by May Burnett
James shook his head without replying, took the note and folded it carefully before putting it in his pocket. Together the two friends made their way to the dining room.
“I could do with a bite”, James said. Alphonse gestured to a hovering waiter and ordered the day’s special menu for both of them.
“And bring us a bottle of claret”, he added.
“A bit early for claret,” James demurred.
“Nonsense, you can’t eat a full meal without at least a glass, James. I really have to wonder at you. No interest in ladybirds, and now you refuse alcoholic beverages. Are you planning to join the clergy, by any chance?”
“I’ve never met a clergyman who didn’t like his drink”, James said, momentarily diverted. “Apart from Quakers and Methodists and other such queer birds, of course.”
“And how many of those have you met, hmm?”
“There was a Methodist preacher near Amberley some years ago. He left for the colonies, I believe. But never mind all that, I have more important things to talk about.”
“So, talk.”
“This has to remain in strict confidence, mind, Alphonse.”
“Of course.”
“I need to get my hand on some papers kept in a solicitor’s chambers. The solicitor died months ago, and his surviving nephew has apparently not accepted that fact. He still speaks of his uncle as though he’d come back any moment, and will not touch those files which the old man handled by himself.”
“A crazy solicitor, is it? That’s a new problem. Let me think.”
“I suppose a burglar could easily get into the chambers at night, but I don’t know any, and besides I don’t want to take that kind of criminal into my confidence. Who knows if he wouldn’t hold the papers to ransom, or put two and two together and try to blackmail me afterwards?”
“I see your point. And before you ask, no, I don’t know any burglars, either.”
“If I knew how to pick a lock I’d try to do it myself, but it’s not the sort of thing they taught us at Eton.”
“More’s the pity. It would be more useful than all that classic Greek.”
The waiter brought the first course, turbot, and both started to replenish their forces.
“If the solicitor is mad,” Alphonse suggested, “couldn’t you have him carted off to Bedlam?”
“The chambers would still be locked, and who knows how many months it would take for the law to sort out all his abandoned cases? It can’t wait that long.” James helped himself to some Brussels sprouts. “And although I disliked the man, I wouldn’t want to be responsible for sending anyone to Bedlam. I’d rather be dead, myself, than to be locked up there. Unless Phimes becomes dangerous and violent that is not an option.”
“Phimes being the mad solicitor? Hmm. Well, if burglary and Bedlam are out, you have to trick the papers out of him. Who would be most likely to impress or intimidate him? Maybe we could send a pretty girl?”
“No, a woman would be useless, he fears and distrusts them.” James thought back to the scene in the chambers. “Maybe an older man like his uncle might do the trick.”
“Then nothing is easier. Go to a theatrical agency and find the right type of actor. He goes in, claims to come on the uncle’s behalf, and walks out with whatever papers you need.”
“Well, it’s worth a try,” James agreed.
“And after you have the papers?”
“Jonathan has sent me the name of a young and sharp solicitor. I’m supposed to meet him later today. If he seems reliable, then I’ll put the papers into his hands to carry on with probate and all those tedious legal things.”
“Jonathan always knows how to find the right people for any job, but I, my friend, know where you can find a good theatrical agency.” Alphonse raised his glass. “We can drop by as soon as we’ve finished lunch.”
“You know, I think I’ll have some claret after all“, James said, filling and raising his own glass. “Thanks!”
“Has Conway paid up yet, by the way?”
“No, but he still has some leeway. That was the supposed reason why I bought his debt off you, remember.”
“Do let me know how that works out.”
“It seems that Conway lives with a rich wife on Half Moon street, but he gave me an address in Bloomsbury. My valet speculates that he might have a convenient hidden there.”
“Dashed bad form, not to give you his primary address,” Alphonse said, shaking his head as he started on his syllabub. “Do we know this wife of his?”
“I’m told her father is a rich tea and cotton merchant.”
“That explains how he can afford to gamble so high, then.”
“Only until he runs through her dowry, and his credit. Surely he must be near the limit, from the way he had to ask for a postponement.”
“And you’re still determined to rid the city of this fellow?”
“More than ever.”
“Well, here’s a toast to your success in this worthy endeavour.”
+++
Taking advantage of the improved weather, Charlotte and Minerva were walking in Hyde Park, chaperoned by Minerva’s governess, Miss Montague. Charlotte had not been used to the need for chaperons in Yorkshire, and if her married status were known, she would have had a great deal more freedom – unless they threw her into the Fleet for fraud, she gloomily reflected.
Miss Montague was a gentlewoman in her forties who had fallen upon hard times. Her lot in the Amberley household could not be a very happy one, Charlotte would have guessed; but from what she gleaned in their conversation, it seemed that Miss Montague had no particular problems with Lady Amberley, who hardly noticed her existence. She seemed very fond of the absent Lord Amberley and James, and regretted that her older pupil, Lady Jennifer, was spending most of her time in Bristol these days. Minerva and she seemed to have an excellent understanding between them. Maybe that was for the best, Charlotte thought, when your mother hardly ever saw you.
“So when are you going to a ball again?” Minerva asked Charlotte.
“Tomorrow your mother is planning to take me to the Chambord rout.”
“Oh, a rout,” Minerva said knowingly. “Those are dead bores, without any dancing, Jennifer told me. You just walk around and talk to people.”
“And from there we are to go on to the Merrivilles’ dinner party.”
“The food will be excellent, but again, no dancing.”
“The food is excellent at Amberley House, too. One goes to dinner parties for the company and conversation.”
“When I am out,” Minerva declared, “I’ll only attend balls with music, at least one every night during the season. And masquerades.”
“Your mother might have something to say to that,” Miss Montague interjected.
“No need to worry about it now,” Charlotte said with false cheer. “Let’s rather look at all these people, and you can tell me which of them you recognize.”
“That fat one over there is the Duke of Clarence,” Minerva immediately said, with good humour. “One of Prinny’s younger brothers.”
Miss Montague winced. “Lady Minerva! Please remember how to speak of the members of the ruling house!”
“Nobody speaks of them with any respect, why should I?” Minerva returned, quite unabashed.
Charlotte tried to look at the fat gentleman without openly staring, planning to describe him to Belinda in her next letter.
“And over there, that is the notorious Lady Bexham, with the dark blue hat,” Minerva went on.
“Why is she notorious?” Charlotte asked, against her better judgement.
“I’m not sure. Everyone calls her that,” Minerva said, showing that she was not quite as sophisticated as she tried to appear. Charlotte suppressed a smile.
“Nothing all that terrible,” Miss Montague told them. “She remarried before the end of the mourning year, but her first husband was so very unpopular that many found it understandable.”
“Oh, is that a
ll?” Minerva seemed disappointed. “It hardly seems bad enough to be called notorious.”
“But you know how unforgiving society is, Lady Minerva. Especially in a woman, the slightest infraction will be remembered for the rest of her life.”
“What a terrible thought.” Minerva’s comment echoed Charlotte’s silent reaction.
“I don’t know that gentleman and lady over there, but he is staring at you. Do you know him?” Minerva tilted her head leftwards. Charlotte looked, and missed a step.
Peter, of all the people in London, with a young woman on his arm! She knew she should avert her head and act as though she did not know him, but in her surprise, was slow to act.
The young woman followed Conway’s gaze, and looked at Charlotte with a hostile, almost truculent expression. Charlotte noted the frilly and expensive pink dress, suitable for a young matron rather than an unmarried girl, and the possessive way she clung to Peter’s arm. The young woman looked to be about her own real age, and could not by any stretch of the imagination be called a beauty, especially with this hard look in her eyes. She was a brunette, and painfully thin.
He’s all yours, Charlotte thought, and finally looked back at Minerva. “The man looks a bit familiar, but I don’t remember if we’ve met. These balls are so very crowded. I’m sure I’ve never seen the woman before.” She hated the necessity to lie, but there was nothing for it.
“Oh, well then.” Minerva hadn’t noticed anything out of the common. “Over to your right, Lady Jersey is bearing down on us. She is one of the patronesses of Almack’s.”
“I’ve been introduced to her at the Sefton ball,” Charlotte murmured, greeting her Ladyship, who graciously stopped for a moment to compliment her on her parasol.
Just as Lady Jersey was turning away, the young lady in pink, without her escort, rapidly approached their group. She had eyes only for Charlotte.
“Stay away from my husband!” She cried in a carrying voice.
Lady Jersey stared; Miss Montague and Minerva recoiled, nonplussed.
Charlotte raised her brows. “I am sorry, do I know you?” she replied with aristocratic hauteur.
The young woman threw a truculent look around her, noticing the pitying and mocking glances of several bystanders, and paled. “You know why! Just leave him alone!”
“My good woman,” Charlotte said, forcing herself to sound calm, “I assure you I don’t even know who your husband is, and have not the least interest in him.”
Turning to Miss Montague and Minerva, who had been listening with open mouths, she suggested, “Shall we leave this park for the company of some people of better breeding?”
“Yes, indeed,” Miss Montague immediately agreed. They turned away, conscious of several avid observers of this little scene. The woman in pink seemed about to stamp her foot, then rapidly left in a different direction.
“A madwoman,” Miss Montague said in distress. “How very unfortunate. And to make a scene in front of so many people! One never knows how they will interpret that sort of thing. We will have to tell Lady Amberley right away.”
“I wonder - where was the man she came with during all this time?” Minerva asked. “I don’t think she was mad, just mistaken. Maybe that man put her up to it.”
“Why should he do that?” Miss Montague shook her head. “No, whatever the reason, this is dangerous to your reputation, Miss Yardley. You kept your nerve admirably, but people will talk, no matter how innocent you are. Oh dear! Lady Amberley will know what had best be done.”
Charlotte doubted it. Just how quickly could she leave town, and go back to her peaceful Manor in Yorkshire?
Chapter 16
After finishing the last of several house calls, Dr. Richard Seymour turned his gig homewards, to partake of luncheon with his wife, and tell her all that was happening in the little town of Burchford. He followed this custom whenever his medical duties made it possible, about two days out of every three.
Though hardly larger than an overgrown village, Burchford had proudly born the name of town since medieval times. Richard Seymour was the only doctor residing there, and despite the healthy Yorkshire climate he was kept very busy, as several adjoining estates and hamlets also depended solely on his services.
Their own cook had prepared a simple but hearty meal; the delicious poppy seed cake and apricot pudding of the sweet course had been sent over by the cook of Brinkley Manor, currently underemployed in the absence of the ladies of the house.
After telling Belinda that he suspected Mrs. Peters to be carrying twins, - again – he noted a slight hesitation in her.
“Is anything the matter, sweetheart?”
“No, not at all. I just have a request. This morning I received a letter, presumably from Charlie, and I’m on tenterhooks to know what she writes. Could you read it to me now, before going back to your practice?”
“Certainly, unless she wrote you a whole novel.” Richard knew that Charlotte had travelled to London to look into their legal situation, and it seemed only natural that she should report to her sister.
Belinda took the letter out of her pocket and held it out to him.
“It is directed to Mrs. Richard Seymour, at our address,” he said. “Not sealed. Hmm. Not too many people know of our marriage.”
“Open it!”
Richard went to get a sharp knife from a drawer, and did so.
“Well, it certainly looks like Charlie’s handwriting,” he observed, and began to read.
“London, May 23rd
My dearest Bel and Richard,
I hope you are well and all is in order both in your cottage and at the Manor. I cannot help wishing I was still there, instead of this huge and noisy city. The dust, the mass of a million bodies, and the dirt and smells of some areas are quite overwhelming.
I reside in a far more respectable neighbourhood, of course, so am sheltered from the worst sights. However, I have had occasion to see St. Paul’s Cathedral and several other monuments already, and passed through some very diverse areas on the way.
The ladies and gentlemen of fashionable society are no different from the rest of us, as I had always suspected, except in their ineradicable conviction that they are superior. And in the enormous importance they attach to their clothes, hats, shoes, and always being in the latest fashion. I am told that a single lapse in taste is rarely forgotten.”
Richard glanced at his wife. She seemed absorbed in the letter’s contents, and so far, unworried.
“I am going to your solicitor’s office tomorrow, Bel, and hope to have more information about your inheritance soon. Your cousin James, the Earl’s younger brother, is taking me in his phaeton – a most fashionable, very high vehicle indeed, painted in glossy black and silver, and drawn by a pair of magnificent greys.”
Richard paused. “You didn’t tell me that she was planning to meet your relatives, Bel. I’m not at all sure that involving them is a good idea.”
“She is actually staying with Lady Amberley, Richard.”
He was surprised and concerned. “How did that come about? From your description of your Aunt Amberley, I took them to be very high on the instep. And Charlie, though of course we all love her, is no relative of theirs, and in any case – err – not an entirely legitimate member of the family, or at least that is how they would see it.”
“Yes, well,” Belinda looked a little guilty, “I’m afraid they think she is me, Richard. When Lady Amberley invited me, to marry me off to some dull Lord or other, I persuaded Charlotte to go instead.”
“Bel! Please tell me you’re joking!” Richard could not believe what he was hearing.
Belinda bit her lips before going on. “Well, it all seemed so providential – the carriage to be sent, and the invitation coming just as we were both at our wits’ end how to get hold of my inheritance. Since the Amberleys have no notion of Charlie’s existence, and she could easily pass for me, it seemed a neat solution.”
Dr. Seymour was speechless, as muc
h at his wife’s matter-of-fact tone as at the information she conveyed.
“Charlie didn’t really want to do it,” Belinda went on, “but I persuaded her. You know that the estate is in desperate need of capital. If we are not to see our tenants starve, we had to do something, and this chance just fell into our laps.”
“But it places Charlie in an impossible situation – didn’t you see that? If the Amberleys find out that they have introduced the wrong girl to the highest society, it must cause a terrible scandal. Charlie can always come back here, but they’ll also be humiliated. I know you dislike them, and they have unjustly ignored you, but surely they don’t deserve that?”
“Would it really be so dreadful, Richard?” Belinda sounded a little daunted.
Richard was about to expostulate farther, but remembered that Belinda, for all her outward assurance, did not have any extensive experience of society. Her gradual blindness and the mourning year for her father had led her to live a very retired and in some respects sheltered life, and even now, she was only twenty-one.
“Sweetheart, I’m sure you meant well, but you don’t know enough about the world to judge the possible consequences of this ill-judged manoeuver.”
Hearing her husband’s serious tone, Belinda was crestfallen. “But – Aunt Amberley is the kind who deserves a little humiliation, Richard. You should have heard the stories mother told us about her youth. Still, if you think it was so badly done, we should write back and tell Charlie to depart as soon as she can.”
“I suppose it is mostly my fault”, Richard said gloomily. “I should have taken more interest in your problems and inheritance myself. As your husband, it really is my duty, not Charlie’s.”
“You already have so many duties, Richard. We quite understood that you did not want to assume that burden.”
“I should have found a way.” He sighed. “Let’s see what else this letter says.”
“There is one unforeseen complication. Yesterday for the first time I attended a ball in the residence of Lord and Lady Sefton. It was a terrible squeeze, not nearly as pleasant I had hoped, and would have been torture in less comfortable shoes.