by Joan Smith
It had occurred to Mrs. Hazard that Lord Bolton would be returning to take tea with them, and she had ordered a lavish spread, with three choices of tea. Lord Bolton chose Soochong, he praised it and every cake and bun on the table, and told her he had never seen such a generous tea, which was true.
His approval had the unfortunate effect of loosening her tongue.
“Samson, the butler, told me there was nothing in the house but gingerbread and cream buns,” she said. “As if I would serve a lord such country fare. ‘ I suppose there is a pastry shop in town,’ I said to him. Servants! You have to tell them to blow their noses when they have a cold, and for that we pay them a fortune.
“Samson tells me Gunters is where he got these little petty fours you like so much. Have another. There’s scarcely a toothful in one. The three you’ve had don’t equal one piece of cake. Gunter charges a fortune, but then I do like a good tea, and Miranda tells me folks in London don’t sit down to dinner till eight o’clock. Foolishness I call it, but then when folks are gallivanting until past midnight, I expect they need a good meal before they set out.”
As Bolton ate his way stolidly through half a dozen sandwiches and cakes he didn’t want, he set himself to charming Mrs. Hazard, to discover her evening plans.
“Will I have the pleasure of seeing you at Mrs. Bannington’s little rout party this evening, ma’am?” he asked.
“No, I think not,” she replied, quite as vaguely as her daughter, but for a different reason. She wasn’t eager to reveal her lack of friends in high society.
“You will surely attend Lady Comfort’s do the next evening? Everyone will be there.”
Mrs. Hazard was beginning to look flustered. “We haven’t decided.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw Miranda shaking her head to discourage these questions. “No one knows we are here yet,” she told him, for she couldn’t like to announce the truth, that they didn’t know anyone. If they went out, it would be to some public place where admission was by purchased ticket.
He soon rose, thanked Mrs. Hazard for the delightful tea and the other ladies for their company. His last words were directed at Miranda. “I look forward to the pleasure of seeing you soon,” he said.
When he was gone, Mrs. Hazard refilled their cups and said with satisfaction, “That went pretty well, don’t you think, Miranda?”
“A lovely tea. Almost too much food,” she added.
“Lord Bolton didn’t seem to mind,” the dame shot back. “And by the by, I have had it out with Gibbons. He came to see me with his tail tucked between his legs. I told him he may stay if he behaves himself. He said, ‘Yes, madam. Thank you, madam,' meek as a lamb. I have been too backward in asserting myself. That’s what it is.”
Miranda took this as an assertion of independence by her hostess, and feared what might follow. “But if he cuts up on us again, he’s out the door, and so I told him,” she continued. “Well, ladies, what shall it be tonight? A play or a concert? Let us make it a play. I always fall asleep during a concert.”
They called for the journals and read through the advertisements to discover a play they would all enjoy. “Shakespeare,” Mrs. Hazard scoffed. “I don’t call that entertainment. Lyle took me to see Hamlet once. What a takein. It was nothing else but a blood bath, with everyone killing everyone else. And the prince didn’t even marry the girl at the end!”
“Hamlet is a tragedy, Mama,” Dorothy explained. She was a little more forthcoming at home than in company. “That means a great many people die in the end, and usually there is no wedding.”
“We shan’t pay out good money for that sort of thing. We can watch girls getting jilted at home for free.”
“There is a comedy at the Coburg Theater,” Miranda mentioned.
“Oh I don’t think we would meet anyone there, dear,” Mrs. Hazard replied. “Covent Garden and Drury Lane is where you meet people. Pity, for I could do with a comedy. Well, I daresay we must make do with a concert. I hope there aren’t violins and men singing in high voices like ladies. I do like a man to have a mannish voice. Like Lord Bolton,” she added, with a waggish glance at her daughter.
After her success with the tea party, Mrs. Hazard was eager to throw a real party, and she and Miranda settled down in Lord Croft’s study to discuss strategies for attracting guests, and plans to entertain them. It was decided to invite Lydia and Lord Robert for dinner the next evening, and perhaps Mr. Hume and Lord Bolton and one other unspecified gentleman to even up the numbers. When this had been decided, the ladies went to their rooms to dress for the evening. Miranda was just choosing a gown when Mrs. Hazard came bustling in.
“You cannot wear that old blue gown, Miranda,” she cried joyfully. “We are going to Mrs. Bannington’s rout party.”
“But we don’t know her.”
“Aye, she mentions that, but says Lord Bolton has been singing our praises, and she is eager to meet us. He will have told her of my Dotty’s dowry. We shall invite the Banningtons to our little party. Bolton has fallen head over ears in love with my Dotty, depend upon it, and wants to show her off to his friends. I knew how it would be, for she is so well behaved and rich. So you will have to choose a different gown. Rosie is doing Dotty’s hair up in papers. She will have to eat her dinner in them. Thank goodness I didn’t ask Lord Bolton to stay for dinner!” She flew out of the room, still chattering a mile a minute.
Miranda was happy to be rescued from an evening of violins and Italian tenors, but she was unhappy with Mrs. Hazard’s notion that Bolton was dangling after Dotty. She must find a moment this evening to speak to him. And she must also provide herself with some new gowns as soon as possible. Mrs. Hazard was right. The ‘old blue’ simply wouldn’t do. She went to the clothespress and thumbed through the few gowns she had brought with her.
After careful consideration, she chose the burgundy Italian crape, and spent the time until dinner fiddling with her hair, before deciding to wear it as she always did, drawn back in a chignon low on her neck.
When Mrs. Hazard announced triumphantly at dinner that she had received a card from Lady Comfort inviting them all to her party the next evening as well, Miranda added a visit from the coiffeur to her list of things to be done.
Chapter Five
Mrs. Hazard’s eagerness to enter society made it impossible for Miranda to delay their departure to a suitable hour, despite her best efforts. They arrived embarrassingly early, the first after-dinner guests to arrive at the do. Mrs. Bannington was not the sort of hostess to take offense, however. She led the guests into the saloon where the ladies who had been invited to dinner were taking coffee while the gentlemen enjoyed their port and cheroots in the dining room.
Amongst the guests, Miranda recognized Bolton’s stepmama and Helen, his sister-in-law, both looking shocked that after-dinner guests should arrive at such an unseemly hour.
Mrs. Bannington made the introductions. “Mrs. Ffoulkes-Hazard and her daughter and Lady Wetherby.”
“That’s Ffoulkes-Hazard with two f’s,” Mrs. Hazard inserted hastily. She accepted a cup of coffee and reached in front of the lady seated beside her for the cream and sugar.
She had heard a familiar name. Feeling quite an intime, she leaned forward and said to the haughty dame who looked like a horse in ringlets at the other end of the sofa, “Lady Bolton, I believe I saw you at the Dauntry’s do last night. You would be Lord Bolton’s mama?”
“Stepmother,” Lady Bolton said stiffly. “Are you acquainted with my stepson?”
“That is one way of putting it,” Mrs. Hazard announced triumphantly. Her fear of Lady Bolton’s squashing their social career had evaporated upon the receipt of two invitations in one evening. “He took my Dotty for a hurl in the park in his rig this afternoon, and invited himself in to take tea with us after.”
“How nice for you,” Lady Bolton said with great condescension, and turned away.
Not about to accept a snub from anyone, Mrs. Hazard continued in a loud
er voice, “Pretty nice for him as well. He seemed pleased with his tea. He must have devoured half a dozen of my petty fours, the dear ones from Gunter’s. I expect he will be here any minute, wanting a dance with my Dotty.”
“Which of the — ladies — is your daughter?” Lady Bolton asked, although she knew perfectly well. She merely hoped for some further examples of poor breeding to relay to Max.
“This minx here is my Dotty,” she replied, pointing a thumb at her. “Say ‘How do you do,’ Dotty. I’m sure Mrs. Fisher taught you that much at that fancy school we sent you to.” She turned back to Lady Bolton and added, “Miss Fisher’s Academy, in Bath. Lord Carleton’s daughter was there.”
“I am surprised,” Lady Bolton said, looking down her nose. “Most noble young ladies who live near Bath attend Miss Trimmer’s school.”
“Miss Fisher is very fussy. She doesn’t take just anyone,” Mrs. Hazard retorted.
“Really?” A pair of insolent eyes glanced dismissingly at Dotty. “I would have thought otherwise.”
Miranda was tense with frustration. She wanted to intervene, but she knew Mrs. Hazard was impossible to stop. Once she got the bit between her teeth there was no saying what she might crop out with. If she had not told Lord Ippswitch he ought to get rid of his old Dutch pictures and get some decent English paintings for his gallery, Dotty might have nabbed him. Ippswitch was the proud owner of three Rembrandts.
“Well you would be wrong,” Mrs. Hazard said. “She charges a fortune, and half of those noble families have scarce a feather to fly with. Younger sons, and so on.”
Mrs. Bannington hoped to restore tranquility to the party by asking where the Hazards were from, but she only stirred up new excitement.
“We’re from Manchester, but we’re living in Surrey,” Mrs. Hazard said. “I bought a place called the Laurels when my Lyle upped and died on me. I thought we would like the country, and so we do, but there is no denying it is dull as dish water. Very thin of company.”
“The Laurels!” Mrs. Bannington exclaimed. “Not Lord Wilton’s lovely estate!”
“Aye, that’s the one. We call it Hazard Hall now, and it is lovelier than ever, if I do say it myself. I have touched it up a little. It was becoming run down. Just a lick of paint and a bit of paper here and there. Oh and I threw out a bow window in the morning parlor, for it was dark as a dungeon. The paper in some of the bedrooms was brown with age as well.”
“I hope you didn’t replace that priceless Chinese paper in the east bedroom!”
“No, I didn’t touch that,” Mrs. Hazard said at once, with a warning glance at Miranda. “I am not a savage after all,” she added, no matter what Lord Ippswitch said.
A general stirring of interest ran around the room. It was Helen, the young Lady Bolton, who said what they were all thinking. “But the Laurels is huge, and all those acres. It must have cost you a fortune!”
“It wasn’t cheap, as you can imagine,” Mrs. Hazard replied, with a wise nod of her head. “We haggled Wilton down to a decent price, however. Thirty thousand, but the rents give us a good rate of interest, and Lyle, my late husband, always said property is a sound investment. With land, if you lose everything else, you can always throw up a tent, plant a patch of potatoes, and at least you won’t starve.”
“But the Laurels— However did you afford to buy it?” Helen asked bluntly.
“Lyle left me pretty well to grass, and I have only the one child to see settled, my little Dotty.” She cast a doting smile on Dotty and patted her hand.
The elder Lady Bolton felt weak. Max had never shown more than a polite interest in Helen. He had ferreted out this incredible heiress and would certainly marry her. This muffin-faced chit out of that dreadfully common Miss Fisher’s Academy would be installed as mistress of Bolton’s estates. The dowager’s pension would have to be divided between the two dowagers, and as to the Dower House — She felt so ill she drew her vial of hartshorn out of her reticule, uncapped it and inhaled deeply.
Mrs. Hazard’s broad face broke into a smile at the sight of the familiar blue bottles with the silk tassel attached to the lid. The tassel had been her own suggestion, to make it easy to draw out of the reticule in an emergency.
“That is Lyle’s hartshorn, is it?” she asked, like a proud mama whose child has just won a prize.
“Yes, I always use it,” Lady Bolton said weakly. A frown of comprehension wrinkled her brow. This impossible woman had mentioned her husband, Lyle. “Are you Lyle’s patent medicines?” she demanded.
After warning Miranda a dozen times not to mention it, she launched into the details of the business herself.
“Lyle’s Tonics for the Ton,” she said. “The name was my idea, to ensure that the commoners would lap it up, as indeed they do, as well as the real ton like yourself, your ladyship. I couldn’t count the number of those blue bottles of hartshorn we sell per annum.
“The original tonic still goes like hotcakes as well. It’s a dandy picker-upper for whatever ails you. We flavor it with crème de menthe for the medicinal flavor. That’s why it’s green. We sold over a quarter million bottles of that green tonic last year alone. At half a crown a bottle — two shillings and six pence — you figure it out,” she said, and went on to do the ciphering herself.
“Of course the cost is six pence, including the bottle and distribution, which leaves twenty-five thousand per annum clear on the green tonic alone, to say nothing of the pills, Lyle’s pick-up pills for tired tots — another dandy product. Sweetened, you see, and without the alcohol. We wouldn’t want to get the kiddies tipsy. Just a little laudanum to make them sleepy. And then there’s the hartshorn and the paregoric draft and the purge— but we shan’t speak of that in polite company. Another two thousand per annum for the purge alone. I’ll not tell you what we make on the laudanum, for you’d only think I was boasting.”
“Oh no indeed, my dear Mrs. Ffoulkes-Hazard,” the elder Lady Bolton exclaimed weakly. Ffoulkes-Hazard indeed. She glanced at her blue bottle and read, ‘Owner and prop., Lyle Hazard, Manchester.’ How did plain Mrs. Lyle Hazard suddenly become Ffoulkes-Hazard, with two f’s’? But Lady Bolton didn’t care if she gave herself a dozen hyphens and a hundred f’s, for she had just been struck with the sort of sublime idea that made her believe in God.
She must call her son, Jeremy, back from the Cotswolds at once to marry Dotty. What lady in her right mind, providing, of course, that she didn’t need money, would not rather marry her handsome son than cold, cynical Maxwell? Her eyes told her that Dotty was not a day under five and twenty, and indeed her having been at school with the Carleton chit confirmed it, whereas Lord Jeremy was only twenty-three.
But Jeremy was wise enough to know the value of money. There was nothing like not having it to make one aware, and Maxwell had refused to increase his allowance when he was made Lord Bolton.
“Did you sell the company when your husband died, or do you still own it?” Helen asked. She never bothered to sugarcoat her words. Her amazing beauty was sugarcoating enough for any impertinence.
Mrs. Hazard, being a plain, outspoken woman, did not take offense. “I would be a fool to sell such a gold mine, and I hope I am not a fool. When my Lyle took ill, he trained a sharp young cousin, Bertie Beazly, up to run the works. Cousin or no, I have an outside accountant keep a sharp eye on the books for me. I go over them with a fine tooth comb every month. Better safe than sorry.”
“Why don’t you sell the Laurels and live in London?” Helen asked. “It’s ever so much livelier than Surrey.”
“I am thinking of buying a house in London, but I shan’t sell Hazard Hall. I’ve done a lot of work on the place, and I have come to like it. Plus it adds a certain jenny saykwa to have an estate. That’s French, dear. I’ll ask Lord Croft if he’s interested in selling his place, though. I’m renting it at the moment,” she said, and mentioned what rent she had battled Croft down to.
The elder Lady Bolton added another zero to the sum she had estimated as
Mrs. Hazard’s probable fortune. Her instinct told her to race to Mrs. Bannington’s study and dash a line off to Jeremy that instant, but she feared one of the other ladies would push her son or nephew or cousin forward if she left, so she remained in the saloon, asking any questions that did not occur to Helen to ask, and listening closely to the answers until the gentlemen came from taking their port to join them.
Miranda’s first interest was to see whether Lord Bolton was amongst the dark jackets wandering into the saloon. She was aware of a stab of disappointment when she didn’t find him. She turned her attention to the other new arrivals.
Whispered conversations were taking place between the gentlemen and the ladies. Curious, assessing eyes turned to the Hazards. Then the newcomer was brought forth and introduced, with many smiles and compliments. A child could see that word of the Hazards’ financial status was being disseminated, and conned for possible advantage.
Miranda watched closely. She could hardly believe what she was seeing. All these social lions and lionesses, many of them titled, were fawning like sycophants over Mrs. Hazard. They didn’t care that she was vulgar and common. They didn’t care that she was also lively and clever and honest and generous. That was not what had won them over. It was the money, plain and simple. They wouldn’t care if she had two heads or was a heathen or an axe murderess. She was as rich as Croesus, and so they courted her.
Mrs. Hazard was no fool. She would realize what made her acceptable, but she was only human after all. And her one unfulfilled dream was to move with ease amidst the ton, to see her Dotty established as a fine lady. If anyone could take advantage of her weakness, it would be these self-seeking, aristocratic sharks.
And her only defense was an unsophisticated provincial widow. This was a responsibility Miranda had not foreseen. The job she had come to do was to ease the Hazard’s way into the ton. That job was already accomplished with very little help from her. Any door they wished to enter would not only be open, they would be rounded up and herded in. Miranda saw that her job now would be to see that her charges didn’t enter the wrong doors.