The house, like his lordship’s garden, was elegant and far more refined than the fairy house, which hitherto I had thought the pinnacle of taste and sophistication.
A supper had been set out for us in his dining room amid candelabras, silver plate and crystal glasses. The dishes were served by white-gloved footmen while the butler hovered. Quite honestly, I had no idea how to make conversation with so many servants listening. I sat next to his lordship at a table that ran away from us into the darkened distance of the chamber.
‘Must we be watched?’ I whispered. ‘I mean, sir, while we eat?’
Lord Barbeau laughed and waved his hand and, to my great relief, the servants silently left us.
‘Is that more conducive to discourse?’
‘Much more, sir.’
‘Tell me about yourself, my little sprite.’
I thought an edited version of my life would be more appealing than the unexpurgated story and touched only lightly upon Mr Truegood and left out the account of my clandestine marriage. I was delighted when I caused Lord Barbeau to guffaw with laughter and, somewhat more confident, went on to tell him how I came to leave Milk Street.
‘What I would have given to see you standing there in nothing more than your stockings and shoes,’ he said.
Feeling a lot bolder, I said, ‘With luck, sir, you might.’
‘Are you flirting with me, my sprite?’
‘Perhaps I am,’ I said, blushing. ‘After all, you have shown me such an intimate garden, it is hard not to.’
He leaned back and studied me. ‘Do you enjoy making love?’ he asked.
‘Prodigiously, sir,’ I said. ‘But I am a novice in the art.’
‘You make me wish I was still the young gallant.’
The wine was delicious and I had drunk a little more than I should have.
‘You don’t seem so very old, sir.’
‘You flatter me unnecessarily, for I am well acquainted with the disadvantages of my age and not even your sweet words can remove the years from me.’
‘Have you been married, sir?’ I asked. ‘Or are you married still?’
‘My intriguing sprite, your ignorance of my life is wonderfully refreshing. I was married when I was twenty-four. It was an arranged marriage. My mother would have said it was to secure a great estate. I never expected to fall in love with my wife but, after a year, I was besotted with her. My days as a rake were behind me, or so I thought. Four of the happiest years of my life I spent with my angel.’
He was silent.
‘Do you mind, sir, if I ask what happened?’
‘I was in London when news reached me that she had fallen ill. I returned home to Chippenham with all speed but she died a day later. Her death undid me. I went abroad and sought consolation from every willing woman. I made love to many but never felt anything akin to what I had experienced with my wife.’
‘That is so very sad,’ I said.
‘I haven’t brought you here to make you feel sad, my sprite.’ Rising from the table, he said, ‘I look forward to welcoming you at my estate near Bath in one week. Does that suit you?’
‘Yes, sir,’ I said.
I curtsied, he bowed, and I left.
Queenie was delighted with this outcome. She told me that Lord Barbeau’s solicitor had been there that morning and the terms offered for my services were generous to a fault.
His lordship required me to be well equipped with clothes for my stay. He specified sturdy shoes as well as the dancing pumps I would need for balls and attendance at the assembly rooms.
‘It seems he has his mind set on showing you off,’ said Queenie.
‘But he hardly knows me.’
‘It matters not an ounce. Win him over in the bedchamber – and don’t be a fool like Kitty and lose him.’
It always astounds me how time has a habit of slowing to the pace of a slug and then, without warning, speeding into a gallop. That week was a whirlwind of dressmakers, shoemakers, and everything to do with lace, ruffles, embroidery and frippery. Then, before I’d even had time to think of the implications of what I was about to undertake, the morning for my departure arrived. I stood in the hall in my brand-new travelling gown and a jaunty hat, with Boozey in his cage and two well-filled trunks of clothes.
‘You will write, my ninny-not?’ asked Hope, fussing with the fur on my jacket.
‘Yes, of course,’ I assured her.
‘Every week, I want to hear from you – not one detail is to go astray.’
‘And you too – every week.’ I turned to Mercy. ‘Will you write?’ I asked her.
She kissed me. ‘Don’t rely upon it,’ she said.
Even Bethany, to my surprise, came down from her chamber to say goodbye.
‘Have you made your will?’ she asked.
‘No – why?’ I said with alarm.
‘Ooh la la,’ she said. ‘You need to have made a will when you travel to Bath through those turnpikes.’
‘Why?’ I repeated.
‘Because the roads are grievous full of highway men, out to snatch unnatural dead parrots from innocent whores. The most dangerous part of the Bath Road is the Maidenhead Thicket.’
I smiled, too full of excitement to be put off my journey.
‘You don’t believe me? Oh, fie. Tell her, Mercy. People put their trust in God when they take that road. Even those who have as good as forgotten his existence suddenly remember him well enough when they set off to Bath.’
‘Stop it,’ said Queenie. ‘You’ll frighten her.’
Everyone was talking at once and all went silent when the front door was opened and there waiting was Lord Barbeau’s post-chaise drawn by four restless black horses. They were snorting steam from their nostrils and the two postilions were having trouble keeping them calm. The coachman secured my luggage, I was helped to my seat with Boozey’s cage placed beside me, and, with a great waving of hands, the carriage set off at a mighty speed. I heard Queenie shout, ‘Don’t come back too soon!’ and I sat back, wrapped in the luxury of upholstered seats and having perfect views from the front and side windows.
We must have made an impressive sight as we galloped through the countryside. The carriage overtook nearly everyone else on the road and each time we stopped, fresh horses were awaiting us. The following afternoon, with no mishap worth mentioning, we came to the rolling hills of the Avon valley, and here, in the village of Chippenham, the carriage turned down a private drive. It was lined on both sides by tall, autumnal trees and it wasn’t until we’d rounded a bend that a spectacular house came into view. It sat in upright, square-shaped splendour and in the fading light looked as if it were made of burnished bronze.
The size of the house and grounds near overwhelmed me. I wasn’t equipped to imagine anything quite so grand. We pulled up on a gravel drive and I was greeted in the hall by Mr Merritt, the butler who had shown me to the door of the secret garden. I hardly noticed which way we went for there appeared to be so many doors and galleries that I could well imagine that a guest having once become lost, might never be found again. Finally, we came to my chamber. It was beautifully designed, with a four-poster bed so large that five people could have lain there with no trouble at all.
‘I hope it’s to your liking, madam,’ said my new maid. ‘His lordship was most particular as to how the room was to be arranged.’
I stood at the window and, looking out over the distant hills, felt most ill-suited to the position I found myself in.
My maid had reset my coiffeur, which I wore unpowdered, when I spied on the dressing table a jewellery box with a note.
‘A welcoming present for my sprite.’
It was a pearl necklace that tied with a pale pink ribbon and set my gown off to perfection.
‘You look beautiful, madam,’ said my maid.
I was indeed satisfied that I was a credit to the fairy house.
I found his lordship in the drawing room, the wolfhounds lying by the fire. They raised their heads sleepily when I entered then, sighing deeply, lay them down again.
Lord Barbeau bowed and asked if I had had a comfortable journey and if everything was to my satisfaction.
I curtsied prettily. ‘Yes, sir,’ I said, ‘very much so. And I thank you, sir, for my necklace.’
‘Excellent, excellent.’
I hadn’t expected there would be guests and was surprised when a sombrely dressed parson entered, followed by a woman whose skin seemed to be scrubbed raw.
Lord Barbeau introduced me to his nephew, Mr Jonathan Ainsley, and his wife, who had arrived unexpectedly from Bath.
Mr Ainsley smiled a condescending smile. ‘We were pleased to come and welcome my uncle to Bath,’ he said in such a way that one would be forgiven for thinking that he alone held the keys to the city.
He regarded me with something resembling a sneer.
There was an awkward silence, which I had no idea how to fill.
At dinner that night, Mr Ainsley did most of the talking while his lordship looked bored and drank his wine. I wondered if Mr Ainsley had ever seen his lordship’s secret garden and doubted it.
‘Who are your people?’ he asked me suddenly.
I had so long been left from the conversation that I was lost in sweet reminiscences of Avery. I had to ask if Mr Ainsley would be kind enough to repeat the question.
‘I asked about your family,’ he said curtly.
‘You wouldn’t know them, sir,’ I said. ‘Our name is Truegood.’
‘And in which county is their residence?’
‘London, sir, Milk Street.’
‘London – the capital of sin.’
I had a feeling that here was a man formed in the Smollett mould.
‘I have heard,’ he said, sniffing in the air, ‘that a virtuous woman cannot walk in Covent Garden for all the abuse that the painted harlots might throw at her.’ He took a breath and I feared we might be in for a sermon. ‘What, I wonder, is this country coming to when every other woman in the metropolis is a whore?’
I shouldn’t have said anything, but such foolish sentiments irritated me greatly. ‘What, I wonder, do you suppose drove them to it?’
‘Wanton lust,’ he said emphatically.
‘I disagree, sir,’ I said, and the moment I had spoken, regretted doing so.
Mr Ainsley let out a snort which I think was supposed to be a sardonic laugh.
To my surprise, Lord Barbeau, with a mischievous look on his face, said, ‘Perhaps you would enlighten us further, my dear.’
Oh, feathers and dust! Now I had done it.
‘Women…’ I said, and stopped and looked at Lord Barbeau.
‘Pray continue, my dear,’ he said.
‘Women are the property of men. If they marry, all their worldly goods belong to their husbands.’
‘And may it ever remain so,’ said Mrs Ainsley.
‘Amen,’ said Mr Ainsley.
‘But therein lies the problem,’ said I.
‘Madam, I do not follow,’ said Mr Ainsley.
‘Women have no money in their own right and many are subjected to the tyranny and cruelty of neglectful fathers and husbands. If a woman leaves this so-called protection, she finds the road to virtue closed to her by poverty and necessity. Her body is the only currency she possesses.’
‘Oh, Mr Ainsley,’ said Mrs Ainsley, ‘I think I’m going to faint.’
‘How dare you?’ said Mr Ainsley. ‘How dare you speak in such a manner in front of my wife? Uncle, will you allow us to sit here and be insulted by this… this…’
I felt my cheeks turn red and had risen to leave when Lord Barbeau said, ‘Sit, Tully. Jonathan, Tully has spoken with great honesty and has made, I believe, a very valid argument.’
The parson was as purple as the port. ‘Uncle,’ he said, ‘I had hoped you had at last discovered the path to godliness. But I find you are… you are the very devil!’
Lord Barbeau calmly asked Mr Merritt to have Mr Ainsley’s carriage sent round.
As the dining-room door closed behind the parson and his wife, we could hear Mr Ainsley in the hall, delivering a short, angry sermon.
‘And I’m damned,’ he finished, ‘if I will be preached to by a little whore.’
Lord Barbeau looked at me, his eyes sparkling, and we burst out laughing.
‘My sprite,’ he said. ‘My sweet, clever sprite.’
Lifting our glasses, we drank to the future.