A Marchioness Below Stairs

by Alissa Baxter

  “Thank you.” Isabel’s lips quavered.

  “I informed them that I was on my way to pay you a visit – in your capacity as a Marchioness, of course, and not as a servant. Spencer sends his apologies and wishes me to relay the message to you that he hopes your cook will return tomorrow morning for her final lesson.”

  “But does this not appear strange to him?” Isabel’s brow creased. “How would you know my cook?”

  “I told him that your cook informed me you were her employer when I rescued her.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  Mr Bateman reached for the bell pull and rang for the butler, who entered the room a few minutes later. “Please send up a tray of tea, Watkins, and a bottle of brandy. And some ice.”

  “Ice, sir?”

  “There is an icehouse near the mews, is there not?” Mr Bateman asked impatiently.

  “Indeed, sir.”

  “Well, send some up, man, along with a cloth. Her ladyship has injured her wrist. I want to put ice on it.”

  The butler sent Isabel a swift glance of concern before bowing and hurrying from the room.

  “I am quite well, Mr Bateman. I do not need to drink tea – or to have ice put on my wrist.”

  “I beg to differ, my girl. The ice will minimise the swelling. You shall drink tea sweetened with sugar, as well as a glass of brandy. You’ve sustained a shock.”

  “Brandy?” Isabel pulled a face. “My brother gave me a glass once, pretending it was ratafia. It is vile stuff.”

  “Still – you should have at least a few sips. Sit down, my dear. You must be aching all over.”

  Isabel lowered herself gingerly onto the cushioned seat of the sofa near the window.

  “That arm needs to be examined,” he said, frowning.

  Isabel shook her head. “It is only a bruise. He gripped me very tightly, so it is throbbing a little. Please sit down.”

  He sat in a chair across from her, and scrutinised her face. “Will you return to The Hindoostane tomorrow morning?”

  Isabel hesitated before answering. She was tempted to wash her hands of her cookery lessons. However, whenever she had fallen off her horse as a child, her elder brother had insisted she climb straight back on so she did not develop a fear of riding. Perhaps, she should apply the same principle now and return to the restaurant tomorrow.

  She rested her chin on her uninjured hand. “I believe I will. Allowing that horrid boy’s behaviour to scare me away from something I enjoy would be lily-livered.”

  “I thought you would say that. I will accompany you tomorrow morning and see you safely home.”

  “Thank you, Mr Bateman.” She studied her slippers for a long while before looking up and saying in a diffident voice, “I – I acknowledge now that you were quite right yesterday when you told me it was unwise for me to masquerade as a cook.”

  He smiled lazily at her. “I live in hope that at some point in the future you will acknowledge that I am right about other matters as well.”

  She had a strange sense of inevitability as she gazed at him, almost as if her future had been determined already, and the Fates merely waited for her to catch up with their plans. A silly, fanciful notion, perhaps, but it was difficult to dismiss it.

  And if she were entirely honest with herself, the idea of sharing a life with Mr Bateman was far from repugnant to her. Even though he had every right to crow over her recent misfortune, particularly as he had in no uncertain terms predicted it, his only concern had been for her comfort and well-being. Surely such a man would prove to be the most considerate of husbands?

  Isabel dismissed the unsettling thought. She must not allow herself to view him in such a way. He would sense even a little weakening on her part, and press his full advantage. And then where would she be? Well on her way to walking up the aisle again and saying her wedding vows.

  So, ignoring his provocative words, she leant back in her chair, wincing as her arm bumped the armrest. “Please tell me about the cooking methods you learnt in America, Mr Bateman. I am fascinated by your dual knowledge of Eastern and French cuisine.”

  He raised one brow as he closely observed her. “There is something between us that needs to be settled, Lady Axbridge. You and I both know that.”

  She nodded her head in a regal fashion. “There is indeed something between us, Mr Bateman. But it does not need to be settled. That is the joy of living in a civilised age. We no longer need to act on our base impulses. Our higher functions can guide our way.”

  He gave a shout of laughter. “Pray elaborate on these – er – base impulses you do not wish to act upon, my lady?”

  Her eyes kindled. “At present the only base impulse I will admit to is an overwhelming desire to –” She stopped short, and drew in a deep, calming breath.

  “Box my ears?”

  “Yes.” She eyed him narrowly. “You, sir, have the ability to make me forget my manners as well as all sense of propriety.”

  “I am relieved.” He grinned. “I was beginning to think we were making no progress at all.”

  The drawing room door opened at that moment, and Watkins entered, carrying a tray of tea. In addition to tea, the tray contained a chunk of ice and a cloth, a decanter of brandy, and a crystal glass. Watkins set it on the table between them. Mr Bateman thanked the butler, and as soon as the servant had withdrawn from the room, he wrapped the cloth around the ice and handed it to Isabel. “Press this against your wrist while I pour the tea.”

  She took the cold compress, and held it against her wrist while he poured the tea into a fine china teacup, then added milk and sugar, before placing it on the table in front of her.

  With the compress resting on her left wrist, she gingerly picked up the cup of tea with her right hand. She sipped it and pulled a face. “It is very sweet, Mr Bateman!”

  “It will do you good. So will the brandy.”

  He opened the decanter, and poured a small amount of the golden liquid into the glass, before handing it to her. “Drink this after you have finished your tea.”

  She sipped her tea, and then drank the brandy, which tasted a lot better than she remembered, although it burned a path straight down to her stomach. She spluttered, and then a warm sensation started to spread through her. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes for a minute. “Thank you.” Her eyelids fluttered open. “I feel much recovered already.”

  “Have a rest, now, my lady. I will see you tomorrow morning.”

  On those words, he rose and bowed, before leaving the room. Isabel stared at the closed door for an age after he had gone. She was in serious trouble.

  Chapter Seventeen

  When Isabel arrived at the restaurant the next morning, the cook apologised profusely for the behaviour of his erstwhile assistant. “Mr Bateman was angry when he came downstairs,” he said, with a frown. “But I was not to know Eddie had followed you.”

  Isabel looked down at her hands. “It was fortunate that the gentleman was there to come to my rescue.”

  He nodded, then, setting the matter aside, proceeded to instruct her on which wines were best paired with the various spiced vegetable and meat dishes served at The Hindoostane, before explaining the correct way to dress rice with curry powder.

  Isabel left the restaurant just before midday, with Simmonds beside her. She smiled at her faithful retainer as they began the short walk home. “You can take that sober expression off your face now, Simmonds. That was my last lesson.”

  Her maid sniffed. “It is just that it is such strange fare, my lady. And I doubt Mrs Holmes will want to learn such new-fangled cooking methods. Very set in her ways is Mrs Holmes, and that curry makes your clothes smell something dreadful.”

  Aware of Mr Bateman’s presence across the street, Isabel hurried along.

  It was a good thing he would no longer feel obliged to put himself out for her every morning.

  They had entered Portman Square, and were nearing their front door, when someone crashed so hard into
Isabel that she lost her footing and nearly fell. Her breathing quickened. Surely she wasn’t being accosted again? She regained her balance, and saw a black girl lying on the road in front of her. Isabel helped her to her feet, and the young girl looked up at her, with a terrified expression on her face. One of her eyes was swollen shut, so that she was forced to peer up at Isabel with only one eye.

  “’E’s comin’ for me. ’E’s comin’!”

  “Who is coming for you?”

  “Me master… ’E… Oh…”

  The young girl spoke English with a Cockney accent, and Isabel frowned. Perhaps she was a housemaid in one of the mansions in Portman Square.

  “Do you work in one of these houses?” she asked.

  The girl nodded, and Isabel was about to question her further, when Mr Bateman ran up to them.

  “What is the matter?” he asked.

  “I think it best that we take this girl inside,” Isabel said. “She appears to be running away from her employer.”

  Mr Bateman frowned as he studied the young girl, and ushered them towards the house.

  “Let us enter via the servants’ entrance,” he said, leading the way through the wrought iron gate and down the steep stairs.

  Isabel took the servant girl’s arm. “Come, you go before me.”

  She followed the girl down the stairs, past the coal vault on the left, and then on to the service entrance on the right, which provided access to the basement level of the house.

  The door was already open when Isabel came up behind the rest of the party, and she was the last to enter the house. Taking her mob cap off, she handed it into Simmonds’ keeping, and said, “Let us repair to the Servants’ Hall.”

  As they walked along the hallway, they passed the housekeeper’s room, and Mrs Lambert bustled out. “Your ladyship!” she said, coming to a halt. Her gaze swept to the young girl who stood close to Isabel, and she frowned. “How may I assist you, my lady?”

  “We encountered this poor girl on the street, Mrs Lambert. She has been hurt… Is Mr Chernock at home?”

  “I believe so, my lady.”

  “Please ask him to come downstairs.”

  They passed the wine cellar, and Watkins, who was inside that shadowy chamber, looked up as they walked by. He hastened after them as they turned right into the corridor which led directly to the Servants’ Hall.

  Isabel glanced distractedly at him. “Good morning, Watkins. Will you bring us some hot water from the kitchen, as well as a clean cloth?”

  “Certainly, your ladyship,” he said, and hurried away.

  Isabel’s brow creased as she studied the girl. In the Servants’ Hall, which was better lit than the hallway and corridor, it was clear she was in a great deal of pain. She stood still now, but her shoulders were tensed, and one arm hung limply at her side.

  “Did your master hurt you?”

  The girl nodded her head, and Isabel said, “When Mrs Lambert returns, we will tend to your wounds. What is your name?”

  “Mary, me lady.”

  Mr Bateman, who stood on the other end of the hall, beckoned to her, and, leaving Mary with Simmonds, Isabel moved to join him.

  “She appears to have been severely beaten,” he said abruptly.

  “Yes. When Mrs Lambert returns, I will take her to the housekeeper’s room, and assess her injuries.” She looked across at Mary. “It was her master who hurt her. The fiend!”

  “It is best that women attend to her. When she saw me in the street, she looked terrified.”

  The housekeeper entered the Servants’ Hall at that moment. “Mr Chernock asked me to inform you that he will be down in fifteen minutes, my lady.”

  “Thank you, Mrs Lambert.”

  The butler followed on her heels with a jug of hot water, and a cloth, and Isabel thanked him, before turning to Mrs Lambert. “This girl – her name is Mary – has been badly hurt. I wish to examine her wounds. May we do so in your room?”

  “Indeed, my lady.” The housekeeper took the jug and the cloth from Watkins, and led the way back down the corridor to her domestic office with Isabel, Mary and Simmonds following closely behind.

  “I believe it will be best if Mrs Lambert and I examine Mary, my lady,” Simmonds said in a firm voice.

  Isabel hesitated, before sitting down on a wooden chair in the corner of the room. Simmonds was far more experienced in tending wounds than she was. She had taken care of Isabel and her two brothers from infancy, and as they had grown up in the countryside, her former nursemaid was familiar with treating all manner of cuts and scratches and bruises.

  The housekeeper and Simmonds attempted to remove Mary’s dress, but the fabric was stuck to her back. Simmonds wet the material and then gently removed the garment, which made the young girl gasp with pain. Isabel jumped up from her chair and hurried over, and the sight of Mary’s back, covered in welts, made her sick to her stomach. The blood had started to dry which was why the dress had been sticking to the young girl’s back.

  Simmonds looked grim as she used the hot water to gently clean the wounds, and Mrs Lambert had an equally upset expression on her face. “I have a special salve,” she said. “Let me fetch it…”

  She hurried to a chest of drawers in the corner of the room, and scrabbled around inside the top drawer, before returning with a pot of ointment, which she handed to Simmonds. After her maid had applied the salve to Mary’s lesions, and helped her dress again, Isabel led the young girl to a wooden chair. “I think it best if you sit. Mrs Lambert will bring you another dress.” When the girl had lowered herself carefully onto the chair, Isabel crouched down on her haunches. “Will you tell us why your master beat you, Mary?”

  The girl wrung her hands together. “’E wants to take me back to the slave plantations. Leaving soon, ’e is, and ’e told me I’m to go wiv ’im. I told ’im nay so ’e whipped me.”

  “But, surely – that is, how long have you lived in London?” Isabel asked.

  Mary looked up at her. “All me life, me lady. Came here on a boat with me ma when I was a babe. She was a slave on the plantations. Them stories she told me about that place afore she died…” She shuddered and burst into tears.

  Isabel turned to Simmonds. “Please tend to Mary. I am going to speak to Mr Chernock.”

  She hurried from the room, and made her way to the Servants’ Hall where her relative now stood in conversation with Mr Bateman.

  “George – the most dreadful thing…”

  He turned, and met her gaze with concern. “Bateman has been telling me about the young girl you rescued, Belle.”

  “Indeed – you should see her wounds! Her employer whipped her because she told him she does not wish to travel with him to his slave plantation.”

  “She cannot be removed from England against her will.” George frowned. “Was she born here, my dear?”

  “She says she came here as a baby. Her mother was a slave on a plantation and her owner brought them both to London many years ago.”

  Mr Bateman, who had been listening to the conversation, compressed his lips. “As soon as a slave is on English soil, he or she is considered free. The owners of slaves have no power to send them back to the colonies.”

  “But he is planning to force her to return with him,” Isabel said. “What if he finds her?”

  George pinched the bridge of his nose. “She must go to the Hall, and live and work there. But she will have to stay here until I am free to take her. My parliamentary duties preclude me from leaving London for quite some time.”

  “That would be ideal!” Her face lit up for a moment, before her shoulders slumped. “No. I am afraid it won’t do, George.”

  “Why not?”

  “Her employer lives here in Portman Square. She would be terrified he would discover her whereabouts at any time.” She paused. “Besides, what if he places one of those lost-and-found advertisements in the papers for runaway servants, and offers a reward for her capture?”

  “I will take
her to my estate in Wiltshire then,” Mr Bateman stated calmly.

  “You would do that, sir?” Isabel’s eyes opened wide.

  “Indeed. I can leave for Brentwood Park within the next week or so. But it will be best for her to rest here for a period. The journey may be too painful for her if she travels before her wounds have at least partially healed. A physician must examine her.”

  “Thank you, Mr Bateman. You are extraordinarily kind.”

  He bowed, but said nothing further, and his impenetrable expression indicated he had retreated into his thoughts. The shutters had descended once again and he was no longer her light-hearted friend, who teased her and made her laugh. Instead, he was a man she did not know – a man who inhabited a private world from which she was entirely excluded. The longing to be a part of that world shook her to the core, and her eyelids fluttered closed. What a time to discover she was in love with him.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Isabel returned to the housekeeper’s room and instructed Mrs Lambert to take care of Mary until such time as Mr Bateman could take her to his country estate.

  She turned to the young girl. “Mrs Lambert will tend to your wounds, Mary, and should you need anything, you have only to ask. Mr Bateman, the gentleman you saw with me in the street, will be taking you to his country estate where you can live and work in peace.”

  Mary looked down. “’E ain’t a rough swell, me lady?”

  “He would never harm you.” She studied Mary’s battered face for a long while. “What is the name of your master, Mary?”

  “You ain’t gonna to take me back to ’im?” Mary cringed away in fear.

  “Of course not! You are safe here.”

  The servant girl nodded her head. “Me – I ’ave two masters – the old ’un and the young ’un. The young ’un is going to Antigua and ’e aims to take me wiv ’im. Mr Wetherby is ’is name.”

  Isabel stilled, before turning to Mrs Lambert. “Please arrange for sleeping quarters for Mary. She needs to rest.”