Enlightening Delilah (19 page)

Sir Charles raised Baxter to her feet. ‘Go to Miss Effy and comfort her,’ he said. Amy had slumped back against the pillows. Sir Charles tenderly smoothed Amy’s hair back from her brow. There was a great lump in his throat. Overcome with emotion, he went and stood by the window and stared miserably down into the snow-covered whiteness of the inn yard.

He raised his hand and leaned it against the glass. Delilah came to stand beside him and he took his hand away from the cold window pane and put it at her waist. ‘Do not worry, Delilah,’ he said. ‘The end cannot be far now. I shall go and find the physician and see if he can give me some drug to alleviate her pain.’

Delilah leaned against him, weeping softly.

Sir Charles looked bleakly at the window and then saw that his hand had left a white imprint on the glass. He drew his hand gently from Delilah’s waist and looked at it. It was smeared with white. Then he looked at Amy’s clay-coloured face.

‘Delilah,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Stay here. I am going to find that physician.’

Mr Mackay was tucking into a breakfast of York ham, cold pheasant, game pie, lamb chops, devilled kidneys and curried eggs, all washed down with old ale, when Sir Charles strode into his parlour.

‘My dear Sir Charles,’ said the physician. ‘I am just having a light repast before calling on Miss Tribble. Has she survived the night?’

‘Yes,’ said Sir Charles, sitting down at the table, ‘and like to survive a good many more. How much did she pay you?’

‘I do not know what you mean. Miss Amy Tribble is at death’s door.’

‘If Miss Amy Tribble is going to die of anything, it might be from lead poisoning,’ said Sir Charles. ‘She must have about one inch of blanc on her face.’

‘Indeed!’ The physician shook his head. ‘Ah, the ladies. Exhausted after the journey and already ill, she must have forgot to remove her cosmetic.’

‘I do not know what she paid you,’ said Sir Charles evenly, ‘but I will pay double for the truth.’

Mr Mackay, a little Scotchman with sandy hair and bristling eyebrows, looked thoughtfully at his plate and then speared a kidney and popped it into his mouth. Then he dabbed his mouth with his napkin and said, ‘Five guineas.’

‘Then I shall give you ten,’ said Sir Charles. ‘You will make me up the nastiest concoction you can think of. I shall tell Miss Amy it is a new miracle medicine. Do you understand me?’

Mr Mackay grinned. ‘I understand you very well.’

‘Then finish your breakfast, make up a bottle of something, and come to the inn with me.’

When Sir Charles entered the bedchamber and saw how white and wretched Delilah looked, he nearly seized Miss Amy Tribble by the neck and dragged her from the bed.

But if Delilah knew she had been tricked, then Delilah might change her mind again.

So instead, he said, ‘Do not cry. I bring hope; Mr Mackay has been working all night on a recipe. He is sure it will cure Miss Amy. Come, Mr Mackay. Miss Amy is too weak to sit up. Place a funnel in her mouth and I will pour it into her.’

Amy had not heard what he said. She only felt something being placed between her lips.

Sir Charles tipped the whole bottle of evil-smelling and foul-tasting stuff down Amy’s throat.

Amy Tribble tore the funnel out of her mouth. ‘How dare you pour that horse’s piss down my throat?’ she raged. ‘Odd’s whoresons. Have you no thought for a dying woman?’

‘It is a miracle,’ said Sir Charles. He seized a damp face-cloth from the toilet table and scrubbed Amy’s face hard. ‘Only see how her colour has returned!’

Amy darted one sharp intelligent look at him and closed her eyes. ‘I feel sick,’ she said weakly.

‘I think we should leave her to sleep now,’ said Sir Charles quietly. ‘Dry your tears, ladies, and join me for a hearty breakfast. Mr Mackay has decided that the best treatment following his wonderful medicine is fasting. A day completely without food will soon put Miss Tribble on her feet again.’

Delilah and Effy begged to stay with Amy, but Sir Charles ushered them out of the room, saying if they wished to help their patient, then they must keep their spirits up with a good breakfast.

Delilah prayed for Amy’s recovery, Amy who had been instrumental in bringing her such happiness. She could not believe that she had ever wanted to be free of Sir Charles. The man was all heart! Only look how lively and amused he seemed now that the danger to Amy’s life appeared to be over.

It was three days before they could set out on the road again. Effy and Baxter and Delilah could talk of nothing but Mr Mackay’s miracle cure. Amy smiled and agreed the man must be a genius, she had never felt so well in her life.

The merry party finally arrived at the squire’s to find that gentleman up and about. Amy was cast down by Mrs Cavendish’s very ordinary appearance. Surely it would have been better if the squire had ignored her for some beauty!

Effy was still shaken by the experiences of the road and pleased to find the squire’s mansion elegant and comfortable and Mrs Cavendish prepared to minister to her every need. The Tribbles agreed to stay for the wedding. Both were enjoying the novelty of being mothered and looked after, and even Amy finally gruffly allowed that the squire was lucky and that Mrs Cavendish was a Trojan.

The weather had turned frosty and fine and Sir Charles was a constant visitor.

And then one week before the weddings, Mrs Cavendish invited the ladies of the village to one of her readings. New novels were hard to come by and when one arrived, it was considered the duty of the lucky lady to read it aloud to the others.

The ladies of Hoppleton crowded into the squire’s comfortable drawing room and settled down with their work-baskets as Mrs Cavendish began to read in her pleasant, mellow voice.

Delilah had been dreaming of her wedding when suddenly she realized that there was something dreadfully familiar about the lines which Mrs Cavendish had just begun to read as Sir Charles walked into the room.

The old marchioness was lying in her bed, near death. Suddenly, she straightened up and stared at the end of the bed. ‘Oh, bright angel,’ she cried. ‘You are come to take me home. I am going to a far country where there is no pain, no suffering.’ Elizabeth began to cry and Count Florinda seized her hand. The dying marchioness suddenly looked at them. ‘Grant my last dying wish,’ she said. ‘Say you will marry each other.’

Delilah rose and left the room and Sir Charles followed her. She waited until they were both out in the garden and said, ‘She couldn’t . . . she didn’t . . .’

Sir Charles put his arms about her waist and held her close. ‘Would it make any difference now to know that she
did
trick us?’

‘No,’ said Delilah. Then she began to laugh. ‘Was there ever anyone in the whole world like Amy Tribble?’

He began to kiss her so fiercely that neither of them heard the monstrous crash of china as, indoors, the enraged Effy picked up the tea tray and threw it straight at her sister’s head.

*   *   *

Three weeks later, the Tribble sisters made their way back to London. Effy was still barely speaking to Amy. Amy was wrapped up in her own worries and did not notice. During their stay at the squire’s, they had been mothered by Mrs Cavendish, fed enormous meals, and gone for sedate walks. Even Effy had become almost reconciled to life in the country.

But London was soon to swallow them up – black and dangerous, hard and cruel London. The squire had given them a bonus and, generous as it was, the sisters knew it would need to last them a long time. Soon now, they would need to pay off their servants one by one. The Season would come and the Season would go and no one would want their services. And they would have all the responsibility and cost of caring for Yvette’s baby.

Mr Haddon is rich, thought Amy crossly. By George, I don’t think I would give a tart’s curse if he did marry Effy. At least we would be set for life.

A greasy drizzle was falling when they alighted at Holles Street. As she made her way up to the drawing room, Amy was glancing this way and that, making a mental record of what they could sell.

She sat down and pulled off her bonnet and flicked through the pile of post. Invitations to this and invitations to that. ‘We are still fashionable, Effy,’ said Amy. ‘Such a pity our career is in ruins.’

‘I do not wish to speak to you,’ sniffed Effy. ‘Liar and cheat.’

‘Do not prose on,’ said Amy. ‘Here’s a letter for you with a crest on it.’

Effy fumbled in her bosom for her eyeglass, cracked open the seal and began to read.

‘It’s from Georgiana, Viscountess Clarendon,’ said Effy in a wondering voice. ‘She wants to hire us to school her daughter, Clarissa. ‘I do not know your fees, dear Effy,’ she writes, ‘but you may name your price.’

‘Hooray!’ shouted Amy, jumping up and down. She wrenched open the drawing-room door and called, ‘Champagne, Harris. At the double. Oh, Effy, we are in business again. Do not be so cross with me. If I had not pretended to be dying, then Delilah and Sir Charles might never have got together.’

‘We must go carefully,’ said Effy, ‘and not waste money on trifles.’

‘I agree,’ said Amy. ‘What a relief! We shall guard every penny from now on.’

Harris brought in the champgane and the sisters toasted each other.

‘Of course,’ said Effy, ‘they are prepared to pay a lot of money. It is mortifying not to have any decent jewellery and I did see such a pretty little sapphire necklace in Rundell and Bridges last month. A mere trifle.’

‘Buy it!’ cried Amy, waving her hand and knocking over the champagne bottle.

‘How clumsy you are,’ said Effy. ‘What will our new charge think of us? The daughter of dainty little Georgiana. She will be a delicate fairy-like creature and not a great hulking brute like you, Amy. I admit you did very well with Delilah. But you must allow me to take this delicate creature in hand.’

‘As you will,’ said Amy sourly. ‘As you will.’