Miser of Mayfair (13 page)

‘Aye, but—’ began Mr Sinclair.

‘Have you dined?’ interrupted Fiona.

‘I was waiting for you.’

‘Alas. I have eaten so many cakes and biscuits and sandwiches, I cannot eat any more.’

‘That Highland cook has been banging the pots and sweating all day, or so Rainbird tells me. For pity’s sake, try to eat something.’

‘Very well,’ said Fiona. ‘I do not like to waste food.’

Dinner proved to be a work of art. The first course consisted of fish with oyster sauce, soup and fowls, roast beef and vegetables; the second of Ragôut à la Française, celery, game, cauliflower, macaroni, pastry, and cream; the dessert of walnuts, apples, raisins, almonds, pears, oranges, and cakes.

A waistcoat button popped from the front of Mr Sinclair’s stomach and shot across the room like a bullet as he slowly digested the last bit of cake.

‘You have done justice to an excellent dinner, Papa,’ said Fiona. ‘I hope my lack of appetite will go unnoticed.’

‘That MacGregor is a genius.’ Mr Sinclair sighed. ‘We had best invite some people and show off his skill.’

‘You will lose your reputation of being a miser. Besides, perhaps I will not marry – and what will we live on when we return to Scotland?’ said Fiona.

‘You will marry all right,’ said Mr Sinclair. ‘Our first social engagement is in a few days’ time. The Bascombes’ rout. Keep silly ideas about Harrington out of your cockloft and we will do very well.’

Mr Sinclair began to prose on, trying to give Fiona the benefit of his wisdom. He had culled as much gossip as he could from the callers about who was important and who was not. ‘Keep clear of that Brummell,’ he cautioned. ‘He can be dangerous if he takes you in dislike.’ His voice went on and on, and it was some time before he realized to his annoyance that Fiona had fallen fast asleep in her chair. He shook her awake and ordered her off to bed.

‘And what will you do?’ yawned Fiona.

‘I’ll take a bit of a walk in the park,’ said Mr Sinclair. ‘I haven’t been out of the house all day.’

Fiona went up to her room and sat by the window until she heard the street door slam and saw the foreshortened figure of Mr Sinclair trudging down the street.

Then she rang the bell.

A loud yawn outside heralded the arrival of Jenny, the chambermaid. Like Fiona, the servants were all suffering from an unaccustomed surfeit of food.

‘Miss?’ queried Jenny, stifling another massive yawn.

‘Fetch Mr Rainbird,’ said Fiona. Her usually gentle voice was almost curt.

Jenny scurried off, wondering what had upset the normally placid Miss Fiona. After a few moments, Rainbird appeared in the doorway.

‘Come in, Mr Rainbird,’ said Fiona, ‘and sit down. Close the door behind you.’

Rainbird did as he was bid and then sat down on a chair beside the empty hearth while Fiona took the one opposite. Both of them wriggled a bit on the hard, lumpy upholstery to get comfortable. The servants of Number 67 Clarges Street had, in the past, tried to augment their small income by removing the stuffing from the beds and furniture upholstery and selling it. Every chair and bed in the house now had an oddly depleted appearance.

Fiona handed Rainbird a pile of notes and coin. He took the money, but protested as he looked at the large amount he held in his hands.

‘You have been more than generous, miss,’ he said. ‘I do not need all this.’

‘You will find the money very useful,’ said Fiona, looking half asleep.

‘Yes, it will help to pay for new curtains,’ said Rainbird with a twinkle in his eye. The servants had managed to detect where the curtains had gone.

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Fiona. ‘And it will also serve to buy back the stuffing for the chairs and beds.’

Rainbird had the grace to blush.

‘Now, Mr Rainbird,’ said Fiona, leaning forward. ‘Before I tell you what I really want you to do for me, I must insist that no more lavish meals be served in this house. You forget that Mr Sinclair is a miser, and I do not wish him upset by signs of overindulgence.’

‘MacGregor will be in sore distress,’ said Rainbird. ‘He was beginning to enjoy using all his skills again.’

‘Then he may practise them in the servants’ hall,’ said Fiona. ‘I do not care what you spend on food so long as none of it appears upstairs. One course of an evening followed by fruit will be enough for Mr Sinclair and myself. Do not pamper the guests with good wine and those delicious cakes. The cheapest you can find will do for them. Why do you stay on here on such miserable wages?’

Rainbird avoided her candid gaze. He could tell her that Palmer had refused to give the girls references, but he did not want to tell her the scandal about Joseph and himself. He felt she would not understand.

‘We have become used to working together,’ he said, after a pause. ‘We are like a family.’

She nodded, but there was something in her manner that made Rainbird feel uncomfortable. It was hard to realize it was only pretty Miss Fiona sitting in front of him. The air crackled about him as if he were trapped in the room with an outsized, dominating personality with a will of iron.

‘You wish me to perform some service for you?’ asked Rainbird to divert her mind from the subject of their wages.

‘Yes,’ said Fiona. ‘I want you to get Lord Harrington for me.’

Rainbird’s normally mobile face became devoid of expression. Thoughts of Salome demanding the head of John the Baptist flitted through his brain. Then he thought he knew the reason for his own feeling of unease. Fiona was mad.

‘And how would you like his lordship?’ said Rainbird, determined to humour her. Trussed, boiled, drawn and quartered? he added to himself.

‘I would like him at the altar as my husband.’

Rainbird said very carefully, ‘You wish to
marry
the Earl of Harrington?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you wish me to
kidnap
him?’ Kidnapping was a word that had originally applied to the stealing of children or apprentices from their parents and masters and shipping them to the colonies. It had just lately come to mean the abduction of someone, usually for ransom.

‘Oh, no!’ Fiona looked shocked. ‘You must make him fall in love with me.’

‘And how am I to do that?’ asked Rainbird gently, as if frightened that a raised voice or any evidence of surprise would cause Miss Fiona to fall down in a fit.

‘By manufacturing incidents to throw us together.’

‘Such as?’

‘I do not know.’ Fiona gave him a blinding smile. ‘But I am sure you will think of something.’ She stood up as a sign that the interview was over.

To Rainbird’s surprise, the other servants took the matter of getting the earl for Miss Fiona very seriously. They heard him out, and then Joseph said, ‘We’ve got to do our best, reelly we have. You’ve ordered my new livery. Black and gold it is. Wait till Luke sees it. What if she takes it away suppose we don’t ’elp her?’

‘Miss Fiona would not do anything so petty as that,’ said Jenny stoutly. ‘Besides, it’s only natural a young lady whose father treats her like dirt should turn to an intelligent man like Mr Rainbird for help.’

‘Did she like her dinner?’ asked the cook, who, of all of them, proved to be the most indifferent to the plans of his young mistress.

‘As to that,’ said Rainbird, ‘Miss Fiona said an odd thing. If I have the right of it, you are to practise your art on us, Angus. She only wants one course served for dinner and the guests are to have the worst of everything. Do you think Mr Sinclair is not a miser at all? Do you think Miss Fiona wishes her father to
appear
to be a miser?’

‘It’s Miss Fiona who sees we have money while Mr Sinclair turned down your request for more wages,’ pointed out Alice. ‘There’s nothing odd about Miss Fiona wanting a bit of help with her love-life. Course, I don’t see as how she’ll need any help what with her face and figure.’

‘But what can we do?’ asked Rainbird. ‘We’re only servants. It’s not as if we can hold a rout and invite him.’

‘Perhaps we could send him a love letter supposed to have come from her,’ sighed Mrs Middleton. ‘‘‘My dearest heart’’ . . . something like that.’

‘Ugh,’ said Dave, turning red about the ears.

‘When Joseph was attacked,’ said Lizzie timidly, ‘that brought Lord Harrington and Miss Fiona together. Why don’t one of us attack her ourselves and let Lord Harrington save her?’

‘You were
told
that washin’ your hair would make the demp go into your brain,’ sneered Joseph.

But Rainbird held up his hand. ‘Save her from peril,’ he mused. ‘It might work, Lizzie. Let me think.’

‘If you are going to listen to the maunderings of a scullery maid, I’m off to The Running Footman,’ said Joseph.

‘Know your place, young man,’ said Mrs Middleton. ‘Don’t ever let me catch you speaking to Mr Rainbird like that, ever again.’

‘Sorry,’ mumbled Joseph, eyeing Rainbird nervously, but the butler was sunk deep in thought.

‘I’m off unless anyone needs me,’ said Joseph, but only Lizzie looked up, Lizzie who had large tears in her pansy-brown eyes.

‘I hope your feelings get hurt, Mr Joseph,’ said Lizzie, ‘same as you’ve hurt mine.’

Joseph muttered something and slammed out. He began to whistle jauntily and defiantly as he went up the area steps. Luke, the neighbour’s footman, was out taking the air.

‘No work to do?’ asked Joseph.

‘Naw,’ said Luke. ‘They’ve all taken themselves off to Almack’s with Lord Brampton and gone in his carridge with
his
footmen, so that’s given me some time off. And about time, too.’

‘Come along o’ me to The Running Footman,’ said Joseph expansively. Money jingled in his pocket. It was amazing how easy it was to love the world when you had money, thought Joseph. Also, Joseph, like many servants of the
ton
, was even more rigid in matters of rank and precedence than any patroness of Almack’s. Luke held the rank of first footman in a noble household. He, Joseph, was the only footman. Therefore by appearing with Luke he could underline that he was a member of the upper hierarchy of servant.

‘You buying?’ asked Luke suspiciously.

‘All you want.’ Joseph grinned.

‘Right ho, then,’ said Luke, linking his arm through Joseph’s. The two tall, powdered footmen sauntered down the street together.

It was a magic evening for Joseph. Although his tongue was loosened with drink and he bragged openly about the generosity of London’s latest beauty, he did not tell of the strange request to help Miss Fiona marry the Earl of Harrington.

That
piece of gossip would go round London like wildfire, and Joseph knew that the astute Rainbird would trace it back to the proper source and use his fists to bring Joseph back to a nice understanding of what happened to indiscreet footmen.

He listened sympathetically as Luke talked about the glories of the Brewers’ lady’s maid at Number 63. A footman hoping to attract the attention of a lady’s maid – even a first footman – was flying high, but Joseph was in favour of his friend turning his attentions upward rather than downward. Joseph himself was saved from many of the pangs of love that tortured other young male servants – for servants were not allowed to marry. It was not that he was indifferent to the sight of a well-turned ankle or a roguish eye, but rather he was too effeminate, self-absorbed, and lazy to waste much time anguishing over the opposite sex. Joseph secretly considered himself on a level with Rainbird. He was unaffected by Jenny and Alice because he considered a housemaid and a chambermaid far beneath him.

After an hour and a half, Luke sighed and said he had to be getting back to prepare the dining room for a late supper. Lurching slightly, Joseph clutched at Luke’s arm on the road back to Clarges Street for he had been drinking gin and hot, and, although the mixture had given him a pleasant feeling of euphoria, it also seemed to have taken the marrow out of his bones.

The heat of the day had gone and the air smelled of that London spring mixture of horse manure, bad drains, blossom, new leaves, patchouli, and wine.

‘That Miss Nancy at the Brewers’,’ hiccupped Joseph, ‘I’m sure she would be glad to walk out with you if only you asked.’

‘Perraps.’ Luke grinned. ‘But don’t clutch me so hard. You’re nigh breakin’ me arm.’

Joseph released him and beamed all around. He loved the world. He loved being a footman. He loved every cobble on the street.

Luke stopped outside Number 67. ‘Best be off,’ he said, ‘or old Blenkinsop will be after me.’ Luke half turned away and then stopped and gazed open-mouthed down the area steps. Alice, the housemaid, had taken off her cap and was dreamily sitting halfway down the steps, combing her long golden curls.

‘Who’s that?’ asked Luke.

‘’S our Alice. You know Alice,’ said Joseph crossly.

‘Don’t recall as I do,’ said Luke. He raised his voice. ‘Evening Miss Alice,’ he called.

Alice put down her brush with her usual slow languorous movements. She looked up, saw Luke, and gave him a warm smile. She rose and came slowly up the stairs. ‘You’re Luke, a’n’t you?’ said Alice.

‘That’s right,’ said Luke eagerly. ‘You do ’ave pretty hair, Miss Alice.’

Alice tossed her head and a golden tress flapped across Luke’s face. Luke took the tress, wound it around one finger, and smiled down into Alice’s eyes.

Joseph stood appalled. He felt he had never seen such an outrageous sight. Had not Luke mourned with him only the year before over the sad case of Lord Chumley’s first footman who had made a cake of himself over falling in love with a housemaid? God put us in our appointed stations and anyone who tried to change the rigid hierarchy abovestairs or belowstairs was doomed to hell. Joseph was deeply shocked. He slumped off downstairs, the bland glow of gin evaporating to be replaced by a mean resentment against the whole world. As he entered the servant’s hall, the first person he saw was Lizzie.

‘Well, madam,’ he said, lurching forward, ‘you wished me ill and that’s what happened, you little slut.’

Rainbird and MacGregor moved as one man.

Outside, Luke listened bemused to Alice’s slow voice and neither of them paid any attention to the howls of agony that soared up from below as Joseph had his head held under the scullery pump by the cook and the butler.