Marrying Harriet (17 page)

He held the bag out over the river.

Harriet screamed, ‘Stop!’

Jack turned and saw her. His face creased in a smile of pure malice. He opened his hand and let the bag drop.

Harriet tore off her bonnet and cloak and dropped them to the ground and kicked off her half-boots. She climbed up onto the top of the parapet. Behind her, she could hear shouts and people running. She raised her hands above her head and dived.

Now, one of the delights of Scarborough that her strict father had not set his face against was swimming, and Harriet was a very powerful swimmer.

But for a long, black, nightmare time, she thought she would never reach the surface again after that dive. When her head at last rose above the River Thames, she shook the water from her eyes and looked desperately about her as she trod water.

The air inside the tough leather bag had made it act like a balloon, cushioning the cat’s fall and making the bag float on the water. As Harriet looked, she saw it being carried off downstream on a strong current. The water was icy and her skirts were dragging at her legs, but she set out in pursuit.

Jack Perkins saw Lord Charles running onto the bridge and took to his heels and fled.

And then Lord Charles heard a woman shout, ‘A suicide. Pore woman jist jumped in.’

He leaned over in time to see Harriet surface and look about her. He shouted her name but she did not hear.

He threw his hat, coat and cane on the ground and pulled off his boots, and, like Harriet, mounted the balustrade of the bay and dived in.

Harriet reached the bag and grasped hold of it. She tried to swim to the shore, but she was exhausted and the current was too strong. She floated on her back, clutching the bag on her chest, staring at the sky and noticing with a dazed wonder that large snowflakes were beginning to fall.

Then she heard a splashing beside her and struggled to see what it was. It was the face of Lord Charles Marsham.

‘Don’t talk,’ he shouted. ‘Tie the bag round my neck if you can and hang on to my shoulders.’

Wearily and numbly, Harriet did as she was bid.

Fighting against the current, Lord Charles headed slowly to the Chelsea shore. They had been spotted and fishermen left their nets to wade out and help them. The snow was falling more thickly as they struggled up the narrow Chelsea beach. Through the swirling snow and across the meadows, Lord Charles could see the lights of the World’s End public house.

‘Help me get this lady to the pub,’ he said. The fishermen gathered around and produced a handcart. Harriet was put on the cart and the procession started towards the pub. ‘I am frightened to open this bag,’ said Harriet weakly. ‘Poor Tom is probably dead.’

‘More than likely,’ replied Lord Charles grimly. ‘Don’t try to talk, Harriet, until we have you safe.’

Harriet thought she would never forget the joy and relief of being ushered into that warm pub and of being taken upstairs to a bedchamber with a roaring fire. She knelt down beside the fire and laid the leather bag tenderly on the floor. Slowly she drew open the strings. Two furious green eyes stared out at her and then the cat emerged, unhurt, turned its back on her and began to wash its fur.

Lord Charles came in with an armful of clothes and dry towels to find Harriet on her knees, weeping over an indifferent cat.

‘Forget about the cat and dry yourself,’ he said crossly. ‘Here, get into these clothes after you have dried yourself. I shall be back shortly. Come, Tom.’

The cat followed him from the room like a dog.

Harriet stripped off her clothes, washed herself, towelled herself dry, and put on the faded, yellowing underwear and plain old-fashioned woollen dress someone at the inn had supplied. She was sitting at the toilet-table, brushing her hair, when Lord Charles came in. He was wearing old-fashioned knee breeches, thick stockings and heavy shoes, a cotton shirt and a woollen jacket.

‘What a pair of peasants we look,’ he said with a grin. ‘I have ordered a carriage for half an hour’s time. You will soon be home.’

A waiter entered carrying a decanter of brandy and two glasses. ‘Drink up,’ ordered Lord Charles after the waiter had left.

Harriet sipped at a glass of brandy and smiled at him sleepily.

He sat down on the bed and looked at her thoughtfully. ‘How did you come so opportunely to rescue the cat?’ he asked.

‘I was calling at your house and saw Jack Perkins leave. I heard the miaows from the bag and thought he might be taking the cat to you, so I followed him.’

‘And Capability Brown can of course swim like a fish. Why were you coming to see me?’

Harriet hung her head. ‘My reaction to your kiss frightened me,’ she said. ‘But Miss Amy . . .’ Harriet closed her eyes and prayed for courage. ‘Miss Amy told me that I had reacted so . . . strongly . . . because, because I was . . . I am . . . in love with you.’

‘Was there ever such a school for manners!’ said Lord Charles. ‘Come here to me, Harriet.’ She rose and stood shyly beside him.

He pulled her down onto the bed beside him and put an arm about her shoulders. ‘I think, you know,’ he said seriously, ‘that I should kiss you again just to make sure.’

‘Very well,’ said Harriet bravely, shutting her eyes tight and puckering up her lips. He laughed against her mouth. ‘Oh, my brave Methodist,’ he said, and then his lips met hers in a long, drugging kiss. For one brief panic-stricken moment, Harriet thought her reaction this time was even more shocking than the last, but Amy Tribble had told her it was natural and right and Amy was a good woman.

She surrendered herself up to a world of different kisses – passionate, tender, loving, and then more passionate – until she was dizzy with emotion, and thought in a dazed way she would never forget this room, or the smells of brandy and lavender and wood-smoke, or the altered, tender look on his face as he said, ‘You
will
marry me, my Harriet. What would that wretched cat do without you?’

The cat rolled on its back in front of the fire and watched with a curious green gaze as he drew her into his arms again.

*   *   *

Monsieur Duclos wished Yvette would be still for just a moment. The work room was empty, she had sent all the girls away, but as he followed her about, begging and pleading, she picked up pins and put them away, examined materials, and shook out dresses and looked carefully at the seams.

‘Oh, why will you not believe me?’ he cried at last. ‘I thought of nothing but you.’

‘I do not believe you,’ said Yvette flatly.

‘I scrimped and saved so that we might marry.’

‘I have no proof of that.’ Yvette held a swath of silk up to the light and looked at it critically.

He pulled a notebook from his pocket. ‘See,’ he said. ‘See my accounts.’

Yvette slowly put down the silk, took the book and carried it over to a lamp to read it. In the front of the book was written in French, ‘For my marriage to Yvette.’ Then there were the entries: the francs saved when he had walked instead of taking a carriage, the commission he had extracted from the wine merchant and the tailor in order to ensure that his master used their services, and a hundred other items.

‘But,’ said Yvette, looking at him for the first time, ‘why did you not write to me? Why did you leave me that letter which only said goodbye?’

‘In the first place, I did not know my own heart,’ he said humbly, ‘and in the second, I was afraid to write. I felt I had to see you in person. I told my master, and the comte said I must be patient and wait until he was ready to return to England on a visit. I wish us to be married, not only to right a great wrong, but because I love you.’

‘Could it be because you heard I was successful, I was rich?’ demanded Yvette.

‘I did not know it, I swear. My master says he will set us up in a little business in Paris. Think of it, Yvette. France. Home.’

Yvette raised the lamp and studied his face, saw the anguish and pleading there. Then she carefully put down the lamp and said in a neutral voice, ‘Very well. Come, and I will introduce you to our son.’

Tears of relief poured down Monsieur Duclos’s face as he followed her from the work room.

Effy Tribble was enduring a fit of silent rage. Harriet and Lord Charles had returned together to tell of their adventures and to break the news of their engagement. At first, Effy was as delighted as Amy, but then Harriet had said, ‘We will have a double wedding, Miss Amy, for I would be proud to share your great day,’ and Amy had cried and embraced Harriet.

Then there was worse to come. A radiant Yvette arrived on the arm of Monsieur Duclos to announce
their
forthcoming wedding, and what must that fool of an Amy do but suggest they, too, got married on the same day.

Mr Randolph was dancing attendance on her, and Effy could have slapped him.

At last, she could not bear it any longer and said in a thin voice, ‘Mr Randolph, will you follow me? I have something to say to you.’

Mr Randolph rushed to open the door as Effy tripped out. She led him to the morning room, and then turned to face him.

‘What do you wish to say to me, Miss Effy?’ he asked.

‘I think the question should be, Mr Randolph, what have you to say to
me
?’

Mr Randolph scratched his head. ‘I know!’ he said after a moment’s hard thought. ‘So many weddings! You wish me to help with the arrangements.’

Effy sank down gracefully into a chair and closed her eyes. ‘Go away,’ she said faintly.

Mr Randolph did not appear to have heard. He was pacing up and down the room. ‘Of course, it will be a crowded day,’ he said. ‘And so many guests! Thank goodness, I do not have many relatives. If you wish to be married on a different day to Miss Amy, you have only to say so.’

Effy opened her eyes.

‘Do you mean you wish to marry me?’

Mr Randolph stopped his pacing.

‘Yes, my love, heart of my heart.’

Effy thought of all the long years, years full of dreams of a proposal of marriage. It must be done properly or not at all.

‘If you wish to marry me,’ she said coldly, ‘you must propose properly.’

‘You mean . . . ?’ Mr Randolph looked down at her in dawning surprise.

‘Yes,’ said Miss Effy Tribble sternly. ‘Down on your knees, Mr Randolph!’

Marriage is popular because it provides the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.

George Bernard Shaw

For a while London society talked of nothing but the Tribbles. Not only had they secured a matrimonial prize for their provincial charge, but had gained rich husbands for themselves. And then the Duke and Duchess of Berham wrote to say they were being married again, this time in church, and would the Tribbles be guests of honour?

Dizzy with love and success, Amy grew noisy and outrageous. She was even beginning to strain the patience of Mr Haddon when, fortunately for him, disaster fell.

Amy needed to be brought down to earth and it was one little bottle of hair dye that did it.

One evening, she locked herself in her room after announcing that she had a surprise for everyone. When she did not emerge the next day, Effy and Harriet grew anxious and became even more anxious when Amy did not respond to their calls and when they found the door of her bedchamber locked.

The gentlemen were sent for – Mr Haddon, Mr Randolph, and Lord Charles.

Harris produced a hammer from the kitchen and Lord Charles broke the lock, then the worried party crowded inside. The room was in darkness. The curtains were drawn and the shutters still closed. Amy could be dimly seen as a lump under the bedclothes, which were over her head.

Effy ran to the bed and tried to draw back the blankets, only to find her sister was holding them over her head in a ferocious grip.

Glad to find her alive, and becoming angry, Effy demanded, ‘What is this about, sister?’

A deep moan answered her.

Effy’s voice softened. ‘Are you ill?’

‘Go away,’ was the muffled reply.

Mr Haddon eased Effy aside, seized the bedclothes and jerked them back.

The noise Amy made was rather like that of Lord Charles’s cat when it had been stuffed in the leather bag. Mr Randolph opened the curtains and pulled back the shutters. Cruel sunlight flooded the room.

Amy looked a fright. Her face was blotched with tears and she had a hideous Kilmarnock nightcap pulled down over her ears.

She sat up and gave the assembled company a ghastly smile. ‘I had a bad dream,’ she said. ‘Please leave and allow me to dress.’

Effy’s eyes narrowed as she surveyed her sister. She felt she could never forgive Amy for having become engaged first and crowing about it. When they went on calls, Amy never failed to point out that fact.

And then she saw a little tendril of hair escaping from under that nightcap, hair of a peculiar colour.

Bending over Amy as if to arrange the pillows, she seized the cap and pulled it off.

Mr Randolph let out a squawk of laughter and Lord Charles turned away to hide a smile.

For Amy Tribble’s hair was bright orange, like a fiery sunset, like a clown’s wig.

‘Oh, Amy,’ breathed Effy, trying to keep the satisfaction out of her voice. ‘You do look a fright.’