A Sister's Secret

by Mary Jane Staples

‘No, sir, but you fair melt me all over, you do. We be meeting on Sunday, like you said?’

  ‘Sunday it is, Betsy. Ten thirty, outside the Theatre Royal in the Hay Market. Prettiest gown, mind, and your Sunday bonnet.’

  ‘Oh, my Sunday pantaloons too,’ whispered Betsy ecstatically, ‘they be so pretty, with ribbons and all. It’ll be a loving Sunday? I’ll blush fit to die, sir, but I don’t know how I can hardly say no.’

  ‘Have no fears, innocent puss. My wife will say no for me as well as for you, and you shan’t spend the day quaking, quivering and blushing.’

  Betsy smothered giggles against his shoulder, then lifted her head as he touched her hand. She felt him press a coin into her palm. ‘What be this, sir?’

  ‘A golden guinea, pussy poppet. You’re a brave partner and a deserving one.’

  Delighted, Betsy flung her arms around his neck and kissed him rapturously on the mouth.

  ‘Betsy! Where are you, wench? I’ll deal thee a thump come you don’t show a quick pair of feet!’ a demanding voice echoed and the echoes rang in the passage.

  ‘Oh, that be Job Cuffley, second footman,’ whispered Betsy, and opened the door. Captain Burnside slipped out. ‘Sunday, then, sir, and I be all agog already.’

  Captain Burnside went on his way, thoughtful on account of the diary, smiling on account of Betsy. She was an endearing puss, and invaluable.

  Sammy put his head into the cottage kitchen. His mistress, Lady Caroline, had been astonishing him today. She had set about domestic chores without a single note of fuss, helping to bring a clean and cosy glow to the cottage. Mr Carter had worked with her, while Miss Annabelle had wandered from room to room, trailing a brush and pan, and giving vent to despairing sighs, much to Mr Carter’s amusement. Lady Caroline was now unpacking preserved foodstuffs from a large wicker basket that had travelled with them from London yesterday. She wore a calico white apron to protect her gown, and a white mob cap on her head.

  ‘Your Ladyship?’

  ‘Yes, Sammy?’

  ‘Cap’n Burnside’s a-coming, Your Ladyship. A-coming down the lane, he is, on his tod.’

  There was no response from Her Ladyship for a moment. Then, her back to him, she said in a busy way, ‘Really? Captain Burnside? Dear me, are you certain?’

  ‘Certain positive, Your Ladyship,’ said Sammy. ‘I told Miss Annabelle and she’s gone a-running to meet him.’ Sammy essayed a little grin. ‘She said heaven be praised, Your Ladyship.’

  ‘Really?’ Her Ladyship sounded offhand. She dipped into the basket and brought out a jar of preserved figs, which she placed on a shelf in the pantry. ‘Thank you, Sammy.’

  ‘Yes’m,’ said Sammy, and disappeared.

  Caroline heard her sister’s laughter then, laughter from the open front door, followed by the sound of Captain Burnside’s voice. ‘Faith, here’s a charming place.’

  ‘Charming?’ Annabelle made herself heard. ‘But, Charles, it’s so poky. Caroline calls it a cosy retreat, but there’s hardly room to pass each other by, and no room at all to avoid each other. And, oh, I declare, you have burdened us with such an uppity varmint. How could you?’

  ‘You’re referring to the estimable Jonathan?’ murmured the captain.

  ‘He is not at all estimable; he’s unfeeling.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘In the back yard, chopping wood for the kitchen stove.’

  ‘Back yard?’ said the captain, and Caroline realized Annabelle had yet to understand a back yard was a garden to the English.

  ‘Yes,’ said Annabelle, ‘and would you believe, he expects me to carry in a basket of logs. And Caroline is in the kitchen, working with pots and pans. Charles, look at my hands. Already they are ruined. Mama would swoon to see them. Oh, but now that you are here, I shall go and change into a fresh gown, then beg you to protect me from that boring bully, Mr Carter. Do go and say hello to Caroline.’

  ‘Of course. And I’ll acquaint myself with her pots and pans.’

  A moment later, the kitchen door, ajar, was pushed open and he came in. His beaver hat was in his hand, his boots a little dusty, his hair a trifle ruffled by the country breeze. His smile arrived in friendly fashion.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ said Caroline, attempting a casual attitude while putting her back against the pantry door. Alarmingly, she was in need of its support, for her legs felt ridiculously weak. The captain bowed. Faint colour flushed her.

  ‘Lady Caroline? My compliments. How very domesticated.’

  ‘I was not sure you would come,’ she said, almost faltering. ‘I am afraid we finished our midday meal some time ago, but if you are at all peckish, there is food you can have. See, do you care for these?’

  She turned, hiding her flush, and opened the pantry door. Without knowing exactly what she was doing, she took out the jar of figs. She looked at it, then showed it to him.

  ‘Figs?’ said Captain Burnside, and regarded her in curiosity, for she was quite unlike her usual composed self. Her lashes were flickering, her eyes looking everywhere except at him, and the jar was actually unsteady in her hand. ‘That’s an extremely kind offer, dear lady, but I ain’t all that partial to preserved figs.’

  ‘Oh, there are other foodstuffs, I assure you, and can declare all of them to be very palatable. See, the hamper is full of them. Meats in aspic, fruit in syrup, and – and …’ She did falter then.

  ‘Heavens, are we stocked to endure a siege?’ smiled the captain.

  ‘Yes. That is, I don’t know.’ Caroline examined the jar of figs, then lifted her eyes to him. ‘Oh, I am so glad to see you.’

  ‘Are you?’ His curiosity deepened.

  ‘Yes, of course I am. We have been worried about you, about Cumberland.’

  ‘Oh, Cumberland’s his usual self, his head high in clouds of self-esteem and feet running with the devil’s. And I’m safe and sound, as you see, having caught a morning stagecoach to Lewes, and a cart to this side of Wychling.’

  ‘A cart?’

  ‘Farm wagon. Devilishly bumpy. But I’m delighted that you and Annabelle are safe and sound yourselves, though Annabelle don’t seem too taken with Jonathan.’

  Caroline, steadier of limbs now, said, ‘Oh, she has met her match in that young man.’

  ‘While you are getting the better of the pots and pans?’ Captain Burnside eyed her white cap and apron with a smile. ‘Respectfully, marm, I’m compelled to say you look uncommonly fetching in a mob cap.’

  ‘Among pots and pans and potatoes, Captain Burnside, one must dress for the part,’ she said. ‘We have no servants except Sammy, which is putting Annabelle into fits of despair. In South Carolina, it’s considered most indelicate for any young lady to do anything for herself.’

  ‘Every family owns another family, a family of Negro servants?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, Annabelle will come round.’ The captain dipped into the hamper and came up with a jar of creamy mussels. He broke the red wax seal with a kitchen knife, prised up the large cork and smelled the contents. Caroline watched as he spooned out mussels and popped them into his mouth. ‘Delicious,’ he said, and sat down at the table with the jar and spoon.

  ‘Please, if you are hungry,’ said Caroline, ‘I’ll prepare a proper meal for you.’

  ‘We ain’t come down to having you set a table,’ said Captain Burnside. ‘No, not the thing at all.’

  ‘But without servants, we are all doing something. Do you think I could not set a table?’

  ‘I ain’t allowing it,’ said Captain Burnside, eating mussels.

  The challenging light appeared in Caroline’s eyes. ‘I declare you out of order, sir.’

  ‘Marm, you may declare night is day, but I still ain’t allowing you to set tables.’

  ‘Captain Burnside, if I will, I will, and there is no more to be said on the subject. And please do not call me marm.’

  ‘Your Ladyship—’

  ‘Nor that,’ she said. ‘We are surely friends
now, aren’t we? And there is some good in you, I know there is. So you may call me Caroline.’

  ‘No, it won’t do,’ said the captain, ‘except in front of Annabelle, or your friends. It would never do to become familiar with a patron. No, it shall be businesslike between us all the way, and when all is over, done and settled, marm, I shall depart in the agreed fashion, taking no advantage of Annabelle – and you, I hope, will be free of problems and worries, though lighter of two fifty guineas and expenses.’

  Caroline stared down at him, appalled by such unfeeling matter-of-factness. ‘Captain Burnside, I can scarcely believe my ears,’ she said. ‘I have never required our relationship to be as businesslike as that.’

  ‘Marm, I fancy you made it clear at the beginning, which was wise and sensible of you.’

  Caroline made an angry gesture. ‘Will you stop calling me marm?’ she breathed. ‘I detest the word, it is unctuous and unappealing. The beginning is irrelevant. It is the present that counts. Oh, I vow you a miserable and difficult man to put me in such annoyance and irritation with you, for you know very well things have changed. I won’t have you speak of being businesslike, no, sir, I will not. Was it businesslike to dance as you did at the ball with Annabelle, and make it such a joyful and exhilarating occasion for her?’

  ‘Surely, dear lady,’ said Captain Burnside, frowning at the mussels, ‘that was only as I was required to.’

  ‘Oh, you wretched man, was it also required of you to stand up with me in the cotillion? Was that an act of business you felt obliged to effect?’

  ‘That, Your Ladyship, was perfection, but it still won’t do, d’you see, for a patron to offer more than the terms of the contract.’

  ‘Oh!’ Caroline’s be-aproned bosom surged in an excess of stormy emotion. ‘Go about being miserably businesslike, then, for if you have no friendly regard for Annabelle and me I shall return to London, taking her with me, and Cumberland may do his worst!’

  Captain Burnside stood up. ‘Cumberland will,’ he said, ‘so you shan’t.’

  ‘Shan’t?’ Caroline was fiercely glad he was on his feet. On his feet, he was easier to challenge, better to confront, to stand up to. ‘Who are you, sir, to say what I shall or shan’t do?’

  ‘Lady Caroline,’ he said firmly, ‘there’s no use your stamping your foot and waving your arms about, for you ain’t going back to London, and that’s flat.’

  Electrified into incensed action, Caroline did what she had done before. She slapped his face. She had to, or else feel reduced to a spiritless creature only able to say yes or no to him.

  Captain Burnside received the slap with frank surprise. ‘Damn me,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, you may well be damned, Captain Burnside, for your miserable lack of simple affection and your provoking excess of outrageous impertinence.’

  ‘Simple affection?’ he said, rubbing his tingling jaw.

  ‘Yes!’ Caroline was beside herself, and the more so because her angry emotions did not make sense. But there it was, she was unbearably wounded by his declared intention to depart and disappear once the venture was over. ‘Annabelle has been sweet to you and sung your praises to our friends, and I have taken your welfare to my heart, worrying myself dreadfully that you may end up being hanged or transported. We have both earned some little affection, and it is of all things hateful of you to speak so coldly and unfeelingly.’

  ‘Oh, ye gods,’ said Captain Burnside, and eyed her in utter consternation, for his proud and magnificent patron was in stormy upset. ‘May the devil himself claim me if I’ve offended you. Marm – Caroline – not for the world would I consciously do so.’ In his contrition he took her hand and lifted it to his lips. ‘I beg your sweet forgiveness.’

  Caroline, head bent, eyes hidden, said unsteadily, ‘I will forgive you if you will promise never again to suggest Annabelle and I cannot be your friends. And you must also promise to give the most serious consideration to letting me help you live an honest and commendable life. It is in you to live very commendably instead of wasting your talents.’

  ‘Well, I shall even consider taking a rosy-cheeked Sussex wife,’ said the captain quite earnestly, at which she cast a shocked look at him. What was he about now in speaking of wedding a simple country girl? Such a wife would never do for him. Then she remembered it had been her own suggestion. How could she have been so absurd?

  ‘You may consider that,’ she said, ‘but need not promise.’

  ‘Then I shan’t,’ he said with a smile, ‘for if I did I’d be committed, and it ain’t quite the sort of thing on which to commit oneself. Now, may I hope you’ll forget what you said about returning to London? I don’t wish to be guilty of further impertinence, which I will be if you don’t reconsider, for you can take it from me I ain’t going to let you go, nor Annabelle.’

  Caroline said in a low voice, ‘I have been graceless again. You have come all this way to see if we are safe and sound, and I have only given you a quarrel.’

  ‘Oh, a few spirited words,’ he said, ‘and there were also some excellent mussels.’

  Caroline smiled then, although a little uncertainly. She could not make head nor tail of her recent emotions and tempers, nor why he aroused them so quickly in her.

  Annabelle reappeared, wearing a fresh gown of blue, her face newly powdered. ‘Caroline, isn’t it all of a pleasure to have Charles here?’ Her blue eyes sparkled. It dismayed Caroline intensely, the certainty that Captain Burnside had succeeded with her sister. ‘It isn’t nearly so boring now,’ said Annabelle. ‘All the same – oh!’ The door bumped her back as it was pushed open by a basket of logs. The basket preceded Jonathan, who was carrying it. ‘Oh, you unmannerly brute,’ cried Annabelle, ‘must you throw doors bruisingly open?’

  ‘Humble apologies, my infant,’ said Jonathan cheerfully.

  ‘Infant?’ gasped Annabelle.

  ‘So sorry,’ said Jonathan. He placed the basket down on the stone hearth of the stove. In his shirtsleeves and minus his cravat, his hair damp at the roots, he looked warm from the sun and from the toil of splitting logs. ‘I trust you ain’t uncommonly bruised, Miss Howard? Beg to say hello, Charles.’

  ‘H’m,’ said Captain Burnside.

  ‘I shall discover myself black and blue,’ declared Annabelle hotly. ‘Charles, see what a ruffian you have attached to us. Oh, I meant to ask you, have you come to take us back to London?’

  ‘No, he ain’t,’ said Jonathan, ‘it can’t be done.’

  ‘I was not addressing you, Mr Carter,’ said Annabelle, and looked proudly pretty in her haughtiness.

  ‘It still can’t be done,’ said Jonathan.

  ‘Well, it’s true it wouldn’t be wise to return yet,’ said Captain Burnside, and Caroline thought how cool and collected he always was. Such redoubtable assets for a man of his kind. Oh, why did he have to be a trickster?

  ‘But, Charles,’ protested Annabelle, ‘I’m sure the Duke of Cumberland can’t be a danger to us. I’m sure you are wrong about him, sweet though you are.’

  ‘Bless us,’ said Jonathan, ‘is my hearing faulty? Sweet, did you say, Miss Howard?’

  ‘Captain Burnside is a gentleman, sir, which you are not,’ said Annabelle.

  ‘Well, I ain’t sweet, and that’s a fact,’ said Jonathan. He looked at Captain Burnside. ‘Sweet, oh Lord,’ he said, and laughed.

  ‘Kindly go away,’ said Annabelle.

  ‘Shall we go together?’ suggested Jonathan. ‘Will you come and help me split logs?’

  ‘Oh, I declare! You all will provoke me into flying back to London.’

  ‘In which case,’ said Jonathan, ‘I’d have to fly after you and carry you back here. Orders from Charles, don’t you see. He ain’t quite as sweet as all that.’ And Jonathan departed whistling.

  ‘I vow I shall scratch that creature’s eyes out,’ breathed Annabelle.

  Caroline said to the captain, ‘You have given Mr Carter orders to restrain Annabelle forcibly in certain circumstanc
es?’

  ‘Caroline, such a question,’ said Annabelle. ‘Charles would never allow anyone to lay rough hands on me, would you, Charles?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Captain Burnside and made a critical inspection of pots and pans.

  ‘And did such orders embrace me?’ asked Caroline.

  The captain, studying an iron pot as if it were grievously suspect, cleared his throat and murmured, ‘Do excuse me while I look around.’ His exit from the kitchen was effected smoothly.

  ‘Mercy me,’ laughed Annabelle, ‘I do believe he has elected to be stern and masterful.’

  ‘Your sweet gentleman has only elected to be evasive, sister,’ said Caroline.

  ‘Yes, he isn’t at all like your agreeable Mr Wingrove,’ said Annabelle, and eyed Caroline a little teasingly. ‘He would surely make a delicious husband, don’t you think so?’

  ‘For whom?’ asked Caroline, resuming her unpacking of the food basket.

  ‘Why, dearest, for you, of course.’

  ‘That is not very amusing,’ said Caroline.

  ‘Then for me,’ smiled Annabelle, and Caroline thought that even less amusing.

  Chapter Twenty

  Captain Burnside, having established that the cottage was no citadel, that it was a safe retreat only while the presence of its occupants remained unknown to Cumberland’s hirelings, decided for his own peace of mind to investigate the situation at Great Wivenden. He needed to find out if Cumberland had come to the natural conclusion that Lady Caroline and Annabelle had fled in fright to Great Wivenden. If so, his cut-throats might be in the vicinity already. It would be as well to know.

  The captain decided to investigate after supper. Meantime, he had taken over the task of splitting logs. The kitchen stove was huge and ravenous, and Lady Caroline insisted that a constant supply of hot water be available. He had asked Jonathan to turn his hand to the lighter chore of preparing supper, with Annabelle’s help. Annabelle, quite unused to kitchen work, or any kind of labour, had scarcely been able to believe he could command this of her. Moreover, there was the entirely repellent aspect of having to share this domestic ordeal with the utterly horrid Jonathan. For his part, Jonathan accepted the situation cheerfully.