by M C Beaton
“Not here,” whispered Miss Simpkin, looking nervously over her shoulder at the listening servants.
Lord Charles ushered the sobbing governess into the library. “Now, hurry up. Out with it,” he commanded.
Miss Simpkin stopped sobbing and faced him bravely.
“I was a baker’s daughter,” she said, “but my mother had ideas above her station and had me educated like any fine lady. Sir Egbert Truebury came into the shop one day, and was much taken with me. I used to be quite pretty then,” she added wistfully.
She held up a hand as Lord Charles made an impatient gesture. “You must bear with me, my lord, or you will not be able to understand my subsequent behavior.
“My parents put silly ideas of marriage in my head and encouraged Sir Egbert to call. One day he asked if he could take me to a local fair, and my parents gave their consent. But he took me to his house instead, and… and… he constrained me to be his mistress. I was too ashamed to return home again. After a time, he tired of me but said he would set me up with my own seminary.
“For a while I was happy. I began to know what it was to be respected. Then one day Sir Egbert came back. He had several very noisy gentlemen with him. He demanded that I arrange tea parties during which his friends could meet the young ladies of the seminary. I refused. He said he would tell the whole town of my past and I would be ruined.
“I did not know what to do. He said he would return the following month for my answer. I sold the seminary very quickly, and sent Sir Egbert the money I had gained from the sale through a lawyer. I had immediately advertised in the newspapers for a position and was relieved when Mr. and Mrs. Patterson employed me.
“I was so happy with my dear Patricia. And then I met Sir Egbert that evening at Vauxhall. He said that unless I helped his son, Geoffrey, marry Patricia, he would tell you of my past.
“Today, I had just made up my mind not to do anything he wanted. I decided to tell you myself, But then I found Patricia had gone.”
“Where?”
“I do not know. The servants say Mr. Truebury called this morning when I was out and Patricia saw him. I do not know why, because she dislikes him. Mr. Truebury left on his own and it was shortly after that Patricia was seen to leave carrying a bandbox.”
“I know Truebury’s lodgings,” said Lord Charles. He picked up his hat.
“Oh, let me go with you,” begged Miss Simpkin. “I had no hand in her disappearance.”
“No, Miss Simpkin. Wait here. I can go faster alone. And Patricia may return in my absence. Did she leave any letter?”
Miss Simpkin sadly shook her head.
Lord Charles set off for Mr. Truebury’s lodgings. He was not very surprised at Miss Simpkin’s sad story. It was a well-known fact that at least half the ladies’ seminaries of England were run by cast-off mistresses.
But he was worried and frightened—frightened that he had driven Patricia to do something dangerous.
Mr. Truebury had two servants at his lodgings, a footman who occasionally acted as butler and a valet. Both were unsavory individuals and Mr. Truebury had told them to say he and his father had left that very morning to go on the Grand Tour.
Which all went to show that Mr. Truebury’s brain could go so far and no further.
“On the Grand Tour!” exclaimed Lord Charles wrathfully. “With Napoleon’s troops all over Europe?”
The butler-footman took one look at Lord Charles’s menacing face and tried to shut the door. He was an ex-boxer and put all his strength behind it.
Lord Charles crashed his shoulder against the door and sent it and the footman crashing back.
“Help, Jem,” cried the footman.
The valet came rushing out of an inner room wielding a cudgel. He swung it at Lord Charles, who dodged and brought his fist up to land full on the valet’s jaw with a satisfactory thump.
The ex-boxer struggled to his feet and grasped Lord Charles from behind in a crushing grip. Lord Charles heaved him over his head like a sack of coals and sent him crashing down the narrow corridor of Mr. Truebury’s lodgings.
Lord Charles seized the cudgel. The valet was out cold, but the ex-boxer was sitting up, dizzily shaking his head.
“You,” said Lord Charles. “What is your name?”
“Giles Marsham,” grunted the footman, feeling his head with a beefy hand.
“Well, Giles Marsham, either you tell me where your master is to be found or I shall spread your brains all around the place with this cudgel.”
“The Quality shouldn’t go around like bruisers a-breakin’ of people’s heads,” said the footman sulkily. “I’ll lose my employ.”
Lord Charles hefted the cudgel in his hand.
“Or your life,” he said sweetly. “Take your pick, Giles Marsham!”
Only determination not to cry in front of such an obnoxious toad as Geoffrey Truebury kept Patricia dry-eyed. She also reminded herself sternly that she ought to be grateful to Mr. Truebury. For one thing, he had made no overtures to her but seemed content to sit well over on his side of the carriage, gazing at the scenery.
The English countryside was looking its best. Everything was coming to life under the warm sun. New leaves trembled on branches in the lightest of breezes and lambs scampered about the fields where the new grass rolled lazily under the sun, so green it was like the color of Lord Charles’s eyes.
Patricia tentatively touched her still-swollen lips. She had told him she loved him, but that had seemed to disgust him more than anything else.
She stared bleakly out of the window at the smiling countryside seeing only weeks and months and years of grief ahead. Love was a sickness. Why did she have to go and fall in love? She could have had a comfortable marriage and children and a home of her own without all this burning, aching yearning.
“Where did you say your mother lived?” she said, breaking the silence.
“Richmond,” replied Mr. Truebury laconically, “on the river. Vastly pretty place. Not the main family place. We’ve got estates in Sussex.”
“I hope Mrs. Truebury will not be too put out by my unexpected arrival?”
“Oh, no, nothing ever disturbs her,” said Mr. Truebury cheerfully, aware that he spoke the truth for nothing had disturbed his late mother since she was laid to rest some ten years before.
They stopped for refreshment at an inn and Patricia found herself becoming even more pleased with Mr. Truebury’s restrained behavior. He said thoughtfully that he would send one of his grooms ahead with a message to let his mother know of their impending arrival.
Patricia hoped Mrs. Truebury would prove to be amiable and undemanding so that she could find some peace and quiet to try to get over the worst of her grief.
As they continued on their journey, she said warmly to Mr. Truebury, “You are a thoughtful and considerate companion, sir, and I shall always be grateful to you.”
“Thank you,” said Mr. Truebury, beaming at her. Coercion and threats were more his father’s business. Mr. Truebury thought his marriage to Patricia might now be arranged amicably.
The carriage at last turned in through tall mossy gateposts and made its way up a weedy drive. Tall tangled woods blotted out the sun and cast a green gloom into the carriage. Patricia shivered. The estate looked sadly run down.
The house came into view, a Gothic folly, tall and turreted. The windows did not seem to have been cleaned in years and had a closed, blind look about them as they peered through their shrouds of ivy.
Patricia allowed herself to be helped down from the carriage and stood looking up at the forbidding exterior of the house. For one moment she thought it was deserted and that Mr. Truebury was playing some trick on her, but to her relief the heavy oak door was opened by a butler and behind him stood an elderly gentleman, every bit as highly painted as Mr. Truebury.
“I am Sir Egbert Truebury, Geoffrey’s father,” said the elderly gentleman, walking forward and taking both Patricia’s hands in a warm clasp. “My son sent a
messenger ahead to warn me of your arrival. A room has been prepared for you.”
“You are most kind, sir,” smiled Patricia, grateful that Sir Geoffrey seemed to be as uninquisitive as his son about the reason for her flight from her guardian. Geoffrey Truebury had seemed to accept that she had had some sort of falling out with Lord Charles without bothering to ask further questions about it.
“Come along then,” he said. “Betts,” he said to his butler, “take Miss Patterson to her room. Tea will be served in the drawing room in half an hour, Miss Patterson.”
“Thank you,” said Patricia. “I am anxious to meet your wife.”
“Oh, ah, her… yes. Well, you’ll see her soon enough.”
Patricia followed the butler up the stairs. The oaken staircase was intricately carved with heraldic beasts, and a stained glass window checkered the treads with oblongs of purple and scarlet.
A footman followed, carrying Patricia’s bandbox.
The butler led the way along a corridor on the second landing and opened a door. The bedroom he ushered Patricia into was small and smelled of damp and disuse. But a fire had been lit in the hearth and cans of hot water and soap placed on the toilet table.
The butler bowed and left. The young footman, an unsavory-looking youth, placed Patricia’s bandbox on a table at the end of the bed and proceeded to open it.
“Leave that,” said Patricia, half amused, half alarmed. “The housemaids will put away my clothes.”
“Don’t have no housemaids,” said the footman. “Master don’t like female servants.”
“Then leave it all the same. I prefer to unpack my clothes myself.”
The footman bowed and slouched out.
“What a peculiar household!” thought Patricia. “Perhaps poor Mrs. Truebury will be really pleased to have some female companionship.”
She hung away her scanty wardrobe, after selecting a primrose yellow silk gown to change into. She could feel black grief threatening to overcome her and resolutely kept herself busy, washing her face and hands, arranging her hair, and putting on the fresh gown to fill in the time before going downstairs.
When she opened her bedroom door she found to her surprise that the footman who had carried up her bandbox was stationed outside, leaning against the wall with his arms folded.
Not liking the expression on his face, which was an odd mixture of cunning and servility, Patricia said sharply, “What are you doing here?”
“I was told to wait for you, miss,” he said, ducking his head, “’case you lost your way.”
Patricia followed him along the corridor and down the stairs.
The house was very quiet and still. Dust motes swam lazily in the colored shafts of light from the stained glass window which lit the staircase.
“It is like a house in one of those romances I used to read,” thought Patricia. “What a strange brooding air of menace!”
She straightened her dress and nervously patted her hair before entering the drawing room, hoping that Mrs. Truebury would not take her in dislike.
But only Sir Egbert and Geoffrey were in the room. They rose to their feet at her entrance.
“Where is Mrs. Truebury?” she asked, looking about at the room which was crammed with heavy, ugly furniture.
“Resting, my dear. Mrs. Truebury always sleeps very sound,” said Sir Egbert.
For some reason this remark of his father’s seemed to strike young Geoffrey as being exquisitely funny.
“But to pass the time until Mrs. Truebury is ready to receive you, Geoffrey here will take you to see the pride of our estate. We have a most elegant folly on a little island on our lake. This house belonged to my dear father,” said Sir Geoffrey, “and he channeled water from the Thames to make an artificial lake. It will only take a little while and then you may return and take tea.”
Patricia eagerly agreed, anxious to escape from the heavy atmosphere of the house.
She followed Geoffrey out and along a straggling weedy path which led through the overgrown gardens and shaggy lawns at the back of the house until it ended at the edge of a lake.
There was a little island in the middle on which stood a mock Grecian temple, its slim white pillars gleaming in the late sun.
Geoffrey helped Patricia into a flat-bottomed boat moored to a rickety wooden jetty and then began to pole her across. He was not a very expert punter and several times Patricia clutched onto the side of the boat in alarm. “I cannot swim, Mr. Truebury,” she said.
“I didn’t think you would be able to,” was all he said. “Most females can’t.”
There was a scraping sound as the boat landed on a small pebbled beach on the island.
Seen close to, the temple was a depressing place, the bottom of its pillars green with damp. Weeds had thrust their way up through the cracks in the broken wooden floor.
“Isn’t it splendid?” cried Geoffrey. “I always think it the most romantic of places. Do excuse me but a moment, Miss Patterson. I must make sure the boat is secure.”
Patricia nodded and sat down on a marble seat in the temple. She felt depressed and sad and very, very tired. As soon as she was presented to Mrs. Truebury, she would beg to be allowed to retire.
She thought of Lord Charles and tears welled up in her eyes.
Then she heard Geoffrey Truebury calling her name.
She got up and walked listlessly down to the little crescent of pebbles where the boat had beached.
But the boat had gone, and with it Mr. Truebury.
She heard him call again and saw him some yards away out on the lake in the boat.
“Will you marry me?” he called.
Patricia took a deep breath. Nothing, she realized, would ever make her want to marry any man such as Geoffrey Truebury.
Too tired and upset to be diplomatic, she called back, “No, I am afraid I can’t,” she shouted back.
“Then you can stay there until you come to your senses.” He grinned.
Patricia looked at him as if she could not believe her ears. “Do not play silly games. Where is your mother? She will be upset and angry when she learns of your cruel jokes.”
“I told you, nothing upsets her,” said Geoffrey. “She’s been dead for ten years.”
“So that is why he was so eager to help me,” thought Patricia.
Then she remembered that Lord Charles’s servants must have seen her leaving shortly after Mr. Truebury’s call.
“Lord Charles will find me,” she said.
“He won’t know where to look,” laughed Geoffrey, his voice carrying clearly across the water. “Papa won this awful old place at the card tables six months ago. Nobody knows we have it. Our family place is down in Sussex. Anyway, my servants have been told to tell Lord Charles that Papa and I have gone on the Grand Tour.”
“Don’t be a fool,” snapped Patricia. “He will never believe that such a worm as you would dare to venture abroad in the middle of a war.”
Geoffrey’s mouth fell open in dismay. Then he rallied. “Well, he won’t come looking for you here. Papa and I will be in London tomorrow showing ourselves out and about, and if Lord Charles calls at our place in Sussex, it’ll take him a long time to get here. Scream if you like. Nobody’ll hear you. But there you stay until you’ve decided to marry me!”
He began to punt energetically and inexpertly toward the opposite shore.
“They cannot do this to me,” thought Patricia. “It is all a bluff.”
But the sun was rapidly sinking and a chill wind was beginning to blow over the water.
Patricia began to panic. She was terrified at the thought of spending a night in the middle of an island surrounded by water.
If only she had learned to swim.
She stared furiously down at the greenish-brown water. It was so muddy she could not even see the bottom. How did one learn how to swim? Surely, by simply getting into the water and trying.
But if she found she could not learn, then she would have to spend a nig
ht on the island, soaking wet. Then she remembered she had a tinderbox in her reticule.
For a start, she would set the temple on fire so that even if no one from outside came to see what the matter was, at least she would be warm if she failed to learn how to swim.
She diligently went about the small island, picking up as many scraps of dry wood as she could find. She carried them all to the temple and heaped them up on the remains of the wooden floor. Lighting anything with a tinderbox took at least half an hour, and Patricia labored with it, thinking she would never get the cotton waste to produce the necessary glow to ignite the timber. A violet dusk had settled over the surrounding countryside and an owl hooted mournfully from the woods on the far shore.
Then a little tongue of yellow flame licked its way up through the little pieces of tinder. Patricia retreated to safety as the flames burned higher until soon the whole wooden floor of the temple was blazing merrily.
“Now, I cannot waste time seeing if the fire will bring anyone,” she lectured herself severely. “It is time for your first swimming lesson, Patricia Patterson!”
She walked down to the beach and placed her bonnet and reticule on a rock. She decided to keep on her shoes, which were little more than flat slippers, in case the rocks in the water were sharp. She tucked the skirt of her gown inside her drawers and tied them firmly by the tapes at her waist.
Then she gingerly walked into the water.
It was ice-cold. She looked longingly back at the blazing fire. But no one had shouted or come running, and so she ploughed on until the water was up to her waist.
“Now,” she thought, “you have watched the village boys. They kick out with their arms and legs and you will do the same. It is all very easy.”
She lifted her feet from the bottom and thrashed out wildly with her arms and legs until she was exhausted. She raised her head to see if she had moved at all and sank like a stone.
“Don’t panic,” said a small voice of reason in her head. “Don’t panic or you will drown. Stand on the bottom and thrust yourself up to the air.”
Patricia thrust up, shot her head and shoulders up out of the water, and splashed down again. That was when she realized she could still stand on the bottom and keep her head above the water.