by M C Beaton
“Do you have children?” asked Arabella.
“No, no children. My wife was in poor health. I think after this famous ball I shall return to the country. I am not really happy in Town.”
Her eyes clouded over. She thought, I would be happy anywhere with him. Why cannot he feel the same for me?
“How is Mr. Davy getting along with Mrs. Budge?” she asked after a short silence.
“That is something we must find out.” She glowed at that “we.” “He is a charming fellow.”
“He sang most beautifully that evening,” said Arabella. “If he is that good, then why is he not employed?”
“Unless one is a Kean, a Garrick, or a Siddons, actors can be easily forgotten. The managers have their favourites. Perhaps I will see if there is anything I can do for him. It is a pity he has been hired to flirt with Mrs. Budge.”
“Why?”
“Miss Tonks is a lonely lady, I think. Mr. Davy is a courteous gentleman.”
“Oh, but Letitia is so unworldly in her way and Mr. Davy would surely find her very tame and dull compared to the actresses he has known.”
“He might find her a refreshing change. I must say the hotel fascinates me. I look forward to spending the evening in their sitting-room. Besides, as I said, I would like to consult them before I approach your mother.”
She turned her pale face up to the sun and sighed, “Ah, that feels so good.”
“Have you no brothers or sisters?” he asked, feeling an odd tug at his heart as he watched her.
“I had two little brothers, twins, but they were carried off in a cholera epidemic. Papa was devoted to the boys. Do you know, much as I mourned their death, I thought perhaps Papa would turn his attention to me, but he became more addicted to sporting pursuits than ever.”
“It must have been a sad blow for your mother.”
“I was very young when they died, but yes, I think it was.”
“And did she never have much time for you?”
“Not very much, but that is often the case with our kind of people, is it not? Nurses and governesses take the place of parents.”
“If I had children, I would cherish them,” he said.
“And I. Do you wish only sons?”
“Of course I would like a boy to carry on my name, but girls would be delightful.”
“What names would you give them?”
He smiled. “I would call the boy something very simple and English, like William or John.” He tugged the braid of her hair. “And I would call the first girl Arabella.”
“In memory of another little girl you once knew?” Her voice was sad.
“Well, my chuck, it is hard to think of you as a grownup lady.”
She winced and he added quickly, “But you are very charming and you will break all hearts at the ball.”
If only I could break yours, she thought wistfully, but the compliment made her heart begin to sing and sing louder the more she thought about it.
“How dusty the trees look,” she said. “They will soon be turning colour, and then winter will come again. I do not like winter in the country, so cold, so dark, so lonely.”
“It need not be like that if one has company.” And yet he thought of his own lonely winters and had a mental picture of a bright and happy Arabella moving about the rooms of his house, playing the piano, talking about everything and anything. “Tell you what,” he said, “I shall invite you and your mama to stay with me for part of the winter. Then we can be lonely together.”
She looked up at him cautiously. “I think perhaps you came to Town to find a bride, for they told me you brought a great many clothes with you and yet you do not appear to be a dandy.”
“I ordered too many. I had been out of the world for so long that I did not want to appear like a countrified squire. But any bride of mine would accept your presence.”
Arabella felt exhausted by her own tumultuous emotions—up one minute, crashing down the next. All her joy at the idea of visiting his home had been dashed by the thought that he might be married by the winter.
“I think I had better return to the hotel,” she said in a small voice.
They walked side by side slowly back to the hotel, hardly speaking, Arabella immersed in sad thoughts and the earl feeling he had said something wrong but not wanting much to examine what it was he had said.
***
Sir Philip had his first stand-up, all-out row with Mrs. Mary Budge that afternoon when he caught her getting ready to go out and she said that she was going driving again with Mr. Davy. At first, she had arranged to meet Mr. Davy when she knew that Sir Philip was otherwise engaged, but although greedy, she was lazy by nature and could not be bothered taking too much trouble to cover up her meetings with the actor.
“I forbid you to go,” snarled Sir Philip.
“Now, my love,” she cooed, “you is often busy with this here hotel, ain’t you? So it don’t do no harm for me to take the air with Mr. Davy, now does it? You’re being a mite unreasonable.”
“A pox on you, you fickle ugly old twat,” howled Sir Philip, jumping up and down. Her face hardened and her massive bosoms heaved in outrage.
“If you don’t watch what you are saying, old man, then I’ll take my favours elsewhere.”
“You do that.” Sir Philip’s voice was rising to a scream. Mr. Davy, outside the door, listened with glee.
Mrs. Budge crammed her bonnet on her head and turned to leave. But she stopped before she got to the door. Mr. Davy had been charming, but he had suggested no liaison, no commitment. To leave Sir Philip meant leaving free meals and board, not to mention the extras supplied by him. Besides, it would not hurt Mr. Davy to be passed over, just this once. She swung round and held out her chubby arms. “Whose precious is all jealous and upset? Come to Mary, sweetheart.” And cajoling and coaxing, she led him to the still-rumpled bed.
Mr. Davy turned quickly away from the door. He went to his own room and sat on the bed. He would have to pitch his suit strongly from now on with Mrs. Budge. She repelled him. At first, she hadn’t seemed so bad, but at each meeting, she grew larger and more gross in his eyes. He gave a weary little sigh. If only Sir Philip knew how very lucky he was, to have this life, this hotel, these friends.
***
Arabella did not dare to borrow any of her mother’s gowns, but she put her hair up in what she hoped was a fair copy of one of the new Roman styles. Then she softly unlocked her door and, with a feeling of adventure, of release, she scampered up the stairs to the hotel’s “staff” sitting-room. She stood outside the door nervously smoothing down her dress and patting her hair before making her entrance.
The earl was not there, she noticed that immediately, and she sat down next to Miss Tonks, fighting down a stabbing pang of worry that he would not come, that the game had ceased to amuse him. Sir Philip had not arrived. Mr. Davy was explaining that he had not been warm enough in his attentions to Mrs. Budge and he intended to change his tactics on the morrow. The colonel shook his hand and called him a brave man.
“Is Denby coming?” Lady Fortescue asked Arabella.
“He said he would be here.”
“There is no allowing for the whims and fancies of young men,” remarked Lady Fortescue, echoing Arabella’s worries.
At that moment, the door opened and the earl came in. Arabella looked down. She was irrationally cross with him for having frightened her by being late. She was also cross with him for his easy affectionate attitude towards her, the attitude of a man towards a child. She could feel a sort of ugly, mulish, sulky expression settling on her face and tried to think of light and happy things but could not. She was so intensely aware of him, of the smoothness of his tanned skin, of his blue eyes, of the strength of his body, and the slim elegance of his powerful hands. He did not sit down next to her. Now that was not possible as she had Mr. Davyon one side of her and Miss Tonks on the other, but she felt he might have asked one of them to move. A clear, cold part of her brain
told her she was being silly in the extreme, but the nasty thoughts would not go away.
She turned to Mr. Davy and smiled up at him in a coquettish way and asked, “Do we really need to wait for Sir Philip? I am sure with your intelligence, Mr. Davy, you can hit on a way of persuading Mama to let me attend this ball.”
Man of the world and actor that he was, Mr. Davy automatically responded to that look by raising her hand to his lips and saying, “You flatter me, miss.”
Miss Tonks threw Arabella an agonized look which went unnoticed by her. The earl, who was talking quietly to Lady Fortescue, noticed that flirtatious look of Arabella’s and Mr. Davy’s kiss and thought with surprise that she really was nothing more than a silly little miss and probably did not merit all the attention she was getting. He gave her a cold look. Arabella promptly began to flirt even harder.
All Miss Tonks’ old loneliness crept back. Not only was Arabella being stupid, but Mr. Davy should have known better than to encourage the naïve attentions of a young lady. She was sadly disappointed in Arabella. Mrs. Budley would never have behaved in such a way.
Lady Fortescue, sharper than Miss Tonks, knew exactly why Arabella was behaving so badly. She looked back down the years and remembered behaving just that way because she wanted the one man in the room who was indifferent to her.
Sir Philip came in and looked sourly about him. He sat down in a corner, emitting a “humph.”
“Although you are going to have nothing to do with the ball, Sir Philip,” said Lady Fortescue, “we will now start the proceedings because of the expense we will need to lay out on the event, an expense, I may add, which we hope to recoup. Now, as we cannot say outright that the Prince Regent will be attending, for he may change his mind, we must nonetheless put the fact about unofficially. Perhaps you would be so good as to help us there, Lord Denby?”
“Gladly,” he said in a flat voice, although he was beginning to regret having said he would have anything to do with this ball. Who was Arabella Carruthers anyway? Nothing more than an empty-headed miss.
Sensing his disapproval, Arabella said quickly, “Lord Denby agreed with me earlier that perhaps if Mama were to think he meant to marry her, and that he might be my new father, she would listen to him about allowing me to go to the ball.”
“Now that I have had time for reflection, I think that idea a trifle tiresome,” said the earl.
Arabella stared at him wide-eyed, a flush beginning to rise up her cheeks.
“Dear me,” commented Lady Fortescue acidly. “Now that you have been so good as to get the tacit acceptance of the Prince Regent, Lord Denby, we must go ahead with it, although it seems a great pity to me that as the ball was originally to bring out Miss Carruthers that she should stay in.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” said the colonel, glancing at Arabella’s distressed face in sympathy.
“It won’t work.” Arabella’s voice was low. “She did not listen to you before.”
Sir Philip got up and went and stood in front of the fireplace.
“What a mess you’ve all been making of a simple problem,” he said with contempt. “I will get Lady Carruthers to give her permission.”
Lady Fortescue gave a little sigh of relief. Arabella looked doubtfully at Sir Philip. He was not wearing his wig and his sparse white hair clung to his pink old man’s scalp. He was in his undress, that of slippers and a disgracefully shabby old Oriental dressing-gown. He did not look an imposing figure. Her distress that the earl had seemingly abandoned her cause became too much for her.
She stood up, a small but dignified figure, and said in a small voice, “If you will excuse me, I have the headache.”
“I will come with you, Arabella.” Miss Tonks rose to her feet as well.
“No, no,” she said rapidly, and almost ran from the room.
Lady Fortescue briskly got down to business. The invitations would be written out and sent the following day. The preliminary invitations would be in the form of letters. Only those who paid up the large sum demanded would receive that magic gilt-edged card of definite invitation.
Without asking the earl again for his permission, she decided to phrase the initial onslaught as being sponsored by the Earl of Denby, Lady Fortescue, Colonel Sandhurst, Sir Philip Sommerville and Miss Tonks. The price of attendance would be fifty guineas per head, profits to go to the army.
The earl listened bemused as these aristocrats toted up sums and subtracted others, discussed menus and decorations with efficient ease. The business finally having been settled, Lady Fortescue rang the bell and ordered wine and cakes.
But Sir Philip, now that he felt he was restored to favour, concentrated his attention on his rival who, that evening, had his hair powdered.
“We must be sure to make a profit from this ball,” said Sir Philip, glaring at Mr. Davy’s head, “for it is not as if all of us are rich enough to powder our heads.”
Hair powder was first taxed in 1786, when a duty of a penny on all powders sold at under two shillings a pound was imposed, with higher rates for the more expensive varieties. Then, from 1795, all persons powdering their hair were required to take out an annual licence costing a guinea. There were special terms for fathers with more than two unmarried daughters, and for servants; but those who only wore powder occasionally complained that they were being as highly rated as those who were in constant practice of powdering. This tax, it is said, hit the hairdressers hard: even so, in its first year it yielded £210,136. A number of people were prosecuted for failing to possess licences. Among them was Lady Bessborough, who was examined by the Middlesex justices for some three hours in March of 1798. A snooping informer read a long list of occasions on which she and others of her household had used hair powder; and her ladyship added to the list by confessing to have worn powder when she went to divine services at St. Paul’s. Since she had, in fact, given her servant the money for taking out her licence, which he had not done, her fine was reduced from £240 to £60. Over 46,000 still paid the duty in 1812: thereafter the numbers gradually decreased. The distress caused by poor harvests and the war caused certain ladies to say they left off wearing hair powder out of patriotism. But as only poor-quality hair powder contained a small proportion of flour, the better variety being mostly of talc, it was assumed they just did not want to pay the tax.
Mr. Davy smiled sweetly on Sir Philip and refused to rise to the old man’s gibe. Although this annoyed Sir Philip greatly because he liked to think of himself as a Machiavellian type of person who never let his temper get the better of him, he had not quite worked out in his mind that his current jealousy of Mr. Davy was beginning to spring not from Mr. Davy’s courtship of Mrs. Mary Budge but because of the man’s looks and wealth and younger years. Also, that silly sheep of a woman, Miss Tonks, kept gazing on this Mr. Davy with adoring eyes. Sir Philip had just made love to Mrs. Budge, or rather what usually passed for making love among the gentlemen of the Regency; that is, the quickest, shortest intercourse possible. The lady’s feelings were never taken into account. Ladies were not supposed to have passions, even ladies such as Mrs. Budge. Only tarts enjoyed it. So the idea of actually “making love” to Mrs. Budge had never entered the old man’s head any more than it had entered it in the affairs of his youth. So with his lusts recently satisfied, Sir Philip felt that Mr. Davy no longer stood a chance with the widow and so he hated him for himself alone.
“I like a man with his hair powdered,” simpered Miss Tonks.
“Oh, what do you know about men, you old spinster?” jeered Sir Philip.
Miss Tonks gazed on Sir Philip’s pink scalp. “More than you know about hair, you old fool,” she said. “Doesn’t your scalp get cold lying about bare like that?”
“Children, children,” mocked Lady Fortescue. “Let us have harmony. Sir Philip, now that my Lord Denby has backed down, I am delighted and pleased that you have decided to tackle Lady Carruthers.”
“Yes, indeed,” seconded the colonel gruffly. “No one
can handle a difficult situation like you, Philip.”
The rare use of his first name, the rare praise from a man he often regarded as his rival made Sir Philip glow. His mercurial spirits rose. He patted Miss Tonks’ hand and said, “We are always quarrelling, are we not? But we must not quarrel, not when you are looking so pretty.”
And so for the second time in her life, she had been called pretty, and Miss Tonks glowed with happiness.
The earl felt shut out from all the “family” bonhomie. They had each in their way silently damned him for refusing to help Arabella.
He rose and made his farewells to the company and was well aware that all were relieved to see him go.
Feeling strangely diminished, he made his way downstairs. He hesitated outside the door of Lady Carruthers’s apartment and then knocked loudly on it, knowing that Arabella could surely hear him, even from her bedroom. He waited and waited, but no Arabella came to answer the door.
But Arabella, with the pillows over her head and crying into the sheet, had not heard him.
Chapter Six
The devil, depend upon it,
can sometimes do a
very gentlemanly thing.
—ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
Arabella awoke with a feeling that her young life was at an end. She had behaved in a way to give the earl a disgust of her. And in the clear light of day in a locked hotel bedroom, she had little hope that Sir Philip would achieve what Lady Fortescue and Colonel Sandhurst had failed to do. But she could not help hoping that Sir Philip would clean himself up a bit for the audience with her mother and not appear in his undress and wearing his second-best teeth, which were of wood.
In the afternoon, she heard her mother and servants go out. She sat moodily in a chair by the window, too depressed to take out that precious key and allow herself some freedom.
Then she heard an urgent scratching at the door and Miss Tonks’ voice whispering, “Let me in, Arabella.”