Elizabeth Mansfield (11 page)

But Betsy, whose past experiences working for selfish and thoughtless mistresses had given her an insight into how decent this position might have been, burst into tears.

“There, now, see what you’ve done?” Tom muttered to Daniel angrily. “You’ve more to think of than just your own feelings. You’ve a wife to worry about. Look, man, I can find something on my own—”

“N-No, Tom,” Betsy said bravely, wiping her eyes. “Dan’l’s right. It’s all of us, or none.” She took her husband’s arm and, before permitting him to lead her to the door, turned back to Camilla. “Ye’ll not blame Mr. Hicks, will ye, yer ladyship?” she asked, her lips trembling. “He didn’t know nothin’ of what happened at Wyckfield Park.”

Camilla, who’d been observing the dramatic scene with considerable fascination, gave the tearful young woman a sympathetic smile. “I understand that, Betsy. I don’t blame Hicks in the least. In fact, Hicks, if you still want these people on your staff, I shall make no objection. The
contretemps
at Wyckfield
was
a misunderstanding, after all.”

Hicks lifted his head and gawked at her. “Miss Camilla! You can’t mean … after all this, you’re
still
willing—”

“It’s entirely up to you, Hicks. You are my steward in these matters.”

“Thank you, your ladyship, for saying so, especially after seeing my humiliation. If it’s up to me, then I say we should let ’em go. First they treated you with disrespect in Wyckfield, and then they kept the knowledge from me. I’m not sure they can be trusted.”

“Betsy and Daniel are the most trustworthy pair you’ll ever find!” Tom barked impatiently. “I don’t see why they are included in this discussion at all. This entire matter is my fault and mine alone.”

“That does seem to be true,” Camilla said to the butler.

“But it was all
three of them
that didn’t tell me what happened,” Hicks said stubbornly.

“You’re right about that,” Camilla agreed thoughtfully, “but I imagine they’ve learned a lesson from all this.”

“Oh, yes’m, we have,” Betsy said earnestly.

“Are you saying, Miss Camilla, that you’re willing to take all
three?
” Hicks asked in disbelief.

“Yes, if you are.”

Hicks looked at Tom dubiously. The part of the story which Camilla did not know hung heavily on his conscience, and in that story as well as this one, Tom’s part was most heinous. “I don’t think I can recommend the third one, Miss Camilla. Not in good conscience.”

“Then yer conscience has misled ye, Uncle,” Daniel said firmly. “We thank ye fer yer kindness, my lady, but if ye can’t take the three of us, we have t’ ask fer permission to withdraw.”

“Don’t be a fool, Daniel,” Tom muttered urgently.

Betsy put a restraining hand on Tom’s arm. “It’s a settled matter, Tom. Don’t keep fightin’ over it.”

Camilla shook her head in grudging admiration over their loyalty to each other. “They seem to be an unbreakable set, Hicks. What do you think we should do?”

“I don’t know, your ladyship,” he said, troubled. “Let them all go, I suppose.”

“But I hate to permit Betsy to go wandering about the streets looking for a place in her condition …”

Hicks sighed. “You’re willing to take a chance on them all?”

“I don’t see what else we can do, do you?”

Hicks shook his head dubiously. “Very well, my lady. We’ll take them on. And I give you my word that I’ll do everything in my power to see that you’re not ill-served by your kindness.”

Camilla nodded, sat down and entered the appropriate items in her ledger-book, while Betsy and Daniel exchanged looks of relieved delight. But Hicks fixed a lugubrious eye on Tom. “I’m warning you, Thomas, that you’ll get no further forgiveness if you use your free-and-easy ways as you’ve done today,” he said sternly.

“That’s quite true, young man,” Camilla said, looking up at the tall, incorrigible fellow with a twinge of misgiving and attempting, by the coldness of her manner, to correct any impression of softness which her previous behavior had probably given. “From now on I shall expect you to behave with impeccable propriety, do you understand?”

“Yes, my lady,” Tom assured her. “I shall be the most invisible and inaudible person on your staff, I promise you.”

Somehow Camilla had an unshakable conviction that he would turn out to be quite the opposite. “I hope so,” she said firmly, rising and dismissing them all with a wave of her hand, “because at the
first
infraction—the very slightest breach of discipline—
out you go!
”

Dear Ethelyn,

I have received your letter of 13 November and hasten to assure you that there has been no calamity. I am sorry that I neglected to write as often as you expected, but in the scramble to make things livable in the new house I was rather preoccupied. We have not fallen into any difficulties of the types you so dramatically suggest in your letter—there have been no robberies, no accidents and no descent into godlessness and sin. In truth, we do very well in all matters. The house is now fully staffed with efficient and respectable help, it is adequately spacious (although I will admit that it is tiny in comparison to Wyckfield), and our neighborhood is as quiet and proper as if it were located in a country town. We have even begun to make a few acquaintances. Pippa, in particular, is delighted to have found a friend her own age, about whom I am sure she will write to you herself. So I hope, my dear, that you will henceforth feel no need to trouble yourself and the Good Lord with concern for our health and happiness. Pippa and I think of you and speak of you often. With the most fond good wishes for your own and Oswald’s well-being, I remain your most devoted, etc.,

Camilla.

Matters in the house on Upper Seymour Street were indeed going very well. It was a joy to Camilla to be able to rise each morning at any hour she wished, to take breakfast in bed if the inaction suited her mood, or to jump up and dress in the new (and shockingly fashionable) clothes she’d purchased. It was a delight to stroll along the streets with Pippa and Miss Townley (with one of the footmen following along a few paces behind to add an air of propriety to the outings and, incidentally, to carry whatever parcels they managed to acquire during the stroll) and look at the shop windows, the elegant townhouses and the faces of hundreds of interesting passers-by instead of the clipped hedges and rigid flowerbeds of Wyckfield Park. She felt a delicious, heady freedom. There was no one to account to, no one to give her orders, no one whose will was in combat with her own. The feeling was almost too wonderful to be true; sometimes she felt guilty to be so happy.

But every scolding letter from Ethelyn, every stricture, every reprimand, every bit of unsolicited advice which came regularly by post from Wyckfield made that guilt a little less severe. Her sister-in-law’s letters merely served to remind her of what she’d escaped. The pleasure, the ease, the freedom of each passing day only confirmed her conviction that she’d done the right thing. She’d escaped from virtual confinement … and nothing or no one would ever prevail upon her to return to it.

Even Pippa seemed to be blossoming in the exhilarating atmosphere of what Ethelyn called “the city of sin.” The child walked about with eyes wide in perpetual amazement. She drank in every detail of the new sights that greeted her every day. Every new experience filled her with the enthusiasm and excitement that come only to the very young. “Look, Mama,” she would cry on a walk down Bond
Street, “the lady on the other side of the street has a
finch
pinned to her hat. You don’t suppose it’s a real one that’s been stuffed, do you? A milliner wouldn’t—?”

And Camilla would reassure her that the finch had no more been a real bird than the doll in the window of a nearby shop had been a real baby.

Then Pippa’s attention would turn to the carriages rattling by on the busy thoroughfare. “Have you ever seen so many different carriages?” she’d exclaim. “Barouches, and phaetons … and there’s a cabriolet with the top raised! And that one, there—the one with the horses tandem—do you know what that’s called?”

“No, I don’t. Do you?”

“Yes. It’s called a tim-whiskey. Thomas told me. And look over there, Mama—there’s a post-chaise. Do you see the guard standing on the boot? That strange object he’s carrying is a real blunderbuss. Thomas says it’s a blunder every time someone tries to fire one.”

“Thomas is a veritable fount of information, isn’t he?” Camilla would murmur drily, unable to keep from throwing a backward glance over her shoulder to frown at him. He was performing his duties in a satisfactory way, as far as she could tell, but for someone who was supposed to be invisible and inaudible, he was certainly making himself noticed.

From the very first day the staff had moved into their new quarters, Thomas had been noticeable. She had called a staff meeting so that she and Hicks could acquaint them all with their duties, explain the rules for daily living and distribute their clothing and uniforms. She’d sat behind her desk and watched as Hicks had explained how they were to dress. Every member of the staff had been given several different costumes; some were for heavy work while others were to be worn when they had to appear at the front of the house. The footmen had three distinct sets of livery. The gold-braided, formal livery, Hicks had explained, was to be worn only when her ladyship held formal dinner parties. “Thank goodness,” Thomas had muttered. “I’d hate to have to dress like a popinjay every day of the week.” Hicks had delivered a brief scold, but a moment later, when he said that the footmen would not be required to powder their hair except when dressing in the formal livery, Thomas had objected vociferously. “Powder my
hair?
” he’d exclaimed. “Not on your life!” This type of behavior had become the fellow’s style ever since.

She’d promised herself to become as good a manager of the household as Ethelyn was of Wyckfield, but she hadn’t been able to control Thomas’s excesses. Of course, he’d done nothing really reprehensible, and Pippa and Miss Townley seemed to admire what Miss Townley described as his “robust honesty,” but he always made Camilla feel uncomfortable. She couldn’t understand why she was always conscious of his presence … and discomfitted by it.

The trouble was, she supposed, that the fellow was not really like a servant at all. Everything about him, from his long-legged, self-assured stride to his polished speech, seemed more masterful than servant-like. There was nothing about Thomas that was humble or diffident. He behaved as if he were born to give orders rather than to take them. Sometimes she wondered if he weren’t a gentlemen of noble birth who was indulging in some sort of irritating masquerade, like certain members of the Corinthian set whom she’d heard of—well-born gentlemen who dressed up like coachmen and drove stagecoaches for excitement.

She’d tried to query Betsy about Thomas’s past, but everything she’d learned from the ingenuous girl gave support to the theory that Thomas was exactly what he claimed to be. There was nothing for it but to accept what appeared to be the facts.

But if any one factor could be singled out to be the primary cause of her discomfort in regard to Thomas, it was this very tendency of hers to think about him … to take notice of him, and to weave
these “romances” about his background. She would have liked to dismiss him from her mind altogether. If only she had the character either to control his behavior with the proper detachment or to banish him from the premises.

Yes, there were problems in this new life, and Thomas was one of them. But there were several others which troubled her too, even though they were minor ones. The other servants still needed training, the household was not yet organized in a purposeful, daily routine, and Camilla suffered occasionally from bouts of loneliness. But for the most part, she was very pleased with her new surroundings. The atmosphere in the house on Upper Seymour Street was one of quiet contentment. Perhaps that contentment had about it an air of precariousness … perhaps things were too new and unstable to enable the inhabitants to feel completely relaxed … but that would come with time. And meanwhile, the very air was aglow with hopefulness.

Dear Ethelyn, your letter of 23 November was needlessly severe. I am not careless in matters concerning my daughter, and I would certainly not permit her to enter into an intimate friendship with a child whose family I did not know. As a matter of fact, little Sybil Sturtevant is a perfectly well-bred girl whose mother is Lady Sturtevant, wife of Edgar Sturtevant who is a viscount and a member of Parliament. Even though Lady S. and I met during a morning walk through Hyde Park, it was quite obvious at once that she was eminently respectable (she has five children, and four of them were surrounding her that very morning, so she could hardly have been engaged in any activity of a reprehensibe nature) and we took to each other at once. As for Pippa and Sybil, they make a wonderful pair, for Pippa is completely bookish and Sybil is completely active. Each one seems to exert a most beneficial influence on the other. I do not think that the fact that Sybil taught Pippa to play cards is a matter to arouse in you such violent antipathy. They play the most innocuous games, and it seems to me to be a perfectly permissible activity with which to pass a rainy afternoon. I think, Ethelyn, that you will feel much more reconciled to the situation if you disabuse yourself of your conviction that London is a hotbed of iniquity. I assure you, my dear, that it is not. With the fondest of good wishes for you and Oswald, I remain your devoted, etc., Camilla
.

As a matter of fact, Camilla was not as certain that Sybil Sturtevant was as good an influence on Pippa as she’d claimed in her letter. Pippa was enchanted with her new friend, but Sybil had four brothers and had managed to reach the age of ten by learning the art of survival. She had made herself as agile and as strong as they. There was no little boy her age she couldn’t outrun, outbox or outwit. She had a scorn of pretty dresses, the stride of a tomboy and a vocabulary of boxing terms that Camilla found a bit shocking. But Pippa was delighted with her. After the quiet, restricted years at Wyckfield, it was a revelation to Pippa to meet someone whose behavior was so completely uninhibited. Sybil sat on floors, climbed trees, dashed in and out of doors, tossed balls, engaged in fisticuffs, occasionally swore and hated to read. She taught Pippa how to shoot marbles, how to run like a boy and how to play cards. In return, Pippa told her stories. Sybil, who had never spent time with books, was unfamiliar with the most commonplace of fairy stories and was completely enthralled as Pippa regaled her by the hour with detailed accounts of
St. George and the Dragon, Caporushes
, or
The True History of Sir Thomas Thumb
. It was a friendship made in heaven, and the two little girls couldn’t bear to be parted from one another.