Misfit Maid

What the devil should possess her to say such an un-handsome thing of him? Aunt Hes was not wont to criticise, and he strongly suspected that she had made that up on the spur of the moment. A ploy to push him into agreeing to sponsor that dreadful girl. Well, he had not agreed! What whim should take Aunt Hes to rush to the wretched female’s aid, he was at a loss to understand.

What had she said? Brice Burloyne was a nabob? One of these Indian fortunes? Oh, good God! And he was to figure as trustee, heaven help him! No doubt the creature would expect him to ward off fortune-hunters on her behalf. A vision of his hitherto ordered and pleasant existence rose up, and he could swear he saw it shatter. No! No, he would not be coerced.

Striding to the bell-pull, he tugged it fiercely, and then marched out into the hall just as a footman came quickly in through the green baize door at the back. Already he discerned an air of bustle about the house, for Lady Hester’s abigail was hurrying up the stairs, accompanied by one of the maids, and the stout housekeeper, pausing only to bob a curtsy to her master as he came out of the parlour, set her foot on the bottom stair and began to puff her way up.

‘Where is Lowick?’ Delagarde demanded of the footman.

‘Mr Lowick has gone upstairs to confer with her ladyship, my lord.’

‘Oh, he has, has he? Well, go up and bring him down here to me. And send for Liss at once!’

‘I am here, my lord,’ said his valet, entering the hall from the green baize door, as the footman ran up the stairs. Liss had apparently held himself ready, for he was burdened with several articles of clothing.

‘My coat, Liss! My hat!’

‘Both here, my lord.’

Delagarde allowed his valet to help him into the greatcoat, and seized his hat. He was standing before the hall mirror, placing the beaver at a rakish angle on his head, when his butler came hurrying down the stairs.

‘Ah, Lowick,’ Delagarde said, turning. ‘Listen to me! If that female should return here, you will—’

‘Lady Mary, my lord?’ interrupted the butler. ‘You need have no fear, my lord. Her ladyship has given me very precise instructions. All will be in readiness to receive her.’

‘But I don’t want you to receive her!’

The butler bowed, and permitted himself a tiny avuncular smile. ‘Her ladyship has explained that you are a trifle put out by the inconvenience, my lord.’

‘Put out!’

‘It is very natural, I am sure, my lord. I understand that there is an obligation which your lordship is determined to honour.’

Delagarde gazed at him. Devil take it! Aunt Hes had neatly outgeneralled him. Working on the principle, he dared say, that it was never of the least use to try to keep things from the servants. No doubt she would have the entire household duped in no time at all, everyone working to thwart him. How the devil was he to refute the obligation now, without appearing churlish or dishonourable?

‘So she has drawn you in, has she?’ he muttered balefully.

The butler gave him a puzzled look. ‘I beg your pardon, my lord?’

‘Never mind.’ He received his cane from the valet with a brief word of thanks, and turned back to his butler. ‘Lowick, I am going out.’

‘Yes, my lord. You need not fear that every courtesy will not be extended to the young lady, my lord. The housekeeper is even now receiving her instructions to arrange for Lady Mary’s accommodation.’

‘I do not wish to hear anything about it! Let me out!’

‘But will your lordship not take breakfast first?’ asked the butler, opening the front door for him.

‘The only breakfast I require is of the liquid variety—and potent!’ He started out, and then paused, turning on the top step. ‘And if Lady Hester should enquire for me, inform her that I have left this madhouse, never to return!’

Maidie, meanwhile, ensconced in the Hope family coach with her abigail in attendance, was congratulating herself on the outcome of her mission. To be sure, there had been a dreadful moment when she had doubted her ability to bring it off, but the entrance of Lady Hester Otterburn had changed all that. She was heartily glad of it, for she was now certain that, left to himself, Lord Delagarde would have repudiated her. It was fortunate that Lady Hester had been visiting just at this moment, for failure did not bear thinking of! What in the world would she have done?

Not having made any contingency plan—for how could she have guessed that Delagarde would dislike it?—she might have found herself at a loss. She supposed she would either have had to retreat to the Sussex house which was no longer her home, or to have continued on to the Shurland town house and revealed herself to Adela and Firmin, neither of whom had the least idea that she was in London. No, she would not have done that. Nothing would have induced her to gratify Adela with a show of willingness.

But she was not, she remembered with a resurgence of emotion, obliged to do either of those things, thanks to Lady Hester Otterburn deciding, for whatever reason, that she wished Delagarde to meet his obligation—and it was an obligation! Maidie had seen quite enough of Lady Hester to guess that she possessed sufficient influence over her great-nephew to ensure that she had her way.

Arrived at the Coach and Horses where she had passed the previous night, Maidie lost no time in relaying the story of her success to her duenna.

It had not been with Miss Ida Wormley’s unqualified approval that she had set forth that morning. Indeed, having kept up an incessant discourse against the scheme throughout the two-day coach journey from the Shurland estates at East Dean—to which Maidie had paid not the slightest heed—the Worm, greatly daring, had made a final attempt to prevent her from going at all.

‘I do wish you would not, Maidie,’ she had begged, almost tearfully. ‘It would be the most shocking imposition, and I do not know what his lordship will think of you.’

‘It does not matter what he thinks of me, Worm,’ Maidie had declared impatiently. ‘Do stop fussing! Unless you would have me wed Eustace Silsoe, after all?’

‘No, no, I am persuaded he could not make you happy,’ had said Miss Wormley, distressed. ‘And after the manner in which Lady Shurland has behaved towards you, I cannot blame you for wishing to seek another way.’

‘Well, then?’

‘But not this way, Maidie! To beard Lord Delagarde in his own home! He must think you dead to all sense of decorum. And what he will think of me for allowing you to behave in this unprincipled way, I dare not for my life imagine!’

‘Have no fear, Worm,’ Maidie had soothed. ‘I will make it abundantly clear to his lordship that the scheme is mine, and mine alone. Do not be teasing yourself with thoughts of what he may think of you, but set your mind rather to the programme of how we are to go on once we are installed in his house. You will be obliged to take me about, you know, for we cannot expect Lord Delagarde to chaperon me. It would be most improper.’

But Miss Wormley had been in such a fever of anxiety that she had been unable to set her mind to the resolution of anything. Besides, as she had several times informed her charge, she had no idea how to set about such a programme since she had never moved in fashionable circles. Maidie knew it, and did not hesitate to set her mind at rest as she related her doings at the Delagarde mansion in Charles Street.

‘I must thank heaven for Lady Hester,’ sighed Miss Wormley, setting a hand to her palpitating bosom, and sinking down upon the bed.

For want of something to distract her mind, she had been engaged, when Maidie returned with her abigail in tow, in collecting together those of Maidie’s belongings that were scattered about the bedchamber they had shared at her insistence, for she could not reconcile it with her duty to allow her charge to sleep alone in the chamber of a public inn in the heart of the capital.

‘But was not his lordship very much shocked?’ she asked presently.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Maidie carelessly, removing her hat and smoothing the unruly bands that had held her hair tightly concealed under it. ‘But I took no account of that.’

‘No, I should have known you would not,’ agreed her duenna mournfully. ‘The large portmanteau, Trixie.’ Rising again, she directed the abigail how to pack her mistress’s clothing. Her own accoutrements were already neatly stowed in the smaller receptacle. Then she turned again to Maidie, adding, ‘You never take account of me, after all.’

She spoke without rancour. A colourless female of uncertain age, Miss Ida Wormley had become inured, after near eleven years, to the knowledge that her influence over Lady Mary Hope was but sketchy. She suffered a little in her conscience, which led her to overcome a natural timidity and speak out, whenever she felt her principles to be at odds with Maidie’s conduct. But, despite the fondness with which she knew her charge regarded her, she could not flatter herself that her advice and protestations were attended to.

‘But I thought perhaps you might attend to Lord Delagarde.’

‘Humdudgeon!’ snorted Maidie indelicately. ‘You know very well, dear Worm, that Great-uncle counselled me never to allow myself to be impressed by rank.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Miss Wormley, repressing a desire to disabuse her charge of her unshakable faith in the wisdom of the deceased fifth Earl’s counsel.

‘In any event,’ Maidie pursued doggedly, ‘Delagarde is only a viscount.’

‘Only!’ sighed Miss Wormley.

‘But he’s ever so fashionable, m’lady,’ put in Trixie suddenly. ‘Ain’t that right, Miss Wormley?’

‘Oh, yes. Lord Delagarde is always finding a mention in the Court sections of the London journals, and I recognised his name often in your great-uncle’s copies of the Gentlemen’s Magazine.’

‘Yes, and in them scandal pages often and often! Breaking hearts left and right. Abed here, abed there—’

‘Trixie!’

‘Is that true?’ asked Maidie, interested. ‘Has he had many such associations?’

‘You must not ask me, Maidie!’ uttered the Worm, blushing. ‘Trixie should not have spoken. It is all nasty gossip.’

‘But is it true?’ persisted Maidie, unheeding. ‘I can readily believe it, for he is certainly personable.’

‘Is he, m’lady?’ asked the maid, awed. ‘What is he like?’

‘He is tall and dark, and very cross!’

‘Now, Maidie—you should not! I am sure Lord Delagarde must be all that is amiable—even if it is true that his name has been linked with a number of fashionable…oh, dear, I did not mean to say that!’

‘It does not signify. You are bound to think well of him, Worm,’ said Maidie, ‘for you are more closely related to him than I. For my part, I find him excessively temperamental. I only hope he may not take it into his head to interfere in my concerns. My dependence must be all upon Lady Hester.’

It seemed, when the party arrived back at the Charles Street house, that her dependence was not misplaced. She was touched by the enthusiasm of Lady Hester’s greeting, and noted, with a rush of gratitude, that her champion encompassed Worm in the warmest of welcomes.

‘You and I, my dear Miss Wormley, must sit and enjoy a comfortable cose in the not-too-distant future. We call ourselves cousins, that much I know, but I am hopeful of pinpointing the exact relationship if we exchange but a few of our respective forebears.’

‘Oh, Lady Hester, you are too good,’ uttered Miss Wormley, quite overcome. ‘And your kindness to dear Maidie—’

‘Nonsense,’ said Lady Hester, brushing this aside. ‘Come now, let me guide you to your chambers.’

There was a bevy of servants busy about the transfer of the many trunks and boxes from Maidie’s carriage into the house, but they stood aside for her ladyship and her guests to pass. Pausing only to give some final instruction to her coachman, who was waiting in the hall, Maidie followed her hostess, throwing a word of thanks to the various attendants who were bearing her belongings upstairs.

Rooms were in the process of being prepared, and Maidie, having traversed two flights of the grand staircase and a couple of narrow corridors to arrive there, was delighted to discover that her allotted chamber had a southern aspect.

‘Oh, is that a little balcony?’ she exclaimed, moving to a pair of French windows.

‘The veriest foothold only,’ said Lady Hester. ‘It opens on to the gardens, however, so you may use it to take a breath of fresh air now and then.’

Maidie was not attending. She was tugging at the bolts, and had pulled them back and dragged open the windows before Lady Hester could do more than protest that she would let in the cold. Miss Wormley, who might have concurred, was distracted by the arrival of the luggage, and at once made it her business to inform the servants which pieces should remain in this room.

‘This will do excellently,’ Maidie said with approval, for the balcony extended out for quite two feet, and must be double that in width. Yes, she could set up here easily, and have an excellent view. Stepping on to the balcony, she looked up at the sky and ran her eyes around the horizon. On the second floor of Delagarde’s house, there was some little disturbance to the eyeline from the tops of the surrounding buildings. The attics would have been better, but it was a temporary inconvenience. At least she might continue her work. She had been afraid that it would have been interrupted altogether.

Turning back into the room, she directed Trixie to close the windows again, and looked around for a suitable table. Ah, yes. That little whatnot over on the other side of the four-poster bed. It looked to be free of odds and ends. She might lay her charts on top, and keep it at her elbow.

‘The room is to your liking, then?’ asked Lady Hester.

Maidie turned to her. ‘It will serve very well, thank you.’ She thought she read amusement in the elder lady’s eyes, and wondered if she had not been quite polite. ‘I mean, it is very nice indeed.’

‘Miss Wormley should be accommodated next to you, I thought,’ Lady Hester said, leading the way to the adjoining room as soon as Maidie had put off her pelisse and bonnet.

Maidie noted that her ladyship’s glance ran swiftly over her plain stuff gown, and settled for a moment on her tightly banded hair. She put up a self-conscious hand to smooth it, and could not but be relieved that Lady Hester made no comment.

The room next door was almost as well appointed as Maidie’s own, and Miss Wormley lost herself in a stuttering speech of thanks, which Lady Hester kindly dismissed. Her own room, as she showed them in case Maidie should be in need of her, was in an opposing corridor on the other side of the house, but his lordship, it appeared, occupied one of the two principal bedchambers, the only ones located on the first floor along with several saloons.

‘The other will be for his wife, when Laurie finally decides to gratify us all and make his choice.’ As she led the way downstairs again, and into the drawing-room that abutted the dining-room, Lady Hester added, ‘I dare say that if Dorinda had not died, she would have hustled him into matrimony years ago, though not without a battle of wills. She was as strong-minded as Laurie himself, was Dorinda. I suppose I should have made more of an effort with him in her stead, but you may have noticed that Delagarde is a difficult man to push.’

Yes, she had noticed, Maidie thought. He was a difficult man, she suspected, in every circumstance. But her interest in his possible marriage was, to say the least of it, tepid. Now, in any event. Had he had the good sense to marry earlier, no doubt her campaign would have met with less resistance. She felt it to be typical of him that he had remained a bachelor, as if he had known that it must aid him to thwart her.

They were soon installed in the drawing-room, a pleasant apartment done out in cream and straw to the walls and mantel, and to the cushioning of the light finely turned sofas and chairs that characterised Chippendale’s designs.

‘And now, my dear Maidie,’ pursued Lady Hester, when they were all partaking of a dish of tea, ‘we must make some plans. I thought, as a first step, that when you have had an opportunity to relax a little, we might make a visit to one of the discreet dressmaking establishments.’

‘Discreet?’ repeated Maidie.

Miss Wormley murmured something indistinguishable but, beyond directing a brief questioning look at her, Lady Hester took no notice.

‘I do not suggest a trip to Bond Street just yet, for I know you will not wish to appear where we may give rise to comment—at least, not until you have been officially presented to some of our more prominent hostesses.’

Maidie’s brows went up. ‘What you mean, Lady Hester, is that I am at present dressed too unfashionably to be seen.’

Lady Hester burst out laughing. ‘You are very frank! I was trying to be diplomatic.’

Maidie shrugged. ‘I prefer plain speaking. Besides, even had I not been made aware of my shortcomings in dress by Adela, I have sense enough to know that I cannot be so careless if I am to appear in society.’

‘Lady Mary has never been one to concern herself over her appearance,’ said Miss Wormley, hurrying into speech. ‘And—and she has decided views of her own.’

This became apparent, when the three ladies presently arrived at the quiet premises in Bloomsbury which housed the creations of Cerisette, a French modiste who had set up in business but three years since, on her escape from the troubles in Paris. Informed that the young lady was about to make her debut, Cerisette first directed their attention to a series of made-up gowns, all created in the now popular muslins with high waists, and all of them without exception, Maidie noted, in the palest of hues, whether sprigged or plain. She gazed upon the display, which was predominantly white, with a scattering of pastels, and resolutely shook her head.

‘No, no. These will not do at all!’

‘My dear Maidie,’ protested Lady Hester, coming up to her and eyeing the offending garments with a frowning countenance, ‘these are very suitable. All young females are accustomed to wear only the most modest of gowns when they are just out. What in the world is wrong with them?’

Maidie drew a breath. ‘It is not the styles, ma’am. I will be as modest as you please, only I cannot and will not wear anything made up in pastels.’

She saw the doubt in Lady Hester’s face, and knew that the moment had come. She drew a breath, and told herself she was being ridiculous. What did it matter what Lady Hester thought? Or anyone else, come to that? But it would not serve. In everything else, she might shrug off criticism or rebuke, but this was her one point of vulnerability.

‘What is it, child? What troubles you?’

For answer, Maidie went to one of the long mirrors with which the salon was furnished, and, with a tremble in her fingers which she could not control, once again removed her mustard-coloured bonnet. She looked at her own face, sighed deeply, and reached up to remove the pins that held the offending tresses in place.

‘What in the world…?’ began Lady Hester. But she was not attended to.

‘Worm, take these, if you p-please,’ Maidie uttered nervously, handing the pins to her duenna, who was hovering at her elbow. She took the rest of them out, and dragged her fingers through the mass of curling locks that, loosed from their moorings, sprang up about her face, forming a virulent ginger halo. She stared at her reflection in the acute misery that always attacked her when she obliged herself to look at it, and then turned, in a good deal of trepidation, but unsurprised to encounter the startled look in Lady Hester’s countenance. But it was not she who spoke first.

‘Bon dieu!’ came from Cerisette, who was standing stock-still, staring blankly at that extraordinary head of hair.

Tears started to Maidie’s eyes, and she felt the arm of her duenna come about her. Lifting her chin, she winked the hint of wetness away, and stared defiantly into Lady Hester’s face.

‘My poor child!’ said that lady gently. ‘It is not nearly as bad as you think.’

‘It is p-perfectly h-horrid,’ Maidie uttered unsteadily. ‘I look just like a marmalade cat! And when L-Lord Delagarde sees it, he will undoubtedly show me the d-door.’

Lady Hester’s eyes danced, but she refrained from laughing. ‘He will do no such thing, I promise you. Besides, we will have you looking altogether respectable before he has an opportunity to see it.’

A faint surge of hope lit Maidie’s breast. ‘Can—can anything be done about it?’

‘Assuredly.’

‘There now, you see, my love,’ said Miss Wormley comfortingly. But it was she who whisked her handkerchief from her sleeve, and fiercely blew her nose.

‘A good cut will make all the difference,’ Lady Hester said bracingly. ‘How fortunate that you have kept the length! We will have my own old coiffeur to you this very day.’

‘You don’t feel that I should do better to keep it the way I have been doing,’ Maidie suggested, with unusual diffidence. ‘Not that I care what anyone thinks of my appearance,’ she added hastily, and with scant regard for the truth, for in this aspect she was as sensitive as any young female, ‘but we must not forget that my object is to attract.’

‘No, we must not forget that,’ agreed Lady Hester, with an amused look.

‘Should we not keep it hidden?’ Maidie asked, too anxious to notice the hint of laughter. ‘It is far less noticeable when it is tightly banded to my head.’

‘Ah, but I have always found it to be an excellent thing to make a virtue of necessity. You will not, I know, wish to dupe any likely candidates for your hand into thinking that you are other than yourself.’

‘Oh. Er—no, of course not,’ agreed Maidie, with less than her usual assurance.

‘Since we must needs expose it, then,’ pursued Lady Hester, with only the faintest tremor in her voice, ‘let us by all means make the very best use of it that we can. I know that you will feel very much more confident once you see that it can be made to look quite pretty.’

Maidie was doubtful, but she bowed to Lady Hester’s superior knowledge. Besides, she found the whole matter of her hair so distressing that she knew her judgement on the subject to be unsound.

‘It is all the fault of my great-uncle Reginald,’ she said candidly, reviving a little of her usual spirit. ‘I know he could not help bequeathing me his hair, but as he was the only one of his family to catch it from my great-grandfather, it does come through him. I dare say he did not intend it, and it is the only thing he gave me for which I have any regret.’

‘His lordship was very fond of dear Maidie,’ confirmed the Worm helpfully. ‘But he saw nothing amiss with the colour of her hair, did he, my love?’

‘Yes, but he was a man. It made no difference to him.’

‘It need not be a problem to you, Maidie,’ Lady Hester assured her.

But Cerisette did not agree. When the customers turned to her once again, she broke into voluble protestation. Had she known in the beginning that mademoiselle was possessed of this so strong a head, assuredly she would not have shown her the pastels. Mademoiselle had shown good sense to refuse them. She could not risk her reputation upon mademoiselle appearing in anything but white. Fortunately, for the debutante, white was comme il faut.

‘Well, it is not comme il faut for me,’ declared Maidie stubbornly. ‘I cannot possibly wear white.’

In that case, returned Cerisette, drawing herself up, she could not possibly assist mademoiselle.

‘Dear me,’ said Lady Hester haughtily. ‘Then we shall take our custom elsewhere.’ Turning to Maidie, she smiled warmly upon her, murmuring reassuringly, ‘Come, child. I will not have you offended by this creature’s whim. Do not allow her to upset you. These French modistes are prone to take pets for the least little thing.’

But Maidie had turned mulish. She might be self-conscious about her hair, but she was not going to be driven ignominiously from Cerisette’s door. She resisted Lady Hester’s attempt to sweep her away.