Perfecting Fiona (18 page)

Bertha leaned against him, her eyes half closed, relishing every minute of the journey. When Frank had told her that he had come into money and added that it was Mr Callaghan’s money, Bertha thought he had only taken what rightly belonged to him. Any master refusing to pay wages deserved to be punished.

They stopped at an inn for supper and went in to the Traveller’s Room, which was already full of drapers, druggists, dysalters, grocers, hop merchants, and representatives of a dozen other trades. Conversation rose and fell about their table. A hop merchant was bemoaning the blight of the last crop, a druggist was complaining that no one wanted bark anymore or isinglass for that matter, and a draper was showing samples of spring patterns. Bertha began to feel the first qualm of unease. All these gentlemen
had
jobs. How were they going to live after the stolen money and goods ran out?

‘Why the long face?’ asked Frank. ‘Here we both are, as free as the birds, and you suddenly look as if you’re at a funeral.’

‘I was thinking,’ said Bertha. ‘What are we going to do for money, in the bye and bye, I mean.’

Frank laid a finger alongside his nose and drooped his eyelid in a broad wink. ‘I’m going to do to others wot Mr Callaghan did to me.’

‘Whatever can you mean?’ cried Bertha, her eyes like saucers.

‘All that equality lark,’ said Frank. ‘It touched me here.’ He struck his chest. ‘Then I learned it was all a hum. That Bond Street Beau was just working me up so’s to cause trouble. But I’m going to get some books and read all that stuff by Thomas Paine and I’m going to learn speeches and I’m going to preach equality up and down the south of England.’

‘But how will that get you money?’ cried Bertha.

‘I go round with the hat and ask for donations to help the poor and suffering – the poor and suffering being me and thee.’

‘Ooo! You’re ever so clever,’ said Bertha, giving his arm a squeeze.

‘I know,’ said the ex-footman, and with a lordly wave of his hand, he summoned the waiter.

Mr Callaghan was travelling down the dusty Dover road, on his way to France. At first, it had been a nightmare journey. Every time a carriage came alongside, Mr Callaghan dreaded to see Mr Haddon’s furious face poking out of the window. But as the miles rolled by, he began to feel secure – and sulky. The more he brooded on his misfortune, the more he became sure that the Tribble sisters had deliberately sent Frank into his employ to ruin him. They had driven him away from all the comforts of Town, the lounge in Bond Street, the drives in the Park, the clubs and routs, operas and plays. One day he would make them suffer.

He thought he had been a gullible fool to have believed Effy’s story that her only money had come from what she earned. Mr Callaghan, who gambled heavily and wasted money on showy clothes and showy horses, could not understand the budgeting of people who did not.

Somehow, some way, some time, he would hit upon a plan to ruin the Tribbles.

. . . bright, and fierce, and fickle . . .

The sisters were exalted with success when the news of Lord Peter Havard’s engagement burst upon the surprised world. The world, of course, began at St James’s Square and ended at Kensington Palace. Anyone outside that magic sphere did not exist.

Mr Haddon had travelled to the country to visit an old friend, and so there was no one to curb the Tribbles’ flying spirits, or to point out to them that they were well on their way to ruining a promising career. Fiona was wrapped up in her own happiness and did not notice what they were about, and Lord Peter was down in Kent.

For once Amy and Effy were in agreement over their latest piece of madness. They had rented an open carriage, lined with blue silk and bedecked with silk roses. And they’d had a large placard made, painted in gold curly letters, and affixed to the back. On it was proclaimed, ‘The Misses Tribble, Chaperones Extraordinary. No Miss Is Too Difficult for Us to Hone and Refine.’

Then they went driving in this equipage in the Park at the fashionable hour. The Honourable Geoffrey ‘Cully’ Coudrey took one appalled look and headed for his club to send an express to Lord Peter. The Duchess of Penshire turned scarlet with rage and cut the Tribbles, turning her head away and pointedly ignoring their greeting, and the gossip writers from the magazines and newspapers gleefully took notes.

But the sisters were still blissfully unaware of their disgrace. They agreed that the duchess must have mistaken them for two other ladies. There were plenty of society members, mostly foppish young men, to crowd round the carriage when they stopped, twittering with delight and telling them it was a famous idea.

Fiona was rudely jerked off her pink cloud that evening to land to earth with a bump, open her eyes, and realize her chaperones were well on the way to making themselves – and her – ridiculous.

After dinner, when they were seated comfortably over the tea-tray in the drawing room, Amy produced sheets of paper and started to draft out an advertisement. ‘Let me see,’ she said dreamily, ‘we shall put something like . . . um . . . ‘‘Witness our latest success. Miss Fiona Macleod is to marry Lord Peter Havard.’’ Yes, and perhaps, dear Fiona, a little tribute from you.’

Fiona carefully put down the sampler she had been laboriously stitching and said, ‘Do not be ridiculous. You must be joking.’

‘It pays to advertise,’ said Amy, unaware of Fiona’s distress. ‘You should have seen the faces when we drove our rig in the Park.’

‘What rig?’ asked Fiona.

‘The sweetest little chariot.’ Effy sighed. ‘We had it bedecked with flowers and a neat board on the back advertising our prowess.’

‘How could you?’ demanded Fiona, her face flaming. ‘Not only have you made laughing-stocks of yourselves, but of me too.’

‘Nonsense!’ said Amy. ‘Everyone was most intrigued. Mr Cecil Delisle declared himself quite enchanted.’

‘Mr Cecil Delisle is a painted and malicious gossip,’ said Fiona. And, made cruel by her feelings of outrage, she added, ‘You should have heard his remarks on your singing at the Dunsters’ party. I heard him tell Lord Aubrey that if his horse could sing, he is sure it would sound and look just like you.’

‘You nasty little girl,’ roared Amy. ‘Go to your room. After all we have done for you . . .’

‘All you have done,’ said Fiona stiffly, ‘is to do something that might stop me marrying the man I love.’ She turned and walked from the room.

Effy patted Amy’s hand. ‘Pay no attention,’ she said. ‘Bride nerves.’

Amy shifted uncomfortably. ‘Oh, Lor, Effy, do you think . . . ?’

The door opened and the butler, Harris, came in. He handed them a letter. ‘Came by hand,’ he said. ‘The Duke of Penshire’s footman.’

‘That will be all, Harris,’ said Amy grandly. When the butler had left, she looked at Effy’s stricken face. ‘Don’t look like that,’ she said. ‘It will be about the wedding arrangements. So kind of them to offer their town mansion.’

She crackled open the heavy parchment and began to read. Her face turned a muddy colour, and as Effy watched, Amy picked up a large quizzing-glass from the table beside her and studied the letter again.

‘Don’t just sit there, reading and reading,’ squeaked Effy. ‘Out with it! What does it say?’

‘The duchess says,’ said Amy heavily, ‘that we are a disgrace, that we are vulgar and common. She says that she and her husband cannot bless the marriage. Lord Peter is well over age and must do as he likes, but they will no longer be a party to it.’

‘Ruined!’ said Effy, aghast. She began to cry helplessly, saying in a choking voice between sobs that Mr Haddon was their only hope.

‘We did not do anything so very wrong,’ blustered Amy. ‘I will not apologize to Fiona, nor to the Penshires!’

But for the next week the house in Holles Street was shrouded in gloom. Fiona went for long walks and played the piano for hours and spoke only when spoken to.

Effy prayed that Mr Haddon would come.

Come he did at last on a morning of gloomy rain. But just before his arrival, the sisters had received another blow. The Season was only a week away and the stern patronesses of Almack’s Assembly Rooms in King Street had written to say they could not allow Miss Macleod vouchers. The sisters did not know that this decision had been reached before their self-advertising display. Engaged to Lord Peter Havard she might be, but Miss Macleod’s own family was not distinguished enough to allow her the honour of being seen at Almack’s.

Mr Haddon surveyed the dismal scene, Effy in tears and Amy tight-faced and red-eyed.

In his usual way, he sat down patiently and listened hard to the almost incoherent explanations and excuses.

Then they both looked at him hopefully, like sinners waiting for the priest’s blessing.

But he shook his head. ‘You have done a great deal of damage,’ he said, ‘and I do not know how you can possibly repair it. No one will want to send their daughter to you after such a public display. But that is as nothing compared to the wrong you have done Miss Macleod.’

‘Perhaps Lord Peter . . .’ began Amy hopefully.

Mr Haddon shook his head. ‘He will be furious and perhaps all too glad to settle for a quiet wedding.’ He held up his hand. ‘No, not another word. Let me think!’

Amy went to Effy and gathered her in her arms and the sisters sat side by side on the sofa, holding each other for comfort.

Mr Haddon turned over in his mind what he knew of the Duke and Duchess of Penshire. Everyone in London society knew everyone else, like members of an exclusive club. The Penshires were acquisitive, grasping, enormously wealthy, but always on the look-out to increase the family wealth – hence their initial acceptance of Fiona. As a ducal son, there was little fear that Lord Peter would turn out to be the same. Brought up as he had been by tutors, school, and more tutors at Oxford, he had never been under any parental influence.

‘I cannot promise you anything,’ he said at last. ‘But I might be able to do something.’

They watched him take his leave without much hope.

They were leaning their heads together and talking in low voices when Fiona entered the room and at the same time Lord Peter Havard was announced.

He bowed to the sisters, who rose and curtsied and looked at him miserably.

‘Leave us,’ said Fiona sternly. ‘I wish to speak to my fiancé in private.’

Amy and Effy were too crushed to protest.

‘You have changed roles, my sweet,’ said Lord Peter. ‘Goodness, I feel I have been away for years. Come and kiss me!’

‘Not yet,’ said Fiona. ‘Something disastrous has happened.’

While Lord Peter held her hands in his, Fiona told him of the sisters’ iniquities. She heard a stifled chuckle and looked up in amazement to find Lord Peter’s eyes dancing with laughter.

‘How can you laugh?’ asked Fiona, pulling her hands away.

‘Because it does not matter,’ he said. ‘My friend, Mr Coudrey, wrote to me express in Kent to tell me of that affair in the Park. I set out for London immediately and by chance I met our Prince Regent on the road. He congratulated me on my marriage and I boldly told him of the Misses Tribble’s advertising efforts and he laughed so hard I thought he was going to have a spasm. He had already heard of Miss Amy’s singing and he says he must meet them. He is coming to our wedding and so your chaperones will have all the success they crave. But
we
do not need fashionable blessing. We have each other, and, oh, Fiona, such a sweet home in Kent.’

‘But your parents . . . ?’

‘They will come about. Why are we wasting time? We are alone. Kiss me.’

‘Oh, Peter.’

‘And again. And again.’

‘We cannot leave them alone in there,’ bleated Effy, hanging on to Amy. Both sisters were huddled together on the landing.

‘Don’t see how we can do anything else,’ mourned Amy. ‘She don’t want us. Nobody wants us. And Mr Haddon is a good and kind man, but we’ve gone too far this time, Effy. I wonder whether there is madness in our family.’

The Duke and Duchess of Penshire gracefully agreed to give audience to Mr Haddon. They knew he was a nabob who had made a great fortune in India. But the minute they heard the reason for his call, their faces hardened.

‘Havard must do as he pleases,’ said the duke, as usual referring to his younger son as if speaking about some unrelated member of society. ‘But we will not be party to the Misses Tribble’s vulgarity.’

‘They are very great ladies,’ said Mr Haddon, ‘who are striving to earn their keep in a genteel manner. They are well aware they have offended you and charged me to bring their apologies with this present’ – he indicated a packet on his lap – ‘but if your minds are set against them, I shall return the present.’

Two pairs of hard, acquisitive, aristocratic eyes fastened on the packet. ‘What is it?’ asked the duke.

‘I do not know,’ said Mr Haddon, although he knew very well. He had brought back a collection of fine jewels from India and the one in the little packet was the prize. It was a large pigeon’s-egg ruby, estimated to be one of the finest ever to come out of India. ‘Shall I open it? I can always wrap it again and say you refused it out of hand.’