Rake's Progress (4 page)

Peter's attention began to wander. He twisted round. There was a little servant girl standing
behind the bench on which they were sitting, listening to Esther's reading.

‘When false indulgence warps the mind,
The discipline of school we find
Most efficacious to correct
The ills arising from neglect.

‘Now what did you think of
that
?' asked Esther brightly.

‘It's about girls,' said Peter, ‘and girls have an awful time at school anyway. Boys don't.'

‘You are a very lucky little boy,' said Esther severely. ‘You would find school quite horrible and you would be tormented by great louts of boys. Listen, I shall read you the story of little Henry.
That
is about a boy.'

She fished in her capacious reticule and brought out another book entitled
A Cup of Sweets that can never Cloy; or Delightful Tales for Good Children
, by a London Lady, and began to read.

Even Esther began to think the tale of little Henry was quite depressing. He was a boy who insisted on having his own way the whole time. When he was told, say, not to jump down three stairs at a time or he might hurt himself, he always replied angrily that he was not a baby and knew how to take care of himself.

One day, an aunt gave Henry a seven-shilling piece. But instead of consulting his dear parents and asking them what to do with it, he bought a large
quantity of gunpowder, blew up the nursery, lost an eye, killed his little sister, but was a very good boy from that day forth.

‘I should think he would be,' said Amy, putting her hands over her mouth to stifle a giggle.

‘That girl's listening to you,' said Peter, pointing to the servant girl behind the seat.

The girl made to move away, but Esther smiled at her and said, ‘Come here. You may listen to me read, if you wish.'

‘I can read myself, ma'am,' said the girl proudly.

‘Indeed! What is your name?'

‘Lizzie O'Brien, ma'am.'

‘And where do you work?'

‘Sixty-seven Clarges Street, an' it please you, ma'am. I'm a scullery maid.'

‘I am Miss Jones . . . my brother and sister, Master Peter and Miss Amy. Who taught you to read, Lizzie?'

‘Our butler set up a school in the servants' hall, but it's the Scotch cook what teaches us.'

‘
Who
teaches us,' corrected Esther. ‘This is amazing. I, too, teach my servants, but they do not thank me for my pains. I would like to speak to this butler of yours.'

‘Mr Rainbird, ma'am.'

Esther fished out a card. ‘Be so good as to tell Mr Rainbird to call on me during his free time. I am nearly always at home.'

Lizzie, who had come round the front of the bench, took the card and dropped a curtsy. She turned to go away and then stopped in surprise.

‘What is it?' asked Esther.

‘It's that little man over there,' said Lizzie. ‘He's that foreign servant what 'as just come to stay.'

Esther looked across the park. A sallow, foreignlooking servant in pink-and-black livery was standing under a tree, writing busily in a notebook.

‘He's watching the troops!' cried Peter, jumping up and down. ‘He might be a French spy.'

‘He's Spanish,' said Lizzie.

‘Besides,' said Esther, ‘he only has to read the newspapers, which give the exact numbers of the volunteers.'

‘Maybe he didn't think of that,' said Peter.

Esther turned her attention to Lizzie.
Such a pleasant
clean
girl
, she thought. ‘Goodbye, Miss O'Brien,' she said.

Lizzie flushed to the roots of her hair with pleasure at the great compliment. Very few of her fellow servants could even remember her second name.

Esther was immensely reassured by the meeting. At 67 Clarges Street was a house where the desire for cleanliness and education was as great as in her own. But this Rainbird appeared to have willing pupils. She was anxious to find out how he had managed to achieve it.

Lizzie came bursting into the servants' hall to tell them all her news. Rainbird was intrigued with the idea of making a social call on a lady in Berkeley Square, but the others were inclined to think Miss
Jones one of those nosey, interfering reformers. Disappointed by the reception of her story, she forgot to tell them about Manuel.

It was three in the afternoon. Lord Guy and Mr Roger were still asleep, and Manuel had not put in an appearance, when the servants received a visitor.

There was the sound of a silk skirt swishing down the area steps and then a rap at the kitchen door.

‘It's probably Lizzie's reformer,' said Mrs Middleton. ‘Let us pretend there's no one at home.'

‘She might go up and knock at the street door and wake my lord,' said Rainbird, going to the door.

An extremely fat little lady stood on the step. She was dressed in a brown silk gown covered with a sealskin coat. Her face was very plump, and her eyes were almost buried in pads of fat.

She twinkled up at the butler. ‘John, my love,' she said with a charming laugh. ‘Don't you recognize me?'

Rainbird's heart did a somersault. He knew that voice and that laugh. They both belonged to Felice, the lady's maid who had broken his heart and gone to Brighton to get married. He looked wildly around, suspecting some trick, and expecting Felice to come dancing out from behind this matron's fat back.

‘It is I.
C'est moi!
Felice.'

‘Come in, Felice,' said Rainbird, backing away before her.

While the others exclaimed and asked questions,
Rainbird covertly studied the love of his life. He could not believe it was Felice. He closed his eyes, hearing her voice, willing this little fat lady to go away and leave the real Felice in her place. But when he opened his eyes, she was still there, laughing and preening and showing off her fur coat to Mrs Middleton. ‘And she used to be so silent,' he marvelled.

She talked on and on about how good her husband was. Her Jack was an alderman and doing nicely, thank you. She had picked up a great number of common English expressions, and her voice had coarsened.

She rattled on non-stop for about an hour. Then she said teasingly to Rainbird, ‘My, but you're the quiet one, John.' She turned to the others and giggled. ‘Our John was quite spoony about me at one time, wasn't you,
mon cher
?'

Rainbird gritted his teeth. He
hated
her. He had loved her with a fine and noble passion, a passion this horrible dumpy woman was coyly describing as ‘spoony'.

Manuel came into the servants' hall and said curtly, ‘Hock and seltzer for my lord.'

‘Get it yourself,' said Rainbird.

Felice looked sharply at Manuel and spoke to him in rapid French. He looked back at her, his face impassive.

‘He isn't French,' said Joseph. ‘He's Spanish.'

Felice raised her eyebrows but did not say any more. She kissed Rainbird, who flinched, on the
cheek, and departed in a rustle of silk, leaving a cloud of musky perfume behind her.

They all bustled about, avoiding Rainbird, feeling sorry for him. Only Mrs Middleton was glad. She still nursed a
tendre
for the butler. She had been hurt and had wept into her pillow when he had fallen in love with that woman. Now Rainbird had seen Felice in her true colours. It was awful what fat could do to a woman, thought Mrs Middleton, resolving then and there to buy herself a new corset come quarter-day.

After a few hours of looking at the shops, Felice settled herself inside the Brighton coach with the comfortable feeling of a job well done. She enjoyed being plump, and her doting husband called her ‘a cosy armful'. But she had often thought of John Rainbird, and, although her practical French soul considered undying love without money a waste of time, her conscience had at last prompted her to do her best to throw cold water on Rainbird's passion.

With the vulgar personality she had briefly assumed left behind her in Clarges Street, she looked like a quiet and charming, if fat, lady.

The coach rattled out over the cobbles. Felice remembered that odd servant, Manuel. She was sure he was French. But what happened at Number 67 Clarges Street was no longer her concern.

Lord Guy sat wrapped in a silk dressing gown and sipped his hock and seltzer. He tried to remember
what he had been up to the night before, but it only came back to him in highly coloured flashes. He frowned. Something very important had happened to him, and for the life of him he could not remember what it was.

Mr Roger slouched in, wearing only his nightshirt and nightcap.

‘You look like a sick gorilla,' said Lord Guy pleasantly. ‘Sit down and have some hock and seltzer.'

‘I'd better,' said Mr Roger gloomily. ‘Got to restore my energies for this affair tonight.' He grinned and winked. ‘Or should I say “affairs”.'

‘Are we going somewhere?' asked Lord Guy.

‘No, somewhere's coming here. Don't you remember, we invited that party of bloods and a crowd of the best-looking high-fliers to come
here
.'

Lord Guy closed his eyes. He had a sudden longing for a quiet evening alone with a book.

But he had escaped death so many times. After the Season, it would be back to shattered bones, dysentery, and cannon fire.

‘Then we had better warn our prim servants,' he said. ‘Manuel!'

The Spanish servant appeared from behind a screen. ‘Send that housekeeper to me, and Rainbird as well.'

Rainbird and Mrs Middleton listened carefully to his instructions. A supper for about fifty was to be served at two in the morning. Musicians were to be sent for. Champagne was to be got in by the crate and ice by the bucket.

Mrs Middleton blenched. ‘My lord,' she said timidly, ‘how are we to seat fifty?'

Lord Guy frowned. Then his face cleared. ‘You'll need to clear this place out, that is, the hall, the front and back parlours, this bedroom of mine – I'll move upstairs – and the dining room. Put in tables up here and let them stand about and help themselves. Chalk the floors downstairs and put the orchestra in the back parlour.'

Rainbird consoled himself with the thought that fifty members of the
ton
would make good pickings for the Vail Box.

‘What about decoration, my lord?' he asked.

Lord Guy looked blank.

‘I mean,' pursued Rainbird, ‘there is usually some theme at a supper party – eastern or sylvan or . . .'

‘Don't matter,' said Lord Guy. ‘The ladies will supply ample decoration.'

‘There is the matter of wages, my lord,' said Rainbird tentatively.

‘Aren't you paid any?'

‘Yes, my lord, very low wages when the house is empty. It is the custom for a tenant to pay the difference during the Season – that is, raise the servants' wages to a normal level.'

Lord Guy shrugged. ‘Sounds like a hum to me,' he said indifferently. ‘But I am causing you a great deal of work. Pay yourselves what you think fit and present me with the bill.'

The servants were at first appalled by the amount
of last-minute work facing them, for the guests were to begin to arrive around eight in the evening. But the news that an increase in their wages had been agreed on made them all work cheerfully and hard.

Angus MacGregor was a chef who enjoyed drama. The son of an earl would entertain only the cream of society. The cook planned to amaze and delight.

The first shock came around eight-thirty when the staid environs of Clarges Street were enlivened by the arrival of an open carriage brim-full of London's Fashionable Impure.

They were painted and feathered and beribboned. Despite the chill of the evening, they were dressed in transparent muslin gowns, cut short in some cases to reveal glimpses of ankle, and, in others, pinned up on either side to expose legs encased in flesh-coloured tights.

Rainbird tried to bar the door, thinking they were all looking for a fashionable brothel, but they triumphantly produced cards, and Mr Roger appeared on the scene to welcome them.

Another carriage full of demi-reps rolled up, followed by carriages driven by bucks and bloods, Choice Spirits, Pinks of the
ton
, and Corinthians.

Rainbird, his face set in a mask of disapproval, went downstairs to tell all the women servants to stay where they were and on no account to venture upstairs. Dave was crammed into a makeshift sort of page's livery and put on duty. Angus was beside himself with rage to think he had wasted his art to feed a parcel of doxies.

At first it seemed reassuringly like any other supper party. They danced, they chatted, they played cards. But bottle after bottle of champagne began to disappear and then the ladies called for rum.

Then they played Hunt the Slipper, an innocuous enough game, but the ladies ran about screaming, and some of them began to complain about the heat and took off their dresses.

Dave was sent downstairs.

When suppertime came, Joseph trembled and averted his eyes as he handed out plates of food to near-naked guests. The only one still formally attired was Lord Guy, but he was very drunk and seemed to be highly diverted by the goings-on.

Joseph found himself thinking about Lizzie and about how he had snubbed her of late.
Lizzie was good
, he thought, longing for the maid's quiet reassurance. He resolved to slip out on the morrow and buy her a little present.

One young lady with enormous bosoms had rested them on a plate and was offering them to Lord Guy. Lord Guy waved his quizzing glass and said languidly they looked a trifle underdone.

Everyone laughed, and Joseph's delicate stomach heaved.
I'll never have another erotic dream again
, he thought, unaware that Rainbird was thinking the same thing.

All that female flesh
, Rainbird was wondering,
it's funny how it puts you off the idea
.

At last supper was over and Rainbird and Joseph
were told they might retire to bed. Manuel stayed where he was, standing behind his master's chair.