by M C Beaton
“Keep it,” he said, looking up at her. “Perhaps it will remind you of me.”
“Oh, I do not need anything to make me do that,” said Letitia. Sir Charles executed a funny sort of hop, skip, and jump out of pure happiness before collecting himself and offering her his arm and leading her back to the party.
Chapter Seven
Matilda had made no arrangements to meet the earl. She was bewildered and shaken and could only manage a weak smile in Letitia’s direction as that young lady cheerfully went off the following afternoon with Sir Charles.
Annabelle and Emma called as soon as she had left. Nothing in Matilda’s manner betrayed her inner turmoil, but Emma and Annabelle were amazed at the change in their friend’s appearance. The dowager duchess had not only regained all her former beauty, but there was a new softness and a glow about her. Emma and Annabelle exchanged glances. Matilda must be in love. They plied her with questions about what she had been doing and whom she had seen, and Matilda replied with seeming placidity and not once mentioned the Earl of Torridon’s name.
Letitia and Sir Charles found to their alarm that Mrs. Trumpington was ill and could not receive visitors. Sir Charles was about to turn away, but Letitia said airily, “Then we should see her. It is bad for invalids to lie isolated from their friends.”
The butler looked at her nervously, but the orders that madam was not to be disturbed came from Clarisse and the butler loathed Clarisse. Clarisse had begun to assume all the airs of mistress of the house, and as Mrs. Trumpington doted on the maid, her other servants were afraid that the old lady was about to die and leave everything to Clarisse.
“I will take you to her,” he said, making up his mind.
Mrs. Trumpington was lying in a great four-poster bed in a darkened room. She looked as small as a child.
Clarisse appeared from a corner of the room and tried to shoo Letitia and Sir Charles away, but Mrs. Trumpington said feebly, “Who is it?”
“It is I, Mrs. Trumpington,” said Letitia. “Miss Plumtree. What ails you?”
“I do not know,” said the old lady. “I had an attack of vomiting, my bones ache, and my throat is devilish sore.”
“Let us have some light in here,” said Sir Charles in a strained voice, unlike his usual light tones. Ignoring the maid’s cry that light would hurt her mistress’s eyes, Sir Charles pulled back the curtains and then opened the windows. Sunlight and fresh air flooded into the room.
“Beg pardon, ma’am,” said Sir Charles earnestly, “but I cannot help comparing your symptoms to those I once suffered. Any arsenic in the house?”
Clarisse stood very still. Outside a hawker cried, “Sand Ho!” in a raucous voice.
“Why?” asked Mrs. Trumpington faintly.
“Well, demme, if I hadn’t the same thing and it was poisoning from arsenic in the paper in my bedchamber.”
“But the walls are painted.”
“Must be somewhere. I have a horror of the stuff.”
“There is no arsenic in this house,” said Clarisse harshly.
“Better make sure. Stay and talk to madam, Miss Plumtree. Hate arsenic. I’ll see that butler fellow and get him to make a search.”
Clarisse made a move to follow him, but Mrs. Trumpington said in a weak voice, “Do raise me a little, Clarisse, so that I may see Miss Plumtree.”
Sir Charles followed the butler down to the kitchens. The cook and housekeeper said there was arsenic, of course there was. Kept down the rats and black beetles, it did. Sir Charles cheerfully commandeered all of it and said they were not to allow any in the house. Then he turned to the butler. “I must ask you to show me the servants’ sleeping quarters. The maids in particular will take the stuff, perhaps, to clear their complexions.”
The butler saw nothing odd in this. He was old and used to a lifetime of coping with the eccentric ways of the quality. Sir Charles gave a perfunctory look around the female servants’ quarters and then asked casually to see Clarisse’s room. “Don’t disturb anything,” said the butler. “Very high and mighty is our lady’s maid and already hinting the old lady is going to leave her everything in her will.”
Sir Charles carefully searched Clarisse’s room. He was amazed at the richness of her gowns and the quantity of her jewelry. “Nothing,” he muttered. “Now, where I wonder…?” He walked over to the toilet table. “Ah, here it is. Innocent as anything. In a little apothecary’s box for all to see. I’ll have that as well.”
He returned to Mrs. Trumpington’s bedchamber and spilled all his finds on the bed. “You were wrong,” he said to Clarisse. “The place is stuffed with arsenic, and I even found some in your own room.”
“You had no right!” exclaimed Clarisse, her hands clenched.
“He means well,” said Mrs. Trumpington mildly. “Why are you so agitated, my girl?”
“I feel so silly,” said Clarisse. “I use a little to keep my compexion clear and fine. It is embarrassing to be caught out in such a petty piece of vanity.”
“There, there, do not distress yourself,” said Mrs. Trumpington. “I think your theory is very farfetched, Sir Charles. There are so many fevers and agues in London and I am very old.”
“And so you are, very,” said Sir Charles. “But you can never be too careful at your age. Stomach gets very delicate. Tell you what, before you taste anything, get Clarisse to taste it first. Seems devoted to you. Sure you’d be glad to do it, hey, Clarisse?”
“Of course,” said Clarisse in a colorless voice.
Letitia bent forward and kissed Mrs. Trumpington on that lady’s withered cheek. “We will call to see you very soon,” she said softly.
Outside the house, Letitia faced Sir Charles, who was holding packets of arsenic. “You all but accused that maid of trying to poison her mistress.”
Sir Charles shrugged. “If she ain’t, she’s got a clear conscience; if she is, then we’ve put a spoke in her wheel. Don’t like that Clarisse. French, my hatband. That’s the trouble with all you ladies demanding French maids. The Claras of this world promptly change their names to Clarisse, or Yvette, or Françoise, or something, and then their mistresses marvel at their command of the English language. Mind you, she’s got a good incentive to get rid of the old lady if Mrs. Trumpington plans to leave her anything. Butler said Clarisse was hinting, she expects to inherit everything. But why the Countess of Torridon? We’ll call soon and keep the pot boiling. Now to see my mother. I sent a note around earlier warning her to expect us.”
Mrs. Follett was a large, muscular woman with an orange mustache, orange because she bleached the hairs of her upper lip. She had a massive bosom and several chins. She was not alarmed by the proposed call on her by this Miss Plumtree. She had routed a few females that her son seemed keen on before and with little difficulty. She was looking forward to the battle to come.
Sir Charles and Letitia were ushered into Mrs. Follett’s private hotel sitting room. Mrs. Follett looked up at Letitia and felt her spirits sink. She had never felt as dwarfed in her life before as she did now. Sir Charles made the introductions. Mrs. Follett rang the bell and ordered tea. Sir Charles, looking increasingly uneasy, said he would like something stronger and was told in no uncertain terms to sit down and behave himself.
Letitia studied Mrs. Follett with wide-eyed interest. She was exactly like old Mrs. Browning in the village. Mrs. Browning had domineered her only son for ages, but he had finally left her and married a girl half his age. Letitia had called on Mrs. Browning shortly after the wedding and found that unlovely woman quite devastated. Her son had been her whole life.
Mrs. Follett questioned Letitia closely about her family, her relations, how she came to meet the dowager duchess, more like an interrogator at a tribunal than a hostess.
Sir Charles sat miserably in a chair. It was going to happen again. Mother would ask him to go for a walk so that she could get to know Miss Plumtree better and he would go for that walk and come back to find a flushed and embarrassed Letitia, a Le
titia who did not want to have anything more to do with him.
He made up his mind to stay. But when his mother told him to go for a walk, he found the protest dying on his lips. She would throw a temper tantrum if he did not. He knew that of old. “Damme,” he muttered, and he strolled along Bond Street, “if Torridon did murder his missus, then good luck to him. A nagging, shouting female is the very devil.”
“So am I to understand,” Mrs. Follett was saying sweetly, “that you have very little dowry?”
Letitia smiled. “I have not been so vulgar as to ask the amount for, as you know, Mrs. Follett, no lady would dare to ask so vulgar a question. But we are as poor as church mice, I do assure you.”
Mrs. Follett’s orange mustache bristled. “But one must always discuss money when marriage is proposed, and since my boy has no father…”
She broke off. Letitia was glowing with happiness. “Marriage!” she breathed, clasping her hands.
Seriously alarmed, Mrs. Follett exclaimed, “You go too fast. Nothing was said of marriage.”
“Ah, I see,” said Letitia comfortably. “It is your normal practice to ask visitors about their finances.”
“Yes. No!” shouted Mrs. Follett. She pulled herself together with an effort and tried another tack. She forced a laugh. “Of course I know you are not thinking of marriage, that my Charles cannot be thinking of marriage.”
Letitia leaned forward and squeezed one of Mrs. Follett’s pudgy hands. Her large eyes brimmed with sympathetic tears. “You poor dear lady,” she said.
Mrs. Follett snatched her hand away. “What can you mean?”
“You are just like Mrs. Browning.” sighed Letitia “Poor woman. Her son was all in all to her. She kept him close and kept the ladies at bay. But he eventually married a very strong-willed lady and refused to see his mother again. She, poor thing, was left desperately lonely for she had made no friends, her son being everything to her. She did not know how to make friends, having not ever been in the way of it, and so everyone shunned her. What a lonely, miserable old age. It quite breaks my heart to think of it.”
Letitia was only being honest, but Mrs. Follett began to feel very weak and frightened. She thought that Letitia was threatening her, that Letitia was saying that she was that same type of strong-willed lady who would snatch Charles away and that Charles would never be allowed to come near his mother again.
“You will marry my son over my dead body!” she shouted.
“Never say that,” cried Letitia. “I am sure you have years and years to live yet and will dance at his wedding. I am glad we were able to talk so freely, Mrs. Follett, for I had been quite prepared to meet a battle-ax, for as you know, that is what cruel society does call you. But what do I find? A charming but lonely lady who is terrified of facing more loneliness.”
Rage nearly choked Mrs. Follett. But her son entered the room having decided he could not stay away a moment longer, and her anger died away as she looked at him in a pleading way that he had never seen before.
“I am tired and must lie down, Charles.”
“I shall leave you.” Letitia got to her feet and then stooped and kissed Mrs. Follett on the cheek. “But never fear, I shall be back to see you very soon.”
Sir Charles heard his mother utter something very like a whimper as he led Letitia out.
He kept staring up at Letitia in a worried way. She smiled down at him and said, “Your mama will be all right when she has had a rest. I am convinced she is really very strong.”
“As strong as a horse,” said Sir Charles bitterly.
“But very lonely. I think we should call on her as much as possible while she is in Town.”
“You mean you actually want to see her again!”
“Of course. She is your mother, after all.”
Sir Charles grinned. “Well, if that don’t beat all,” he said sunnily. “Tell you what, I’ll take you home and then I’ll go back to Mrs. Trumpington and tell her if she’s made any stupid sort of will to make another sensible one and tell everyone about it, including Clarisse, if you get my meaning.”
“Do be careful,” warned Letitia.
“Oh, I shall. I won’t take a bite to eat or a sup to drink in that house.”
“And I had better go and get prettified for Vauxhall.”
“Waste of time,” said Sir Charles, driving expertly along Bond Street. “You are pretty enough already.”
Letitia glowed like a sunrise. “You are the very best of men,” she said.
“I am?” Sir Charles reined in his horses and looked up at her in bewildered delight. For a long moment they stared at each other until several harsh voices from other drivers told them to move along.
Mrs. Trumpington was surprised and amused to receive yet another visit from the frivolous Sir Charles. But her amusement faded as Sir Charles dismissed Clarisse, checked the door to make sure the maid was not listening, and then hitched his chair close to the bed.
“Have you made a will, ma’am?” he asked.
“As a matter of fact I have,” snapped Mrs. Trumpington. “What’s it to you?”
“Tell you in a minute. Who’ve you left everything to? Go on. It’s a matter of life and death. Your death, I mean.”
“You are an impertinent jackanapes. Well, since you must know, I have left everything to my dear Clarisse.”
“Look here,” said Sir Charles urgently, “your so dear Clarisse was maid to the Countess of Torridon. She died of arsenical poisoning. You say you are going to leave everything to Clarisse and now I find you yourself, ma’am, suffering what looks like arsenical poisoning. Clarisse had arsenic in her room.”
“I will never believe such a thing of that girl. Never!”
“Say she’s innocent. Then to make sure, all you have to do is cancel your will. You can write it again in a few months. Who did you leave it to originally?”
“My grandson. But I have not seen him this age.”
“What’s his name?”
“Mr. Jeffrey Trumpington.”
“Wait a bit.” Sir Charles rang the bell. Clarisse promptly appeared. “I want to see the butler,” said Sir Charles, “and make yourself scarce until I have finished my call.”
“You must humor him, Clarisse,” said Mrs. Trumpington, giving the maid an indulgent smile.
Clarisse bobbed a curtsy, threw a venomous look, quickly veiled, in Sir Charles’s direction, and left the room.
The butler appeared and Sir Charles asked him, “Are you sure Mr. Jeffrey Trumpington has not been to call?”
The butler’s reply startled Mrs. Trumpington. “But he has been to call, several times, but I had instructions to tell him Mrs. Trumpington was not at home to him.”
“I gave no such instructions,” said Mrs. Trumpington.
“Clarisse told all the servants that you never wanted to see him again and as you are so close to your maid, madam, we could not do aught but believe her.”
“You may go,” said the old lady faintly. “You, too, Sir Charles. I am much indebted to you. I would rather handle this myself.”
“You are in danger,” said Sir Charles bluntly.
Mrs. Trumpington gave a thin smile. “When you get to my great age, young man, death does not hold the same fears. Get you gone and send that maid to me.”
Mrs. Trumpington pulled herself up on her pillows after Sir Charles had left. She fished in a drawer of her bedside table and pulled out a small pistol and bullets and carefully loaded it. Then she tugged on the bell rope. Clarisse appeared and stood at the end of the bed.
“I have just learned that you have been turning away my own grandson at the door. I made a will in your favor, Clarisse, and you manipulated a lonely old woman into doing it. As to the reasons for my ill health and the late Countess of Torridon’s death, I shudder to think. My lawyer will call here tomorrow afternoon and I will rectify a great wrong.” She placed the loaded pistol pointedly in front of her on the bed.
Clarisse began to cry and through
her sobs she said she was innocent of wishing her mistress any harm. As to turning away Mr. Jeffrey, she, Clarisse, thought that Mr. Jeffrey was only interested in her mistress’s money and should be discouraged. She was innocent of all else, she swore. What would become of her now? Without a reference, she would die in the workhouse.
She seemed so overwrought and at the same time so sincere that Mrs. Trumpington almost found herself believing the maid. She was an old lady and prey to many ills. It could not be poison. But it was a risk she was frightened to take.
In a softer voice, she said, “You may stay until the end of the month and I shall give you a good reference, but you must stay no longer than that!”
Matilda had invited Captain Emsley to their box at Vauxhall. But to her surprise, Letitia did not seem at all dazzled by the lights and music and spectacles of the famous pleasure gardens. Nor did she seem particularly interested in the captain. She appeared to listen to him with half an ear while scanning the crowds. I do believe she is looking for that popinjay, Sir Charles, thought Matilda. Then her own thoughts turned as usual to the Earl of Torridon. Why had he not called? She, too, began to scan the crowds, and the captain ended up sitting between them in a moody silence.
“Why, there is Sir Charles!” exclaimed Letitia, suddenly lighting up. Sir Charles approached their box quickly. He was not his usual urbane self, but asked if he might have permission to take Letitia for a stroll. The captain looked ready to explode so Letitia, without waiting for Matilda’s answer, said, “Of course.”
When they had left, Matilda gave the captain a rueful smile. “I am afraid that my charge is much taken with Sir Charles. I fail to understand why.”
“Man-milliner,” said the captain sulkily. “I was to be her escort for this evening, and it would have been good manners to treat me to some common civility. There is nothing more lowering than to be sitting with a lady whose thoughts are on something else. I said,” he repeated, his voice rising, “there is nothing more lowering than to be sitting with a lady whose thoughts are on someone else.” But Matilda had seen the Earl of Torridon in the crowd and was waving to him. The earl did not trouble to mount to the box by the steps at the back but vaulted over the front.