Animating Maria (19 page)

The news of the elopement rocked London, and although Mr Haddon and Mr Randolph diligently talked about the Tribbles’ skill in arranging it, no one believed them. No one believed the duke’s mother either. She was surely just trying to smooth things over and make less of a scandal by saying they had all been party to the plot. Lady Bentley had arranged a prestigious marriage for that little nobody, Frederica Sunningdale. She was to marry Lord Alistair Beaumont at a splendid wedding in St James’s Chapel. Now
that
was the way things ought to be done, said the wagging tongues.

And so even Effy, who had been so glad to think of relaxing for a whole year without any cares, began to thirst for another success. Amy tried to console her by saying that the duke and his new duchess would return to London and have their great wedding, and faith in them would be restored. But then a letter arrived from Maria in which she said they were boarding a ship at Glasgow to go to France for a honeymoon and not a word of that wedding.

‘And that’s gratitude for you!’ cried Amy, throwing the letter across the room. ‘People are so jealous of us; they long to see us fail just because we’ve snatched so many prizes away from them. By George, I would give anything for just one more success.’

‘Alas, Amy,’ said Effy sadly. ‘I fear our career is at an end. We will bide our time and think of a new line of business.’

‘That advertisement has been running for some time now,’ said Amy. ‘Mr Haddon insisted on paying the costs.’

‘The dear man,’ cooed Effy, batting her lamp-blackened eyelashes. ‘So protective.’

And then she ducked as Amy threw a cushion at her.

Unknown as yet to the Tribbles, their next ‘job’ was struggling against a gale along the North Cliff of Scarborough in Yorkshire past the cemetery where her parents were buried. The earth on the grave was new, her father having recently gone to join her mother.

Miss Harriet Brown was on her way to visit her aunt, Lady Owen, who lived on the more fashionable St Nicholas Cliff. Harriet had never seen her aunt, although they both lived in the same town. Lady Owen had cut herself off when frivolous Lydia, the belle of Scarborough and Lady Owen’s sister, had married a Methodist minister, Mr Thomas Brown, of no particular background whatsoever.

So incensed had Lady Owen been at her sister’s fall from grace that she had not even attended her funeral when Lydia died giving birth to baby Harriet.

Harriet had grown up, trained to help her father in his good works and act as unpaid housekeeper. She was now twenty-five and had never been to a ball or party. She did not want to visit her aunt, but Harriet was ever practical and knew her father had left very little money, and that if she did not find help soon, she would end up in the workhouse.

The size and splendour of her aunt’s mansion rather daunted her, but she reminded herself sternly that this was all mere worldly show and knocked at the great door, feeling the wind plucking at her black mourning-clothes.

When the door opened, she had no card to hand the butler, but merely gave her name.

‘You are expected, miss,’ said the butler. ‘Be so good as to come this way.’

He led the way up a curved staircase and threw open the double doors of a drawing room on the first landing.

‘Miss Harriet Brown,’ he announced, and then withdrew, leaving Harriet and her aunt together. Each surveyed the other curiously.

Lady Owen saw a tall slim girl dressed in a shabby black coat and gown and depressing bonnet. She had good eyes, large and sparkling and very blue.

‘Take off your bonnet,’ she commanded.

Harriet untied the strings and took it off and let it dangle in her hand.

Her hair was magnificent, black and glossy and rippling with natural waves.

Lady Owen noticed, however, that Harriet’s chin had a firm, stubborn look and that her mouth was too generous for beauty.

For her part, Harriet saw a woman of fifty or so, very expensively gowned and turbaned with a sour, petulant face. Her eyes were a faded blue and she had very large hairy eyebrows. She smiled and extended her hand. Harriet noticed as Lady Owen smiled that her set of false teeth was of the best china.

‘Sit down, Harriet,’ said Lady Owen. She waited until Harriet was seated, and then went on. ‘I have made inquiries as to your circumstances and find that you have no money, no beaux and no future. Am I right?’

‘Yes, Lady Owen.’

‘Apart from myself, you are the only surviving member of the Owen family. It is important to me that you should marry well and bear children. Your unfortunate background is known in Scarborough . . .’

The blue eyes opposite her flashed fire. ‘I do not consider my life to date unfortunate,’ said Harriet. ‘My father was a good and kind man.’

Lady Owen sniffed. ‘Don’t take on so. I am entitled to my opinion. You are a trifle old but not ill-looking, and it will take a great deal of money and work to make you a suitable bride for some man of high rank. To that end, I am writing to a couple of professional chaperones who reside in London. You will go to them for the Little Season and they will bring you out. You must do your best and learn to charm and flirt.’

Harriet bit back the angry retort that had risen to her lips. She had been brought up to respect her elders. She was shocked at the proposal, but did not know what else to do. She was well educated and had tried to get a position as governess during her father’s last illness, for she knew very well she would soon be alone in the world. But several interviews had shown her that the kind of education required was the kind she lacked – Italian, water-colours and piano playing.

‘The ladies who will bring you out,’ said Lady Owen, ‘are called Effy and Amy Tribble, a couple of farouche eccentrics, who are, nonetheless, of the highest rank of society and are famed for having a gift of refining the seemingly unrefinable.’

While she talked, Harriet sat and assessed her new situation. It was necessary to be practical. It was no use shrinking from the prospect. Her father had taught her there was good in everyone, even Lady Owen. All of London society could not be given over to dissipation and folly. She would find one good man of sober tastes and modest mien, perhaps a member of the clergy, and make the best of it. Her father had always wanted her to marry.

The new Duchess of Berham lay naked in her husband’s arms as the ship that was bearing them to France ploughed through the stormy seas.

‘Of what are you thinking, my love?’ he asked.

‘I was thinking of Effy and Amy Tribble,’ said Maria. ‘They did so want a grand wedding in London and I feel guilty about going on our honeymoon first.’

‘The Tribbles will survive.’

Maria stretched and yawned. ‘It is a pity Mr Haddon would not marry Miss Amy. Then they would not have to work.’

‘What do you want me to do, my love? Write and order him to do so?’

‘Silly. But when we return, perhaps we might call on them and see if we can do anything in that direction.’

‘As you will. Although the thought of going near Amy Tribble again rather frightens me. You must remember it was she who challenged me to a duel and hit me on the head.’

‘And brought us both to our senses,’ said Maria.

The ship plunged and shuddered in the trough of a wave and she clutched him hard. ‘We will do our best for the Tribble sisters,’ he said as his hands slid down her body, ‘and we will get to work on that new village. But first . . . first . . . I want you to myself for some little time so that I can do this . . . and this . . . and this . . .’

And Maria plunged back into a sea of passion, as noisy and turbulent as the storm outside.

Miss Spiggs was walking through the lanes outside Bath, feeling very sorry for herself. The Kendalls had dispensed with her services. She thirsted for revenge on the Tribbles, for she was sure it was they who had poisoned dear Mrs Kendall’s mind against her.

The sound of a noisy, haranguing voice reached her ears, and she came out of her bitter thoughts to see she was approaching some sort of meeting that was being held in a field. A man was standing on a platform, speaking to a small crowd.

Miss Spiggs stopped to listen. ‘Brothers and sisters,’ said the speaker, ‘why should there be one law for the rich and one for the poor? Why should we have to slave all our days for people who are no better than we?’

He was wearing a very tight blue coat with brass buttons over a striped waistcoat. A beaver hat was perched on his ginger hair. Miss Spiggs thought him a compelling figure and edged her way to the front of the crowd until she was standing below him. ‘They ride past us in their carriages and never notice the poor starving in the streets,’ said the speaker, as he dropped a quick calculating glance at Miss Spiggs, discreet in dove-grey silk gown with the diamond pin Maria had given her winking on the front of it.

‘And it is not only the very poor who suffer,’ he said and now his eyes seemed to hold those of Miss Spiggs. ‘It is the poor relations, the cast-off companions, the wretches who have only their dignity to live on. Let us pray for them too, brothers and sisters.’

How true, thought Miss Spiggs, engulfed in a pleasurable wave of self-pity.

At the end of his speech, the orator said a collection would be taken up for The Brothers and Sisters of the Uprising of the Underdog. He swept off his hat and passed it round. Miss Spiggs ostentatiously put in a bright new shilling and hoped he noticed.

The meeting ended with the singing of a hymn, and the crowd began to shuffle away. Miss Spiggs was just turning away when she found the speaker at her elbow.

‘Allow me to introduce myself, my lady,’ he said with a low bow. ‘I am Dr Frank.’

Miss Spiggs tittered. ‘I am not titled, sir, but one of those poor companions you mentioned in your speech.’

‘Indeed!’ His eyes shone with warm sympathy. ‘You must tell me about it. There is an inn hard by and I would be honoured if you would join me in some refreshment.’

His wife approached him bearing the hat. ‘Excuse me,’ he said to Miss Spiggs, ‘while I talk to my assistant.’

He snatched the hat from his wife, Bessie, tipped the coins out and put them in his pocket.

‘Lose yourself, Bess,’ he hissed. ‘See that diamond pin? I’ll have it off her by the end of the day. So you ain’t my wife.’

Bessie nodded, although she sent a venomous look in Miss Spiggs’s direction.

By the time Dr Frank and Miss Spiggs had reached the inn, she had told him all about the perfidy of the Tribbles.

And Frank, the Tribbles’ ex-footman, put aside for the moment any idea of getting that diamond pin right away. Here was a coincidence. Here was a rare happening. He pretended he had never heard of the Tribbles while he asked question after question. Although his leaving the sisters’ household had been of his own doing, he blamed them for all his subsequent bad luck. There must be some way he could use this silly woman to avenge himself on them and get not only that diamond pin from Miss Spiggs but money from the Tribbles as well. He remembered seeing Amy in St Charles Street but was sure she had not recognized him. He had become a fine gentleman, he thought proudly, squinting down at the silk of his showy waistcoat and the gold tassels on his boots, and, in any case, London was a better hunting-ground.

*   *   *

Amy and Effy were seated with Mr Randolph and Mr Haddon some two weeks later, discussing the surprising letter that had arrived from Lady Owen.

‘Do you not remember her, Effy?’ asked Amy. ‘She had a beautiful sister – Lydia, that was it. Young Lord Lamperton was enamoured of her, as were quite a few gentlemen, but she showed no interest and they left their one Season, both of them unwed. It seems, gentlemen, that Lydia married a Methodist preacher and it is their daughter Lady Owen wants to send us. There seems to be no fault in the girl, except that she is a leetle old – twenty-five – and unpolished. ‘‘Modest and well-behaved if a trifle stiff in her manner and disgracefully short of light conversation,’’ says Lady Owen. Seems easy enough.’

Effy shifted restlessly. ‘It would have been so nice to forget about these wretched girls for a little,’ she said with a sigh, ‘but if we could secure a good marriage for a Methodist – Methodist, mark you – minister’s daughter, then we should prove our worth. What do you think, Mr Randolph?’

Mr Randolph looked pleased. He was used to both sisters consulting Mr Haddon first. ‘It seems quite safe,’ he said. ‘I think you should go ahead with it.’

Although the sisters agreed with him, he could sense a sudden coldness in the room and wondered what he had said wrong.

When the gentlemen had left, Amy said, ‘They both sit there, two rich nabobs, drinking our hard-earned wine, eating our hard-earned cakes and agreeing placidly on more work for us. Oh, why does not just one of them say, ‘‘Be mine’’?’

Effy stretched out her hand and Amy clutched it. Outside the hoarse voice of the watch called the hour and strains of a waltz filtered through from the house next door where the neighbours were holding a ball.

They sat like that for a long time, each one thinking of the long years of parties and balls and routs, the endless parade of gentlemen who just might be interested, the hopes and fears and disappointments – so very many disappointments.

Amy cleared her throat and tried to think of something to say to lighten the gloom. ‘You know, Effy, when I was in St Charles Street, there was some fellow rousing the crowd to riot. I saw a handbill which said he was Dr Frank and then I saw him, up a lamp-post, staring at me. And do you know who it was? Our Frank. That silly footman who tried to get the rest of the servants to stop work.’

Effy sat silently, her throat working. A tear rolled down her cheek.

‘Hey, what is this, sister? A wake? Champagne, Harris!’ shouted Amy. ‘We drink a toast to our future, Effy. We’re still alive, which is more than you can say for most of our contemporaries, and damme, if we ain’t got two real live gentlemen callers.’

‘We have?’

‘Course we do. Aren’t Mr Haddon and Mr Randolph here practically every day? We’ve got the pleasures of company without the pain of marriage. Why, that old trout, Lady Witherspoon, said t’other day, ‘‘I think Effy Tribble must go in for witchcraft. She gets younger by the minute.’’ And did you mark last time we drove in the Park that Colonel Flanders actually
leered
at you?’