The Belle Dames Club Read online

  ‘I was not aware of it – and neither was Norwell, judging by his reaction tonight.’

  ‘Well, it is true: Besthorpe has harassed her until the poor child is at her wits’ end.’

  ‘Nonsense. If she was indeed being importuned she should have told Barnabus.’

  ‘You are a close friend of Mr Norwell: did he tell you that when he brought Julia to town it was on the understanding that they should not live in each other’s pockets?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Poor Julia was afraid that if she complained to her husband, he would think her a nuisance and pack her off to the country.’

  ‘Nonsense!’

  ‘Is it, my lord? From the little I have seen of Mr Norwell, he seems to behave very much as a single man. I have only once seen him accompany his wife to a ball, and even then he left her to make her own way home.’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘Absurd,’ said the earl at last. ‘Silly chit cannot have thought Barnabus would want her to fall into the clutches of a man like Besthorpe.’

  ‘Perhaps not, but she certainly thought Mr Norwell would expect her to extricate herself.’

  ‘And you decided to assist her.’

  ‘Since there was no help for it, yes.’

  ‘So you concocted a scheme to ridicule Besthorpe.’

  ‘In truth, I cannot claim that I had very much to do with the planning.’

  ‘I would wager it was Lady Gaunt’s idea.’ When Clarissa did not reply he continued, ‘Do you realize what a dangerous game you have been playing?’

  ‘There was no risk. After all, there were four of us to stand together. I have no doubt that if Sir Howard had turned ugly—’

  ‘But what of the servants, the gossip, madam? Such behaviour has laid you open to the sort of speculation a single lady should wish to avoid. Of all the thoughtless, hare-brained starts!’

  She winced under the lash of his tongue, but retorted with spirit.

  ‘Nonsense. There were no servants in the house at the time.’

  ‘Oh weren’t there? I have never known a household yet where the servants didn’t know every intrigue that was afoot. And what about the link-boys, not to mention my own coachman – do you think he will hold his tongue when he is sharing a glass of blue ruin with his cronies tomorrow night?’

  ‘Well then, you must insist upon his silence!’

  ‘Never doubt it, but if this story isn’t all over town by tomorrow I shall be amazed.’

  ‘If Sir Howard is the subject of ridicule then it is no more than natural justice,’ she retorted, thoroughly incensed. ‘We acted to protect a friend, since she did not believe her husband would do so.’

  ‘Nevertheless, it would have been more sensible to take your concerns to him.’

  ‘Sensible! Aye, my lord, I would expect nothing less than good sense from you!’ she flung at him.

  ‘And why not? Anyone with an ounce of intelligence would have done so but no, you and your friends were bent on making mischief. Bad enough that Lady Gaunt and Sally Matlock should be involved in this madness but you are a single woman, risking your name and your honour for a reckless scrape.’

  ‘And if I am, what concern is it of yours, my lord? What is it to you?’

  Silence. The darkness suddenly seemed charged with tension. Clarissa waited, sitting very straight and trying to control her breathing, which had become very irregular. She waited for him to speak again, but instead the coach stopped and the footman opened the door, saying in a colourless voice, ‘Charlotte Street, my lord.’

  Lord Alresford started to rise but Clarissa waved him back in his seat.

  ‘Please,’ she said icily, ‘you owe me no particular attention. I can get down perfectly well without you. Remain in your carriage, Lord Alresford, and do not bother yourself about me ever again!’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  When Clarissa made her way to the breakfast-room she was ready for her stepmama to question her closely on the previous night’s adventure, but she found Lady Wyckenham pondering some knotty problem of her own. Clarissa dismissed the servants and went to the table.

  ‘Good morning, Mama-Nell.’ She bent to kiss Lady Wyckenham’s scented cheek. ‘You look very pensive, my love: I thought you would be ringing a peal over me for not coming to see you last night, to tell you all that had happed at Norwell House.’

  ‘What? Oh – yes, my love. I am sorry, I was thinking….’

  Clarissa took a seat across the table and poured herself a cup of coffee.

  ‘My dear ma’am, you are surely distracted this morning.’ She put down her cup. ‘It must be that man.’

  ‘What man, my love?’

  ‘The one who is importuning you.’

  My lady’s laugh sounded a little wild.

  ‘What nonsense!’

  ‘No it isn’t. You told me last night that you had a little problem to solve.’

  ‘I did?’

  ‘Yes, you did. But judging from your behaviour this morning, the problem has not gone away, am I right?’

  Lady Wyckenham pursed her lips, as if deliberating how much to disclose. Clarissa reached across the table and caught her hand.

  ‘Please tell me, Mama-Nell. Even if I cannot help you, I want to know.’

  My lady sighed.

  ‘Very well. I went out last night, to try to recover some letters from a man I thought of once as a good friend. They were … intimate letters that I wrote to him a long time ago, but he is threatening now to make them public unless … well, I must get them back.’

  ‘And who is this man?’

  ‘The Marquis of Ullenwood.’

  Clarissa frowned and sipped her coffee.

  ‘I have met him, I think. A dark-haired gentleman?’

  ‘Yes, although I would no longer use the term gentleman to describe him.’

  ‘But you were friends once?’

  ‘For a time I thought – but I was wrong. When I realized I had mistaken my feelings for him I asked him to destroy my letters, and until recently I thought he had done so.’

  ‘When were they written?’ Clarissa hesitated, ‘Was it – was my father alive?’

  ‘Oh no, nothing like that. It was after Wyckenham had died. You know I shut myself away for a year, then I went to Europe. I met Lord Ullenwood in Venice. He was very kind to me and I thought … well, it came to nothing and I forgot the letters, until now.’

  Clarissa refilled her coffee cup.

  ‘Then it is simple,’ she said. ‘Let him publish the letters, Mama-Nell. He will show himself in his true light.’

  ‘Oh no – as your stepmama it would reflect so badly upon you all, and just when William is trying so hard to make his way into government. I must get them back.’

  ‘But what does he want for these letters?’

  Lady Wyckenham blushed.

  ‘He wants me to elope with him.’

  ‘Dear heaven!’ Clarissa’s cup clattered into its saucer. ‘And what have you told him – what answer have you given him?’

  ‘None – how could I? I have asked him for a little time … to think.’

  They sat in silence for some moments, then Clarissa looked up.

  ‘Are they so very bad, these letters?’

  A flush stole into Lady Wyckenham’s cheeks.

  ‘They are quite – explicit.’

  Clarissa was about to declare that for herself she did not care if the letters were published, but the image of Lord Alresford rose before her. She remembered their argument in the carriage the night before and she held her peace.

  ‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘we must get them back for you. I am sure the members of the Belles Dames Club will have some ideas.’

  For the first time that morning she saw a gleam of amusement in Mama-Nell’s eyes.

  ‘Do you think we should ask our little group to help with such a delicate matter?’

  ‘I am sure of it,’ Clarissa replied stoutly. ‘Especially after our success la
st night.’

  She recounted the events at Norwell House and was relieved when Lady Wyckenham laughed at the description of Sir Howard’s retreat from the scene. She was encouraged to describe her carriage ride with the earl.

  ‘I have to confess to you that we nearly came to blows,’ she said, tracing a pattern on the table with one finger. ‘He was so out of reason cross with me! After all, what is it to him if I choose to help my friends? If Julia had not been so afraid to talk to her husband there would have been no need for us to treat Sir Howard in such a fashion. I am not ashamed of what we did.’

  ‘Then put it from your mind, love.’

  Clarissa sighed.

  ‘But I can’t, Mama-Nell. For years I have been used to doing as I pleased. Oh, never going outside the bounds of propriety, but I have never allowed anyone except yourself or Papa to censure my conduct, and to have that man saying such things to me – he had no right!’

  ‘None at all my love.’

  Clarissa glanced up.

  ‘You are laughing at me.’

  ‘No, no, but I wonder at the earl’s ability to upset you – it is not the first time. Perhaps you are beginning to care for his good opinion?’

  ‘Not at all!’ retorted Clarissa, flushing. ‘It is nothing to do with the man, it – it is the language he used – I would be as cross if anyone had said the same to me.’

  ‘Well, I cannot be sorry that you are disturbed by his lordship’s comments.’ It was Lady Wyckenham’s turn to reach across the table and catch at Clarissa’s restless fingers. ‘I have hinted at it before, my love, but now let us be plain: when James Marlow died you built a wall around yourself, a defence that kept the world at bay—’

  ‘That was quite natural, when you consider what he did to me!’ Clarissa interrupted her.

  ‘Let me finish, my love. To be jilted is a terrible thing for any young woman, but to discover that your fiancé had run off with your childhood friend was almost too much for you to bear, I think, especially coming so soon after the death of your dear father.’

  Clarissa gave a brittle laugh.

  ‘But that was so fortunate, for me. Papa’s death meant we had retired to Wyckenham Hall, and James’s little escapade was more easily hushed up. Imagine the furore if I had still been in Town when he decided to run away. What manna for the quidnuncs – it would have been gossiped over for months!’

  Lady Wyckenham squeezed her hand.

  ‘Perhaps it would have been better for you if it had been known: perhaps then you would not have buried your grief and anger quite so deep.’

  ‘And if I did so, can you blame me? It was bad enough to learn that James had broken his neck when his carriage overturned. To find out that he was on his way to Gretna, and with my best friend at his side – I would not have the world know how much that hurt me!’ She broke off, feeling the anger that she had suppressed for years coming to the fore. ‘Perhaps I could have forgiven her more easily if she had died too, but to walk away without a scratch … and now, three years later, she is happily married to the parson, and looks set to give him a houseful of children. Do you want me to advertise my pain, Mama-Nell? To spread my grief and my bitterness through town? Because I promise you I have more than enough hurt inside me to last a lifetime!’

  ‘Stop it, Clarissa. You know that is not what I want. But it is equally bad for you to shut out the world. Oh my darling girl, I blame myself for letting you hide yourself away with Anne. If I had not been so caught up in my own grief I could have helped you.’

  ‘Mama-Nell you must not blame yourself for my troubles.’ Clarissa took out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes. ‘You see how Lord Alresford has overset me! I have never allowed myself to talk in this vein before.’

  ‘Then he has my gratitude,’ said Lady Wyckenham. ‘Yes, you may stare, Clarissa, but if you are upset it is because you are recovering at last: oh I have loved the smiling, cheerful creature you are now but there is so much more to living, Clarissa: to live is to experience love, and fear, and sorrow. Without those how can we know true happiness?’ She blinked and laughed softly. ‘Goodness, I begin to sound like these new, revolutionary poets! Enough of this: we will go and order some new gowns – that will restore our spirits!’

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Your sea of troubles you have passed

  And found the peaceful shore

  I, tempest-tossed and wrecked at last

  Come home to port no more.

  Polite applause followed and Lady Sarah cried, ‘Well done, Mr Henderson, you bring the poet’s work to life for us.’

  The actor bowed and sat down.

  Clarissa leaned closer to Lady Wyckenham, sitting beside her.

  ‘Mr Cowper’s words may have been written for someone returning from Ramsgate, but they could as easily apply to others.’ She raised her eyes to the gentleman standing behind their sofa. ‘Do you not agree, Sir Robert, that those words could have been written for you?’

  He grinned.

  ‘I am very conscious of the fact that in all my wandering I have not yet been shipwrecked: pity, when I have taken the trouble to learn to swim.’

  Lady Wyckenham shuddered.

  ‘I pray you will not talk of it, even in jest, sir.’

  ‘If it relieves your mind, Helen, I think this expedition will be my last. I am growing too old for such excitement and will let the younger men take over.’

  Lady Wyckenham smiled up at him.

  ‘Well that is good news, but what will you do? I do not see you as a man of leisure, Robert.’

  ‘I have my gardens at Newfield Hall to tend, and my work with plants. I plan to catalogue all my discoveries, with pictures of each new plant – perhaps you would like to work with me, as my resident artist?’

  ‘What a capital idea,’ cried Clarissa. ‘You draw like an angel, Mama-Nell.’

  My lady plied her fan to cool her burning cheeks.

  ‘Nonsense, I am not nearly good enough.’

  ‘You know you are as good as any artist I have ever taken on a voyage,’ returned Sir Robert. ‘I know I would enjoy having you working with me on this project.’

  Clarissa looked at her stepmother, but under her enquiring gaze Lady Wyckenham looked away.

  ‘Perhaps, Sir Robert, you should discuss this again with my stepmama at some later date, when she has had time to consider it properly,’ suggested Clarissa, earning for herself a grateful look from the gentleman.

  ‘Nonsense, he is merely funning,’ said Lady Wyckenham. ‘Now who, I wonder, is to speak next – Sir Robert, you have prepared something?’

  ‘Why yes, I have prepared a few lines by my good friend Gilbert White about the calm days of winter.’

  ‘Oh, the weather.’

  ‘It is a fascinating subject, Helen. At Newfield I have a small sun-house built in the grounds and when I am there I record each day’s weather.’ He leaned towards her. ‘When you visit me I will show you. It is quite secluded.’

  Clarissa hid her smile as she heard these words and noted the tell-tale flush mounting to her stepmother’s cheek.

  ‘Hush now,’ she murmured, ‘I think we have another reader. Goodness, I think our host is going to read to us.’

  Sir Toby Matlock stepped up, resplendent in a powdered bag-wig and a gold and green frock-coat.

  ‘Oh good,’ said Lady Wyckenham. ‘He usually provides something very entertaining.’

  A hush descended over the room and Sir Toby took a deep breath and began to sing in a rich baritone.

  ‘Here’s to a maiden of bashful fifteen, Here’s to the widow of fifty….’

  Lady Wyckenham nodded.

  ‘Sheridan,’ she whispered to Clarissa. ‘He can always be relied upon to make us laugh.’

  A movement by the door caught Clarissa’s attention and she looked up to see Lady Gaunt entering, Mrs Sowerby and Mrs Flooke, the dashing sisters, at her side and her little black page holding up the train of her gown. They remained by the door until Sir T
oby had finished, then made their way towards Lady Wyckenham. Lady Sarah came over to them, saying with mock severity, ‘You are very late, Dorothea.’

  Lady Gaunt raised one languid hand.

  ‘Sally, my abject apologies. Emily and Georgiana were dining with me and dear Gaunt decided to join us.’

  Lady Wyckenham looked up.

  ‘I did not know your husband was in town, Dorothea.’

  ‘En passant, my dear. He is on his way to Tonbridge, but plans to join me here next week. Then he is off to Derbyshire for the summer.’

  ‘And will you go with him?’ asked Clarissa.

  ‘My dear of course she will go!’ cried Georgiana, dropping on to a nearby chair. ‘Under her languid exterior Dorothea is passionately fond of her husband.’

  Lady Gaunt looked pained.

  ‘Georgy, you make me sound like a provincial,’ she complained, gently descending on to the settee beside Clarissa.

  ‘But you are fond of him?’

  ‘Oh lord, yes, Clarissa. He lets me have my own way and live in town for a few months each year, but when I am bored, I run back to my darling Gaunt. Now who is to read next?’

  Miss Wyckenham looked about her expectantly. Her eyes widened when a slim figure in grey satin made her way to the centre of the room.

  ‘Miss Medway!’ she exclaimed.

  Lady Gaunt looked up and murmured, ‘Then we are unlikely to hear comic verse.’

  Looking through the crowd Clarissa saw Lady Medway seated in a far alcove, Lord Alresford at her side.

  ‘I had not seen their party,’ she confessed. ‘I did not think Sarah was acquainted with them.’

  ‘Most likely it is Sir Toby’s doing,’ said Emily, sitting close by. ‘These little soirées are much more in his line and Sarah consults him on those to invite. I see Alresford is still dancing attendance. They say it is a match between him and little Florence Medway.’

  Clarissa could not resist.

  ‘He was engaged to her cousin, I think?’

  ‘Yes: his poor bride died only days before the wedding.’

  ‘Did you know her?’