Marrying Harriet (10 page)

‘Who is that man with Harriet?’ whispered Effy to Amy.

‘Vicar,’ muttered Amy. ‘Widower. Will do very nicely.’

‘Do you think so? You know, when Harris told us that Lord Charles had called again, I began to hope . . . Who is that beautiful young lady who has taken his fancy?’

‘A Miss Lisa Seymour,’ said Amy. ‘Rich parents. New on the market. Don’t like the look of her. Looks like a bitch.’

‘Amy!’

‘Fact. And a licentious bitch at that. Some of these young virgins go on like whores. Still, I suppose it’s because they don’t know any better. Look! She’s hitching at her skirt so that he’ll get a glimpse of her ankles. Slut!’

‘Well, you did say Lord Charles was not suitable,’ said Effy maddeningly. ‘So why are you getting into a passion?’

‘I’m not getting into a passion,’ snorted Amy. ‘I am angry with Mr Haddon, who keeps looking daggers at me as if I have done something wrong.’

‘Do you think he is jealous?’ asked Effy hopefully.

‘Probably indigestion,’ muttered Amy.

The concert began. The German singer had a beautiful voice that fell on mainly deaf ears as society whispered and shuffled. Harriet sat entranced by the music. Her eyes filled with tears, and Lord Charles, watching her, felt a pang of compassion for this Methodist’s daughter who seemed to him to have had a deuced hard life to date. That long-nosed bore she was saddled with was no doubt deemed suitable for her. She would end up married to someone like that, with all that fire and passion wasted. Now why did he assume there was fire and passion in a lady who had recoiled in horror from a kiss on the cheek? But she amused him, and he could not remember when he had last felt amused. He had paid court to Miss Seymour only in the hope of irritating Harriet. But Harriet had not even seemed to notice. After the concert was over, he became tired of the game of flirting with Miss Seymour, hailed his friend, Guy Sutherland, with relief, and slid off, leaving him to talk to her.

Lisa watched him go, watched him approach Harriet, say something to the gentleman with her, and then walk off to the supper room with Harriet on his arm. Her beautiful eyes narrowed. She was not going to see the prize of the Little Season taken away from her by someone as old as Miss Brown.

‘You cut out Mr Feathers rather rudely,’ Harriet was saying crossly. ‘How am I ever to find a husband if you are not going to allow me any time with suitable beaux?’

He smiled down at her in such a way that she felt weak and breathless. ‘Come, Miss Brown,’ he teased. ‘You were bored to flinders.’

‘Yes, I was,’ said Harriet candidly, ‘and very wicked of me it was too. What is come over me that I should feel bored by someone as kind and worthy as Mr Feathers?’

‘Perhaps common sense.’

‘What is that rip doing flirting with Harriet again?’ said Amy crossly. She then said over her shoulder, ‘Mr Haddon, be so good as to approach them and hear what they are saying.’

‘I am hungry and intend to have my supper,’ said Mr Haddon irritably.

Amy swung around to face him. ‘Then I shall ask Mr Lawrence,’ she said sweetly.

‘If you find a mountebank and hardened gambler a suitable aide, then by all means ask him,’ retorted Mr Haddon.

‘I shall,’ said Amy. ‘Oh, Mr Lawrence.’

Mr Haddon strode off.

But Mr Lawrence, on being appealed to, smiled and shook his head. ‘I never interfere in my nephew’s life,’ he said. ‘How can you trouble your head about such things, Miss Amy, when I am present to hang on your every word?’

But Lord Charles was suffering from a more annoying interruption to his conversation with Harriet than his uncle might have supplied. Jack Perkins had arrived late, and now, without waiting for an invitation, joined the couple at their table.

‘Good evening, Jack,’ said Lord Charles pleasantly, after he had made the introductions, ‘and having said that, I shall bid you good evening again in the hope you will take yourself off.’

‘Only wanted to know what we are doing tonight,’ said Jack breezily. ‘Might drop by Harriet Wilson’s later, hey?’

Harriet Wilson, dubbed the Queen of Tarts, was a high-flyer. Lord Charles’s eyes turned ice-cold. ‘I have no intention of frequenting tarts, Jack, and never have had, that you know.’

Jack Perkins gave a hearty laugh. ‘Come, now, Charles, we all know you for a rake.’

‘You have two seconds to leave this table,’ replied Lord Charles, ‘before I call you out.’

‘You never spoke to me thus before,’ cried jack Perkins. ‘
She
has come between us.’ He rose so abruptly that his chair went flying and stormed out of the room.

Harriet sat with her face flaming while all sorts of nasty little thoughts buzzed about her brain. One could not read the classics without being aware that there were men who preferred other men above any woman.

Lord Charles looked at her agonized face. ‘No,’ he said gently, ‘I am not. And shame on you for your shocking thoughts.’

‘Are my thoughts so easily read by you?’ asked Harriet.

‘Yes, my sweeting.’

‘You must not call me that.’

‘Very well, my prim Miss Brown. Have a glass of iced champagne and throw away that lemonade.’

‘I have no need of anything stronger than lemonade.’

‘Indeed you have.’ He signalled to a waiter and ordered champagne.

‘Now, drink,’ he commanded. Harriet opened her mouth to refuse, but those green eyes of his were glinting with amusement; he was leaning towards her and she had a hot sensation that his body was making love to her although he did not touch her. Nervously she raised her glass and took a gulp. The champagne tasted pleasantly innocuous and very refreshing. She finished her glass and drank another, feeling a warm glow spreading through her body.

‘What do you think of Miss Seymour?’ she asked.

‘Divine. I shall always be grateful to you for reintroducing me to her.’

‘If I can do anything further to help . . . ?’

He felt she deserved to be punished a little. He was perfectly sure Harriet did not like Miss Seymour one bit. ‘If you could befriend Miss Seymour and further my suit with her, I should be most grateful.’

‘Gladly,’ said Harriet, feeling all at once noble and self-sacrificing.

‘And you will do everything to further my cause?’

‘Yes,’ said Harriet bleakly.

‘Then have some conversation with her and come driving with me tomorrow. I promise to be sober.’

Harriet drank some more champagne. ‘Why should you wish to drive with me when you are courting her?’ she asked.

‘So that you may tell me what she thinks of me,’ he replied gently.

So after supper, when people were strolling about and chatting, Harriet dutifully sought out Lisa, who welcomed her effusively.

‘Dear Miss Brown,’ cried Lisa. ‘I have not told you, but I am a good whip and have my own carriage. You must come driving with me tomorrow.’

‘I am already engaged to go driving with Lord Charles.’

Something far from lovely flashed at the back of Lisa’s eyes. ‘The fact is,’ went on Harriet, mindful of her duties, ‘I think it is because he wishes to further his acquaintance with you. I am to sound you out.’

Lisa slid an arm about Harriet’s waist. ‘You funny thing,’ she said. ‘I declare I quite dote on you already. You must tell him, let me see, that I have many suitors, and that you are not quite sure if my affections are engaged or not.’

‘If you are interested in him,’ said Harriet baldly, ‘would it not be better to allow me to tell him so?’

‘No, no, stoopid. It never does to let the gentlemen know we are keen. They must be played like fish. I believe he is quite rich.’

‘Yes,’ said Harriet, fighting down a feeling of distaste. ‘So I believe.’

‘Good. My parents would never forgive me if I became enamoured of a
poor
man. Here is
your
beau, Harriet. I may call you Harriet, may I not? I feel we have known each other a lifetime.’

Mr Feathers came up and claimed Harriet’s attention. He began to talk about his parish duties and Harriet tried to listen, but all the champagne she had drunk was making her feel sleepy and she found it very hard not to yawn.

The following morning, Harriet awoke early with a feeling of desolation. She could not think what was the matter. She was normally of an optimistic temperament. She rose from bed and washed and dressed and sat down and looked at those shillings which were still lying spread out. She then looked at her appointment book. Effy and Amy had said they preferred to sleep late, and so lessons had been changed to the afternoons. There were the piano teacher at one and the Italian tutor at two, and then Lord Charles at three. When they had found out about the proposed drive, Amy and Effy had lectured Harriet on the folly of encouraging the attentions of a rake who did not have marriage in mind. She was instructed to tell Lord Charles firmly that in future her afternoons would be taken up with either lessons or social calls.

She had a sudden longing to escape from the house and walk by herself for a little. She could take a hack to St James’s Park, look at the guns and walk under the trees.

Feeling more cheerful now that she had decided on a course of action, Harriet put on her cloak and bonnet and made her way downstairs.

Outside in Holles Street, Miss Spiggs shivered in the frosty morning. ‘I do not know what we are doing here this early, Dr Frank,’ she said plaintively. ‘No one will be stirring.’

‘I am waiting to see if some servant that don’t know me emerges,’ said Frank. ‘That way we might fall into conversation and get some news of the comings and goings of Miss Harriet Brown.’

Miss Spiggs suddenly clutched his arm tightly. ‘Look!’ she cried. ‘Is that not she?’

‘By all that’s holy,’ breathed Frank. ‘Come on. This is it.

Turning quite white with excitement, Miss Spiggs followed him across the street.

At first Harriet did not see them. She had recognized a familiar figure turning the corner of the street. Mr Feathers. She was sure it was he.

But she was reluctant to give up her planned adventure. She would walk quickly in the other direction and find a hack.

She had only taken a few paces when Miss Spiggs and Frank closed in on either side of her. ‘Miss Brown,’ hissed Frank. ‘I have a pistol here. One word from you, one scream for help, and I will shoot you dead.’

‘Yes, shoot you dead,’ echoed Miss Spiggs shrilly.

Harriet felt the hard point of the gun at her side.

At that moment a hack came along the street and Frank waved it down with his free hand.

Too startled and frightened to resist, Harriet allowed herself to be pushed inside.

Mr Feathers tilted back his hat and watched the disappearing hack. It was all most odd. He had strolled along to get a look at the Tribbles’ house with a vague idea of assessing the social position of his intended. The Marchioness of Raby was fond of the Tribbles and had promised him a handsome payment if he married Harriet Brown. What had she being doing up so early? And who were these odd people who had marched her off? He had noted the number of the hack, for he always noticed things like that. He decided to call on her later and pay his respects. Still, the marchioness ought to be informed of the odd company she kept. The man with her had been foppishly dressed in a low-class way, not the sort of person the future Mrs Feathers should be seen with!

He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.

Stephen Leacock

Amy entered her sister’s bedchamber later that morning. ‘We really must discuss this friendship of Harriet’s with Lord Charles,’ she said, plumping herself down so heavily on the bed that the cup of chocolate which Effy was holding in her hand rattled in its saucer.

‘Don’t be so violent, sister,’ said Effy crossly.

Amy peered at Effy’s face. ‘What have you been doing to yourself, Effy?’ she demanded. ‘You have an odd circle of white skin around your mouth. It makes you look like a chimpanzee.’

Effy put down her cup on a side-table by the bed and lifted a hand mirror and scrutinized her face. She let out a dismayed squawk. ‘Now what am I going to do? It was a new depilatory. I made it up myself from a mixture of barium sulphide and starch.’

‘You’re supposed to leave these things on for about three minutes.’

‘Three minutes! Amy, I am sure the instructions said three hours. That book over there.’

Amy rose and fetched a notebook bulging with hand-written recipes for beauty treatments. ‘Here we are,’ she said, after searching through the pages. ‘Three minutes, plain as plain. You ought to wear spectacles the whole time.’

‘I will die before I wear spectacles,’ said Effy. ‘I shall simply put on some paint . . .’

‘As usual,’ interrupted Amy maliciously.

‘. . . and no one will know the difference. Yes, something must be done about Harriet. Sensible suitors such as Mr Feathers will be put off if she is constantly in the company of a rake.’

‘And yet, it would be a triumph for us,’ said Amy wistfully, ‘if we managed to match the penniless daughter of a Methody with a rich aristocrat. We would be really famous.’

‘But he is not suitable for Harriet. You must see that.’