Mrs. Budley Falls from Grace Read online

  “The trouble with people like Mrs. Budley,” said Sir Philip acidly, “is that they have a desire to be found out. No, I had better go, and hang the expense.”

  “Tell her we love her and will forgive her whatever happens,” said Miss Tonks, clutching a damp handkerchief.

  “If she has endangered any of us, I’ll send her to the rightabout,” jeered Sir Philip. “Do not become mawkish, I pray, Miss Tonks. Eliza Budley has always been the weak link in the chain.”

  “Oh, you,” said Miss Tonks, exasperated. She crossed to the window of the staff sitting-room and stared down into the street. “We were not all born criminals like you, you know.” Her eyes suddenly focused on a carriage which had just drawn up outside the hotel. She recognized the bonnet on the head of the lady who had just alighted, for it was her own best bonnet which she had lent to Mrs. Budley.

  She swung round, her eyes shining. “Eliza is back!”

  But her elation was not shared by the others. “At least she’s safe,” grumbled Sir Philip, “but she will not have anything with her and she will cry and protest and I am too old and tired for scenes.”

  “Then why keep on creating them?” demanded Miss Tonks with rare waspishness.

  The sadness in Mrs. Budley’s large eyes when she entered the sitting-room went straight to Miss Tonks’s tender heart and she flew to her friend, crying, “There now. You are home. That is all that matters. Was it quite dreadful?”

  Mrs. Budley untied the strings of the borrowed bonnet and let it drop to the floor. She sank down onto the sofa. Miss Tonks joined her after carefully retrieving that precious bonnet, and the others pulled up chairs.

  Sir Philip began. “I made a mistake,” he said gruffly. “I thought Peterhouse was a senile old fool. How did you fare with the heir?”

  “He was very kind,” said Mrs. Budley in a low voice. “He knew almost right away that I was no relative of his late uncle or of his. I … I told him why I had come.”

  “YOU WHAT?” Lady Fortescue.

  “What a stupid and dangerous thing to do!” Colonel Sandhurst.

  “God preserve us all from feather-brained widgeons.” Sir Philip.

  “Oh, Eliza, how could you?” Miss Tonks.

  “He will not betray us,” went on Mrs. Budley in the same odd flat voice. “He promised he would not provided I stayed a few days and entertained him.”

  Shocked faces stared at her.

  Miss Tonks was the first to find her voice. “You sacrificed yourself, Eliza. How noble! How brave! Was he very wicked?”

  “No, no, it was not like that at all,” said Mrs. Budley wearily. “He was a charming companion, nothing more. This is what he gave me when I left.” She took out the banker’s draft and handed it to Lady Fortescue, who studied it through her quizzing-glass and then let out a squawk of surprise. “It’s a draft for five thousand pounds!”

  Sir Philip snatched it from her and stared at it as if he could not believe his eyes. “I had better cash this before he changes his mind.” His pale eyes studied the crestfallen figure of Mrs. Budley. “When you ain’t in the megrims like you are now,” he said consideringly, “you are what I would call a fetching piece of goods. So who was your chaperone?”

  “Betty.”

  “Betty’s a servant. Don’t count.”

  “The housekeeper.”

  “Same thing.”

  “There was no other lady there.”

  Sir Philip slapped his knee. “Compromised, by George. He’ll have to marry you.”

  Mrs. Budley put her hand up as if to ward off a blow. Lady Fortescue’s voice was like ice.

  “You old fool,” she said to Sir Philip. “Peterhouse takes a liking to Mrs. Budley, so much so that he entertains her and gives her money. He could have sent her packing. What on earth possessed you to tell him the truth, Mrs. Budley?”

  “I was frightened and overset,” she said. “He asked me to marry him and … and … so I told him.”

  “Of all the … look here, are you telling us that if you had kept your mouth shut, you could have been a marchioness?” howled Sir Philip.

  “No, she could not have been a marchioness,” said Colonel Sandhurst. “His lawyers and advisers and family would soon have found out about our Mrs. Budley and would have told him. No marquess is going to marry anyone in trade. Mind you, Rowcester married our Harriet, but in any case, Mrs. Budley told him all.” His eyes widened. “I assume you only told him you were a partner in this hotel.” He gave a nervous laugh. “I mean, you would hardly say, ‘I am come here, my lord, under false pretences. I meant to thieve from you. And it was not only my idea; my partners who are used to thieving told me it was my turn.’”

  All eyes turned to the widow. “Something like that,” she said.

  “Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!” cried Miss Tonks in a burst of Shakespearian fright. “The runners may be on their way here!”

  “Oh, tish!” said Sir Philip. “He don’t go handing out thousands if he meant to betray us. What’s he like?”

  Her eyes clouded over. “He is tall and handsome and very, v-very k-kind.” And she covered her face with her hands and wept.

  “Oh, dear. Poor Eliza,” murmured Lady Fortescue. “She rose to her feet.” “Miss Tonks, take Mrs. Budley next door and give her a hot posset and put her to bed. You have had a difficult time, Mrs. Budley. Had Sir Philip not been so behindhand with his gossip, this would never have happened.”

  After Miss Tonks had led her weeping friend out, Sir Philip grumbled, “What’s she going on like a watering-pot for, hey? Playing with our security like that. We should be the ones that are weeping, and weeping with sheer relief, if you ask me.”

  “She’s in love with him,” said Lady Fortescue harshly, “and she hasn’t a hope of ever becoming anything other than his mistress, and the Mrs. Budleys of this world don’t become mistresses.”

  Sir Philip turned the draft over and over in his hands. “She’ll get over it,” he said heartlessly. “Nobody ever died of a broken heart.”

  “Nobody like you,” said the colonel.

  “I say,” said Sir Philip, “I’ve been wanting a new pair of boots from Hobb this age.”

  “You will not squander that money,” said Lady Fortescue. “Mrs. Budley may be allowed to buy something if she wishes. The rest goes to the hotel.”

  “The hotel. The hotel. Always the hotel,” said Sir Philip pettishly. He sank down on one knee in front of Lady Fortescue. “Sell the place, dear lady, and we will flee the country and live abroad.”

  “You old fool,” snapped the colonel. “We have had enough of your nonsense.” He held out his arm. “Come, Amelia.”

  They moved out of the room. Amelia, thought Sir Philip. He called her Amelia. He pressed his hand over his heart as he got to his feet.

  “Indigestion,” he said loudly to the uncaring walls. “Indigestion! That’s all.”

  Chapter Four

  Dark was her hair, her hand was white;

  Her voice was exquisitely tender;

  Her eyes were full of liquid light;

  I never saw a waist more slender!

  Her every look, her every smile,

  Shot right and left a score of arrows;

  I thought ’twas Venus from her isle,

  And wondered where she’d left her sparrows.

  —WINTHROP PRAED

  IN THE months following Mrs. Budley’s departure, the marquess hardly thought of her at all. She had been a pleasant interlude in his normally busy life. The late marquess had neglected the estates, not to mention the fabric of the castle, and he had much to do. A particularly severe winter meant that he was spared visits from young ladies and their mothers claiming that their carriages had mysteriously broken down just outside the castle walls.

  It was only when the days began to grow longer and winter loosened its grip that he began to think, not of Mrs. Budley, but of the fact that he now craved company and gaiety and that he possessed a town house in Londo
n. He travelled up to Town and set architect, builders and decorators to refurbishing the large gloomy mansion in Berkeley Square, with instructions that all had to be ready for the opening of the Season. He made calls on old friends and on the patronesses of Almack’s Assembly rooms, for he had decided to find a bride during the Season and everyone knew Almack’s was in fact a marriage market.

  He was strolling down Bond Street on the day before heplanned to return to the country, quite unaware of the burning ambitions and hopes his brief visit to Town had already caused in the breasts of hopeful mamas, when he noticed the Poor Relation Hotel. He stopped for a moment and looked up at it. He wondered whether to call in and ask for her and see how she went on, and then decided it would be a waste of time. Besides, he half regretted his strange generosity. The pretty and shy lady that Mrs. Budley was had quite faded from his mind, to be replaced by the memory of an amusing adventuress. He continued on his way to meet a friend at Limmer’s, nearly tripping over a small crablike elderly gentleman who had stopped in front of him and was staring up at him.

  Sir Philip, for it was he, muttered an apology and then turned and followed the marquess. He had spotted him looking at the hotel and would have paid him no further heed had not one of his drinking cronies, Gully Banks, whispered in his ear in passing, “That’s Peterhouse.”

  Very high in the instep, thought Sir Philip. Very grand. He admired the excellent cut of the marquess’s coat as he scuttled behind him. Then he looked gloomily down at the mud on his boots as he scraped them on the iron door-scraper outside Limmer’s. Despite protests from the others, he had insisted on getting the new boots and had therefore displeased Lady Fortescue, who had called him selfish. So it was partly with a thought of ingratiating himself back into her favour that prompted Sir Philip to follow the marquess into Limmer’s. He knew Lady Fortescue was worried about Mrs. Budley, who had sunk into a sort of depression and had become listless. Perhaps if he had some news of the marquess, he could raise Mrs. Budley’s spirits and so get back into Lady Fortescue’s good books. For when Lady Fortescue was angry with him, mused Sir Philip bitterly, she spent too much time in Colonel Sandhurst’s company. Only the other day, Sir Philip had called her Amelia and she had raised her quizzing-glance and had said sternly, “You are over-familiar.”

  The marquess went into the coffee room and ordered a bottle of wine and the newspapers. Sir Philip hovered in the doorway, wondering how best to start a conversation. As if conscious of his gaze, the marquess lowered the newspaper he had just picked up.

  He saw the elderly gentleman he had nearly fallen over in Bond Street. What an old quiz, he thought, taking in the full glory of Sir Philip’s best china teeth, which had just been bared in a smile.

  In such a hard-drinking age, the marquess was quite accustomed to being stared at by deranged people. He gave the “poor old man” a slight smile and raised his newspaper again.

  He heard the seat opposite him being drawn out and lowered the paper once more. Sir Philip was sitting there, leering horribly, or—as Sir Philip would have described it—wearing his most killing smile.

  “My lord,” said Sir Philip, “I am most honoured to meet you.”

  “You cannot claim to have met me, as we have never been introduced,” said the marquess, and up went the newspaper again.

  But Sir Philip had been cut by experts. He summoned the waiter, and pointing to the marquess’s bottle of wine, asked for another glass. This was too much effrontery for the marquess to take. Down went the newspaper and up went the quizzing-glass. “I shall have to ask the management to remove you,” said the marquess. “I do not wish an elderly gentleman like yourself to have the humiliation of being thrown out into the street. Therefore I suggest you take yourself off.”

  “I’m paying,” said Sir Philip huffily.

  The marquess raised an imperious hand and the manager came hurrying up. “Now, Sir Philip,” said the manager, “I’ve been watching, and it’s plain to see his lordship doesn’t want to be disturbed. You’ve got your own hotel. Go and frighten your own customers.”

  Hotel? Sir Philip? “Let him stay,” said the marquess, his eyes sharpening. So this was Sir Philip Sommerville. It could be no other. He remembered Mrs. Budley’s description, and hard on that came a sharp memory of the real Mrs. Budley, very sweet, very warm, very innocent.

  “I have heard of you,” said the marquess, “from Mrs. Budley, who was sent like a lamb to the slaughter to my home under false pretences.”

  “I only wished to thank you for your generosity,” said Sir Philip.

  “My generosity was to Mrs. Budley and not to you, Sir Philip. Mrs. Budley sent me a most charming letter of thanks. And so how goes Mrs. Budley?”

  The correct answer to that was, “Pining for you.” But Sir Philip said heartily, “As pretty as ever. We need to keep her under guard when the Season begins because our male guests are too apt to be smitten the minute they set eyes on her.”

  “She should not be working in such a lowly position,” said the marquess flatly.

  Sir Philip spread his hands, small, white, soft, carefully manicured hands without one single liver spot. “None of us should be in trade. But what would you have us do? Starve?”

  “I would have you all lead a correct life and make your profits from your trade and not embroil such innocents as Mrs. Budley in schemes to rob.”

  “Look at it this way,” said Sir Philip earnestly, motioning the waiter to fill the glasses, “I did not know you had inherited the title. I thought she would be dealing with some doddering … with some ancient gentleman who would not miss a few trifles from the castle.”

  “Have you no conscience, sir?”

  “None that I can afford.”

  “You are old, sir, and so the termination of your life on the gallows would not be too great a tragedy, but think what horror it would be if Mrs. Budley were taken by the Runners.”

  “It plagues my every waking moment,” said Sir Philip piously. “I pray to the good Lord above to send our Mrs. Budley a husband.”

  “Mrs. Budley is eminently marriageable. She has put herself out of her class by the nature of her work, but there are many sound merchants in the City who would be glad of such a refined and graceful wife. Ah, Charles, how good to see you.” He introduced his friend, Charles Manderley, who had just arrived, to Sir Philip, and then said pointedly, “Do not let me detain you, Sir Philip. I am sure you have much to do.”

  Sir Philip stood up, but he had not finished with the marquess. “She’ll be available for a call at five o’clock,” he said. “I’ll tell her to expect you.” And he scuttled off as fast as he could.

  “Damn!” said the marquess.

  Charles Manderley looked curiously at his friend’s angry face and then at the top of Sir Philip’s tall hat, which could be seen bobbing past the coffee-room window. “Who was that?” he asked. “Some high-class pimp?”

  “Sir Philip is part-owner of the Poor Relation Hotel. I had occasion to meet one of the lady proprietresses once but had no intention of seeing her again. Now I suppose I shall have to make a call. Anyway, it’s good to see you, Charles. It has been an age.”

  Charles Manderley was tall and fair and dressed in a sort of messy and casual elegance. His friends said he could achieve the same style as Beau Brummell by having his valet throw his clothes on his back from some distance. He had an unconscious grace of movement and, despite his thirty years, an expression of sweet innocence which belied the fact that he was a womanizer of note, even in an age when womanizing was as respectable a pursuit as fox-hunting.

  “No more army days for us,” said Charles with a grin. “You get your marquessate and castle and my uncle buys me out. I think we deserve some larks, my friend. I am set on a new conquest.”

  “Indeed? Do I know her?”

  “I should not think so. You have been out of the world too long Lady Stanton.”

  “Marriage at last, hey?”

  “One does not marry the L
ady Stantons of this world. Tell me about the lady in the hotel. Is she pretty?”

  “Very.”

  “Oho!”

  “No, ‘oho’ about it. I had, as I said, occasion to meet her once. That is all.”

  “She really must want to see you again if she sends that old horror to hunt you down.”

  The marquess frowned. Now he once more had a clear picture in his head of what Mrs. Budley was really like and he remembered her stories about Sir Philip and he was sure that Sir Philip had made that arrangement unbeknown to Mrs. Budley. But she had been a charming creature, delicate and dainty and amusing. He would make a brief call.

  “Hullo!” prompted his friend. “You’ve gone off into a daze.”

  “Just thinking,” he said.

  Charles grinned. “I was thinking about Lady Stanton. Do you think she has me in mind?”

  Lady Stanton was thinking about Charles Manderley at that moment. She had met him at a concert the previous week and had found him very attractive. On the other hand, she was still ambitious and was determined that her second marriage should be more successful than her first. After the convenient death of her husband, which had left her a very rich widow, she had enjoyed all the freedom of being a beautiful widow and had had several affairs which she now bitterly regretted. London was a gossip market and she was sure that such men as Charles Manderley viewed her as a likely mistress. She had recently ordered a new wardrobe of clothes. Gone were the transparent gowns. All was of the first stare but highly respectable.

  It was not fair. If that slut, Harriet James, nothing more than a cook at that Bond Street hotel, could become the Duchess of Rowcester, then she could surely find a good husband. She twisted this way and that before the long glass. Her hair was as golden as ever and her figure perfect. Men still turned to stare at her when she drove out. She sighed a little. The ladies would soon be arriving for tea. She had chosen a new tack, that of cultivating society matrons to give herself some new respectability. She despised her own sex, preferring the company of men, the opposite sex being easier to manipulate. But these ladies, she found, were excellent gossips and kept her abreast of all the new possibles on the marriage market.