Refining Felicity (7 page)

The butler returned, slowly and pompously, down the stairs.

‘If you will follow me, sir,’ he said.

Mr Haddon followed his fat back up the stairs.

The butler held open the door of the drawing room. ‘Mr Benjamin Haddon,’ he shouted.

Mr Haddon entered. Effy rose to meet him, both hands held out in welcome.

‘Tea, Humphrey,’ she said to the butler.

She waited eagerly until the butler had left, giggling at the surprise on Mr Haddon’s face. He looked about him wonderingly, at the pictures on the walls, at the flowers, at some new and fine pieces of furniture.

‘Do come and sit by the fire,’ said Effy, plumping herself down on a backless sofa in a swirl of shawls. ‘Your wonderful idea worked, and we are employed to bring out Lady Felicity Vane.’

‘But the servants!’ exclaimed Mr Haddon.

‘I see I must begin at the beginning and tell you all,’ said Effy. She recounted their adventures, wildly exaggerated – the marquess had rescued them from a herd of savage charging bulls – ending with, ‘And so here we are, in luxury and comfort. Dear Lord Ravenswood said there was no point in recalling his servants. He said he would use a room here when he was in Town and let his Town house for the Season and that way we would not have to pay anything for his servants until the next Season is over. Most generous.’

‘But the pictures?’

‘Lord Ravenswood’s secretary is a most efficient man. He had orders to make our dear home look attractive to Lady Felicity and so he removed furniture, paintings, and ornaments from the marquess’s home to here!’

The door opened and the butler came in, followed by two footmen carrying a tea-tray. ‘Tell Miss Amy that Mr Haddon is here, and tell Lady Felicity to join us as well as soon as her fittings are over,’ said Effy grandly.

‘Such a fuss,’ she said to Mr Haddon. ‘We are furnishing our charge with a really modish wardrobe, and I must say Amy has been most enterprising. She said Lady Felicity must cut a dash since her looks are not of the kind which are commonly admired. We have been returned but three days, and yet Amy insisted, almost as soon as we had arrived, that we go to King’s Cross to look for some undiscovered French dressmaker, that being where the poorer of the French emigrées live. It was all so squalid and I said, “How shall we find one?” and Amy said, “Look at the clothes they are wearing.” Most odd. For one would never think poor Amy had an eye for fashion. And yet she saw this young and modish female and asked her where she got her gowns – just like that! You know how outspoken Amy is. And the dear creature said she made them herself. So Amy employed her and brought her back here to stay in residence, for the seamstress did not look strong and Amy said King’s Cross was enough to give anyone consumption, the buildings being so damp and rickety.’ She paused for breath.

‘Such a change in your fortunes,’ marvelled Mr Haddon. He gave a discreet cough. ‘How old is this Marquess of Ravenswood?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Effy. ‘Quite mature.’ Mr Haddon scowled. ‘Well, I shall take a guess. About thirty-one, I would say.’

Mr Haddon smiled and helped himself to a caraway cake.

‘But such a fuss and bustle,’ went on Effy. ‘Amy is like a creature
possessed
, I can assure you. You are lucky to find us quiet. She has been interviewing dancing masters, and water-colourists, and music teachers, for, she said, don’t you see, that were Lady Felicity allowed to be too quiet, then she might get into mischief. I said, “Amy,” I said, “can you not wait until we get our breath?” But she will go on. Lord Ravenswood is all that is helpful, dear man, and if only he might be smitten with Felicity, then what a success we should be. But she is a leetle spoilt. Well, in truth,
very
, and I put it all down to this rights-for-women nonsense. Lady Felicity was in the way of wearing men’s clothes. And with her papa’s blessing! Unnatural. And—’

She broke off as the door opened and Amy slouched in. She looked tired.

‘That little bitch is wearing me out,’ she said, pouring a cup of tea. She gulped some of the hot liquid and then slumped down in a wing-chair and grinned at Mr Haddon. ‘Good to see you,’ said Amy. ‘You must hear all the news.’

Amy proceeded to try to tell him their adventures only to find to her fury that Effy had been before her with the story.

‘You might have waited,’ said Amy crossly. ‘It’s not fair, Effy. It’s my adventure as much as yours, damme.’

‘
Votre mode de parler est un peu de trop
,’ said Effy.

‘Speak English,’ snapped Amy. ‘We are at war with the Frogs, and I ain’t going to have their precious lingo polluting these walls.’ She glared at Effy.

‘Is Lady Felicity being difficult?’ asked Mr Haddon sympathetically.

‘Very,’ groaned Amy. ‘Mamselle Yvette – that’s the new French dressmaker of whom, I have no doubt, my dear sister has already told you all – is trying to do her work patiently and well, and the wretched Felicity will sigh and fidget in such a way that the pins rain down like the leaves in that place Milton was chuntering on about.’

‘I am very glad to see you both so well and so successful,’ said Mr Haddon. ‘When I called a few days ago and saw all the grand servants and all the bustle, I feared you had sold up and I would never see you again – my last contact with the old world.’

‘You wasn’t very surprised to find we were still both unwed,’ said Amy. That was something that had rankled in her bosom. She thought it rather unflattering in a way that Mr Haddon had not even expected either of them to have secured a husband.

‘But I was!’ lied Mr Haddon stoutly. He felt he could not quite explain why he had expected them still to be the same, and still unattached, the only people unchanged in a bewildering new world.

‘We are both anxious to have new wardrobes for ourselves,’ said Effy, with a frown at Amy. Effy maintained the fiction that her unwed state was through choice. ‘But Yvette is not strong and we do not want to overtax her.’

‘Where is Ravenswood at the moment?’ asked Mr Haddon.

‘He has returned to the country. He says he will drop in on us from time to time. It is most fortunate he has taken us under his wing, for he is all that is fashionable, and his generous and clever handling of our affairs has secured our eternal gratitude,’ said Effy.

‘Did you tell Mr Haddon that it was
I
who asked Ravenswood to help in the matter of servants?’ asked Amy.

‘Er . . . no,’ said Effy.

‘No, you wouldn’t, would you?’ declared Amy. ‘You was always a one for taking credit for everything.’

There was an uncomfortable silence.

The door opened and Lady Felicity came in. Her face was flushed with bad temper and her eyes were sparkling.

Mr Haddon rose to his feet and made a low bow. He privately thought Lady Felicity was one of the most attractive young ladies he had ever seen, and wondered at Amy for having damned the girl’s looks as unfashionable.

‘Are your fittings completed?’ asked Amy.

‘For the moment,’ said Felicity. ‘I have had just about as much for one day as I can bear.’

‘You must not tax Mamselle so much,’ said Effy quietly. ‘She is a good girl and works hard.’

‘She is being paid well, no doubt,’ said Felicity, and then lowered her eyes before Mr Haddon’s look of shock.

Felicity had been thrown by the apparent magnificence of the Tribble residence. She had fully expected to arrive at some poky house in an undistinguished area. But the house in Holles Street had been quickly restored to some of its former magnificence by the marquess’s clever secretary. It was a fairly large house, considering it was not a noble mansion, boasting two reception rooms on the ground floor, a drawing room, dining room, morning room, and saloon on the first, and six bedrooms on the third and fourth, as well as the servants’ rooms in the attics.

Her plans to run away had not faded. She was biding her time, sure that young Lord Bremmer would put in an appearance again. She planned to upset the Tribbles’ plans by using the young man in some way to shame them.

She was slightly intimidated by Amy’s authoritarian manner, and as she sipped tea and listened to the sisters making polite conversation with Mr Haddon, she wondered how best to start upsetting Amy. She thought of all the tricks she had played in the past to rid herself of unwanted governesses. Suddenly she smiled. The campaign against Amy should start that very evening.

Amy noticed that smile, and her heart sank. She felt sure that some plotted piece of mischief could be the only reason why her young charge was looking happy.

When Mr Haddon had left, she suggested to Effy that they should exert themselves to train Felicity in more ladylike behaviour, but Effy promptly pleaded the headache and retired to bed. Gloomily, Amy decided to set about the task herself.

‘Now, Felicity,’ said Amy. ‘Let me see you walk across the room and sit down in that chair over by the fireplace.’

Felicity haughtily raised her eyebrows, strode across the room and plumped herself down in the chair.

‘No,
no
,’ said Amy, exasperated. ‘You must walk with your head held high and never look at your feet. You must never look at the chair you are about to sit on. You must always subside gracefully into it as if a footman is always there to push it under your bottom.’

‘“Bottom” is rude,’ pointed out Felicity with a grin.

‘Enough of your childish nonsense,’ said Amy. She went over to a glass-fronted bookcase and took out a heavy volume, Boswell’s
Life of Samuel Johnson
. ‘Come here,’ ordered Amy, ‘and let me put this on your head.’

‘Oh, really,’ said Felicity. ‘How ridiculous.’

‘
DO AS YOU ARE TOLD
!’ howled Amy with all the ferocity of a dragoon sergeant-major.

‘Oh, very well,’ said Felicity sulkily. She walked back to the door and Amy placed the book on her head. ‘Now, walk,’ ordered Amy.

Felicity walked ramrod-straight across the room and lowered herself gingerly into the chair.

‘Better,’ said Amy. ‘Now, again, and this time you must bridle.’

‘Bridle?’

‘You know very well what I mean. All society ladies must know how to bridle. Tuck in your chin and look as if you have just seen something nasty, but being a lady, you are not going to say anything about it.’

Felicity looked at her tormentor mulishly. Amy stared back, hard-eyed. Felicity decided after some moments that revenge on Amy could wait until that evening. It would be easier all round to do as she was bid for the present.

She balanced the book once more on her head, and looked in fixed disdain straight ahead.

‘Too rigid,’ said Amy. ‘This time bridle and sway slightly as you walk.’

Amy kept her at it for an hour before she was satisfied. But she would not allow Felicity to escape. ‘I am now going to give you a lecture on good manners,’ she said. ‘This does not mean saying “please” and “thank you”, it means having consideration of other people’s sensitivities, whether you are talking to a lord or a shopkeeper.’

In vain did Felicity protest. Amy invented and staged situations from buying silks from a stammering shopkeeper to meeting a boring and deaf dowager. Had Felicity not been so furious, she might have found Amy’s acting very funny indeed. But as it was, she found nothing amusing in Amy’s behaviour. Felicity obeyed her as best she could while a deep resentment burned inside.

By evening, Amy was feeling exhausted. There was a nagging pain in her back, and pouches of fatigue under her eyes. She dropped into her sister’s bedroom to say good night. Effy could only mumble a reply as she lay against her lacy pillows looking like a Gothic nightmare. Her face was covered in a mud pack, her white hair was rolled in clay rollers, and she had a chin-strap wound tightly round her head and under her chin.

Amy went off to her own room, where Baxter was waiting to put her to bed. One of the sisters’ very first moves had been to rescue their late aunt’s lady’s maid from the workhouse.

‘Aren’t you going to open that?’ asked Baxter, as she took the pins out of Amy’s hair and began to brush it.

‘Open what?’ asked Amy sleepily.

‘That parcel in the corner. It arrived for you early this evening.’

‘Oh, James, the footman, told me it was from Mr Haddon, and I decided not to tell Miss Effy so I would have the pleasure of opening it by myself.’ Amy yawned.

She rose and went over to where the large square parcel stood, picked up the card on top, and read it.

‘Dear Miss Amy,’ Mr Haddon had written, ‘The enclosed is a memento of my stay in India and I would very much like you to have it.’

‘I hope he didn’t send anything to Effy as well,’ murmured Amy. ‘She is too damn proprietorial about Mr Haddon.’

She wrenched open the top of the box and then leaped back, her hand to her heart.

Baxter took a look and then screamed and rushed and seized the poker and went to smash the contents of the box.

‘No, no,’ said Amy, grabbing the maid’s arm. ‘It must be stuffed.’

Amy lifted it out. It was a stuffed cobra. A malevolent-looking thing with wicked glass eyes.

Baxter put down the poker. ‘If that ain’t the nastiest thing I ever did see,’ she marvelled. ‘What’s that Haddon doing to send sich a thing to a lady?’

‘Mr Haddon to you,’ growled Amy. ‘It’s quite clever, really, you know, once one gets over the initial shock. But where can I put it? Put it in the drawing room and we’ll frighten every caller away.’

Baxter shuddered. ‘Why not send it to that Mr Desmond Callaghan, him that stole my mistress’s affections away? Two snakes should get on well together.’

‘No, I’ll keep it,’ said Amy.

Baxter continued her ministrations, but keeping a wary eye all the time on the stuffed cobra. It was so very lifelike with its gleaming eyes and spread hood.

She turned back the blankets. ‘Get into bed, Miss Amy,’ she said, ‘and try not to rise at dawn as you usually do or you’ll wear yourself to a frazzle.

‘Lovely bed,’ sighed Amy luxuriously. She stretched her large bare feet down under the covers and stiffened, her face a mask of horror.

‘What is it?’ cried Baxter.

Amy threw back the blankets.