Perfecting Fiona (6 page)

‘I can’t,’ said Frank. ‘I’ve lost my job.’

‘Sent you packing, did they?’

Frank did not want to confess he had been too frightened to stay and find out. ‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Well, I can’t do anything for you. I’ve got to leave Town until I’m sure Havard isn’t going to challenge me to a duel.’

‘But how will Havard challenge you to a duel when no one knows it was you that put me up to the whole thing?’ said Frank.

Colour returned to Mr Callaghan’s cheeks. ‘Didn’t split on me, eh?’

‘No, sir.’

‘There’s a good fellow. Sit down.’

But Frank could not sit down. He had slept in his clothes and for some reason his tight trousers had become tighter.

‘I don’t suppose,’ said Mr Callaghan slowly, ‘that you have any contact with anybody in that house in Holles Street.’

‘Yes,’ said Frank. ‘There’s a chambermaid, Bertha, what’s sweet on me.’

Mr Callaghan looked vaguely about him. He lived in lodgings in Jermyn Street. A scrubbing woman did the heavy cleaning, and his valet and general factotum saw to the rest. There was scarcely room for a large footman. On the other hand, it would give him quite a cachet to have a six-foot-tall footman to follow him everywhere. And Frank had nowhere to go and so he did not need to be paid. Frank could also be encouraged to court this chambermaid and so find out what was going on in the house in Holles Street.

‘You can stay as my footman,’ said Mr Callaghan expansively. ‘Got your livery? Took it with you, I suppose.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Need to be changed a bit. New buttons. Gold shoulder knot would look good. Yes, you can stay.’

Frank heaved a sigh of relief. The fact that the man lying in the bed in front of him had deliberately worked him up and lied to him, for Frank did not any longer believe a word about the Tribbles’ not meaning to pay the servants’ wages, was completely forgotten in a rush of gratitude. He knelt by the bed and kissed Mr Callaghan’s limp hand. There came a tremendous crack like a jib coming loose in a north-easter. Frank’s trousers had split at last.

In the days that followed, Amy and Effy were to blame Frank for more than the servants’ rebellion. If it had not been for Frank’s nonsense, they would not have forgotten that one and all-important fact about Fiona – that in some way the girl disaffected any suitor on the point of proposing.

But then, it was not entirely Frank’s fault. Neither Amy nor Effy expected Captain Freddy Beaumont to ask leave to pay his addresses so soon.

Amy had gone back to sleep, and was roused again at twelve noon by Baxter with the interesting information that the captain was in the drawing room and desired to speak to one or both of the sisters.

‘Get Effy!’ cried Amy, throwing back the bedclothes. ‘And get Yvette to dress Fiona in something enchanting.’

‘I am perfectly well able to choose a gown for Miss Macleod myself,’ said Baxter huffily. ‘Those Frenchies—’

‘Slut on you and your xenophobia,’ howled Amy. ‘Do as you are told!’

It took Amy a bare fifteen minutes to dress and go down to the drawing room. But she did not feel the captain should state his business until Effy arrived on the scene, and so both the captain and Amy nervously drank glass after glass of wine and talked about horses.

Half an hour after Amy, Effy sailed in, trailing a great many gauze shawls.

‘You look like a haunting,’ snapped Amy, who was bad-tempered with the strain of waiting.

‘Forgive my sister,’ murmured Effy, holding out an arm bent like a swan’s neck. The captain clicked his heels and bowed and kissed her hand.

‘Now, ladies,’ he said. ‘I wish your permission to pay my addresses to Miss Macleod.’

Rivalries forgotten, the sisters beamed at each other and then at the captain. He was so very handsome. It never crossed their minds that Fiona would not want him.

Effy rang the bell. When the first footman, Henry, answered the summons, Effy said grandly, ‘Pray tell Miss Macleod to present herself in the drawing room.’

‘Yes, ma’am. Certainly, ladies. I shall go directly,’ babbled Henry, bowing so low his nose almost touched his knee.

Harris had not told the servants yet they were to stay, knowing they would work doubly hard and that would impress the Tribbles with his own firm management.

In a little while, Fiona entered the room. The animation of the previous evening had gone. She looked delicate and pretty in a gown of figured muslin, but her large eyes were fathomless, great empty pools as they looked at the handsome captain.

‘Captain Beaumont has something important to say to you,’ said Amy. ‘Come, Effy.’

Both sisters left the room with their arms entwined around each other’s waists.

‘Do sit down, Captain,’ said Fiona in a voice as colourless as her eyes.

‘Rather stand, Miss Macleod. Gawd! This will come as a surprise. But you struck me all of a heap at the ball last night. Right here!’ exclaimed the captain, striking the region of his heart.

‘Before you go on . . .’ began Fiona, but Captain Beaumont dropped to one knee in front of her and seized her hand.

‘Be mine!’ he cried. ‘For I cannot live without you. Oh, Miss Macleod, say you will be my bride.’

‘You do not know anything about me,’ said Fiona, gently disengaging her hand. ‘My father, while he lived, was in trade.’

‘Isn’t everybody?’ cried the captain gaily, although secretly he was rather shocked. Still, the man was dead, and Fiona was obviously too young and naive to know that one did not talk about things like that in polite society.

‘That is not all,’ said Fiona. ‘I am not a virgin.’

The captain rose slowly to his feet and sat down in a chair facing her. ‘Miss Macleod, I . . . I . . . Gawd!’

‘Yes, sir. I fear I lost my virginity two years ago.’

‘Who was the dastard?’ cried the captain.

‘Oh, no dastard. My aunt’s footman, Charles. I loved him madly. I still do,’ said Fiona sorrowfully.

A tide of red swept up the captain’s cheeks. He looked at Fiona with sorrowful admiration. ‘Gawd! Miss Macleod. Such honesty. I am a rich man. You could have fooled me. Your honesty makes me worship you.’

‘But you must realize,’ said Fiona with a tinge of irritation in her voice, ‘that you cannot marry me.’

‘Exactly,’ agreed the captain. ‘Believe me, ma’am, your secret is safe with me. If there is ever anything I can do . . . ?’

‘I will let you know,’ finished Fiona. ‘Good day, my dear Captain Beaumont. Please do not disclose any of this to the Misses Tribble.’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ he said, seizing her hand again but this time working it up and down like a pump-handle. ‘Er . . . know it might be a misalliance, but can’t you marry this footman? Make an honest . . . er . . . of you?’

‘Alas, he married someone else,’ said Fiona. ‘I must take my shame with me to the grave.’

‘Damme,’ swore the captain, his black eyes gleaming with admiration. ‘I’ve a good mind to marry you after all!’

‘Oh, no,’ said Fiona sadly. ‘It would be all right at first, don’t you see, but later you would come to despise me.’

The captain hesitated. He thought of his martinet of a father and his prim mother. ‘You may be right,’ he sighed. ‘Goodbye, Miss Macleod, and thank you for your honesty.’

He nearly collided with the Tribble sisters as he left the drawing room.

‘Going so soon?’ twittered Effy.

‘Lud, yes,’ said the captain, all mad cheerfulness. ‘Got what I came for.’

‘Our congratulations,’ said Amy, surprised. ‘But won’t you stay? There is much to be discussed – marriage settlements, wedding . . .’

‘’Fraid you misunderstood, ladies,’ said the captain. ‘Came to get a recipe of that Scotch dish for m’ mother. Haggis, that’s it. Very tasty. Good for the spleen. Goodbye, ladies.’

Strangled sounds of protest followed his hasty exit.

Amy and Effy walked slowly into the drawing room. Fiona was standing by the window, looking vacantly out into the street.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ demanded Amy. ‘That man came to propose marriage and now he says he only called to get a recipe for haggis, whatever that is.’

‘It’s a pudding made from minced offal and onions and cooked in a sheep’s stomach,’ said Fiona.

‘Listen, you trollop!’ said Amy, advancing on Fiona with her fists clenched. ‘You can take your haggis and you can stuff it up your—’

‘Mr Haddon,’ announced the butler.

‘Perhaps I am called at a bad time,’ said Mr Haddon, looking from Amy’s scarlet face to Fiona’s blank one and then at Effy, who had begun to cry.

‘No,’ said Amy heavily. ‘What fools we were not to listen to her uncle and aunt. Captain Freddy Beaumont came here and asked leave to pay his addresses to Fiona. He was only alone with her for a few minutes and then he leaves, swearing blind that all he had called for was a recipe for some Scotch muck.’

Effy rallied and dried her eyes and blew her nose. ‘What did you say to him to put him off, Fiona?’

‘I do not know,’ said Fiona. ‘I have the headache, and when I have the headache I cannot remember a thing.’

‘Go to your room,’ said Amy, controlling her temper with a great effort. ‘We will speak to you later.’

Fiona curtsied to Mr Haddon and left.

‘You told me she had done this sort of thing before,’ said Mr Haddon. ‘Did you not think to stay in the room with her while the captain made his proposal?’

‘We had a contretemps with the servants,’ said Amy, ‘and I’m blessed if I didn’t think anything other than the triumph of having secured such a splendid match for the girl.’

‘Trouble with the servants?’ asked Effy. ‘What trouble?’

‘Tell you later,’ said Amy. ‘What are we going to do about Fiona? I could whip her!’

Mr Haddon leaned back in his chair and put the tips of his fingers together. ‘That is what the Burgesses would do. That, if I remember rightly, is what you told me they did do. No, we simply must find out what it was she said to the captain. I shall go and see him myself.’

‘Thank you,’ said Amy gruffly.

Effy fluttered up to Mr Haddon, trailing wisps of gauze. ‘Oh, thank you,’ she breathed. ‘It is so wonderful to have a
gentleman
to help us.’

After Mr Haddon had left, the sisters decided to wait for his report before confronting Fiona again and trying to drag the truth out of her. At three in the afternoon, the gentlemen callers began to arrive. It was the custom for gentlemen to pay their respects the following day to the ladies they had danced with the night before. Most usually did not trouble to call in person but merely sent their servant, along with a card or a bunch of flowers. But with the exception of Lord Peter Havard, all the rest turned up at the Tribbles’. Fiona behaved like a model miss, chatting innocuously of this and that while the sisters sat and watched her with hot angry eyes.

By four o’clock, the last caller had gone and the sisters left Fiona in the drawing room to play the piano while they retreated to the morning-room for a council of war.

They were rapidly coming to the conclusion that the Burgesses had been right and that there was something sly about Fiona when Harris, the butler, entered and informed the startled sisters that Lord Peter Havard was in the drawing room, being entertained by Miss Macleod.

‘And I’ll bet the little minx is being as charming as possible to that crass waste of time,’ grumbled Amy. ‘Come along, Effy, and let’s not go in for a moment. We’ll listen at the door and find out what she says when we’re not there.’

Lord Peter had been discussing Fiona’s aversion to marriage and teasing her about it. Fiona was about to interrupt when she heard a rustle of taffeta petticoats outside the door. ‘I have been practising a new piece for the pianoforte,’ said Fiona. ‘Allow me to play it for you.’

‘I should be charmed to hear it,’ said Lord Peter, but with some surprise at being so ruthlessly cut off in the middle of his monologue about marriage.

After ten minutes, Lord Peter wondered if he would ever be allowed to escape. He did not recognize the piece. It seemed very dull and endless. He shifted restlessly in his chair and then rose to his feet to go and turn the pages of music for her.

She was wearing a delicate flower perfume. Her head was bent over the keys and her neck was very white and fragile. He had to admit she intrigued him. He wondered if her total lack of interest in him was because of her father’s disreputable background. Marrying a duke’s son, albeit a younger one, might be considered flying too high. Then, as the dreary music tinkled on and on, he began to wonder seriously why people in trade were damned as being beyond the pale. He knew shopkeepers who were more gentlemanly and respectable than their clients. He himself gambled on the Stock Exchange. That was trade. He was irritated to find himself possessed of ideas that were surely very old-fashioned. He deftly turned five pages at once so that Fiona found herself playing the last page.

‘Oh, now you have spoilt my pretty piece,’ she said. ‘You have missed such a large bit of it. I shall start at the beginning again.’

The sisters came into the room. Lord Peter noticed with surprise that they were looking at little Miss Macleod with dislike in their eyes.

‘I am sorry you have been left alone,’ said Effy. ‘But I am sure you are just finishing your call.’

Lord Peter bowed and took his leave.

That the Tribbles wanted to be rid of him was all too evident. He decided to forget about the infuriating Miss Macleod. He and his friends were holding a party backstage at the opera and there were several very pretty opera dancers who would not dream of boring the handsome Lord Peter by playing dreary music.

Mr Haddon came back about nine in the evening. He had had a difficult time finding Captain Beaumont. He sadly informed the sisters that Captain Beaumont stuck to his story. He had never proposed marriage. He only wanted that recipe.

‘So what’s to be done?’ cried Effy.

‘It is very important for your reputations to get this girl married off,’ said Mr Haddon. ‘Another success would secure
your
success. I suggest therefore that one of you ladies remains here with Fiona while the other travels with me to Tunbridge Wells. If we can find some of Miss Macleod’s previous suitors, then perhaps we can get them to tell us what it was she said to them.’