Paula Marshall - Dear Lady Disdain

‘Enough to wake the dead.’

Afterwards Stacy could hardly remember how her small party had made its way from the fallen coach to Pontisford Hall. One horse was dead, and another, which Hal and John released from its traces, escaped from their numbed hands and bolted into the distance.

They were more careful with the other two, and they and the recovered postilion put John and Louisa, now barely conscious, on the third horse, and Hall, with the injured Polly riding precariously sideways behind him, on the fourth. Stacy, oblivious to Polly’s wails that it wasn’t fitting for her to walk, helped the postilion to lead them along the lane and up the winding drive to the Hall, trying to avoid ditches and other obstacles, unseen because of the blanket of snow.

Fortunately the snowstorm was gradually abating and a wintry moon came out, which seemed to make the cold worse. None of the party was dressed to be outdoors in such cruel weather. John had put a horse-blanket around Louisa and had covered Stacy with the blanket from the box, which, even if it smelled dreadfully of horse, gave her a little warmth.

The one thing which kept Stacy on her feet and walking was what awaited her at journey’s end. A warm house, a comfortable bed, food and succour, perhaps even some inspiriting conversation after the trivialities of the past few days. The very notion made her blood course more rapidly, kept her head high and her spirits from flagging.

Hal slid off his horse as they reached the steps leading up to the entrance of the Hall, which the moon had already revealed to be a massive and brilliant structure, built in the Palladian style. It was a smaller version of the Duke of Devonshire’s villa at Chiswick, although by now Stacy was incapable of registering such architectural niceties.

She followed Hal up the steps, leaving John still cradling poor Louisa in his arms and trying to keep her out of the wind. It seemed to take ages for the door to open, and when it did she eagerly walked forward to say to the butler who had answered it, ‘My name is Miss Anna Berriman. The chaise taking us to York has broken down and we are in need of shelter and succour for the night, and men to rescue the chaise tomorrow morning, check the damage and arrange for it to be repaired. Please inform your master of our arrival.’

All this came out in her usual coldly efficient manner, the manner which set everyone at her home and at Blanchard’s Bank scurrying about to do her bidding without argument. For a moment, however, the man before her did and said nothing. By the light of the dim candle he was holding she could merely see that he was very large, and only when the moon came from behind a cloud was she able to see him fully for the first time.

He was not wearing any sort of livery but a rough grey country coat and a pair of black breeches. His cravat was a strange loose thing, black, not white, made of silk, with a silver pin in it. The only immaculate thing about him was his boots. A butler wearing boots! His whole aspect was leonine; tawny hair and eyes, a grim, snapping mouth—she was sure it was a snapping mouth. Who in the world would allow a servant to dress like this?

He seemed about to say something, and his mouth quivered, but he simply waved a hand and enunciated—there was no other word for it—curtly, ‘Enter. We have little enough to help you with, but what we can do we will do.’

Well, on top of everything else he was certainly the most mannerless churl it had ever been her misfortune to meet! His harsh voice was as strange as the rest of him. There was an accent in it which she had never heard before. Now he was turning away, without so much as a by your leave to her, and motioning them in.

For a moment Stacy had a mind to reprimand him, but then she remembered poor Louisa. It was no time to be training servants.

‘My poor companion has a bad fever,’ she told the broad back before her, making her voice as commanding as she could—she was not used to being treated in such a cavalier fashion by anyone, let alone a servant— ‘and I think she ought to be put to bed in a warm room immediately.’

The butler turned around, to show her his leonine mask again. He really was the most extraordinary-looking creature, strangely handsome, almost. ‘That may be a little difficult, madam.’

Was it her imagination, or had there been something unpleasantly sneering in the way in which he had said the last word? Stacy, followed by her small party, who were looking about them in astonishment at the decayed state of the entrance hall, continued to walk on until she said, ‘I find it difficult to believe that your master would refuse warmth and shelter to forlorn travellers…’ She stopped, indicating that she wished to know his name, and as he turned around just as they reached a large baize-covered door he apparently read her mind for he said, head bowed, almost in parody of a servant, ‘Matt, madam. You may call me Matt.’

May I, indeed? was her inward angry thought, but, about to say something really sharp, she was stopped by Matt—could that really be his name?—checking his stride to say to John Coachman, who was carrying Louisa and was staggering with weariness, ‘You’re out on your feet, man; give me the lady,’ and he lifted poor Louisa out of John’s arms to carry her himself.

He waved at Hal to open the door. Hal was nearly as shocked as his mistress by this strange me´nage and even stranger servant—as he was later to say to the assembled staff at Bramham Castle, when Stacy finally reached there, ‘I were fairly gobsmacked by it all, and no mistake.’

At last, Stacy thought, comfort and succour. The whole party felt as though their life had been suddenly renewed—but what was this? They were in the kitchens, where, although they didn’t know it, for the first time in years the great fireplace had been properly cleaned. Jeb had retreated to its comfortable warmth when Matt had left the drawing-room.

Behind her Stacy felt her party shuffle their feet and begin to hem and haw. The butler laid Louisa gently down on a settle in the corner of the huge, high-vaulted room, and, taking a blanket from a cupboard, put it over her. She surfaced for a moment to say blindly, ‘Where are we?’ before lasping back into semi-delirium again.

‘You have brought us to the kitchens,’ announced Stacy dramatically. ‘Kindly inform your master of our arrival. I am sure he will order you to prepare somewhere more suitable for us.’

She was uncomfortably aware that not only were her feet frozen, but that her light boots were soaked as a result of her long trudge through wet snow. Approving of being shown into the kitchens or not, she found herself holding her skirts before the huge fire in an attempt to dry them. She would wait to remove her boots until she finally reached a comfortable bedroom. The rest of her party were clustering round the fire, which was large enough to heat even this most cavernous of kitchens. Steam was beginning to rise from their wet clothes.

Jeb, who was finding life in the frozen wastes of northern England even more amusing than he had anticipated, if not exactly comfortable, gave a snort of laughter on hearing Stacy’s orders. Horrocks, whose wits seemed to decline daily, began to speak, caught Matt’s stern eye, and thought better of it.

Matt Falconer offered the stone-faced termagant who was speaking to him so brusquely his hardest stare. All the pent-up anger created by this wretched visit to England, compounded by what he had found at Pontisford Hall, was making him behave in a manner totally unlike that of his usual good-humoured self.

Oh, yes, he’s Lord Radley to a T, thought Jeb gleefully, guessing what was passing through Matt’s mind as he was addressed so peremptorily, and this icy-faced bitch had better watch her step. He’s had a hard time lately, has our Matt, and someone is going to pay for it.