Perfecting Fiona (5 page)

‘Why, my lord?’ asked Fiona.

‘It is rumoured they advertise for ‘‘difficult’’ misses. Pray, is there anything scandalous about you that I should know, Miss Macleod?’

Fiona wrinkled her brow. ‘My parents are both dead,’ she said. ‘Perhaps I am considered a difficult case because I smell of the shop.’

‘Indeed!’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Fiona blithely. ‘My father was in trade. Jute mills.’

Lord Peter cynically examined his own slight feeling of shock and dismay. That huge and often prosperous class, damned as being in trade, usually were clever enough to keep their ungenteel origins a secret. There were splendid mansions springing up in the suburbs where shopkeepers lived. It was called ‘sinking the shop’. The shopkeeper had the decency to pretend to be a gentleman once he shook the dust of central London from his boots. Miss Macleod must be aware of the social stigma of trade. Perhaps she was naive.

‘I would not talk about your father being in trade if you wish to make a society marriage,’ he said.

Fiona, who had turned back her gloves to eat, held up one small hand and ticked off two fingers. ‘Item one,’ she said. ‘I do not wish to marry. Item two, I do not wish to get on in society.’

‘Then what are you doing with the Tribbles?’

‘Peace and quiet,’ said Fiona candidly. ‘It is always better to go along with what other people want to a certain extent.’

‘But every young lady wants to get married,’ he protested.

‘My lord,’ said Fiona firmly, ‘I am very hungry and I cannot eat and answer questions at the same time.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ he said stiffly.

‘Your apology is accepted,’ said Fiona calmly. ‘I shall tell you when I have eaten enough and then you may question me again.’

He found himself becoming angry. But good manners prevented him from letting his anger show in his face or in his manner. She ate a large quantity of food, very daintily, but with amazing speed.

Then she put down her knife and fork, dabbed at her mouth with her napkin, took a sip of wine, and half-turned to him. ‘You may continue, my lord.’

‘Perhaps it would only be polite to give you a chance to ask
me
some questions,’ he said.

‘Very well. Are you married?’

‘No.’

‘Do you intend to marry?’

‘No, Miss Macleod.’

‘Then we are two of a kind. How odd it is to meet someone who does not wish to marry either!’

‘Not odd in a man. Very odd in a woman.’

‘I do not have to marry, you see.’

‘Meaning you are rich. Then why this charade?’

‘Because I do not gain control of my money until I am married or reach the age of twenty-one.’ Fiona sighed. ‘Two years. Only two years to go.’

‘But what of love, Miss Macleod?’

‘You are hardly in a position to talk about love, my lord.’ Fiona looked highly amused.

‘Am I so ugly?’ A tinge of resentment was beginning to show in his eyes.

‘Of course not, my lord. On the contrary, you are handsome, reputed rich, and titled. Had you fallen in love, then you would have been married. You as yet know nothing about love, obviously.’

He studied the elfin face which a short time ago had so enchanted him. He found her self-assured manner highly irritating. He thought he knew why she had been foisted off onto the Tribbles and it was nothing to do with trade. He had a longing to tease and annoy.

‘But you are
so
wrong,’ he murmured. ‘I
have
been in love . . . madly.’

There was a certain stillness about her, and then she asked, ‘Why did you not marry her?’

‘My family were against it. Her name was Tabitha – I called her Tabby for short. She was like a little kitten, all sweetness and play.’

‘And what did your family find so monstrous about this paragon?’

‘My Tabby was a tavern wench.’

Fiona raised those odd and beautiful eyes of hers to his. ‘My dear Lord Peter,’ she said sorrowfully, ‘we are so much alike. I, too, have been in love.’

‘Odso?’

‘Yes,’ said Fiona dreamily. ‘He was my aunt’s footman, Charles. So divine. So tall and fair and handsome.’

‘Well,’ remarked Lord Peter tartly, ‘when you reach the great age of twenty-one, you can seek him out and marry him.’

‘Alas, I cannot. He is married. To a kitchen wench. They keep a hedge tavern. What of your Tabby?’

‘Who?’

‘The love of your life,’ said Fiona patiently.

‘The same. When I reached my independence, I went to find her.’

‘Married?’

‘Yes. To a . . . er . . . footman.’

‘But footmen are not allowed to marry.’

‘He left his employ and became a gamekeeper.’

‘What a most enterprising footman,’ giggled Fiona.

‘You should not laugh,’ said Lord Peter severely, ‘I was heart-broken.’

A smell of bergamot enveloped them and a genteel cough sounded in their ears. ‘Miss Macleod,’ said Effy Tribble, ‘the dancing has recommenced this age and your partners are looking for you.’

Fiona got to her feet and Lord Peter rose as well. ‘Good evening, my lord,’ she said demurely, buttoning her gloves. ‘I shall no doubt not see you again this evening. It would surely be too much of a coincidence if one of my other partners had the vapours and surrendered his dance to you.’

She smiled sweetly on him and moved away with Effy.

‘Minx,’ said Lord Peter Havard to no one in particular.

‘Captain Freddy Beaumont was most particular in his attentions,’ said Amy as the Tribbles’ rented carriage bore them homeward at three in the morning. She tried to read the expression on Fiona’s face, but the dim light from the carriage lamps bobbing on their springs was not strong enough to illuminate the girl’s face clearly.

‘No doubt he will call tomorrow,’ said Effy brightly. ‘Such legs! Did you mark his legs, Fiona?’

‘Yes, divine,’ said Fiona, stifling a yawn.

Effy flashed a look of triumph at Amy, who winked. How pleased the Burgesses would be to learn their niece was engaged before the Season even began.

Assuming that all was right and tight, they did not question Fiona any further.

The Tribbles found to their surprise when they reached their home in Holles Street that the house was in darkness and the door was locked. Effy banged at the knocker, but no one answered it.

‘I have a key,’ said Amy, opening a reticule like a coal-sack and hoisting out a massive iron key, which she inserted in the lock. ‘I’ll go downstairs and see what has happened to that lazy butler.’

‘No, no,’ said Effy weakly. ‘Too tired. So very tired. Time enough in the morning.’

So the Tribbles went to bed unaware of the great revolution that had taken place in the servants’ quarters during their absence, when Frank had returned to preach anarchy and to rouse the staff with the news that he had it on the best authority that the Tribbles did not intend to pay any wages on the next quarter-day.

Oh, let us love our own vocations,
Bless the squire and his relations
And always know our proper stations!

Inspired by Frank, the servants had celebrated their rebellion with several bottles of the best port. Had it not been for this celebration, Amy would never have found out about the rebellion because the sober servants would have been at their posts when dawn broke and alcohol and excitement would no longer fuel their brains. It had not been Frank’s nonsense of rebellion which had spurred them on, but his shattering news that the Tribbles did not intend to pay their wages come next quarter-day. But all had gone to bed determined to have a long sleep, made longer by the port they had drunk, and so by the time they all awoke, frightened and wondering whether they had run mad, Baxter, the Tribbles’ lady’s maid, had broken the news to Amy.

‘What are you talking about, Baxter?’ said Amy, glancing at the clock. It was seven in the morning. ‘Why did you wake me?’

‘It’s as I tell you,’ said Baxter with gloomy relish. ‘That second footman, Frank, he come back last night and he starts saying as how servants were the equal of their betters. Harris told him to go and boil his head. Then Frank says he has it on good authority that they’re not going to be paid any wages. Says a society gentleman told him.’

‘Which society gentleman?’

‘Well, mum, he says as how it was Lord Peter Havard.’

Frank had feared they would not believe the words of a plain mister, however grand, and so had said the first titled name that had come into his head.

‘Lud! And they believed him?’

‘Yes, mum. Drank the port and sang vulgar songs, they did.’

Amy lay back against the pillows and said in a flat, cold voice, ‘You are a strong woman, Baxter. Go to that butler, Harris, and drag him from his bed and bring him here.’

Baxter’s grim old face cracked into a smile. She rolled up her sleeves and made for the door. ‘Very good, mum.’

‘Wait a bit. Are all the servants involved in this rebellion?’

Baxter longed to lie and say yes, but a strict religious upbringing would not let her do so. ‘That Yvette just laughed at them and wouldn’t be no part of it,’ she said sulkily.

‘Very well. Go and fetch Harris.’

Amy climbed out of bed and wrapped her long flat figure in a man’s dressing gown and sat in a chair by the fire. She was annoyed but not very surprised. It was not unusual in a London household to find rebellion among the servants. Some servants terrified their masters and mistresses so much that a special agency for getting rid of unwanted servants had come into being. The only trouble with the agency was that they replaced the rebelling servants with their own creatures, who turned out to be even worse.

There came sounds of an altercation from the passage outside, then the door was pushed open and the butler, Harris, was thrust into the room. He was unshaven and half-dressed.

‘Well, Harris?’ demanded Amy, fixing the butler with a steely eye. ‘We have had the colonists’ revolution in America, then the bourgeois revolution in France, and now I suppose you hope that the great servants’ revolution of Holles Street will also figure in the history books.’

‘No, ma’am. It was just that Frank said as how Lord Peter Havard told him that we would not be getting any wages. I didn’t listen to his other rubbish, ma’am, but we were furious at the thought of not being paid.’

‘Frank is a second footman. Why did a butler so readily believe the lies of a second footman?’

Harris looked at her miserably. How could he explain that the ground was there, that he, Harris, was ready to be impressed by Frank’s tawdry finery and boasts of friendship with lords and talk of injustice? That most of the year he and other servants were grateful for their positions and served their masters well, but that there came the one day out of the three hundred and sixty-five when life seemed unnatural and unjust?

‘Often we hear tales of staff not being paid their wages, ma’am,’ said Harris. ‘Often and often. We had no reason to disbelieve Frank.’

‘And where is Frank supposed to have met Lord Peter?’

Harris twisted uncomfortably.

‘Come along, man. I assume he had leave to go out. Where did he say he was going?’

‘He said his mother was poorly.’

‘His mother died five years ago,’ said Amy, who made it her business to know the backgrounds of the servants before she employed them. ‘So where did he meet Lord Peter – Lord Peter, who, I would like to point out, was at that ball I attended last night?’

Harris hung his head. ‘Don’t know, ma’am,’ he said.

‘A pox on ye, you whoreson!’ shouted Amy, her temper snapping. ‘I’ve a good mind to send the lot of you packing and live up to the reputation you have created for me. Of course you are going to get paid. I shall give you one more chance. Get to your duties. But before you do that, send Frank to me . . .
now!
’

The staff were already going about their duties, white-faced and silent. They had been roused by the row between Baxter and Harris, and the full enormity of what they had done had struck them like a hammer-blow. Outside lay cold and menacing London, where the jobless starved in the streets.

But Frank had disappeared. His bed was empty and his trunk gone.

Mr Desmond Callaghan was also roused early that morning. Frank came bursting into his bedchamber, with Mr Callaghan’s valet screaming in protest and hanging on to Frank’s coat-tails.

‘You got me in trouble,’ howled Frank. ‘I told them servants what you said and all was merry and they were all saying as how they’d sit tight and do no work for the Tribbles. Then this morning, that butler, Harris, was dragged from his room by the lady’s maid, screeching and hollering, and the first footman and the rest look as if they’ve been struck by lightning and they start to run about the house like headless chickens, dusting and polishing as if their lives depended on it.’

Mr Callaghan waved his valet away and when the door was closed, he said sulkily, ‘I have no use for you, Frank. I have no doubt you told the servants it was I who said they would not be paid.’

‘No, I didn’t,’ said Frank. ‘They wouldn’t believe a plain mister, so I told ’em it was Lord Peter Havard.’

Mr Desmond Callaghan went a muddy colour. ‘You fool!’ he hissed. ‘Those two harridans will tax Havard with it and he’ll come looking for my blood. Get out of here.’