by M. C. Beaton
“We must stop him eating them,” screamed Mrs. Middleton.
“Why?” demanded the cook laconically. “I don’t like him either.”
“Fleetwood is a leader of the ton, you lummox!” howled Rainbird. “This house is damned as unlucky, and now added to that will be the tale that the servants try to poison their masters. I must think of something.”
Upstairs, Emily held out the plate of cakes to the earl. “Thank you, Miss Goodenough,” he said, “but they look so delicious, I feel you should have first choice.”
But Emily’s appetite had left her. Mr. Goodenough had muttered something about seeing to his unpacking and had left the room, leaving her alone with this terrifying aristocrat. She knew, as she watched a look of surprise cross the earl’s face, that it was bad ton to leave a young girl alone and unchaperoned with a gentleman.
“No, I thank you,” she said. “Perhaps later.”
The earl selected a large confection that appeared to be made of chocolate and cream and raised it to his mouth.
Then there came a loud shout from outside. He jumped to his feet. Outside the window, his horses were rearing and plunging while his little tiger clung desperately to the reins.
He ran from the room. Emily went to the window and was able to admire how efficiently the earl soothed down his frightened horses.
She turned about to return to her seat and let out a terrified scream as a large grey rat scuttled into the room, followed by The Moocher, the kitchen cat. She jumped up on her chair, holding up her skirts. Rainbird ran in after the cat, crashed into the table, and sent the tea service and cakes flying across the room. Dave erupted into the front parlour, deftly seized the rat by the tail, ran out again, with The Moocher in hot pursuit, and opened the front door and threw the rat out.
Unfortunately, the rat struck the returning earl full in the face and the kitchen cat jumped on him, howling and uttering war-cries.
The earl pulled the stunned rat off his face and threw it into the middle of the street, where it landed in the kennel.
Emily was still screaming as he hurried into the parlour.
“This house is infested!” cried Emily. “We must leave. We cannot stay.”
Despite all the shocks and alarms, the earl could not help noticing that her ankles revealed by her pulled-up skirts were absolutely beautiful.
“It was only a rat,” he said soothingly. He helped her solicitously down from the chair. “What a set of happenings! My tiger tells me that some red-headed giant jumped up and down in front of the horses shouting, “Boo!” at the top of his voice.
“It’s those poxy servants,” said Emily bitterly. “Bad cess to ’em.”
From the sudden chill in the earl’s eyes, Emily realised miserably that her newly acquired refined speech had slipped into vulgarity.
She tried to compose herself. She said she would ring for more tea. But the earl’s face had become a polite social blank. He sent his regards to her uncle, he was sad the house had been let, but assured her with patently false gallantry that it could not have been let to a more charming tenant, and bowed his way out.
Emily ran upstairs to pour out her troubles to Mr. Goodenough, only to find he was fast asleep in a chair in the bedroom.
She trailed back down to the front parlour. She would have to tackle these terrible servants herself.
Emily was twenty years of age, and her recently adopted haughty manner often made her look older, but as she threw herself down in a chair beside the fire and burst into tears, she looked little more than a child.
Joseph opened the door of the parlour, a dustpan and brush in his hand ready to sweep up the mess, saw the weeping Emily, and backed out in confusion, bumping into Rainbird. He whispered to the butler that Miss was in distress and they were joined by Mrs. Middleton, who was twitching like a nervous rabbit and clutching the housekeeping books to her chest. Together they peered round the door of the parlour at the miserably sobbing Emily, and then quietly closed the door and stood together in the hall.
“Poor child,” whispered Mrs. Middleton.
“It goes to my heart to see her like that,” muttered Rainbird. “I shall give her a few moments to compose herself and then I shall go in there and apologise.”
Emily at last dried her eyes and was reaching for the bell-rope to summon Rainbird when the contrite butler appeared before her. He apologised for all the mishaps and for his own behaviour, and although he offered no explanation, Emily was relieved and at the same time touched.
As Rainbird apologised, Jenny and Joseph cleaned up the mess, Alice carried in bowls of flowers, bought earlier in case a new tenant should arrive after the rout of the Goodenoughs, Joseph made up the fire, and Angus himself appeared with tea and biscuits.
Emily rallied wonderfully under all this attentive kindness.
By the time Mrs. Middleton came in with the books, Emily found she was beginning to enjoy herself discussing household matters. She asked how much they all earned and exclaimed in surprise over the small amount. Rainbird, without much hope, for he still feared Miss Goodenough would prove tight-fisted, murmured that previous tenants had seen fit to augment their wages for the length of the Season, and to his surprise, Emily readily agreed to this.
The household budget she proposed was extremely generous.
Emily tried to maintain an aloof manner with these odd servants, frightened that they might become too familiar again should she be over-friendly, but soon found herself chatting easily with Mrs. Middleton and Rainbird about plans to send cards out for a rout so as to lay the ground for her forthcoming début.
Mr. Goodenough did not wake until dinner time, unaware of all the battles that had been fought and won while he slept. He was delighted to hear how friendly, helpful, and efficient the servants had proved to be and, mellowed by good food and excellent wine, began to look more confident than he had done since he had gained his inheritance. Emily somehow could not bring herself to tell him about the end to the Earl of Fleetwood’s disastrous visit. She knew he would be alarmed and frightened when he learned of her slip into common language. It was wonderful to see this, her patron, looking happy and at ease, for he was facing up to the rigours of a London Season solely for her sake.
Downstairs, the servants settled down late in the evening to their supper, just as relaxed and happy as Mr. Goodenough.
“A pleasant, quiet, genteel couple,” said Mrs. Middleton. “Oh, Mr. Rainbird, it appears as if we shall have our first comfortable Season.”
“Amen to that!” said Rainbird, raising his glass. “What a monstrous rat, Angus. How did you find it so quickly?”
“Got it frae the rat-catcher earlier,” said the cook. “I originally planned tae put it in Miss Goodenough’s bed. Well, it’s just as well I did not, for she has turned out to be a good lady. I hope that Lord Fleetwood never finds out it was me that startled his horses.”
It was to be Emily’s first night in London. She had never slept anywhere other than in the country before. Every time she was on the point of dropping off to sleep, the watchman would come along the street below, shouting it was a fine moonlit night and all was well. He came along with his weather bulletin every half hour. Added to that were the cries and rumbles of the night coaches going along Piccadilly at the end of Clarges Street. No sooner had their din ceased, than the clatter of the morning carts began. Then came the dustman with his bell, bellowing, “Dust ho!” at the top of his voice, then came the watchman again. He was succeeded by the porterhouse boy, jangling and clashing his tray of pewter pots. After him came the milkman and then more and more numerous cries, a deafening cacophony, but pierced always, every half-hour, by the irritating, penetrating drone of the watch.
Emily climbed down from her high bed and pulled a wrapper about her shoulders. She took a crown from her reticule and made her way downstairs. She would pay that watchman to go away. If he at least was silenced, then perhaps she could get some sleep.
The Earl of Fleetwo
od was walking back to Limmer’s Hotel from his club in St. James’s. He found himself in Clarges Street and wondered idly how the strange Miss Goodenough was faring with her even stranger servants.
And then he saw her.
A shaft of morning sunlight was striking the doorway of 67 Clarges Street. Between the two chained iron dogs that ornamented the front step stood Miss Emily Goodenough. She was saying something to the watchman and handing him a crown. The watch touched his hat and walked away.
Emily stood for a moment on the step, her face lifted up to the sunshine.
The sunlight lit up the gold threads in the masses of her hair, which tumbled down her back. In her white muslin wrapper and white nightgown she looked like some princess in a fairy-tale.
There was a purity about her, and a vulnerable innocence. She was as fresh as the morning.
Strangely touched, the earl stood watching her until she turned about and went back inside.
Chapter
Three
Last night, party at Landsdowne House. Tonight, party at Lady Charlotte Greville’s—deplorable waste of time, and something of temper. Nothing imparted—nothing acquired—talking without ideas … Heigho!—and in this way half London pass what is called life.
—Lord Althorp
Emily was just sinking into a deep sleep when she remembered that rat. And then she remembered the drama caused by Lord Fleetwood’s startled horses. In the heat of the moment, she had been sure it was all the fault of the servants. But Rainbird had been so apologetic … and yet … and yet, he had not explained anything.
She tossed and turned, determined to put the matter out of her head, but now every creak and rustle sounded like the furtive movements of rats.
She rang the bell.
Alice answered it, looking her usual relaxed and beautiful self.
“I shall fetch your morning chocolate directly, miss,” said Alice, crossing the room to open the curtains.
“No,” said Emily. “I still want to sleep, but I am troubled about that rat. Is this house full of rats?”
Alice, like Rainbird, had no conscience about lying when she considered it necessary. “Oh, no,” she said in her slow, rich country voice. “Lord Charteris next door had the rat-catcher in and one of the rats got away. But we have no trouble on account of The Moocher, the kitchen cat. Fearsome hunter, he is.”
“But why were Lord Fleetwood’s horses frightened?”
“I don’t know, miss. Reckon there are many odd people about London. Mr. Rainbird said a horrible-looking man shouted at them and frightened them. Will there be anything else?”
“Yes. Rainbird apologised for his earlier insolence but did not explain why he had been insolent. Can you tell me?”
Alice looked at Emily with wide blue eyes while she tried to think of an excuse. Then it hit her that perhaps the truth was the best explanation.
“You see, miss,” said Alice, “we have mortal-poor wages, and we rely on a tenant to increase those wages. Seeing as how you was so nice over the matter of the rent, we reckoned as how you might be overnice in the matter of household expenses. And there was still time to find another tenant.”
“Do you mean,” said Emily wrathfully, “that you were trying to drive me away?”
“Sounds a bit harsh put like that,” said Alice, “but times is hard. We are all ever so sorry now.”
Emily tried to stay angry, but anger was quickly being replaced by relief. They had not thought her common or despised her for her low origins. They did not know! They had merely considered her to be stingy.
“Oh,” said Emily. “Well, behave yourselves in future. Perhaps I understand now why that normally deft and agile butler contrived to fall over the table. What was in those cakes?”
But Alice felt she had revealed enough. “Mr. MacGregor, the cook, is a genius,” said Alice. “Pity them cakes was spoiled.”
“It is a pity that Lord Fleetwood was given a disgust of this house,” said Emily, although she knew it was she herself who had disaffected him. “Is he a great personage?”
“Yes, miss. Mr. Rainbird do say as how Lord Fleetwood is a leader of society. This is his second Season in London since the death of his wife, although she died eight years ago.”
“And how did she die?” Emily felt she was being very vulgar gossiping with a servant, but her curiosity about the handsome earl was becoming stronger by the minute.
“She was beaten to death in a wood near his country home, miss.”
“Gracious! Who was responsible?”
“Nobody ever found out, miss,” said Alice, who, like Jenny, had no time for Luke’s gossip and did not believe a word of the next-door footman’s story of Lord Fleetwood’s having committed the murder himself.
Emily felt she should now dismiss Alice, but she had not conversed with any member of her own sex for such a long time. “You are very pretty, Alice,” said Emily. “Did that not cause you some trouble with the previous gentleman tenants of this house?” Emily suddenly remembered some of her own experiences as a chambermaid while Sir Harry Jackson had still been well enough to entertain.
“No, miss. Mr. Rainbird would never allow such a thing. One gentleman,” said Alice, remembering the arrival of last year’s handsome tenant, “got a bit frisky at first, but after Mr. Rainbird spoke to him I didn’t have no trouble.”
“Thank you, Alice,” said Emily, who felt she had been indulging in gossip for long enough. “You may go.”
Alice went out quietly and closed the door.
Emily snuggled down under the blankets. So the servants had not seen under her mask after all! No one would, she reassured herself fiercely. Sir Harry’s estates had been in Cumberland, in the far north of England. Such guests as he had entertained had usually come from the local county, and only one or two travellers had stopped over on their road to London.
A shadow fell across Emily’s face. It was one of those travellers who had tried to force his attentions on her, a horrible man—Mr. Percival Pardon. Her screams had brought Mr. Goodenough, then the butler, Spinks, running to her aid. The row that had ensued had caused the poor butler to have an apoplexy from which he had recovered but which had left his face peculiarly twisted up. Shortly after that unfortunate visit, Sir Harry had fallen ill and entertained no more.
Surely no one in. London would recognise the chambermaid Emily Jenkins in the now rich and fashionable Emily Goodenough, or the butler Spinks in the changed face of the now Benjamin Goodenough, Esquire.
They had laid their plans well. They had not dashed off to London, but had gone about things slowly and carefully. The house and estates had been sold, and then they had travelled south to Bath, so that Emily might study the manners of the ladies, and have a fashionable wardrobe made. They had spent a whole year in Bath becoming accustomed to their new identities, although they took no part in the society of the spa.
Somewhere in London, thought Emily, as her eyes began to close, must be a gentleman of manners and title who would want her for a wife. Lord Fleetwood would not do at all, even if it turned out she had not given him a dislike of her, thought Emily, banishing the earl’s handsome face from her mind. Any man who despised servants as much as he must be cold and unfeeling.
“Why do you persist in staying in this disgusting hotel?” demanded the Earl of Fleetwood’s sister, Mrs. Mary Otterley. “You have a perfectly good town house in Grosvenor Square.”
“Which you are living in at the moment,” pointed out the earl. “I did not expect you to take it for this Season as well.”
“I do not see what the trouble is,” said Mrs. Otterley crossly. “You were quite content to stay with us last year.”
“If I may remind you of last year,” said the earl gently, “I came to the Season to find myself a wife. No sooner had I found a likely candidate than you saw fit to call on the girl and her parents, and after that I found I was not welcome.”
“Nothing to do with me,” said Mrs. Otterley. She was a fat, squar
e, pugnacious, red-faced woman, some ten years older than the earl.
“And yet, I was under the impression, Mary, that it was you who reminded my lady-love of the peculiar nature of my late wife’s death.”
“Stuff! Would I do such a thing?”
“Your son, Clarence, stands to inherit my title and estates if I do not wed and have children of my own. I am warning you, Mary, do not interfere again.”
Mrs. Otterley buried her dry eyes in a handkerchief and gave a very stage-like sob. “That my own brother should accuse me of such a thing! Poor Clarissa. How can you forget her so soon?”
“Easily,” said the earl brutally. “Clarissa, my lovely wife, has been dead these past eight years.”
“I cannot understand what went wrong with that marriage,” said his sister, giving up pretending to cry. “Clarissa was so beautiful, so dainty, so much a lady …”
“And childless,” said the earl, “so naturally you approved of her. I did not talk to you about my marriage at the time, Mary, and I have no intention of talking about it now. I had enough of a cross to bear with those Sussex servants at Whitecross Hall. They tattled and gossiped so much, it was a wonder I was not hanged outside Newgate. I detest malicious gossips, and my detestation of all servants makes me reluctant to set about finding a place in London. The servants I have now in Sussex are hand-picked and as close-mouthed as clams. They are all good country people, unlike the last lot, who were mostly imports from London.”
“No girl will marry you,” said Mrs. Otterley. “You are too hard and unfeeling.”
“Any woman will marry me for my title and fortune, provided you do not turn up on her doorstep with tales of murder. I do not look for love, simply for good breeding and refined manners.”
“All I have to say is,” began his sister, but then she broke off as an elegant exquisite was ushered into the earl’s suite of rooms. “Oh, here’s that poisonous fribble. I’m off.”
As the door slammed behind her, the earl turned to the new arrival with a sweet smile and said, “Sit down, Fitz. You are a sight for sore eyes. Nothing endears me more to you than your ability to rout my Friday-faced sister.”