by M C Beaton
“Then you shall have some,” smiled Mrs. Abber. “I shall send a tray to your room.”
Amaryllis looked around the bright, friendly kitchen. “Couldn’t I stay here and eat them . . . just once?” she pleaded.
“ ’Twouldn’t be fitting, miss. You may join me in my parlor, if you wish.”
“James has been sent out on an errand,” put in the cook, Mrs. Palmer. “No one’s going to say anything if miss would like to stay.”
And so Amaryllis settled down to toasted muffins dripping with butter, crumpets, and seed cake. Then she helped cook roll the pastry, getting flour on her nose and over her dress and apron. The kitchen was warm and cheerful and full of bustle as servants came and went. The big fire crackled away merrily while a boy turned a sheep on the spit.
Most of the meals were cooked in closed, coal-burning stoves, but large roasts were still turned over the open fire, just as they had been roasted in the centuries before.
Mrs. Abber left to supervise the stillroom. She had unfortunately forgotten the predilection of county gentlemen for invading the kitchens after a day’s shooting.
And so Amaryllis, flushed and floury, was found by the Marquess of Merechester and the rest of the gentlemen as they erupted into the kitchens by way of the back door.
Lord Warburton fortunately did not even see Amaryllis but muttered something about going upstairs to eject an unwelcome caller. The servants pinned smiles on their faces and looked as if it were a great honor to entertain the upstairs party at the servants’ table when, in fact, every one of them wished their aristocratic visitors a mile away. Even such a small house party as this meant extra work and long hours. Now precious time had to be found to make special cakes and brew tea and decant wine.
Amaryllis moved over to the kitchen sink and tipped some water into a basin and washed her hands. She hoped the cook would not bring her to the attention of the guests.
Game bags were unpacked and birds taken away to be hung. Sir Gareth and Mr. Giles-Denton eventually went off arm in arm. The Marquess and Mr. Chalmers sat down at a corner of the kitchen table. Amaryllis half turned around and stole a look at them. The Marquess was wearing an old plush game coat and leather breeches and boots with dark tops. He was lounging back in his chair, one foot up on the bar of the next chair and his hands thrust into his pockets.
“I’m glad Warburton is such a dreadful shot,” he was saying. “I really cannot approve of the senseless slaughter of game. ‘Don’t kill what you don’t mean to eat’ is my motto. But Warburton was banging away like a madman. He nearly bagged Sir Gareth. I suppose we had better join the ladies. This visit was not a good idea.”
“And Miss Duvane is in residence after all,” said Mr. Chalmers slyly. “Still twang the old heartstrings, does she?”
“Don’t be vulgar,” said the Marquess, taking his hands out of his pockets and helping himself to hot muffins. “She is a ghost of the girl I knew, and a very faded one at that.”
The cook, Mrs. Palmer, bridled. The Quality, she knew, were apt to go on as if the servants were deaf, but they had no right to discuss poor little Miss Duvane and she not a foot away from them.
Amaryllis was carefully beginning to edge quietly from the kitchen when Mrs. Palmer said loudly, “Thank you for your help, Miss Duvane.”
The Marquess looked up quickly, and his hard blue gaze raked over Amaryllis from the dab of flour on her nose to the serviceable half boots on her feet.
“Do join us, Miss Duvane,” he said in a bored voice.
“No thank you, my lord,” said Amaryllis, bobbing a curtsy. “I am sure you will enjoy your discussion of me so much better when I am absent.”
“No doubt,” he said indifferently. “Tell me, Chalmers, have you hunted this country before? Evans says we may go out tomorrow if the ground is not too hard.”
Amaryllis stalked out of the kitchen, her legs trembling.
“Not like you to be so rude,” mumbled Mr. Chalmers. “I mean, she’s obviously not treated very well here.”
“She would be treated better, I am persuaded, if she did not set out to make a deliberate martyr of herself,” rejoined the Marquess acidly. “Creeping about the kitchens like a scullion!”
“Well, I ain’t staying here in this house much longer if the very sight of her is going to turn you so nasty,” said Mr. Chalmers hotly.
“I apologize. Let us forget about her. Do you think Miss Cissie will suit me as a bride?”
“Giggles an awful lot, don’t she?”
“They all do, dear boy,” said the Marquess wearily. “They all do.”
Upstairs, Lord Warburton was trying to speed an unwanted guest on his way. The guest was an impoverished Irish peer named Arthur Donnelly. Lord Donnelly had once been a favored guest at the Warburton residence, but that was when they thought he had money and before they realized he was an Irish peer, although only someone as stupid as Lord Warburton would think anyone with a name like Donnelly was anything else.
He was a slim, engaging man in his thirties with an open, fresh, handsome face and a pair of laughing blue eyes. Occasionally he returned to his native shores to wring some money out of his ungrateful tenants, but since they were courageous and stubborn as well as being quite terribly poor, he usually got only enough out of them to cover the cost of his visit. He had learned to use his pleasing manner and appearance to keep himself well housed and fed by inviting himself to house parties and staying as long as possible.
He had, however, outstayed his welcome at many of the noble houses around the south of England and so had started to begin at the beginning again by sponging off the Warburtons.
For all his brutal and boorish manner, Lord Warburton did not excel in the genteel art of speeding the thick-skinned, unwanted guest on his way, and so he had already spent a great deal of time humming and hawing and talking about lack of beds and uncongenial company, all of which fell on apparently deaf ears.
By the time it had occurred to Lord Warburton that he should have left this delicate matter to his wife, he found that he had somehow agreed to let the irritating Irish peer stay. He comforted himself with the thought that neither of his daughters had ever shown the slightest interest in Donnelly.
Lord Warburton then went in search of his wife to break the unwelcome news to her.
She turned frosty eyes on her blustering lord. “I have enough to do housing and feeding Amaryllis without having another penniless sponger thrust upon me. He may stay one night, but you will tell him at breakfast that he must pack and leave immediately. I will not have Lord Merechester’s courtship of Cissie spoiled in any way.”
“Don’t see how something that don’t exist can be spoiled,” muttered Lord Warburton.
“Nonsense! He was quite enchanted with her last night. He finally recognized Amaryllis and did not like what he saw one little bit. We must give a ball while Merechester is here. It will be very rushed, but I think I can get most of the county to come. No one who is anyone is in London in November.”
“You’d best ask some young people,” pointed out her husband.
“Merechester is not exactly young. He is quite middle-aged in fact.”
“He’s around thirty, which ain’t exactly his dotage. But it would seem odd if you had only the older people of the county present.”
“I am well aware of that,” snapped Lady Warburton. “Fortunately there are no girls for miles around who can hope to compete with Cissie and Agatha.”
“I don’t know. Have you never wondered, my love, why it is they do not seem precisely to take? They’ve both had one Season already and no one showed any signs of coming up to the mark.”
“They are very young and hard to please,” said his wife with an indulgent smile. “Their manners are perhaps a trifle too playful and sprightly.”
“Well, don’t underrate Amaryllis. ‘Member young Sir Jerry Struthers? Handsome chap, and Agatha and Cissie seemed interested in him. Very. But he spent a lot of the time on calls sitting i
n the corner cozing with Amaryllis, and when you became aware of the fact and kept Amaryllis away during his future calls . . . well, he stopped callin’.”
“He was sorry for her. You refined too much upon it. Her very drabness makes her a good foil for our girls’ beauty and youth. Merechester has certainly taken her in dislike. Mark my words, he won’t even look in her direction again.”
Such seemed to be the case that evening. Amaryllis appeared dutifully in the drawing room before dinner wearing an old drab brown dress. She had removed her cap, and her hair was scraped back so tightly from her face that it made it look thinner than ever. Her eyelids had a bruised look. Lady Warburton was so pleased at the miserable picture Amaryllis presented that she graciously told the butler to lay a place at table for Miss Duvane.
Lady Warburton noticed with satisfaction that the Marquess looked only once at Amaryllis during dinner and then quickly glanced away as if what he saw offended his fastidious eye.
The Bostonian Lady Evans found Amaryllis’s status a great puzzle. Who was this female who was servant one moment and guest the next?
Amaryllis was seated next to Sir Gareth with Mr. Chalmers on her other side. She was a good listener, and Sir Gareth blossomed forth in conversation. Then Mr. Chalmers politely engaged her attention by reminding her that it was some time since they had last met.
He told her he had been at the wars and was startled at her knowledge of the Peninsular campaigns, since most ladies seemed totally unaware that they were even at war with France.
Mr. Chalmers found he was beginning to enjoy himself. He had not realized until he began talking into Amaryllis’s sympathetic ear how much he missed his regiment. After some time, he could not help thinking that there was still a rare beauty in Amaryllis which was apparent when one studied her closely. The bruised color of her eyelids, probably caused by a sleepless night, made her large gray eyes look even larger. Her lashes, he noticed, were very long and thick. Her movements were graceful and delicate. If she wore her hair in a more fashionable style, he thought, by Jove, she could still break hearts.
His gaze became admiring. Lord Donnelly was chattering away with his usual Irish charm, but his eyes were busy. He was wondering whether to try his hand with one of the Warburton girls.
He had no mind to marry, but a large dowry was certainly a temptation. His roving eye fell on Amaryllis. Interesting woman. In repose, she looked quite the country mouse, the resident spinster. When she was animated, a sort of shadow of great beauty fell upon her face like sunlight on still, dark water.
The ladies retired and the gentlemen settled down to discuss the day’s sport. Lord Donnelly told several very long, very amusing, and quite fictitious stories of shooting parties he had known, with the result that the gentlemen were quite a long time in joining the ladies.
Lady Warburton was not amused, as was shown by her decidedly frosty face when the gentlemen at last arrived in the drawing room. She put their delay—quite rightly—down to the pernicious influence of Lord Donnelly.
Cissie and Agatha had been pouting and yawning before their arrival and had just begun on their favorite sport of baiting Amaryllis and were loath to give it up.
Mrs. Johnston had drunk more wine than was good for her and from being a quiet, reticent Scottish lady she became extremely garrulous. She plumped herself down on the sofa beside Lady Warburton and began to expound on the iniquities of the Englishman’s overt prejudice against members of her race.
“Goodness, it is hot,” said Cissie, ogling the Marquess. “Ammy, do run and fetch my fan, and do it this time. I asked you last night but I declare the years are making you deaf.”
Amaryllis rose hurriedly to her feet. “Now there’s the prettiest fan you ever did see,” cried Lord Donnelly, picking up a chicken-skin fan from a side table. “Would this be the one you are wanting, Miss Cissie?”
“That is your fan, Cissie,” said Amaryllis quietly.
“I don’t want this one,” said Cissie pettishly. “You are so lazy, Ammy. Run up to my room this minute and fetch the green one with the spangles.”
Amaryllis made to leave, but the Marquess held up his hand.
“Have your servants all fallen sick of the plague, Lady Warburton?” he asked in a clear, carrying voice.
Lady Warburton, who had just managed to extricate herself from Mrs. Johnston, came hurrying up.
“No, Merechester, of course not. What is it you wish?”
“ ’Tis not I, but your daughter who wishes a fan brought from her room. Miss Duvane has been ordered to fetch it. Since Miss Duvane is not a servant, I can only assume she is being ordered about thus because you are sadly understaffed.”
“Cissie was teasing, of course,” said Lady Warburton with a sweet smile at her eldest. “I am sure you can do without that particular fan, my darling. Amaryllis, there is no need for you to stand around looking helpless. I am sure the company would appreciate some music.”
Amaryllis went quietly over to the pianoforte. Lord Donnelly with a wicked look in his eye followed her over and volunteered to turn the music. “And if you can find a good Irish ballad, ma’am,” he said cheerfully, “I will raise my voice in song.”
Amaryllis began to play “Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms,” the song that Tom Moore had written about poor Kitty Packenham, who had waited so long to marry the Duke of Wellington.
Agatha tittered as the last golden note of Lord Donnelly’s Irish tenor voice faded away. “I think ‘dear ruin’ is an apt description of our Ammy, do you not, Cissie?” Cissie screamed with laughter and glanced up at the Marquess to see if he appreciated the joke, but the Marquess was watching Lord Donnelly bending over Amaryllis with an unreadable expression on his face.
Amaryllis and Lord Donnelly then sang a duet, their voices harmonizing beautifully. Lord Donnelly was flirting quite outrageously with Amaryllis.
He had correctly summed up her position in the household and knew that any attention paid to her would cause mischief, and Lord Donnelly loved mischief. He knew it might also make the Warburton girls interested in him, since both seemed to be inordinately jealous of the quiet Miss Duvane.
Desperate to turn the masculine attention from Amaryllis, Cissie waited impatiently until the duet was finished and cried, “The saloon is still ready for dancing, Mama. Ammy can play for us.”
Lord Donnelly added his voice to Cissie’s pleas. He considered the time now ripe for a little judicious flirtation with the Warburton girls.
Lady Warburton gave her approval.
The Marquess was glad of the addition of the ebullient Lord Donnelly to the party. With Mr. Chalmers partnering Agatha and Lord Donnelly partnering Cissie, he did not feel obliged to dance.
He found Lady Evans at his elbow. “Tell me, Lord Merechester,” she said, “whether it is customary to use a poor female relative as a sort of drudge. I find that Miss Duvane is Lady Warburton’s niece. I assume she must be poor or they would not dare to use her thus. Do you think she minds? She is so quiet.”
“I think Miss Duvane allows herself to be bullied,” said the Marquess, raising his quizzing glass and glaring at Amaryllis’s slender back. “Miss Duvane shows a sad want of spirit. That attitude postively encourages bullying.”
“Indeed! But should Miss Duvane make any sort of stand, they might turn her out of doors.”
“They would not dare,” he said coldly, lowering his glass. “Such behavior would cause a scandal and it would be accounted very bad ton.”
“Life in England is very different from life in America.”
“Come, ma’am. That I do not believe. You must have your poor relations in Boston, living on their relatives’ charity as they do here.”
“We are all equal.”
“Now, now,” he teased, “you know that is not true. On the contrary, I hear you suffer for it. You do not feel it right to have servants and so you do not know how to treat them. The servants feel the equal of their masters and are therefore discon
tented and do their work badly. Pretending you do not have inequality in fact creates a great degree of discontent.”
“Perhaps what you say may be true, but I consider the treatment of Miss Duvane, whether merited or not, vulgar in the extreme, and such a thing would not happen in Boston.”
“You may have the right of it,” conceded the Marquess.
“And furthermore,” went on Lady Evans, “I do not think Miss Duvane realizes that the Warburtons would not dare turn her out.”
“Then why don’t you tell her?”
“Oh, I shall, my lord. I shall indeed.”
Sir Gareth came up to claim his wife’s hand for the next dance.
The Marquess strolled forward and stood behind Amaryllis. She sensed his presence immediately and found it very hard to concentrate on the music.
At the end of the next dance, Lord Donnelly came bouncing up. “Faith, your hands must be tired, Miss Duvane, but it so happens I can beat out a tune. Now off with his lordship here and tread a measure. If you dance as well as you play, you will be a delight to watch.”
“I do not wish to dance,” said the Marquess, beginning to walk away.
“Then what do you do?” demanded Lord Donnelly with cheerful insolence. “Do you play the pianoforte?”
“Yes,” said the Marquess curtly, over his shoulder.
“Now, isn’t that splendid?” beamed Lord Donnelly, his blue eyes twinkling. “Lord Merechester is going to play so that Miss Duvane and I can show you all how to waltz.”
“I do not think I should allow such a dance to be performed in this house,” said Lady Warburton severely. “It has not yet been sanctioned by Almack’s.”
“Hasn’t had the papal blessing, heh?” grinned Lord Donnelly. “And there are your daughters itching to try, ma’am.”
“Oh, yes, Mama!” cried Cissie. “Do let us try. Lord Donnelly can show us the steps.” She cast a languishing look on Lord Donnelly. He was so much fun, and the Marquess was turning out to be dreadfully dull.