Chapter One ~ 1819-2
1907 Words
“Surely, if that is the truth, your Guardian will allow you to spend some of it?”
“I told you, he does not answer my letters. His lawyer tells me to send him my bills and they are then paid. But what I want is cash in my hand.”
“I should have thought that there might be better ways of obtaining it than taking up the profession you are speaking about.”
“Profession?” the girl queried. “Is being a Lady-Bird a profession, like being a doctor or a lawyer? How interesting!”
He thought of quite a number of retorts he might have made to a more sophisticated woman, but instead he went on driving with a frown between his eyes.
He was wondering what he could say to this impulsive child who, he was certain, had not the least idea of the implications of what she was intending.
He could well imagine the perils she might easily encounter, if she found herself in the company of the more raffish and dissolute young men who drove about the countryside from Race Meeting to Race Meeting merely to see what excitements they could uncover.
“You have not told me your name,” he stated after a moment.
“Petrina – ” she replied and stopped.
“You must have another name.”
“As I have told you so much about myself, I think it would be unwise to let you know anything more. After all you might have been a friend of my father’s.”
“In which case I should undoubtedly try to dissuade you from this disgraceful idea.”
“Nothing is going to stop me now,” Petrina answered him. “I have made up my mind and when I have established myself I might get in touch with my Guardian.”
“I imagine you will have to if you want some money.”
Petrina gave a little chuckle.
“I wondered if you would think of that. I thought of it myself and that is why I waited so long before setting out for London.”
“What have you done?”
“I have collected quite a considerable sum through sheer cleverness.”
“How?”
“I sent bills to the lawyers, which I had made up myself.”
“What sort of bills?”
“Bills for books, for school uniforms, for all sorts of miscellaneous things. I thought that they might be suspicious but they paid up quite happily.”
There was so much triumph in the young voice that the Earl could not help smiling.
“I can see you are extremely resourceful, Petrina.”
“I have to be,” she answered. “Now that my Papa and Mama are dead, I have no relatives left except poor old Cousin Adelaide, who really has one foot in the grave.”
The Earl did not reply and after a moment she went on,
“I am sure I have enough money to get myself settled. Then, when I am the talk of the town, there will be nothing my Guardian can do but hand over my fortune.”
“Supposing he refuses?”
Petrina gave a little sigh.
“Of course he might, in which case I shall have to wait until I am twenty-one when I get half of it or twenty-five, when I get the whole of it.”
“I have a feeling that, as in most wills, there is a proviso if you marry.”
“Of course,” Petrina agreed, “and that is why I have no intention of getting married and handing all my money over to a husband to do what he likes with it.”
She paused before she added scornfully,
“He might be like my Guardian and keep it all to himself, giving me nothing.”
“All men are not like that,” the Earl commented mildly.
“Claire tells me that Society is full of money-grubbers, young aristocrats who are on the look-out for a rich wife to keep them. I shall fare so much better as a Lady-Bird, I am quite certain of that.”
“As you seem to have a very low opinion of the male s*x,” the Earl remarked, “I cannot imagine that you will find the men you would associate with particularly attractive.”
Petrina thought this over for a moment and then she said,
“I need not make big financial demands on them. Claire’s brother has told her that his mistress costs him a fortune every year. She demands carriages, horses, a house in Chelsea, and masses of jewellery, far more than he can afford.”
“I don’t know who Claire’s brother may be, but I should not take his description of the Beau Monde as entirely reliable.”
“He is Viscount Coombe,” Petrina said, “and Claire says he is a ‘Tulip of Fashion’.”
It was one of the few accurate things that Petrina had said to him so far, the Earl thought to himself.
He knew the Viscount and thought him a pleasant but rather stupid young man, who was wasting his allowance from his father, the Marquis of Morecombe, in a spendthrift manner which had not gone unnoticed in the Clubs of St. James’s.
As if she knew by his silence what he was thinking, Petrina exclaimed,
“You know Rupert.”
“I have met him,” the Earl admitted.
“Claire thought that he would do me very well as a husband, especially as he is always wanting money. But, as I explained to her, I don’t want a husband, I want to be independent.”
“I think you must realise that it is utterly impossible,” the Earl said.
“How do other women become Lady-Birds?”
“They are not usually heiresses to start with.”
“It is no use being an heiress if you cannot get your fingers on your own money,” Petrina commented with inescapable logic.
“If you take my advice, I suggest that before you do anything drastic you call and see your Guardian.”
“What shall I gain by that?” Petrina asked him. “He will doubtless be so annoyed by my leaving school that he will send me back under armed guard. Then I shall have to escape all over again.”
“I think if you explain to him that you are too old to be at school any longer and that all your friends have made their debuts, he will see reason.”
“Reason!” Petrina snorted. “He has not seen reason up until now. Why, why out of all the men in the whole world, should Papa have chosen him to be my Guardian? I expect he is old, strait-laced and doubtless religious as well, so he will disapprove of anything amusing.”
“And why should you think he will be like that?”
“Because Papa, having lived an exciting and adventurous life himself, wanted to protect me. He was always saying, ‘when you grow up, my darling, you must never make the same mistakes as I have’.”
“And had he made a lot of mistakes?”
“I don’t think so. Not as far as I was concerned,” Petrina answered. “But he fought quite a number of duels over beautiful ladies and so I expect he was referring to them.”
She gave a little exclamation and flung out her hands.
“Whatever it was, here am I saddled with this beastly old Guardian! When I think of all my money locked up in his safe or hidden under his bed, I could scream!”
They drove on for a little while in silence.
Then the Earl said,
“I told you I have no desire to become involved in your mad escapade and I make no promises, but perhaps, seeing the circumstances in which we have met, I could speak to your Guardian.”
Petrina turned round to stare at him in surprise, her eyes very wide.
“Would you really do that?” she asked. “That is so kind of you. I take back all the things I have been thinking about you.”
“What were you thinking?” the Earl asked curiously.
“I thought that you were rather top-lofty, stiff-necked, the grand old man stuffed with wisdom and condescending to the poor little peasant girl who knows no better.”
The Earl laughed as if he could not help himself.
“You are the most incorrigible brat I have ever met in my life. I cannot believe that you are really serious in your intentions and yet, because you are so obviously unpredictable, I am half-afraid that you are serious.”
“I am entirely serious,” Petrina assured him. “And, if you go to see my Guardian, I shall hide myself, so that if he says ‘no’, he will not be able to find me and I can go on with my own plans.”
“Your own plans are not only entirely impractical, they are exceedingly reprehensible,” the Earl said sharply, “and would not be considered by any woman who might call herself ‘a lady’.”
Petrina laughed.
“I knew we would get round sooner or later to the subject of being a lady. ‘A lady does not go out walking without her gloves, a lady never answers back, and a lady does not walk in the street unescorted or go dancing until she is fully grown-up.’ I am fed up with hearing about ladies! They lead the most boring, dull and restricted lives. I want to be free!”
“The sort of freedom which you envisage for yourself is absolutely impossible.”
“Only because you think I am a lady.”
“Well, you are and so there is nothing you can do about it.”
“Except behave like a Lady-Bird.”
She was silent for a moment and then she said speculatively,
“I cannot help really wondering how they do behave, but I expect I shall see lots of them in London. Claire says I shall recognise them because they are usually very smart, very pretty and drive in Hyde Park unattended.”
She paused and glanced at the Earl from under her eyelashes as she added,
“Except by gentlemen, of course.”
“But the women to whom you are referring are not ladies and they certainly do not have fortunes like yours to fall back on.”
“Think how pleased the gentlemen will be with me if they don’t have to provide me with carriages and lots and lots of jewellery!”
The Earl did not answer and, after a moment, she asked him,
“How much does your mistress cost you a year?”
Once again the Earl was startled into almost losing control of his horses and then he said sharply,
“You are not to ask such questions! You are not to talk about such women. You are to behave yourself. Do you understand?”
“Because you say so?” Petrina asked. “You have no jurisdiction over me, as you well know.”
“I can refuse to take you any further,” the Earl threatened.
Petrina looked round her with a smile.
They had joined the main highway to London and there was quite a considerable amount of traffic not only of private phaetons and carriages but Post-chaises and stagecoaches.
“If I had any sense,” the Earl averred, “I would put you down and leave you to go to the devil your own way.”
Petrina giggled.
“I am not afraid if that is what you want to do. Now I am so near to London, I can take a stagecoach or hire a post chaise to go the rest of the way.”
“And when you reach London, where do you intend to stay?”
“At a hotel”
“No respectable hotel would have you.”
“I know the name of one that will,” Petrina retorted. “Rupert told Claire it was where he had sometimes stayed with a Lady-Bird, so I don’t think they will refuse me.”
The trouble with the Viscount Coombe, the Earl thought angrily, was that he talked far too freely in front of his sister.
“Have you heard of the Griffin Hotel off Jermyn Street?” Petrina asked.
The Earl had indeed and he knew it was not the sort of environment for a young woman alone, least of all anyone as young and unsophisticated as Petrina.
“I am going to take you straight to your Guardian,” he said aloud. “I will explain your predicament to him and I think I can promise that at least he will listen to me and I hope will behave in a reasonable manner.”
- Writer
