Carola Dunn (4 page)

“Lor’ bless you, sir, ‘tis nowt. My Mary and me, we’d do a mortal sight more’n that for your auntie arter what she done for us.”

“What was that?”

“Why, she set us up in business, didn’t she. In the hospital I were, being took mortal bad arter me last bout in the ring. You’ll have mebbe guessed as I were a boxer?”

“You do have the look of a pugilist.”

“Pugilist! Ay, ‘tis a grand word for a nasty business. Well, I arst you, sir, is it a decent trade for a cove to go bashing another cove wi’ his fives, all for a few quid?”

“You have a point,” Peter admitted.

“My Mary, she didn’t never like it, but the Fancy were the only trade I knowed to keep body and soul together. Not that I were ever one o’ the best, neither, not like Mendoza or Gentleman Jackson. Daylight Danny they call me, acos there weren’t never a fight where I didn’t come out wi’ both me daylights darkened.”

“So you wanted to leave the Fancy?”

“Aye, but there’s not many’ll hire a cove as looks like me, not for honest work. Even on the markets and down the docks, they’ve only to set their glims on me to think I must be too quick wi’ me fives. The which I bain’t, being a peaceable cove.”

“You met my aunt in the hospital?”

“She come visiting, her and the long-faced gentry mort she had afore this un.” Danny cast an appraising glance from Peter to Miss Carmichael, which seemed to afford him some obscure satisfaction. “This un’s a prime article, sir, mark my word.”

“Now, Danny.” The diminutive Mrs. Potts appeared at their elbows. “Don’t you go talking the ear off the gent. There’s others come he’ll be wanting a word with and you haven’t barely spoke to my lady.”

“Yes, Mary,” said the giant obediently.

“I’m happy to make your aquaintance, Mr. Potts.” Peter offered his hand rather gingerly, but it was engulfed in an almost delicate clasp. “I’ll see you again later, no doubt.”

“Right, sir.” The bruiser beamed. “Call me Danny, do.”

He went off to the tea-table, now surrounded by a motley crew. Miss Carmichael was talking to a dark-skinned man in a turban who must be the Lascar seaman. Peter turned to Mrs. Potts.

“I like your husband, ma’am.”

“He’s a good fellow at heart, sir, and no mistake.”

“He told me my aunt helped you set up in business. I didn’t get around to asking what business you are in?”

“Hot pies, sir. I bake ‘em, he takes ‘em, selling out in the streets, like. My Danny’s not fast like the Flying Pieman you’ve maybe seen, but he can carry four times the load and we do well enough. And we’ve paid back every penny to my lady, not that she asked, but someone else needs it more nor we do now.”

“I’m glad she was able to help you,” Peter said sincerely, feeling a trifle less guilty about his intention of sponging off Aunt Artemis. It wasn’t as if he meant to do so for ever, only until his book made his fortune, and besides, he was truly fond of the old dear.

“I’ve brought you a cup of tea, Mr. Daviot.” Miss Carmichael arrived, accompanied by the Lascar. “May I present Mr. Sagaranathu? He comes from the East Indies.”

Sagaranathu spoke surprisingly good English. In fact, he was an educated man by his country’s standards, and had visited Bart’s Hospital not as a patient but to study Western notions of medicine.

He had become a sailor, he explained, because it was the only way open to him to see the world. Living frugally on his pay, he was able to spend several months in each port he visited. Peter had an interesting discussion with him about the Hindoo and Iroquois mythologies.

In the meantime, Miss Carmichael had gone to take his aunt’s place at the tea-table. As he talked, he watched her dealing in the friendliest manner with all the disparate guests. Aunt Artemis had been lucky to find her, he thought. From various snippets, he gathered the previous companion was far less satisfactory, easily overset by her employer’s oddities.

Aunt Artemis came over. “Go and meet some of the others,” she ordered, and whisked Sagaranathu away to a corner for a private cose.

Peter obeyed. Among others, he met a market-woman, a Chinese pedlar, a barrel-organ grinder with his monkey on his shoulder, and the seamstress who created her ladyship’s unusual costumes. He found it was easy to tell which were regular visitors and which had never come before. The latter gazed wide-eyed at their surroundings, hardly believing they had been invited to call upon a real lady.

The drawing room was an elegant apartment in Robert Adam’s unmistakable style. White walls and ceiling with plaster mouldings picked out in gilt and blue were complemented by blue brocade curtains and chairs upholstered in blue and white striped satin. No speck of dust marred the gleaming woodwork. A whatnot and shelved niches on either side of the fireplace displayed curios collected by Sir Bernard in every corner of the world.

The visitors seemed particularly awestruck by a striking full-length portrait of the bewhiskered, ruddy-faced Admiral in his dress uniform, liberally adorned with gold braid. Peter wondered what he would have made of his widow’s choice of company.

At last Twitchell ushered out the last guest. Every currant tart, every crumb of cake had vanished from the dining-room table.

“Well, Peter,” said Aunt Artemis, sinking onto a sofa and patting the seat beside her, “what do you think?”

He joined her. “Interesting people, Aunt, those I spoke to, and some of them charming. I must say I particularly liked the Pottses.”

“They are dears, are they not?” said Miss Carmichael, sipping a last cup of tea.

“Do you never have a failure?” he asked. “I mean, find you have invited someone who turns out to be not quite as unexceptionable as you had supposed?”

“Oh yes,” her ladyship admitted with a sigh. “Miranda, pray do not send the Captain a card next week. He utterly refuses to change his ways.”

“Which was the Captain?” Peter queried. “I don’t believe I met him.”

“Captain by virtue of his own imagination, I fear,” Miss Carmichael said dryly. “A Captain Sharp, and by no means willing to reform.”

“A card-sharp?”

“I am afraid so.” Aunt Artemis looked positively guilty. “He is quite amusing, and he has taught me several of his naughty tricks, but he will not stop fleecing pigeons and take up some more respectable line of work.”

“Fleecing pigeons!” Miss Carmichael laughed.

“You know what I mean, dear.”

“Of course, and I know that you are tired. Do take a nap before you dress for dinner, Lady Wiston. If you have no need of me, I shall go and thank the servants for their usual splendid efforts, and then finish the letter to my brother which I began yesterday.” She went out.

“Miss Carmichael has a brother, does she?” said Peter. “I assumed she was alone in the world, I don’t know why.”

“She might as well be,” his aunt snorted. “Her mother died when she was quite small, and her father four or five years ago. Her brother is a sanctimonious country clergyman with a feckless wife, five children, and an inadequate benefice.”

“Then I quite understand why she prefers the life of a companion, however dismal, to residing with her relatives.”

Inexplicably, Aunt Artemis brightened. “Miranda told you it is a dismal life?”

“She told me she was well on the way to becoming a little grey mouse before she came to you, dear ma’am. She appears to positively enjoy your...er...interesting ways.”

Her face fell. “She has me quite at my wits’ end!”

“At your wits’ end? What the dev...deuce do you mean? Miss Carmichael seems to me an ideal companion for you.”

“She is, she is. Oh dear, I suppose I had best explain, then perhaps you will be able to advise me. You remember, I expect, that I was a lady’s companion, a little grey mouse, just as you describe, before dear Sir Bernard married me.”

“A perspicacious gentleman, I have always considered him, to see past the twitching nose and long whiskers to the—”

“Really, Peter, this is serious! I was utterly miserable, and he was a gallant gentleman who could not bear to see my unhappiness.”

“Gammon, Aunt, he adored you. That was plain even to a heedless youth like me.”

She beamed. “Well, I do think we were happy together. Which is what made me think, after I lost him, that every girl in such a situation deserves a chance of such happiness. But it was not until Frederick offered for Aurelia that I actually came up with a plan.”

“Tell me,” urged Peter, wondering with misgivings what sort of plan the original little lady had devised.

Chapter 4

Twitchell tapped through from the dining parlour. “Shall we clear away in here, my lady?” he asked.

“Another cup of tea, Peter? No? Yes, you may clear, Twitchell. But you are looking rather tired, dear man. You are not sickening for a summer cold, are you?”

“Thank you, my lady, I believe not.”

“Well, do go and sit down and rest your leg. The boys are quite capable of taking away the tea-things without your eagle eye upon them.”

The butler was not about to allow himself such a dereliction of duty. At his signal the youthful footmen, Eustace and Ethan, came in, smart in their blue and grey livery and powdered wigs. Swiftly, carefully, unobtrusively, they cleared the tea table and circled the room picking up stray cups and saucers.

As they vanished through the door into the hall, Aunt Artemis sighed. “I am afraid they will have to go,” she said.

“I fear so, my lady.” Twitchell echoed her sigh. “I shall advise them to look out for positions elsewhere.” Bowing himself out, he closed the door.

“But why?” Peter asked. “They seem particularly competent footmen.”

“They are, dear. Twitchell has trained them up, and now they are fit to serve the dear Prince Regent himself. We must start again with another pair rescued from the streets. I believe it was the one thing which most distressed Julia, my third companion. I must admit life is always a little difficult for a few weeks while they find their sea legs, as Twitchell puts it.”

Envisaging months of cold shaving water and soup spilled in his lap, Peter suggested, “Why not take one new lad at a time? Then the earlier-comer can help to train the later, thus lessening the burden for Twitchell.”

“True,” she said dubiously. “He is not as young as he was, which is the silliest phrase, is it not, for it applies even to a baby in the cradle! The first pair were brothers, you see, who could not be split up, and since then it has always seemed sadly unfair to make one leave before the other. I shall consult Twitchell.”

“Do that, Aunt. But now I am all agog to hear your scheme for marrying off your companions.”

“You must swear not to breathe a word to a soul.”

“I swear.” He glanced round as an imperious yap sounded at the door.

“Let Mudge in, will you, dear? He will scratch the paint dreadfully else.”

Peter went to open the door. The pug cast a longing glance at his ankles but apparently recognized the impervious nature of his boots. Scampering past, the brute plumped down in front of Aunt Artemis and fixed her with a beady eye. Automatically she felt for a comfit.

Reseating himself on a chair at a safe distance, Peter said, “Aurelia and Frederick gave you the notion, you said?”

“Do you recall Frederick Fenimore, the Admiral’s nephew? A most respectable young man, a solicitor at Ipswich, in Suffolk, with excellent expectations from his papa even without what he might hope for from his uncle.”

Peter nodded. “Yes, I recall Fenimore.” As a dry, pompous stick who snubbed the youth without prospects or profession Peter had been at their last encounter.

“Frederick came to visit—all Sir Bernard’s nephews have been most kind and attentive—and found Aurelia in tears. Every little thing overset her. She was afraid of Mudge, and she could not bear to look at Twitchell because of his missing leg. I had asked her to read aloud to me a French novel which she thought not quite proper, I seem to remember. Aurelia was sadly straitlaced, besides being such a prodigious watering-pot, though she did cry beautifully, I will say that for her. Well, Frederick took one look at her and proposed marriage.”

“Good lord, she must have cried exceptionally beautifully!”

“Oh, she did. Not a trace of red in her eyes, only teardrops hanging like pearls in her lashes. She never even sniffed!”

“So Fenimore wed the fair Aurelia.”

“Yes, and it did make me think, I promise you, even though the novel turned out to be shockingly tedious, after all.”

“What a shame,” Peter said, laughing.

“Yes, I quite gave up French novels after that. I did not see why I should be bored to tears just to drive my companions to tears, so I had to find something else. That was when I started to visit orphanages and hospitals, and to invite interesting people to call. Marjory, my next, was convinced she was going to catch some dreadful disease in those horrid places, but she married James instead.”

“Another of the Admiral’s nephews? Ah yes, I have it, James Redpath, Squire of Redpath Manor.” A red-faced, loud-voiced booby contemptuous of any man who did not live for the pursuit of the fox.

“Redpath Manor, near Brighton,” said Aunt Artemis complacently. “A very pretty property, though not large, and in such a healthful situation on the Downs, quite perfect for Marjory. So much fresh country air.” She waved her hands vaguely.

“And then came Julia, who objected to untrained footmen?”

“Yes, though now I come to think of it, that was not the worst. She felt marketing was beneath her, but what really gave her the vapours was attending a different service every Sunday. She feared her soul would be damned for lack of fidelity to the Anglican church, but how is one to discover the truth if one only ever hears one side of it?”

“Very true, Aunt.” Peter had no desire to find himself involved in theological debate. “I suppose she married Sir Bernard’s clergyman nephew?” he asked hastily.

“Yes, dear; Edward Jeffries, Canon at Winchester Cathedral. Edward will be a bishop one day, I am sure.”

And quite as sanctimonious as Miranda Carmichael’s brother could possibly be. Jeffries wouldn’t have suited that lively young lady at all, even worse than Redpath or Fenimore. So who did Aunt Artemis destine for her?