Rainbird's Revenge (16 page)

‘Wait till Rainbird hears about this!' said Joseph aloud, and then glared awfully at a lady who was giggling at him.

A little memory of the old Lizzie who used to look up at him with just such an expression on her face tugged at his heart, and his eyes filled with tears. But he brushed them angrily away, and by the time he had reached The Running Footman, the relief at having a way out of his predicament had banished all sentimentality. He would blame Lizzie's faithlessness for his decision not to join them in the pub venture. That should make the flighty scullery maid suffer every bit as much as she deserved.

‘It's just not fair!' said chambermaid Jenny, sitting down on a park bench and bursting into tears. Angus and Mrs Middleton, who had been walking along in a world of their own, swung about in surprise.

‘Whatever do you mean, dear?' asked Mrs Middleton. The housekeeper sat down on one side of Jenny and the cook on the other.

‘I saw her, that other Jenny, that Miss Sutherland, going out for the evening,' sobbed the chambermaid, ‘and it seems wrong that someone with my name should have all the parties and pretty dresses and yet I have nothing to look forward to but a life of servitude. And I'll be alone, mark my words! Alice don't see anything but that Fergus.'

She scrubbed her eyes with the back of her hand and glared defiantly at the setting sun.

‘But ye're going to be an independent lady. We'll all be free in a few weeks' time,' said the cook. ‘Anyway, God puts us in our appointed stations and it's no use wanting to be a débutante.'

‘I'll be scrubbing floors and gettin' my hands redder and redder and waiting table. Nothing'll change,' said the chambermaid fiercely.

‘But ye'll be workin' for yerself,' said the cook.

‘I'm tired of working,' said Jenny with a catch in her voice. ‘I want to get married.'

Mrs Middleton thought long afterwards that her new status of engaged lady must have activated her brain wonderfully, for in the past she had always turned to Rainbird in time of trouble.

She put a comforting arm about Jenny's shoulders. ‘I am going to tell you a great secret,' she said. ‘Angus and I are to be married.'

‘I'm happy for you,' said Jenny, gallantly trying to look cheerful.

‘I've just had an idea,' said the housekeeper, slowly feeling her way. ‘If Mr MacGregor has no objection, we will adopt you.'

‘Here!' cried Angus.

‘Yes, adopt you,' said Mrs Middleton firmly. ‘As our daughter, you would be looked after by us, and we would find suitable young men for you, and you would have the status of the young lady of the house. Your parents are dead, are they not?'

‘I s'pose so,' said Jenny. ‘Never knew who they was anyways. But to adopt me!'

‘You may have a fine idea there, Mrs Middleton,' said the cook, recovering from his initial surprise. ‘Aye, I can see mysel' in the part o' the heavy father.' He straightened up and glared awfully. ‘So ye want tae take ma daughter out walking, Mr Blank? Well, what are your prospects?'

‘But what of Alice and Lizzie?' asked Jenny.

‘Well, Lizzie has Joseph, and now it looks as if Alice has Fergus. Now you have us,' said Mrs Middleton. ‘Think, Jenny, it could be fun. Mr Rainbird says there is not much work to do to put the place in order. Angus is such a superb cook, we shall soon prosper. As our daughter – the daughter of a thriving establishment – you will become much sought after.'

Jenny looked at the housekeeper in a dazed way. ‘And wear pretty gowns?'

‘The prettiest we can afford. No more servants' dress. As the daughter of the house, you do not even need to wear an apron.'

‘Do you really mean it?' asked Jenny, pressing her work-worn hands tightly together.

‘Yes,' said Mrs Middleton. ‘So don't go envying the Miss Jenny Sutherlands of this world. That one will end up like most of the débutantes at the Season – having to take some man her aunt chooses for her. Whereas you will be able to choose whom you please.'

‘I've never had a mother and father,' said Jenny. ‘Not to know, that is.'

‘Weel, you have now,' said the cook with a grin. ‘You're a wicked woman, Mrs Middleton. You've made me a father before I even get ye tae the altar. Come along. This calls for a celebration.'

*   *   *

The Duke of Pelham's initial pleasure in finding himself quite at ease in Lady Bellisle's company had begun to wane as the undistinguished play dragged on. At first, he had been relieved that she had seemed to have put his proposal of marriage completely out of her mind. Now he was bored. But his companion did not seem in the least fatigued or exhausted by the long and boring play or by the dreadful heat of the theatre, which was augmented by hundreds and hundreds of candles blazing in a great chandelier overhead.

The play, which was to him pedestrian and cliché'd, appeared to delight her. He began to wonder if the evening would ever end. But at long last, there were the actors taking their bows. The duke clapped dutifully and then half rose to his feet.

‘Your grace!' said Lady Bellisle. ‘You have forgot. It is the harlequinade with this new harlequin, Rainbird.'

He sat back in his chair with a sigh. ‘I have a butler of that name,' he said. He looked at his watch. A harlequinade usually lasted an hour. The effects of his bath had long worn off and he felt gritty, uncomfortable, and hot. It was all very well for the ladies, dressed as they were in near-transparent muslin, but for a man in a starched cravat, waistcoat, tightly tailored coat, and knee breeches, it was hell.

The theatre had been only three-quarters full, but now it was filling up. Everyone wanted to see the new harlequin.

The curtain rose and the audience sat in puzzled silence. It was not like the beginning of any harlequinade they had ever seen. A group of actors dressed as aristocrats sat in a half-circle in a drawing room in front of the fireplace.

The door at the side of the ‘drawing room' opened and Rainbird walked onto the stage. He was dressed as a hussar officer, complete with powdered hair, scarlet uniform, and a sword that reached to his heels, and he was carrying a large muff.

He then proceeded to try to perform that society trick known as ‘breaking the circle'. In an age of horrendously strict etiquette, where gentlemen would pay an instructor for an hour's lesson on How to Take Off Your Hat and Replace It, breaking the circle was considered the most difficult etiquette of all, and gentlemen of fashion paid a great deal of money to learn the art. First you had to penetrate this circle and make a slight inclination as you walked round it. Then you had to make your way to your hostess, and retire with dignity, while coping with hat, sword, and large muff.

So pompous was Rainbird's expression, so magnificent his fake sideburns, so gabbling and strangulated his voice, that the duke did not recognize his butler. As the hussar, Rainbird tried to break into the circle, but as soon as he approached, the actors would move their chairs close together so that there was no way through. His antics with his huge muff and his sword, which kept tangling itself up between his legs, delighted the audience. The sheer silliness of it all became funnier and funnier. The duke laughed harder and longer than he had ever done in his life. It was not really what Rainbird did, but his whole personality that was so funny, and when he suddenly cleared the heads of the actors in a flying leap and landed at his hostess's feet in a heap, the house roared and cheered.

Then the curtains were closed and the Columbine appeared to sing about Sally in the alley in a cracked falsetto.

Rainbird had whipped out of his hussar costume and had just picked up his juggling equipment when little Dave seized his arm.

‘'E's 'ere,' he whispered.

‘Who?'

‘The duke.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘In that side box up there wiff a lady.'

‘Oh, Lor'. What am I to do?' said Rainbird wretchedly. ‘He'll dismiss me.'

‘Don't matter,' said Dave urgently. ‘We always got the pub.'

‘Yes,' said Rainbird slowly. ‘But I'll never know about Palmer now.'

‘You told me you heard him tell the duke we had low wages. You told me to forgit about it.'

‘But I've been thinking,' said Rainbird. ‘Suppose – just suppose – he was cheating. Suppose the wages were even lower than the ones he told the duke about. The duke seems a fair man. I'll swear if he really knew what we were getting, he would have been so surprised he would have sent for me right away.'

‘What's the matter?' Mr Frank appeared, sweating. ‘Jeremy's finished and they'll bring the house down about my ears if you don't hurry up.'

‘Give me two ledgers out of the office, Mr Frank,' said Rainbird urgently, ‘and stop – let me see – Mr Isaacs from changing out of his costume. He has one line, tell him. When I look at him so, he's to say, “Let me see the books, Palmer.” Get Jeremy to sing another song.'

The miserable Columbine was shoved out again to the jeers and catcalls of the audience. In despair, he began to sing ‘The Roast Beef of Old England' in his normal voice, which was quite deep. This started the audience laughing and kept them in a good humour.

Someone called to him from the wings, and with a graceful curtsy, Jeremy thankfully made his exit.

The audience cheered as Rainbird came on again. The duke sat forward in his chair and cried, ‘It is my butler. Wait here, Lady Bellisle. I am going to get that fellow.'

‘He knows you are here,' hissed Lady Bellisle. ‘He looked right at you. Wait! You can shout at him afterwards all you want, but you are not going to spoil the performance of the best comedian I have seen.'

The duke sank back in his chair and glared at Rainbird. If only he had listened to Palmer's warnings about these servants being Radical. ‘Radical' was not the word for it. They were mad!

Rainbird was dressed in sober livery. He was carrying a large ledger under each arm.

Mr Isaacs minced in. ‘Where are the books, Palmer?'

‘I'll kill him,' muttered the duke.

‘Shhh!' said Lady Bellisle.

‘Oh, most noble Duke of Pelham, I have them here,' said Rainbird, holding out one ledger and putting the other behind his back.

‘He must not find out there is one set of books for me and one for his grace,' said Rainbird in an aside to the audience.

The audience began to fidget. This was not very funny.

But then the stage duke demanded the books again, and Rainbird began to juggle them along with the inkwell, a ruler, and a sand-pot. Mr Isaacs had spent a life improvising. He began to try to catch Rainbird while Rainbird ran hither and thither, still juggling all the objects while the audience began to stamp and cheer.

The brief sketch was quickly over. Rainbird bowed to the audience, and then turned and deliberately bowed to the side box where the duke was sitting.

Then he turned back to the audience and began to regale them with a hilarious description of the news of the day, most of it highly libellous.

The Duke of Pelham sat stunned while his versatile butler pursued Columbine, fought a duel with Pantaloon, juggled and conjured, capered and danced.

‘Oh, bravo!' screamed Lady Bellisle at the end. ‘Bravo!' roared the audience.

‘You must introduce me to that wonderful butler,' said Lady Bellisle. ‘What a man!'

‘My lady, it is late. I shall deal with the mountebank when he gets home. I shall escort you first.'

‘Don't be so stuffy, Pelham,' said Lady Bellisle. ‘The man's a genius. Confess. He even made you laugh when he was playing that hussar officer. But it was wicked of him to use your name on the stage. And have you a Palmer who keeps the books?'

‘Yes. And the sooner I see him the better!'

The duke drove Lady Bellisle to her home but refused her offer of tea. ‘Do not be too harsh to that butler,' she chided. ‘He is not a bonded servant, you know. After tonight, I doubt very much if he will ever work as a servant again.'

‘I am no longer worried about Rainbird,' said the duke. ‘He was trying to tell me that Palmer was fiddling the books. But why he must needs perform it on the stage instead of seeing me in my own parlour any time he cares is beyond me.'

After Lady Bellisle had gone in, he set out for Clarges Street, but before he got home, he changed his mind. He drove his carriage down to Lambeth Mews and told one of the grooms to rub down the horses and put the carriage away. Then, tucking a pistol in his pocket, he began to walk through the hot, dark night-time streets in the direction of Holborn. From far away to the west came the low menacing rumble of thunder.

Jenny had been relieved to find Mary Maddox present at the turtle dinner. She did not have much opportunity to talk to her for a long time, as the dinner lasted for five hours. But she was seated next to Mr Toby Parry and did her best to entertain him. She encouraged him to talk about Mary Maddox and was quite pleased at the end of the dinner to find she had not thought of her own appearance except on two occasions.

She retired to the drawing room with the ladies, and, leaving her aunt to receive felicitations on her engagement, she went to sit with Mary Maddox. To her surprise, Mary was looking downcast, and answered all Jenny's questions in monosyllables.

Jenny was about to give up and walk away and find more pleasant company when she decided that the new Jenny would surely stay put and try to find out what was ailing Mary Maddox.

‘I think,' she said firmly, ‘that if we are to be friends, there should be frankness between us. I must, therefore, ask you, Mary, why you are so sad and why you so obviously wish me in Jericho.'

Then Jenny waited bravely for the reply. What if this newfound friend should say something awful, like ‘It is because you are so vain.'

Mary gave a little sigh. ‘It is hard not to be beautiful,' she said in a low voice. ‘Everyone loves you when you are beautiful. I wish I looked like you.'