Finessing Clarissa

by Beaton, M. C.

  Hubbard was lifted by two redcoats and carried up the stairs and dumped on the trucklebed in the corner of Clarissa’s room.

  Clarissa waited until they had left and then she locked the door. She went to her jewel case and opened it. She saw at once that he had been in it. The rings were scattered about instead of being neatly arranged in their compartments. She lifted out the trays. Everything seemed to be there. To be sure, she counted everything carefully; so intent on counting the pieces of jewellery was she that she did not notice the flat black oilskin packet at the bottom of the box.

  She put all the jewellery back in and slammed down the lid, washed her hands, and then looked down at her sleeping maid.

  She can just sleep with her clothes on, thought Clarissa, for she is too heavy to undress.

  Clarissa had a disturbed night. She was awakened by the groans of Hubbard and had to minister to her. She did not feel very well herself. Her head was hot and the bed showed an alarming tendency to run around the room every time she tried to lay her head on the pillow.

  At least I know something, thought Clarissa dismally. Lots of drink is no fun at all. We must leave very early or that poor man will awake and try to charge me with assault. But, of course, he is a thief, so he will probably keep quiet. I suppose I should tell the authorities, for if he is not checked then he will try to thieve again. But that would mean a hanging and I could not bear that.

  By seven in the morning, Clarissa had decided she’d had enough of the posting-house and its adventures. She went downstairs to order the carriage to be brought round and to pay her shot. She was ridiculously happy when the landlord told her it had already been paid by the Earl of Greystone. A small courtesy but one which gladdened Clarissa’s heart.

  Mr Haddon called on the Tribbles two days after he had had dinner with them. To his dismay, there was no sign and no word of the Honourable Clarissa Vevian.

  ‘What if Georgina changed her mind?’ wailed Effy, too anguished to flirt. ‘What will we do?’

  ‘I fear you must advertise again,’ said Mr Haddon. ‘But give it a few more days. The roads can be treacherous. There may have been a storm. Then there has been a great fuss over some missing government papers, and all the inns and posting-houses and carriages are being searched. Say the thief was discovered to be in some town. The army might seal off that town and make a house-to-house search, and if that town was on the road from Bath, then this Miss Clarissa would be compelled to stay there.’

  ‘I know something awful has happened,’ said Effy. ‘Now I come to think of it, dear Georgina was always feckless and scatter-brained and flighty. She has no doubt forgotten our existence. Or what if she did not know of the wild events that have taken place here, and someone has now told her, and she has decided we are not fit chaperones for Clarissa?’

  ‘Oh, stop!’ said Amy, clutching her head. ‘We’ve had everything in this house arranged and rearranged and we’ve flown into a dither every time a carriage passes in the street below. I’m weary. I think I don’t like Clarissa or her family. We’re probably better off without her. She’s probably got a face on her like a pig’s arse.’

  ‘Miss Amy! Really!’ admonished Mr Haddon, showing that he, too, was upset at the non-arrival of Clarissa, for usually he let Amy’s vulgarities of speech pass without comment, knowing that Amy had been brought up in an age when coarseness was fashionable.

  Amy blushed. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled.

  A knock sounded on the door downstairs. ‘Don’t leap about, Effy,’ said Amy. ‘It’s probably a cheeky hawker, too lazy to go down the area steps.’

  ‘No, no,’ fluttered Effy. ‘I am sure it is something about Clarissa.’

  She ran out. Amy tried to change the subject. ‘How is your friend from India getting along, Mr Haddon?’

  ‘Mr Randolph? Very well. He, too, finds London strange after India. I helped him to find lodgings yesterday. It is pleasant to have a companion of like interests.’

  Amy felt jealous of this Mr Randolph. Now, perhaps, Mr Haddon would not call on them so much.

  Effy came back into the room, looking flushed and happy. ‘It is a letter from the Earl of Greystone,’ she said.

  ‘And of what use is that?’ growled Amy.

  ‘Listen! He writes to say that Miss Clarissa Vevian had an accident to her carriage and will be delayed in arriving. He says – and this is most mysterious – that he holds himself responsible for the ruin of her carriage and loss of her baggage and will be calling on us before the end of the month to discuss payment. Well! Greystone . . . Greystone . . .’ Effy ran to the desk in the corner and took out her list of ‘eligibles’. ‘Ah, here he is. I knew I had heard the name recently. But it is in the ‘Not Likely’ column. He has recently inherited the title, lives near Marlborough, unwed, rich, but has not been seen in London yet. Do you think . . . ?’

  ‘No, I don’t think,’ said Amy. ‘Still, I’m glad the girl is still on her way here. Does this Greystone give any idea when she might reach London?’

  ‘He mentions she was staying a night with them. Let me see, she would need to break her journey again. With any luck, she should be here by late afternoon.’

  Amy looked about her wearily. ‘Everything’s been done for her arrival that can be done. We can’t hire any tutors until we find out her deficiences. Oh, Lor’. I wish we didn’t have to have her.’

  Amy was upset and bad tempered. She had a nagging ache in the small of her back and everything seemed to irritate her these days. Mr Haddon rose to take his leave. ‘Oh, I had forgot,’ he said. ‘A most momentous piece of news. Napoleon has escaped.’

  ‘And Queen Anne’s dead,’ said Amy rudely. ‘We heard that yesterday.

  Mr Haddon’s thin face flushed slightly. He looked down at Amy, who had not risen to curtsy goodbye to him but was still slouched in an armchair.

  ‘I do not know what is wrong, Miss Amy,’ said Mr Haddon severely. ‘But of late, you have been snapping my head off. I thought we were friends. If I have done anything to offend you, please tell me.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Amy shot to her feet and sent her chair flying. ‘Dear Mr Haddon. I am a bear! A veritable bear! Pray forgive me. I would not have you cross with me for anything in the world.’

  Her eyes were shining with tears and her face was a picture of distress.

  Mr Haddon bent and kissed her hand and then smiled into her eyes. ‘That’s better,’ he said softly. Amy looked at him in a dazed way and then slowly lifted the hand he had kissed to her bosom.

  ‘Humph!’ said Effy Tribble to no one in particular and threw a log on the fire with unnecessary force.

  Mr Epsom recovered consciousness and opened his eyes to find a physician bending over him.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked.

  ‘You had a fall down the stairs and banged your head,’ said the physician. ‘I have bled you and told the landlord to let you lie here quietly for a few days until your strength returns.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Mr Epsom weakly. He furrowed his brow. ‘Oh, I remember, tall girl. Helped her get her drunk maid up the stairs to . . . her . . . room . . .’ His voice trailed away as memory came flooding back. The papers!

  ‘I must get up!’ He tried to leap out of bed, but the room whirled about him.

  ‘Now, now, sir,’ said the physician, pressing him back against the pillows. ‘You will do yourself a mischief.’

  Mr Epsom closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Then he opened them again and said, ‘Please ask the tall lady with the red hair to step along and see me. She is a guest here. Don’t know her name but should be easy to find. Gigantic female.’

  ‘Do you think that wise? I—’

  ‘Get her,’ said Mr Epsom savagely.

  He closed his eyes again and waited. But it was the landlord who reappeared after what seemed an age.

  ‘Beg pardon, Mr Epsom, sir,’ he said, ‘but the lady you was asking about left early this morning.’

  Mr Epsom groaned. Then he asked
, ‘Who was she?’

  The landlord scratched his wig. ‘Don’t rightly know, sir. The room was ordered and paid for by the Earl of Greystone, so I suppose the young lady must have been a member of his family.’

  There came a light knock at the door and then a voice Mr Epsom knew only too well demanded, ‘I hear my dear friend, Mr Epsom, is ill. Leave us, landlord. We wish to be private.’

  The landlord bowed low before the finely dressed visitor.

  The visitor waited until the landlord had left and then turned the key in the lock. He strolled up to the bed and said in a silky voice, ‘Sorry to see you in such a coil. The ague?’

  ‘No, was pushed down the stairs and knocked unconscious. Damned physician bled me while I was out and I’m as weak as a kitten.’

  ‘Before I find out who it was who attacked you, may I know whether you have the papers safe?’

  ‘They’re gone,’ whispered Mr Epsom.

  The visitor drew a pistol from his pocket and levelled it at Mr Epsom’s head. ‘Any more last words?’ he asked pleasantly.

  ‘No! Spare me. All may not be yet lost. Listen! You must listen. The soldiers were here last night searching the place. I was at my wit’s end. I offered to help a red-haired female in the dining room who was having trouble with her tipsy maid. I asked her for the key to her room and volunteered to go ahead and open the door for her. She gave me the key. I ran up and hid the papers in the bottom of the jewel box, meaning to retrieve them later. We were on the stairs when this red-haired giantess suddenly stares at my gloves and accuses me of having been at her jewellery. I tried to protest and she struck me and that’s the last I know. She is of Greystone’s family. The papers can be retrieved before she ever finds them.’

  ‘I think, my friend, I had better help you out of here in case the militia return. She may have discovered them already. She obviously fears she might have killed you, for she has not reported you as a thief. What was it about your gloves that alerted her?’

  ‘I don’t know. They must be with my clothes. Lavender pair. Kid.’

  The visitor walked across the room and searched until he found the gloves. ‘They’re smeared with black, as if they’d touched something which had been in a fire,’ he said. ‘Either she smeared her jewels with the stuff or they have been in a fire. In any case, the sooner we’re on our way, the better.’

  He called for the landlord and started to make preparations to have Mr Epsom carried to his carriage. Soon Mr Epsom was stretched along one of the seats. ‘Drink this,’ said his friend, holding a flask of brandy to his mouth. ‘You will feel better.’

  Mr Epsom drank deeply and lay back. Then his face turned blue, and his heels slid from the seat and performed a mad tattoo on the floor. Quite soon after he died from the poisoned brandy he had drunk.

  The carriage drove on and on until night fell. ‘Stop here!’ called the murderer, opening the trap in the roof.

  He climbed out and looked up at a gibbet silhouetted against the moon. Three corpses in various stages of decomposition swung dismally on their chains. ‘No one will notice an extra body, John,’ he said to his coachman. ‘I’ll hand you up the body and you stand on the top of the coach and tie it up.’

  His villainous coachman was too well trained and too well paid to ask such stupid questions as ‘What body?’

  Mr Epsom’s corpse was undressed down to the breeches and shirt. They spattered and dirtied his shirt and tousled and muddied his hair until he looked like a common felon. Then, standing on top of the coach while his master steadied the horses, the coachman chained up the body alongside the other three.

  ‘Now drive on,’ said his master, ‘and stop at the nearest inn and find out where the Earl of Greystone has his residence.’

  ‘She’s here!’ trilled Effy. Amy jumped to her feet and she and her sister went down to the hall. A very tall girl was standing, blinking owlishly in the lamplight. Beside her stood a fat lady’s maid.

  Effy tripped forward, both hands held out in welcome. ‘Greetings, Miss Vevian. I am Miss Effy Tribble and I hope you will be very happy with us.’

  Clarissa looked down at the dainty white-haired Effy and felt large and awkward. All her newfound independence deserted her. ‘Glad to meet you,’ she mumbled. She seized Effy’s hand and shook it. Effy let out a yelp of pain. ‘There is no need to crush my hand, Miss Vevian,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry,’ mumbled Clarissa, shuffling her feet.

  A tall woman approached her. ‘And I am Miss Amy,’ she said. Clarissa looked relieved. Amy was almost as tall as she was herself. She was reassuringly harsh and plain. ‘Good evening,’ said Clarissa and dropped into a low curtsy. It was a very low curtsy indeed. Clarissa found she could not rise and sat down suddenly on the floor. The sisters helped her up. ‘You are very tired from your journey, no doubt,’ said Amy, feeling quite maternal. There was something about this tall girl that reminded Amy of herself. ‘Give your bonnet and cloak to your maid. This,’ said Amy, turning to introduce a gaunt, harsh-featured woman who was standing in the shadows of the hall, a little way away, ‘is our maid, Baxter, who will show your maid to her quarters.’

  Clarissa followed the sisters up the stairs and into the drawing room.

  ‘Wine?’ offered Effy.

  Clarissa shuddered. ‘No, I thank you.’

  ‘Tea?’

  ‘Oh yes, please.’

  ‘Tell us,’ asked Amy, ‘what happened to your carriage and what has it to do with the Earl of Greystone?’

  In a low clear voice, Clarissa recounted her adventures. When she got to the bit about bathing Tom’s forehead with water from the sewer and then setting the carriage alight, Amy could control herself no longer. Her stifled snorts of laughter turned to outright guffaws. Clarissa reddened and Effy said quickly, ‘Pay no heed to my sister. She is not herself.’

  But Clarissa started to grin. Amy’s laughter was infectious and soon the whole sorry tale began to strike her as being funnier and funnier. By the time she got to the bit about knocking Mr Epsom down the stairs, Amy was crying with laughter and Effy was rigid with shock.

  ‘I see we’ll deal famously,’ said Amy at last, wiping her streaming eyes.

  ‘Yes, quite,’ said Effy repressively. ‘When you have finished your tea, Miss Vevian, I will show you to your room. The hour is late. Have you dined?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  When Clarissa had been seen to her room, Effy returned to the drawing room and looked severely at her sister. ‘There is nothing to laugh at,’ she said.

  ‘Oh yes, there is,’ hooted Amy. ‘What a card!’

  Effy sat down. ‘Listen to me, Amy. I know now why she has been sent to us. She is gauche and clumsy and dangerously so. You must not encourage her by laughing at her. Her schooling must begin tomorrow. Smoking cheroots, indeed! I was never more shocked.’

  ‘She’s a great girl. Don’t turn her into a simpering miss, Effy. You know what? I like her, and what’s more, I bet this earl, Greystone, likes her too. He said he’d come here to settle accounts. Don’t need to do that in person, you know. Could send a draft.’

  ‘Do you think . . .’ began Effy slowly.

  ‘Bags of hope there,’ said Amy cheerfully. ‘Besides, we don’t know that she usually goes on like she did on the journey. Parents should have been with her. Stands to reason, she’d be nervous and upset at having to go on such a long journey with only the maid for company.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Effy. ‘But red hair. So unfortunate. And she is so very tall.’

  ‘Better to make the most of her height,’ said Amy shrewdly. ‘She stoops a bit. Get the backboard on her and make her sit up straight. She could look regal.’

  ‘But did you notice those freckles?’ fretted Effy. ‘Lemon and white of egg might do the trick.’

  ‘I like freckles,’ said Amy stubbornly.

  Effy remembered Mr Haddon kissing Amy’s hand. ‘You like everything about Clarissa,’ she said maliciously ‘because she reminds
you of yourself. But I do have to point out that you are still unwed, sister dear.’

  ‘And all thanks to you,’ said Amy furiously. ‘Who forced me into turning down two whole proposals of marriage?’

  ‘Not I. It was you who thought Squire Wraxall meant marriage when he was talking about another lady.’

  ‘You’re such a washed-out little thing,’ said Amy waspishly. ‘You don’t understand women with bottom.’

  ‘Bottom’ in the Regency meant courage and gallantry. Effy deliberately misunderstood. ‘You can’t talk about women with bottoms,’ she said. ‘You’re as flat as a board, front and back.’

  ‘At least I don’t have to wear a chin-strap every night. You’ve got a neck on you like a vulture.’

  Effy began to cry.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Amy, instantly repentant. ‘I say, don’t cry. ‘Member you said there was a necklace you wanted to buy? We could go tomorrow and get it if you like.’

  Effy stopped crying and peeped over her handkerchief.

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘I promise,’ said Amy cheerfully. Mr Haddon had kissed her hand and looked at her so – so Effy could say what she liked from now on!

  The Earl of Greystone was feeling quite happy as he drove his half-sister and stepmother home after a visit to a neighbour. Amazingly, Clarissa’s strategy had worked. He had announced that Peregrine would never go to school. To send the boy to Eton would be a waste of time and money, and furthermore, he was too spoilt to be fit company for other boys. Peregrine had tried to hold his breath and was slowly turning purple in the face when his heartless half-brother had walked from the room. By that evening, Angela had been weeping and begging the earl on her knees to let dear Peregrine go to Eton. The poor boy had set his heart on it, and on and on she went, until the earl had finally appeared reluctantly to give his ungracious permission. He privately resolved to raise heaven and earth to get the boy admitted as soon as possible, even if it had to be in the middle of term. Then he had broached the subject of the Grand Tour, quite casually, saying someone or other had suggested it for Tom, but of course Tom was such a stay-at-home it was probably out of the question. Tom defiantly and shrilly had demanded to be allowed to go.