The Paper Princess (10 page)

“So I did,” said Felicity cheerfully, “and no one would think for a moment that I would deliberately destroy such a lovely gown as that.

“As far as Mr. Palfrey is concerned, I must be as dead as mutton. I am glad I wrote to my sisters from Falmouth to tell them the truth—only not the bit about my going to London as a princess—only that I am alive and will soon be in touch with them. They will not betray me to Mr. Palfrey.”

Now it was Miss Chubb's turn to look worried. “Even when they do not find the bodies, there will be some sort of service, and your sisters, bless them, are none of them actresses. Mr. Palfrey may notice their lack of grief.”

“Not he,” said Felicity. “He will be so busy covering up his own lack of grief that he will not notice how anyone else is behaving!”

They were waiting in the wings, waiting to go on stage, waiting for the Season to begin.

London's curiosity about this new princess had not yet been satisfied. Princess Felicity's servants had announced to all callers that Her Majesty had no intention of meeting any social engagements until the start of the Season.

Felicity wanted to be well prepared and to have her servants thoroughly coached. For very few of them were real servants. On their journey to London, John Tremayne had sought out the local candidates for the “royal” household. All, except the butler, had been found guilty of minor crimes, usually caused by near-starvation. The promise of a good home, wages, and an escape from prison had bound them all to secrecy. But they had to be trained. Housemaids and chambermaids were easily dealt with. The cook, a motherly widow whose only crime had been to steal a loaf of bread, had to have time to learn to produce large banquets, and she, in turn, had to train the kitchen staff. The butler, an ex-burglar turned religious maniac, had been chosen by John, who had found him emerging from prison after having served his sentence. That he had not been hanged was a miracle. It was his appearance that had struck John immediately. He was fat and pompous and had a cold and quelling eye. Apart from the fact that the new butler, Mr. Spinks, was apt to treat John Tremayne as if he were an angel specially sent down from heaven to rescue him, Spinks studied his new duties assiduously and soon showed a talent for running the household. He was apt to fall to his knees and pray loudly when upset, but so very little upset him these days that Felicity felt they could well put up with this little eccentricity.

They had been very lucky. They had not even had to search for a town house. On their journey toward London, a lord who had heard of their arrival in his area had promptly offered them the hospitality of his country mansion, and, on their departure, had insisted they take the keys to his town house in Chesterfield Gardens, Mayfair, saying that he did not intend to visit London during the next Season, and the house would otherwise be standing empty.

John Tremayne found illiteracy an increasing disadvantage and so, with Felicity's permission, he visited the Fleet Prison until he found a suitable schoolmaster, paid his debts, brought him back to Chesterfield Gardens, and set him up as resident tutor. The schoolmaster's name was Mr. Paul Silver. He was a thin, scholastic gentleman in his fifties with a head of beautifully fine, silver hair to match his name.

Felicity and Miss Chubb often donned their men's disguises and went out to walk about London and stare in awe at all the marvelous goods in the shop windows. After the quiet of the Cornish coast, London was a bewildering kaleidoscope of movement and color and noise. Light curricles and phaetons darted here and there like elegant boats surmounting the rapids of the London streets. Heavy stagecoaches rumbled along Piccadilly, but even their majestic sound was almost drowned out by the grumbling roar of the brewers’ sledges and the government lottery sledges, grating over the cobbled streets. Carts piled high with fruit and vegetables from the nurseries of Kensington headed through the West End on their way to Covent Garden market.

Then there were so many varieties of street performers. Felicity saw, after walking along only a very short stretch of Oxford Street, a man with a dancing bear and a drum; an organ grinder with his monkey perched on his shoulder; a man with a trumpet announcing in a hoarse voice between fanfares that a six-headed cow could be seen for only two pennies; a pretty girl in a spangled dress who danced to a tambourine; and three acrobats throwing one another about.

It was all this whirling excitement of being in the capital that eased Felicity's guilty conscience. The boredom of those long, empty days in Mr. Palfrey's scrubbed and polished castle seemed even more horrible in retrospect than even Mr. Palfrey himself. She had not read the newspapers but had gathered from Mr. Silver, the tutor, who read most of them, that the story of her “death” had even reached the London papers, with a subsequent short paragraph saying that a memorial service had been held, during which Mr. Palfrey had been seen to weep copiously. “More onions,” thought Felicity cynically.

The famous London jewelers, Rundell and Bridge, had heard of Princess Felicity. Not only had they bought some of the jewels for a fair sum, but had embarrassed Felicity dreadfully by sending her a present of an exquisite turquoise and gold necklace. She had had a dressmaker's dummy made of her figure and sent to the top dressmakers. Felicity did not want them to call at Chesterfield Gardens and gossip about herself and her staff until she felt they were all coached and ready for closer scrutiny.

But as the novelty of London began to die down, Felicity would often find herself thinking of Lord Arthur. He was thirty-one, she discovered, and had never married. Although he had the reputation of being a hardened bachelor, it evidently did not deter the debutantes and their mamas from hoping that one day he would drop the handkerchief. She knew she was bound to meet him during the forthcoming Season, and that thought sent little shivers of anticipation through her body.

It was Mr. Silver's job, apart from his teaching duties, to study the social columns and compile a list for Felicity of all the people she ought to entertain, along with a list of eligible bachelors.

She was looking down the latest list he had compiled one day when she said with a little laugh, “I see a Mr. Charles Godolphin here. I have met him and I hope to goodness he does not recognize me and only thinks the similarity in looks between the princess and a certain Miss Channing is extraordinary. But I see no mention of his friend, Lord Arthur Bessamy.”

“Ah, no,” said Mr. Silver, reaching for a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles and popping them on his nose.

“Let me see ... I have my old lists somewhere about. I struck him off about a month ago. Yes. Here we are. Lord Arthur Bessamy became engaged to Miss Martha Barchester of Hapsmere Manor in Suffolk.”

“I would have thought,” said Felicity in a voice that to her own surprise trembled a little, “that Lord Arthur would never marry.”

“So did everyone else,” said Mr. Silver. “There is a piece about him here. I find the more scandalous newspapers a great source of information. He bought a place near Hapsmere Manor last winter. You see, as the younger son of a duke, he has money but no responsibilities or lands, and heretofore evidently lived only in town. But he appears to have decided to settle in the country. The Barchesters are his neighbors. A very suitable marriage. The Barchesters are a very old family—Norman, I believe.” He broke off and looked up in surprise. Felicity had gone.

Felicity went quickly to her room and put on her male disguise. Then she slipped out of the house and walked rapidly in the direction of Hyde Park. A pale sun was shining, and the air was sweet with the heavy smell of hawthorn blossom. It was the fashionable hour, and carriages flew past round the ring with their elegant occupants, the ladies wearing the thinnest of muslins despite the chill of the spring day.

She stood watching them, thinking she did not really belong anywhere. She would never return to Tregarthan Castle, and yet she felt she did not belong in this world of giggling, overly sensitive ladies who practiced how to faint with as much assiduity as they practiced the pianoforte. And the men, with their flicking handkerchiefs and their fussy mannerisms, their rouged faces and cynical assessing eyes, repelled her.

And then a thought struck Felicity, a thought that seemed to lighten her depression. “I do not need to marry. I can enjoy one Season, go to all the balls and parties, and perhaps even see the Prince Regent.

And then I can sell some more jewels, and dear Miss Chubb and I can retire somewhere quiet in the country and settle down.” It was a very comforting thought, and only a little nagging wonder about this Miss Barchester came into her mind to diffuse that comfort. What was she like, this paragon, who had succeeded where so many others had failed?

Miss Martha Barchester was like a Byzantine ivory. She had a long, thin, calm face and a long, thin, flat-chested body. Her thick brown hair was parted at the center and combed back into two wings to frame her white face. She was twenty-nine years old. Even her parents wondered what it was about this rather terrifying daughter of theirs that had attracted Lord Arthur.

It had taken a magic potion to make Titania wake from her sleep and fall in love with an ass. But at a certain stage in their lives, even the most hardened rakes and confirmed bachelors need no magic to make them fall in love with the first woman they see. All at once, they are simply hit with an overwhelming desire to get married. The period is usually brief and violent, and they usually emerge from it to find themselves married to a woman they do not know the first thing about.

And so it was with Lord Arthur. First had come the desire for a home and lands. Those being acquired, it followed that he must have a hostess for his home, and a mother for his heirs.

He had to confess to himself that he thought very often about Felicity Channing. He felt he had escaped from the folly that can often lead gentlemen of mature years to propose to chits barely out of the schoolroom. Perhaps the attraction Miss Barchester held for him was that she was everything Felicity was not. She was cool and poised, and never made a sudden or hurried movement or appeared to be swayed by any vulgar emotion whatsoever.

Farming was Lord Arthur's new interest and consuming passion. He felt it would be wonderful to return in the evenings to such a calm and stately creature as Miss Barchester. Their wedding was to take place the following year in the local church. On the acceptance of his proposal, Lord Arthur had taken Miss Barchester in his arms and kissed her. Her kiss had been cool, and her lips had been tightly compressed.

But because his physical outdoors activities had taken care of his more earthy feelings, Lord Arthur saw nothing wrong in her virginal response. Ladies were not expected to be passionate anyway.

Dolph, calling on a visit a week before the Season was due to begin, thought his friend looked remarkably well— healthy, happy, and a trifle pompous. Lord Arthur drove him out round the estates and the village, and everywhere forelocks were tugged by men, and women curtsied.

“Quite feudal down here,” remarked Dolph, privately thinking that all this adulation was not doing his rather arrogant friend one little bit of good. “Don't know but what I don't prefer that independent lot down in Cornwall.”

“Cornwall!” said Lord Arthur sharply. “Have you been there recently?”

“No, never been back,” said Dolph, casting Lord Arthur a sideways glance. “M'uncle wrote to say he was crushed down with that girl, Felicity Channing's death, although I suppose it's only the gout as usual.

Seems Mr. Palfrey has restored his reputation. Of late he's had whole fleets of boats dragging all around the coast for a sign of the bodies.”

“Dear me,” said Lord Arthur. “Left it a bit late, hasn't he?”

“Well, he says he won't rest until Felicity has had a Christian burial. The locals say he must have been fond of her after all.”

“I wonder,” said Lord Arthur.

“Talking of Miss Felicity, I had the most awful shock t'other week.”

“See a ghost?”

“Yes, how did you guess! Have you heard of the Princess Felicity of Brasnia?”

“Of where? My dear Dolph, there is no such country.”

“There is. Everyone's heard of it. Somewhere around Russia.” Dolph waved a chubby hand to the east.

“As I was saying, all London has been abuzz with talk of this princess. You know, her beauty is said to be rare and her jewels magnificent. She has been in residence all winter, but no one had seen her. But last week, she went out driving for the first time. What a sensation! People fighting and screaming to get a look at her. At first, I didn't see her face, I was so knocked back with the idea of someone wearing a diamond tiara in the middle of Hyde Park during the day. Then I looked at her properly and nearly dropped down in a faint. I could swear I was looking at Miss Felicity Channing.”

Lord Arthur let the reins drop, and the horses slowed to an amble. “And... ?” he prompted.

“I rode straight up to her carriage and, like a fool, I cried, ‘Miss Felicity! You are alive!’ She had one of those double glasses, and she raised it at me and looked at me with such hauteur that I nearly sank. ‘You were saying somezink?’ she asked, and of course, I realized all at once it was not Miss Felicity at all.

How could it be? I stammered out my apologies, and she bowed her beautiful little head with those fantastic diamonds flashing and burning, and she said, ‘We are giffink a rout on the tenth. You come?’ I gave her my card and swore that nothing would keep me away. I'm the envy of all the fellows. Everyone desperately fighting to see if they can get an invite, sending presents and poems, and lying in wait outside her door. Duffy Gordon-Pomfret even slept on her doorstep, but her butler, a most odd man, came out, shook him awake, read him the parable of the talents, then told him if he had nothing better to do with his time, he might be better employed in finding a job of work. Work!” said Dolph, shaking his head in amazement.

“I would like to attend that rout,” said Lord Arthur slowly.