Plain Jane (4 page)

‘I see there’s a town house to rent in Clarges Street for the Season. A prodigious low rent. I was thinking, it’s such a shame a beauty like Euphemia who could marry a duke should waste her looks upon the country air.’

Jane remembered the snow. ‘It is beginning to snow heavily,’ she ventured, but neither Euphemia nor her mother paid her the slightest heed. Euphemia’s large eyes were now fastened on Lady Doyle’s unlovely face with an expression of greedy hope. Mrs Hart stood like a statue, the silver teapot in her hand. ‘How much?’ she asked.

‘Eighty pounds, and that includes furnishings and trained staff.’

‘Clarges Street,’ mused Mrs Hart. ‘A fine address. That runs between Piccadilly and Curzon Street, does it not?’

Lady Doyle nodded. ‘In the centre of everything,’ she said, helping herself to the last slice of seed cake. ‘I have told you before,’ she went on, her voice muffled with cake, ‘that with my connections, you could secure a great match for Euphemia.’

Mr Hart got up and left the room. No one noticed him leave, except Jane.

‘I am not a rich woman, and yet . . .’ Mrs Hart bent over the tea table to replace the pot and the firelight winked and sparkled on the heavy diamond pendant about her neck.

‘You have heard me speak of Sally, Lady Jersey?’ demanded Lady Doyle.

‘Yes, indeed.’

‘A dear friend. We are as close as inkle weavers. Lady Jersey has only to hear from me and she will arrange vouchers for Euphemia.’

‘To Almack’s?’ breathed Euphemia.

‘To Almack’s,’ confirmed Lady Doyle.

Almack’s, that temple of society, held assemblies every Wednesday throughout the Season. To attend Almack’s was to be In.

‘There must be something up with this house,’ said Mrs Hart cautiously. ‘Eighty pounds! And servants!’

‘It could be a printing error,’ admitted Lady Doyle, ‘but nothing ventured, nothing gained, as my dear husband used to say.’

‘We do not need town servants,’ said Mrs Hart. ‘I do not want mine left here, eating their heads off.’

‘But the servants in Mayfair come with the house,’ pointed out Lady Doyle. ‘And,’ she added, ‘you could rent
this
house to some genteel family desirous of sea breezes.’ Twelve miles away, the sullen sea rolled against the pebbly beach of Brighton, but that was a mere bagatelle.

‘I have hesitated to incur the expense of a Season,’ said Mrs Hart while her busy mind was turning over the possibilities of gaining a profitable rent for her home. ‘The thing that held me back was lack of connections.’

‘But you have
my
connections,’ pointed out Lady Doyle. ‘Do I not know the Countess Lieven and Mr Brummell himself . . . dear George, who calls me “his darling Harry”?’ Then she gave a genteel cough and brushed cake crumbs from the panniers of her gown. ‘She is going to get money out of mama somehow,’ thought Jane, who knew that cough of old. It always presaged some delicate request for contributions to this or that charity. Jane sometimes wondered if the money did not go into Lady Doyle’s reticule and stay there.

‘Of course,’ said Lady Doyle with a wide smile, ‘it
does
incur a certain leetle expense. Our dear members of the
ton
like to be thanked with tasteful gifts. However, if you will leave the choosing of such items to me, for I know the tastes of each one, and furnish me with the money, I will despatch them with the carrier – with one of your cards in each one.’

Mrs Hart winced, but the fires of ambition had been lit in her breast. ‘I will furnish you with any amount you think necessary,’ she said, with a look of pain on her faded features as if contemplating an amputation.

Lady Doyle’s pale eye moved from the now empty cake plate to the window where large snow flakes were crowding thick and fast against the glass. ‘Goodness! I must leave,’ she said. ‘Pray ring for my carriage. You will find, Mrs Hart, that any money you give me for gifts will be well spent. It is not as if you have to go to any expense for Jane.
She
will
never
take.’

Euphemia gave her charming, rippling laugh and glanced sideways at Jane, and then frowned. For there was no hurt look on Jane’s face.

Jane was lost in a dream.

For by simply going to London, she might see
him
again.

The fact that
he
might be married after eight long years never crossed her mind.

She had first seen Beau Tregarthan in the summer of 1800 when she was ten years old and had dreamed of him ever since.

The normally sleepy village of Upper Patchett had been alive with gossip about the great prize fight that was to be held on the downs. Sir Bartholomew Anstey was putting his man, Jack Death, into the ring against an unknown contender, promised and sponsored by Beau Tregarthan. The odds were running ten to one in Jack Death’s favour, although many would have loved to see the most savage bruiser of the English boxing scene get his comeuppance. He had beaten his last opponent to death. But very few wanted to stake money on an unknown.

Bored with endless lessons given by a governess who was strict towards herself and dotingly lenient towards Euphemia, Jane longed for adventure. Finally, on the day of the prize fight, she slipped from the house with one of her father’s old beaver hats down about her ears and a muffler up to her eyes. She wore one of her father’s old coats, which trailed on the ground at her heels. She hoped anyone seeing her would take her for some village boy.

She reached the outer edge of the crowd that had gathered that hot August day on the downs. For several minutes, she stared despairingly at the row of masculine backs blocking her view. Then retreating up the slope of the downs, she saw a small tree and, hampered by her heavy coat, she managed to climb it with difficulty.

The ring was in the middle of a hollow, the slope of the downs all about forming a natural amphitheatre. In the very middle stood the Master of the Ring, Gentleman Jackson. Jane fished out her father’s telescope from one capacious pocket and put it in her eye. Jackson was a splendid figure in a scarlet coat worked with gold at the button-holes, a white stock, a looped hat with a broad black band, buff knee breeches, white silk stockings, and paste buckles. He had a hard, high-boned face and piercing eyes, in all a magnificent figure with those splendid ‘balustrade’ calves that had helped him to be the finest runner and jumper in England as well as the most formidable pugilist.

Around the edge of the ring stood the beaters-off in their high white hats. Their job was to wield their whips and stop any spectator setting foot in the ring.

A cheer went up as a white hat with scarlet ribbons sailed into the ring. Jack Death had arrived, and, amid a roar from the crowd, he followed his hat into the ring. His chest was bare, and he wore a pair of white calico drawers, white silk stockings, and running shoes. Round his waist was a scarlet sash, and dainty scarlet ribbons fluttered at his knees. He was broad-chested and swarthy. There was something almost ape-like about his long slingy arms and his thrusting jaw.

Two men below the tree in which Jane crouched were becoming anxious that the fight might not take place. ‘Lord Tregarthan’s man has not arrived and there’s only five minutes to go,’ said one. The crowd craned their necks this way and that. Soon, there was only a minute left.

Then a jaunty black beaver hat sailed into the ring. The cheer that followed its appearance was so loud, so exuberant, that Jane clung onto the branch on which she was lying, afraid it might throw her off her perch like some great wave.

‘Who’s his man?’ asked the man below her.

‘’Fore George,’ cried his companion, ‘it’s Tregarthan himself.’

Jane peered down her telescope and then held her breath. The cheers of the crowd had become mixed with laughter. A London exquisite had strolled into the ring. Beau Tregarthan himself. He drew off his gloves and tossed them to a stocky man, who was fussing about him. Gentleman Jackson appeared to be remonstrating with Lord Tregarthan, but the beau just smiled and stripped off his coat, his waistcoat, and his shirt. Then he turned and faced his opponent.

The laughter died and there was a murmur of admiration. Jane screwed the telescope so hard into her eye that she carried a red mark around it for all of the next day.

The beau stood in the middle of the ring, stripped to the waist. His skin was white and fine. When he moved, the light of the sun caught the beautiful liquid rippling of his muscles.

‘Strips well,’ murmured the man below Jane. ‘How stand the odds?’

‘Seven to one now,’ grunted his companion.

The beau waved to the crowd. His hair gleamed guinea-gold. He had a high-nosed handsome profile. A great silence fell on the crowd as Gentleman Jackson held up his hands. His stentorian voice carried far over the downs in the still air. There was not even a breath of wind.

‘Gentlemen!’ cried Jackson. ‘Sir Bartholomew Anstey’s nominee is Jack Death, fighting at thirteen-eight, and Lord Tregarthan’s nominee is . . . Lord Tregarthan, fighting at eleven stone-three. No person can be allowed at the inner ropes save the referee and time-keeper. All ready?’

‘Too light,’ complained the voice below. ‘Shan’t bet on Tregarthan. Too light. Corinthian though he is, Jack Death’ll kill him.’

‘No! He cannot!’ squeaked Jane in alarm. She lost her grip and fell out of the tree at the feet of the two men below.

Her hat tumbled from her head.

One of the men turned out to be Mr Wright, the village blacksmith.

‘
Miss Jane!
’ he exclaimed. ‘Off along home with you.’

‘Don’t tell my mother,’ gasped Jane. ‘Oh,
please
, Mr Wright.’

‘Reckon I won’t,’ said the blacksmith who had no love for the cheese-paring Mrs Hart. ‘But I will, mark you, if you don’t get out o’ here sharpish.’

Suddenly horrified at what would happen to her should anyone else spot her and tell her mother, Jane crammed her hat down on her eyes and ran all the way home. Although she managed to enter the house unobserved, she received a stern dressing-down from her governess for having missed her lessons in the schoolroom. But Jane escaped the birch beating she usually received for any misdemeanour by bursting into overwrought tears.

Alarmed, and sure she had some dangerous infection, the governess rushed to tell Mrs Hart – for she had never known Jane cry before. Jane was promptly put to bed. The doctor, hurriedly summoned, diagnosed brain fever caused by an excess of lessons, for he had once made advances to the governess and had had them rejected. His prescription was that Jane should spend six weeks away from her books.

Normally this would have delighted Jane, but all that day she tossed and turned, imagining the beautiful Lord Tregarthan being beaten to a pulp. When the maid came in with Jane’s bedtime glass of hot milk, Jane could bear the suspense no longer. Struggling up against the pillows, she asked as casually as she could. ‘What was the outcome of the prize fight?’

‘Young ladies should not know about such things,’ said the maid repressively, placing the glass of milk by the bedside and heading for the door.

‘Oh,
Martha
,’ pleaded Jane.

Martha suddenly grinned and came and sat on the bed. ‘Well, Miss Jane, you never did! ’Tis said Lord Tregarthan himself went into the ring against Jack Death and he floored him in the fifteenth round. Jack Death was bleeding so hard about the face he could not see and my lord did not even have a mark on him. Seems my lord’s man was bedded with the fever the night before so my lord decided to fight himself. How they cheered him!’

Jane burst into tears of relief.

‘Quiet,’ hissed Martha, looking anxiously at the door. ‘You’ll get me into trouble. You should never have asked me.’

She waited anxiously until Jane gulped and smiled and said, ‘I shall do very well now, Martha.’

During that night, Jane decided to marry Beau Tregarthan.

As she grew older and plainer, she knew she could never hope to attract the attentions of such a god. But if she hoped and hoped and waited and waited and prayed very hard, perhaps the fates might allow her one glimpse of him – just one more time.

There’s no use in being young without being beautiful, and no use in being beautiful without being young.

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
,
MAXIMS