate, and several hours later, when Sudbury interrupted her to inform her that Manningford was in the hall, requesting speech with her, she found to her astonishment that Lady Flavia was no longer in the room. Rising at once from her chair, she clapped a hand to the small of her back, wincing. “I must have a good chair, Sudbury. Do you see if you can find me one, if you please, and show Mr. Manningford in. Where is her ladyship?”

  “In her bedchamber, dressing to go out, Miss Nell. Since Mr. Manningford desired speech with you, I did not disturb her.” Sudbury paused, a twinkle entering his eyes before he added, “Perhaps you would care to tidy your hair a bit and smooth your skirt before I show him in.” He nodded toward the pier glass above the mantelpiece, and Nell turned toward it, standing on tiptoe so that she could see her head and shoulders.