Mrs. Budley Falls from Grace Read online

  Mrs. Budley Falls from Grace

  A Novel of Regency England

  Being the Third Volume of The Poor Relation

  M. C. Beaton/ Marion Chesney

  Copyright

  Mrs. Budley Falls from Grace

  Copyright © 1993 by Marion Chesney

  Cover art to the electronic edition copyright © 2010 by RosettaBooks, LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  First electronic edition published 2011 by RosettaBooks LLC, New York.

  ISBN e-Pub edition: 9780795315343

  For Ann Robinson and her daughter

  Emma Wilson, with love.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter One

  Ah! people were not half so wild

  In former days, when, starchly mild,

  Upon her high-heeled Essex smiled

  The brave Queen Bess.

  —W. S. LANDOR

  OF THE five remaining members of the ton who were owners of the Poor Relation Hotel in Bond Street, Mrs. Eliza Budley was the one least suited to their rackety life. Despite many setbacks, they had all kept the hotel afloat with a combination of good luck, good management and thievery.

  For the name “the Poor Relation” was based on their former lives when they had subsisted on hand-outs from rich relatives. Before, when funds were low, one of them had gone out on a thieving expedition. Now money was low again and they had drawn straws and Mrs. Budley had drawn the short one.

  It should have been one of the others, she thought gloomily. Lady Fortescue, whose home had been turned into the hotel, although very old and white haired, was autocratic and had a great deal of courage. Colonel Sandhurst, although equally elderly, had been used to fighting wars and to commanding men. Horrible old Sir Philip Sommerville had few morals if any and lifted expensive trifles from his relatives with all the lack of conscience of a jackdaw. And her friend, Miss Letitia Tonks, a thin, faded spinster when she had first arrived to join forces with the other poor relations, had become a stylish and confident lady.

  Mrs. Budley twisted the short straw in her hands, which the others had left her to contemplate. Although in her early thirties, she looked much younger, a pretty, dainty woman, stylishly gowned with large pansy-brown eyes and a quantity of fluffy brown hair. For the first time in a long time, she wished her hedonistic husband, Jack, were still alive. Jack had gambled away his fortune with great aplomb. He would have thought nothing of thieving. But Mrs. Budley’s relatives had been shocked to learn she had stooped to trade and she knew that not one of them would give her house-room. Her heart began to lighten. Straw or no straw, one of the others would have to find a way out of their financial predicament. She would drink a glass of port to fortify herself and then call the others in and tell them that they must make alternative arrangements.

  The others were crammed into the small office behind the reception hall and were at that moment discussing Mrs. Budley’s lack of bottom. “Bottom,” meaning courage and staying power, was much prized during the Regency.

  “To be fair,” said Miss Tonks, “Eliza does not really have anyone to visit. She showed me some quite dreadful letters from her relatives, and all of them in their various nasty ways cast her off. She is a gentle soul and we do not want her to go into a decline with worry.”

  “She’s a deuced pretty woman,” said Sir Philip, peering above the barrier of his starched cravat like a tortoise looking over a miniature snow-drift.

  “And what’s that got to do with things?” complained Colonel Sandhurst. “We aren’t putting her out onto the streets to make her living.”

  “Wouldn’t do much good there anyway,” cackled Sir Philip. “All she could earn would be a shilling and a glass of rum.”

  Lady Fortescue’s black eyes rested on him with disfavour. “You forget, Sir Philip, we are discussing a friend. If, as seems to be the case, Mrs. Budley has no relatives she can visit, then one of us will need to make the effort.”

  “I have done my bit.” Miss Tonks looked firmly all about. “Did I not contribute my sister’s diamonds? Did I not risk the gallows?”

  “That’s the trouble with spinsters,” grumbled Sir Philip. “Always dramatizing themselves.”

  “And that’s the trouble with dirty old men,” retorted Miss Tonks, “always sneering and complaining. Well, you think of something if you’re so clever.”

  Sir Philip leaned back in his chair and looked mockingly about him. “Happens I have,” he said.

  “Well, out with it,” demanded Colonel Sandhurst.

  “We give her a relative,” said Sir Philip with a grin. “Harkee! The Marquess of Peterhouse lives in that great castle in Warwickshire—”

  “Not Warwick Castle,” interrupted the colonel. “That’s the—”

  “I know,” snapped Sir Philip. “There ain’t the one castle in the whole of Warwickshire, damme. His castle is Delcourt. Now this marquess is in his dotage, he’s a widower, and he’s rich. Mrs. Budley sends an express she’s arriving and turns up. Says she’s his niece. Old boy won’t know whether that’s true or not, for he evidently don’t even know what time of day it is. She stays for a few days, lifts some expensive geegaws and then comes back here. Simple.”

  “The servants,” said Lady Fortescue. “You have forgot the servants. They may know very well she is an impostor.”

  “Most of them are as old as their master, and he don’t keep a secretary or anyone like that. The servants won’t complain about any missing trifles, even if they notice them missing, for with a master like that, they’ve probably been ruining him for years, and anyway, servants are always afeard of being accused themselves.” His eyes sparkled with malice. “It’s the Queen’s House to a Charley’s shelter that our lovely Mrs. Budley is sitting up there deciding to tell us she can’t go anywhere because no one will have her. Let’s go and enlighten her.”

  Lady Fortescue held up a thin white hand. “Stay! We have not gone into this thoroughly enough. How did you come by your information, Sir Philip?”

  “Over at Limmer’s.”

  “And what were you doing patronizing a rival hotel?”

  “Only popped in to see how they were getting along. Didn’t they help put the fire out when this place went up? I’ll tell you how I know. Met the marquess’s nephew, Mr. George Pym. He was complaining about the old boy’s senility. Said when he went on a visit, there was a whole family of counter-jumpers parked in the state bedrooms who had claimed to be kin and weren’t. Old marquess wouldn’t hear a word against them. So it’ll be easy for a fetching little thing like our Mrs. Budley to ingratiate herself with the old man. If she plays her cards right, he may even marry her!”

  “It does seem waterproof,” said the colonel reluctantly.

  “We’ll see what Mrs. Budley thinks,” said Lady Fortescue.

  “You don’t ask such as Mrs. Budley what she thinks,” cackled Sir Philip. “You just give her her marching orders.”

  “I must say you are a very enterprising gentleman,” remarked Lady Fortescue, and the colonel scowled jealously. He fixed his rather childlike blue eyes steadily on Sir Philip’s face. “Exactly when did you come by this information?”

  Sir Philip had heard it over a year ago, but he craved Lady Fortescue’s admiration and so he said lightly, “Oh, t’other day.”

>   Mrs. Budley put down her glass of port and looked up nervously as they all filed into the “staff” sitting-room.

  “I was just coming to see you,” she said breathlessly. “My relatives have all cut me off, so I really cannot be of help to you.”

  “Nonsense.” Sir Philip sat down next to her and patted her hand and Mrs. Budley shrank back a little before the onslaught of a powerful cloud of perfume. Sir Philip did not believe in troubling with washing when a deluge of the latest scent on the market did just as well, in his opinion.

  “But it’s not nonsense,” pleaded Mrs. Budley. She looked at Miss Tonks, her friend, for help, but Miss Tonks was suddenly absorbed in pleating the fringes of her shawl.

  Sir Philip patted her hand again. “We are not arguing with that,” he said. “But I’ve found a relative for you. The Marquess of Peterhouse.”

  “But I don’t know any marquesses.”

  “You do now. Listen. This marquess is in his dotage. We send you to Delcourt Castle in Warwickshire, his home, and you tell him you’re his niece. Settle in and take a look around. Lift something portable cos you ain’t a strong lady. Something with gold and gems. Few snuff-boxes, jewelled fans, so on. There was a marchioness once. Find her quarters and see if the lady left anything. I’ll get someone to construct a trunk with a false bottom so that if there is a search”—Mrs. Budley shrank back in her chair—“you can have an easy conscience.”

  Mrs. Budley found her voice. “This is madness! I cannot go.”

  She looked around at the other faces in the lamplight. Miss Tonks was looking at the floor, Colonel Sandhurst at the ceiling, only Sir Philip and Lady Fortescue regarded her steadily.

  “I think you should try,” said Lady Fortescue. “We will hire a travelling carriage for you and send John and Betty along as your servants.” John and Betty, a married couple, had been with Lady Fortescue for years and when the hotel opened had become the personal servants of the poor relations. “At the first sign of any trouble, John will have instructions to ride back and we will send Sir Philip here to extricate you from any trouble.”

  “But it will take days to get to Warwickshire,” moaned Mrs. Budley, “and I could be on my way to the nearest jail before he arrives.”

  Lady Fortescue grew suddenly stern. “We have all done our bit, Mrs. Budley. Now it is your turn.”

  “You haven’t done anything, nor has Colonel Sandhurst,” said Mrs. Budley with a rare show of spirit.

  “I own this building, or had you forgot? And Colonel Sandhurst is needed here to run things. I could not do without him.”

  “Ho, so that’s all the thanks I get,” said Sir Philip, bristling up. “I was the one who stole the goods to get this place started while he sits there like my lady’s lap-dog.”

  The colonel rose to his feet. “Name your seconds, sir.”

  “Now see what you have done,” whispered Miss Tonks fiercely to Mrs. Budley.

  “I’ll go, I’ll go!” shouted Mrs. Budley. “Only don’t fight!”

  The minute the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them.

  The angry atmosphere left the room, the colonel sat down, everyone beamed at her and then Lady Fortescue said briskly, “That’s settled. Now to the menus. We have a reputation built on the excellence of our food, but Despard has become too profligate in his spending.” Despard was the French cook. Sir Philip, Miss Tonks and Colonel Sandhurst moved closer to Lady Fortescue to study the menus while Mrs. Budley sat with her head hanging. It was a nightmare. And yet she owed Lady Fortescue so much. She remembered how Lady Fortescue and Colonel Sandhurst had offered her a home when they had found her crying in Hyde Park because she was beset with debts and duns. It had all been such an adventure. She had companionship and security, but that security had depended on the rest of them providing money by fair means or foul.

  She shared a room with Miss Tonks in an apartment next door to the hotel. Perhaps Miss Tonks would listen to her when they were private together.

  But Miss Tonks proved stubborn. “Did I not dress as a highwayman to steal my own sister’s diamonds?” she said, forgetting that she had botched the job and Lord Eston had done it for her. “I was afraid all the time, but I found the courage and I did it! What have you to fear, Eliza? One potty marquess? Either he will accept you or he will send you to the rightabout as soon as he sees you. Besides, you have John and Betty with you. I was not given any servants when I went to my sister’s. You are very fortunate.”

  So Mrs. Budley could only hope that the other three would relent in the following days.

  But the arrangements for her departure went inexorably on. Even Betty and John, normally a silent pair of servants, showed signs of looking forward to what Mrs. Budley overheard them describe as “a holiday in the country.” Betty was being kitted out to look like a lady’s-maid in one of Lady Fortescue’s black silk gowns and Sir Philip was out buying a second-hand livery in Monmouth Street for John. Betty was a spare, bent, gypsy-looking woman, and John was squat and burly and totally unlike any other footman Mrs. Budley had ever seen. Lady Fortescue and Miss Tonks went through Mrs. Budley’s wardrobe, picking out the prettiest gowns, “for even old men can be charmed,” as Lady Fortescue put it, just as if, thought Mrs. Budley sourly, she were not in her seventies herself.

  Mrs. Budley was very much a woman of her age, very feminine, timid, believing men were put on this earth to solve all women’s problems and take care of them. Men were there to guide and protect the weaker sex. Sir Philip was a horrible old man, but Mrs. Budley had expected that Colonel Sandhurst would have been moved by gallantry to protest at her being sent out into the wilds of darkest Warwickshire. But everything that Lady Fortescue did, said or planned was perfect in the eyes of the besotted colonel.

  Her timidity made her unable to cry out against this enormous expedition, to voice her fears of ending on the gallows for theft.

  And then the day before she was due to depart, she managed to achieve a certain calm. With any luck, this marquess or his servants would say she was no relative and she would be sent away, safe to return unarrested. If, however, she was accepted, then she would only steal something that she was sure would never, in a hundred years, be missed. If she did not find such an item or items, then she would return and face up to them and say she had failed and let them send someone else. She was not going to meet some ogre but some old man, made silly by age, who might be glad of her company.

  So when she was told the following day that the coach was waiting for her, she climbed in followed by the gypsy-like Betty and prepared herself with a certain amount of enforced calm to enjoy the journey, seizing on each little comfort in her mind. She had her own coach, albeit a rented one, so she did not need to worry about dealing with payment for changes of horses at each posting-house. She had John and Betty to take care of her. She had the latest novel from the circulating library in her luggage. Despite the odd appearance of Betty and John, she was a lady with servants.

  She smiled bravely to the assembled poor relations, who were standing on the pavement in Bond Street outside the hotel. “Take care of yourself,” said Colonel Sandhurst. “You will be fine,” said Lady Fortescue. “I will be praying for you,” called Miss Tonks, worry over her friend’s predicament showing in her gentle sheeplike face for the first time.

  The irrepressible Sir Philip thrust a “shopping list” into her hand, saying that Despard wanted fresh eggs, fish, and any game she could get, along with any vegetables. The coachman cracked his whip and the carriage rolled off.

  “We’ve made a dreadful mistake,” said Miss Tonks, beginning to cry. “She is so gentle, so defenceless. And you never did send that express to the marquess. You said it will be a surprise for him. But what of the surprise to Eliza?”

  “Oh, stow your whids, you dreary watering-pot,” remarked Sir Philip and scuttled back into the hotel before the infuriated Miss Tonks could think of a reply.

  * * *

  Mrs. Budley enjoyed the journey. J
ohn, behaving more like an army batman than a footman, barked orders at each inn at which they stopped, demanding the best service for “his mistress.” Betty did not talk much, but took her duties as lady’s-maid seriously, making sure Mrs. Budley’s discarded clothes at each stop were taken down to the kitchens to be sponged and pressed.

  Because of their formidable support, Mrs. Budley was treated with deference. She grew more cheerful as the coach entered Warwickshire. What harm could come to her? John and Betty would see to everything.

  The plan was to arrive at Delcourt Castle in late morning. Mrs. Budley thought it would probably be a very small castle, not like Warwick Castle, of which she had read. The autumnal weather, which had been mellow and golden, changed as the castle drew nearer.

  Angry ragged clouds scudded across the sky, borne by a chilly wind. Trees bent down in front of them like so many retainers bowing before their approach.

  And then the coach turned a bend in the road and slowly drew to a halt. “Delcourt!” shouted the coachman.

  Mrs. Budley opened the carriage door and stepped out into the road.

  There ahead lay the castle, towering above a forest of cedars, chestnuts, oaks and limes. It stood on the rocks on the shore of the river Avon, rising to a perpendicular height of two hundred feet above the level of the water.

  All Mrs. Budley’s confidence fled and she crept back into the carriage.

  She took out her prayer-book and clutched it tightly as the coach rolled forward. The road was now darkly overshadowed with oaks and the carriage rolled with a heavy dull sound along smooth rock.

  The trees finally gave way and a fitful gleam of sunlight shone down. Mrs. Budley let down the glass and leaned out. Now the castle was in plain view, tall, black and immense behind its sheltering walls and towers. The coach moved towards a gateway which looked dwarfed and tiny by the immensity of the two black towers on either side of it. There was a dry grassy moat, drained, she was to learn later, by Cromwell’s troops looking for treasure. The carriage rolled over the drawbridge and under two raised portcullises and into a wide grassy circular area in front of the chapel and the private apartments of the castle.