Tuppenny Times

by Beryl Kingston

  Annie and Billy were happy about this new arrangement, but Johnnie still didn’t approve. No matter what his brother and sister found to say on Mr Leigh’s behalf, he remained obdurately opposed to his presence in the house.

  ‘It ain’t proper,’ he said, from the puritanical rectitude of his twelve-and-a-half-years. ‘Mama had a good husband. Everybody says so. A fine man. ’Tis my opinion she lowers herself allowing that man to live with her.’

  ‘Fie on you, Johnnie,’ Annie said, gently, looking up from her sewing to rebuke him. ‘There’s no harm in Mr Leigh, and even if there were ’tain’t our business to say so.’

  ‘If he’s such a fine man,’ Johnnie insisted, his face sombre with disapproval, ‘he would marry her. He takes advantage of her good nature.’

  ‘Why should they marry?’ Billy put in from his seat beside the fire. ‘’Tain’t the style. Damme, half of London society take lovers.’ He would be fourteen in March and took a detailed interest in the love affairs of the ton.

  ‘Hush up!’ Annie warned. ‘He’s coming upstairs.’

  From time to time, when he was at home working with the horses in Mr Chaplin’s London stables Calverley would take over one or two little jobs for Nan, collecting weekly takings, or banking them, or driving her to distant shops and reading-rooms. If she was going to be his wife, he might as well behave as though he were her husband. Occasionally, of course, no more than that, for there was no point in overdoing things.

  There was still plenty of news and an ever-increasing demand for newspapers. After his defeat at Trafalgar, Bonaparte had withdrawn his Army of England from Boulogne at last, and having renamed it the Grand Army, marched it eastwards across Europe to attack the Austrians and the Russians. Just before Christmas news came through that he had taken Vienna and in the New Year reports arrived that there had been a battle at a place called Austerlitz and the Austrians and Russians had suffered a terrible defeat, but as it was all happening on the other side of Europe and no British troops had been involved, it could be read and enjoyed quite comfortably in England.

  ‘That Boney’s a wicked man,’ Bessie said. ‘Good job he’s abroad tormenting the Russkies.’

  It was an opinion shared by a good many others, including Nan.

  And then, just when sales were booming, negotiations for three new shops south of the Thames were inexplicably held up. The rents had been settled and the agreements were ready for signature, but the solicitors procrastinated. Fortunately Calverley was at home and ready to be useful. ‘I’ll take a stroll in that direction,’ he said to Nan. ‘See what a little charm will do, eh?’

  ‘Ask for the Lambeth Road property in the first instance,’ she advised. ‘I en’t opened negotiations for that one, so ’twould be as well to secure it first.’

  He was extremely put out, when his ‘little charm’ produced a letter from the company pulling out of the deal altogether, Lambeth Road property and all.

  ‘I can’t understand it,’ he said to Nan. ‘’Tis all so without reason, damme.’

  ‘Cosmo shall look into it,’ she said, frowning with displeasure.

  ‘’Twas all arranged, believe me,’ he tried to explain. ‘There was no ill-will I promise you.’

  ‘There is now,’ she said, frowning more than ever. ‘Oh, I’ve a fair idea what’s a-going on. It en’t you, Calverley. I’ll lay odds ’tis that varmint Sir Osmond, blocking my business again, rot him.’ And as he was perplexed, she told him all about her powerful nephew, and the way he’d been using his contacts to thwart her. ‘’Tis a venomous wretch, so it is. I thought to have seen the last of his spite, but this has all the makings.’

  And so it proved to be. Cosmo brought the news to her in her office in the Strand four days later. The lawyers acting for the vendors in each case in question were also employed by Sir Osmond Easter. Pressure had plainly been brought to bear.

  Nan was so cross she couldn’t sit still. ‘Unprincipled wretch!’ she said, pacing about the office. ‘Have we to start another round of useless letters? Rot him, why can’t he leave us along?’

  ‘What I cannot understand,’ Calverley said, ‘is why they withdrew their offer on the Lambeth Road property. I made no mention of your name during that particular transaction, so how did they know I was acting on your behalf?’

  ‘Your association has been – um – known to Sir Osmond for some considerable time, sir,’ Cosmo said. ‘There was mention of it several years ago.’

  ‘Is that true?’ he asked Nan.

  She had no time or taste for delving into the past. ‘Yes, yes,’ she said tetchily. ‘What of it? It don’t signify now.’

  ‘It may have signified then,’ he said. He was remembering the general’s words when he left the regiment, ‘Ladies and gossip,’ he’d said. What if Sir Osmond Easter had passed on some gossip to influence the general. ‘There was no real reason for Captain Mauleverer to refuse to sell me my commission, everybody said so, yet that is what he did. How if pressure were brought to bear then too?’

  She stopped prowling and stood still to look at him. ‘Very like!’ she said. ‘Such an action would be quite in character. Oh, I should like to get my hands on him. I’d show him a thing or two, so I would!’

  It was really rather flattering to have her fling to his defence like that.

  ‘Would you care for me to write to the gentleman?’ Cosmo asked, cautious as ever.

  She made a decision, chin in the air, face hard with fury. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I would not. This has been a-going on quite long enough. ’Tis bad enough he’s been interfering in my business affairs, but to block Mr Leigh’s promotion is an act of sheer spite. Ugh! I en’t a-tolerating that. I shall go down to Ippark myself, so I shall, and sort the varmint out once and for all.’

  ‘Is that wise, Mrs Easter?’ Cosmo demurred.

  But wise or not there was no stopping her.

  She made the most careful preparations for her second visit to Ippark. First she went to Messrs Harding and Howell’s Grand Fashionable Magazine in Pall Mall, and bought herself a dress-length of the most expensive muslin in the shop, creamy in colour and embroidered with tiny flowers in pink and red and yellow. She ordered it to be made up for her in the very latest style, high in the waist and with a full straight skirt and long, ruched sleeves. Then she bought a pair of shoes made of red morocco leather and doeskin gloves and a little enamelled fob watch to hang upon her gown and a triple-crowned bonnet with a flattened brim that would reveal her face, for she had no intention of hiding from any adversary, however powerful. Finally she chose a length of fine red wollen cloth to make up into a long-sleeved spencer, that would button to the chin in case the day was chill but was cut away below the waist to reveal the full expense and glory of that muslin gown.

  Then she made her very first major purchase as a person of rank and style, which was extremely satisfactory and gave her a pleasant sense of the power and influence that her new money had given her. She bought a new town chaise from Mr Chaplin and after knowledgeable advice from Thiss and Calverley, a pair of fine bay geldings at the London horse fair.

  ‘An excellent pair!’ Calverley said, approving her choice. ‘They move well, damme if they don’t, and they stand over a lot of ground. ’Tis my opinion you couldn’t have bought better.’

  And Thiss waxed quite eloquent over their wide brows and their big ears and their gentle eyes. ‘They’ll be a joy to drive, so they will, after ol’ Pepperpot,’ who it had to be admitted grew more and more cussed the older he got.

  So the chaise was painted in her green-and-gold livery, sign and all, and Thiss was bedecked in a splendid new livery of his own, with a green topcoat and a coachman’s hat and a flourish of fine linen at his throat, and the two of them set out to vanquish Sir Osmond.

  Nan had written to her adversary with icy politeness offering him a choice of three dates on which she proposed to visit him, ‘there being several matters which require our combined consideration,’ and signing herself, �
�Your aunt, Nan Easter.’ And as he hadn’t bothered to send an answer she chose the first date for him, a mild day at the end of May when the blackbirds and thrushes sang from every hedgerow and the sun was giving out quite a pleasant warmth. Three days before her thirty-fifth birthday.

  ‘Now,’ she said, dusting the palms of her hands against each other, ‘we shall see.’

  They made good time, reaching the wooded drive to Ippark on the afternoon of the second day, just as she’d intended. It was a great satisfaction to her that she was arriving in such style with all the marks of success clearly upon her, rich clothes, new chaise, smart groom, good horses. If anyone was watching from those imperious windows they couldn’t help but be impressed.

  The house was smaller than she remembered it and a good deal less grand, standing rather bleakly among cow-grazing meadows, its red brickwork subdued in the strong May sunlight and its stone dressings rather in need of repair. There was an empty dog-cart standing beside the garden wall and she was pleased to remark how shabby it was and how poorly it compared with her fine green chaise. And although the front door was opened by a footman of sorts he was in need of a shave and his livery was threadbare.

  ‘Tell your master Mrs Easter has arrived,’ she told him peremptorily, ‘prompt on the hour, according to her promise.’ And she lifted her little enamel fob watch so that he would notice it. ‘It wants but a minute of three o’clock.’

  It was chilly in that stone-flagged hall, for although there was a fire in the white marble fireplace, it gave out precious little heat. Things are not what they were, she told herself. I do believe their fortunes fade.

  But then the footman reappeared to lead her into the red drawing-room, and there was Sir Osmond Easter, standing courteously to greet her. And Sir Osmond Easter was a surprise.

  Over the years she had evolved an image of this man, as middle-aged, portly and overbearing. One of the old aristocratic heavyweights like his grandfather. But this was a young man, no older than she was herself, with a pale, bland face and rather watery blue eyes, wearing pale blue breeches and white silk stockings and lace at his sleeves like a dandy.

  ‘Pray do be seated,’ he said, and his voice was languid too, as if even the slightest effort would be too much.

  What a precious crittur! she thought, seating herself in one of his red armchairs, and noticing that the red wallpaper was much faded since her last visit and that some of the paintings had gone, leaving tell-tale oblongs of darker paper to mark where they had been.

  ‘I trust you made a good journey,’ Sir Osmond drawled. ‘You came by the stage, I daresay.’

  ‘Oh, dear me no,’ she said with splendid aplomb. ‘I travel in my own town chaise.’

  ‘Do ye now?’ he said, and his drawl was so marked as to be almost an insult.

  She knew that behind those half-closed eyes and that deliberately weary air he was assessing the expense of her clothes, and the knowledge gave her the extra nerve she needed to attack.

  ‘I en’t one to beat about the bush,’ she said, ‘so I’ll tell ’ee straight. I don’t meddle in your affairs, so I’ll trouble you not to meddle in mine.’

  He actually had the effrontery to laugh at her. ‘My dear Mrs Easter,’ he said. ‘I have a deal too much to do runnin’ the estate and so forth to have any time at all to interest myself in your small affairs, whatever they are.’

  ‘You know right well what they are,’ she said glaring at him. There was a two-day old copy of The Times lying on the table beside his chair. ‘You read The Times, I notice. I have the monopoly to sell it. And would sell more had I the shops to sell ’em in, which you been out of your way to deny me, sir. ’Tis an unkindness, so ’tis and unworthy of ’ee as a Christian gentleman.’

  ‘La, ma’am!’ he said, still smiling, ‘you surely en’t inferin’ any wrong-doin’ on my part?’

  She was flustered by his calm. This wasn’t the sort of reaction she expected from him. But she held her ground. ‘I most certainly am.’

  ‘That ain’t wise, ma’am,’ he said, smiling in the most smug infuriating way.

  ‘Wise or not, ’tis the truth.’

  ‘You would be hard put to it to prove such an accusation.’

  She snorted with fury. ‘Humph! ’Tis coincidence then that every single time I lose a shop ’tis a shop handled by some legal friend of yours?’

  ‘My dear lady, a person of my rank would never do anythin’ so unspeakably crass as to befriend a lawyer. A judge in chambers perhaps, but I presume you do not speak of a judge in chambers. No, I thought not. I have sundry acquaintances in the legal profession, but that is about as far as I would be prepared to go.’

  ‘Friends, acquaintances. Judges, lawyers. What’s the odds?’ she said, confused by such a quibble. It was irritating that he took her attack so calmly. With right on her side she should be worrying him.

  ‘Oh, very considerable,’ he assured her blandly, ‘as you would discover were you foolish enough to persist in this accusation.’ The smile continued as if it were painted on his face, but this was a threat, and her senses prickled into alarm in recognition of it. Deuce take it, this interview was going badly.

  ‘I see how ’tis,’ she said, narrowing her eyes at him, ‘you want me to believe ’tis all coincidence, that’s how ’tis. Well, I en’t such a fool.’

  ‘Your losses, if such they are, could be due to a variety of causes, my dear Mrs Easter. London is a hotbed of gossip, as you are probably well aware. How any of us may determine the source of adverse comment in such a place is quite mystifyin’, so ’tis.’

  She picked up the copy of The Times and held it in her hand, waving it like a fan, to cool the heat of her rage. ‘If something were to appear in this paper,’ she said, ‘as a result of gossip, you understand, and it were to imply that Sir Osmond Easter of Ippark in the County of Sussex was stooping so low as to interfere in the proper business affairs of a member of the newspaper fraternity, among whom I would go so far as to claim friends – oh many, many friends – then you could hardly complain of that either, could you?’

  ‘Indeed I could ma’am,’ he drawled, but there was just a flicker of concern on his bland face, and that encouraged her.

  ‘Then so could I, sir,’ she said rising. ‘And that is my last word on the matter.’ And she swept from the room, before she lost her temper irretrieveably and began to shout at him.

  He waited until the door closed behind her. Then he rang the bell and sent for his secretary.

  ‘We will proceed no further with the Nan Easter affair,’ he said. ‘The woman is venomous and has venomous friends. We will leave well alone, for the present.’

  ‘Then she will buy the properties, sir,’ the clerk pointed out. He’d been rather enjoying the battle and was disappointed to think it was petering out.

  ‘No matter,’ his master said coolly. ‘She will come to grief in her own time, you may depend on it.’

  Nan was still shaking with fury when she arrived in the hall. There was no sign of the footman and she was just stretching out her hand to the bell to summon him, when a door in the far corner of the hall was quietly opened and two faded ladies tip-toed out. They were as timid as rabbits, which they really rather resembled, for their brown eyes were limpid and anxious and they had long noses and very small mouths and their gowns, which were made of faded brown cotton, were as full-skirted as a rabbit’s haunches and a similar texture and colour.

  The taller of the two gave Nan a hesitant smile. ‘We wondered,’ she ventured, ‘whether you would care to take tea?’

  ‘Tea?’ Nan said, cross and bemused. ‘I’ve had enough of your brother, let me tell ’ee, without taking tea.’ But she didn’t ring the bell.

  ‘He is not our brother, Mrs Easter,’ the smaller one corrected with gentle sadness. ‘We beg you not to think that.’

  ‘The kettle is on the boil,’ the taller one said, equally gently. ‘We would consider it an honour, Mrs Easter.’

  So slightly m
ollified and with some curiosity, she went to take tea. At least it would give her a chance to recover a little before her journey home.

  They led her from the hall into a small, pale green parlour, a modest, feminine room, delicately furnished, the pier glasses unobtrusive, the four chairs upholstered quietly in cream damask, the pictures maidenly, the tea table modest. There was a gentle fire in the wide grate where a kettle bubbled discreetly but forbore to blow steam, for that would have been altogether too vulgar and masculine. It was such a very different place from Sir Osmond’s aggressive red drawing-room that Nan was charmed despite herself.

  ‘Pray do sit down,’ the taller said, and as Nan sat in the chair she’d indicated, ‘we should have introduced ourselves before inviting you. It was most remiss. We are your nieces. This is my sister Evelina and I am Thomasina. ’Tis a curious name, is it not? My poor dear Papa so wanted a boy you see. I was such a disappointment to him.’ She began to mix the tea in her little china mixing-bowl, working with great care and precision, her head stooped over the little rosewood box.

  ‘Your husband was always so kind to us when we were girls,’ Evelina confided. ‘We were very fond of him, you know. He and Mama were brother and sister. It has always seemed such a pity to us that we lost touch.’

  The tea was being brewed, its sharp aroma rising most appetizingly from the tea-pot. ‘That was your grandmother’s doing,’ Nan said. ‘She said she had thirteen grandchildren as I remember and that my three were of no consequence.’

  ‘Indeed yes,’ Evelina sighed. ‘She was often most unkind, it has to be admitted. There were ten of us in those days and your three would have made thirteen. Now we are the only ones left at home. Our brother Simon is away at Oxford, and Osmond’s sister Sarah is married and in the West Indies and all the others are dead, may their souls rest in peace. Oh, it would have been so pleasant to see our cousins.’