The Adventuress: HFTS5 (19 page)

The earl walked forward and sat down at the servants’ table, drew out a chair beside him, and motioned Emily to join him.

“Tell me, Rainbird,” said the earl, “did you not think to ask
me
for help?”

“No, my lord,” said the butler. “I could hardly do that. It was my lady’s place to tell you if she wished. Besides, your lordship’s dislike of servants is well known.”

“You are all rapidly changing my views. Your loyalty to my wife is commendable. I see now why she is become so attached to you all. You may all enter my staff, if you wish. I am a good employer and your wages will be of the best.”

He looked curiously at their startled faces. What an odd lot they were, thought the earl, so different and yet so like a family. They seemed almost able to communicate with each other without opening their mouths.

“Thank you, my lord,” said Rainbird, after looking around at the other servants. “But you forget. We are like to become independent by next year. We are going to buy a pub.”

“Ah, that pub. Would you not all be tempted to continue in service? Perhaps your business might fail.”

“We must take that chance,” said Rainbird. “The girls must be free to marry, and we would all like to be our own masters.”

“Then we shall patronise your pub when you are settled. Now, Rainbird, I gather you forged my wife’s birth certificate. I will not feel at ease until we have formally been married again, although I am sure we have done nothing against the law as far as the actual marriage service is concerned. You are all invited, of course.”

To his surprise, none of the servants looked in the least gratified. “It is a lot of work, Fleetwood,” said Emily quietly, “not only to attend the wedding but once more to have to prepare the wedding breakfast. And we will have many more guests the next time, I should imagine.”

“We will hire Gunter,” said the earl expansively, meaning the caterers in Berkeley Square, “and my own servants will do the work. And you may order new liveries.”

“Cen I have red plush with gold lacing?” asked Joseph eagerly.

“Anything you want,” said the earl.

“And me, milor’,” said Dave, his wizened little cockney face bobbing up at the earl’s elbow. “Kin I be a page and carry my lady’s train? Blue velvet would be orful nice.”

“You’ll look like an organ grinder’s monkey,” said the cook.

Dave’s face fell, and Emily said quickly, “I should like you to carry my train and I think you would look handsome in blue.”

Then Emily saw Lizzie looking at her hopefully, and added, “And new dresses for the girls, and Mrs. Middleton will need something very fine if she is to be maid of honour again.”

The earl was about to protest, to say that the days when his wife needed a mere housekeeper as a lady-in-waiting had gone, but the sheer joy and gratification on Mrs. Middleton’s face made him stay silent.

Rainbird had gone out to his pantry, and he came in bearing two bottles of wine and glasses.

“We would be honoured, my lord,” he said, “if you and my lady would join us in a glass of wine.”

“We would love to,” said Emily, answering for her husband, who frowned a little, for he was anxious to have his bride all to himself.

“Play us a tune, Joseph,” said Rainbird.

Joseph got his mandolin. “Perhaps it would not be suitable to have music,” said Emily. “My lord has just received news of his brother’s death.”

“You may play, Joseph,” said the earl, deciding to humour his wife’s desire for the company of these rented servants.

They all sat down round the table as Joseph began to play.

Rainbird stood up and made a short witty speech and then proposed a toast to the happy couple. Then Angus sang a mournful Scottish ballad, and Joseph followed that with a popular song. Rainbird did one of his juggling acts and the servants cheered.

The Earl of Fleetwood leaned back in his chair, all at once happy and relaxed.

Blenkinsop, the Charterises’ butler, was making his way home to Number 65 next door after a convivial hour at The Running Footman. He heard the sounds of merriment from Number 67 and leaned over the area railing so as to get a look through the high barred window of the servants’ hall.

“Well, I never!” he exclaimed as he saw Lord and Lady Fleetwood happily drinking with their servants. “Lords and ladies ought to know their places. Now Lord Charteris has never even set foot in
our
servants’ hall.” And shaking his powdered head with disapproval, he went in next door and down to his dark, gloomy servants’ hall and tried to persuade himself he was lucky not to be a rented butler like poor Rainbird.

Three hours later—for after the servants’ party he had gone to Park Lane to tell Mr. Goodenough his worries were over—the Earl of Fleetwood drew his wife into his arms and began to kiss her unresponsive lips.

“What is the matter, Emily?” he asked, propping himself up on one elbow and looking down at her as she lay in the bed beside him.

“Nothing, Fleetwood,” said Emily miserably.

“I would like you to call me Peter, at least when we are in bed.”

“Nothing, Peter. I am tired, that is all.”

“Then perhaps you would rather sleep?”

“Yes, Peter,” said Emily in a small voice.

He turned his back on her and blew out the candle.

Behind his back came the sound of a small, strangled sob.

He lit the candle again from the rushlight and turned and looked at his wife.

“What on earth is the matter?” he said testily, for frustration was making him furious.

“I w-want to b-behave like a l-lady, but I
can’t!”
wailed Emily.

“What on earth are you talking about, my widgeon?”

“Ladies are
never
passionate,” said Emily, covering her face with her hands.

“And where did you come by such a stupid idea?”

“I got it from your book and … and Mrs. Middleton.”

“My, dearest love, I should think Mrs. Middleton is really a miss and a virgin as well. As far as my book is concerned, that was written by a bitter man with a very narrow view of life. You have made me grow up, Emily. Ladies
are
passionate, real ladies, ladies such as yourself of warmth and generosity.”

Emily took her hands down from her face.

“So I will not give you a disgust of me, Fleetwood—I mean, Peter—if I respond to you?”

“You will give me a disgust of you if you do not!”

Emily buried her face on his chest. “I was becoming jealous of Clarissa, too,” she mumbled.

“Why?”

“Well, you said she was witty and beautiful and fascinating and—”

“And as cold as charity. All she craved was attention and the power it gave her. I was very green when I married her. Oh, Emily, kiss me. You and only you can take me to heaven and back….”

“I heard my lady scream!” cried Mrs. Middleton, starting to her feet.

“What is wrong?” cried Lizzie.

But the men laughed and Alice and Jenny blushed and even little Dave turned as red as fire and buried his nose in his glass.

“Terrible the way you can hear everything in this house,” said Rainbird, drooping one eyelid in a wink. “Play us something, Joseph, and let’s serenade the happy couple.” Lizzie and Mrs. Middleton sat down together, united in their bewilderment. “There are some things I do not understand about men and women,” whispered Mrs. Middleton, taking Lizzie’s little work-roughened hand in her own.

“Me neither,” said Lizzie. “But none of the others seems to be worrying, so we may as well enjoy the party.”

Surely bad luck had finally left Number 67, thought Lizzie.

She and the other servants were seated at the end of the long table that had been hired for the day to fit down the length of the front and back parlours to seat the wedding guests.

True to his promise, the earl had summoned his own servants to wait on his guests and the staff of Number 67. Lizzie thought they all looked as grand as the guests. Joseph was resplendent in the finest livery he had ever owned and his voice had become so refined, he was practically unintelligible. Dave kept looking down at the blue velvet of his new suit of clothes and stroking his sleeve with one little hand when he thought no one was looking. Mrs. Middleton was very stately in white-and-scarlet merino and with three feathers in her hair. Jenny and Alice were wearing India Muslin gowns, Jenny in pale pink and Alice in celestial blue. Rainbird looked dapper in a claret-coloured coat and green-and-gold-striped waistcoat, and Angus MacGregor had risen to the sartorial heights of intricately starched and tied cravat and a coat of corbeau Bath superfine.

Lizzie glanced down complacently at her own gown. What scullery maid had ever been allowed to wear India muslin before? It was of a leaf-green colour with little white dots, and each dot was embroidered onto the material, not stamped, a luxury that had sent Lizzie quite faint with delight when she had first seen it.

The house had not really been unlucky, thought Lizzie, not for the servants. Everything always came out well for them.

She glanced at Joseph and then looked away. Joseph was getting a bit above himself, the honour of being served at the same table as the quality having gone to his head. The week before the wedding, Joseph had taken Lizzie out walking. As usual, he had talked a lot about himself, but he also talked about how they would get married as soon as they had their freedom. This declaration of intent would once have sent Lizzie into the seventh heaven, but instead it had now left her feeling strangely anxious and depressed. She could not forget Mr. Gendreau, the French valet who had walked her home from the church. And yet what did she know of him other than a pleasant face, not very clearly seen in the weak light of the parish lamps? He had not talked much himself, but he had listened very sympathetically, and Lizzie was not used to anyone listening to her for any length of time—certainly not Joseph.

Lizzie had not had any free time to go back to St. Patrick’s. She looked at her gown again and wondered if Paul Gendreau would like it. But there was little point in seeking him out. Loyalty chained her to Joseph as surely as her servant status chained her to Number 67. She had never realised before that Joseph, along with the other servants, had come to take it for granted she would marry him. So even when she got her freedom, she would find herself in another sort of cage.

Her pleasure in her new dress was marred by her worries, by her odd feeling that she no longer belonged with the others.

Rainbird was worried about money, for Emily had agreed to leave Clarges Street that very day, right after the wedding breakfast, and travel with her lord to his country estate. That would mean the house would probably stand empty for the rest of the Season. And he could not expect tips from these grand wedding guests, for Giles and the staff of the house in Park Lane would pick up any tips that were going.

All the other servants were in high spirits, and Angus, the cook, enlivened with champagne, was even flirting mildly with Mrs. Middleton, who was turning quite pink with gratification.

The wedding breakfast was over at last and they all stood out on the street to say goodbye to the earl and countess. Mr. Goodenough was to travel with them.

Emily shook hands with them all and thanked them warmly, begging Rainbird to let her know when they had their pub so that she might be one of their first customers. The earl also thanked Rainbird and the others and then handed Rainbird a wash-leather bag. Fitz asked for permission to kiss the bride and begged Emily to find him a lady as pretty as herself. Mrs. Otterley gave Emily two fingers to shake, saw her brother’s furious face, and offered Emily her whole hand instead.

To the servants’ extreme annoyance, Giles and his staff took themselves off to follow the earl and the countess to the country, leaving the Clarges Street staff with all the mess to clean up. As they returned to the servants’ hall for a rest and gossip before changing back into their working clothes, Rainbird tipped out the contents of the bag that the earl had given him. Two hundred golden guineas spilled across the table.

“We’re free!” said Rainbird in an awed voice. “Free at last. We can buy a pub and give Palmer his quittance.” They all cheered, but when the cheering had died away, Lizzie said quietly, “There’s someone knocking on the door.”

Rainbird darted up the stairs.

He swung open the door, prepared to see one of the wedding guests who had left something behind, and found himself confronting Jonas Palmer, the Duke of Pelham’s agent.

“I want to see the tenants,” growled Palmer.

“You’re too late,” said Rainbird. “You must be the only man in London not to have heard the news. Miss Emily married the Earl of Fleetwood and she and Mr. Goodenough have just left for the country. Still, that shouldn’t worry you, as she paid in advance. And now I have something to tell you….”