Marrying Harriet (7 page)

As soon as he walked in, Jack said accusingly, ‘And where have you been? I have been waiting for you this age.

‘You’re worse than a wife, Jack,’ said Lord Charles. ‘Sit down, man. It is about time we talked about that famous rescue of yours – you know, when you carried me from the battlefield.’

‘I can’t wait here any longer,’ blustered Jack, making for the door. ‘I have things to do.’

‘A moment, my friend. You let me believe you had saved my life when in fact the hero was poor little Corporal Flanagan. His captain is in Town and I am sure he will confirm the facts – that is, if you think they need any confirmation.’

‘I never said I’d rescued you,’ howled Jack.

‘You most certainly let me think so. It would be a good idea if we did not see each other for some time.’

‘I am your friend. Your best friend. What has come between us?’

‘One monstrous lie.’

‘You are only using that as an excuse. It’s this female. Who is she?’

‘There is no female. Go away, Jack, and stop enacting scenes like a jilted lover. It is distasteful.’

Jack Perkins burst into tears, which did not move Lord Charles in the least, because it was highly fashionable for men to cry. Lord Charles rang the bell and said to his butler, ‘Show Mr Perkins out.’

Jack went out into a world that had become friendless. He refused to admit to himself that he had lied to Lord Charles, to admit that Lord Charles would not have tolerated his company for so long had he not believed in that rescue. It was all the fault of some simpering female who had got her claws into Lord Charles. Well, he would follow him and find out her name and then he would make her sorry!

That same evening saw Harriet’s first introduction to cards. At first she was horrified when Amy suggested she learn to play. Gambling was sinful and had been the ruin of as many families as drink, said Harriet sternly. But Amy pointed out that the present company all enjoyed a game of cards and none of them was a hardened gambler. It was a social art that would be expected of her. Harriet at last agreed reluctantly to learn. She proved an apt pupil. Effy said she would retire from the game and let Harriet take her place and gave her a shilling as a stake. They played faro and silver loo and Harriet won every time. ‘Beginner’s luck,’ said Amy sourly, for she hated to lose. ‘You have won sixteen shillings.’

‘I cannot keep it,’ said Harriet. ‘I was not playing with my money.’

Mr Haddon smiled. ‘Deduct the shilling Miss Effy gave you and give it back to her and keep the rest. You will need some card money for social evenings, you know.’

Harriet retired to her room, clutching fifteen whole shillings and feeling decidedly sinful. She spread out the shillings on her toilet-table and looked at them.

It would be wonderful, she thought suddenly, to do something really frivolous and silly with some of the money. She had never spent a penny on anything that was not really necessary. What should she do? Go to Gunter’s and have an ice? Pay a shilling to the warden in the Park to feed the deer? At last she decided to leave the house early, hire a hack, and go to Exeter Change in the Strand and buy that shilling fan. She would leave the house at ten. No one would be stirring, not even the servants, who kept late hours like their employers, and she did not have any lessons scheduled for the following morning.

At ten the next morning, feeling very brave and adventurous, Harriet walked to Oxford Street, stopped a hackney carriage and asked to be taken to the Strand. She had been told that ladies did not travel in hacks and now she knew why. It was dark and smelly and the floor of the carriage was covered with damp and dusty straw.

She paid off the carriage outside Exeter Change and plunged into the colourful bustle and noise. There were stalls with toys, and stalls with scarves and cheap jewellery, and stalls with all sorts of novelties. She threaded her way through the crowd to the stall that sold fans. The one with the Italian picture was still there.

She had just picked it up and was holding out a shilling to the vendor when a drawling voice at her ear said, ‘Allow me, Miss Brown. I came here at this ungodly hour with the express purpose of buying that fan for you.’

Harriet swung round, startled, and looked up into the green eyes of Lord Charles Marsham, too amazed to protest. He paid for the fan, took it from her hand and asked the vendor to wrap it up. ‘For you cannot want to use it now unless you need to fan the fog away.’

Harriet looked over his shoulder and saw that a thin grey fog was settling down over the Strand.

‘I thought you had no money at all,’ he teased as he led her from the shop.

‘I won a certain amount at cards yesterday evening,’ said Harriet. ‘I felt it was wicked to be gambling, but the Misses Tribble and Mr Haddon and Mr Randolph assured me it was quite the thing provided one did not become addicted to it. I wanted to buy something . . . well, useless . . . for once in my life.’

‘Did you never buy anything frippery before, Miss Brown?’

‘No, never.’

‘Which grim part of the kingdom do you hail from?’

‘Scarborough.’

‘But Scarborough is full of pleasures.’

‘My late father, my lord, was a Methodist preacher and a good man. I helped him with the work of the parish. We had very little money, and such as we had went on clothes and food and improving books.’

‘Allow me to drive you somewhere. Is your day of frivolous spending over?’

‘Oh, yes, thank you. I won sixteen whole shillings, but I gave one shilling back to Miss Effy, for she had lent that to me as a stake. I was torn between an ice at Gunter’s and that fan. I am glad I chose the fan, although you bought it for me. Are you sure I should accept?’

‘Of course. Should I send you diamonds, then you may refuse.’ He looked at her with a sudden stab of compassion. She certainly did not seem to have had much fun in her life. All elated over a mere win of sixteen shillings, and yet he himself had often seen men winning or losing two or three thousand pounds a night at White’s without a flicker of emotion. He had seen a young lord lose his house and estates in one sitting. The young aristocrat had cheerfully passed over his marker (his lawyer the next day had put his inheritance up for sale and had been given instructions to pass on the proceeds to the winner), then he had joined his friends again at White’s, although he did not play. He had drunk steadily but calmly. And then he had walked outside, taken a pistol out of his pocket, and had blown his brains out on the steps. The Miss Harriet Browns of this world had more sense, boring people though they might be, he thought. But he reminded himself that Miss Brown needed to be taught a lesson, and that lesson was to make her fall in love with one Lord Charles Marsham.

‘I shall take you for an ice at Gunter’s,’ he said.

‘I have not yet had breakfast,’ exclaimed Harriet. ‘And besides, Gunter’s will not be open yet.’

‘You shall have a delicious ice for breakfast, and Gunter himself may take down the shutters for us if he is still closed.’

The fog was closing in, throwing a sooty veil over the town. Link boys flickered through the fog like fireflies. London had become a secretive place, a changed place where it was surely quite in order for Miss Brown to eat an ice for breakfast.

And so, still with that excited feeling of adventure, Harriet climbed into Lord Charles’s carriage. This time he had his tiger perched on the back, not a boy, but a wizened little man who looked like the ex-jockey he in fact was. The cat was lying stretched out on the driving-seat, protesting lazily at being moved.

‘Tom is getting rather fat,’ said Harriet, lifting the large cat onto her lap.

‘He is a gourmand and likes his delicacies,’ said Lord Charles. ‘I went to a friend’s house last night and Tom ate his share of buttered toast and drank a dish of China tea; and on his return home, he insisted on thin slices of Westphalia ham.’

‘That is decadence indeed. A few fish-heads would be better for him.’

‘I have no doubt,’ said Lord Charles absently, ‘but he does yowl so much at the sight of cat’s meat of any kind. He is a parvenu and shuns simple food, as all parvenues do. You have a blob of soot on the end of your nose.’

Harriet drew out a handkerchief and then a small bottle of rose-water from her reticule. She moistened the handkerchief and scrubbed her face clean. Lord Charles eyed her bulging reticule with amusement.

‘What on earth do you carry in there, Miss Brown?’

‘Everything I think I might need.’

‘Such as?’

‘How curious you are! My Bible, my notebook and pencil, handkerchief, rose-water, smelling-salts, rhubarb-pills, needle, thread and scissors, bandages . . .’

‘Bandages! We are not in the middle of a war.’

‘Oh, bandages might come in useful one day. Salve for cuts and burns, a comb . . . let me see . . . a hairbrush, pins, hairpins, pomatum, tinder-box . . .’

‘Stop! I have heard enough. And here we are just approaching Berkeley Square before it vanishes into the fog. Gunter himself is there. We are in luck.’

Soon Harriet was relishing her first ice, which was such a delicious experience, she felt there must be something sinful in the eating of ices.

‘Is it not very scandalous of me to be here alone with you?’ she asked.

‘Not in the slightest.’

‘You are sure?’

‘If I planned to ruin your reputation, Miss Brown, I should go about it in a more imaginative way.’

‘You sound very rakish,’ said Harriet sternly. ‘In fact, I fear you
are
very rakish. Perhaps you are not a suitable gentleman to put ideas of marriage into anyone’s head.’

‘Ideas of marriage are already in my head,’ he said, smiling into her eyes.

Harriet met his gaze, clear-eyed. ‘I think we should put our cards on the table, my lord, for I do not like deception. I was prepared to go along with your little game to see if you could be of help to the Tribbles, but I cannot let you continue to behave like this.’

‘Miss Brown! What can you mean?’

‘You find me prudish and judgmental and so you decided it might enliven the tedium of your life if you could make me fall in love with you. In that way, you would enjoy a little gentle sport at my expense and teach me the lesson you think I deserve at the same time.’

He looked at her in surprise and then his heavy lids drooped to conceal his expression.

‘You underrate your charms, Miss Brown.’

‘Not I. I do not have any fashionable charms.’ Harriet let out an infectious gurgle of laughter. ‘Poor Tribbles. My dancing is appalling. But I will strike a bargain with you. You help me with the Tribbles and I will help you find a pretty little wife.’

He felt he ought to be angry, but instead he felt a sort of bubbling amusement growing inside him, mixed with admiration for her shrewdness. He held out his hand. ‘I agree. Let us shake on it. I can hardly wait to see the sort of female you think suitable for me.’

Harriet solemnly took his proffered hand and shook it.

His hand was dry and warm and firm. She looked at his thin, handsome face and felt a little pang of disappointment. What a pity he was not a more worthy character.

Harriet did not like to lie. But she could hardly tell the Tribble sisters that she had allowed Lord Charles to entertain her at Gunter’s with a view to seeing the sisters safely married, and so she said mildly that she had spent some of her winnings on taking a hack to the Strand to look at the shops.

She then applied herself to her various lessons with indefatigable zeal until poor Harris, the butler, claimed he was being danced off his feet, but at least Harriet had become used to dancing easily with a man. She then surprised the Tribbles by suggesting they should take her out on calls where she might meet a few other young ladies. ‘So important to have friends, I think,’ said Harriet, failing to explain she was wife-hunting for Lord Charles. She could only hope he was performing his part of the bargain and seeking out Mr Haddon and Mr Randolph.

Lord Charles ran both the nabobs to earth in Child’s coffee house in St James’s.

He asked permission to join them and then expressed his admiration for the Tribble sisters. ‘Very game, don’t you think,’ said Lord Charles, ‘to up and find a means of earning a living? How are they getting on with Miss Brown, and what is her problem apart of being short of the ready?’

Mr Haddon smiled. ‘Miss Brown, alas, is such a sterling character that she lacks the necessary frivolity and shallowness considered essential in any young female looking for a husband.’

‘Perhaps not all men would wish a silly widgeon,’ said Lord Charles. ‘You gentlemen, for example, would expect more in the character of any female you chose to wed.’

‘Unfortunately, we are both hardened bachelors,’ said Mr Randolph with a complacent smile.

‘Odso!’ drawled Lord Charles. ‘But perhaps that is fortunate.’

‘How so?’ asked Mr Haddon.

‘There are various widowers in London society who have confided to me their admiration of Miss Amy and Miss Effy. Of course, Miss Effy is vastly pretty for her age, but Miss Amy has all the humour and strength of character many a man would admire. Strange as it may seem, it would not surprise me if the ladies had a great success before another year is out and that success will be their own marriages.’

Mr Randolph laughed. ‘Why, my lord, the Tribbles are as dedicated to spinsterhood as we are to bachelordom.’

Lord Charles studied his well-manicured nails. ‘Now, gentlemen,’ he chided, ‘what female of any age is ever dedicated to spinsterhood? Which reminds me. I must call on another of their beaux, although I don’t know which one of ’em he fancies, Miss Amy or Miss Effy.’

‘And who is this gentleman?’ asked Mr Haddon crossly.

‘None other than my uncle, Mr Lawrence,’ said Lord Charles smoothly. ‘You will no doubt be meeting him.’

Lord Charles took his leave and went straight to his uncle’s lodgings. Mr Lawrence, his mother’s brother, had but lately come to Town. He was a well-preserved gentleman of fifty-eight years old, a widower, and addicted to gambling.

He was sitting in his dressing gown, reading the morning papers and drinking coffee when Lord Charles arrived. Although it was three in the afternoon, he had just risen from bed. He was a pleasant-looking man with the smooth, well-kept appearance of the hedonist who lets nothing trouble him. He had a thick head of white hair, pale-blue eyes and a small, thin mouth.