The Daring Debutantes Bundle

by M C Beaton

  The clanging bell of the fire engine could be heard in the distance and soon the huge horses pulling it came charging down the street. Wrapped in rugs, Kitty sat in the carriage shivering with fright.

  She became aware of a small, white, tearstained face peering over the edge of the carriage door. It was the eleven-year-old Pugsley called Jane.

  “Miss Kitty,” she whispered. Kitty leaned over the open carriage. “Oh, miss,” said Jane. “The fire. I saw a hand at the open window. It reached into the room and held a lucifer to the curtains,” then Jane was swept away by her mother. Mrs. Pugsley was running from child to child, counting feverishly, losing the count, and beginning all over again.

  “We can do nothing more here, my Lady,” said the coachman. “Good thing we came back for you early. With your Ladyship’s permission, I think we should go home.”

  And still shaking and huddled in her rugs, Kitty was borne off, back to the West End, where the passing throng stared at her smoke-streaked face in surprise.

  Lady Mainwaring’s excellent German butler informed Kitty that his mistress was at the theater and then proceeded to summon the staff: a footman to fetch the doctor, Colette to change Kitty’s ruined clothes, the housekeeper to supply hot, sweet tea, bandages, and ointment.

  The doctor fussed but said the burns were minor. He prescribed a sleeping draft and then left Kitty to her worried thoughts. She felt in some way that she had caused the disaster. Without the money from the furniture, the Pugsleys would not have gone in for such wild celebration. Jane’s story of the hand at the window was simply the wild imaginings of a frightened child.

  Mercifully, the sleeping draft began to take effect and Kitty, at last, closed her eyes.

  Lady Mainwaring had, unfortunately, left instructions that the staff were not to wait up for her and had given her personal maid the evening off. It was not until the next day that she learned of the Pugsley fire. It had made headlines on the front page of The Daily Mail, including the sub-headline of the story which carried interviews with all the Pugsleys—“Baroness returns to scenes of childhood.” Lady Mainwaring put down the paper and groaned aloud. What a lot of fun the gossips were going to have with that one. Best get Kitty out of town right away.

  For once the calm and level-headed Lady Emily Mainwaring was shaken from her customary calm and in an effort to save Kitty from society’s malicious gossips, she forgot all about the effect the news would have on Kitty’s husband.

  Lord Peter Chesworth was sitting, as usual, over the books in the estate office when he noticed the trim figure of Veronica Jackson on horseback, riding up the drive under the lime trees.

  He had a sudden impulse to ring for the butler and say he was not at home. But as he sat undecided, the door behind him opened and the butler informed him that he had put Mrs. Jackson in the small salon. With a sigh, Peter Chesworth got to his feet.

  As he entered the salon, Veronica swayed towards him and wrapped her arms around his neck. She pressed her lips to his and he felt all the old passion that she was able to arouse. But after a few minutes, he put her away from him. “You forget I’m now a married man.”

  Veronica was ruffled. “An unhappily married man,” she said acidly.

  “I do not wish to discuss my wife,” said Lord Chesworth, in a flat voice.

  Veronica became very angry. “Then you will not be interested in what your silly little shopgirl has been up to. Cavorting around Camden Town.” She flung a copy of the Daily Mail down on the table and marched from the room.

  Like many of his class, Peter Chesworth despised Lord Northcliffe’s “cheap” newspapers and was heartily afraid of them. The reporters of the Daily Mail and its sister paper, the Daily Sketch, had a nasty habit of ferreting out a lot of accurate and unpleasant facts about their betters.

  With a feeling of distaste, he picked up the paper and saw Kitty’s name staring up at him from the front page. The reporter had done an excellent job. Everything in Kitty’s young life was documented, from Miss Bates’s seminary in Hampstead to her Sunday visits to the Pugsleys with her mother, and the fact that she was newly married and staying with Lady Mainwaring while her husband honeymooned alone in the country. He threw the paper away from him in disgust. What on earth was up with Lady Mainwaring? She had enough political influence to get a story like that stopped before it reached the presses.

  Suddenly, the whole enormity of his marriage struck him. He had accepted the girl’s money but that was all he had done. He had now made it clear to everyone that he did not care anything for Kitty. Well, she was his wife, his property. He would set off for London right away and bring her home.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Kitty wriggled uncomfortably on the plush seat of the railway carriage. If she leaned her head back, the lace antimacassar caught in her hair. If she leaned forward, her stays jabbed her under the bosom. The carriage was stifling. Sweat trickled down Kitty’s body and she desperately wished she could have a good scratch. She felt as comfortable as a dog with fleas.

  “Emily, can’t we please open the window?” asked Kitty.

  “I’m afraid not,” answered Lady Mainwaring. “Our dresses would be ruined by smoke and cinders. You will just have to suffer. Are you wearing stays?”

  Kitty nodded and searched in her reticule for her book of papier poudré The pads which she wore on her head à la Princesse de Galles to puff out her fine hair, the straw hat with its top-heavy pile of artificial fruit and flowers, and her long, tight, kid gloves worn above the elbow, made her feel as if she were encased in some extremely refined torture chamber.

  “I think you should stop wearing stays, Kitty,” said Emily. “It’s not as if you need to.”

  “Leave off my stays?” gasped Kitty. She was as shocked as if Lady Mainwaring had suggested she leave off her knickers.

  “Well, you’re very slim and have a firm bust. Why suffer needlessly. Really, Kitty, no one would know.”

  Kitty was saved from replying as the train drew into Hadsea station. Both ladies stood for a moment as a cool sea breeze swept the scrubbed wooden platform. The train, which had made a special stop to set them down at the small resort, gave a great contemptuous cough and surged forward to the more fashionable resorts ahead.

  They waited for the servants who had descended from a third-class carriage at the other end of the platform, to join them.

  “I’ll tell you a little bit more about our hosts as we go along,” said Emily as they walked from the clean little station to where three carriages were waiting; one for the luggage, one for the servants, and one for themselves.

  They drove down the little high street past the shops with their bunches of black sandshoes, shrimp nets, and revolving stands of colorful postcards, past the butcher’s on the corner, where the jolly-looking butcher waved his straw hat to them in salute, then around the curve on the high street—and there was the sea!

  Kitty let out a gasp of pleasure and clapped her hands like a child. The sea sparkled like blue sapphires all the way to the horizon. Little white sails of yachts in the distance sculled to and fro on the fresh breeze. The beach was a perfect curve of golden sand, edged with flat sandstone rocks studded with great clumps of sea pinks.

  “Pay attention, Kitty,” said Emily Mainwaring, smiling at her pleasure. “I’ll tell you a bit about the people we are going to stay with. Mrs. Jane Dwight-Hammond is a poet. Not a very good one I’m afraid but she’s a very kind lady. Her sister, Matilda, is also very nice but she has a penchant for collecting stray cats. I’m afraid the little brutes are all over the place. They are both maiden ladies and very old friends of mine.”

  “But you said Mrs. Dwight-Hammond,” pointed out Kitty.

  “Well, she was disappointed in love, or so she says, at a very early age and sees no reason why she should suffer the stigma of being a Miss. She invents husbands for herself but they’re apt to change with the days of the week. Don’t let it bother you. She’s quite harmless. Also, it’s good social trainin
g to get used to eccentrics. Goodness knows, society is peppered with them.”

  The house was called unimaginatively “Sea View” and stood on a small promontory at the far end of the beach. It was an enormous Victorian mansion with tall red roofs and it stood in several acres of neglected garden. As the carriages crunched to a halt on the graveled drive, no sound could be heard but the wind sighing through some ragged, monkey puzzle trees on the scraggly lawn.

  “Ring the bell, Judson,” said Lady Mainwaring to one of the footmen, “and keep on ringing. This always happens,” she explained to Kitty. “They love company but they get very nervous when company actually arrives and go into hiding.”

  Judson rang the ship’s bell which was on a stand outside the door. Then the silence fell again and faint, agitated rustling and scurrying could be heard from the back of the house. Just as Judson was about to sound off on the bell again, the front door popped open and a thin middle-aged lady in a shabby teagown rushed out. She had a thin, lined face and a great quantity of strong yellow teeth. Her pale, weak eyes watered in the sunlight and she peered at them anxiously.

  “Oh, it is you, Emily. We can’t be too careful you know. Lots of bad, bad men around.”

  This was Jane.

  An identical figure came bounding down the steps behind her and hugged both Kitty and Lady Mainwaring in turn. “I forgot to tell you they were twins,” said Emily Mainwaring to Kitty.

  Matilda Dwight-Hammond did indeed look, at first glance, like a carbon copy of her sister. But closer inspection revealed her to be smarter in her dress and less vague and timid in her manner.

  “Tea is served in the drawing room,” said Matilda.

  “Can we please change our gowns first?” asked Emily Mainwaring. “We’re very sticky and hot from the train journey.”

  A look of almost childish disappointment crossed Matilda’s face. “But Emily, teatime is always when we say ‘hello.’”

  “Oh, very well,” sighed Emily. Matilda beamed with delight and ushered them into the drawing room. Kitty expected to find other visitors to whom she was expected to say “hello,” but the eyes which met hers belonged to a score or so of cats.

  There were cats sitting on the chairs, cats on the floor, even cats on the piano. Their different-colored furs gleamed with health and their unblinking eyes surveyed Kitty with interest.

  “We’ll start with the first,” said Matilda, and then giggled. “Why, your name is Kitty. How suitable!”

  She led the way to the first cat, a hugh tabby with large green eyes. “Now this is Peter. Say hello to Kitty, Peter.”

  Peter mewed politely. They passed to the next. “And this is Tibbles.” Tibbles was a Persian who fluffed her fur and also mewed.

  More fascinated by the minute, Kitty was introduced to cat after cat. Then Matilda clapped her hands and opened the door. “Hellotime is over,” she announced. “Time to leave.” The cats rose and stretched and slowly loped from the room, quickening their pace as they went out into the garden, the sun shining on their sleek fur. Then they fanned out and dived off into the shrubbery.

  “Now it’s good-bye time,” said Lady Mainwaring. “We really must get changed.”

  “Of course, of course,” said Matilda. “I’ll show you to your rooms.”

  Kitty stood patiently and let Colette undress her. Her room was charming. White lace curtains framed the long windows and were looped back to show a view of the beach and the sea on the other side of the tangled shrubbery of the garden.

  The furniture was of white cane with the exception of a marble washstand with a porcelain ewer and basin which were overflowing with roses and maidenhair ferns. An empty crystal bowl stood next to the washstand on a triangular cane table. The sisters had forgotten to arrange the flowers or—more likely, thought Kitty—they considered the basin and ewer more suitable for a flower display.

  Dressed in a loose, flowing teagown and minus stays, Kitty walked out onto a small wooden balcony in front of the window and took a deep breath. Far away, yachts skimmed across the horizon under a freshening breeze. Little puffs of clouds chased each other across the cerulean sky. On the shoreline, the shallow water changed from blue to pale-green and on a stretch of springy turf above the tide line, the cats romped and played, their fur rippling and glistening in the light wind.

  Kitty could not help thinking it would have been the ideal place for a honeymoon. What on earth was her husband doing now?

  • • •

  Peter Chesworth was, at that moment, staring at Lady Mainwaring’s butler as if he could not believe his ears.

  “Gone to the seaside!” repeated his lordship angrily. “Did my wife leave a note?”

  “No, my Lord,” said the butler. “But Lady Mainwaring did.”

  Lord Chesworth removed his gloves, tucked his cane under his arm, and scanned the single sheet of paper. “Dear Peter,” Lady Mainwaring had written, “Kitty was disappointed not to hear from you so we assumed you were still occupied with your work on the estate. We are going to Hadsea for a short holiday. May we hope that you will join us? I enclose the address….”

  He crumpled the note in his hand. No, they may not hope that he would join them. He had never had to chase after any woman in his life and he did not intend to start now—particularly with his wife who ought, by rights, to be sitting by his side warming his slippers and his bed.

  He stood irresolute on the pavement and then, with a slight feeling of being hunted, saw Veronica Jackson’s carriage coming to a stop. The lady herself, to judge from the amount of luggage strapped on the back, had just returned from the country as well.

  Peter Chesworth did not know that Veronica had watched him going into the house from the carriage window and subsequently seen him reemerge a few moments later with a look like thunder on his face.

  “Well, Peter, here we both are back in town,” she said brightly. “Are you running off anywhere?”

  His lordship was absolutely furious with his wife. He was damned if he would go running after her.

  “I’m going nowhere at present,” he said, looking up at her with his attractive mocking smile. “But I’ll take you to the opera this evening if you like.”

  “Not Wagner!” begged Veronica in mock horror. “I can’t stand all that caterwauling.”

  “No, not Wagner,” he assured her. “Bizet.”

  “Till tonight then!” She kissed her fingertips to him and her carriage moved off.

  They arrived mercifully late and the production of Carmen was already halfway through the first act. Peter Chesworth was regretting his impulse. Perhaps if they stayed quietly in the box at the interval, they would not be noticed.

  But as the lights blazed up at the first interval, Veronica was leaning over the edge of the box, waving to her friends. She seemed almost to be going out of her way to attract attention and was wearing a very low-cut dress which seemed to draw all the eyes of the men like a magnet.

  With a shudder, Peter Chesworth saw his mother-in-law and Lady Henley in a box opposite. Lady Henley had her lorgnette positively screwed to her eyes and Mrs. Harrison was directing a pair of opera glasses in the direction of Veronica’s white bosom.

  Well, they could glare all they wanted. He was neither going to explain nor apologize. As Lady Henley made a movement to her feet, the theater was mercifully plunged into darkness as the second act began.

  Lord Chesworth decided to escape. “Let’s go to the Cavendish and drink champagne,” and, as his partner showed signs of protesting, he clasped her hand. “Please, Veronica.”

  Veronica smiled in the darkness. They would by all means go to the Cavendish Hotel and she would make sure that Peter Chesworth did not leave her till the morning.

  Lord Chesworth guided his companion into the public dining room of the Cavendish in an effort to avoid the heavy-drinking crowd who gathered with the proprietress, Mrs. Lewis, in her parlor. But the dining room seemed to be filled to capacity with London society, Mrs. Lewis’s reputation
as a cook drawing them from all over.

  Peter Chesworth’s ears burned as glances were thrown in their direction and the feathered headdresses of the ladies bobbed and nodded as they whispered with their heads together. He wished for the first time in his life that he were a woman so that he could faint or, at the very least, complain of a headache. Veronica was drinking steadily and leaving much of the excellent food on her plate. Her eyes held a hectic glitter and her voice became louder and more strident until her personal endearments seemed to be bouncing off the walls. He suddenly thought of his quiet, shy wife and heartily wished he had gone to join her. He would leave for Hadsea in the morning.

  But by the time he had got rid of a very angry Veronica on the doorstep of her home and reached the safety of his own bed, he decided to go in two days’ time instead. He did not want to look as if he were running to heel like a whipped dog.

  Kitty was enjoying the Dwight-Hammonds’ eccentric household immensely. The sisters dithered about cheerfully, Matilda with her cats and Jane with her poems. Lady Mainwaring rested and read and chatted with the sisters, leaving her young friend endless freedom to explore the garden and the beach.

  Playing with the cats, paddling at the edge of the water, collecting shells and seaweed, Kitty was like a child. She even inspired Jane Dwight-Hammond to write a poem in her honor. Jane gathered together Lady Mainwaring, her sister, Kitty, and the cats to listen to it.

  Jane coughed nervously and fingered a long necklace of amber beads as she peered shortsightedly about the room to make sure she had her audience’s full attention. She began:

  “To Kitty.

  Running on the beach

  Seaweed in her hand