The Major Meets His Match

by Annie Burrows

  ‘Will that be all?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Harriet, on a sigh. She’d done what she could. It was up to them whether they chose to forgive her or not.

  * * *

  The next morning, when Maud came in to open her curtains and set out her wash water, Harriet could barely resist the temptation to pull her quilt up over her ears and pretend she was still asleep. Still asleep? She didn’t feel as if she’d slept for more than brief snatches all night. If it wasn’t her guilt over the mess she’d made of trying to question the servants that had kept sleep at bay, it was cringing reminders of the way she’d started to feel about Lord Becconsall. In spite of him warning her not to.

  Whenever she did drop off to sleep, the dreams that plagued her were so uncomfortable she jerked out of them as soon as she could. Either Lord Becconsall and his friends were lurking behind some bushes, all pointing and laughing at her. Or he was holding her in his arms and kissing her breathless. And in the dreams where he was kissing her, he sometimes had the rubies held behind his back. Whenever she woke up she puzzled over that, because she didn’t really believe he had anything to do with the theft. Eventually she worked out that it was just her mind jumbling up the one fraud—the switch of the jewels for fakes—with his deceptive appearance of friendship. Or whatever it was that she’d thought had been growing between them.

  In any case, all the dreams told her the same thing. She was a fool. A gullible, clumsy, ridiculous fool. And now it was morning and her eyes were gritty and her head felt as if it was full of sponge. Sponge that had soaked up too much unpleasantness and was consequently pressing at the inside of her skull.

  But Maud, once she’d seen to her chores, seemed to be in no hurry to leave her in peace to mope. In fact, she stood at the foot of the bed, her hands clasped at her waist, and cleared her throat.

  Repressing a moan, Harriet sat up, hugged her knees to her chest and looked the maid in the eye.

  ‘Yes?’

  Maud cleared her throat again. ‘Well, Miss Harriet, it’s like this. We, all of us, want to say that we’re that sorry about the way Lord Tarbrook has taken our complaint. We never dreamed he’d haul you out of the drawing room like that, not when it was chock full of visitors. Especially not when that nice Lord Becconsall what is just starting to show an interest in you was there.’

  Harriet made a dismissive wave of her hand at the mention of Lord Becconsall.

  ‘We just wanted you to stop asking so many questions,’ persisted Maud. ‘For the older ones, see, it brought back so many bad memories.’

  ‘I know,’ said Harriet. ‘That is, Lady Tarbrook explained it to me last night. It must have been dreadful.’

  ‘Oh, yes it was, miss. I mean, my lady,’ Maud corrected herself, dropping a curtsy.

  ‘And as I said last night, I wasn’t trying to point the finger of blame at any of you. I just thought that someone might have come into the house while you were all away. Or out for the evening, or something of the sort.’

  ‘What, and broke in again another time to put the fakes back in place?’ Maud shook her head. ‘Couldn’t have been done.’

  ‘No, I quite see that,’ said Harriet, her breath quickening a bit. Because she was technically breaking her word about not talking to the servants about the rubies.

  Or was she? After all, it had been Maud who’d brought the subject up.

  ‘Couldn’t have been done when we were all away at a house party, neither,’ Maud continued of her own volition. ‘Her ladyship takes all her gewgaws along with her, rather than leave them behind in an empty house. Even the ones she has no intention of wearing.’ Maud frowned as if in confusion.

  And Harriet racked her brains to remember the exact wording of what she’d promised her uncle. She was pretty sure she’d only promised not to ask the servants any more questions. Not to refrain from speaking about the topic at all. Especially not if they were the ones who brought it up.

  Having squared it with her conscience, Harriet made a statement that could in no way be interpreted as a question.

  ‘It’s...it’s a puzzle, isn’t it?’

  ‘That it is. But we none of us can believe her ladyship done it. What his lordship suggested. Only if she didn’t, then it must have been one of us, that’s what they’d say.’

  By the sound of it, overnight the servants had been discussing not only whether to accept Harriet’s apology, but also the mystery of the fake rubies as well.

  If she subtly dropped her own ideas into the conversation, they might go away and discuss it some more. That wasn’t actually asking them questions, was it?

  ‘I was thinking,’ she said tentatively, ‘that if it wasn’t any of you, and it wasn’t my aunt, and it wasn’t a burglar who broke in, then that only leaves...’

  ‘Yes?’ Maud leaned forward, clearly eager to hear Harriet’s theory.

  ‘Well, a close family friend. Or at least, someone who could come and go without rousing suspicion.’

  ‘Yes, but I still don’t see how they could have done it. Her ladyship would know straight off if those rubies had been missing long enough to have them copied.’

  ‘Oh.’ Harriet sank back on to her pillows. ‘Well, I suppose that’s that then. Lord Tarbrook,’ she said airily, ‘will no doubt hold this over my aunt’s head for the rest of their married lives.’

  Maud’s face fell. She clearly didn’t like that outcome any more than Harriet did.

  ‘Will that be all, my lady?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Maud,’ said Harriet. ‘And thank everyone below stairs, won’t you, for understanding why I was so...well, tactless.’

  ‘Oh, we understand that right enough,’ said Maud, with a shy smile. ‘You didn’t mean no harm. Not one of us has ever thought that.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Harriet, blushing.

  Maud curtsied, turned away and had just reached the door when she suddenly paused. And stiffened.

  ‘What is it?’ Harriet sat bolt upright again. ‘You have thought of something, haven’t you?’

  ‘Well, it’s probably nothing,’ said Maud, turning slowly. ‘It’s just, now I’m not so angry about you accusing us, and thinking about it a bit more clear, like, about what you said about some outsider coming in...’ She shook her head again. ‘No, I still don’t see how...’

  ‘What? Please tell me. After all,’ she said with a hollow laugh, ‘it isn’t as if I can do anything, can I?’

  The maid shook her head again. ‘Even if you could, I’m not the sort to go casting blame on those who can’t defend themselves. But, well, I think I shall just ask Mr Keeble what he thinks.’

  And having delivered that tantalising hint that she did, finally, have a suspect in mind, she whisked out of the room, closing the door firmly behind her.

  Harriet flung herself back on to the bed with a shriek of frustration. The maid knew something. Or suspected something. But she didn’t trust Harriet enough to confide in her.

  Still, at least the servants were all talking about it. Which was all she’d wanted them to do. If anyone could work out what had really happened to those rubies, it was bound to be one of them.

  So all she had to do now was wait until they’d done so. And hope that they had the courage to confront Uncle Hugo with their conclusions.

  And in the meantime, she might as well get up and get washed and dressed. It would give her something constructive to do. Because she could see that it was going to be a long, long day.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Once Harriet was dressed there didn’t seem to be anything to do but go and lay back down on the bed again. Where she stared up at the ruched canopy. For about five minutes. It was just too hard to stay here, with nothing to do, when she so badly ached to do something.

  She strode to the window and imagined going out there and
...

  Doing what?

  She whirled away in frustration. She had no idea where to start, that was the trouble. Because she was so ignorant.

  An ignorant, naive country miss, that was all she was. A girl who was no good for anything in London but to serve as the butt of jokes made by sophisticated, heartless males with nothing better to do with themselves than make sport of ignorant, country...

  She was going round in circles. On the carpet as well as in her head.

  Though at least she hadn’t yet yielded to the temptation to kick anything. She’d learned her lesson on the dressing-table stool.

  See? She wasn’t a complete idiot. She could learn some things. When it came to the hardness of dressing-table stools or men’s hearts, that was.

  From then on, her day followed pretty much the same pattern. For hour after hour, it seemed to Harriet, she either lay on the bed staring at the ruched canopy, or paced up and down, glaring at the carpet. She had just reached the stage where she was cursing the canopy for its inability to inspire her with a clever plan of campaign and the carpet for being entirely too frivolous with its stupid swirly patterns that only encouraged her mind to go round and round in circles, when the door flew open.

  ‘I cannot believe Hugo could be such a tyrant,’ said her mother, stalking across to the bed on which Harriet was currently lying. ‘Besides which he has no right to confine you to your room. He is not your father.’

  Goodness. Harriet sat up, slowly, stunned to see her mother so worked up on her behalf.

  ‘Get up and get your hat on. You are coming out with me.’

  ‘With you?’ Golly. Mama had never invited her to go anywhere with her before. Not even to church. Although that was because Mama frequently forgot what day it was when she was deep in some piece of experimentation and so rarely attended Saint Martin’s herself.

  As her mother disappeared into the dressing room, Harriet swung her legs to the floor.

  ‘The things he said,’ Harriet heard her mother exclaim, although in a rather muffled voice since she’d just opened the door to the armoire and stuck her head inside. ‘As if it was my fault you have an enquiring mind and have been asking awkward questions.’

  Ah. That explained Mama’s sudden interest in her daughter. Uncle Hugo must have declared his conviction that Harriet took after her and said it as though it was an insult, and Mama had obviously taken it personally.

  ‘This will do,’ she said, thrusting a relatively plain bonnet at her. ‘I am not off to some foolish tonnish event, so there is no need to make any work for one of Hugo’s precious servants, since he appears to hold them in higher regard than his own family.’

  Oh, dear. Uncle Hugo must have told Mama exactly why Harriet had been confined to her room.

  ‘And the dress you are wearing,’ she said, flicking her eyes over Harriet’s crumpled gown, ‘is perfectly acceptable for a lecture at the Royal Institution. Besides which you will put on a coat to cover it up,’ she declared, turning to rummage in the armoire again.

  ‘The Royal Institution?’ Harriet gulped. ‘You are actually taking me to a public lecture? With you?’

  ‘Why should I not? It will be an educational experience for you. Mr Babbage, who is giving the lecture today, is one of the greatest minds of our age.’

  Wonderful. Harriet pictured an elderly man with unkempt hair and less than pristine clothing droning on about some subject she knew absolutely nothing about. Possibly in Latin.

  ‘And there is no need to look like that. It will be most interesting, I promise you.’

  That wasn’t likely. But it was certainly better than staying here staring at either the canopy or the carpet.

  And going out would feel as though she was thumbing her nose at Uncle Hugo, a prospect that cheered her up to no end.

  Besides which, this was the first time her mother had taken up the cudgels on her behalf about anything. And though it had more to do with her long-standing feud with Uncle Hugo than genuine affection for her daughter, it was still a sort of milestone in their relationship. And deserved acknowledging.

  ‘Thank you, Mama,’ she therefore said meekly, setting the bonnet on her head and tying the ribbons under her chin.

  Mama nodded and set off at a brisk pace along the landing, obliging Harriet to trot to keep up with her. She then sailed down the stairs and across the hall with her nose in the air. Harriet wasn’t at all sure the footman on duty would have opened the door and let them out, when he’d seen her trailing behind her mother, but fortunately for all concerned, just as they reached the door, somebody knocked on it. So when Peter opened it to admit an afternoon caller, he could not be blamed when the two houseguests made use of the fact to escape.

  ‘Ah, good afternoon, Lady Balderstone,’ said the plump matron panting her way up the front steps as they were descending.

  ‘Is it?’ said Mama frostily, carrying on her way without so much as a pause to nod a greeting.

  Harriet eyed her mother with grudging admiration. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to get away with ignoring people to whom one didn’t wish to talk? Especially women who were only trying to push their noses into your private business.

  ‘We can catch a hackney cab at the corner,’ said Mama, setting off in that direction, ‘if memory serves me correctly.’

  Harriet scurried off after her. ‘Shouldn’t we have,’ she began hesitantly, ‘a footman to procure one for us?’ Or a maid to go with them.

  Mama made a noise Harriet was sure no lady ought to make, being something less than a snort, but very much more than a sniff. ‘If you think I am going to send Hugo’s servants on errands, when he has made it quite clear he thinks their sensibilities are of more importance than the welfare of any member of the Inskip family, then he is very much mistaken.’

  ‘It isn’t that,’ panted Harriet. ‘It is just that Aunt Susan said I was not to go anywhere in Town without a maid or a footman.’ She didn’t mind flouting Uncle Hugo’s edicts, but it was a different matter to appear to disregard everything her aunt had been trying to teach her.

  ‘As your mother I am a perfectly adequate chaperon, wherever I choose to take you,’ she said, waving her umbrella in a militant fashion at the first cab she saw.

  ‘Yes, of course you are, Mama, I didn’t mean—’

  ‘Although I must say that the rules that apply to girls are completely unfair. They are designed to restrict the freedoms of an entire sex,’ she said, causing the jarvey to stare and fumble the reins, just as they were attempting to climb into his vehicle, ‘whilst bolstering the mastery of the other. The world would be a better place,’ she said, taking her seat, ‘if such rules did not exist and mankind lived in a state of intellectual, spiritual and legal harmony.’

  Goodness. She’d never expected to hear her own views pouring from the lips of her own mother. But then, when had Mama ever bothered to sit down and have a conversation with her?

  ‘Why are you pulling that face,’ said Mama peering at her across the narrow space between the seats. ‘I sincerely hope that my sister and her tyrannical husband have not managed to indoctrinate you with their views, in so short a space of time.’

  ‘Goodness, no, Mama,’ said Harriet. ‘On the contrary, I was just thinking that I am more like you than I ever suspected.’

  ‘Oh?’ Now it was Mama’s turn to look surprised. ‘Are you become interested in the natural sciences, then?’

  How was that likely to have happened, when Harriet had never had the kind of education that would have made it possible?

  ‘No,’ she said coldly. ‘I was referring to my temperament.’

  ‘Oh, that, yes. Tarbrook did mention something about the apple not falling far from the tree. He has never liked me,’ she finished with a curl of her lip, indicating the feeling was mutual. ‘He prefers his women mee
k and submissive. I sometimes wonder if he does not have a great deal of confidence in himself, that he has to browbeat all those around him to such a degree.’

  Harriet tried to imagine her uncle feeling insecure about himself and failed. If anything, she suspected the opposite of what her mother had suggested. That he believed in himself so completely that he couldn’t understand why anyone could possibly have an opinion that ran counter to his own.

  Much like Mama.

  No wonder they clashed.

  ‘Ah, here we are,’ said Mama unnecessarily as the cab jerked to a halt. It had taken such a short time to reach Albemarle Street that, once again, Harriet wondered why they had taken a cab at all. Why was it such a crime to use one’s own legs to get wherever you wanted to go in Town?

  Mama clambered out first and, while she was paying the driver, Harriet studied the large colonnaded building in which she was about to endure several hours of boredom. She was rather surprised by the number of other carriages drawing up along the street and the many people heading their way. She would never have guessed, from the way Aunt Susan behaved, that so many people of the ton would willingly spend an afternoon attending something educational. But there was no disputing the quality of many of the carriages coming and going, or the stylish clothing of their occupants.

  Inside the lecture hall the benches were arranged in a vast semi-circle that reminded her of a Roman amphitheatre and looked as though they could seat several hundred people. Most people who were already there had taken seats at the front, near a central sort of pit in which stood a table loaded with books. Those who hadn’t, nodded greetings to Mama as she stalked past them, though she didn’t pause to make any introductions.