Miser of Mayfair (9 page)

‘Oh, we met
her
,’ said Harriet. ‘She was travelling by the mail when it broke down or something and she and her father were invited to take dinner by Mr Pardon in his home. She is nothing out of the common way. A marked Scotch accent, very bold, and badly dressed.’

Mr Pardon, who was still smarting over the humiliation of kissing Mr Sinclair, said nothing.

‘But everyone – even Brummell – says she is divine. And all that money, too!’ enthused Lady Disher.

‘What money?’ demanded Mr Pardon sourly. ‘The old man hasn’t a feather to fly with.’

‘But he is a miser. Is it not thrilling? A veritable miser. One of his servants, the butler, I think, came upon him counting bags and bags of gold. He has a weak heart. In fact he had an attack in the park which nigh took him off to his Maker. ‘‘I will leave all my gold to you, Fiona,’’ he was heard to say. Of course, the gentlemen are going
wild.
Gold, more gold, and the face of an angel.
Nothing
could be more seductive. They were all – all the people who helped them home, that is – offered sour watered wine and stale cakes. ‘‘Divine,’’ says the great Brummell. ‘‘So good for the
tailleur
.’’’

Everyone started to show interest in the Sinclairs, although Bessie and Harriet tried every way they could to diminish Fiona’s beauty and reputation.

Lady Disher moved a little away from the nodding, gossiping heads. Mr Pardon followed her. He was suffering from a mixture of fury and humiliation. It was one thing to try to seduce a penniless girl of no particular family, but another to try to ravish an heiress. Sinclair could have taken him to court. He broke out in a light film of sweat at the thought.

‘Pity me,’ he said lightly. ‘I did not know I had a rich heiress under my roof.’

‘Why? Have you a need to marry well?’ laughed Lady Disher.

‘We all have a need to marry well,’ said Mr Pardon, thinking bitterly of the piles of unpaid bills stuffed in the pigeon holes of his bureau.

‘Then propose to her by all means! Mrs Leech is, after all, only the latest mistress on the scene. You have gracefully rid yourself of them before. Would that I were a man! I find myself at low ebb.’

‘What! I thought that gambling hell of yours made a fortune.’

‘Shhhh! My gambling hell, as you call it, is nothing more than a gathering of ladies who play cards. They are invited to one of my little afternoons or evenings and if they feel the urge to play, who am I to deny them?’

‘Perhaps we both might profit,’ said Mr Pardon slowly. ‘Say you were to send Miss Fiona a card – and quickly, before she is warned against you. That way you could shake some money loose from the golden tree. She will need to ask papa for the money, and he will be incensed. I will be on hand to comfort and advise him. I will offer myself as guide and protector – after I have settled your bills with his money, of course.’ He mentally added, And I had better have some splendid excuse to explain what I was doing jumping on him in the middle of the night.

‘I shall call on her tomorrow,’ said Lady Disher. ‘But what if she is shrewd? What if she takes one look around my establishment and takes her leave? What if she brings her father?’

‘You always know how to play your cards,’ said Mr Pardon, fanning himself delicately with a chickenskin fan. ‘She is invited to afternoon tea. Ladies only. Gossip among the cups. Little game of faro, Miss Sinclair? All respectable.
You
know how it is done. If she fails to take the bait, then I will do my best to lead her back into your web, my divine spider.’

‘Is she clever?’

‘I did not have much conversation with her. She was next to Harrington at dinner.’

‘Harrington? That devil and woman-hater? What did he say of her?’

‘Nothing. You know Harrington. Never gossips.’

‘He will not interfere? Did he seem
épris
in that direction?’

‘When was Harrington ever
épris
? Stern, silent misogynist . . . but she did make him laugh at one point.’

‘Aha! I feel the sooner I entrap Miss Fiona the better. I shall call tomorrow, and, if I fail, I will ask your help.’

‘Miss Sinclair!’ said Rainbird, rising to his feet. ‘What a pretty servants’ hall,’ said Fiona vaguely. ‘Is that your dinner?’

A stale loaf and a hunk of cheese stood on the table.

‘Yes, miss,’ said Rainbird with some asperity. ‘It’s all we can afford.’ He thought guiltily of the tips they had received and then comforted himself with the thought that that
had
been all they could afford since they had received the money after the shops had closed.

‘I know
you
, Mr Rainbird,’ said Fiona. ‘Now, let me see . . . that’s Alice, and that’s Jenny, but who is this?’ She looked down the table to where Lizzie sat at the end.

‘Lizzie O’Brian,’ said Lizzie, bobbing a clumsy curtsy.

Fiona gazed at Lizzie’s spotted face and lank hair. ‘Vegetables,’ she said suddenly. ‘You must eat vegetables, Lizzie. Lots and lots. They will shine your hair and clear your complexion.
Raw
vegetables.’

‘Like a rabbit,’ sniggered Dave, the pot boy, and was cuffed into silence by Alice.

MacGregor, who had been seething like a volcano, moved forward towards where Fiona was standing, tufts of red hair sticking out from under his white skull cap. ‘Now, now,’ bleated Mrs Middleton, catching hold of his sleeve.

‘Vegetables is it?’ demanded MacGregor passionately. ‘For a wee scullery maid when us can’t get a bite to eat.
Vegetables!
’

‘Stow your whidds and plant ’em, for the cove of the ken can cant ’em,’ jeered Joseph.

‘Silence, all of you,’ roared Rainbird, appalled at such insubordination. ‘You should be abovestairs, miss.’ He marched to the door and held it open.

‘I do not mind,’ said Fiona, wide-eyed. ‘I know that lack of food causes sharpened tempers. You will have money for food and clothes and warmth just as soon as I can arrange it.’ She went quietly from the room and closed the door behind her.

The servants looked rather shame-faced. All their wrath was directed against Mr Sinclair. They felt Fiona had done nothing to deserve such a display of bad manners.

‘Do you think she meant it?’ asked Lizzie timidly. ‘About us getting money, I mean?’

‘Naw!’ said Joseph. ‘I been out wiff her on her errands.’ Then he shook his head as if giving his slipping accent a shake to get it back into his mouth again. ‘Simple, if you esk me. Wrapped herself ehround with thet cloak of hers, covered from head to foot. Never said a word to me.’

‘I am afraid Miss Fiona is somewhat naive, Lizzie,’ said Mrs Middleton. ‘Forget her. Tomorrow we eat beef. Let us plan the menu.’

Lizzie, who slept in a makeshift bed in the scullery, said her prayers that night. Unlike the others, she worshipped Fiona, thinking her a goddess. She began to believe everything Fiona had said about getting them money and clothes and food. She decided to forego her share of the beef and see if MacGregor would allow her some vegetables.

She rose at five in the morning as it was her duty to serve the other servants with their morning tea. There was a little package beside the scullery sink. Lizzie could barely read, but she recognized her own name, neatly printed on the outside of the package. She put her shaking hands to her mouth, thinking the fairies had crept in during the night. At last, she crossed herself and opened the little package.

Inside lay one long cherry-red silk ribbon. Lizzie thought it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. There was a small slip of paper with it with only one sentence of writing. Something stopped Lizzie from asking Rainbird to read it to her. Something stopped her from telling any of the others about her present. She did not want anyone to laugh at her or possibly take the ribbon away from her.

Between her duties, she returned to the note, painfully deciphering each word until by evening she had it all. It said simply, ‘To tie up your hair. F. Sinclair.’

A warm comfortable glow spread through Lizzie’s thin frame. Even when MacGregor dumped a plate of raw vegetables down in front of her and gave a cackling, jeering laugh, she still continued to glow. The others ate roast beef while abovestairs Mr Sinclair and Fiona fought with a leathery and athletic piece of venison.

But Mr Sinclair was well pleased. They had had many callers including a certain Lady Disher, who had been most gracious to Fiona and had invited her to tea on the following day. ‘Not
you
, Mr Sinclair,’ Lady Disher had teased. ‘Ladies only.’

And Mr Sinclair, flattered that Fiona’s newfound friend should be a lady of quality, eagerly pressed her to accept the invitation.

What have I done, so very wicked, that I may not ever again behold him? I will wait at his door, every night that I ascertain he is from home, and, the first time he happens to return on foot, I cannot fail to see him; and one word he must say to me, if it is but to order me home. Something like the man who boasted of having been addressed by the Emperor Bonaparte; What did he say to you? somebody asked.
Va t’en, coquin,
answered this true Christian.

HARRIETTE WILSON’S MEMOIRS

The Earl of Harrington pulled his shirt on after a bout in Gentleman Jackson’s Boxing Saloon. John ‘Gentleman’ Jackson was English boxing champion from 1795 to 1803, although such was his enormous strength that he needed to appear in the ring only three times.

The earl’s friend, Mr Toby Masters, looked wistfully at Harrington’s powerful chest and slim waist and then ruefully down at his own corpulence. Mr Masters loved eating and drinking, preferably to excess. He was uncomfortably aware of the heat of the room and the itching of his skin beneath his tight corset.

‘Have you heard about the latest beauty?’ he asked.

‘Hear of all sorts of beauties,’ said the earl, shrugging his broad shoulders into his coat. ‘Who is the latest fair charmer?’

‘A Miss Fiona Sinclair.’

The earl stood very still, his coat half up over his shoulders. ‘I have met a Miss Fiona Sinclair,’ he said slowly.

‘Lucky dog,’ said Mr Masters. ‘Have you called on her already?’

‘No, not I,’ said the earl, settling his coat and straightening his lapels. ‘I met her when she was travelling south. She and her father were journeying by the mail that was stopped by a storm. The same storm drove me to take refuge with Pardon, who also took in the passengers from the mail. Only a storm would force me to throw myself on that creature’s hospitality. He was much struck by Miss Fiona’s beauty and begged her father to join the guests at his dinner table.’

‘Pardon’s good
ton
,’ said Mr Masters.

‘He raped a servant girl last year. A great scandal, ineffectively hushed up in the north. I was staying with the Chalfonts in Dumfriess when I heard about it.’

‘Surely not!’ exclaimed Mr Masters. ‘He is too weak and foppish a fellow to be a threat to any female.’

‘He was saved from prosecution only after the girl hanged herself and the father was paid a considerable sum to keep his mouth shut. But to return to Miss Fiona. She was seated beside me at dinner. An odd girl. Rather shabby.’

‘Can’t be the same one,’ said Mr Masters. ‘This one’s divinely fair and dresses like a fashion plate. Father’s a miser with a weak heart and plans to leave the moneybags to the daughter. They’re all around her like wasps around a honeypot.’

‘I shall not be of their number,’ said the earl.

‘Don’t understand it,’ said Mr Masters. ‘If I had your figure, fortune, and looks, I’d be on Miss Fiona’s doorstep with a proposal of marriage. Don’t you like the ladies?’

‘Toby, you know very well that I have enjoyed the favours of several ladies. I am not a monk. However, I do not want to marry one of them until I have decided I should produce an heir. There is not one of them that does not grow tiresome, demanding, and clinging after a time. A grand passion lasts only eighteen months, and, after that, what have you? Usually a lady with whom you have nothing in common. Passion is a cheat. I prefer to use it rather than have it use me.’

‘But Miss Fiona is so very beautiful. I saw her in the park.’