Chapter Twenty
J ackie waited while Pol paid off the post chaise at an inn in London. Maman supported Gran into the inn. They had shortened their travel time each day, for Gran’s sake, and had crowded three to the backward facing seat so she could sleep, but still the four days of travel had been hard on her.
“At the very least, they shall find me a place where she can sit while they prepare us a room,” Maman said, as she left Jackie with the luggage.
Pol finished with the post rider and shouldered the largest of the trunks.
“Carry your bags, sir?” said a somewhat weedy-looking individual, touching his cap.
Pol looked him up and down, but before he could decide another man rushed up, this one in livery. “Be off with you, or I’ll have a constable on you,” he said, and the first man scurried off.
“I’m sorry, sir. We’re a bit rushed at this time of night. Someone should have been outside to chase off scoundrels like that. They look for people who are laden with bags, offer to help with some of them, and then scarper with whatever they are carrying.”
Pol shot a glance at Jackie and grinned. “He’d have been sorry if he’d tried to carry off one of our bags,” he commented. “This dear lady would have been onto him in a moment.”
Jackie was not so confident. Not in these skirts. But she grinned back.
“Anyone in this livery can be trusted, sir,” the liveried man was saying, as he picked up most of their luggage and waved for someone else to take the smaller trunk and the bag that Jackie was carrying.
“Does Sir require a room for Madam and himself?” The first man was walking rapidly into the inn, even though he must be carrying nearly his own weight in bags.
“One room for Mrs. Remington and Mrs. and Miss Harper, and a second for me,” Pol said.
The rooms were opposite one another on an upper floor. Both rooms would be noisy—the smaller one looked out over the coach yard, and the larger over the busy street. The rooms were clean enough and nicely appointed, and the bed in the larger room was large enough for Maman and Gran to share. A maid was already setting up a truckle bed for Jackie, and another appeared with a jug of hot water for them to wash.
Maman helped Gran to a comfortable chair and began unpacking the bag that held their nightclothes.
“Will that be all, Ma’am?” one of the maids asked Maman, who said, “For the moment. I shall ring if we require anything.”
An early task would be to send one of the inn’s servants to post the letters that Gran had written to her friends. Pol had said that sending the letters would probably have to wait until the morning, so they would be here at least for tonight.
If no one replied to Gran’s letters, Pol had another plan. He would look for rooms they could rent—expensive, in London, or so Jackie understood. But still cheaper than staying in an inn.
Not only would the cost of a London inn quickly deplete the resources liberated from Oscar’s goose, but rented rooms, perhaps giving Jackie her own bedroom, would, she hoped, be both quieter and more comfortable.
There was a knock on the door, and Jackie answered it. Pol waited in the passage outside. “May I come in, Miss Harper?”
She stepped aside, and he entered the room. “Ladies, I have asked the manager, and there is no private parlor available. Would it be acceptable if dinner was served to us in this room?”
He left again once he had their assent, promising to return in forty-five minutes, at which time the meal would also arrive.
Maman and Jackie washed and changed for dinner, as they always did, whether they had spent all day traveling or all day sewing—changing for dinner was part of what Maman called maintaining standards. Then Maman assisted Gran to wash and change, though in Gran’s case, Maman was content to see Gran into her nightgown, slippers, and a voluminous house coat that buttoned from her neck to the bottom.
“There, Clara,” Maman said. “You may eat at the table with us if you choose, but I believe you shall be more comfortable in bed, where you may rest your head against the pillows.”
Gran chose the bed, and Maman helped her up the steps and saw her pillows arranged to ensure that she was comfortable. “Thank you, Eloise,” said Gran.
The next knock on the door was a pair of footmen with a heavy tray each, which they put down on the sideboard. One then spread a tablecloth on the room’s table, and another set out cutlery and glassware. Pol arrived while they were busy, and one of them stopped to tell him what the dishes contained, clearly believing that the man of the party was the proper person to address, rather than any of the women.
They were to start with cream soup, followed by a haricot de mouton and vegetable pie, with piccalilli. For dessert, there were little cakes and lemon custard.
“We shall serve ourselves,” Maman announced. The footman who had been describing the dinner glanced from her to Pol, as if checking that he approved of the lady’s decision.
Pol nodded, ushered the two footmen to the door, and slipped each of them a coin. “We shall call when we wish you to clear,” he said, then returned to move the chairs out of the way. “Let’s set the table at the foot of the bed so that we can all eat together,” he said, and Jackie helped him to lift and move it. He rearranged three of the chairs around the table, so they were facing Gran, and Jackie moved the place settings to match the chairs.
Soon, they were enjoying the soup, which was rich in vegetables and fragrant with herbs. “I gave your letters to the inn manager, Gran,” Pol told her. “He said he would send runners with them this evening, so perhaps you might have some replies tomorrow morning. He was most impressed with the names on the envelopes.”
“Clara used to move in the highest levels of fashionable Society,” said Maman.
“Not the highest,” Gran objected. “Frederick used to be friendly with the royal princes, and especially with the Prince of Wales, but their parties were not quite the thing, you know. Not for a faithful wife.”
They were just about to clear the second course and begin on the dessert when someone knocked on the door again.
“I’ll see who it is,” Pol said, and went to the door.
“Good evening,” said the unseen caller. “Am I at the correct room for Lady Riese?”
“And you are?” Pol asked.
“Drew Winderfield. I have been sent by my stepmother, the Duchess of Winshire, in response to a letter from Lady Riese.”
“Eleanor!” Gran said, sitting up straighter in the bed, her face aglow with pleasure. “Bring him in, Apollo.”
Pol stepped back, and in came a tall, dark stranger, beautifully dressed in fashionable gentlemen’s evening wear. His eyes scanned the room, and he addressed a pleasant if vague smile toward them all, but he brightened as he saw Gran. “Lady Riese, I presume. Aunt Eleanor sent me to invite you and your party to Winderfield House, my lady. She would have come herself, but she was expected at a ball for one of her goddaughters.”
Gran beamed back at him. “Eleanor has more godchildren than anyone else I know,” she commented. “We would like to go and stay with the Duchess of Winshire, Apollo, would we not?”
“If you wish, Gran, and if it is not too much trouble.”
The young lord—he must be Lord Andrew, a son of the duke—shrugged his eyebrows, still smiling. “The house is enormous, and Aunt Eleanor is beside herself with delight to have rediscovered an old friend.”
“But where are my manners?” Gran said. “Eloise, Jacqueline, allow me to make known to you Lord Andrew Winderfield, the fourth son of the Duke of Winshire. Lord Andrew, my friend La Comtesse de Haricot du Charmont and her daughter, Mademoiselle de Haricot du Charmont. And this is my grandson, Apollo Riese, rightfully Viscount Riese, Lord Andrew.”
Maman had a full repertoire of curtseys, learned for the French court. She’d taught them to Jacqueline who drew on them now. Item, one curtsey from a comtesse to the younger son of a duke. Item, one curtsey from a comte’s daughter to the same gentleman. The gentlemen bowed.
“I have interrupted your dinner,” Lord Andrew noted. “I beg your pardon. Please, take your time. We can leave whenever you are ready.”
“You mean us to go tonight?” Pol asked.
Lord Andrew inclined his head in something between a nod and a bow. “Winshire House will be much quieter and more comfortable for the ladies, and is only a short carriage ride. Lady Riese, you need not even get dressed. My father’s carriage is parked in the carriage yard. We can wrap you in a blanket and carry you down, and straight into the carriage. Within twenty minutes, you can be sitting up in bed in the room my father’s housekeeper is even now preparing for you.”
Gran held out a hand and Maman hurried to take it. “What do you think, Eloise?”
Maman pursed her lips in thought. “I think, if it is a comfortable coach, and the distance is not too far, it will do no harm. Do you wish it?”
“Oh, yes,” Gran said.
Pol raised his eyebrows and nodded at Lord Andrew. “The ladies have spoken,” he said.
His grin was Lord Andrew’s only reply.
“Please be seated, Lord Andrew,” said Maman, waving to one of the fireside chairs. She and Jackie resumed their seats at the table.
“Would you care for cake and custard?” Apollo asked the young lord. “We have been given a most generous plateful of cakes and have custard to spare.”
“Call me Drew,” Lord Andrew invited. “Yes, please. They look delicious.”
They were and were soon gone. After that, Drew helped Pol carry the luggage back out into the hall, where she could hear him giving instructions to someone. Pol went downstairs to settle with the innkeeper, and a few minutes later he returned to carry Gran downstairs, wrapped in a soft, warm blanket that one of Drew’s servants had brought up from his carriage.
They settled Gran across one capacious seat, and Pol, Maman and Jackie took the other. Drew had a horse waiting. “Did you have any trouble with the innkeeper?” Gran asked Pol.
“None,” Pol said. “He was deeply awed that we were going to stay at the house of the Duke and Duchess of Winshire. Besides, I paid for the night’s accommodation as well as the dinner, which was only fair, I think.”
In no time at all, they arrived at a townhouse that took up all the space from one street corner to the next and dwarfed those around it. Jackie had little time to gawk, for Maman said, “With me, cherie ,” and hurried up the stairs after Pol, who was carrying Gran.
Inside was unbelievable. Jackie had been in a few country houses in her role as seamstress, several of them larger and more elegant than Riese Hall. This was as far above those as Riese Hall was above the cottage they’d rented in Little Tidbury.
The front entry hall soared the height of the house, ending in a cupola far above her, and stairs swept up both sides of the hall, with landings crossing the expansive space on each level. It was a rich interior of marble, polished wood, glittering crystals, bright tapestries and paintings, gleaming ornaments, and more—so much that she could not take in more than the overwhelming impression of wealth and good taste.
She wasn’t given much time to look around her, for a woman stepped forward and announced herself as the housekeeper. “Her Grace has instructed that we are to make you comfortable, my ladies, sir. She looks forward to seeing you in the morning. If you would come this way…?”
She led them off up the left-hand stairs with Pol behind her. Drew bowed to Jackie and Maman. “You are in good hands, my ladies. I, too, shall see you in the morning.”