The Miser's Sister

by Carola Dunn

  “0’ course, my lady. There be breakfast in the morning room, or I c’n bring you summat here.”

  “I’ll go down,” Ruth decided. She must learn to face the household soon. “Show me the way, if you please. Is my sister risen?”

  “Nay, my lady. Nor the mistress nor Miss Rose neither. ‘Tis early yet. This way, please, my lady.”

  Ruth wondered if she had committed a social solecism by rising too early, then realised that if breakfast was already available it must be a reasonable hour. In any case, the hollow feeling in her middle persuaded her to continue.

  The maid ushered her into a pleasant room, papered with yellow marigolds, which made it seem sunny, and pervaded with the aroma of ham and toasted muffins. Oliver was there before her.

  He rose from his loaded plate to greet her.

  “Good morning, Lady Ruth. I trust you are recovered from the journey. Indeed, I did not mean to tire you so.”

  “Good morning, Mr Pardoe. I slept very well, thank you, and for more hours than I would have believed possible. You are not to blame yourself for my fatigue. I think it was caused as much by the bewildering change of scene as by the coach ride.”

  A footman seated her.

  “What will you have?” asked Oliver. “There is almost anything you could think of. Mama believes in keeping up our strength.”

  Ruth was soon provided with a large plateful of her own, which she attacked with vigour.

  “I fell asleep in the middle of my dinner last night,” she told Oliver defensively.

  “I do believe you are trying to grow as tall as Rosie,” he teased. “Oh, by the way, she mentioned that you are in need of outfits more suitable to London life than Cornwall was able to provide. Sir John left some cash with my father, and he has deputed me to be your banker. I know nothing whatever of fashions so you may buy what you will and present the bills to me with no fear that I shall quibble about an ostrich feather here or a lace mantilla there.”

  “Rose spoke of it last night. I... I wondered if perhaps she was thinking of... of sharing her pin money,” said Ruth diffidently.

  “It would not hurt her to do so. However it is quite unnecessary, I assure you.”

  Ruth was not entirely satisfied, but she was afraid he might be offended if she pressed the subject. She could not even bring herself to ask how much money her uncle had provided. She must assume that Oliver would tell her when it was exhausted.

  Oliver, who had been given carte blanche by his father to pay the Penderrics’ bills, was most relieved when she asked no more questions.

  At that moment, Mr Pardoe himself came in. Expecting unconsciously that he would be built on the scale of the three she had already met, Ruth was surprised to find that he was not much above her in height, a wiry, sprightly old gentleman.

  “Good morning, sir.” Oliver jumped to his feet. “Lady Ruth, this is my father. Father, Lady Ruth Penderric.”

  Ruth rose and curtsied.

  “How d’ye do, ma’am, how d’ye do?” Mr Pardoe bowed jerkily, looked her up and down with a bright, friendly, bird-like gaze, and sat down to break his fast. “Happy ye’ll be with us for Christmas, my dear.”

  Ruth realised that the holiday was a mere five days off. It had not brought any celebrations at Penderric Castle for as long as she could remember, and she wondered what sort of festivities would mark the occasion here.

  “Father is very proud of his Christmas arrangements,” Oliver explained. “We have a great party for all our employees and their families, and he has adopted the Duchess of York’s German custom of giving presents to all the children. Of course, Rose and I count ourselves children still, and you and Lady Letty shall certainly be added to our numbers if you will grace the party with your presence.”

  “It sounds delightful. We never did anything like that at Penderric. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “As to that, you will have to consult Mama. Pray do not feel obliged to make yourself useful, Lady Ruth. I want you to enjoy yourself in London.”

  “If you wish me to feel myself at home, Mr Pardoe, you will not leave me idle. I am used to be busy, you know.”

  Oliver was heard to mutter something about a “wretched slave-driving skinflint.” His father, who had consumed a considerable amount of food during this exchange, interrupted.

  “A gal after my own heart! Idle hands make mischief, and I could wish that more of the nobility felt that way, ‘stead o’ squandering their blunt on horse races and dice.”

  “You have hit upon Father’s favourite subject, Lady Ruth. I must bear him off before he starts speechifying, or he himself will accomplish nothing today. I believe Rose and my mother have made plans to take you and Lady Letty shopping, so you will certainly be fully occupied all day, I promise you.”

  “Mrs Pardoe will be down very shortly,” the old gentleman assured her as his son swept him out.

  Ruth sat musing over a cup of tea. She felt she had been caught up in a fairy tale, and the identity of Prince Charming was plain to her. Fervently she wished for a wand-waving godmother to turn her into a beautiful princess, but she rather thought Cinders had been beautiful to start with. Even an enchanted ball-dress could not make her anything other than a skinny, brown little thing, as her father had told her often enough.

  In fact, good food and pleasant company had already done unrealised wonders for Ruth’s face and figure. When she emerged, several hours later, from a Bond Street modiste, clad in a speedily altered walking dress of amber merino and a jaunty bonnet to match, the sternest critic could not have called her less than passable.

  Oliver was no stern critic. When the ladies descended the stairs to join the gentlemen before dinner, he was immediately aware that Ruth looked particularly delightful. The time had long passed when he had thought of her face as anything but elfin, and undernourished was a word far more likely to spring to his mind than skinny. Now she was revealed as charmingly slender. If naturally curly hair, washed and brushed till it gleamed, and cut by an expert, now framed her features in an exceptionally attractive way, the eyes were the same pair that had captivated him in a dark cave, where they had shone in a dirty, scared, pinched, gallant little face.

  No, Oliver could not fall any more deeply in love. Yet even though she had left her betrothed in Cornwall without a backward glance, his beloved, dressed at last as befitted her station, seemed farther than ever beyond his reach.

  Ruth sensed his reserve at once. She had not expected a great deal of her new clothes, and now she wondered if she looked like a crow dressed in peacock feathers, though she had carefully avoided anything gaudy. In fact, as the other three had flown into raptures in shop after shop, arcade after arcade, she had found herself growing distinctly bored. It was a joy to be neatly dressed, to consign her rags to the housekeeper for dusters—not one of the Pardoes’ maids would have accepted them as clothes—yet she could not summon any enthusiasm for the endless niceties of fashion.

  With Letty, it was otherwise. Years of deprivation had sharpened her instinct for adornment, rather than defeating it. Ruth had had to put her foot down sharply at some of the extravagances her sister had desired. She was still far from happy about their financial situation and was determined to limit expenses as much as possible. In this she had no assistance from Rose and Mrs Pardoe, both of whom were apparently in the habit of spending freely. Just how wealthy was Mr Pardoe? Ruth wondered. Fortunately both ladies had excellent taste and helped Ruth dissuade Letty from the more wildly unsuitable purchases that caught her eye.

  Letty would willingly have discussed frills and furbelows throughout dinner. However, even Rose had had enough of the subject, and conversation turned on preparations for Christmas. Ruth was pleased to hear that there would he plenty for her to do.

  For a start, she and Oliver were to be dispatched next day to choose presents for the children.

  “Thirty-five girls and forty-one boys, I think,” Mrs Pardoe told them. “Lady Ruth may pick the toys
for the girls, and Oliver for the boys. And while they are out, Letty and Rose and I shall decide how to decorate the ballroom. Then, in the afternoon we shall go out and buy what we need for that. I hope you will be home for luncheon, my dear?” she asked her husband anxiously. “Cook will have the pudding batter ready for stirring, and you know how offended she gets if anyone misses.”

  “Stir the pudding!” Letty exclaimed. “Whatever for?”

  “Why, for luck,” said Rose, surprised. “Did you never stir the Christmas pudding?”

  “I daresay Lady Letty does not know about the objects we put in the pudding?” Oliver asked, hiding a grin. “The bell, for a wedding, the horseshoe for luck, a silver sixpence for riches, and the old boot for a bachelor.”

  “You put an old boot in a pudding?” Letty was astounded. “What a very odd custom! I suppose no one eats it?”

  “On the contrary, everyone must have a slice,” Oliver assured her. “And if your slice has the old boot then you will never marry.”

  Letty looked at him suspiciously.

  “They are all silver charms, my dear,” explained Mrs Pardoe soothingly. “Oliver, it is bad of you to mislead the child so.”

  “But all the same, watch you do not get the old boot, Lady Letty,” warned the incorrigible Oliver. “Rose has had it three years in a row.”

  “The charm only works until the following Christmas,” said Rose. “I’ve not given up hope yet.”

  When Oliver escorted Ruth down the front steps to the waiting carriage the next morning, she turned and looked back at the façade of the house.

  “I do not understand it at all,” she observed. “The front is so narrow, scarcely wider than the hall, yet inside it is as spacious as one could wish. You even have a ballroom!”

  “It was built after the Great Fire, when no structures remained, not even St Paul’s. It was the home of the Marquis of Spinbury, but he found that most of the nobility had moved west so he sold it and joined them. Then the land was sold piecemeal and built upon, until the house remained as you see it, completely surrounded.”

  “All the rooms I have seen have windows, yet I do not see where they can look out.”

  “You have been too busy to inspect our garden. In truth there is not much to see at this time of year. Lord Spinbury designed his mansion around an open square, onto which most of our windows now look. It is very pleasant in the summer, a haven of peace.”

  “I hope I shall see it then,” said Ruth shyly.

  It took them several hours to complete their commission, and they managed to find a great deal to amuse them in the task. As they returned, squeezed into a carriage piled high with packages, Ruth decided she had never spent so delightful a morning.

  They found that the others had already eaten a nuncheon and were waiting for them to bring back the carriage. Cook was also waiting, anxious to wrap and boil the puddings.

  “For well you knows, sir,” she said severely to Oliver. “as ‘ow they takes a good long steamin’, and I bain’t a-stayin’ up till midnight after ‘em. I put extry weddin’ bells in,” she confided, “seein’ as ‘ow we got an ‘ouseful o’ young ladies this year. And an owld shoe for you, Mr. Oliver.”

  “Get along with you, Cook, it’s a bell and a horseshoe I’m looking for.”

  “Lucky in love, unlucky at cards, Mr Oliver.”

  “Now when did you last see me playing at cards? A fine idea of me you’ll be giving to Lady Ruth.”

  “I think you a fine flirt, Mr Pardoe,” laughed Ruth. “May I stir, too?”

  “Sartinly, my lady. Everyone in the ‘ouse, right down to the scullery maid. And I ‘opes your la’ship’ll ‘ave a nextry lot o’ luck from bein’ last to stir, s’welp me if I don’t.”

  The party was to be on the Saturday before Christmas. Friday brought an endless stream of delivery boys and carts, bearing geese and oranges, branches of evergreens and holly, even mince pies and currant buns, for Cook would be far too busy to manage everything. Among the baskets and boxes a pair of packages arrived that were whisked upstairs unopened. Ruth, Letty, and Rose shut themselves in Rose’s chamber with Cora.

  Oh, the glory of those first evening gowns! Letty was aux anges, and Ruth could not remain indifferent as tissue paper was carefully folded aside to reveal silk and lace, gauze and embroidery. Mademoiselle Denise, learning that the young ladies were newly arrived from the barbarous English countryside, had put forth her best efforts. Soon Letty was a vision in pale blue gauze over white satin, and Ruth the epitome of daring elegance in flame-coloured silk. So dashing was Ruth’s appearance that Letty was envious.

  “Oh no, my lady,” said Cora firmly. “It is not at all suitable for a young girl, and your ladyship looks charmingly in blue. See how it brings out the color of your eyes.”

  Letty turned to admire herself in the mirror once more.

  “I cannot wear it,” declared Ruth, suddenly panic-stricken. “It is not me at all, it is far too... too forthcoming. I cannot think what I was about to purchase it.”

  “Not at all!” objected Rose. “It is quite unexceptionable and complements your colouring to perfection, Ruth. Letty or I would look positively washed out in it. And besides, if this is truly your very first party, you must wear something very special indeed.” Rose was still incredulous about the total lack of social life at Penderric Castle.

  Ruth was unconvinced, but she bowed to Rose’s judgment. The gowns were carefully removed and hung up to await the morrow.

  That afternoon, Pardoes, Penderrics, and a large part of the staff were busy decorating the ballroom under Mrs Pardoe's direction. Several hours of bustle and confusion brought about an amazing transformation. The walls were hung with scarlet-ribboned boughs of fir and thickly berried holly. Paper chains festooned the ceiling and the bandstand was a positive bower of tissue-paper flowers, fabricated by the ladies. The menservants had set up trestle tables and benches around the sides of the room, with plenty of space left for dancing in the centre. And piled before the high table were seventy-six little parcels, their contents carefully chosen by Ruth and Oliver according to a list of names and ages provided by Mrs Pardoe. The maids had wrapped them all in bright coloured paper, and the housekeeper had abandoned her duties for long enough to write a name on each.

  At last all was done. Penderrics and Pardoes retired to the drawing room to recuperate before changing for dinner.

  “Mama,” said Oliver, “I hope you mean to let us waltz this year. It is become quite respectable, and I am sure the young people will know how to do it.”

  “Pray, Mama, do!” seconded Rose. “The country dances are fun, but it would be very fine to have a waltz or two.”

  “Oh, very well,” sighed Mrs Pardoe, apparently worn down by an argument of long standing. “No more than two, mind.”

  “Thank you, Mama. We have won at last, Rosie. Lady Ruth, may I solicit your hand for the first waltz?”

  “We do not know any dances!” revealed Letty, near to tears. “We shall have to watch all evening.

  “Nonsense!” Rose exclaimed bracingly. “Oliver and I can easily teach you most of them in a few hours, can we not, Oliver? We’ll start right after dinner. I expect Papa will help. He is a great dancer, and Mama will play the piano, will you not, dearest Mama?”

  Ruth retired that night with her head a buzzing confusion of “Gay Gordons,” “Dashing White Sergeant,” and “Sir Roger de Coverley.” But in her dreams she waltzed with Oliver through caves hung with mistletoe, his strong arm about her waist swinging her to the music till she thought she was flying and the cave turned into a hot air balloon.

  In the morning, “The Lancers” and “Strip the Willow” were added to their repertoire before Mrs Pardoe called a halt. Mr Pardoe's counting houses and copying rooms were all to shut down at noon, and guests were expected to begin arriving at four o’clock, so she sent the girls to rest before donning their new finery.

  Ruth and Letty were too excited to relax. They plied Rose with
questions until she told them good-naturedly that they must wait and see.

  “I hope you are not expecting too much,” she added. “It is always fun, but it is not a grand ball such as your aunt will doubtless take you to when the Season starts.”

  “Have you ever been to a society ball?” asked Letty.

  “Yes, indeed, for when Papa was Lord Mayor of London we received several invitations. However, I had no better luck there than in our own circle: I’ve never met a young man I liked half as well as Oliver.”

  “I’m sure you will not get the old boot this year,” Letty consoled her. “I hope I do not!”

  It was not high society, but it was a fine party, from the ooh’s and ah's of the children as they caught their first glimpse of the ballroom, to the carols of the wassailers as the little ones were bundled sleepily into coats and mittens to walk home through the lamp-lit streets.

  And in between came sizzling, golden-roasted geese, holly-sprigged puddings flaming blue with brandy, mulled ale and mince pies by the dozen, barons of beef, whole hams studded with cloves, mountains of potatoes and rivers of gravy, an orange for every pocket and a barley sugar for every sticky hand.

  The band fiddled away and holiday-dressed clerks swung their wives and sweethearts from arm to arm. The ladies spread their favours equally and not one of them sat out a dance, but Ruth saved the first waltz for Oliver. The floor cleared magically to leave them floating round the room before an admiring audience they scarcely noticed, until applause at the end woke them from their daze and a blushing Ruth hurried to rejoin Mrs Pardoe.

  An interval while the musicians whetted their whistles, and in came a troupe of mummers in fantastic costumes. They performed the tale of St George and the Dragon, and if the dragon’s mask looked not unlike the Prince Regent, no one was in a mood to complain.

  At last came the moment seventy-six little souls had been anticipating. Each waited breathless as Mr Pardoe called out names, one by one. The room filled with the rustle of paper, and dolls emerged, bright-painted spinning tops, wooden horses, penny whistles, drums, and bead necklaces.