by M C Beaton
“Walk with me,” he said abruptly to Matilda. “I must be private with you.”
The captain watched them go. Then he pulled forward the bowl of rack punch for which the gardens were famous and proceeded to get thoroughly drunk.
“I think we should tell the duchess of this immediately,” cried Letitia after she had heard Sir Charles’s story.
Sir Charles wished now he had left the tale of his adventures at Mrs. Trumpington’s until later in the evening. They were promenading along one of the garden’s dark walks. This was the evening when he had planned to kiss her. He had been tempted to carry a box with him so that he could stand on it to reach her lips. But he thought that would make him look foolish and so planned to lead her into a quiet grove where the plinth of a statue might be able to raise him to the required height.
But she looked so worried and anxious that he knew he would need to put off romance until later.
They returned to the box. When they entered it to ask the captain the whereabouts of Matilda, he staggered to his feet, raised his fists, and advanced on Sir Charles. “I am going to give you the thrashing you deserve,” shouted the captain. Sir Charles moved to the balcony of the box and stood with his back to it, facing the captain. With a roar like an enraged bull, Captain Emsley rushed headlong at him, his fists swinging. Sir Charles stepped neatly aside and the captain crashed into the flimsy balcony, which broke. He landed in among the laughing crowd below.
“I’ll wager she’s gone off with Torridon,” said Sir Charles. “What else would make her abandon her guest? Let us go and search for her before that oafish captain recovers.”
“I don’t know where to begin to look,” said Letitia as they walked away from the supper boxes.
“But I do,” said Sir Charles. “I know every pesky grove in this place where lovers might lurk.” He colored and then added quickly, “I have such reprehensible friends.”
In one of the darkest of the groves, the earl and Matilda sat side by side on a rustic bench.
“You have been silent long enough,” said the earl. “What is your answer? I have the special license. We can be married in two weeks’ time.”
“We would be crucified by the gossips,” said Matilda. “I am such a coward. I would rather be your mistress.”
“And make the scandal worse? Are you going to let two horrible people, your late husband and my late wife, ruin our happiness?” He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. His hands slid up to the smoothness of her neck and his long fingers caressed the white skin. “You are trembling, Matilda,” he murmured. “Kiss me!”
“We cannot interrupt them!” whispered Letitia as she and Sir Charles finally discovered the couple. “Come away!”
But Sir Charles thought that he had put aside kisses himself that evening and all for the sake of this wretched couple. Ignoring Letitia, he said loudly, “Ahem!”
Matilda and the earl broke apart.
“How dare you…?” began the earl wrathfully, but Sir Charles held up his hand. Succinctly he outlined the events of the day.
“Clarisse,” said the earl slowly. “Of course. But why?”
Sir Charles shook his head. “I can think of no reason.”
“I think you have saved Mrs. Trumpington’s life,” said Matilda. “Why did you not tell me of your suspicions before, Letitia?”
“I overheard you at the Hammonds’ saying you could not marry until you found out who murdered the countess,” said Letitia, “and Sir Charles here said he would help me. We decided to start with Clarisse.”
“Proving she was trying to poison Mrs. Trumppington is one thing,” said the earl. “Proving she poisoned my wife is another.”
“Oh, Sir Charles will think of something,” declared Letitia blithely. “So you may as well get married.”
“That is something only we can decide.” Matilda stood up. “The hour is late, Letitia. It is time we went home.”
Letitia walked back toward the bright lights on Sir Charles’s arm, feeling very disappointed.
When she was alone in the carriage with Matilda, she said, “Why could we not stay? It is not late and you could have spent more time with your earl.”
“I have much to think about,” replied Matilda, turning her face away. For how could she tell this virgin that she could not trust herself alone with the earl? She had not answered his question. She dreaded the scandal. But how could she live without him?
Letitia heaved a great sigh.
“I am sorry,” said Matilda quickly. “I fear I ruined your evening. Do you like Sir Charles very much?”
“He is the most wonderful man in the world.”
“But, my dear, he is much older than you. You have not really had a chance to meet other men.” Matilda wondered whether to tell Letitia that Sir Charles wanted to marry her, but decided against it. Surely Letitia would be happier with someone of her own age.
Letitia sighed again. “We shall do something tomorrow to raise your spirits,” said Matilda. “We will go at some unfashionably early hour to the mercers on Ludgate Hill and choose a dress.” Choosing a dress meant buying material for one.
“And may I see Sir Charles later?” Letitia looked stubborn.
“Very well. But do promise me that you will make a push to get to know some other gentlemen.”
Letitia frowned. “If I pointed out to you, Duchess, that you were likely to cause a great scandal by marrying the Earl of Torridon and that you really ought to look elsewhere, what would your answer be?”
“That is not the same thing! I am older than you and more used to the ways of the world. Now we will rise early and go to Ludgate Hill. We have both been invited to a ball at Devonshire House. Very grand. You must have something dazzling to wear and so must I.”
Some of the finest mercers shops were on Ludgate Hill, including among their wares Dutch rateens, duffles, friezes, beaver coating, kerseymeres, German serges, Wilton stuffs, sagathies, nankeen, Silesia cambrics, Manchester velvets, silks, grosgrams, allapeens, double allapeens, silk camblets, barragins, Brussels camblets, princes stuffs, worsted damasks, silk knitpieces, corded silks, gattias, shagg velvets, serge desoys, and shalloons.
The shops were like gilded theaters and the mercers, the performers. They were very effeminate gentlemen: the “sweetest, fairest, nicest, dished-out creatures,” as one Regency observer described it.
As Matilda and Letitia looked in at these shop doors, the mercers would cry out, “Garden silks, ladies. Italian silks, very fine mantua silks, and right Geneva velvet, English velvet, velvet embossed?” Or at the doorway of one of the meaner shops came the call, “Fine thread satins, both stripe and plain, fine mohair silks, satinets, burdets, Perianets, Norwich crapes, anterines, silks for hoods and scarves, hair camlets, druggets, sagathies, gentleman’s nightgowns, ready made, shalloons, durances, and right Scotch plaids.”
Letitia, following Matilda into one of these shops, was amused by the blandishments of the mercers of whom there were three: one to flatter, one to produce the material, and the other to stand by the door and hand the customers in and out of their carriages. One mercer skipped up and then executed so low a bow that his nose nearly touched the sanded floor. Then he leapt back a pace and clasped his hands in delight as he regarded Matilda. He snapped his fingers and another mercer ran up with a bolt of blue silk, which he unraveled and cast round the shoulders of the first mercer. Then the sales talk started in earnest. “This, madam, is wonderful charming. This, madam, is so diverting a silk. This madam, my stars! How cool it looks! But this, madam, ye gods! Would I had ten thousand yards of it!” He then fashioned some of the blue silk into a sleeve and held it up against Matilda’s shoulder. “It suits Your Grace’s face wonderful well.” Your Grace, because the man at the door had interpreted the coat of arms on Matilda’s carriage and signaled her importance in a sort of dumb show.
“I shall pay you ten shillings a yard for it,” said Matilda at last, after the mercer had demanded
fifteen.
The mercer leapt back a step. “Fan me ye winds!” he cried. “Your Grace rallies me. Should I part with it at such a price, the weavers would rise upon the very shop. Was you at the Park last night, madam? Your Grace shall have this precious silk reduced by sixpence. Have you read The Tatler today?” And so he rattled on while Matilda, used to bargaining, finally managed to get it for twelve shillings a yard.
Letitia was content to stand and watch the activity around her. The mercer swirled bolts of cloth about the shop, trying to persuade Matilda to buy more. “I have bought enough for myself,” said Matilda firmly. “I now wish a gown for my young friend here.”
The mercer’s little mouth opened in surprise as he took in Letitia’s great height, then he sighed in ecstasy and called to the other two in a high, breathless voice, “Your help, sirs. Silk for miss.”
The three performed a sort of ballet around Letitia, each marveling at the glorious amount of silk it would take to cover such a height.
“Your first lesson in shopping.” Matilda laughed. “I am going next door to buy ribbons, Letitia. Choose the color of silk that you think suits you best, fix a price, and I shall pay for it when I return.”
Letitia nodded. Silks swirled around her tall form and then, as if through the parting of curtains in the theater, she saw the shifting crowd in the street outside, and there among that crowd, hurrying along with her head bent, scurried Clarisse.
She gave a stifled exclamation, twirled around to free herself from a swathe of golden silk, called out, “I shall take it,” and ran from the shop.
An exasperated duchess found on her return that her protégée had purchased a vast amount of gold-colored silk at fifteen shillings a yard and had run out of the shop. She went out herself. But among the shifting crowds of Ludgate Hill, there was no sign of Letitia. Matilda settled down to wait her return, for surely she would come back and explain what had sent her off at a run.
Glad for once of her extra height, Letitia was able to keep Clarisse in view without walking too close behind her. Up Ludgate Hill went the maid, along Ludgate Street, and then, just before St. Paul’s Cathedral, she turned right down Creed Lane. Letitia turned the corner just in time to see Clarisse enter an apothecary’s shop.
Was she going to buy arsenic? Letitia walked closer to the shop. After a very short time Clarisse emerged. Letitia drew back into a doorway as the maid scurried past, her head down. Letitia watched as Clarisse gained the corner of the street and hailed a hack.
She walked into the apothecary’s shop. A tiny man stood behind the counter. “I wonder, was my maid here a moment ago?” asked Letitia.
“There was a lady just here but too finely dressed for a maid.”
“Brown satin with a lace collar and a pelisse of the same material and a close bonnet?” asked Letitia breathlessly.
“Yes, I have just served her.”
“And did she buy that arsenic powder for the rats?”
“Oh, yes, madam.”
“Good,” said Letitia faintly.
She rushed out of the shop and tried to hurry along the street and down Ludgate Hill. The crowd was so dense and the road so thick with traffic, she thought she would never get back to Matilda.
Matilda was haggling over Letitia’s purchase of gold silk. At last the mercer, who had enjoyed the battle, conceded defeat and set the price at thirteen shillings a yard, but still insisted Letitia wanted all of it. Matilda was just gloomily reflecting that her young charge would have to go about dressed in gold silk for the rest of the Season when Letitia burst into the shop.
“We must go, quickly,” she said in an urgent whisper.
Matilda stayed where she was, sitting in a tall chair by the counter. “My dear girl, you have just purchased enough gold silk to cover most of Mayfair, and I would like an explanation.”
Letitia bent down and said in a low voice, “I saw Clarisse. I followed her to an apothecary’s. She bought arsenic.”
Matilda rose quickly. She handed the mercer her card. “Have the silks sent to my address,” she said.
Both of them hurried out of the shop. Matilda told her coachman the address of Mrs. Trumpington and ordered him to “spring ’em.” But the coachman looked at the press of traffic ahead of him down Ludgate Hill and right along Fleet Street and said pessimistically that if they were able to move at all, it would be a miracle.
They crept over the now-filled-in dirty ditch called the Fleet River, along Fleet Street past the newspaper offices, the bookshops, the silversmiths, then along the Strand, past banks and taverns and bookshops and so to Charing Cross where two miserable wretches in the stocks were being pelted with rotten vegetables and worse. Along Pall Mall, up St. James’s Street, past the clubs, across Piccadilly, and so to Mrs. Trumpington’s.
The butler opened the door and then reeled back as Letitia roughly pushed past him, dragging Matilda behind her. They ran up the stairs and burst into Mrs. Trumpington’s bedchamber.
She was sitting up in bed. There was a tray on her lap and Clarisse had just taken a spoonful of soup from a bowl on that tray and was holding it to the old lady’s lips.
“NO!” cried Letitia. She hurtled forward and dashed the spoon from Mrs. Trumpington’s lips and then hurled tray, soup, and all across the room.
Mrs. Trumpington lay there, goggling.
“What are you doing?” demanded Clarisse. “Madam is unwell.”
Letitia took a deep breath. “Sir Charles suggested to you that Clarisse taste your food before you ate it, Mrs. Trumpington. Did she taste that soup?”
“No. There is no need. Clarisse has been dismissed and I am changing my will this afternoon,” exclaimed Mrs. Trumpington.
“Oh, Mrs. Trumpington.” Letitia sighed. “There was every need. If you died before this afternoon, would not Clarisse have inherited all?”
“I swear before God I am innocent,” said Clarisse, backing toward the door.
“Then why did you buy arsenic this morning?”
“Because… because as I told madam, I use it for cosmetic purposes.”
Letitia’s eyes narrowed. Clarisse was wearing a fine cambric apron with dainty pockets edged with lace.
“Turn out your pockets,” ordered Letitia.
Clarissa made a sudden dart for the door. Letitia was quicker. She seized the maid and lifted her up as easily as if she were a doll and placed her in the center of the room. Then holding her prisoner with one hand, she rummaged in her apron pockets with the other. “Aha!” Letitia held up a small box with the apothecary’s label on it. She released Clarisse and opened it. “I notice a quantity of it has already been used.”
“I will not stay here any longer,” cried Clarisse. Letitia put up a hand to stop her but the maid darted under her arm and out.
“Catch her!” shouted Matilda. “We will never know if we do not catch her.”
Letitia ran down the stairs with Matilda at her heels. They heard the street door slam. When they gained the pavement and looked desperately from left to right, there was no sign of the maid. Matilda went back indoors and explained to the horrified butler that Clarisse had without doubt tried to murder her mistress. The menservants were all sent out to search up and down the street, in the basements, in the shops, in the lanes and alleyways, but of the lady’s maid, there was no sign.
Clarisse was crouched in a cupboard under the stairs. She had dived for cover after banging the street door to make it sound as if she had fled outside. She waited, trying to control her ragged breathing, listening to the sounds of the hunt.
At last the searchers gave up. Matilda and Letitia stood in the hall. “Now we will never know whether she killed the Countess of Torridon,” said Matilda.
“But we could prove she tried to murder Mrs. Trumpington,” said Letitia eagerly, “and then perhaps if she were found guilty of that, she might confess to the other.”
“All she has to do is stick to her story that she takes a litle arsenic to clear her skin,” sai
d Matilda wearily. “It is not uncommon.”
“But the soup! The remains of the soup!” cried Letitia. “If traces of arsenic could be found in that…”
They went back upstairs to Mrs. Trumpington’s bedchamber. Letitia groaned aloud. Two chambermaids had just finished scrubbing the soiled carpet. Bowl, spoon, and tray, one of them said in answer to Matilda’s query, had been taken down to the kitchens and washed.
“Has she gone?” demanded Mrs. Trumpington.
“Yes,” said Matilda, sinking down in a chair.
“Then we had better inform the authorities.”
Matilda put a hand to her brow. “It would only mean more scandal. It would open up the whole nasty business again. And they may never find her, so all we would be left with would be speculation and gossip.”
Clarisse waited and waited. She was cramped and stiff and frightened, and yet the thought of those pretty clothes and jewels gave her strength. She could not get another position. In fact, she would have to go into hiding. In order to live, she would need to sell some of the finest jewels, those she had stolen from the Countess of Torridon. Rage against the dowager duchess boiled up in her. Clarisse loved each gown and trinket and jewel as a mother loves her children. At last she heard the butler make his nightly rounds, closing the shutters and bolting and locking the door. She waited for another hour until the house was absolutely quiet. Then she crept out, stifling a cry of pain that rose to her lips as she tried to straighten up. She crawled up the staircase, hanging onto the banister. Once in her room, she packed everything neatly and then carried each trunk down to the hall. Her heart in her mouth, she slid back the bolts and opened the door to the street and then carried each trunk out onto the pavement. Then she stood there, waiting for a hack, expecting any moment to hear a cry behind her. And then a hack came slowly down the street and dropped a gentleman at a house two doors away.