by M C Beaton
His hair stood up like a scrubbing brush and was imperfectly powdered, making him look a bit like a porcupine that had strolled through a bucket of whitewash.
Behind him, a swarthy footman, who looked like a reformed assassin, was diligently swabbing the hall floor.
The butler made Mary a jerky little bow. Then he straightened up and saluted smartly. “Name of Biggs, my lady,” he announced, staring straight ahead. “Butler to my lord. Servants present and correct, my lady. ’TENSHUN!”
A strange assortment of servants filed into the hall and lined up for their new mistress’s inspection. Instead of livery, all wore remnants of military uniforms. The cook was a large, bearded highlander with a white apron tied over his kilt. Mary was introduced to them all. When the introductions were over, she sent her maid upstairs to superintend her unpacking and asked Biggs to follow her into a saloon on the first floor.
“Biggs,” said Mary wonderingly, “are there no female servants employed in this household?”
“No, my lady,” barked Biggs, springing to attention. “All of us is soldiers what was invalided home after the Peninsula so Captain Challenge—he was a captain then, my lady—he says he can’t pay us much but he can house us and feed us and give us these here jobs.”
Biggs suddenly ran his thick hands through his hair making it stand more on end than ever, producing a small cloud of flour dust. “See here, my lady,” he said anxiously, looking full at Mary for the first time. “We’re a rough and ready lot, ma’am, and we’ve not been in the way of being servants except to His Majesty, King George, so to speak, and God bless him, but we has kept the house as clean as a pin.”
Mary looked about her. The saloon was very large. The floor was scrubbed and bare. A few dingy, dark paintings ornamented the faded wallpaper, and a few ancient chairs stood about the room, looking as if they had dropped in a century ago for a visit and had not yet summoned up the social courage to leave. The room was dominated by a vast black marble fireplace depicting the rape of some unfortunate Greek maidens who screamed soundlessly into the long room.
“How can I become fashionable with such unfashionable servants as these?” thought Mary. But, sheltered as her life had been, she had heard many stories of soldiers starving in the gutters of London when their country no longer needed them. So instead, she cleared her throat nervously and said, “Yes, I can see the house is very clean, Biggs, but sorely in need of carpets and curtains and furniture. Also, you must order livery immediately for yourself and the other servants. This day, I shall make good your wages. You will be paid as fits your station in this household.”
“Thank you, my lady,” said Biggs, and to Mary’s embarrassment she thought she heard the sound of tears at the back of the butler’s voice. “We never thought for a minute you would let us stay, ma’am. I took a ball in the chest at Salamanca and it’s still in there somewhere.”
He stiffly saluted. “Just you give orders and we will follow them out, ma’am—my lady. Stand by you to the death, we will. Lay down our lives for you!”
Mary felt a lump in her own throat but she answered quietly. “I shall indeed need your help, Biggs. I am determined to surprise your master by becoming the fashion. I shall need to set up my stables since he is still in Paris. I must also find a good dressmaker, which is really why I would have liked to see some female member of the staff. My own maid is still new to London.”
Biggs’s face lit up with genuine joy at being able to help. “James, the first footman, my lady, him what got it in the leg at Vittoria, is a-courting a housemaid at the Duchess of Badmont’s. I’ll send him there drecktly and he will find your lady-ship all necessary directions. As to your stables, ma’am, you can’t do better than to ask John, the groom who looked after the best horses in the cavalry and he got his in the arm, my lady, at Badajoz. I knows Gilberts is the best warehouse for furnishings, my lady, and I shall have a gent from that there establishment call any time you wish. We are sparse on provisions in the kitchens, my lady, so if you were desirous of a tasty dinner, it would be…”
“Send all bills to my mother and father,” said Mary firmly, “and order all that is necessary for the kitchens.” She sent up a private prayer that her parents’ snobbery would honor the bills. “I am sure you will prove a good general, Biggs.”
Biggs saluted. “Sergeant, my lady. Sergeant Biggs it is.”
Mary dismissed him with a nod of her head and Biggs clattered joyfully off down the stairs, his heavy boots doing a sort of clog hornpipe.
Mary rested her chin on her hand and prayed for courage. Perhaps she was lucky in these strange servants. A fashionable butler would not have been nearly so sympathetic.
“I shall become fashionable,” she vowed, “even if I kill myself in the process.”
And during the next few weeks, she indeed thought at times she might die from exhaustion. The house was jampacked from morning to night with a succession of dressmakers, milliners, haberdashers, decorators, carpenters and grocers.
Many cards were deposited on the hall table, but Mary did not yet feel ready to venture into society. The court hairdresser himself cropped her long hair into a short cap of saucy curls, and although Marie Juneaux, the lady’s maid, assured her mistress it was all the crack, Mary felt very strange, getting a shock every time she caught her reflection in the looking glass.
At last the day arrived when she felt ready to receive visitors. She informed Biggs—resplendent in a new claret and silver livery—that she was “at home.”
The house was not as large as many of the other London town houses, but it had a certain quiet charm. The ground floor boasted two public rooms, a study and a library, the first floor, four connecting saloons, each now decorated in a different color, the third floor held the bedrooms, including a new suite for his lordship and one for her ladyship, as well as the guest bedrooms, and the top floor, a chain of attics.
The saloon where Mary had first interviewed Biggs was now called the Green Saloon, its walls now panelled in green watered silk. The black marble fireplace was still there but did not seem so grim, now that the rest of the room was softened by rugs and vases of flowers and objets d’art. Brussels-lace curtains floated beside the open windows, for the weather remained sunny and warm.
Mary now sat in the Green Saloon. Her cropped hair had given her face an elfin look, and her gray eyes looked larger than ever. She was wearing a deceptively simple white muslin dress, tied under the bosom with long gold ribbons. The delicate white of her gown gave Mary a charming look of vulnerable virginity. She longed for a friend or companion to support her in her debut. In fact, she longed for any company but that of her husband.
All at once, she heard Biggs’s heavy tread of the stairs. He had changed his thick-soled boots for a pair of equally thick-soled shoes and was so obviously proud of his new feathers that Mary had not had the heart to tell him that a good servant should be seen and never heard.
He swung open the double doors and announced, “Mr. and Mrs. Witherspoon and the Honorable Cyril Trimmer,” and with a click of his heels, and a stiff salute, he clattered off, leaving Mary to rise and greet her guests with a sinking heart.
“La! Don’t we look grand!” cried Mrs. Witherspoon, seizing Mary in a hot embrace. “We called and called and you wasn’t at home but Mr. Witherspoon says to me, he says, ‘Lady Challenge won’t forget a promise not after the way we took care of Mrs. Godwin,’ so here we are.”
The Witherspoons were exactly as Mary remembered them in Brussels. Mrs. Witherspoon’s bosom and turban were the same. Both she and her husband carried the same ingratiating leer. Their companion, the Honorable Cyril Trimmer, came forward to be introduced.
To Mary’s inexperienced eyes, he looked a very grand young man indeed. His cravat was like a foot high snow drift, and his coat of Bath superfine had the highest, most buckram-wadded shoulders she had ever seen and was nipped in at the waist and very full about the skirt.
His waistcoat was embroidere
d with a whole covey of scarlet and gold pheasants and his very thin, very long legs were encased in lavender pantaloons ornamented down the sides with a multitude of vertical black silk stripes. His pale blue eyes held a calm contented look of absolute stupidity, and his sparse light brown hair was pomaded and curled and waved into an elaborate style. He had an eyeglass wedged in one eye so tightly that Mary could not help wondering if he ever managed to get it out. Mr. Trimmer had compressed his mouth into a tiny fashionable “O,” from which emerged a thin, ultra-refined fluting voice. He looked as if his governess had made him practice saying his prunes and prisms for years.
Mary was very impressed.
He made her a very low bow, pointing his left foot with all the elegance of a ballet master. “Charmed, Lady Challenge. Utterly charmed,” he said.
He sat down beside Mary on one of the new backless sofas, arranging his coat skirts very carefully. “And now, Lady Challenge,” he began, “you must tell me how you go on. Look here, interested in fine women, don’t you see. Ecod!”
Having made this speech, he relapsed into silence.
Biggs and two of the footmen entered, bearing trays of cakes and wine. Mrs. Witherspoon stared at the servants avidly as they thrust the trays in front of her with military precision. Then having seen that Mrs. Witherspoon and the other guests were served, they wheeled about, formed a line and filed out before Biggs, who stood grimly at the door as if taking a march past.
“Shoulders back! Heads up, men!” rapped Biggs, swinging into line behind the last of them.
“Well, I never did!” crowed Mrs. Witherspoon in amazement. “What odd servants!”
“They are all ex-soldiers,” said Mary gently.
“Oooh! You must be careful, my dear,” cried Mrs. Witherspoon. “These men come from the gutter. Very useful when there’s a war on but after all…”
“After all, I do not know what I would have done without them,” said Mary firmly. “I have never known such a loyal hard-working bunch of men before.”
Mary listened in surprise to the sound of her own voice. She had never taken a social stand on anything before. But she had just done it and, although Mrs. Witherspoon’s habitual leer seemed a trifle fixed, the heavens hadn’t fallen in. Suddenly Mary found that her new gown did not feel in the least strange, and she caught a glimpse of herself in a looking glass on the opposite wall and saw to her surprise that she actually looked quite fashionable. She realized that she had not answered Mr. Trimmer’s question.
“I have not been anywhere,” she confessed. “I have been putting things in order here and I had to arrange a new wardrobe since my old one was sadly unfashionable.”
“I think you are very fashionable,” said Mr. Trimmer. “I am accounted an expert in such matters, Lady Challenge. Permit me to be your escort and guide in society.”
Mary blinked and then recovered her composure. She had been about to point out that she was married but surely, this very fashionable young man was just the sort of person she needed to show her husband that she could attract a splendid member of the beau monde.
She smiled and thanked him, and then caught a little triumphant look that flashed between Mr. and Mrs. Witherspoon and wondered why.
She did not know that the acute social climbing Witherspoons had quickly divined Mr. Trimmer’s problem. He wished a young lady to squire around to save himself from the unfashionable stigma of effeminacy. Unfortunately, he had very little fortune, although he was related to a duke, and fashionable young ladies were apt to dislike his posturing. The Witherspoons had promised to find him just the young lady to suit his needs and of course, should his noble relative, the duke, ever consider inviting them to a little soiree or something of that nature, they would be grateful to accept an invitation. They decided to strike while the iron was hot.
“We are making up a little party tonight,” said Mr. Witherspoon. “A little evening at the opera and supper afterwards. Mrs. Godwin is our guest. Her husband is still in foreign parts.”
“Yes, indeed,” burst in his wife. “Poor little Mrs. Godwin. She does hang around us so. Of course, we did say to her not to feel under any obligation to us, although we did arrange for her to leave Brussels but, I declare, she loves us for ourselves alone.”
“Ecod! I say, who wouldn’t?” put in Mr. Trimmer gallantly.
Mary thought quickly. She did not want to go with the Witherspoons nor did she want to see Lucy again. But she did so long for a little gaiety. The monster she had created out of her husband lurked always in the back of her mind. Why should she pine alone, while he frolicked with the mademoiselles in Paris and did not even find time to write?
She accordingly said she would be delighted. Mr. Trimmer indicated to the less fashionable Witherspoons that ten minutes had passed since they had arrived and that to stay longer would, of course, be monstrous vulgar. He took his leave with many elaborate bows and great wavings of a scented handkerchief.
After they had all left, Mary ran lightly to her bedchamber to begin preparations for her social debut. She finally decided on a pale green lingerie gown cut fashionably low on the bosom, with an over-tunic of tobacco brown velvet trimmed with gold bugle beads. The hairdresser was summoned to brush her short curls into the style known as à la Titus. She debated whether to carry a lace muff, and decided against it, substituting a handsome painted fan with mother of pearl sticks. The hairdresser finished his art by placing a little coronet of gold silk roses on top of her shining curls. With great daring, she applied a little rouge to each of her pale cheeks.
When she descended the stairs that evening to where the Witherspoons and Mr. Trimmer were waiting, her heart misgave her. Her ensemble, which had seemed so elegant in the privacy of her bedchamber, now seemed shabby in front of the magnificence of her escort.
Mr. Trimmer was wearing a blue silk evening coat which was padded on the chest as well as the shoulders, and his waist appeared smaller than Mary’s own. His face was highly painted, and his hair gleamed with Rowlandson’s maccassar oil. His silk waistcoat was embroidered with brilliants, his knee breeches were skin tight and his white silk stockings had large clocks on the sides, and his legs appeared to have grown muscular calves, which indeed they had, his valet having arranged a false, wooden calf in each stocking.
His gaze, however, was more vacant than ever, and Mary finally realized that Mr. Trimmer was a trifle disguised, having resorted to the brandy bottle before leaving his apartments and therefore would not have noticed had she descended the stairs in sackcloth.
“Tol rol, Lady Challenge,” said that young gentleman, waggling his fingers at her by way of greeting. “Tol rol.”
Mrs. Witherspoon again crushed Mary to her bosom while her husband leered fondly on. “And if she isn’t my own sweet love,” cooed Mrs. Witherspoon. “I declare you are like a sister to me, so I shall call you Mary and you shall call me Marie. Little Mrs. Godwin is going to join us in our box. Now hant you got any jewels, dear?”
“I did not consider jewelry necessary,” said Mary, feeling that Mrs. Witherspoon’s personal remarks were the outside of enough. “I am sure you have enough for both of us.”
This indeed was true, Mrs. Witherspoon’s massive bosom being laid out with gems like a jeweler’s tray.
Mary felt suddenly depressed. Mr. Trimmer was surely very fine but the vulgar, pushing Witherspoons were a decided disadvantage.
Mr. Trimmer however seemed much struck with Mary, volunteering that he thought her “a deuced fine girl.”
And Mary, who was unused to receiving praise, blossomed under his flowery compliments and soon began to look forward to the evening after all. When she sailed out of the house on Mr. Trimmer’s arm, her only regret was that her horrible husband could not see her at that very moment.
The short carriage ride through the cobbled streets was exciting, flambeaux blazing outside the mansions, carriage lights winking like fireflies, carriage wheels rumbling like thunder as polite society came awake for the
evening.
The Haymarket Theater was ablaze with candles from top to bottom, and myriads of jewels flashed on bosoms and cravats behind the red curtains of the boxes.
Lucy Godwin was already waiting for them, escorted by a very aloof young man who volunteered the information that he was Giles Bartley. Bartley stared at the magnificent Mr. Trimmer through his quizzing glass, remarked loudly and rudely, “By God!” He paid them no further attention, flirting desperately with Lucy instead.
Lucy at last turned her attention to Mary. “Isn’t it fun with our husbands away?” she whispered. “This is our last evening of freedom, though.”
“What?” cried Mary.
“Shhh!” admonished several voices from the neighboring boxes for the opera had begun.
Mary sat in an agony of worry as Catalini’s shrill voice soared from the stage to drown out the chorus and the orchestra. Was he back already? Was that what Lucy had meant? She tried to concentrate her attention on the stage, but the colors swam and blurred before her worried eyes.