The True Darcy Spirit (18 page)

“If you mean to St. James’s Square, you do not,” Petifer said. “That’s one reason why I followed you this evening, for there’s a thing or two about that establishment you’re staying in that you need to know.”

“How can you know anything about where I lodge?”

Petifer stopped, her arms akimbo. “There may or may not be respectable houses in that square, but believe me, number seven isn’t one of them.”

Cassandra’s head was beginning to throb in earnest now. “Petifer, do stop it,” she said wearily. “You know nothing about it.”

“Oh, yes, I do. One thing about being a servant is that it’s easy enough to strike up a conversation with other servants. There’s a girl called Betsy works for Mrs. Nettleton, and when she was out at market this morning, I got chatting with her. Gabby girl, I wouldn’t keep her as a maid, and she’s ill-favoured to look at. Which is all part of Mrs. Nettleton’s schemes, for she doesn’t care to have good-looking girls as servants in the house, doesn’t want her gentlemen callers being distracted, that’s why.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mrs. Nettleton is in business, and her business is human flesh, female flesh. She knows a lot of rich men, like that Lord Usborne, who like to meet beautiful young women, sometimes just for a night or a week or so, sometimes—and this is where she makes her money—for a longer arrangement. Like when the gentleman sets a girl up in her own establishment, everything fine about it, under his protection. He pays Mrs. Nettleton for the introduction, and she takes a cut of everything the woman gets out of her protector.”

Cassandra tried to make sense of what Petifer was saying. “You mean she’s”—she searched her mind for the word—“an
entremetteuse
?”

“If that’s the word for a high-class procuress, yes. That woman you were with this evening, she’s one of Mrs. Nettleton’s wares. Only she’s picky, takes up with a man for a little while, then decides he isn’t right for her, not rich and generous enough, most likely, and back she comes to Ma Nettleton for another go. She’s an eye to Lord Usborne, but he only takes a fancy to the ladylike ones. Which she isn’t. Which you are.”

“Even if what you say is true—” “It is.”

“—it doesn’t follow that I’m going to fall into the clutches of Lord Usborne, or Lord Anybody.”

“That’s what you say, and what you think, but what happens at the end of the month, when you can’t pay your rent, and Mrs. N. threatens to have the law on you? Do you fancy a stint in the Clink, in the Marshalsea? Do you think, even if Mr. Partington got to hear of it, he would bail you out, or let your ma come to your rescue?”

They had drawn to the side of the street. Piccadilly was brightly illuminated with gas-lights, and Cassandra could see the curious glances of people sauntering or hurrying past them. They were speaking in loud, urgent whispers, hardly audible above the rumble of carriages and wagons and the cries of street hawkers, out to catch the evening theatre-goers and revellers.

“Petifer, you should be on the stage, I never heard such a wild flight of fancy.”

“It isn’t flight of anything. It’s the sober truth, only you never did like to see what was in front of your nose, you’re the one who lives in a world of fancy, that’s what.”

“Petifer!”

“It’s time I spoke my mind. Go on, think of it. No money, the law going to be called in. What do you do? Decide you’ve lost your reputation in any case, and that Lord Usborne, who’s a handsome man, I’ll give him that, might not be the worst that can happen.”

“It’s all nonsense,” Cassandra said firmly, although inwardly she had a cold fear that what Petifer was saying might be true. Could Mrs. Nettleton be capable of such double-dealing? She hardly knew her, a week or so’s acquaintance, what was that?

“There is no problem with the rent. She asks a reasonable amount, and part of it I am paying in kind, I am painting her morning parlour.”

Petifer made a disgusted sound. “And you have that in writing, I dare say.”

“No, I do not, it is hardly necessary.”

“That woman’s as sly and slippery as an eel, and I wouldn’t trust her as far as I can see her. And you’re a born fool if you do.”

A fool indeed, Cassandra said to herself. So grateful for the meeting, for the offer of the room. Yet Mr. Rudge knew Mrs. Nettleton, she seemed to be a woman of substance, of standing.

They were attracting too much attention, standing there, Petifer in her drab servant’s gown, Cassandra in her finery. Despite the warmth of the evening, Cassandra gave a shiver. “Come, we must move on,” she said. She hurried across the road, digging in her purse for a penny for the crossing sweeper, and turned into Jermyn Street, her head a whirl of uncomfortable thoughts.

Jermyn Street, with its tall, elegant houses on either side, was more dimly lit than the main thoroughfare. A solitary young woman was walking slowly along the street ahead of them. Petifer pursed her lips. “Another of them, this town is full of—” Before she could say the word, the woman lurched and stumbled. Cassandra leapt forward, but was too late to catch the woman, who fell to the ground
and lay there in a crumpled heap, a smear of mud on her dark green gown.

Twilight was coming on, and candlelight was shimmering out from behind some of the windows, but the street itself was quiet, with no passers-by to come to their aid. The two of them lifted the unfortunate woman to a sitting position, and Cassandra was relieved to see her eyelids flutter as they drew her up. She was a young woman, perhaps a year or two older than Cassandra, and pale as a ghost.

Cassandra heard footsteps and twisted round to look up into a brightly painted face, and a very exposed bosom.

“Serve her right,” said the new arrival. “Pushing in on our patch.”

She was joined by another, taller woman, wearing a vivid purple gown, and with her hair piled up in a heap of improbable curls.

Ladies of the night, Cassandra said to herself.

“She’s all white,” said the taller whore. “Going to peg out, do you think?”

The blowsy one bent over to peer more closely at the woman in green. “Starving, I’d say.”

At those words, the woman on the ground murmured something intelligible, and her eyes opened. She blinked up at Cassandra and the others, and drew her hand across her eyes.

“I fell,” she said. “I was dizzy and I fell.”

“Yes, well,” said the first whore, “watch where you walk, otherwise you’ll fall again. And for why? Because I’ll have put out my foot and tripped you up, that’s why.” She gave a screech of laughter and sauntered off.

The tall woman hitched the front of her purple gown back into place. “Get her out of here before the watch finds you,” she advised. “Nothing wrong with her that a bite of food won’t put right.” Then she, too, was gone.

“Is she right?” Cassandra said to Petifer. “About her being weak from hunger?”

“I’ll ask her,” said Petifer, sounding put out. “She’d better have a good reason for falling flat on her face like that. I think she’s drunk.”

The woman uttered a faint protest. The colour was still drained
from her cheeks, and Cassandra had a strong idea that if she stood up, her legs wouldn’t support her.

“You stay with her,” she said, and darted away back towards Haymarket before Petifer could reply. A pie man was standing on the corner, calling his wares. Cassandra wrinkled her nose at the hot, greasy smells, and bought a cheese one. “Country cheese, best you’ll ever taste, my lady,” he said with a wink. “Set you up lovely for the night’s work.”

Cassandra took the pie, gave him a coin, and was back in Jermyn Street, her heart thumping, and her mind unsure whether to laugh or cry at being taken herself for one of the local whores.

She knelt down beside the woman, and broke the pie in half.

“Don’t eat it too quickly, mind,” warned Petifer. “Otherwise it’ll come straight back up.”

The girl was extremely pretty, Cassandra noticed, with huge blue eyes and hair much the colour of her own—or it would be, if it had been washed and brushed; as it was, it hung in a bedraggled fashion about her bony shoulders.

“She tells me her name’s Harriet,” Petifer said. “Harriet Morris, and she hasn’t eaten for two days.”

“The poor thing!”

“And, no, she isn’t one of them types.” This accompanied by a gesture towards the shadowy women standing in the doorway, still watching them.

The girl munched her way through the pie, despite her hunger eating it quite daintily. When she thanked Cassandra, it was in a pleasant voice, not a voice of the streets, nor indeed of London.

“I think we’d best get you out of here,” Petifer said. “Those women there might get frisky again, and the Lord knows, we don’t want any of their customers giving us the once-over.”

“Which way?” said Cassandra, looking up and down the street.

“It’s quieter that way, and there’s a patch of grass at the end with a bench. Provided it’s not being used for other purposes, which in this part of London you can’t say it won’t be, she can have a bit of a sit-down.”

The bench was big enough for the three of them, and the area seemed quite deserted. It was, Cassandra thought, as good a place as any.

It was strange, for this last half hour she hadn’t given a second’s thought to her own predicament. Concern for someone else was a good remedy for taking the mind off one’s own troubles, and she felt a spurt of gratitude to this unknown Harriet.

“You are in a sad way,” she said. “How came you in this fix? What may we do to help you?”

“I saw you with Lord Usborne,” Harriet said. “At the theatre.”

Cassandra stiffened. “What has Lord Usborne to do with this?”

“That dreadful, dreadful man. He is the cause of all my misfortune.”

“She has been gone a good while,” said Lord Usborne to Mrs. Nettleton, making as though to rise to his feet. “I think I had better go and look for her. She seemed in some distress.”

Mrs. Nettleton laid a restraining hand on his lordship’s arm. “It was only the heat,” she said in soothing tones. “She will be back directly; indeed, I expect she is outside this box this very minute, for I hear someone lurking.”

She was quite right, but the lurker was a flunkey, whom Cassandra had paused to give a message to on her way from the theatre. “Mrs. Kent desired me to tell you that she has the headache and has taken a hackney-coach home, she begs you not to be concerned.”

Usborne’s face darkened. “A pretty way to behave, leaving a message with that man.”

“Indeed, do not concern yourself,” said Mrs. Nettleton quickly. “She is very sensible, she suffers from the heat and is prone to the headache, it is often so, you know, with women come up to town from the country, they are not used to the noise and smoke and close air of the town, particularly not when the days are so warm and oppressive as they are just now. We may expect a thunderstorm, and then there will be no more headaches. Betsy will give her a powder, and she will sleep until morning. Call upon her then, at eleven, and you will see for yourself that she will have her pretty colour back once more.”

Lord Usborne looked as though he was going to argue the matter, but then he shrugged and sat back in his seat, much to Mrs. Nettleton’s relief. Drat the girl, running off like that. Had she seen someone she knew at the theatre? Some former lover, an acquaintance, a creditor? Any of those might cause her to decamp as she had done; well, she’d get the truth out of her in the morning. It was time she had a talk with the girl, put her right as to a thing or two, and make her see that it would do her no good to keep Lord Usborne at arm’s length.

What an opportunity for the girl it was, if only she could be brought to see sense. What a triumph, to land a gentleman of Usborne’s standing and wealth, and without making any effort to attract him. If she was not mistaken, and she seldom was in these matters, Lord Usborne was hot for her, he was drawn to her by more than her undoubted beauty, there was that in her disposition that appealed to him, and that, if she behaved and did nothing to cross him, augured well for a relationship more lasting than many of that kind.

In fact, she mused, Mrs. Kent was not unlike Lady Usborne in appearance, although she was many years the younger, of course. Mrs. Nettleton remembered when Lord Usborne had met Lady Usborne, Miss Minhampton, as she then was, a vivid newcomer to the ranks of the debutantes. Of good family, of course, and with a fine fortune to help her find a rich husband, her vivacity and beauty had enchanted Lord Usborne. She had fallen in love with him, and all had seemed set for a happy marriage. However, in matters of the heart, you could never predict how things would turn out, and now a more distant couple you would not find in the whole of London.

Which was all to her benefit, for contented husbands were no good clients of hers. Single men and old roués and men who took no pleasure in the marriage bed were what kept her in the style she liked. This Cassandra Kent could consider herself fortunate to have attracted a Lord Usborne, a handsome man, whatever his temper, instead of a hardened old buck with a stomach swelling over his breeches and a face coarsened and reddened by years of high living.

Headache, yes, no doubt, brought about by the smell of the paints in the morning parlour, what did Cassandra think she was about?
Mrs. Nettleton had had to check her hands and face for traces of paint before letting her put on that gown this evening. How could any woman take herself so seriously? It was not that she didn’t have some talent. Mrs. Nettleton had enough of an eye to know that the room would look very well, very well indeed, but that did not mean the chit could set herself up as an artist. A well-bred girl such as she seemed to be, whoever heard of such a thing? It was an affront to her sex, more scandalous, in Mrs. Nettleton’s opinion, than living as the mistress of a married man.

That was the custom and perfectly natural.

A woman painter—that went against all the laws of nature, and of society. Let women take their place in a man’s world, and where would it end? No, no, it would never do. There were some women of the last century who had set themselves up as artists, but that was in another age, things were different then. And besides, they came from artists’ families, and learned their trade at their father’s knee, that was quite another thing, if still very inappropriate for any woman worthy of the name!

Horatio Darcy saw Cassandra rise and leave the box. He felt a mounting indignation as well as anger; they had hoodwinked him, Miss Darcy and her unappealing stepfather. Mr. Partington had told him nothing but lies, pretending that she was gone to Cheltenham, while all the time he knew she had done no such thing, but was continuing on her path of immorality, under Lord Usborne’s protection.

A fine thing for a Miss Darcy, and a fine way to bring dishonour upon her family! Although Lady Usborne had not used the name of Darcy when she was describing her husband’s new acquisition. What had she called her? Kent. Well, at least the girl must have some vestiges of shame, not to use her own name.

Lord Usborne. Of all the rakish, worthless fellows to end up with, had she no idea of what she was about? A house and all that went with it, and as much pin money as she could spend, no doubt, but what a price she would pay for it. For his lordship would weary of her
soon enough, it was the way of such connections. Where there was no genuine attachment, and no prospect of stronger ties, then the couple would not stay long together. Soon, Cassandra Darcy would be out in the streets again, looking for another man to give her a roof over her head and the necessities—luxuries, then—of life, in return for favours granted.

Then, as her looks faded, or if she bore children—

Her fate would be the punishment of her rash actions, of her defiance of her stepfather’s arrangements, her refusal to consent to marriage to the man who had been her ruin, her disdain for his own good advice.

He sat heedless through the interminable play; usually a devotee of the works of William Shakespeare, he found the drama a distant object, with no power to draw him in through words or action. The actors were strutting puppets, and he only paid proper attention when his ear caught Hamlet’s brutal words to Ophelia: “Get thee to a nunnery.”

The prince of Denmark had the right of it, with his disgust for the treachery and wiles of women. Elizabethan London was not so different from the modern city, that was one thing that hadn’t changed over the years. Whores were still called nuns, and brothels, abbeys, and that was most likely where Cassandra would end up, under the care of some abbess, as they were known, selling her out for a few guineas a night.

Which was disgraceful, for a woman of her quality and breeding, all because of her obstinacy and inability to see what was sensible and right. And she a Darcy, his own kin. The thought brought a flush of rage to his face, not noticed by Lady Usborne, who was leaning forward, following the play with eager attention.

It irked him in a way that he did not care to examine to think of Cassandra languishing in Lord Usborne’s practiced embraces. Why should it disturb him? It did not worry him to know that on occasion, his mistress shared a bed with her errant husband, so why did he mind about Cassandra Darcy caught up in voluptuous pleasures with his lordship?

Thoroughly out of sorts, he was short-tempered in the carriage as it made its slow way through the London streets, which were busy with revellers of the lower sort as well as gentlemen going to and from engagements and clubs, and the crowds coming out from the theatres and opera houses.

“You are in a bad mood, I find,” Lady Usborne chided him. “You are growling like a veritable bear.”

“Am I? I am sorry for it, I have something on my mind.”

“As long as it only has this depressing effect on your mind, and not on other parts,” she said with a sly smile. “May I know what is causing you such concern, such sudden concern?”

“It is a family matter, that is all.”

“It came upon you very suddenly, this ill mood, for you were in the best of good humour when we started for the play.”

“I caught sight of someone—in the pit,” he added hastily. “Which reminded me of the problem, that is all.”

They came to her house, and he stepped out first to hand her down. Then he escorted her to the door.

“You are not leaving me?” she said, in some surprise. And, in a whisper: “The night is young, and his lordship will not be home until the early hours of the morning, I promise you. I saw you did not quite like to meet him when you arrived this evening.”

“It is nothing to do with his lordship, but I am afraid I would be but poor company tonight.”

He had displeased her, he saw that, as she gave a shrug, held out her hand to shake his, and then disappeared into the house. Had he upset her? He doubted it. He had few illusions about the nature of their relationship. Should he fail to satisfy her, either between the sheets or in other ways, she would cast him off, and look about her for another handsome young man to ensnare and tempt into her willing arms.

She and her husband were a pair of tomcats, he told himself with some feeling. And then, for he preferred to be honest with himself when the consequences weren’t too unsettling, he had to laugh and ask what else he was? By God, if Lady Usborne were his wife, she
would not stray as she did. It came of moving in Prinny’s circle, no doubt, where morality had no meaning, and it was every man and woman for him- and herself.

He walked back to his rooms in Half Moon Street. His valet came into the sitting room upon hearing his master’s arrival, to enquire if he wanted anything.

“You may take that look of surprise off your face, Marston.”

“I am merely surprised to see you home so early. I trust you enjoyed the play.”

“No, I did not. Fetch me something to eat, and take this damned coat away, I never had one that was so ill-fitting.”

Marston eased the coat off Horatio Darcy’s wide shoulders, where it fitted without a wrinkle or the hint of a stretch.

“I have some papers I wish to deal with.”

Work, and it was a nice legal point that he had to deal with, pleasing in its complexity, did not bring its usual calm to his ruffled spirits. He found he could not concentrate, that he did not care whether his client or the plaintiff had the right of it, or, more important, which of them was likely to win the case.

He poured himself a glass of wine and stood beside the window, lost in thought. He could not get that damned girl’s image out of his mind. In the end, he took himself to bed at an unaccustomed early hour, much to Marston’s ill-concealed astonishment, where he tossed and turned in an effort to find the sleep that eluded him. The watch had cried out, “Three o’clock on a fine morning, and all’s well,” before he fell into a troubled slumber, to find himself dreaming he was making love to a Lady Usborne whose chestnut locks had turned into a Gorgon’s snakes, before dissolving into another figure altogether, so that he found himself gazing into the wide grey eyes of Cassandra Darcy.

Waking, he banged his head against his pillow, composed himself for sleep once more, and this time slept soundly until Marston wakened him with his customary cup of coffee and the prediction of a baking hot day, sir.