The Wicked Godmother Read online

  —Kipling

  Miss Spencer was a great comfort to Harriet. She was often on hand to cheer her up and banish any guilt Harriet might feel because the two lords had proposed to her and not her goddaughters.

  But as the marquess was still noticeably absent from ball or rout or opera or even from the opening dance of the Season at Almack’s Assembly Rooms, Harriet’s spirits began to droop again. She could not confide the reason to Josephine, for she was not very sure of the reason herself. It was only that Lord Huntingdon seemed like a sickness in her blood. She saw a tall man with chestnut hair at a ball, and her heart began to hammer against her ribs, but he turned round and revealed a raddled, aged, painted face.

  But Miss Spencer, confident that all was well with Harriet and that her charges were behaving nicely, took herself off to the country for a few days, promising to make sure Harriet’s cottage was aired.

  After the opening at Almack’s, Harriet’s spirits sank even lower. She had a nagging pain at her temples and when, two days later, Annabelle and Sarah requested the carriage to make calls, she begged them to go alone and take Joseph to guard them.

  It had been a blustery and chilly day. Harriet, lighting the candles in the back parlour, became aware of the time. It was getting on for seven o’clock, and the girls had not returned.

  Then she heard the rumble of a carriage outside and ran through to the front parlour and looked out of the window. Her sigh of relief was cut short, for although Annabelle and Sarah descended, they looked up and saw her at the window and the unguarded look of dislike on both faces before they resumed their social masks made Harriet feel near to tears.

  She did not go out to meet them. She could only be relieved when they went straight upstairs, calling for Emily. Harriet sat down wearily. The Season was turning out a disaster. She bitterly blamed Sir Benjamin. Now, looking back, she had to confess that he had been over-affectionate towards her compared to the cool way he treated his own daughters.

  Joseph, who had been out with the twins, entered and handed her a note. “Someone must have pushed it through the letter box,” he said. “It was lying on the hall floor as I came in.”

  “Thank you, Joseph,” said Harriet. “It is no doubt some last-minute invitation.” She carried the letter through to the back parlour and sat down to read it.

  At first she could not believe her eyes. It was written in pencil in block letters.

  “Miss Metcalf,” she read, “If you do not want the Hayner ladies’ reputation to be ruined, I suggest you see me this evening. I shall show you Proof that they are not the Legitimate Daughters of Sir Benjamin. Unless you wish me to broadcast this Proof, bring jewels with you and come to 10 Carrier Street, St. Giles. Do not tell anyone. I watch you and will know if you have.” It was unsigned.

  Harriet looked about her frantically. Her one thought was to get to the address. If the note turned out to be a farrago of lies, then she would be able to return and go to sleep. If it were true, then she must save the girls at all costs. For the first time, Harriet really began to wonder if she herself had unwittingly done Sarah and Annabelle a great deal of harm. The proposals she had received from Huntingdon and Lord Vere worried her conscience. Then she remembered she had heard that Sir Benjamin’s wife had been vicious and flighty. All at once, it seemed to explain his preference for her company rather than that of his daughters. If they were not his own daughters, but he had honourably given them his name, it would explain everything. Harriet became terribly sure that the writer of the anonymous letter spoke nothing but the truth. She rang the bell.

  Rainbird answered its summons. “Tell me,” said Harriet, forcing herself to speak in a calm and steady voice, “where is St. Giles? I think I have heard tell of it.”

  “St. Giles is an evil place nicknamed by some The Rookery. It is the sink of London, a haunt of prostitutes and thieves.”

  Harriet took a deep breath. “But whereabouts is it? Oh, do not look so anxious. I am not going there. Say, for example, one left here on foot….”

  “It is simple enough. One goes up to Oxford Street, along Oxford Street until it becomes High Street, along High Street to Broad Street, and The Rookery is a maze of nasty streets on the left of Broad Street.”

  “Thank you,” said Harriet faintly. “That will be all, Rainbird. You may take the rest of the evening off.” Rainbird looked at her curiously, but the room was lit by only a few candles and her face was in the shadows.

  He left and went down to the servants’ hall and told Mrs. Middleton he was stepping round to The Running Footman. Rainbird was just turning the corner of Clarges Street when he saw Emily on the other side of Curzon Street, arm in arm with Luke. They were laughing and did not notice him. He thought no more about it at the time.

  Back in the servants’ hall, Lizzie was pleading to be allowed to go to church. Mrs. Middleton demurred. Lizzie was a Roman Catholic and went to St. Patrick’s in Soho Square. The housekeeper did not like the idea of the young maid being out in the London streets unescorted, even though Lizzie had gone before and had come to no harm. At last, the housekeeper gave in, and Lizzie pulled her shawl about her head and shoulders and ran up the area steps.

  Lizzie ran along Oxford Street because it was the best lit of all the roads she could take to Soho. The parish lamps had been fitted with new reflectors, and their flickering lights were magnified to give a little stronger light than their usual feeble gleam.

  She was just about to turn down Charles Street, which led from Oxford Street to Soho Square, when she saw Miss Metcalf looking out of the window of a passing hack. There was something so agonised, so frightened about that face that Lizzie, without hardly a thought, turned and started to run after the hack.

  When it entered Broad Street, Lizzie began to become worried. It was no place for a lady, no place for even such as herself.

  The hack stopped at the corner of Broad Street and Diot Street. “You’ll find Carrier Street up there, miss,” called the jehu. “I ain’t goin’ farder and neither should you and that’ll be h’extra for the dog.”

  Lizzie came running up just as Harriet was paying the fare. “Miss Metcalf!” she called.

  Harriet turned a chalk-white face to Lizzie and hissed. “Go! Leave me this instant. You must not be seen with me. I command you to go.”

  Only a very old family retainer would have the courage to question her better’s judgement. Lizzie bobbed a curtsy and turned and walked away. Beauty gave a disappointed whine.

  Shoulders drooping, steps lagging, Lizzie looked around to see if she could see a respectable face, to see if she could see someone she could ask for advice. For surely Miss Metcalf would never come out of The Rookery alive.

  And then she saw him, the Marquess of Huntingdon, driving his own travelling carriage, sitting up on the box. He was going slowly as if either his horses were tired or as if he had things on his mind.

  Lizzie did not believe in coincidence. What other people might call a coincidence, Lizzie only saw as the hand of God. God had placed the marquess in the middle of Broad Street in front of her eyes. It was a Sign.

  So Lizzie ran out into the road, calling shrilly, “My lord! My lord!”

  The marquess looked down and saw Lizzie and stared at her in amazement and reined in his horses. “What are you doing here, girl?” he called down.

  “Oh, please, my lord,” called Lizzie, standing on tiptoe because he seemed so very far away up on the box, “it’s the mistress. She’s gone into The Rookery.”

  “The deuce!” The marquess threw the reins to the coachman, who was sitting next to him, and jumped lightly down.

  “What is she doing there?” he demanded. “Which way has she gone?”

  “I heard the driver direct her to Carrier Street.”

  “Give me the pistols, John,” called the marquess to his coachman. Seizing the guns, he said to Lizzie, “You had better go home, young Lizzie.”

  “Let me come, sir, my lord,” said Lizzie. “Miss Metcalf �
�� Miss Metcalf is … has …” Poor Lizzie could not quite put into words what Harriet had done for her by considering her important enough to educate.

  The marquess gave an impatient shrug and set off with long strides. It was uncanny, he kept thinking. He had been plagued by stronger and stronger thoughts of Harriet Metcalf the nearer he got to London. He had vowed he would never think of her again, she who had spurned his offer and driven poor Gilbert back to his regiment. And yet this waif had cropped up under his carriage wheels in the middle of the worst area of London to tell him that Harriet Metcalf had apparently lost her wits and gone into The Rookery. The Rookery was the camp of the lowest kind of vagrant and petty thief, the home of the wretch, male or female, who had sunk too low to be fit for ordinary loose company. They filled the old houses from garret to cellar, six or seven to a room. The streets, into which the sun could barely penetrate by day, reeked and fumed. All the streets twisted and turned and broke into little alleys, which again curled into each other in not one but a series of labyrinths. Strangers seldom ventured into them. Without knowledge, one could not find a way out, and to ask a direction was only to be sent farther in and, perhaps in some locked courtyard, to be seized by a group of hags and robbed.

  The backyards of the tall old houses were piled high with litter, with stolen goods, and with all manner of offal. Sanitation existed only in the form of kennel and cesspool. At every corner was a gin shop. Some of the houses held schools for the training of young “prigs.” Both girls and boys were trained as pickpockets and sent out to work the crowds.

  As Lizzie and the marquess hurried along, above the nightly racket of The Rookery could be heard the screams of the children who had come home empty-handed receiving a whipping.

  Harriet had found Carrier Street but could not find Number Ten, since the houses did not seem to have any numbers at all. She approached a group of women—if such red-eyed bunches of rags could be called women—and asked politely to be directed to Number 10.

  “Yes, my lovely,” said one who appeared to be the headwoman of the tribe. “Come along of us.”

  The women bunched around Harriet as their leader led the way down an evil-smelling alley. It was too foul-smelling even for Beauty, whose senses were stunned with all the rank odors. The alley was very dark.

  “Where are we?” said Harriet nervously.

  “Where you’ll stay,” whispered an evil voice in her ear. “Grab ‘er.”

  A slimy hand was clamped over Harriet’s mouth, and hands tore at her clothes.

  Beauty, forgotten by the hags, leapt into action. In a flurry of teeth, his ruff raised, he snapped and bit. There were cries of alarm, and Harriet, finding her mouth freed, screamed for all she was worth. She clutched tightly onto her reticule that contained some of Sarah’s jewelry. Sarah had been in Annabelle’s room when she had taken it. Harriet had none of her own to bring.

  In the dim alley, she could make out the gleam of eyes and hear the frustrated curses of her attackers as Beauty stood foursquare before his mistress and barked loudly—deep baying sounds which carried above the racket of The Rookery.

  And then a shot was fired in the air. The eyes watching Harriet blinked and disappeared as the animals of The Rookery crept back into their holes.

  “Miss Metcalf!”

  Harriet recognized Lizzie’s voice and shouted, “Lizzie! I am here!”

  And then Lizzie was there, with a masculine figure looming behind her, a tall figure who drawled, “What in all that’s holy are you doing here, Miss Metcalf?”

  “Huntingdon!” gasped Harriet. “Sarah and Annabelle. The most dreadful thing …”

  “Quiet,” he said. “Come back to Broad Street and into the light before you talk. I have a brace of pistols with me, but in this blackness one of these fiends could creep up behind me and knock me on the head.”

  Sobbing with reaction and fright, Harriet allowed herself to be led out through a maze of alleys onto Broad Street. She wondered, despite all her worry and misery, how the marquess had managed to find his way back, not knowing that his sharp eyes had taken careful note of every turning on the way into the maze.

  “Now, Miss Harriet,” said the marquess.

  Pulling that note from her reticule, Harriet gulped out her tale of the note. Strangely enough, she did not think of hiding its contents from him.

  The marquess took the note from her and led her over to his carriage, where he leaned against the side and studied the letter by the light of the carriage lamps.

  “My dear lady,” he said, “you have been gulled. No one in The Rookery can write, or, if they can, not literate English like this. Someone has played a very nasty trick on you. Possibly the Hayner girls themselves. I suggest we return to Clarges Street with all speed.”

  In vain did Harriet try to protest that perhaps the grim evidence of their illegitimacy was probably in Carrier Street, and when she showed every sign of turning back and running into The Rookery, the marquess seized her round the waist and lifted her bodily into his carriage.

  Harriet sat hunched in the corner, shivering with fear and misery. The flickering carriage lamp inside shone on her white face and large, tired eyes. The marquess, who was travelling inside with Lizzie and Harriet, found himself wondering who could have played such a vicious and dangerous trick.

  When he helped Harriet down outside Number 67, he had to put an arm about her to support her, for when she looked up and saw that the only light in the house was coming from the kitchen, she swayed and seemed about to faint.

  Lizzie made to go down the area steps, but the marquess said, “Come with us. Your mistress may need your help.”

  He raised his hand to knock at the door, but Rainbird opened it and stood back to let them past.

  “Bring wine and … and something to the drawing room, Rainbird,” said Harriet. “Are the Misses Hayner still awake?”

  “Yes,” said Rainbird. “Shall I tell them to come down?”

  “No,” said Harriet. “Wait for me, my lord. I shall return directly.” She turned to the scullery maid. “Thank you, Lizzie. I have no further need of you. I shall see you, as usual, in the morning.”

  “Oh, mum,” protested Lizzie, “there is no need for that. You’ll be needing a long lie abed.”

  “No, Lizzie. Attend me as usual.”

  Rainbird, carrying an oil lamp, led the way up the stairs, dying of curiosity. What had happened? Why had Lizzie come home accompanied by the marquess and Miss Metcalf? Had Beauty misbehaved again?

  Harriet went in to Sarah’s room, which was at the front of the house. Annabelle and Sarah were both there and rose to meet her. The shutters were firmly closed and the curtains drawn, and the air was warm and overscented.

  “That will be all, Rainbird,” said Harriet firmly.

  Rainbird bowed and withdrew. He could hardly wait to get down to the servants’ hall to find out from Lizzie what had happened.

  Harriet moved slowly into the room and sat down wearily in a chair.

  “What is the matter, Harriet dear?” cried Sarah. “You look so white.”

  “I received this letter,” said Harriet. She handed it to them. The girls stood shoulder to shoulder as they read it.

  “Gracious!” said Annabelle at last. “What nonsense! I trust you did not believe a word of it.”

  “I did not know what to do,” said Harriet. “But I had to go. I could not risk doing anything else. I have no jewelry as you know. So I had to take some of yours. Do not worry, I have it safe.”

  “You did not go alone?” said Sarah.

  “I took Beauty with me.”

  “But to venture into St. Giles!” exclaimed Sarah. “It is quite the wickedest part of London, and ‘tis said that few strangers come back out alive.”

  Harriet sat very still. Then she said, “I had not heard of the place until this evening. How do you know of it, Sarah?”

  “Someone was gossiping about it at some ball and said it ought to be burned to the ground,”
said Sarah.

  “Who could have done such a thing?” asked Harriet. “What monster wishes me dead? I now know that any woman with a proper knowledge of London would never have gone there. But someone knew me very well. Someone knew that I would not stop to think clearly if I thought you were threatened.”

  “Why,” said Annabelle, “did you believe such a piece of nonsense, you who have known us all our lives?”

  “I have lately come more to realise,” said Harriet quietly, “that Sir Benjamin perhaps did not appear to give you the fatherly love one might expect. I admired your father greatly. I could not help but think that were you not his natural daughters, it would explain his behaviour.”

  Sarah looked at Harriet, cold-eyed. “I should have thought your … er … attractions, my dear Harriet, were the obvious reason for Papa’s coldness towards us. He preferred you and let everyone know it.”

  “You think that!” cried Harriet. “When you arrived home this evening and I saw the dislike in your faces when you saw me at the window, and then I received the letter, I began to think I knew the reason for that dislike. Oh, my dears, I have such love and concern for you. I would do anything to make you happy.”

  She held out her arms. The twins turned a little away, embarrassed by what they considered this vastly vulgar show of emotion.

  Harriet let her hands drop helplessly to her sides. “You are not the ones who played such a trick on me by any chance?” she asked bleakly.

  “Us!” squeaked Sarah and Annabelle in unison.

  Sarah was the first to recover. “You claim to love us,” she said icily, “and yet you are ready at the drop of a hat to believe us illegitimate, and now you think we deliberately tried to ruin you.”

  “Someone who knows me sent that letter,” said Harriet. “But you are right. It is someone who knows the love I have for you both. And that is something you both do not know. I begin to see that both of you think I am an adventuress and opportunist.”

  A long embarrassing silence greeted this.

  “But were you not attacked?” asked Sarah at last.