Rainbird's Revenge (5 page)

‘We are arrived,' said Lady Letitia. ‘Remember, now, Jenny. Best manners and best behaviour!'

‘Of course,' said Jenny crossly.

The carriage rolled to a stop. Lady Letitia's groom let down the carriage steps and Jenny alighted after her aunt.

What an odd-looking housekeeper!
was Jenny's first thought when she saw the fantastic figure on the steps. It was that of a tall, thin woman, dressed in rusty black and with a limp muslin cap drooping over her long, horselike features. She had a great bunch of keys hanging from a chain at her waist and her muslin apron was spotted with egg stains.

‘Letitia,' cried this odd creature who, to Jenny's horror, ran down the steps and enfolded Lady Letitia in a warm embrace.

‘Agnes, how well you look!' exclaimed Lady Letitia. ‘Jenny, make your curtsy. This is Mrs Freemantle. Agnes, my niece, Jenny.'

Mrs Freemantle smiled at Jenny, baring a row of strong yellow teeth.

‘Ain't you the prettiest creature that ever was!' boomed Mrs Freemantle in a deep bass voice. ‘Quite like a fairy. Come in out of the heat. Tea! You must have tea.'

Jenny followed her aunt and Mrs Freemantle into the house.

The front parlour with its windows over the street was like a museum. Everything seemed to be in glass cases: stuffed animals, glass flowers, gilt clocks, figurines – all entombed in glittering glass. A vase of dusty peacock's feathers filled the cold fireplace, and lying about on a very fine Persian carpet were chunks of masonry – bases of antique pillars and headless busts. The very finding of a seat was like an obstacle race, thought Jenny, picking her way around and over objects.

How shall I ever meet any
ton
people
, thought Jenny dismally,
with such a patroness?

Lady Letitia was rattling along at a great rate about people Jenny did not know or had never heard about – mainly because she had never listened to anything Lady Letitia had said in the past that did not directly concern herself.

An elderly butler came in, bowed under the weight of a great silver tray holding teapot, hot water, milk, sugar loaves, thin bread and butter, and plum cake.

‘Any gossip, Giles?' asked Mrs Freemantle.

Giles drew himself upright, a slow creaking motion, as if he were jerking loose a series of nuts and bolts. ‘Yes, madam,' he said. ‘Those strange servants from Number Sixty-seven took a boat to the park to sail it, just as if they were children. The Duke of Pelham arrived some moments ago and was in a high rage to find no one to answer the door. He has gone to his agent to get the house keys, saying loudly he meant to horse-whip every servant personally when he found them.'

‘Isn't Giles marvellous?' shouted Mrs Freemantle in her loud voice. ‘Much better than the social columns any day. That will be all, Giles.'

Jenny was shaken. Lady Letitia had picked up the thread of the conversation from where she had left off and made no mention of having met the duke, that odious pompous man. She thought with wonder of that ‘family' she had seen in the park. They were servants! So happy and carefree, and so soon to be whipped by that monster.

‘I would like to go to my room, Mrs Freemantle, and bathe my face,' said Jenny suddenly.

‘Of course, my child,' shouted Mrs Freemantle. ‘Come back and join us when you are freshened.' She rang the bell beside her chair, an enormous brass handbell, and when Giles answered its summons, told the butler to take Miss Jenny upstairs. Jenny began to wonder if Mrs Freemantle had any other servants.

Giles led the way up a dark narrow staircase to the second floor and creaked open a door. Jenny's bedroom was at the back. She took a shocked look around the cluttered, musty room with its great four-poster bed that hardly left room for anything else, thanked Giles faintly, and waited until he had left.

As soon as he had gone, she softly opened the door and began to creep quietly down the stairs. Why Jenny, for the first time in her selfish life, should suddenly concern herself about the welfare of others would have been a mystery to her if she had paused for thought. But she did not.

She gained the hall without meeting any servants. From behind the front parlour door came the enthusiastic roar of her hostess's voice. Quietly, she inched open the front door and let herself out into the sunny street. Casting a nervous glance over her shoulder in case she should see the monstrous Duke of Pelham watching her, Jenny ran swiftly in the direction of the Green Park – a novelty in itself, for Jenny normally moved slowly and gracefully everywhere.

The servants of Number 67 were spread about the grass at the edge of the reservoir eating a cold lunch. Jenny instinctively picked out Rainbird as the senior member, although he was not wearing livery.

‘Hurry!' she cried. ‘Your master, the Duke of Pelham, is returned. He has gone to the agent's to get the house keys and is threatening to horse-whip all of you.'

‘Thank you, miss,' said Rainbird. ‘Quickly, everyone. Move!'

Jenny had an odd longing to stay and help. But the enormity of what she had done burst over her head. She, the about-to-be toast of London, standing in the Green Park with a parcel of servants!

She picked up her skirts and ran as fast as she could back to Mrs Freemantle's, pausing only to catch her breath outside the parlour door, before smoothing down her skirts and making a decorous entrance.

She sat quietly drinking tea, and fighting down a longing to go out on the front steps and see if she could find out what was happening.

‘I tell you, Fergus,' the duke was saying, as once more his carriage turned into Clarges Street, ‘these servants shall be sent packing! I have never heard of such insolence.'

‘Do not be too hasty, my lord,' murmured Fergus. ‘There might have been some emergency.'

‘And what emergency,' said the Duke of Pelham awfully, ‘could overshadow my return?'

Fergus stifled a sigh. He often felt the duke's overriding arrogance kept the kinder, pleasanter people and things of the world at bay.

Number 67 was a typical London town house of the eighteenth century. It was tall, thin, and black. Two iron dogs were chained on the steps in front, normally the only ornament in the whole of its very correct façade – except for this day.

A banner had been hung from the windows of the first floor.
WELCOME HOME
,
YOUR GRACE
, it read. The front door stood open and a trim butler in black-and-gold livery stood on the steps.

‘Looks like they are expecting you after all,' said Fergus.

‘We shall see,' said the duke. ‘Take the carriage down to the mews and then join me.'

He strode up the steps and into the hall. Rainbird darted in front of him and held open the door of the front parlour.

Wine and cakes and biscuits lay on a polished table. There were vases of roses everywhere, their summer smell mixing comfortably with homely smells of beeswax from the furniture and sugar and vinegar from the gallipots in the corners of the room.

Rainbird bowed low and then smiled at his master. Then he snapped his fingers, and one by one the rest of the servants shuffled into the room and stood in front of the duke.

The duke looked from one face to another. The housekeeper, Mrs Middleton, was the first to be presented. She looked frightened to death, her rabbit-like face twitching nervously under the shadow of an enormous starched linen cap. Next came Angus MacGregor, cook, his fiery hair glinting under his skull-cap, and with almost as much arrogance in his eyes as there was in those of the duke. Joseph bowed next, a great court bow with many flourishes of a scented lace handkerchief. Next came the curtsy of a housemaid of languid blonde beauty – Alice. Jenny, the chambermaid, gave a quick little bob of a curtsy. Lizzie, the scullery maid, looked up at the duke with wide soft brown eyes as if pleading for mercy. The pot boy Dave bowed and tugged his forelock, and then looked around as if wishing he could hide his wizened little cockney body under one of the tables.

‘Why were you not here when I first arrived?' asked the duke.

‘We had been working on special preparations for your grace's arrival,' said Rainbird. ‘Mr Palmer informed us you were not to be expected until the day after tomorrow. We were therefore all out shopping for trifles to add to your welcome.' He waved a hand that encompassed flowers and food and wine.

‘In future,' said the duke icily, ‘I expect you to be at my beck and call at all hours of the day or night. No servant is to leave the house without my express permission. Do I make myself clear?'

‘Yes, your grace.'

The duke's icy-blue eye fell on Lizzie's face. The little scullery maid's eyes were swimming with frightened tears.

For the first time in his life, the duke felt churlish.

The banner of welcome had startled him. He had never had a welcome before. Servants were always frightened and correct when he arrived at one of his properties and never went to any special effort beyond that of their duties.

He suddenly smiled. ‘I am most pleased, Rainbird, with your efforts to welcome me. I shall be dining here this evening. I now intend to change and go to my club.'

‘Yes, your grace.'

‘Now, you – Mrs Middleton – show me to my room.'

‘Yes, your grace,' said Mrs Middleton, her lips trembling.

‘My good woman,' said the duke, but in a gentle voice, ‘I shall not eat you. Lead the way.'

Mrs Middleton walked before him up the stairs. ‘I have put your grace in here,' she said, pushing open a door. ‘This is the largest bedroom. The dining room is next door. If your grace has guests, then there are two bedrooms prepared on the floor above.'

The duke walked in and looked about. There were thick fleecy towels hanging by the toilet table, which boasted three different varieties of soap – Irish, Bristol, and Windsor. On a table beside the bed was an exquisite little flower arrangement of white roses and trailing fern. On another table in the centre of the room were spread the latest magazines, literary and sporting.

A faint smell of lavender came from the crisp white sheets turned back on the bed.

‘I' faith,' said the duke, ‘with servants such as yourself, Mrs Middleton, a man need not search for a wife to provide a delicate and feminine touch!'

‘And you must admit,' said Mrs Middleton later in the servants' hall, ‘no servant could ask for a higher compliment.'

‘Thet Palmer!' said Joseph. ‘He did that deliberate, you know, telling us the duke wasn't coming for another couple of days.'

‘Yes,' agreed Rainbird. ‘And a right mess we'd have been in if it hadn't been for that young miss who warned us.'

‘Wonder who she was?' said Lizzie. ‘She was ever so pretty. A real lady.'

‘Garn!' said little Dave. ‘Real ladies wouldn't go to such an effort!'

‘Oh yes, they would,' said Rainbird. ‘It's the would-be ladies who don't bother about servants.'

Come, and trip it, as you go,

On the light fantastic toe.

JOHN MILTON

‘Now, dear Agnes,' said Lady Letitia with all the air of someone winding up a long and most satisfactory gossip, ‘we must nurse the ground for little Jenny so that she may have an entrée to the best houses.'

‘I have already been at work,' shouted Mrs Freemantle. ‘Clarinda Bessamy – you know, one of the Kentish Bessamys – is having a little family affair. She said that should you arrive in time, I must not stand on ceremony but bring you and your niece along. 'Twill be a modest little party, but there will be cards and some dancing for the young people.'

‘Splendid!' said Lady Letitia. ‘And when is this party?'

‘This very evening.'

‘Could not be better. Jenny has some very fine gowns and will not appear provincial. You must go and lie down, Jenny, and rest, before your first London engagement.'