Deborah Goes to Dover (10 page)

‘And the house?’ asked Captain Beltravers eagerly.

‘Quite modern. Built around 1750. Good brick and no dry rot as I recall. Six bedchambers and, let me see, the usual – dining-room, drawing-room, saloon, muniments room, gun-room, library, and then all the usual servants’ quarters, pantry and
still-room, kitchens and so on. I’ll take you over this afternoon, if you like. Beltravers! There was a Mr John Beltravers who had a tidy property at Deal.’

‘My father,’ said the captain curtly. ‘I inherited the lot and sold it. My wife was dead, you see, and … well …’

‘I understand,’ said the earl sympathetically. ‘In any case, it would pass the afternoon.’

‘Would you care to come?’ the captain asked Mrs Conningham.

‘We should be delighted,’ said Mrs Conningham, eyeing the captain with a look half-calculating,
half-surprised.

‘I am not a very good rider,’ said Abigail timidly.

‘We’ll all go in my carriage,’ said the earl. ‘Miss Pym?’

Hannah smiled. ‘I shall be quite happy having a quiet afternoon here in your beautiful home.’ Hannah felt sure her presence would not be needed. Mrs Conningham had found out the captain had money. Let her see the house and let her begin to imagine the possibility of her daughter living there. Then she, Hannah Pym, would get to work on her when the party returned.

The earl returned at midday with the coach tickets he had insisted on paying for, and then set off in his carriage with the captain, Mrs Conningham and her daughter. Hannah watched them go. Abigail’s pelisse and gown were sadly dashed and no man liked a girl in a dashed gown, thought Hannah. They expected
everything to be bandbox fresh. Nothing she had herself would fit Abigail.

She was just about to send for Benjamin and take a walk when Lady Deborah and Lord William were announced. Hannah rose to greet them, noticing with quick eyes that William appeared to take the news that Lord Ashton was absent with equanimity, but his sister looked a trifle put out. Also, Deborah was wearing a handsome carriage dress of blue velvet, the colour of her eyes, and a very modish bonnet.

‘Lord Ashton was most upset when he learned you had gone off on the coach,’ said Hannah. ‘You are lucky you did not come to any harm.’

‘Pooh. It was all so tedious,’ said Deborah, flashing her brother a warning look. ‘Perhaps Lady Carsey found her long-lost conscience.’

‘Such as she was born without one,’ remarked Hannah tartly. She studied Deborah’s handsome dress again and then her eyes glowed green. It was time in any case that Lady Deborah forgot her hoydenish ways and settled down to becoming a lady. ‘What a splendid gown, Lady Deborah,’ said Hannah. ‘I was led to believe that you did not care for frills and furbelows.’

‘She wouldn’t if left to herself,’ laughed William. ‘Papa gets a London dressmaker to make up the latest.’

‘It is just that I cannot help hoping you might assist me in a plot to further a romance,’ ventured Hannah.

Deborah looked amused while William snorted in disgust, his feelings for Clarissa not having made him
view the idea of anyone else’s romance with a kinder eye.

‘If I can,’ said Deborah cautiously.

‘I wish to help Miss Conningham, Miss Abigail Conningham. You met at the Crown?’

Both nodded.

‘She is in sore distress because her uncle in Dover has picked out a husband for her. The future husband is in his forties. She does not wish to marry this Mr Clegg. She does, however, favour Captain Beltravers, who is part of our coach party. The captain, thanks to Miss Conningham, has decided to leave the army, buy a tidy property and settle down. To that end, Lord Ashton has taken him to look at a place for sale, I believe, by a Mr Travers.’

‘The captain must have a tidy bit put by,’ exclaimed William.

‘Exactly. But the problem is this. The captain still mourns his late wife. Mrs Cunningham has learned that the captain has money and will look on him with a favourable eye. Oh, I should have gone with them!’

‘Why?’ asked Deborah.

‘For I now realize that Mrs Conningham will look on our captain with
too
favourable an eye. The daughter will no longer be forbidden fruit. She is plain and could look considerably better with a little help. She went off wearing a gown and pelisse that had seen better days.’

‘Dashed?’ asked Deborah sympathetically.

‘Very dashed. Also, she has a muddy
brown-coloured
silk with the waist at the waistline instead of
up under the arms where it should be. She will no doubt wear it at dinner. Mrs Conningham will gush over the captain. Abigail will be crushed.’

‘And where do I feature in your matchmaking?’ asked Deborah.

‘Perhaps you could lend Miss Abigail a pretty gown.’

‘Miss Pym! She would be most humiliated.’

‘Not if you put it the right way. You could say, for instance, that her grand gowns are no doubt being sent on to Dover from London and you thought she might like to borrow something of yours, particularly as the earl is going to invite you for dinner.’

‘He is?’ asked the twins in unison.

‘Oh, I’m sure he is,’ said Hannah earnestly. ‘I mean, if you were to pay a call about one hour before the dressing gong with the gown for Miss Conningham, he is bound to ask you to stay.’

‘Won’t he think it deuced odd if Debs and I call in all our evening finery?’ asked William.

‘Not at all,’ said Hannah primly. ‘You tell him you dine at home like that every evening.’

William roared with laughter. ‘Famous! But I am afraid we can’t be doing with such flummery, and the less I see of Ashton the better.’

‘Miss Pym asked
me
,’ said Deborah quietly, ‘and yes, Miss Pym, I do have the very gown and I will bring it over along with some bits and pieces to embellish it.’

‘I say,’ said William crossly as they rode home, ‘
whatever
are you about to promise that crooked-nosed
Pym female to help in her meddling matchmaking? Now we’ll have to get all titivated up and Ashton will no doubt bore us with a sermon over dinner.’

‘Do as you like,’ replied his sister indifferently. ‘I shall most certainly go.’ They rode on in silence, each with their own thoughts, the old closeness between them gone.

Hannah summoned Benjamin and said she would like to take a walk in the grounds and wished him to accompany her – ‘for you are becoming like all footmen, Benjamin, too fond of the butler’s port and pantry and not enough of the fresh air.’

‘Hardly a day for a walk, modom,’ complained Benjamin when they were outside. Mist was rising from the ground and crawling snakelike around the bowls of the trees.

Hannah strode on, ignoring his remarks. ‘Take deep breaths, Benjamin, and throw out your chest.’

‘I’ates the bleedin’ country,’ mumbled her footman from somewhere in the mist behind her. ‘Fog an’ bleedin’ damp and poxy hanimals slaughterin’ each uvver.’

Hannah thought it politic to ignore him. Despite the mist, the air was quite warm and pleasant, and somewhere above, the sun was trying to struggle through.

Lady Carsey had tumbled back into bed exhausted at dawn and did not wake until nearly noon. She recollected the events of the night before with a
shudder and assumed she had had the Horrors, which was how the polite described delirium tremens, the curse of a hard-drinking society.

She was not surprised to find that her hosts had not left. Her bags were packed and her coach brought around. She did not tip any of the Langford servants and made Lady Langford a curt goodbye.

As she climbed into the coach, she ordered the coachman to drive her to Ashton Park. Her visit must not be wasted. She would think of some way in which to persuade the earl to let her stay the night.

Soon the coach was bowling up the long drive to Ashton Park. She peered out into the thickening mist, wishing she could see more of the property her optimistic mind was already beginning to regard as her own.

The butler told her solemnly that the earl and his guests had ridden out to the Travers’s place.

‘I am an old friend of his lordship. I shall wait,’ said Lady Carsey grandly.

She was shown into the drawing-room and, after being served with tea and cakes, left to her own devices. She looked about her with a critical eye. The furniture was sadly old-fashioned, and moth had got into the curtains, but the carpet was good and an effort had been made to cheer the room with several excellent flower arrangements. There was a piece of discarded embroidery lying on the sofa. Lady Carsey frowned. That butler had said the earl had guests and obviously at least one of the guests was female. A faint glow at the windows showed that the sun was
beginning to shine through the mist. Hopeful of seeing something now of the park, she rose to her feet and walked to the windows and looked down.

The mist was still coiling around the trees, blown by a fitful breeze.

And then suddenly she saw them.

The ghosts of Hannah Pym and Benjamin Stubbs. Benjamin was in black velvet livery and Hannah had put on one of her old black housekeeper’s gowns.

They were walking slowly,
gliding
across the grass. And then they disappeared.

Down below on the lawn, Hannah heard a plaintive miaow. She peered up into the branches of a tall oak tree. ‘Benjamin,’ she said, ‘there is a kitty up there.’

‘It’ll come down if you leave it alone. Moggies allus do,’ grumbled Benjamin.

‘But it sounded such a
small
cat,’ said Hannah, betraying once more how far she had moved from the servant class, for servants did not have the luxury of having tender thoughts about animals.

‘Enjoying itself,’ commented Benjamin
repressively.

‘Benjamin! I thought I had made myself clear. Go up that tree this minute and rescue that animal.’

Benjamin sighed but nipped up the broad branches of the tree like lightning.

The upper branches of the tree were on a level with the drawing-room windows, but over to the left, where the branches had been trimmed back so that they did not obscure the view of the park, Lady Carsey was still staring out, chalk-white and shaking.
She caught a little sign of movement to her left and looked straight into the face of Benjamin. Benjamin’s face contorted with fear at the sight of her and he let out a wail.

Lady Carsey screamed and screamed. She
blundered
from the drawing-room, shouting desperately for her coach. She crouched in a corner of the hall while it was being brought round, babbling
incoherently
and making the sign of the cross. Francine tried to burn feathers under her nose, but Lady Carsey only screamed the harder and pushed her away.

When her coach arrived, she scrambled in and crouched on the floor and stayed there muttering and shaking until the coach was several miles away from Ashton Park.

Benjamin scrambled down the tree and handed Hannah a small fluffy kitten. ‘You’ll never guess, modom,’ he panted. ‘I looked in the drawing-room window and I saw ’er, Lady Carsey. She was as white as a sheet, like she’d seen a ghost.’

‘Fustian!’ said Hannah roundly. The sound of a hastily departing carriage reached their ears. Hannah quickened her step and entered the hall. All the old and creaking servants were gathered there, talking excitedly.

Hannah was soon told about the strange visit of Lady Carsey and how she had suddenly gone mad and run off. ‘How very odd,’ said Hannah Pym. ‘The woman must have a conscience after all, Benjamin, and when she saw you, she must have remembered how you were nearly hanged because of her spite and lost her wits!’

6

Hannah knew that things had gone very badly for Abigail as soon as she saw the girl’s sad face and her mother’s excited one.

The captain looked withdrawn. Mrs Conningham was hanging on to his arm as they entered the hall of Ashton Park, chattering nineteen to the dozen. Was not that property sublime? Everything in perfect order and as neat as a pin. Of course – slyly – it lacked a woman’s touch.

Right behind them came Deborah and William. The earl, startled, invited both for dinner, and all dispersed and went upstairs to the rooms allotted to
them instead of gathering in the drawing-room to chat and await the ringing of the dressing-bell: Mrs Conningham because she was tired, and the captain because he was tired of Mrs Conningham; William and Deborah in case the earl might change his mind; and Hannah because she wanted to get to work on Abigail.

Deborah found Abigail lying face down on the bed, weeping.

‘Now, now, Miss Conningham,’ said Deborah, ringing the bell and telling the servant who answered it that Miss Pym must present herself as soon as possible. While she waited for Hannah, Deborah sat down on the edge of the bed and patted Abigail helplessly on the shoulder and wished she could find something to say other than, ‘Now, now.’

Hannah Pym swept in and took in the situation at a glance.

‘Dear me,’ she cried, ‘this will never do. Miss Conningham, you will ruin your looks with weeping. Come, sit up and let me bathe your face.’ Her crisp voice had the effect of calming Abigail. She got up shakily and stood like an obedient child while Hannah sponged and dried her face.

‘Now, let me guess,’ said Hannah briskly. ‘Your mama has found out the captain is in funds and has chosen to forget the existence of Mr Clegg. She gushed all over the captain and the more she gushed, the more silent and withdrawn he became.’

‘It … it … was
awful
,’ gulped Abigail. ‘He hardly spoke to me. At last, just before we were to leave, he
looked around and said it would have been a wonderful place to bring up his boy.’

‘Well, you will not repair the damage by looking like a wreck.’ Hannah turned to Deborah. ‘Did you bring the dress?’

‘Yes, one of my prettiest.’

‘Fetch it here,’ commanded Hannah.

She took Abigail’s hand and led her to a chair. ‘I am going to talk to you very severely, my child. If something is worth fighting for, then you need to fight very hard, and you need a suit of armour. We were going to put this to you more delicately, but we do not have time. Lady Deborah has brought you a fine gown and you must look your best for the captain. We need not tell your mama of this. She will notice, of course, but you can say afterwards that Lady Deborah assumed all your grand gowns were being sent down to Dover from London and chose to lend you something. Goodness, look at the time!’

‘But there are two whole hours to go before dinner!’ exclaimed Abigail.

‘And it will take all of that to get you in shape.’ Hannah rolled up her sleeves. ‘I will be your
lady’-smaid.
Undress down to your shift and sit at the toilet-table.’

Deborah, returning with a small trunk containing the gown, was pressed into service. Hannah was stirring up a wash for Abigail’s face which she said was guaranteed to whiten the skin. ‘I made this myself,’ said Hannah. ‘It consists of fifty parts milk of almonds mixed with rose-water and four parts aluminium
sulphate. See that Miss Abigail bathes her face well, Lady Deborah, while I get the beauty cream.’ Hannah bent over and began to rummage in a capacious bag of cosmetics she had brought with her.

‘Do you make all your own cosmetics?’ asked Deborah, amused that such a spinsterish and upright lady as Hannah Pym should be so conversant with beauty aids.

‘Yes, Mrs Clarence taught me.’

‘A friend of yours?’

‘A good friend,’ said Hannah, who had no intention of telling Lady Deborah that Mrs Clarence had been her employer. Yes, she had told previous aristocratic ladies she had met on her travels the truth, but she still did not know Lady Deborah very well.

‘And how did you make this cream?’ asked Deborah, peering into a large jar.

‘It is made from,’ said Hannah, ‘ten grams of powdered alum, two whites of egg, three grams of boric acid, forty drops of tincture of benzoin, forty drops of olive oil, five drops of mucilage of acacia and a sufficient quantity of rice flour and perfume.

‘You mix the alum with the white of egg, without any addition of water whatsoever, in an earthen vessel and dissolve the alum with the aid of gentle heat from a small lamp, and with constant, even stirring. This must continue until the water content of the albumen is driven off. Care must be taken to avoid curdling of the albumen – which occurs very easily, as we all know. Let the mass obtained in this manner get completely cold, then throw it into a Wedgwood
mortar, add the boric acid, tincture of benzoin, oil, mucilage et cetera, and rub up together, thickening it with the addition of rice flour to give the desired consistency, and perfuming as you go along.’

‘Goodness!’ exclaimed Deborah. ‘It sounds like skin
remover
!’

‘Nonsense,’ snapped Hannah. ‘She will look very beautiful.’

Deborah worked patiently under Hannah’s
instructions,
laying the gown out on the bed, heating the little spirit stove and putting the curling tongs on it to heat, and passing Hannah jars and bottles out of her bag.

Deborah found it strangely soothing, the murmur of Hannah’s voice as she worked away, the smell of the salves and creams and washes and pomatums, the closeness of three women working hard to trap a man.

She finally helped Hannah to slip the gown over Abigail’s head and tie the tapes. The gown was of gossamer blue chiffon over a silk underdress of paler blue. It had little frills on the puffed sleeves, a deep neckline revealing that Abigail boasted an excellent bosom, and three deep, frilly flounces at the hem.

‘And I brought you these things to set it off,’ said Deborah, and Abigail cried in amazement as she produced a thin, delicate sapphire-and-gold necklace with two thin gold-and-sapphire bracelets, a
headdress
of blue silk cornflowers, and a pair of long white kid gloves.

Abigail was made to sit down in front of the mirror again while the headdress was tenderly placed on her freshly curled and pomaded hair. Hannah studied her
critically and then brought some lampblack and proceeded to darken Abigail’s eyelashes. ‘A little dusting of rouge and you are done to a turn,’ cried Hannah.

Oh, the wonder of clothes! Abigail felt like a new and alluring woman. Her eyes were shining with excitement.

‘The dinner-bell,’ said Hannah in dismay.

She and Deborah rushed off. Deborah was already dressed for dinner in a rose silk gown, a necklace of garnets, and a gold-and-garnet tiara – garnets being the latest vogue – but she wanted to study her reflection and add extra perfume, and Hannah had not even changed.

In the drawing-room before dinner, it became clear that Mrs Conningham was not offended by Deborah’s lending her daughter a gown. Far from it. She could hear herself genteelly murmuring to her friends over the teacups, ‘So sad for poor Abigail to have nothing really proper to wear, but her friend, Lady Deborah, who is monstrous fond of her, rushed to the rescue.’

Hannah made sure that she held all Mrs
Conningham’s
attention to keep that lady away from the captain.

She was too busy enjoying the effect Abigail’s appearance was having on the captain to notice that the Earl of Ashton was taken aback by the picture Deborah made.

The rose silk gown flattered Deborah’s excellent figure and showed the whiteness of her bosom. As was the current fashion, she carried one end of the skirt
looped over her arm to show one excellently shaped leg. Deborah had muttered to her surprised brother that he must appear to make something of a play for Abigail but without interfering in that young lady’s conversation with Captain Beltravers, and so Abigail found herself being flattered by the handsome Lord William and appeared almost as pretty as she thought she now looked.

They all sat down to dinner in high spirits. The captain was once more thinking seriously of asking Abigail to wed him; Abigail was glowing with an infectious happiness; Mrs Conningham was in high alt to be so surrounded by titles; Hannah was proud of her success as lady’s-maid; Deborah was enjoying the occasional flash of admiration she caught in the earl’s eyes when he looked at her; William was thinking of Clarissa and wondering how soon he could get to London; and the earl was pleased that the twins should show themselves to be such a
goodlooking,
pleasant pair.

All was going as merry as a marriage bell until the earl turned to order more wine, caught the eye of one of his elderly footmen, and the footman crossed his fingers to ward off the evil eye.

‘What do you mean by that?’ roared the earl. ‘Judd,’ he said to his butler, ‘what does James mean? Has he gone mad?’

The butler approached his master, trembling. ‘It’s said the devil is in this house, my lord,’ he quavered.

‘What superstitious rubbish is this?’ demanded the earl.

‘It was Lady Carsey. She came here this afternoon, my lord, and she saw something which unhinged her mind. While she was waiting for her carriage, she was weeping and praying and making the sign of the cross.’

‘Lady
Carsey
?’

‘I think that has something to do with me and Benjamin,’ said Hannah. ‘I sent him up that tree outside the drawing-room windows to get a cat down – it turned out to be one of the stable cat’s kittens. Lady Carsey was looking out. She must have seen Benjamin’s face looming up out of the mist and her conscience must have smitten her at last, for she did try to have him hanged.’

William began to laugh and laugh. In desperation, Deborah tried to signal to him to be quiet, but he paid her no heed.

‘You know something about this, Lord William,’ said the earl, his green eyes narrowing. ‘Out with it!’

‘She
did
send someone to kill Miss Pym and Benjamin,’ said William, mopping his eyes. ‘Deb and I went on the stage-coach masquerading as Miss Pym and Benjamin. Lady Carsey sent some creature called Fotheringay to put poison in our coffee. Deb caught him in the act and switched the cups. God, was that fellow ill. I found him in the necessary house, puking up his guts.’ William burst out laughing again while the rest looked at him in horror.

‘Well, don’t you know, I didn’t want any scandal,’ said William, ‘and he had got rid of the poison and it would only be our word against his, and then, Ashton, you turned up to take us home.’

‘Yes, go on,’ said the earl grimly, remembering how strangely meek and biddable the twins had been.

‘There’s better,’ crowed William. ‘We thought, why should this Lady Carsey get off scot-free, so Deb and I decided to
haunt
her. We dressed up in our disguises and crept into her bedchamber at old Langford’s and gave her the fright of her life. You should have heard her scream when I lit that magnesium powder! Like a hundred cats with their tales in the mangle. Don’t you see the prime joke? It was misty this afternoon, and when she looked out, she must ha’ thought Miss Pym and Benjamin had come up from the grave to get her!’

And William leaned back in his chair and laughed and laughed.

The earl waited in stony silence until he had finished. Then he said coldly to his butler, ‘And why is it that
I
, who had nothing to do with this, am supposed to have the evil eye?’

The butler miserably shuffled his feet. ‘The servants say so, my lord, as how you look like the devil since you came back from the wars.’

There was a long silence. William had caught his sister’s horrified look and had stopped laughing. Both he and Deborah were suddenly thinking the same thing. The furious earl would write to their father now.

And then there came a snort of laughter. The Earl of Ashton was actually laughing. He was leaning back in his chair and roaring with laughter. Everyone else began to laugh as well out of sheer relief.

‘Be off with you, Judd,’ said the earl when he could,
‘and take that clown, James, with you. I will talk to all the servants later.’ He smiled at Deborah. ‘You have saved me a journey, for I fully meant to travel to Esher to warn Lady Carsey never to approach Miss Pym or Benjamin again. But Fotheringay is not a hired thug, he is an effeminate fop and her nephew. One day he will cross my path and then he will be sorry. But you ridiculous pair, you could have been killed!’

Deborah flushed and looked miserable, Hannah noticed. The earl was once more looking at the twins as if they were reprehensible scamps. ‘I think she wants
him
!’ thought Hannah, her matchmaking mind racing. ‘I must do something.’

Hannah was so absorbed in this new problem that she forgot to keep a close watch on Mrs Conningham and realized too late, when they were all gathered again in the drawing-room, that that lady had trapped the captain in a corner and was talking animatedly. There is nothing worse, nothing more terrifying, thought Hannah, than a widow woman of small means with marriageable daughters. The captain’s smile was becoming fixed.