Lady Fortescue Steps Out (The Poor Relation Series, Vol. 1)

by M C Beaton

  “By going into trade?”

  “I am quite decided there is nothing dishonourable in trade,” said Lady Fortescue firmly.

  “I will not refer in front of this gentleman to your unfortunate behaviour on your last visit to me,” said the duke icily, “but that combined with this persuades me that I have sufficient grounds to have you committed to the nearest madhouse.”

  Lady Fortescue trembled under the grip of the colonel’s reassuring hand, which tightened as he said, “Come, your grace, Lady Fortescue has all her wits, and besides, she cannot be committed if her husband says she is sane.”

  “Her husband, Colonel Sandhurst, has been dead these past twenty years.”

  “Perhaps I should explain myself better, your grace. Lady Fortescue is affianced to me.”

  Lady Fortescue’s black eyes went quite blank, but she did not utter a word.

  The duke’s temper rose even higher. This elderly couple, both dressed in formal black, were making him feel somehow shabby.

  “Take warning,” he said, addressing himself to Lady Fortescue, “I have great social power. I will have you closed down any way I can.”

  He turned and left abruptly.

  “I do not know how to thank you, Colonel,” said Lady Fortescue warmly.

  He laughed. “Oh, I don’t mind telling the odd lie from time to time.”

  And for some reason Lady Fortescue felt bitterly depressed.

  The duke meanwhile marched into the hall and looked about him. His cold eyes fell on Sir Philip, who was slowly retreating backwards, as if trying to escape unnoticed.

  “Ah, Sir Philip,” said the duke, “I have a mind to stay here.”

  “Unfortunately,” said Sir Philip, “we are fully booked.”

  “Let me see the register.”

  Sir Philip led him to a small desk which held a heavy leather-bound ledger and opened it. The duke ran his eyes down the names.

  “I see Bunbary is down from Yorkshire. Have my card sent up.”

  Sir Philip snapped his arthritic fingers and handed the duke’s card to a small page and told the boy to take it up to Lord Bunbary.

  The duke waited patiently until the boy returned and said Lord and Lady Bunbary would be pleased to receive him.

  Sir Philip waited a few moments and then scuttled up to the Bunbarys’ suite, which was on the first floor, and put his ear to the door.

  “Call it a whim,” he heard the duke saying, “but I have an idea I would like to stay here. As there is no room to be had, I suggest offering you the use of my town house and servants in exchange.”

  Sir Philip gloomily heard the Bunbarys’ effusive thanks before he crept away to break the news to the others.

  The duke, no sooner had he installed himself and his valet, proceeded to examine the contents of his sitting-room and bedroom with a quizzing-glass. He noticed the carefully glued handles on the vases, the water jugs, and even the chamber-pot. He also noticed the legs of one of the chairs looked suspicious. He had stayed in many hotels in his youth while making the Grand Tour with an amusing and worldly tutor who had briefed him on all the tricks of rapacious hoteliers. He rang the bell and told Sir Philip, who answered its summons, to take away all the damaged stuff, which his valet had arranged in the middle of the sitting-room floor.

  “Goodness,” said Sir Philip, quite unrepentant, “what a set of vandals those Bunbarys turned out to be. I must send them a bill.”

  “You will not send them a bill, you old thief,” said the duke acidly. “If I search your room, I will no doubt find an interesting array of objects cleverly damaged for the purpose of milking more money from your guests.”

  “I do not know why you stay here,” said Sir Philip plaintively. “Your town house would be much more comfortable.”

  “I am staying here to get adequate proof that Lady Fortescue is demented.”

  “And would you enjoy that?” asked Sir Philip curiously. “Would you enjoy dragging an old lady out of the comfort of a well-run hotel and putting her in a madhouse? Would you enjoy her terror, her tears?”

  “Do not be sentimental,” said the duke coldly. “If a woman of Lady Fortescue’s breeding and lineage stoops to trade, then there is something up with her wits. I shall not put her in a madhouse. I shall see that she and her future husband are cared for in a manner that befits their station.”

  Wrinkles of sheer surprise ran up Sir Philip’s forehead and across his balding scalp like ripples fleeing from a stone dropped in a pond.

  He abstractedly picked up a chamber-pot from the floor. The handle fell off and the rest of it rolled off into a corner, but he stood dazed, staring at the duke, holding the broken handle in his hand. “Her what?” he eventually asked.

  “Colonel Sandhurst tells me they are to be married.”

  “Ho, they are, are they?” demanded Sir Philip, suddenly and furiously. “I’ll have a few words to say about that. Sneaking off behind my back.”

  “Stop making a cake of yourself, Sir Philip. You are not in your teens. You are all about one hundred and two. The idea of anyone of Lady Fortescue’s age contemplating marriage is ridiculous.”

  “What would you know about it, you young whipper-snapper?” demanded Sir Philip.

  “Remember to whom you speak, Sir Philip. I am not in the way of tolerating insolence.”

  “Then find somewhere else to live, you chisel-faced twat,” shouted Sir Philip and stormed out. Then he opened the door again and hurled the broken handle of the chamber-pot at the duke and crashed out again.

  The duke walked over to the fireplace and pulled the bell-rope. After a few moments, the door opened and Miss Tonks came in.

  “You rang, your grace?”

  “I asked Sir Philip to remove”—he pointed a finger at the glued objects in the middle of the floor—“this garbage. Instead of doing so, he subjected me to a deal of insolence.”

  “But he is always insolent,” said Miss Tonks in mild surprise. “I will have the items collected directly and replaced with new. I hope everything else is to your satisfaction, your grace.”

  He studied her thoughtfully. She was an obvious spinster, of middle height, with faded brown hair and a faded face. But there was breeding in her long nose, long thin hands and long thin feet, and in the slightly mangled use of her vowels, which all ladies attained after a lifetime of being told to mind their Prunes and Prisms, that is, never to stretch the lips when enunciating any word.

  “Are you a partner in this establishment?” he asked.

  “Yes, your grace, Miss Tonks, at your service.”

  “You amaze me.”

  A year ago Miss Tonks would have stammered and blushed, but had she not trounced the vile Sir Philip on numerous occasions? “If you mean, your grace, that it is odd to find a lady working as a servant, I consider that a highly flattering observation.”

  “Why?”

  “Having gone into trade, your grace, I considered I had left the days of being ladylike behind.”

  He felt his anger subsiding before her mild gaze. After all, his quarrel was with Lady Fortescue, not her.

  He turned and walked up and down the room. His legs, thought Miss Tonks, were really excellent, and probably all his own. He did not look like the sort of man to wear padded calves. His waist was slim and his hips narrow, his shoulders in a well-tailored coat were broad and owed nothing to buckram wadding, of that she was sure. It was an age in which even a spinster assessed the finer points of a man’s physique with as sharp an eye as a horse trader at Tattersall’s looking at a stallion.

  He swung round. “Miss Tonks, among the list of partners, there is a certain Miss Harriet James.”

  “Indeed, yes, your grace,” said Miss Tonks, who had been well coached. “Such a dear old lady.”

  “Old?”

  “Oh, yes. Very, very, very old; bedridden, in fact. And deaf and blind,” added Miss Tonks.

  “So how is it a blind and deaf and very old lady can still summon up enough stren
gth to interest herself in the founding of a new hotel?”

  “That is a question I have often asked myself,” sighed Miss Tonks. “But her powers are quite remarkable.”

  Sir Philip waited until dinner was over that evening and then pounced on Lady Fortescue as she was crossing the hall and dragged her into the office.

  “Behave yourself,” said Lady Fortescue, jerking her arm free.

  “What do you think—you’re about to get engaged to Colonel Sandhurst without telling me?” raged Sir Philip.

  “The only reason that came about,” said Lady Fortescue evenly, two patches of colour burning on her white cheeks, “is because the Duke of Rowcester declared his intention of proving me insane and having me committed to a madhouse. Colonel Sandhurst gallantly stepped in and said he was affianced to me, only to protect me, that is all. But what concern is it of yours?”

  Sir Philip eyed the thin erect figure of Lady Fortescue, elegant in a severe gown of heavy black silk, the silver-white hair, elaborately coiffed under a delicate cap of fine white lace, and the austere white face with its high arched nose and thin scarlet-painted mouth. He clacked his china teeth and leered horribly. “Just that if you’ve got any fancies in the direction of love, think of me.” He darted forward and kissed her cheek and then ran out of the room, cackling horribly.

  Lady Fortescue raised a hand to her cheek. “Dear me,” she said, and then she began to giggle like a schoolgirl.

  Chapter Four

  By the living jingo, she was all of a muck of sweat.

  —OLIVER GOLDSMITH

  That the great Duke of Rowcester had taken up residence in The Poor Relation was in the newspapers the following morning. Sir Philip had seen to that. He had also advertised that tea and cakes would be served “with all decorum” to ladies visiting the coffee room. Hopeful mothers and their daughters were soon battling to get in—for was not the duke unmarried?

  Down in the kitchen, Harriet was whipping up batch after batch of cakes and wondering when the rush would ever cease so that she could begin preparations for dinner. She had a woman to help with the plain cooking, two scullery maids and a pot-boy, and all of them worked flat out while the heat from the kitchen fire “roasted them all to a turn,” as Harriet’s assistant cook, Mrs. Bodge, put it. Lady Fortescue’s personal servants, Betty and John, had been semi-retired in that their sole job now was to perform light duties in attending to the poor relations in the attics.

  Harriet finally sent word upstairs that any further cakes would need to be bought.

  Then she set about preparing her special “chicken” dish for dinner, the chicken being rabbit.

  Upstairs the duke was furious to find that his very presence was adding to the cachet of The Poor Relation. He had had a busy day, attending to settling the Bunbarys in his town house, visiting old friends, and calling on his man of business in the City, but he felt he could not relax until he had done serious damage to the reputation of the hotel. Only, he was persuaded, if the hotel collapsed could he then talk some sense into Lady Fortescue’s addled wits.

  The Poor Relation did not run to private dining-parlours, and so he was forced to descend to the public dining-room. He nodded to various society members he knew and took his seat at a table reserved for him which, he noticed bitterly, was in the very centre of the dining-room. Sir Philip was determined to turn the duke’s stay to their advantage.

  The soup and fish courses were faultless and he could not bring himself to manufacture complaints. But when he tackled the “chicken” and found a rabbit bone in it, despite Harriet’s careful filleting, he decided his moment had come. He stood up and stared awfully about him.

  “Rabbit,” he said clearly. The buzz of talk died away.

  “I beg your pardon.” Colonel Sandhurst walked up to him.

  “This so-called chicken dish is made from rabbit,” said the duke loudly. “A cheap and shoddy trick.”

  “Our French chef is of the finest,” said the colonel in a low voice, hoping to quieten the duke.

  “French, hey?” said the duke. “I shall see this fellow for myself.”

  He marched out of the dining-room, carefully avoiding Sir Philip’s foot, which the old man had stuck out in the hope of tripping the duke up. “You must not …” came the anguished voice of Lady Fortescue after him. “You cannot …”

  Unheeding, he strode to the baize door that led to the below-stairs. Huddled together for comfort, Sir Philip, Lady Fortescue, and Colonel Sandhurst watched him go, too old to stop him.

  At the bottom of the stairs the duke thrust open the kitchen door. A wall of heat struck him.

  Mrs. Bodge let out a squawk at the sight of the tall man framed in the doorway. He was magnificent in full evening dress, with diamonds sparkling on his long white hands and on the buckles of his shoes. The two scullery maids scurried off to the sink in the scullery with a pile of dirty dishes. The pot-boy stared open-mouthed.

  Harriet had been stooped over the pots hanging over the fire when he entered. She sensed that something had happened, that someone was there who should not be, and turned slowly around and straightened up.

  Rivulets of sweat were running down her face and her dress was sticking to her body. Her eyes were very green, enormous in her white face. Her white cap was askew and one long ringlet of glossy black hair hung down on her shoulder.

  And yet the duke recognized her. “Miss James,” he said faintly, “I came to see the chef.”

  “I am the chef,” said Harriet, striving for composure.

  “I see … I see you are occupied. I shall return after dinner if I may,” he said. He gave a stiff bow and walked out.

  He returned to the dining-room and sat down again. There was an edgy silence. The other diners studied him nervously.

  “I made a mistake,” said the duke, picking up his knife and fork. “What excellent chicken!”

  And the Honourable Mrs. Feathers, who had just been saying, before the duke walked in, that she knew it was rabbit because rabbit did not agree with her delicate digestion, suddenly decided it was chicken after all. Everyone began chatting and laughing again. Lady Fortescue felt quite limp with relief.

  “Something to do with our Miss James, I think,” said Sir Philip. “Shocked him into good behaviour.”

  “I’ll shock him right out of this hotel, see if I don’t,” muttered the colonel.

  Harriet was too busy at first arranging the huge dish of floating-island pudding—to be carried upstairs by one of the waiters, who would then dish it out onto assorted plates so that the colonel and Lady Fortescue would only have to hand them round the various tables—to think too much about the duke’s unexpected appearance. But once everything had been served and the dishes washed and stacked away and her small staff sent home, for there was no room for them to sleep in the hotel, she sat down wearily at the kitchen table and pulled off her cap and wiped her sweating face. The fire had been banked down for the night. But in the morning, it would need to be stoked up again to cope with all the dishes for breakfast.

  She poured herself a glass of wine from a decanter on the table. She was not worried that the duke would return. He had not come to see her, for he had looked nonplussed at the very sight of her. And he had immediately recognized her, as she had recognized him. And yet he had changed. There had been no softness or warmth in that hard proud face. She remembered, wistfully, the laughter in his grey eyes when he had danced with her and wondered what had happened in the intervening years to make him so cold and proud.

  She was sorry he had seen her, for it was the end of a dream that had kept her warm during the sad times of poverty. Sometimes she had even let her fantasies run wild and imagined him finding her one day in the Park and going down on one knee and begging her to be his bride. But the great Duke of Rowcester had no need to beg any woman for anything. He was too sought after. She had learned he was not yet married and wondered why.

  She should rouse her weary bones and climb up to the schoolro
om and join the others. But she sat on, sipping her wine, and wondering if she had strength enough to cope with another day. She should go and tell Sir Philip that no more teas were to be offered. She had enough to do. The servants would have left for the evening apart from the night staff. None of them lived in. The servants’ and owners’ dinners were served to them before the diners upstairs. Of course, one of the bells might soon jangle because some guest had decided on a late-night snack. The wires had been arranged so that the bells rang in the schoolroom as well as the kitchen. Still, tonight was the first of Almack’s assemblies and the famous rooms would be crammed with all the members of society lucky enough to have vouchers, so that practically all the hotel guests would be out until the small hours. This of course meant that many of them expected breakfast at two in the afternoon, but then there were always the early birds who wanted steak and beer or kedgeree and tea before a ride in the Park.

  Her eyelids began to droop. The kitchen door swung open. Harriet looked up, expecting to see either Miss Tonks or Mrs. Budley, for one of them usually came down to the kitchen to talk to her if she did not appear in the schoolroom. The kitchen was now lit only by one candle placed in front of her. But it was the Duke of Rowcester who stood there, his jewels sparkling and dancing in the flickering light of the candle.

  Harriet did not feel frightened or ashamed. She only felt very weary.

  She stood up and curtsied and then sat down again and refilled her glass with wine and said in a level voice, “I trust you have not lost your way, your grace.”

  He pulled out a chair and sat down opposite her.

  “I have not lost my way, Miss James, but it would appear that you have. What on earth are you doing working like a scullion?”

  “I am a partner in this hotel and its much-admired chef,” said Harriet. “Wine, your grace?”

  “If you please.”

  She rose with heart-breaking weariness in every line of her slim body and fetched a clean wineglass and filled it for him before sinking back into her chair.