Deception (Daughters of Mannerling 3) (7 page)

Lizzie saw Lord Burfield come back with a little tray which held two glasses of lemonade. She saw him say something to Prudence, although she did not yet know their names, and then the couple walked together to where there were two seats in front of the statue behind which Lizzie was seated. Lizzie edged her chair to the side until she could see the couple. The man set the little tray on a small table beside them. The lady suddenly gave a shriek of laughter and said ‘Do but look at that quiz over there, Lord Burfield!’

‘Where, Miss Makepeace?’

‘Why, over there by the fireplace near the entrance!’

Lord Burfield raised his quizzing-glass. Prudence quickly emptied most of the contents of the little bottle into his glass.

Lizzie stared wide-eyed. Was this Miss Makepeace trying to poison this Lord Burfield? Or was it a love potion?

She did not want to make a scene. But she left her seat, leaned round the statue, and in a moment had turned the little tray around.

‘Your lemonade, Miss Makepeace,’ said Lord Burfield.

Prudence drank hers with a long gulp, anxious to show that she had really been thirsty. He sipped his, looking as if he did not like it very much.

But then Prudence began to feel groggy. At first she was bewildered, wondering whether her stays had been lashed too tight, but with the last of her wits she realized she had drunk the glass with the laudanum in it. She got to her feet. Lord Burfield rose as well. ‘Excuse me,’ muttered Prudence. He watched her anxiously as she swayed off, colliding with some of the guests.

‘Now what have I done?’ said a conscience-stricken little voice at his elbow.

He looked down into the face of the youngest of the Beverley sisters. ‘What have you done?’

‘That lady with you,’ said Lizzie earnestly, ‘took a bottle out of her corsage and poured the contents into your glass, so I turned the tray around. I thought it was a love potion. But what if it was poison?’

He remembered with alarm Prudence’s odd exit from the ballroom. ‘I had better find out,’ he said.

He could hardly believe this odd little girl’s strange story, but he approached Mrs Makepeace and said she should find her daughter, for he feared she was unwell. ‘Perhaps she has gone to her room,’ said Mrs Makepeace anxiously. She hurried off and Lord Burfield followed her as she made her way through the twisting passages of the old house and then up the staircase to the bedrooms. Mrs Makepeace went into her daughter’s bedroom. Prudence was lying face down on the bed. She turned her over. A small snore sounded. Mrs Makepeace could not believe that Prudence had actually fallen asleep. She was about to ring for the maid to come and undress her daughter when she noticed a little bottle lying next to Prudence’s open hand. She picked it up and recognized the laudanum bottle. What had the child been about to take laudanum? Nothing could be done until the girl woke up and could be questioned.

She rang for the maid and said tetchily in a voice that carried to Lord Burfield’s listening ears, ‘Miss Prudence for some reason has taken a draught of laudanum. Be so good as to undress her.’ She went out of the bedroom and nearly collided with Lord Burfield.

‘Oh, my lord,’ she said, colouring guiltily. ‘I am afraid my Prudence must have been overcome by the excitement of the ball. She is such a sensitive and delicate child. She is fast asleep! Pray return with me below stairs.’

Lord Burfield followed her back to the ballroom, his mind racing. Why had Prudence tried to drug him? He saw the small red-haired Beverley girl watching him anxiously and went to join her. ‘Laudanum,’ he murmured, ‘but let it be our secret. Which Beverley are you?’

‘Lizzie.’

‘Then, Miss Lizzie, I am very much in your debt. I am Burfield.’

‘I know who you are,’ said Lizzie. ‘I asked Miss Trumble, my governess.’

‘You did not tell her the reason for your curiosity?’

‘No, I was so afraid, you see, that it might have been poison.’

‘Well, let us say no more about it.’

‘Some ladies are, I believe,’ said Lizzie, her green eyes glittering like emeralds, ‘monstrous addicted to laudanum.’

‘That may be the case.’

‘But then, why would she put it in your glass?’

‘I shall find out on the morrow, believe me.’

‘And if I keep your secret, will you tell me? You will be calling on Abigail, no doubt.’

‘I promise.’

‘Perhaps that is the reason she may have tried to drug you.’

‘What reason, pray?’

‘To stop you calling on Abigail.’

‘I am sure that cannot be the case. Who would go to such lengths?’

Perhaps Prudence Makepeace, thought Lizzie, but she did not say so aloud.

The ennui, which seizes me in such an indifferent state of mind, is too clearly written on my undiplomatic face not to extend to others as contagiously as yawning.

PRINCE PÜCKLER-MUSKAU

Abigail began to wonder when her mother intended to leave. The ballroom was beginning to become thin of company but Lady Beverley sat on, talking to a group of chaperones and dowagers with more animation than she had shown in some time. The clock on one of the walls showed it was four in the morning. The footmen were beginning to look jaded. Little Lizzie was sitting on her own in a corner, her eyes drooping. Abigail’s feet in their white kid dancing slippers were aching.

She finished promenading with her partner and was crossing the floor to join Lizzie when Lord Burfield came up to her. ‘The honour of another dance, Miss Abigail?’

‘If I must.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘You are ungracious.’

‘I am so very tired, my lord, and Mama shows no sign of leaving.’

‘Dance with me and then I will persuade Lady Evans to send you and your family on your way.’

She smiled up at him. He put his hand at her waist and led her into the steps of the waltz. Abigail did not experience any of the delicious sensations a young lady should feel when waltzing with the most handsome man in the room. All she knew was that she felt comfortable with him, as if she had known him for a long time. She was so weary she was unaware of the speculative looks being cast in their direction.
Three
dances with the same young lady was considered tantamount to a proposal of marriage.

One of the fires had begun to smoke and the candle-light and colours of the jewels and gowns glimmered through the resultant dreamlike haze. When the waltz was over, she placed one gloved hand on Lord Burfield’s arm and walked round the room with him. ‘Please, please try to get us to leave,’ she whispered. ‘I do not want to dance again.’

‘And after waltzing with you, every other dance would be an anticlimax,’ he said.

She looked up at him, slightly puzzled, and then her face cleared. ‘Oh, you are
flirting.
I am so sorry. I am too tired to flirt.’

So much for my famous charm, thought Lord Burfield wryly. He pressed her hand. ‘Go and join your little sister, who is hiding in the corner, and I will talk to Lady Evans.’

Abigail went up to Lizzie and sat down on a chair beside her. ‘Are we never going to leave?’ said Lizzie, stifling a yawn.

‘It will be all right soon,’ said Abigail. ‘Lord Burfield has gone to talk to Lady Evans and she will persuade Mama to take us away.’

‘Lord Burfield is charming and handsome, is he not?’

‘I suppose he is.’

‘We are supposed to be looking for husbands,’ said Lizzie. ‘Had you not thought of him in that light?’

‘No,’ said Abigail truthfully. ‘It is because of Mannerling.’

‘Oh, no. Not Mannerling still!’

‘I mean, we have been such fools over that place, always hoping to marry to reclaim it, and now that I no longer think about the place, I cannot really, this early, begin to think of anything else. Also, I appear to lack romanticism in my character. When I think of marriage now, I feel a great weariness, a sort of oh-I-suppose-I-must. Believe me, were we still in funds, I might contemplate a future of spinsterhood with equanimity. You are still too young, Lizzie, to feel the pressures of needing to wed.’

‘I dream of having a place of my very own,’ said Lizzie. ‘The husband is always a shadowy figure. But I do dream of a trim house, with a pony and some dogs and perhaps children.’

‘There is Mama looking for us, and Miss Trumble,’ said Abigail. ‘She is saying something to Miss Trumble and Miss Trumble has that closed look on her face she always has when she is upset.’

The reason for Miss Trumble’s upset became all too apparent when they were all in the carriage and on the journey home. ‘Miss Trumble will be leaving us tomorrow,’ said Lady Beverley. ‘You girls no longer need a governess.’

‘But who will look after us when we are ill?’ wailed Lizzie. ‘Oh, Miss Trumble, you promised to stay with me till I wed!’

‘I am sorry,’ said Miss Trumble quietly. ‘I have no choice in the matter.’

‘But where will you go?’ asked Belinda. ‘I shall go as companion to Lady Evans.’

Lady Beverley’s pale gaze fastened on the governess’s face. ‘And when was this arranged, pray?’

‘What I do or do not do is no longer any business of yours,’ said Miss Trumble with hauteur.

Abigail said, ‘I do not know what we will do without you, who we will lean on. It is too bad of you, Mama. I know what it is! Miss Trumble was wearing a finer gown than yours and you took a pet and it is all your own fault, for you could have ordered a new dress for yourself.’

‘Silence!’ commanded Lady Beverley. ‘Miss Trumble is leaving tomorrow, and that is that!’

The next day the sisters arose late. When they gathered downstairs it was to find that the gentlemen they had danced with the night before had sent cards, which meant they would not be calling in person, and only Lizzie noticed that Lord Burfield alone had not sent his card.

Miss Trumble’s trunks were packed, corded, and standing in the hall. The day was grey and cold, with a chill wind from the north-east. Lady Beverley was staying in her room, so it was left to the sisters to say goodbye to their governess. How they had often resented her lessons and homilies, and yet how bereft they felt as her slim figure climbed into the carriage beside a gloomy Barry Wort.

‘We cannot really manage without you,’ said Abigail. ‘Will you come back and see us?’

‘I doubt if your mama would allow that,’ said Miss Trumble, smiling down at their sorrowful faces. ‘But I will write to you.’

‘You are only going as far as Lady Evans’s home. We could call on you,’ said Lizzie eagerly.

‘I am afraid that would not be suitable,’ replied Miss Trumble. ‘Goodbye, my chucks, be good.’ Clustered outside the door, they watched sadly as Barry clicked his tongue and the little open carriage moved off down the short drive.

There was a short silence and then Barry said, ‘I reckon I’ll write to Miss Isabella, I mean Lady Fitzpatrick, and tell her I will join her lord’s household in Ireland.’

‘Oh, no, you must not do that, Barry.’

‘But you will be gone.’

Miss Trumble gave a little smile. ‘Only for a little, Barry. Only for a little.’

Lord Burfield drove past Barry and Miss Trumble on his way to Brookfield House. He recognized the governess and touched his hat. He saw the trunks piled up in the rumble. Lady Evans had told him before he left that she had engaged the Beverleys’ governess as companion.

He was surprised when he reached Brookfield House to find it a trim mansion with well-kept gardens. Barry had done much to bring the house and grounds into good repair. From the stories about the Beverleys, he had expected to find them living in shabby circumstances.

The fact that he was not expected, that no callers had been expected, was evident, firstly, in the flustered mien of the little maid who answered the door to him. He was led into a chilly, little-used drawing room while another maid struggled to make up the fire. The maid then went upstairs and scratched on the door of Lady Beverley’s bedroom and then entered.

‘Beg pardon, my lady,’ she whispered to the figure on the bed, ‘but Lord Burfield is called.’

‘I cannot see him,’ wailed Lady Beverley. ‘I have the headache. Send Miss Trumble to me.’

‘Miss Trumble has left.’

Lady Beverley groaned. ‘Miss Trumble often made me a posset. Ask Josiah to make me one the same and bring it to me and present my apologies to Lord Burfield.’

The maid, Betty, anxious to please her mistress above all else, went first to the kitchen, where Josiah told her that Miss Trumble had made all possets, tisanes, and medicines herself and he did not have the recipes. That intelligence was immediately conveyed to her ladyship, who groaned again.

Lord Burfield sat on in the chilly drawing room and wondered if anyone intended to acknowledge his presence. At last he knelt down in front of the fire, which had gone out and set about relighting it until there was a comfortable blaze. He was rubbing his hands fastidiously with a cambric handkerchief edged with lace when the door opened and Abigail came in.

‘I heard the crackling of the fire and wondered who was here,’ she said cheerfully. ‘How good of you to call. We did not expect you, don’t you know, because we are not considered marriageable because of our reduced circumstances, and so gentlemen send cards instead. I shall call the others. No, on second thoughts, why do you not join us in the parlour? We do not entertain much – well, not at all, to be honest with you – and the parlour is much more comfortable. This drawing room has not been fired this age and is damp.’

He followed her out and into a cheerful little parlour. The other three sisters were grouped around the fire. They rose at his entrance and curtsied prettily.

The room was cheerful and filled with books and sewing. Bowls of pot-pourri scented the air. The chairs were worn but comfortable and he took a large armchair by the fire. Cushions were placed at his back and the maids were sent scurrying to fetch cakes and tea.

‘It is too cold to leave the door standing ajar,’ said Abigail. ‘But then you are not alone with one of us, Lord Burfield, and so we shall all chaperon each other.’

Abigail was wearing an old blue woollen gown, a trifle short on her, but showing she had excellent ankles. The blue of the gown highlighted the intense blue of her eyes and the creaminess of her skin. She perched unselfconsciously on the arm of his chair and smiled down at him with open friendliness.