Mrs. Budley Falls from Grace Read online

  He bowed and left, leaving Charles looking amused and speculative and Lady Stanton with narrowed eyes. She debated whether to have a glass of negus and then complain loudly about the quality of it but Mr. Brackley appeared to remind her of their dance together and got a venomous look for his pains.

  Only the thought that the marquess was in the ballroom and the fact that Sir Philip Sommerville was studying her closely made her shrug and acquiesce, although she called over her shoulder to Charles, “Remember, the dance after this one is ours.”

  The marquess dutifully danced with all the most eligible young ladies, mindful that he was supposed to be looking for a bride. He found he was dreading the moment when he would go in for supper with the other guests and have to watch Mrs. Budley waiting table. He was still angry. There was no need for her to humiliate herself like this in front of society. He was so preoccupied in thinking about Mrs. Budley that he hardly spared a thought for Lady Stanton, although she and Charles came over several times to speak to him between dances.

  He decided to take Jessica Branston in to supper. He had met her before, he remembered, when her mother had claimed that carriage accident at his gates, and he was sorry for her, pitying her for having such a pushing mother.

  Lady Stanton went in on the arm of Charles Manderley and Mr. Brackley followed and promptly took the chair on her other side.

  Sir Philip decided that Lady Stanton’s fate would be decided on whether she drank the turtle soup or not. The poor relations flew between the long tables, serving food and pouring wine. The marquess noticed several of the men staring in a calculating way at Mrs. Budley and making bold remarks. One even tried to get an arm around her waist, but as the angry marquess half-rose in his seat, Sir Philip went scurrying up and whispered something to the man, who flushed angrily and then sat and stared at his plate in a mortified way.

  Mindful of his social duties, the marquess made small talk with Jessica while his mind raced over all the stories he had heard of hotel life. What indignities she must be subject to! Why, only the week before, Lord Byron had been drinking with his cronies at a hotel off Leicester Square. Men wishing to relieve themselves were supposed to use the backyard of the hotel but Lord Byron had used the front hall, on the carpet, and in full view of everybody …

  “She didn’t touch the soup,” hissed Sir Philip to Lady Fortescue.

  “Who didn’t?” asked Lady Fortescue, signalling to the waiters to take the soup plates away.

  “Lady Stanton.”

  “A pox on that whore,” remarked Lady Fortescue calmly. “I do not care whether she drinks our soup or chokes on it.”

  “You will see what you will see,” said Sir Philip mysteriously.

  He scuttled down to the butler’s pantry and part filled a decanter with wine fortified with brandy, guessing—rightly—that such as Lady Stanton would find unadulterated French wine too insipid. In fact, most wine dealers added brandy to their imported wines to suit the English taste. Then he poured the essence of senna pods into the decanter and carried it upstairs.

  Lady Stanton was pretending to pay attention to what the gentlemen on either side of her were saying while all the time her eyes devoured the marquess, who was sitting almost opposite her at one of the long tables.

  Sir Philip watched until her glass was empty and hurried up to refill it from the decanter. “Our special vintage, my lady,” he whispered. “There is a new fashion in France. It is quite comme il faut for the lady to ask the gentleman to take wine.”

  There was a custom in the Regency of men asking ladies to “drink with them.” This meant that the gentleman would raise his glass to a lady at the dinner or supper table and say, “Will you take wine with me?” and the lady was expected to match him glass for glass, or rather appear to, most ladies contenting themselves with sipping just a little.

  So anxious was she to engage the marquess’s attention that Lady Stanton never paused to reflect where the advice had come from. She raised her glass and said clearly, “I take wine with you, Lord Peterhouse.” He looked mildly startled but politely raised his glass. Keeping her eyes fixed on him, Lady Stanton drank the contents of her glass. Mr. Brackley sulkily refilled it, saying, “You are making a cake of yourself. Ladies do not ask men to take wine with them.”

  “They do in France,” snapped Lady Stanton in an angry aside. She raised her eyes again and, fixing the marquess with a burning look, again emptied her glass.

  That was when disaster struck. Her lead paint cracked as wrenching pains seized her stomach and then the inevitable happened.

  “Demme, smells like a sewer in here,” remarked Charles Manderley.

  “I don’t smell anything,” said Lady Stanton. “Get me out of here,” she hissed to Mr. Brackley.

  “What?”

  “You heard. Drape my shawl about my shoulders and walk closely behind me. Do it now.”

  She rose to her feet. All the gentlemen round about her rose as well. Huddled in her long shawl, Lady Stanton almost ran from the room.

  Sir Philip came up and removed the decanter. “Goodness, this chair is stained,” he said loudly, looking down at where Lady Stanton had been sitting. He snapped his fingers and summoned a footman. “Take this chair down to the kitchens and scrub it. Disgusting,” he said, shaking his head.

  To the marquess, it seemed as if the supper would never end as course followed course and Mrs. Budley flew here and there with plates and glasses. The food was superb. There were cries of delight when the guests were told to open the parcels at their places and all exclaimed over the gifts. When Despard, his eyes glittering with excitement, wheeled in the huge dessert, which was the whole of the Battle of Trafalgar executed in spun sugar down to the rigging on the ships, the guests burst into a spontaneous round of applause.

  And then it was over. The band started up a jaunty tune in the ballroom and the guests began to file out, laughing and chattering.

  “Now this is where the work really begins,” thought Mrs. Budley, too tired now to even think about the marquess. The tables were rapidly cleared of dirty glasses and dishes. Lady Fortescue said to her, “As soon as this is finished, we are to adjoin to a room on the first floor for our own supper. Very thoughtful of Mrs. Hitchcock not to expect us to eat in the servants’ hall.”

  Gradually the room cleared of servants and then the poor relations made their way wearily upstairs to enjoy their own supper in peace and quiet.

  Except Mrs. Budley.

  She sat down on a gilt chair in the supper-room and put her head in her hands and let wave after wave of humiliation break over her head. She remembered the coarse remarks of some of the gentlemen and cursed herself on the folly of wearing too low-cut a gown. She saw the faces of guests she had known in her fashionable youth and remembered that all had cut her dead.

  The music had changed. The sound of a waltz came from the ballroom, haunting and lilting.

  “Mrs. Budley?”

  She looked up.

  The marquess was standing there. He smiled down at her and held out his hand. “Our dance, I think.”

  “I cannot go in there, my lord!”

  “We will dance here. Come.”

  She looked at him in wonder as he raised her to her feet. He drew her into his arms and they waltzed, dipping and swaying, their steps matching. The tables were gone, apart from a long one against the wall which would shortly be restocked with bottles and glasses after the staff had enjoyed a brief respite. The champagne fountain had ceased to play and a group of bloated plaster cherubs which had only recently had rivers of champagne gushing from the horns they held in their plump hands gazed with sightless plaster eyes at the marquess and Mrs. Budley as they circled round and round, as if enchanted.

  Then the music ceased. She sank into a low curtsy. He bowed over her hand and then, as she rose, he jerked her into his arms and kissed her full on the mouth.

  The hitherto sexually unawakened Mrs. Budley came briefly to dazzling life. For one heady momen
t, her lips burnt under his own and her body strained against him. Then a voice from the doorway said, “Oh, I do beg your pardon,” with a very sarcastic intonation. The couple broke apart.

  “My supper,” babbled Mrs. Budley, and ran from the room. The marquess stood alone and watched her go. “Damn,” he said bitterly to the uncaring plaster cherubs. “Damn and double damn!”

  Chapter Six

  Kissing don’t last; cookery do!

  —GEORGE MEREDITH

  USUALLY AFTER such a long and lavish affair as the Hitchcocks’s ball, society members kept to their beds the following day, only venturing out to some mild entertainment in the evening. But now there was too much to gossip about, to talk about. The nabob’s wife was now an established member of the ton. The glory of the food was praised in the West End and it was generally admitted that the bejewelled poor relations had been such fun and Sir Philip’s waspish remarks were widely reported, for society loved to be insulted and Beau Brummell’s popularity was proof of that.

  But one group of ladies who met over the teacups at Lady Stanton’s the following day, proved to be the exception to the general praise.

  Mrs. Tykes-Dunne said wearily it all had been too vulgar for worlds, Mrs. Branston vowed that she would faint if Almack’s lowered its high standards and let the Hitchcocks in through its august doors, and Lady Stanton remarked that the poor relations were obviously using inferior materials in the cooking, for she had never felt so ill in all her life.

  Only Lady Fremley, stitching away with a little curved smile on her mouth, refrained from comment.

  “Of course,” said Mrs. Branston, rallying a little, “I cannot help but be proud of my little Jessica. Did you mark how everyone stared when he took her in to supper? She is still quite in alt.”

  Lady Fremley spoke for the first time. “I am surprised you are here with us, Mrs. Branston. Surely Lord Peterhouse will call in person today, as is the custom, to pay his respects to Jessica. I would have thought you would have preferred to wait at home.”

  Mrs. Branston’s face darkened. “He sent his servant,” she said curtly. Lady Stanton’s mouth curved in her first smile of the day. Gentlemen only sent their servants in their place when the lady they had danced with the night before was considered too uninteresting to merit a personal call.

  Lady Handon announced, “Well, I have been saving a monstrous piece of news for all of you, regarding Peterhouse.”

  They all looked at her. Even Lady Fremley stopped sewing.

  “I thought I had left something in the supper-room,” said Lady Handon. She had in fact noticed the marquess was not in the ballroom and had gone in search of him. “The door to the supper-room was closed, as the servants were supposed to be having their own supper. I opened it and guess what I saw!”

  “What did you see?” asked Lady Stanton, casting an amused look around the rest.

  “I saw the Marquess of Peterhouse kissing one of those poor relations, the little one with her dress half off.”

  They gazed at her in dumb amazement. Lady Stanton was convulsed with fury. Her still weak stomach heralded another disaster, and with a muttered excuse she fled from the room.

  The others stared at each other in consternation.

  With the exception of Lady Fremley.

  She picked up her sewing and said in a reflective voice, “Well, that piece of news was certainly enough to make our hostess shite herself again.”

  “Really!” cried Lady Handon and then sniggered. Mrs. Branston began to giggle helplessly for the first time since she had been a schoolgirl, and Mrs. Tykes-Dunne chortled happily.

  Faintly from the privacy of a small room where the close-stool was lodged, Lady Stanton heard their laughter and her cheeks burnt with shame and her tortured body burnt with hate. Somehow, somewhere, and quite soon, she would be revenged on that pack of poor relations.

  While the ladies were enjoying the humiliation of Lady Stanton, Bond Street was becoming crowded with afternoon strollers. It was not the most elegant of streets, but from two o’clock until five o’clock it was the resort of the most fashionable people. It became all bustle, all life, with the most elegant of carriages dashing up and down. The shops were full of trifles—confectionery, jewellery, cravats, books, perfumes, mezzotints, bric-à brac; and there were coiffeurs, bootmakers and milliners.

  Pierce Egan, the creator of the fictitious Corinthians, Tom and Jerry, described the magic of Bond Street: “It makes the lord who drives four-in-hand forget his losses of the night before at some of the fashionable gaming houses. It makes one adventurer forget that the clothes in which he expects to gain respect and attention are more than likely to be paid for in Newgate; another for a time forgets that John Doe and Richard Doe have expelled him from his lodgings; and a third that all his worldly possessions are not equal to the purchase of a dinner. It is an ignis fatuus—a sort of magic lantern replete with delusive appearances—of momentary duration—an escape to the regions of noise, tumult, vanity and frivolity, where the realities of life, the circumstances and the situation of the observer, are not suffered to intrude …”

  It was this heady atmosphere of the-devil-take-tomorrow which usually buoyed up the spirits of the poor relations, and even Miss Tonks during these hectic afternoons felt like a wicked adventuress, a woman of mystery, a woman with hidden charms which some gentleman one day would surely discover. Living in Bond Street meant living in an unreal world and never was that world more unreal than during the Season, when families would bankrupt their estates in the country in order to appear elegant in London. But the Poor Relation benefited from the more solid aristocratic families, the more prudent ones, who knew that lodging at the Poor Relation gave them social cachet without the dreadful expense of renting a whole house and engaging an army of servants for the Season. The food at the Poor Relation was so famous that residents could entertain guests ir. the dining-room and gain as much social credit as if they had thrown an expensive ball.

  Mrs. Budley, who believed she had been aged by love, often felt she was the only one of them who realized the precariousness of an existence based on fickle fashion. Only she, she felt, knew that their future actually lay in the hands of Despard, the French cook. Sir Philip had told them in confidence that Despard was actually an escaped prisoner from the hulks and therefore was forced to stay loyal to them for his own safety.

  But Mrs. Budley did not trust the cook, who sneered at the aristocracy as effete, and she often thought that when he had squirrelled away enough money, he would desert them and try to make his way back to his home country. Certainly, for the moment, he appeared drunk with success and confident that the Poor Relation would receive more orders for outside catering.

  Mrs. Budley went about her work, trying to forget about that kiss. She had not confided in Miss Tonks, although she longed to speak to someone. A concerned Miss Tonks might tell the others. But who would tell her other than that she had no hope of marriage?

  The drama of the fire in the hotel had brought Harriet and her duke together. But there seemed to be no dramas ahead in her life. Only hard work.

  She did, however, feel a certain feminine lightness of heart when they all met in the sitting-room as usual that evening and Lady Fortescue announced that as the Hitchcocks had been so generous and as Lord Ager in Berkeley Square had sent round a request that they do the catering for his daughter’s coming-out ball, she was prepared to loosen the purse-strings and allow them all to buy something each. As Lord Ager’s ball was to be in a month’s time, the ladies could have the luxury of having gowns made for them by a couturier. Sir Philip leaned forward, his eyes shining with greed. What should he buy? If the ladies were to have expensive gowns, then there would surely be no objection of him ordering a coat from Weston, the famous tailor. One is never old in one’s mind’s eye. Sir Philip saw himself in a blue coat of Bath superfine, slim and elegant as he had been in his youth.

  One of the strollers that day in Bond Street was Mr. George Pym
, nephew of the late marquess and cousin to the present one. He had lived in hope for years that the present marquess would be killed in battle, leaving him free to inherit the title. As if conjured up by his thoughts, he saw the marquess standing outside the Poor Relation Hotel, looking up at it. He saw him make a half-move to go inside and then walk on. Mr. Pym hurried to catch up with him.

  “Good day, Rupert,” he called. The marquess turned round and looked down at Mr. Pym, thinking not for the first time that he was an unlikeable man. Mr. Pym was small and round and owlish, the birdlike appearance being emphasized by the cutaway front of his coat and the long tails at the back.

  “Doing the Season, George?” asked the marquess.

  “Tol rol. One must,” said Mr. Pym. “Got miserable lodgings, however.”

  The marquess knew Mr. Pym to be very rich indeed but obviously still as mean as ever. He had no intention of offering him house-room, so he ignored the remark.

  “And why are you here?” pursued Mr. Pym. “Did not think jauntering about was much in your line.”

  “Oh, but I am in Town to find a bride.”

  Mr. Pym glared up at him. A married marquess meant a quiverful of little heirs to stand between him and the title. Certainly the marquess looked very fit, but London was full of plagues and humours—cholera, typhoid, smallpox, influenza, diptheria—any of those beautiful maladies guaranteed to take one strong marquess to his early grave.

  Charles Manderley approached them and the marquess hailed him with relief. “Excuse us, George,” he said. He linked arms with Charles and they strolled off.

  Mr. Pym went into Limmer’s to comfort his soul with gin punch. He recognized practically everyone in the room, most society members knowing each other, if only by sight. He saw Mr. Jason Brackley and went to join him.

  “Didn’t see you at the Hitchcocks’s,” remarked Mr. Brackley by way of greeting.

  “Was invited,” said Mr. Pym, “but folks were saying it was an unfashionable affair.”