Authors: M.C. Beaton

Wicked Godmother (4 page)

‘I didn’t even get as far as the street,’ whined Joseph, his basic Cockney vowels creeping back into his genteel accent like blobs of grease surfacing on a pot of soup. ‘I jest opened the bleeding door and got hit by a wave.’

‘Why did you not say so!’ exclaimed Mrs Middleton. ‘Dave, you get the floor rag and help Lizzie clean up the mess. Jenny and Alice, come with me. We had best light the fire in the front parlour.’ The two maids followed the housekeeper upstairs.

It was a typical town house of the period, being tall and thin. On the ground floor there was a hall with a drawing room to one side, consisting of front and back parlours. On the first floor, there was the dining room, with a double bedroom at the back. On the second floor, there were two bedrooms, and then there were the attics at the top where the servants slept, with the exception of Lizzie and Dave. Lizzie bedded down in the scullery, and Dave slept under the kitchen table.

There was a ghostly air about the rooms where all the furniture was shrouded in holland covers and all the clocks stood silent, as if time out of Season did not count, as if the hours waited only for the return of all the noise and glitter, gossip and broken hearts, that another fashionable London Season would bring.

Jenny and Alice bundled the holland covers off the chairs in the front parlour. ‘At least we haven’t taken any stuffing out of these seats,’ said Jenny. The servants had, in the past, often augmented their meagre income by removing the stuffing from the beds and upholstery and selling it, so that you could always gauge the hardness of the times at Number 67 by the discomfort you had when either sitting or lying down. Last Season had been very profitable, and, for once, they had all passed a tolerable winter. But funds were beginning to run low.

Joseph had become convinced last October that Prime ’Un would win at Newmarket races and had talked everyone but Rainbird and Mrs Middleton into letting him put most of their savings on the wonderful horse. But the horse had fallen on its nose halfway down the course, and so the furious butler and housekeeper had had to use up their savings on keeping the rest of the ashamed and destitute staff warm and fed.

Rain trickled down the windowpanes as Jenny and Alice dusted and polished. ‘It is cold in here,’ said Mrs Middleton. ‘I shall fetch Joseph to make up the fire and wind the clocks. You know Mr Palmer expects us to be prepared to receive people at all times.’

Soon a fire was crackling on the hearth, and the clocks were busily ticking away, bringing with their chatter and chimes a feeling of expectancy. Time had returned to Number 67 Clarges Street. All that was now needed was a tenant.

Jonas Palmer arrived an hour early, hoping to catch them unprepared, but Rainbird was used to the agent’s ways and had made sure everyone was ready at least three hours before his expected arrival.

‘Where’s Alice?’ demanded Palmer, glaring with his bulging eyes at Jenny, who was setting the tea tray on a table in the front parlour.

‘Alice is out on an errand,’ said Rainbird. The butler did not like the way the agent always leered at the beautiful Alice and undressed her with his eyes, and so he had told the housemaid to stay belowstairs. Jenny left the room, and Rainbird looked expectantly at the agent.

‘Do well for yourself, you lot,’ said Palmer grumpily, stretching his thick legs out towards the fire and glancing around the well-kept parlour. Rainbird waited patiently. It was useless to argue with Palmer.

Palmer slurped his tea noisily. It was amazing, reflected Rainbird, how the agent could manage to drink a cup of tea with the spoon still sticking in it and not jab himself in the eye.

‘I spoke to his grace t’other day,’ said Palmer, ‘and he said to me, he says, them servants at Sixty-seven are too highly paid.’

Rainbird looked at Palmer, his grey eyes suddenly sharp with suspicion. ‘Does the Duke of Pelham actually know what we are being paid?’

‘’Course he does. Don’t I take the books to him regular?’

‘And how was it in the Peninsula?’ asked Rainbird sweetly. ‘Hot?’

‘What?’

‘The Duke of Pelham has been in Portugal since last summer, so if you were speaking to him, I assume you plodded over the high mountains in order to achieve that end.’

‘Don’t take that hoity-toity tone with me,’ growled Palmer, turning red. ‘You’re nothing but a womanizer who wouldn’t have no pay at all if it weren’t for me.’

Rainbird had been dismissed from Lord Trumpington’s household for having been found between the sheets with a very naked Lady Trumpington. The fact that my lady had practically dragged him into bed was not taken into account. Rainbird was dismissed in disgrace and, had it not been for Palmer, would have found it very hard to get another post, as Lord Trumpington had called him a mad rapist to anyone who would listen.

Servants were always wrong. It was the custom for a man of society to take his footman along when he dined from home. The footman’s job was to pick his master up from under the table at the end of the meal and manage to get him home without occasioning any Methodist remarks about drunkenness. But should the master behave so badly that his far-gone inebriated state was impossible to conceal, as in the case of a certain lord who insisted on performing
entrechats
in the middle of the dining table, then it was the footman who was accused of drunkenness and dismissed.

Rainbird remained silent. He felt sure if he managed to wait quietly long enough then the agent would get around to talking about the real purpose of his visit.

And so it was. After trying unsuccessfully to bait Rainbird, Palmer heaved a disappointed sigh and said, ‘A tenant is arriving next month. Parcel of women, by the looks of it. Saw the lawyer concerned. Seems this knight, Sir Benjamin Hayner, died and left his two daughters in the care of a twenty-five-year-old miss called Metcalf. This Miss Metcalf will be arriving with the two girls. Again, there is going to be the question of accommodation for their lady’s maid.’

Rainbird winced, and Palmer looked at him curiously. Rainbird had fallen in love with the French lady’s maid who had been resident the last Season.

‘Last year,’ said Rainbird, carefully controlling his expression, ‘Mrs Middleton had to give up her parlour on the backstairs. I trust this won’t be necessary again.’

‘It’s all up to this Metcalf. Leave it to her. She should be something new in your experience, Rainbird. According to this lawyer, she’s the biggest saint in the length and breadth of England.’

‘Good,’ said Rainbird. ‘A saintly tenant would care for the welfare of the servants. In fact, any
lady
cares for her servants. It is only those who are neither ladies nor gentlemen who treat servants badly.’

‘Meaning me,’ said Palmer, a dangerous colour mounting up his face.

Rainbird studied him with the curiosity of a jackdaw, as if hoping the terrible Palmer might have an apoplexy and leave this world a better place, but Palmer soon recovered and demanded to see the housekeeping accounts.

At long last the ordeal was over. Mrs Middleton took the books back to her parlour and comforted herself with a good cry, for Palmer’s rude and brutal manner always made her feel as if she had been assaulted. She dried her eyes and looked up as Rainbird entered the room.

‘Oh, Mr Rainbird,’ she said, fluttering to her feet. ‘I am afraid I have been crying, and my eyes are so red and . . .

‘It does not matter,’ said Rainbird. ‘I brought a little brandy to comfort both of us. I know we should share it with the others, but then, they are not so much in need of comfort at the moment as we. How that wretched man does rile me! Also,
we
did not lose our well-earned money on some useless horse.’

‘I suppose they cannot be blamed all the same,’ said the housekeeper. ‘Joseph made the bet sound so tempting – and I would have certainly given him my money if you had not been so much against it, Mr Rainbird. We cannot all be as clever as you.’ She sighed and gazed at him adoringly, but the butler was busy pouring the brandy and did not notice her doting expression.

‘Now, Mrs Middleton,’ said Rainbird, settling down in a battered armchair opposite the housekeeper, ‘things look quite hopeful for the coming Season. Palmer said a Miss Metcalf is the new tenant. She is quite young, but she is to chaperone two young misses during their debut. According to the new tenant’s lawyer, this Miss Metcalf is a sort of saint. I shall ask her to raise our wages for the term of the rental, only to the level we should be getting paid. They are bringing a lady’s maid . . .’

Mrs Middleton looked miserable again. The last lady’s maid had not only taken up residence in the housekeeper’s parlour but had stolen Rainbird’s heart. ‘As far as I can gather,’ went on Rainbird gently, ‘this lady’s maid might be well-content to share a room with Alice and Jenny.’

‘Well, it will be nice,’ said Mrs Middleton cautiously, ‘to have only ladies in the house. They are so much easier to look after than the gentlemen, saving your presence, Mr Rainbird. Yes, young ladies will be a pleasant change.’

Miss Josephine Spencer stood in the rain with a large silk umbrella over her head, watching the Misses Hayner and Harriet preparing to leave Chorley House. She herself had conveyed Harriet, Beauty, and Harriet’s shabby trunks by her own gig from the village.

She had had some conversation with the twins before they had left the house and was relieved to find their manner towards Harriet affectionate. Nothing to worry about there.

But it appeared as if the girls had suddenly discovered that Beauty was also going to London.

‘You cannot possibly take that mongrel into society,’ giggled Sarah. ‘Give the cur to Miss Spencer. I am sure she will look after him for you.’

Harriet looked embarrassed. ‘I am sorry, Sarah, but I must insist he comes. I shall keep him away from you. He is such a good watchdog.’

‘Stoopid,’ said Annabelle. ‘You do not understand, dear Harriet. The dog stays behind.’

‘I must insist,’ said Harriet, who had fed Beauty a large meal so that the animal might look more placid and approachable than usual.

‘Then, if you insist, it may go in the baggage coach with Emily.’ Emily was the twins’ lady’s maid. Miss Spencer looked curiously at Emily. She thought Emily looked like a fox with her reddish-brown hair and eyes of a peculiar shade of yellow. Emily gave her mistresses a sidelong look, and then her thin mouth curled in a faint grimace.

‘I do not think that a very good idea,’ said Harriet. ‘I—’

Beauty suddenly bared his teeth and gave the twins a sinister canine sneer. He growled far back in his throat, a threatening rumble.

‘Oh, very well, Harriet,’ said Sarah. ‘But it is most odd of you.’

‘Thank you,’ said Harriet with a sunny smile. A footman was holding open the carriage door. Harriet urged Beauty in and then climbed in after the dog.

It was then that Miss Spencer saw Sarah turn to Annabelle and roll her eyes heavenwards in mock resignation. Then she went through the mime of wringing someone’s neck. Annabelle laughed hysterically, and then they both got into the coach after Harriet.

Miss Spencer shook her head as if to clear it. It was natural that anyone would be annoyed with Harriet for insisting the dog went along as well. The animal was quite horrible. On the other hand, she knew the girls had for the moment forgotten her presence, and the air of contempt and dislike exuding from the two of them had been almost tangible.

Miss Spencer walked to the carriage window. Harriet was sitting with her back to the horses and Beauty was lying at her feet.

‘Good-bye, Harriet,’ said Miss Spencer. ‘If you are in need of help, write to me and I shall come to London directly.’

‘Good-bye, Josephine,’ said Harriet, looking at her friend through a blur of tears. ‘I am sure I shall not be in need of help, but, of course, I shall write to you just the same.’

‘Good-bye, Miss Spencer,’ chorused the twins, looking the very pattern cards of propriety.

Miss Spencer stood back, her fears put to rest. The twins were very pleasant little girls. She had been imagining things.

The coachman cracked his whip; the carriage began to roll off down the drive. Harriet’s lace handkerchief fluttered briefly at the window. The coach passed the lodge gates and swung out onto the London road.

Miss Spencer climbed into her own gig and picked up the reins. Life seemed empty and flat. Miss Spencer began to run through in her mind the names and addresses of all her friends and relatives in London. Perhaps she might go on a visit, just to see Harriet’s coming out.

For it was Harriet’s debut as much as it was the twins’.

THREE