Deception (Daughters of Mannerling 3) (6 page)

‘Famous for what?’

‘Beauty,’ said her mother tactlessly.

Prudence’s eyes went to Lord Burfield’s handsome face. He, too, was watching the Beverley sisters, but the one which seemed to intrigue him most was the fair one with the rosebuds in her hair. Prudence became determined to find out as much as she could about these sisters. Know your enemy, she thought.

Her hand was claimed for a dance by Lord Burfield. It was the quadrille. Prudence, like many young ladies, had been trained in the intricate steps of the quadrille by a dancing master, and although she performed them exactly, she was rather heavy on her feet and apt to come down from one of the leaps in the air with a thump. She had no opportunity to talk to Lord Burfield until they were promenading round the floor at the end of the dance. The promenade, where one strolled in a circle with one’s partner before the next dance, was a great opportunity for flirtation.

‘You are looking very fine tonight, Miss Makepeace,’ said Lord Burfield gallantly. Prudence was wearing white muslin with many frills and it was bound at the waist with a frilly edged sash. She had a tall head-dress of osprey feathers.

‘I am surprised you even noticed my appearance, my lord. Your attention appeared to be caught by the Beverley sisters.’

He smiled down at her but did not reply.

‘Do they live locally?’

‘I believe so,’ he said.

‘Do they do the Season?’

‘Miss Makepeace, I confess to being remarkably ill-informed on the subject of the Beverleys. I suggest you ask one of them all about themselves.’

Mrs Makepeace, on the other hand, was being very well informed on that very subject by Hedgefield’s prize gossip, Miss Turlow, who had been snubbed by the Beverleys in the days of their wealth. Mrs Makepeace listened with rapt and flattering attention to the tale of this once-proud family. When Miss Turlow had finished, Mrs Makepeace put up her quizzing-glass and studied the sisters. ‘If they are as poor as you say,’ she said, ‘why is it that their gowns have obviously been made for them by one of the finest dressmakers?’

Miss Turlow knew that she had never seen the girls wear those gowns before but her spite would not allow her to say so. ‘I believe they still have a vast wardrobe from a few years ago,’ she remarked.

Lady Evans, in the meantime, had realized that whatever game Letitia Trumble was playing she would need to go along with it and not acknowledge her as a friend, but she wondered where she had gone. Miss Trumble had arrived with the Beverley party. But then she had disappeared from view.

Lady Evans approached Lady Beverley and asked, ‘Where is Miss Trumble?’

‘My governess?’ Lady Beverley gave a condescending little laugh. ‘I felt she was a trifle
de trop
and so I sent her to wait in the hall.’

Lady Beverley had thought she had suffered enough when two guests had approached and had addressed Miss Trumble as Lady Beverley, and so she had sent her away.

‘Miss Trumble was invited as a guest, Lady Beverley,’ said old Lady Evans haughtily. ‘In fact, it was because of Miss Trumble’s request that your daughters were invited here at all. Be so good as to remember that!’

Lady Evans swept off. I must get rid of Miss Trumble, thought Lady Beverley angrily. She is nothing more than a servant. How very odd of Lady Evans! But then she is so very old. Her wits must be wandering.

Lady Evans went through to the hall. Miss Trumble was sitting on a hard chair, reading a book.

‘Letitia,’ hissed Lady Evans, ‘come back to the ballroom immediately. I was forced to remind your employer that it was thanks to you that the Beverleys are here at all.’

Miss Trumble put away her book in her reticule and stood up and shook down the folds of her gown. ‘How very loyal you are. But I fear Lady Beverley will send me packing.’

‘And so . . . and so what is that to you?’

‘Humour me. I am fond of my girls.’

‘Very well. But it annoys me to see you treated thus.’

As they walked together towards the ballroom, Miss Trumble said, ‘That is a fine-looking man, the one with the fair hair, the tall one in the black coat and silk knee-breeches with the sapphire stickpin in his cravat.’

‘That must be Lord Burfield. He is staying with me. Ah, no, Letitia, I have chosen a very proper young heiress for him.’

‘Is he short of funds?’

‘On the contrary, and therefore it is safe and suitable that he should marry money.’

‘Dear me, what a mercenary world we live in. Ah, here we are and there is my employer looking daggers at me.’

Old Lady Evans looked amused. ‘If you will insist on wearing a finer gown than your employer, Letitia, it is no wonder the lady dislikes you. I see all your young ladies have partners, but you will find it hard to get husbands for them.’

‘I am not so sure about that,’ said Miss Trumble. ‘The two elder girls did well for themselves.’

Lady Evans noticed that Lord Burfield was dancing again with Prudence and frowned. That made two dances. He could not, therefore, dance with her again, and it was not yet the supper dance.

Lord Burfield had remarked the startling likeness of the Beverley twins, and yet felt he would be able to tell Abigail from Rachel quite easily. Abigail had the more dominating personality. Rachel was quieter, more subdued, quite shy.

He found Prudence a pleasant sort of lady, just the sort he ought to marry. She would run his home well, and she was past the first blush of youth and would therefore be more sensible than any flighty young girl.

He had not really meant to ask Abigail for the supper dance but somehow he found himself doing just that. He performed a country dance with her, noticing how light and graceful she was. When he led her to the supper room, she seemed very much at ease with him, and that caused him a slight feeling of pique. He wondered what it would take to make Miss Abigail Beverley aware of him as a man.

When they had been served with food and wine, Abigail asked, ‘Did you leave the army before the start of the Peninsular Wars?’

‘No, I served there as well.’

‘Is there a great deal of hardship for such as you, marching so long and fighting so hard?’

‘It varies, Miss Abigail. Sometimes it was hard to find a dry place to pass the night. I remember when a Colonel Freemantle was sent ahead during the retreat of the army from Burgos to find accommodation for Wellington himself. All he could find was a simple hut. He had a fire lit and then scrawled a message on the door that the hut was reserved for Wellington, but when he returned later to the hut, he found an officer warming himself by the fire and refusing to move, “not even for Wellington, not even for Old Nick himself.” The officer, however, moved when he was threatened with arrest. The story was repeated at White’s, where our celebrated Beau Brummel exclaimed to Freemantle, “If I had been in your place, Freemantle, I should have rung the bell and had the fellow kicked downstairs by the servants,” which shows how little some of our dandies know about campaigning. But tell me something of yourself, Miss Abigail. Do you go to London?’

‘I shall never see London again,’ said Abigail gloomily. ‘We used to go when Isabella was making her come-out and I loved the theatres and plays, the parks and the people. It must be fine to be able to visit London, particularly in the winter. The nights are so long and dark, and we have to be abed so early.’

‘And why is that?’

‘To save candles.’ Abigail bit her lip and blushed, cursing her mother’s parsimony in her heart. What would he think of a family who saved candles like the veriest peasant?

‘I saw a very good performance of Falstaff when I was last in London,’ he said quickly. ‘Kean was playing him and was quite brilliant. He caught the finest shades of the character.’

‘I feel some actors forget that Falstaff, although a man of vulgar soul, is still by habit and inclination a practised courtier,’ said Abigail eagerly, ‘and the coarseness he often assumes in the prince’s company is at least as much intentional acting, employed by him to amuse the prince, as to gratify his own humour.’

‘You have the right of it,’ said Lord Burfield, signailing to a footman to pour more wine for them. ‘The way Kean portrayed him, at first you see a facetious man, ludicrously fat, but a man of dignified and gentlemanlike air, always a joker, it is true, but good
ton
. In the second stage, he allows himself to take all sorts of freedoms but with every care to exalt the prince and to assume only the privilege of a court fool who
apparently
may say all that comes into his head. In the last stage, we see Falstaff in complete ‘negligé’, after he has thrown off all regard to good appearances, and yet he still remains original and excites more laughter than disgust. Shakespeare’s genius never fails to amaze me. As Sir Walter Scott so prettily puts it, “I can only compare Shakespeare with that man in the
Arabian Nights
who has the power of passing into any body with ease, and imitating its feelings and actions.”

‘But back to the play. It concluded with a melodrama in which a large Newfoundland dog really acted admirably. He defended a banner for a long time, pursued by the enemy, and afterwards came on the stage wounded, lame and bleeding, and died in the most masterly manner, with a last wag of his tail, which was really full of genius.’

‘The dog did not
really
die?’ asked Abigail anxiously.

‘No, that animal was as fine an actor as Kean. Besides, the audience would not have minded a human being, or a bear or a bull actually dying on the stage, but not a dog like that.’

‘How exciting and wonderful it all sounds,’ said Abigail wistfully. ‘Miss Trumble reads us the plays of Shakespeare and we often act the parts, but it is not the same as seeing one. Do you have a busy social life in London?’

‘I do what everyone does,’ said Lord Burfield, meaning every man in society. ‘I rise late, read three or four newspapers at breakfast. I look in my visiting book to see what calls I have to pay, and either drive to pay them in my curricle, or ride. At this time of year, I am sometimes startled by beauty even in dingy London. The struggle of the blood-red sun with the winter fogs can often produce wild and singular effects of light. I return when it is dark, work a little at my papers, dress for dinner, which is now at seven or eight, and then usually spend the evening at the theatre or at some small party or rout, but usually I avoid routs. One hardly finds standing room and is pushed and pulled in a hothouse atmosphere. But small parties are not very enlivening either. There is no general conversation. Each gentleman singles out the lady of his choice and talks to her all evening. Everyone talks French “tant bien que mal,” but this annoys the ladies after a time and any gentleman who sticks to English can be sure of a good reception.’

‘And do you often find a lady who pleases you enough to sit with her all evening?’ asked Abigail, her motive for asking the question owing all to curiosity and none to flirtation.

He smiled into her eyes, ‘Not until this very night, Miss Abigail.’

The compliment was insincere, but then so were most of the compliments bandied about society. Seeing the little flicker of disappointment in him in her large blue eyes, he was about to try to reclaim her good opinion when he realized the lady on his other side was trying to catch his attention. He turned reluctantly towards her. Abigail turned her attention to the gentleman on her other side and appeared, thought Lord Burfield a little sourly, to be keeping him well amused.

From across the room, Prudence flirted and charmed
her
companion while, from under her lashes, she covertly watched Lord Burfield and felt a sense of relief when he finally turned away to speak to the lady on his other side. She had not liked the way that he and Abigail Beverley had been talking. She could not hear a word they had been saying, but she sensed a rapport between them.

Lord Burfield had danced two whole dances with her and therefore could not ask for another. Then she remembered that she and her parents were supposed to stay with Lady Evans only until after the ball. Lord Burfield was staying longer. She must get her parents to suggest they stay longer themselves. She bit her lip. Lord Burfield had danced with Abigail and had taken her in to supper. Therefore he would call on her the following day to pay his respects. In town, gentlemen often sent a servant with a card instead. But this was the country.

There must be some way she could stop him from going. But what? If she locked him in his room, all he had to do was to ring the bell or shout for the servants. Her mother had a bottle of laudanum. She could drug him so that he would sleep through the day. Perhaps that was the answer. But what opportunity would she have? Perhaps when the ball was finally over and the guests had departed, she could suggest the tea-tray be brought in. Too difficult. ‘Oh, sir, you do flatter me so,’ she said to the gentleman next to her, only dimly having heard a compliment.

Perhaps, her mind raced, she could ask him later in the evening to fetch her a glass of lemonade. There was another room off the ballroom where maids served light snacks, sandwiches, and refreshments of all description right throughout the ball. She had noticed that gentlemen usually brought themselves a glass of champagne or wine at the same time as they fetched a drink for the lady. If she could then introduce laudanum into his glass, he would be forced to retire and sleep too long the next day to go on calls.

As soon as the supper was over, she slipped upstairs to her mother’s room and seized the bottle of laudanum and slipped it down the front of her dress.

She danced with partner after partner, all the while covertly watching her quarry. When she was promenading after a cotillion which she had been dancing but Lord Burfield had not, she saw him standing outside the refreshment room. She murmured to her partner that she must go and repair a rent in her gown. Instead she made her way to Lord Burfield’s side and said, ‘I am so very thirsty. Would you be so kind as to fetch me a glass of lemonade?’

‘Your servant,’ he said, bowed and went off to the refreshment room. Prudence took a quick look around and fished the bottle out of her corsage. But one person was watching her curiously. Lizzie, tired of dancing, was sitting quietly on a little chair behind a marble statue in a corner of the room. This was more interesting than dancing, thought Lizzie. Why should that lady look so furtive? Why had she taken that little green bottle out of the neck of her gown and concealed it in her hand?