Penelope Goes to Portsmouth Read online

  So across the fireplace, the very air between Lord Augustus and Penelope became charged with emotion. Lord Augustus was thinking that perhaps he might try to steal a kiss and see how she reacted.

  The party eventually broke up when the coachman reminded them they would all have to set out as early as possible. Repairs on the coach were going on all night.

  Lord Augustus quickly moved to Penelope’s side. ‘Would you care to take the air with me, Miss Wilkins, before retiring?’

  ‘Yes, I would,’ said Penelope candidly. ‘It is so very stuffy here. I will fetch my cloak.’

  She went upstairs. Hannah followed her. ‘I am taking a little walk with Lord Augustus,’ said Penelope. ‘I am sure that is safe enough.’

  Hannah hesitated, all hopes of making a match between the pair rushing back into her head. And yet, Penelope should not be unchaperoned.

  ‘What a good idea,’ exclaimed Hannah. ‘May I come with you?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Penelope, relieved at first at the prospect of having a chaperone, and then disappointed.

  Lord Augustus quickly masked his disappointment when he found Hannah was to accompany them. They all walked out into the inn yard.

  The wind was still blowing but it held a certain warmth, a hint of spring. Lord Augustus drew Penelope’s arm through his own. Penelope felt suddenly shy and tongue-tied and worried by the surge of emotions in her body caused by that pressure of his arm. Her knees were beginning to tremble and something seemed to have happened to her breath.

  ‘Hold hard!’ cried Hannah suddenly. ‘I thought I saw two men lurking by the gate!’

  Lord Augustus released Penelope and darted forward. He looked up and down the road outside the inn-gate but could not see anyone. He turned back. ‘The wind is blowing through the trees at the side of the road and casting moving shadows, Miss Pym.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Hannah uneasily.

  ‘I am going indoors,’ said Penelope. ‘It is cold.’ And she hurried before them to the inn, afraid that Lord Augustus would take her arm again and cause all that sickening tumult in her body.

  4

  Lord! I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing!

  Jonathan Swift

  Hannah Pym felt she was getting spoiled. Although the breakfast hour was early, six o’clock, in fact, she had not expected Benjamin to sleep in. But he had not presented himself at her bedchamber door to carry her trunk, and she had had to ring for, and therefore tip, the waiter. There were the stage-coach passengers around the table when she went downstairs, but no footman.

  When they rose to leave the inn and take their places in the now repaired coach, Hannah sent a waiter upstairs to rouse Benjamin from his bed in a cheap attic room. She then went out with the others and climbed into the carriage. Lack of punctuality in servants Hannah regarded as a sin. When she had been housekeeper to Mr Clarence, no servant under her rule dared to lie abed. She cursed herself for her soft-hearted folly in taking on Benjamin. What need had she of a servant?

  The waiter poked his head in the coach window and remarked laconically that there was ‘no sign of the fellow’.

  ‘Made a run for it,’ commented Mr Cato, shaking his head wisely. ‘Better check your goods, ma’am.’

  ‘No need for that,’ remarked Hannah impatiently. ‘I packed everything myself.’

  A blast from the guard’s horn sounded from the roof of the coach. The waiter backed away.

  ‘Wait!’ shouted Hannah, thrusting her head out of the window. ‘Hold, I say!’

  She climbed out of the coach and called up to the coachman, ‘My servant is missing. Be so good as to wait a few moments.’ And before the coachman could reply, Hannah picked up her skirts and ran towards the inn.

  It was as the waiter had said. Benjamin’s little room was empty. Hannah stood, irresolute, strangely reluctant to believe her footman had run off and left her.

  And then she saw a dark stain on the floor. She picked up a candle and lit it after some fumbling with a tinder-box and then held it close to the stain.

  She put a finger down to the mark and then examined it.

  Blood.

  Her heart began to hammer. Carrying the candle, she inspected the narrow uncarpeted staircase closely. There were long scuff-marks on the treads and more marks of blood.

  Blowing out the candle, she placed it on the floor and hurtled down the stairs, out of the inn and up to the coach. She wrenched open the door and cried, ‘Benjamin was attacked during the night and taken.’

  Lord Augustus, who had been half-asleep, opened his eyes. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Oh yes, my lord.’ She told him of the blood-stains on the floor and stairs and of the scuff-marks, which looked as if they had been made by Benjamin’s heels as his body was dragged from the room.

  The coach dipped and swayed as the coachman climbed down to find out what was causing the delay. ‘Then if you wish to speak to the authorities about your servant,’ said Miss Trenton, ‘you may wait behind.’

  ‘It has something to do with Lady Carsey,’ said Penelope suddenly. ‘I know it. I feel it here.’

  She put a hand to her bosom. Lord Augustus immediately wondered what it would be like to put his own hand there and then quickly damned the fair Penelope for conjuring up erotic thoughts on a bleak morning.

  Hannah looked at Lord Augustus appealingly. ‘What am I to do?’ she asked.

  ‘Good Heavens,’ he said languidly. ‘Take note of this. The redoubtable Miss Pym at a loss.’

  The coachman angrily demanded to know what was going on. Hannah explained. The coachman said crossly that it was all a bad business but they had to be moving forward.

  ‘Stay,’ said Penelope. ‘Miss Pym must not be left with this great worry. I shall stay with you, Miss Pym.’

  ‘It ain’t all that very far to Esher,’ said Mr Cato suddenly.

  ‘My thoughts exactly,’ said Lord Augustus. ‘But what of your ship?’

  ‘With all these delays,’ snapped Mr Cato, ‘it’ll be a miracle if it’s still there.’

  Miss Trenton was almost gasping with outrage. ‘Are you proposing to take this coach back to Esher in pursuit of one shoddy footman?’

  Lord Augustus looked at Penelope’s beseeching eyes. ‘Why, yes, ma’am, that is it in a nutshell.’

  ‘Lookee here,’ said the coachman. ‘What do I tell the company when they find I’ve put yet another day on the journey?’

  ‘You tell them that the repairs took a day longer,’ said Lord Augustus equably.

  ‘It’s all very fine for you to talk, my lord,’ said the coachman. ‘But what if I loses me job?’

  Lord Augustus drew off his gloves and put one white hand up to the lace at his throat. He plucked out a fine sapphire pin and held it up for a moment to the light. ‘All my pretty baubles,’ he sighed. ‘And I did think this suited the colour of my eyes so well; did not you, Miss Wilkins?’

  Penelope said nothing, merely clasped her hands tightly and stared at him, her eyes enormous in her face.

  ‘There you are, coachman,’ said Lord Augustus. ‘Esher it is.’

  The coachman took the pin, his eyes gleaming. ‘Right you are, my lord. Reckon as how the old coach will hold fast. Right good job they did this time.’

  ‘I shall write to the company,’ screamed Miss Trenton, beside herself with rage. She had found a small, dainty hat to wear on her flaming hair, but it showed the full fury of her face.

  ‘Be quiet, you,’ roared Mr Cato.

  Miss Trenton shrank back in her seat and began to snivel. Mr Cato surveyed her coldly and then handed her a large handkerchief like a bed-sheet, saying in a milder tone, ‘I appreciate your distress, Miss Trenton, for you are the only one among us who don’t seem made for adventures, and I guess that is why you are still a maid.’

  This remark had the effect of shocking Miss Trenton into complete silence. Hannah returned to the inn to question the landlord and servants, but no one had seen or heard anything
strange during the night. She told the others of her lack of success at finding any information as the coach swung out on the long road back to Esher.

  The passengers, with the exception of Miss Trenton, who was not consulted, agreed to remain in the coach, even when the horses were being changed, and to have their refreshment brought out to them. The sun rose on another windy day, and as they approached Esher, they fell to discussing what to do. Mr Cato was all for going to the magistrate. Lord Augustus said they had no proof. Benjamin’s body might already be lying dead in some ditch or, if he were still alive, he might be at the Manor, lying in some cellar.

  ‘She has to have her revenge,’ he said. ‘She’s that sort.’

  Penelope looked at him, remembered his love-making to Lady Carsey, and blushed and turned her face away.

  ‘So what are we to do?’ demanded Mr Cato.

  ‘For a start,’ said Lord Augustus slowly, ‘I do not think we should go into Esher itself but rack up at some wayside inn before we reach there. Otherwise, she will quickly learn of our return. We will find a place for the night. I shall tell the coachman of our plans.’ At the next stop where they changed horses again, Lord Augustus instructed the coachman to find some wayside inn outside Esher.

  They left the main road before they reached the town and went along a country lane, the coachman eventually stopping at what looked to Miss Trenton’s jaundiced eye like a hedge-tavern.

  She was still complaining that a lady of the carriage class such as herself could not possibly be expected to reside in such a place, when Lord Augustus, who had gone into the tavern to make inquiries, returned to say that there were two rooms available, the landlord and his family having agreed to sleep in the stables for the night. The ladies would share one, and he and the coachman, the guard, and Mr Cato would do the best they could with the other.

  Hannah was relieved to find that although the inn was very humble indeed, it was spotlessly clean. Mr Cato said that, as Lord Augustus had given up his pin to the adventure, he himself would foot the bill.

  They wearily sat down to supper. Now that they were so close, they all felt more hopeless than ever. The landlord and his wife bustled about, laying plates of food, gratified to have so many guests.

  ‘Tell me, landlord,’ asked Lord Augustus, ‘does Lady Carsey still reside in Esher?’

  ‘That she does, me lord, but saving your noble presence, I’d rather not be talking about the lady.’

  ‘Pray tell me why?’

  The landlord looked mutinous and his wife frightened.

  Penelope, with a sudden flash of intuition, said loudly, ‘We all hate her, you see, and think her a monster.’

  The landlord paused and wiped his hands slowly on his apron.

  ‘That be different then, for we’re sore angry with my lady. Our eldest, Greta, was in service to my lady and come home this very day, crying fit to die. Seems she broke a vase and my lady summoned her and whipped her. So she run home, all the way. Nothing the likes of I can do, her being so powerful in the town.’

  ‘Could we speak to your Greta?’ asked Hannah suddenly. ‘You see, she may know news of my footman, Benjamin.’ Briefly she told the landlord of Benjamin’s adventures at the hands of Lady Carsey.

  ‘I mind that,’ said the landlord, amazed. ‘It were the talk of the town.’ He turned to his wife. ‘Fetch our Greta here.’

  They waited anxiously until the landlord’s wife returned with a young woman whose face was blotched with weeping.

  ‘Now, Greta,’ said Hannah in the matter-of-fact voice she had used in the past to quieten frightened servants, ‘do you remember Benjamin, the deaf-and-dumb footman?’

  Greta nodded.

  ‘We fear Lady Carsey has sent ruffians to capture him. Did you hear anything strange during the night? Last night?’

  Greta shook her head and twisted her apron. Hannah sighed and then she had an idea. ‘Does Lady Carsey find it hard to keep servants, Greta?’

  ‘Oh, yes, mum. There’s a few as ’ave bin with ’er ever so long and right nasty they be. But the housekeeper, she left along o’ me. Said she reported the broken vase but didn’t say as ’ow I had done it and she would ’ave no truck wi’ the whipping of girls.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Hannah. ‘You may go, Greta.’ She turned to the others, her odd eyes flashing green with excitement. ‘I have a plan!’

  ‘I thought you would think of something before long,’ murmured Lord Augustus. ‘Go on, Miss Pym the Redoubtable, and tell us all.’

  ‘It is but seven in the evening,’ said Hannah. ‘I can still go to the Manor directly and apply for the post of housekeeper.’

  ‘And what good will that do?’ asked Miss Trenton sourly.

  ‘Let me see,’ said Hannah, ignoring her. ‘Mr Cato can drive me there, if the innkeeper has some sort of gig or cart. If I get the job, he will return for you, Lord Augustus. You and Mr Cato will hide in the grounds. If I have found Benjamin, I will light a candle and wave it across one of the front windows.’

  Lord Augustus raised his quizzing-glass and surveyed Hannah’s expensive gown of fine kerseymere wool. ‘And how do you expect to get away with it, Miss Pym? Lady Carsey has already met you.’

  ‘She did not really look at me,’ said Hannah, ‘nor did her butler. I was a bore in her eyes. She looked at Miss Wilkins because she was jealous of her and she looked at you, my lord, most of the time.’

  ‘But will she take you for a servant, Miss Pym? Your clothes will give you away.’

  Hannah coloured and gave a tug at her crooked nose. She had her housekeeper’s gown in her trunk. Sir George Clarence had deposited Hannah’s legacy in the bank for her, but Hannah still did not trust banks and feared to learn that the bankers had run off with her money and so she had kept her servant’s dress just in case she ever needed it again.

  ‘I have something that will do,’ she said, avoiding Miss Trenton’s eyes, which were uncomfortably sharp.

  ‘Well, what do you think?’ Lord Augustus asked Mr Cato when Hannah had gone upstairs to change.

  Mr Cato shook his head. ‘Now that we’re all here and going into action as it were, I’m beginning to think we’ve all run mad. What if one of the waiters at the inn thought Benjamin had money and attacked him, knowing that a deaf-and-dumb man could not cry out? It may have nothing to do with Lady Carsey.’

  ‘We’re here, and we may as well go through with it,’ said Penelope. ‘I will accompany you to the grounds and wait for Miss Pym’s signal.’

  ‘No!’ said both men at once.

  ‘But that is not fair! You are prepared to let her go alone into the house of that creature and yet you will not even let me go as far as the grounds where I may be able to be of some support to Miss Pym should harm befall her.’ Lord Augustus thought indulgently that Penelope looked like an infuriated kitten.

  ‘We’ll see,’ he said, and Penelope had to be content with that.

  Hannah reappeared and the company surveyed her in surprise. She was wearing a severe gown of black bombazine and an awesome cap. So our Miss Pym has been a housekeeper, thought Lord Augustus, and Miss Trenton said acidly, ‘Why, Miss Pym, you are the veriest servant. One would think you had been one all your life.’

  Lord Augustus went out to find the landlord and returned to say that he had a horse and cart available for their use.

  Everyone was highly excited now that the adventure was underway, except Miss Trenton, who sat a little away from the others, looking strangely wistful.

  As the cart bearing Hannah and Mr Cato jogged off into the night, the others returned to the inn to wait. Penelope searched through her luggage until she found a plain dark dress she had worn for writing classes, dark so that ink-stains would not show. It had expensive lace at the collar and cuffs, which she carefully cut off. She found a cap, one of the frivolous kind meant to be worn under a bonnet, and took the lace edging off that before tying it on her head.

  Lord Augustus was not impressed. ‘If, by any mad
folly, we do take you with us,’ he said, ‘that white cap will show in the darkness.’ Penelope took it off and threw it down on a chair. ‘Then I shall go without it,’ she said defiantly. ‘I do wonder what Miss Pym is doing. It’s a mercy Lady Carsey really saw only you, my lord.’ Then she reflected under what circumstances Lord Augustus had seen Lady Carsey and of how much he had probably seen of that lady, and she blushed fiery-red in the candlelight. Lord Augustus looked at that blush and reflected with a tinge of regret that Miss Trenton had made up that story about Penelope. The girl positively screamed Virgin.

  Hannah felt nervous and strung up as Mr Cato drove up the Manor drive. ‘To the kitchen door,’ whispered Hannah urgently, seeing the American was about to stop at the front. ‘It will be at the far side. No, leave me here and I will find it on foot.’

  ‘But what if they won’t have you?’ protested Mr Cato. ‘You don’t want to have to walk back.’

  ‘Then wait on the road outside the grounds. If I am not with you in half an hour, say, then go and fetch Lord Augustus.’

  Mr Cato watched Hannah’s spare figure as she resolutely marched to the side of the building. She had her trunk in her hand. He found himself admiring her tremendously. Hannah Pym, he thought, would make a good American.

  Hannah found the servants’ entrance and raised her hand and knocked loudly at the door.

  While she waited, she thought herself into her role. She was desperately in need of work. She had been travelling through Esher to stay with relatives in Portsmouth and had learned that the Manor was in need of a housekeeper. She was once more Hannah Pym, servant.

  After some time had passed and she was just raising her hand to knock again, she heard the shuffle of footsteps. The door swung open. The butler she had seen before, holding a candle in a flat stick, surveyed her. He was a cadaverous-looking man in his shirt-sleeves and wearing a baize apron.

  ‘I heard there was a vacancy for a housekeeper, and I am come to apply for the post,’ said Hannah firmly.

  ‘At this time of night!’

  ‘What better time,’ said Hannah briskly. ‘Are you going to keep me on this doorstep, sir, or are you going to ask me inside?’