the Christmas Caper 4

 

 

IV on the road

 

“So, miss, why are you masquerading as a boy?” asked Jeremy, once they were on the open road.

“What gives you the right to leap to such conclusions and question me?” demanded Cecily.

“The right of doing you a favour, I should think, and getting you out of Bath as fast as this old rattletrap will go,” said Jeremy.  “What, you didn’t really think I was just a coachman dressed like this, did you?”

“Well, yes?” said Cecily. “I... I thought your clothes too fine for a common coachman, but you are wearing that neckcloth, which isn’t what a gentleman wears....”

“Apparently, my mother is right,” sighed Jeremy. “I only wear it to annoy her. And she demanded my services to drive her and her attendant nymphs.”

Cecily gave a gurgle of mirth.

“Not, I hope, clad as one sees them in classical illustrations,” she said.

“Thank goodness, no; the idea of her dresser in a whisp of muslin in strategic places would be too much to take,” said Jeremy. “Prudish, are you?”

“I was thinking that they’d take cold, actually,” said Cecily. “I can hear another team behind us.”

Jeremy looked round.

“You have acute ears,” he said. “Some scrub in a phaeton, and not my friend, Nicholas, either. I suspect someone who sees an old fashioned carriage and plans to ‘hunt the squirrel,’ or in other words, tip us in the ditch.

“Oh! Isn’t that illegal?” asked Cecily.

“Yes, but it doesn’t stop the so-called sport,” sneered Jeremy. “Fortunately, I am a competent whip, and I fancy the chub will get a surprise. I’ll be damned if I pull over and give him the advantage of the camber; he can come out round me on the wrong side of the road, and if I slow the nags slightly... yes, here he comes, hear the hoofs speed up, and that will put him on the inside of a curve to the right, and a phaeton is not the most stable of vehicles, and... here he comes, hold tight, he’s going to try to nudge a wheel... idiot. He should have waited for a bend in the road going the other way. I’m going to swerve so he misses, and then crowd him back.”

It was a consummate piece of driving, which Cecily appreciated as Jeremy suddenly speeded the horses with a shake of the reins, cracked his whip over the interloper’s four, as they started to draw level, and then drew his leaders over so that the heavier coach nudged the phaeton at the steepest point of the curve, and as they passed, it could be seen to be toppling inexorably. Jeremy wore a look of grim satisfaction.

“Hoist by his own petard,” said Cecily.

“Shakespeare has a saying for most things,” agreed Jeremy. “If he hadn’t tried to nudge us, I would just have let him go, but I object to those of us who account ourselves whips being tarred with the same brush as people like him, who think it funny to tip over people, without caring whether there are elderly, frail folks, or children within.”

“I am glad you are a good whip,” said Cecily. “But with moral scruples. I don’t think Lord Ashdowne has any moral scruples.”

“Him! He’s a loose fish,” said Jeremy. “Oh, I beg pardon, ought not to use such phrases in front of a girl. Is that why you’re dressed as a boy, trying to avoid him?”

“Yes, well, actually it’s worse than that,” said Cecily. “You see, he saw me and he wants me, and he bought up all of Papa’s gaming  IOUs, what they call ‘vowels,’ and told papa he would forgive them all if only I will go to spend a week with him to what he calls a ‘love nest’ and then...”

“Surely your father told him to be damned and mortgaged the house or something, rather than cave in to such an infamous demand?” asked Jeremy, incredulously.

“No! Mama and Papa said it was my d...duty to rescue them from a predicament, because it w...would not be for long, and that I c...could marry if I wanted and cut myself to look as if I bleed on my wedding night... and.... and how could I face a husband when I had been debauched?”

“You poor child!” said Jeremy. “Er, how old are you?”

“Nineteen,” said Cecily. “Not really a child.”

“You’re a child in that you’ve been thrown into the cold hard world without the proper parental support,” said Jeremy. “Also, not legal to wed without permission. Tell me, little girl, would your father take a loan to settle his debts and then eschew gaming?”

“No, and it wouldn’t stop him selling me if he could,” said Cecily. “And my name is Cecy, or Cecily. Cecily Dacres.”

“I feared not,” said Jeremy.  “I wondered whether to leave you with my aunt, and go back to help your parents, but if they are as foolish and venal as you think, it would be a waste of my time and my blunt. I’ll take you to my aunt, and we can plot from there. ”

“Thank you for even considering it, sir,” said Cecily, earnestly. “Your aunt will stare to see me clad so.”

“Devil a bit,” said Jeremy. “Used to be a famous courtesan; has worn breeches herself, to hold up a swain of hers to demand kisses as plunder. She’s lived life, has the old lady.”

“Oh!” said Cecily, unable to think of anything more coherent to say.

oOoOo

 

“Why Cheltenham?” asked Nicholas. “Family?”

“No; a position, of sorts,” said Beatrice, forlornly.

“That doesn’t sound very promising,” said Nicholas. “M’name’s Derwent; Nicholas Derwent, by the way, so you can address me if you want.”

Beatrice flushed.

“My name is Beatrice Lockwood,” she said.

“Now, that’s a lovely name and sounds like it ought to belong to a lady of one of Robin Hood’s merry men,” said Nicholas.

“You’re conflating Robert of Locksley, being Robin Hood’s possible real name, and Bettris, the lady of George, the Pinner of Wakefield,” said Beatrice, severely.

Nicholas brightened.

“An aficionada of the Robin Hood tales? By Jove, what luck! But of course, if you are a governess, you’d be learned.”

“I believe I am well-read,” said Beatrice, “But I cannot claim to be a bluestocking; there was enough in my trust fund to educate me to be a governess in the school I attended, but no more.”

“You’ve had a rough time of it, by the sound of it,” said Nicholas. “I ain’t much of a conversationalist, so why don’t you tell me about it, and get it off your chest, so to speak?”

Beatrice took a long, shuddering breath, which released as a cloud about her.

“I am afraid that if I once talk about it, I might dissolve into tears,” she said.

“Might do you the world of good,” said Nicholas. “But it might be a few miles on from that before I could procure you a cup of tea.”

“Oh! Well, they say a trouble shared is a trouble halved,” said Beatrice. “It isn’t, but it seems lighter if someone else knows.  I did not really resent having to teach, I was glad to have somewhere to go, and it was not onerous, not really, not until Amelia Spottiswode started.”

She explained about the spoilt girl, and about being accused of theft, with the hiding of a bracelet in her room.

“Mrs. Spenlowe believes that Amelia will settle down with the influence of nice girls, but she won’t; and the time will come when she demands the expulsion of girls who will not bow down to her demands, and I don’t believe for one moment that she would not accuse Mrs. Spenlowe of theft, as it has worked once in getting me fired.  I think we should have called in Bow Street on behalf of the school and let an officer find out what Amelia is like and warn her about laws of laying false witness,” said Beatrice.

“I agree with you.  Some officers are very limited, but as you had been there three years without a stain on your character, and are suddenly accused by some brat who has discipline problems, the stupidest Bow Street Runner would realise what was up.”

“Unless Amelia’s father bribed him.”

“I think your Mrs. Spenlowe would have grounds to threaten Bow Street with going to the newspaper for that,” said Nicholas. “In any event, a true lady should have stood by you. Spottiswode, eh? It’s a cit’s name. And if she’s like that, I expect her father is, too. I will put the word out to blackball him.”

“Thank you; that does make me feel better, if it can be done. He’s a horrid man with a big red face which goes purple if people gainsay him.”

“He’ll find out what it’s like to be gainsaid by those who count,” said Nicholas, grimly.

“I appreciate it. And yes, I do feel lighter to take up my position as minder of a pack of spoilt brats.”

“What’s this?”

“Mrs. Spenlowe felt she had to give me a congé, but I have the choice of a preceptress she let go who set up her own school and can’t keep junior mistresses, or a former pupil a little older than me who was self-indulgent and who cannot manage her children, which means they will be spoilt too,” said Beatrice. “I had decided that was the better option of two evils, since not being able to keep governesses usually also means feeding them badly and not paying them until lawsuits are threatened. At least Amy Fenchurch will be too indolent to take much notice.”

“You are not going there,” said Nicholas. “You’re coming with me to Aunt Frid, who may be in her second childhood, but she counts as a chaperone. And then, Beatrice of Sherwood, you can marry me, but don’t expect me to split a willow-wand at fifty paces with a longbow; I can take down a pigeon with a fowling piece, but archery, I have never tried.”

“You aren’t serious!” laughed Beatrice.

“Oh, but I am,” said Nicholas. “I want to marry someone I can have a sensible conversation with.”

“I am sure there are plenty....”

“Of vapid females who think they know what I’m talking about but actually do not? Yes, they come a penny a dozen. I like you, and I think you have spirit. And besides, when that Amelia is being shunned in town, wouldn’t you like to walk past her on my arm, and ignore her?”

“Yes, I would,” said Beatrice.

“Good girl! I thought you had spirit,” said Nicholas, approvingly. He removed his tie pin. “It’s not much of a betrothal token, but it will have to do; here, pin your shawl up with it,” he said.

“Mr. Derwent! Is that a diamond?”

“Yes, but it ain’t above three or four carats, I don’t like too showy a tie pin,” said Nicholas. “It’s brilliant cut, not rose cut, to show inside my cravat, but I’ll get you a proper sort of betrothal token when we have time.”

Beatrice was quite struck dumb for a moment.

“I want it bent into a ring to wear,” she said. “Unless it is of sentimental value that you do not want to lose it as a tie pin?”

“Lud, I’d expect you to keep it anyway. Are you sure? It’s not really set as a ring.”

“It’s a beautiful stone and sparkles the way you do,” said Beatrice, blushing.

“Now that’s real poetry, not the rubbish I write,” said Nicholas.

“In my experience, those who disparage their own poetry write better poetry than those who claim talent,” said Beatrice. “We will go through your poetry, if you like”

“Yes, ma’am!” said Nicholas, who never showed his poetry to anyone.

 

oOoOo

 

“All set for the open road, Tiger-Lily?” asked Simon. They were somewhat behind Nicholas, who had set off first, and Jeremy, but Simon did not mind.

“Oh, yes, thank you, Mr. Havershall,” said Lily. “And I like your nick-name for me, it is not a way to diminish me, as Lily is.”

“How can a beautiful flower like a lily diminish you?” asked Simon.

“Oh, I was named for an aunt, to curry favour, but Elizabeth is the name of a queen or a princess, and to use it in full would give me too much consequence; but one cannot use the pet forms the lower orders use.  And that is nonsence, for in Miss Austen’s book, ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ Elizabeth Bennett is called ‘Lizzie’ by her sisters, and there is no question that they are ladies, however awful their mother may be.”

“Do you prefer ‘Lizzie?’ I cannot say I find it attractive,” said Simon.

“Oh! No, but it is a measure of how my parents think,” said Lily. “I like being a flower, and I like being your Tiger Lily. I wouldn’t mind being your mistress, if you were thinking about it.”

“Stap me! I was considering proposing to you, a woman who firmly goes and tells her bank manager how things are going to be is a ruby!” said Simon. “Like Susannah, in the Bible, her name means ‘A Lily,’ and she was a judge, which means she had to have had a clear head.”

“I do the household accounts, too, and I can do compound interest calculations,” said Lily.

“A definite jewel beyond price,” said Simon. “I say! Is that an accident ahead?”

“His phaeton is facing the same way as we’re going. If  he had been spun around, I doubt his team would have escaped unscathed,” said Lily. “So, he must have been on the wrong side of the road.”

“Overtaking carelessly,” said Simon, coming to a stop. “Hello! What happened?”

The young man was blond, with yellow curly moustaches, and Lily suppressed a giggle.

“He has a Pekinese up each nostril,” she murmured low enough that only Simon could hear.

“By Jove, yes,” murmured Simon.

The young man spoke up.

“That damned misbegotten coachman put me in the ditch!” he said. “He avoided me tipping him, and then he damn well barged me!” His comment was filled with far more qualifications and words Lily did not know.

Simon passed her the reins, and got down.

“Now, Mr. Whoever-you-are, you are going to apologise to the lady for swearing so foully in front of her,” he said.

The young man gave him to understand that he was no qualified choir boy, and saw no need to guard his further qualified tongue for some qualified female.

Simon hit him.

He went down. Simon waited for him to get up and bunch up his fists, and knocked him down again.

Then he heaved him up and knocked him down a third time.

Simon shook the young man until he was conscious.

“Now, listen cherub, and listen well,” he said. “I hit you the first time for your language in front of my fiancée. I hit you a second time for coming out with even worse language. And I hit you a third time for trying to tip my friend into the ditch when driving his mother’s carriage.  If I ever find you have been hunting the squirrel again, I will find you, and kill you. Do you understand?”

“Do you have any idea who I am?” managed the young man through a bloody mouth.

“Apart from being an idiot with two Pekineses up his nostrils? Not a clue,” said Simon. “But you ain’t the sort of fellow who associates with my set, so you don’t have the sort of position that I actually care about. You’re a damned skirter, sirrah, and I hope you get blisters walking to the next village. Have a nasty day.”

He got back into the curricle.

“You were splendid,” said Lily.

“I’m not an athlete like Jeremy is, but I show to advantage against people of that fellow’s stamp,” said Simon.

“Do you really want to marry me?”

“Oh yes!  You haven’t swooned at me hitting him, you thought I was splendid, and you understand compound interest,” said Simon.  “I may not be as well blunted as Jeremy and Nicky, but I do have a way with trading stocks and bonds, and I find finance fascinating.”

“So, would you advise me to leave my inheritance in the funds, or to use some to gamble on the ‘Change?” said Lily.

“My Tiger-Lily, if you let me play with half your money, and give my your opinions too, I wager we could double it by Easter,” said Simon.

“Do you know, I would like to grow it enough to visit Bath and cut my parents dead when they bring out Annabelle,” said Lily.

“What fun!” said Simon. “I’m sure we can manage to do that. In the meantime, we’ll spend Christmas with Frid, and listen to the scandalous things she got up to in her youth, and you shall help me write my novel about a fictional courtesan based on her.”

“It sounds delightful,” said Lily.

 

the christmas caper 3

 

III Departures and Meetings

 

Cecily waited for the house to go quiet. Whilst she waited, she packed a bag, including such cloths as she would need for monthly problems, two gowns, and underlinen. Her valise was not full, but she had ideas for the rest of it. Finally, all the creaks of movement settled down.

 If her father had left the key in the lock, all well and good; if not, well, that might be a problem.

Fortunately, he had done so.  Cecily tore a page from her commonplace book to push under the door, and used a paintbrush handle to push against the barrel of the key. She felt it shift, and slowly, slowly worked it out. It fell with a dull clatter. Cecily eased the paper back, glad that the sill was not large and was gently rounded. It took an hour to ease the key onto her side of the door. Cecily was almost sobbing with relief. She waited to make sure nobody had been disturbed, and unlocked the door. She almost screamed to see what looked like a tall, silent figure waiting on the landing; but it was no more than a curtain which had blown over a wall-mounted candelabrum and hung like a man in a hooded cloak. She breathed long and slow breaths whilst her hammering heart slowed down. She crept out of the room, locked it again, leaving the key in the lock. She headed for the servant’s stair, in stockinged feet, and made her way up to the attics.  Here she found a box room which, as well as the obvious boxes of the servants, contained trunks of old clothes. She knew what she was looking for, and uncovered the box of the schoolclothes of her dead brother, before whose demise life had been good, and Papa had neither drank nor gambled any more than any other man. She cut her hair in the gown she wore, which was soiled anyway, poking the hairs from her front ringlets and the hair long enough to make into a classical-style bun behind the water tank. Then she stripped to the skin, and put on the clothes which had once belonged to Christopher. The clothing seemed awkward, but she managed it at last, and was glad that one of the garments was a long, soft, woollen cloak, which was almost certainly wind and water-proof. She made her way back downstairs and into the kitchen, where she helped herself to a meal of bread, cheese, and ham, and emptied the servants’ fine box. It netted her no more than three shillings, but she hoped she would have enough to pay for a ride on a stage coach somewhere, anywhere, where she might get some kind of work. She went out of the back door, staying by the fence, in the shadow, to the walkway behind Gay Street’s houses.  She crossed the grassy square of Queen’s Square, which was supposed to be locked at night, but rarely ever was; then down past the theatre, down Westgate Street, and into Stall Street, and into the White Hart Inn. Her purpose for choosing this inn was that there were coaches coming and going at almost every hour of the day and night, and she hoped to lose herself in anonymity, as nobody could be expected to remember one more boy out of doubtless dozens.

She was lucky that one traveller, stopping for a hasty breakfast, had been called to the coach; the coaches did not wait on convenience. Cecily finished the barely-started hot cup of coffee, and ate the second coddled egg and toast that went with it.

The sky lightened as she sat back, feeling better, and another coach came into the yard.  A tall man came in, with a many-caped coat and a top hat; and Cecily might have thought him a gentleman, but for the yellow scarf worn instead of a neckcloth, with red, black, and white birds’ eyes patterns on it. She went over to him.

“Excuse me, are you the coachman for a stage coach, and do you have room for one?” she asked.

“I tell you what, you can ride on the box with me, and pay your way by talking to me so I don’t drift off into the killing sleep of cold,” said the man.

 “Thank you,” Cecily replied.

 

 

Beatrice could not afford a vail for someone to lug her trunk down for her, and must perforce do it herself. She went out into the yard of the Angel Inn, and checked the pocket book in her reticule, on which she had written the times of the coach to Cheltenham, where Mrs. Fenchurch and her hopeful progeny resided. A very fashionable looking young man on a high-perch phaeton of the most modern kind, painted pale yellow and picked out in dark blue, swept into the yard and came to a halt. He had crisp curly hair, as she might see, as he doffed his hat to her, as if she was a real lady, and under a heavy cloak, he wore a coat of dark blue superfine, with pale yellow Inexpressibles, matching his equipage’s paintwork. The colour echoed the colours of the waistcoats once worn by the now largely defunct Four Horse Club, and Beatrice wondered if it were deliberate. She sighed; partly over having to wait in the cold for her transport, as she was not about to drag her trunk back in, and partly over imagining that so smart a young gentleman had raised his hat to her as an acquaintance, not out of general politeness. The freezing air promptly enveloped her in a cloud of embarrassing condensation.

The young exquisite spoke up.

“I suspect the stages will be behind schedule on these treacherous icy roads; going up and down hill,” he said.  “Can I give you a lift anywhere?”

“It depends where you are going, sir,” said Beatrice, hoping he was heading north, and wondering about lying and going with him anyway wherever he went.

“Oh, I’m exercising my nags,” said the young man. “I can please myself. Or, indeed, you.”

“Oh, well, if you are going part of the way, I was heading for Cheltenham,” she said.

“Well, if you’ll hold my horse’s heads, I can load up your trunk and we can get going,” said the young man.

Beatrice was nothing loath to hold the horses’ heads; she had no fear of horses, though she had had very little opportunity to have much to do with them. She talked gently to them, and he lifted her trunk, and tied it down, over the rear axle in the shelf below the body of the phaeton.  She stepped away when he remounted and took up the reins; then he was leaning over to help her scramble in.

“Here,” said he. “There’s a blanket to put over yourself; it gets chilly.”

“You are very kind,” murmured Beatrice. Her heart hammered.

I am having an adventure and I am going to enjoy it, however horrid the Fenchurch children are, she thought to herself.

 

 

 

Lily ate her ‘doorstep,’ and felt much better for it. She had a few rather leathery roast chestnuts in her pelisse pocket as well, from the last time she had been out, and had had a penny for roast chestnuts, and had carefully saved about a third of them. It added to the meal. She climbed up onto the dresser, which gave her the height to reach the window. It was the work of a moment to be out of the window, with practised ease, and into the gutter behind the fancy stonework of the facade which hid the servants’ rooms. She went back through the window of the room next door, which was the box room. This was never locked, and was her way out of a locked room. It also had discarded and laid aside clothes in trunks in it. Lily helped herself to a couple of gowns which Annabelle had had put away the previous year to refurbish; she had worn each just once. There was no point travelling in finery, but it was worth having two decent gowns, even if they were last year’s fashion, and moreover, it deprived Annabelle of having them to have made over. This piece of petty spite heartened Lily considerably. She was not usually given to spite, but the demand to hand over her legacy had been the last straw.

She made her way downstairs, and let herself out into the area, rather than risk rousing the footmen at the back of the house. She ran up the steps on light feet, and headed up towards the centre of town, planning to go into an inn to eat, and then go to the bank to instruct her bank manager, and put it in writing if need be, that her legacy was never to go to her sister or her parents.

She was crossing the Market Square when a young man in a gig drove up beside her, and lifted his hat from sleek, dark locks.

“Excuse me, you look as if you need help,” he said. Lily gasped. One heard stories of dreadful rakes. But he appeared amiable.

“Oh! I should not... you look harmless,” she said.

“I am harmless,” he replied. “Where are you off to?”

“Milsom Street, number two,” she said, and then realised this was a stupidly trite answer. “I... I need to visit the bank before I do anything else.”

The young man fetched his watch out of his pocket in his sober, but rich waistcoat, and consulted it.

“It’s almost eight; there should be someone there. You are not leaving Bath?” he sounded disappointed.

“Oh! Yes, but I must see my bank manager first, so I am not defrauded.” She flushed, realising that she looked like some modern day Cinderella. “I know, I do not look as if I have much to be defrauded from, but now I am one-and-twenty, I resent my small portion being usurped.”

“Intriging!” The young man seemed genuinely interested. “And where to, after the bank?”

“Anywhere,” she said, recklessly.

“Hop up, then; the bank first, and then, my lady, your carriage awaits, and I shall hi you off to Lady Frideswide Wrothling, who is as senile as a coot, but has some entertainingly warm stories of her days at court,” said the young man.

“May I ask your name?” asked Lily.

“Simon Havershall, at your service,” said Simon.

“May I rely on you to put a notice in the Morning Post if anything happens to me, mentioning Lily Flowers and Cinderella? I am about to make my will and leave everything to my maid, Ella, who has been the only decent person in my life until you stopped to help me; but I do not think you are short of money, and it would make all the difference to her.”

“I’d be delighted,” said Simon. “And you can tell me the whole story on the way.”

 

Lily was glad that she was able to see her bank manager, and make a will, naming Simon Havershall, esq, as an executor alongside her bank manager.

“I was shocked when your father wanted me to draw up a document in which you handed all your inheritance to your sister,” he said. “I am happy to comply with your wishes, and to tie up the capital too tightly to be accessed by anyone but yourself, in person.  However, you will need an introduction to another bank to draw on the interest; if you are leaving Bath, I suggest that you carry a sum with you which will cover all immediate needs; perhaps one hundred pounds, in smaller notes, and some in coin.”

“Yes, I think that is a good idea,” said Lily. She told him about Simon.

“I am not acquainted personally with the young man, but I know nothing to his detriment, and if he is taking you to Lady Frideswide Wrothling, there can be no concern,” he said. “Mr. Havershall is a cousin of her great-nephew, Jeremy, Viscount Wrothlington, a young man about town, but of good reputation, like his other cousin, the Honourable Nicholas Derwent.”

Lily went out, beaming, and got into the gig with Simon.

“My bank manager has heard of you and knows nothing to your detriment,” she said.

“By Jove! I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or an insult!” laughed Simon. “There’s a soft furnishings store up here somewhere, need to buy you a quilt to keep you warm. Can you hold the nags?”

“I don’t know, but they don’t seem fiery, so I’ll do my best,” said Lily. “How thoughtful of you!”

“I don’t think much of people who treat family like Cinderella,” said Simon.

“I’m the ugly one,” said Lily.

“Ugly! Why, you’re beautiful!” said Simon. “And what glorious hair you have!”

“I... you mean it?” gasped Lily.

“I do; now give me a name for a name,” said Simon.

“Lily – Elizabeth, that is – Hendry,” said Lily.

“A Tiger-Lily indeed!” said Simon. “Here, hold the nags.”

He was in and out of the store quickly with an exotically patterned quilt.

“You outshine it, but it will not blush as much for being cast in the shade as some of the paler and plainer ones,” he said. “It has feathers in it so you should be warm. Why are you crying?”

“I’m not used to people being kind,” said Lily.

 

 

 

the christmas caper 2

 

II Three Ladies

 

Cecily Dacres

Beatrice Lockwood

Elizabeth [Lily] Hendry

 

 

“Don’t make such a fuss, Cecy!” snapped Mrs. Dacres. “It’ll soon be over. Then he’ll stop wanting you and you’ll be free to marry if you want. You can take a little knife into the marriage bed to make a small cut under your hair to simulate losing your maidenhead.”

“But I... I don’t want to sleep with Lord Ashdowne!” said Cecily. “And even if anyone did want to marry me afterwards, I would know! I would be sullied!”

“What a lot of fuss over nothing!” said Mrs. Dacres. “Men are disgusting, all of them, and you just have to put up with the bedroom side of matters from time to time. Once you’ve had a child you can deny a husband your bed and he’ll go find a mistress. Honestly!”

“Does Papa know you feel like this? Does he know you are trying to sell my virtue to Lord Ashdowne?” spat out Cecily.

“Oh, honestly, Cecy! Of course Papa knows; he suggested I should have a little talk to you, to bring you to heel, so that Lord Ashdowne does not forclose on the loans he made to Papa. He’s willing to write them off to lie with you.”

“Well, if it’s such a little thing, why don’t you lie with him?” asked Cecily.

“Don’t be silly, child! He wants to take your virginity and enjoy teaching you about how many ways he can humiliate you; I already know, so I would not be amusing to him.”

“I want to hear Papa say that this is what he wants,” said Cecily, shocked.

Mrs. Dacres sighed with relief.

“Of course, my sweet,” she said. “I knew you would see sense. I’ll ask Papa to come to you.”

Cecily sat on her bed, shocked beyond measure. She looked up when her father came in.

“Cecy, you cannot imagine how relieved I am that you are prepared to be practical,” said Mr. Dacres.

“You want me to give my virtue to Lord Ashdowne, because you owe him money; is that right?” asked Cecily.

“He has been buying up all my vowels, I had no idea how deep I was with gambling; but he will write them all off, just to have you to himself for a week,” said Mr. Dacres.  “And then we can start the New Year fresh and free from debt, and able to be happy again.”

“And am I supposed to be happy again when I have been... used... by that disgusting old man?” asked Cecily.

“Oh, Cecy, it’s a woman’s lot in life; just shut your eyes and put up with it, and then it will be all over.”

“Why don’t you let him use you, like you said men like Lord Byron do?” retorted Cecily.

“It’s not the same at all,” snapped Dacres. “Please don’t tell me you are going to be difficult about this.”

“Do I have a choice?” asked Cecily, bitterly.

“No, my dear, I’m afraid not,” said her father.

“Leave me alone, please,” said Cecily.

“Of course, my dear. You need time to come to terms with it. I will call upon Lord Ashdowne tomorrow, and tell him that you will comply.”

He withdrew from Cecily’s room.

He did remember to lock the door.

 

oOoOo

 

Beatrice Lockwood dragged her life packed into a travelling trunk into the Angel Inn, in Westgate Street, one of the cheaper inns, and dating back, it was said, to 1611 and with a resident ghost, named Alice. Beatrice wondered if the ghost was lonely, and whether she would welcome a companion; for surely if she committed suicide, she would be denied Heaven, and must wander as a ghost. And Beatrice had reached the point where she wondered if joining Alice would be preferable to her inevitable descent into prostitution, the only option for a destitute woman without a reference.

She was totally shamed. Could anything be worse?

Beatrice thought over the events of the last few days over and over in her mind. Last week, she had been a preceptress at a young ladies’ academy on Queens Square, a well-paid job, thirty guineas a year and her keep, and the option to stay on free during the long holidays and help the servants do a thorough clean. Beatrice had been there for nearly three years; and then Amelia Spottiswode came as a pupil. Amelia Spottiswode, a spoilt, selfish child, who bullied those she thought she could push around, demanded what she wanted, and did not take discipline. Beatrice had disciplined her for impudence by banning puddings for a week, and when Amelia grabbed the puddings of other girls, Beatrice had dragged her to the punishment table where what Amelia was fed could be watched.

And the child had calmly got up to grab someone else’s pudding! Beatrice had struck it from her hands and sent the child to bed; indeed, had marched the child up to her bedroom.

And then, there had been the accusation of theft, and Amelia’s bracelet found in Beatrice’s room.

“I know you didn’t take it, Beatrice,” said Mrs. Spenlowe, the head preceptress, “But if I don’t fire you, that wretched child will have her parents send to Bow Street. I cannot afford the bad publicity, nor the shame, and you would end up in prison, hanged for the value of that bauble, or transported at least, and what good would that do? You cannot prove she put it there, and nor can I. It is better if I let you go, and hope that associating with nicer girls will have an impact on Miss. Spotiswode.”

“And if she decides to do the same thing to you, Mrs. Spenlowe, to get her own way in something?” asked Beatrice.

“I am sure she would not go that far,” said Mrs. Spenlowe, comfortably. “I cannot, of course, give you a reference, but I can give you a couple of letters of introduction, and write privately to those I’ve given you notes for. Mrs. Fenchurch is one of my old girls, who has a full nursery herself, now, and finds them hard to control, and Miss Williams is a former preceptress here, who set up her own school and finds it hard to keep staff.”

“Sour milk and cabbages!” cried Beatrice, who remembered Miss Williams from her own days as a pupil, when there was some trust money left to educate her to be a governess.

“Dear me, that is what the pupils used to call her,” said Mrs. Spenlowe. “She is a trifle... nipcheese... but it is a place to start over and move on to better things.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Spenlowe,” said Beatrice, tonelessly.

“It will all soon blow over,” said Mrs. Spenlowe.

No, it will never blow over, thought Beatrice. I will always be ‘the governess who was sacked for suspected stealing; no smoke without fire. But she said nothing. What was there to say?

And now, she had to choose between Mrs. Fenchurch and her doubtless ill-conditioned children, because that would be Amy Durrel, whose wedding had been a matter of gossip in the school, and Amy had spoiled her pet pug to the point where the poor creature died crying of dropsy. Beatrice could imagine her children, fat, white slugs of children, as lazy and self-indulgent as their mother.

Beatrice sighed, lay her aching head on the thin pillow in this cheap room, and sobbed herself to sleep.

 

oOoOo

 

“Now you’ve turned one-and-twenty, Lily, here’s something you need to sign,” said Mr. Hendry, pushing a document into his daughter’s hand. Elizabeth, known as Lily, Hendry read it through, and pushed it away from her.

“Papa, that’s ridiculous! That paper says that I sign over my legacy from Great-Uncle Paul to Annabelle, in its entirety.”

“Well, yes, that’s the general idea,” said Hendry. “You won’t need a dowry; you’re the plain one, so you won’t be getting married, and doubling Annabelle’s dowry gives her a better chance of getting married, and then you can go to her as nursemaid and governess for her children, so you’ll be taken care of for life.”

“And what makes you think I want to be an unpaid skivvy to Annabelle and be governess to her children, Papa?” said Lily.

“Don’t be tiresome, Lily,” snapped Mr. Hendry. “Annabelle is our golden girl, and you know you’ve been raised always to do your duty to her; this is a continuation of that duty.”

“With two hundred a year from the funds, I intended to move out, and live quietly with a companion in an apartment, and never see you or Annabelle again,” said Lily.

“How could you be so selfish!  You don’t deserve a legacy; Uncle Paul never knew what a tiresome child you were, and how much training you would need to learn your place,” added her mother. “There are ways of making you sign, you know; if you are kept hungry and thirsty for a few days, you will soon sign.”

Elizabeth Hendry pulled the parchment back towards herself, smiled, and her parents relaxed.

“There’s a good girl. You do come round when you’ve had your little rebellions,” said her mother.

Lily’s little rebellions involved asking why Annabelle had treats, and she did not, and asking for ice-cream when Annabelle had some, or asking for a new bonnet or new gown.

This time was enough.

She rose in one fluid movement, and thrust the document into the fire, grabbing the poker to push it right into the blaze.

Her father slapped her so hard, she fell over, and was hard pressed not to fall into the fire herself.

“Bedroom!” he shouted. “And no food or drink until there’s another document to sign!”

“Then I will probably be dead before it can be signed, and, as I recall, the legacy reverts to an orphan asylum if either of us die intestate and unwed,” said Lily.

“You had better be ready to sign the next copy; I had to pay to have that drawn up, the blasted bank would not do so without you calling on them,” said her father.

Lily filed away that interesting fact, and took herself meekly to the bedroom at the top of the house next to the chamber-maid, a far cry from the pretty and luxurious bedroom of her younger sister, Annabelle. Annabelle pinched her as she went past her.

“You’re mean to me, Lily; stop being so selfish,” she said. “With four hundred pounds a year, I can have a decent life, and it’s not as if you’re fit for anything but to be a governess or superior sort of servant anyway.”

“Why?” asked Lily, swinging round. “Why is Annabelle the golden girl, and why am I not fit to be a proper daughter to you?”

“You’ve always been trouble,” snapped her mother. “I was ill all through my pregnancy with you, and you were a sickly child, and always causing trouble by being ill. And look at you! Straight ginger hair, freckles, green eyes like a witch, and you’ve always watched us, it’s uncanny.”

“Maybe because I was watching for a sign of when I was in trouble and trying to guess why,” said Lily.

“You’re always in trouble, because you exist,” said Mrs. Hendry. “Now, go up to your room; there are worse things than being a governess for your sister’s children, you could be put away.”

Lily retreated. That was a frightening threat. Though they would have to have her signature before doing so. She knew she would not have any food that night, and was resigned to it, but at least Ella, the chambermaid, was sympathetic and might manage to sneak her a bit of bread.

Knowing that her parents and sister would not be leaving the warmth of the parlour fire, and would probably loudly discuss her shortcomings for a while, Lily did something she had done at times, to be able to buy street food when she was hungry, and went into her sister’s, and then parents’ bedrooms to search through reticules and pockets for loose change. Her sister and parents were careless about loose change, and never knew exactly how much they had, and Lily was able to abstract two pounds eighteen shillings, which would feed her for almost three months, if she was frugal. A plate of meat or fish and potatoes was eightpence in a cheap eating-house, she could drink from horse troughs and most eating houses provided piped water free. Tea and coffee were much dearer.  A meal a day if she stayed at home, because Lily knew ways of getting out of her locked room. Or, she could stay in a cheap inn, when her expenses would rise to around three shillings a day, giving her a little under three weeks.

But she was of age, now, and could visit her bank.

She got up to her own attic room just before her father came up to lock her in.

“We’ll feed you, but don’t expect to eat like family,” he said.

“I’ve long since realised that you are relatives, not family,” said Lily.

This was risky, as he might take his belt to her, but he merely slammed the door, making spiders fall from the rafters, and locked the door.

Ella slipped in with a thick ‘doorstep’  of bread-and-dripping, and a carafe of water, unlocking the door with another house key; all the locks were the same, as was common.

“Hide the carafe in the ewer, same as always,” she said.

“Bless you, Ella,” said Lily. “This is goodbye; I’m leaving.”

“Ooh, miss, do take care,” said Ella. “If you can send for me, I’d take board and lodging to serve you, not them.”

Lily embraced her.

“I’d take you with me, but I’m not sure where I’m going, or if I can get somewhere safe,” she said. “But they’re threatening me with Bedlam, and I can’t take that.”

“No, miss, I should think not!” said Ella.

“They get the Morning Post from London; I can put an advertisement in that from anywhere, and I’ll say something about a Lily flower and Cinderella,” said Lily.

“Ooh, just like a novel!” said Ella, happily, able to read fluently enough to find that in advertisements.