by M C Beaton
The Prince stayed five hours, and when he and his friends finally left, the colonel was exhausted and decided he could not enjoy any “post-mortem” with his beloved and took himself off to his bed.
Lady Fortescue knew why he was sad and tired, but any guilt she felt over that was outweighed with the glory of the success for the hotel.
Sir Philip and Miss Tonks read about it in the newspapers on the last morning of their journey and all the easygoing friendliness disappeared from Sir Philip as he stared at the reports in mounting fury.
“That pair! Hogging all the glory for themselves,” he raged. “Why did we waste so much boring time in the countryside?”
Miss Tonks looked hurt. “I thought we had a pleasant little holiday.”
“You would,” he said nastily. “Who suggested the idea of this hotel in the first place? I did. Who raised the money to get us started? I did. Let’s get on our way. They have some explaining to do.”
It was humiliating, thought poor Miss Tonks, that when you finally settled comfortably for second-best—no, she thought angrily, looking at Sir Philip—fourth-best—to find that your choice wasn’t interested. And now there would be no Eliza to talk to, to discuss romance with. Lady Fortescue obviously thought any of her, Miss Tonks’s, dreams of romance unbecoming.
Back into the suburbs of London: trim villas, side by side with pocket-sized gardens, advertisements for Warren’s Blacking. Then the houses became taller, more crowded together, the streets busier, and then Hyde Park Corner with the red brick façade of Ashley House on the one side and the red brick face of St. George’s Hospital on the other. Through the toll gate and so through to Bond Street.
Miss Tonks, squinting down at the fob-watch on her breast, saw that it was five o’clock, the time they usually gathered for tea in their sitting-room. She would have liked to delay the confrontation Sir Philip obviously planned. She would have liked to retire to her own room next door, now all her own and no longer to be shared with Eliza, but a glimmer of hope glued her to Sir Philip’s side, a hope that once more he would look on her kindly and say complimentary things.
When they entered the sitting-room, Lady Fortescue rose to meet them, a smile of welcome on her thin rouged lips, a smile which faded as she met Sir Philip’s blazing eyes.
“How could you entertain the Prince Regent and not send for us?” raged Sir Philip.
“Why should we?” declared the colonel, taking Lady Fortescue’s hand in his, a gesture which enraged Sir Philip even more.
“Calmly.” Lady Fortescue sat down again. “We were not informed of the royal visit until the morning of the day he was to arrive here. We did not know whether you were still with Peterhouse or on your road home. How could we get news to you? Be sensible, I beg you.”
“Is this true?” demanded Sir Philip.
“I am not in the habit of lying,” said Lady Fortescue frostily. She turned to Miss Tonks. “Make yourself comfortable, my dear. Have a dish of tea and tell us all about the wedding.”
“Pah!” said Sir Philip. “Pooh!” And he stumped out, crashing the door behind him.
“Oh, dear,” fluttered Miss Tonks in distress. “Sir Philip is himself again. I should have known it would not last.”
“What would not last?” asked Lady Fortescue.
“Just that Sir Philip was so kind, so companionable. I had thought … Never mind.” She gave a little sigh. “I shall tell you all about the wedding and about our adventures on the road.”
* * *
The new marchioness looked across the teapot at her husband. “You didn’t tell me,” she exclaimed.
“Tell you what?”
She waved the newspaper at him. “It says here that Prinny had dinner at the Poor Relation.”
“Oh, that.”
“I would have liked to be there,” she said wistfully, thinking how the place must have buzzed with excitement, how Despard would have been flying about the kitchen like a demon, creating miracles. “Perhaps when we are next in Town, I can hear all about it. Do we plan to go to London soon?”
The marquess experienced an irrational pang of jealousy. She was his wife now, and those odd friends of hers should no longer matter.
“I thought we would go to Yorkshire first,” he said.
“Yorkshire? Why Yorkshire?”
“I have a house and estates there and it is time I saw both. We shall have a splendid visit. And,” he added quickly, seeing the disappointment in her face, “we can go straight to London on our return, if you wish.”
“Of course.”
“You do not look too happy about the idea.”
“It’s just …”
He stood up and raised her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her and began to kiss her with all his heart and soul. Bond Street, the hotel, Lady Fortescue, Colonel Sandhurst, Sir Philip, and Miss Tonks flickered for a moment in her brain and then whirled away before a wave of passion. It was to be a long time before she saw any of them again.
Sir Philip stumped into Hyde Park. He was hurt and furious and in his heart he blamed Miss Tonks for having delayed the journey home, forgetting he had been a willing party to it.
He walked for a long time under the trees until his rumbling stomach told him he was hungry and his old aching legs told him he was tired.
He barely noticed a plump matron strolling past him until a lace handkerchief fluttered to the ground.
He stooped to pick it up and handed it to her.
“Oh, sir,” she said. “How so very kind you are, to be sure.”
“Not at all, dear lady,” he said with automatic gallantry.
She smiled at him roguishly and he took a closer look at her. She had plump rosy cheeks and small brown eyes. She had an enormous bosom, thrust up so high that two mounds of round flesh peeped over the modest neckline of her gown. “Perhaps you would be so good, sir, to escort me as far as the gate,” she said. “I am a poor widow woman and do not like to walk alone.”
“Gladly,” he said, some of his hurt and fury easing under the flirtatious admiration in her eyes.
“Allow me to introduce myself,” he said. “I am Sir Philip Sommerville.”
“And I am Mrs. Mary Budge,” said the widow. “Lawks! You’re that Sir Philip.”
“What do you mean?” asked Sir Philip uneasily, thinking of a lifetime of misdemeanours.
“Why, the gentleman what owns that hotel in Bond Street. His Majesty was there t’other night.”
“Ah, yes, my hotel,” said Sir Philip, preening before the open admiration in her eyes.
“How did you ever come to think of such an idea, sir? Ever so clever.”
They had reached the gate of the Park. Sir Philip’s stomach gave another undignified rumble.
“In fact,” said Mrs. Budge, “I would dearly love to hear all about it. Perhaps I could beg you to share my modest supper.”
Sir Philip was glad of an opportunity to stay away from the others.
He cheerfully accepted. She said she lived in South Audley Street, but in fact she lived above a mews behind South Audley Street in two little rooms. But once the fire was burning brightly and an excellent meal put on the table, Sir Philip felt at home.
He bragged about how he had started the hotel, omitting to mention that the others were partners in the venture.
She heaved a massive sigh. “I wish I had met you then, before you picked up them other poor relations.” According to Sir Philip, it was he who had found the others. “I’m a poor relation myself. Got hardly two pennies to rub together, and that’s a fact. Let me refill your glass. It’s lovely to entertain a gentleman—a real gentleman—after all this time.”
By the time the poor relations met over the tea-tray the following day, anxiety about Sir Philip’s whereabouts was running high.
“How silly of him to go off in a sulk,” said Lady Fortescue, not for the first time. “How could we possibly let him know the Prince Regent was coming?”
“Where could he
have gone?” fretted Miss Tonks. “He does not know anyone else.”
“He’s probably getting drunk at Limmer’s, as usual,” said the colonel. “I’ll walk along there, if you like.”
“Oh, would you?” Miss Tonks clasped her hands and looked at him appealingly.
Miss Tonks and Lady Fortescue waited anxiously after the colonel went out. Miss Tonks talked about the wedding, trying to remember everything she had failed to tell Lady Fortescue the day before, but after a while it became evident to her that Lady Fortescue wasn’t listening and so she fell silent and both women stared at the door.
At last the colonel returned and sat down heavily. He shook his head. “No one has seen him. There was that fellow, Manderley, there with Mr. Pym, both just returned from Warwick, and both cut me. Probably think we all conspired to entrap the marquess for Mrs. Budley.”
“I hear something,” cried Miss Tonks. And sure enough, they could hear the sound of Sir Philip’s voice as he mounted the stairs.
Miss Tonks ran and opened the door and then stood back with a look of relief which changed rapidly to one of consternation and dismay.
Sir Philip walked into the room leading Mrs. Mary Budge by the hand.
He introduced her proudly all round and then said, “We are five again. I have asked Mrs. Budge to join us.”
“Ever so pleased to meet you,” said Mrs. Budge. “Phil was just saying as how we should all get along champion.”
Miss Tonks, thought the colonel, seemed to be fading by the minute back into the dejected spinster she had been when they had first found her. Lady Fortescue’s face was a mask of hauteur.
The colonel found his voice. “And where is this lady to reside? All our rooms are full.”
“She can share with Miss Tonks,” said Sir Philip.
“Oh, no, she can’t,” said Miss Tonks. “No, no, no!”
“Mrs. Budge can have my room and I’ll move in with the colonel,” said Sir Philip.
“Not in a hundred years,” snapped the colonel.
“Well, what about you, Lady Fortescue?”
Lady Fortescue’s black eyes flashed. “Have you run mad?”
The colonel noticed that Mrs. Budge seemed quite untroubled by this lack of welcome. A smile creased her fat face. She looked as composed and serene as an Eastern idol.
“I’ll find something, my love,” said Sir Philip, patting Mrs. Budge’s plump hand.
Lady Fortescue rose to her feet. “Perhaps you would be so good as to wait downstairs in the hall, Mrs. Budge. We have some business matters to discuss with Sir Philip.”
“Don’t be too long,” said Mrs. Budge, lumbering to her feet and patting Sir Philip’s cheek.
They waited until they heard her heavy bulk descending the stairs.
“That common fishwife is not staying with us,” said Lady Fortescue. “Get rid of her.”
“She’s a decent lady and I say she stays,” said Sir Philip.
Lady Fortescue looked down her nose and then pronounced, “Either she goes, Phil, or I do.”
Sir Philip leaned back in his chair and clasped his little white hands together and surveyed the three outraged partners over them. “Look,” he said in a conciliating voice, “so she’s a bit common, but she’s got bottom.”
“We couldn’t avoid noticing that,” said Miss Tonks with a rare flash of vulgarity. “It’s enormous.”
Sir Philip kept his eyes on Lady Fortescue. “See here,” he wheedled, “humour me for a few days and see how she goes. We need extra help, and she’s a willing helper. That sitting-room in the apartment next door, we never use it. Could put her there for a bit. She says she’s got a tidy nest-egg she’s prepared to turn over to us. Bit rough round the edges, but good at heart.”
“And good in bed?” asked Lady Fortescue with all the outspoken bluntness of the last century.
Sir Philip grinned.
That was when Miss Tonks slapped his face and ran from the room.
“I think,” said the colonel, “that you should tell us what you have been up to with Miss Tonks.”
“Nothing. What’s to get up to with such as Miss Tonks?” demanded Sir Philip. He rose. “Let Mrs. Budge stay. I’ll be responsible for her.” He left and the colonel and Lady Fortescue looked at each other.
“Dear lady,” said the colonel, “surely this is the last straw. You cannot breathe the same air as such a creature. Sell, and come away with me.”
Lady Fortescue’s scarlet lips settled into a firm line. “And have our success snatched away from us because of one fishwife? Never! I will trounce that creature. Your arm, Colonel. It is time to begin the preparations for dinner.”
The colonel did his duty that evening. He waited on society, his courtly head bent over the diners. Society chattered and laughed and whispered and gossiped, waved handkerchiefs and clicked open snuff-boxes. Jewels sent prisms of light flashing about the hotel dining-room. Lady Fortescue proudly went from table to table.
It was no longer a hotel dinner but a social event, and to the colonel it seemed as if the guests would never finish and go away.
But at last it was over. He collected his hat and cane and gloves from the office and strode out into Bond Street. He hesitated on the doorstep and then, with a shrug, turned his steps in the direction of Limmer’s.
The colonel planned to get well and truly drunk.