Page 30 of The Book of Lost Stories

Gentlemen Callers

‘I am no longer the heiress you might have thought me, Simon – no rich prize. Even my betrothed has spurned me for another.’

‘I care naught for that. Come with me. My home is far away and of a humbler kind, yet you would be mistress of all and my honoured wife.’

Ravish’d by Cruel Fate by ORLANDO brOWNE

‘Well, Letty,’ Alys said, kissing her cheek, ‘it is good to find you alone, for it seems to me that you are so often in company with Mr Puncheon that I suspect him of dangling after you.’

‘Really, Alys, dangling after me!’ Miss Grimshaw exclaimed, blushing.

‘You look so handsome in that lavender gown and new cap that it would not be at all surprising. But I did not come to put you to the blush, rather to have a good coze and catch up with the news. You will never guess who I have been to visit this morning.’

‘Pray, do tell me, Alys.’

‘Mrs Radcliffe! I wrote asking her if she would allow me to call on her, and she kindly said I might.’

‘And what is she like?’

‘A lady of middle years, kindly, serious and very earnest, not at all how I had imagined her. She warned me not to overstep the boundaries of taste and propriety in my novels. I believe she rather repents of having written hers, for I am sure the author of The Mysteries of Udolpho cannot always have been so very worthy .’

‘I do not know how it is in the least, since you are quite unworldly, my dear, but the tone of some passages in your books is decidedly warm,’ ventured Miss Grimshaw, looking troubled.

‘I do not suppose I would sell so well if they were not. And if they are due to my letting my imagination stray into areas where a maiden lady’s should not go, then so be it. But what of you? You look very well. Are you enjoying your holiday?’

A shadow crossed her companion’s face. ‘Yes, indeed … my nephew and his family have made me very welcome. I am quite at home here.’

‘But it is not your own home, is it? Is that what troubles you? But do not worry, for Thomas is already getting particulars of houses for us in York, as I told you, so that very soon we will be settled there together and you may be easy again.’

‘Oh, yes, how … how nice that will be, to be sure. Only … although your mind was set against marriage, don’t you think you might, after all, reconsider? From what I hear, both Lord Rayven and your cousin Mr Nathaniel Hartwood are very attentive to you.’

Alys laughed. ‘You have been listening to gossip! Lord Rayven’s attentions were motivated by a desire to tease me at first, I am convinced, but now he is a little piqued by my indifference.

And as to my cousin Nat, well, I was quite bowled over with him – did you ever see such a handsome man?

– but it did not last more than a day or two.

I do not like the way he treats animals, which is always a sure sign of character, is it not? ’

‘ Animals , dearest Alys?’

‘Yes, last time he came to call he kicked poor Pug out of the way when he thought no one observed him, simply for drooling over his hessians.’

‘Gentlemen can be very particular about their boots, I have heard. Champagne in the blacking even, which seems a sad extravagance.’

‘Perhaps, but also he treats his horses roughly, and does not speak to his groom in a way that you or I would speak to a servant … I don’t know, it is all little things that make me feel that his character does not live up to his appearance.’

‘Perhaps some other gentleman, then?’

‘Dear Letty, do not worry that I mean to marry and abandon our plan of setting up home together, for I am still set on staying unwed and rely on you to lend me propriety and keep me company.’

‘You are very kind,’ said Miss Grimshaw, the ready tears starting to her eyes.

‘You are right that I would not want to live as a pensioner here for ever, even though my nephew and his family have made me more than welcome. But again, I would not in the least hold you back from making a happy marriage, should you find one worthy of your love.’

‘There is no question of that.’ Alys rose. ‘Now, I believe Thomas is waiting in his study to discuss one or two business matters, so I will leave you.’

‘I have near finished copying out Ravish’d , Alys. Another day or two and it is done.’

‘Good, for I mean to go to the Minerva Press with the manuscript myself and tell them who I am, so putting a stop to Mr Coalport’s pretensions once and for all, for they can deny the rumours without divulging my name, you know.’

‘So long as you are not seen going in,’ Letty said anxiously.

‘Unlikely. Have I ever thanked you for all the work you do for me, copying things out so faithfully? What would I do without you? And what in the world have I said to make you cry, dearest Letty?’

‘N-nothing, do not regard it,’ she sobbed, and vanished into a handkerchief.

*

‘The young lady paid a visit to a Mrs Radcliffe,’ Jarvis said. ‘A lady novelist, she is.’

‘So she is – or was – and quite a famous one,’ Rayven said thoughtfully. ‘I suppose you have been exerting your charms on the servants again to obtain such information, Jarvis?’

‘The cooks can’t bear to see a skinny man, sir, that’s the way of it. But the next house Miss Weston called at, she’d been to before.’

‘Yes, her companion, Miss Grimshaw, is staying with relatives in Cheapside; is that the place?’

‘A very respectable family,’ agreed Jarvis. ‘And an uncommonly pretty maidservant shaking out her duster. She says the old biddy – Miss Grimshaw – has got a caller.’

‘A caller ?’

‘A retired tea merchant called Puncheon is growing very particular in his attentions. Full of juice, he is, and a widower.’

Rayven tried, and failed, to bring Miss Grimshaw’s undistinguished features to mind, then dismissed the matter. ‘Did Miss Weston go home again after that?’

‘Yes. Later she come out again with Mrs Rivers and got into a carriage with Mr Nathaniel Hartwood and a young fair lady. Rabbit-nosed.’

‘Probably Miss Bella Hartwood.’

‘Mr Hartwood seems to call often,’ Jarvis commented, with a look at his master. ‘Mr Rivers, he’s out most nights, and looking burnt to the socket, racketing around Town with his flash friends, Mr Hartwood among them.’

‘Well, you can’t say Nat Hartwood looks burnt to the socket. He must have sold his soul to the Devil.’

‘Maybe he has, sir. You remember asking me to keep my ears open for any word about that odd set-up, the Brethren, as they call themselves, that meet at Lord Chase’s house near Kew?’

Rayven nodded. ‘You have heard something?’

‘Well, many men – and a few women – go there, on nights when the moon is full, for some kind of unholy meeting.’

‘That is pretty well common knowledge, and although they go masked, I dare say most of them know each other.’

‘But what isn’t so much known, sir, is there’s an inner circle of the Brethren that stays behind when the others go. The names of George Rivers and Nathaniel Hartwood are bandied about, among others, as members of it.’

‘Are they indeed? And was Gervase Stavely one of that select group, do you think?’

‘So they say.’

‘Captain Stavely made some enquiries into the Brethren and was assured it was a drinking and wenching club: all the usual excesses, but nothing so bad that it might cause his brother to take his own life.’

‘I expect that’s what most of ’em get up to – the common run of Brethren, as you might say,’ Jarvis said tolerantly, ‘but there’s nasty rumours doing the rounds of what Lord Chase and his particular cronies might be getting up to.

Them girls found dead and mutilated in the river nearby didn’t rightly help matters. ’

‘ Mutilated? ’

‘Raped, and carved up with symbols and stuff. Although they’re the sort of drabs no one comes forward to claim, the local people have been putting two and two together, and they don’t like the answer.’

‘I should think not!’ Lord Rayven said. ‘You had better see if you can find out more, Jarvis, but without sticking your own neck out, mind!’

*

‘I would not be entirely surprised at Chase being connected with such things, for I am told the pox has him so firmly in its grip that he is more than half-crazed,’ Rayven said, retailing the information to Harry later that day.

‘But I find it hard to believe that sane men would commit such foul acts.’

‘Yes, and both Nat Hartwood and Rivers assured me that the meetings of the Brethren were harmless fun. In fact, Hartwood has invited me to go along on the next night of full moon to see for myself. But I do not suppose he meant me to learn of this inner circle of members,’ Harry said.

‘ Could it be true? And could Gervase have been involved in anything so very bad? I cannot think it of him.’

‘Perhaps it is Chase alone who has been perpetrating these outrages? If Gervase found out about it, I dare say then he would feel in some part to blame,’ Rayven suggested.

‘Or maybe the rumours are wrong, Serle, and those poor girls were not the work of the Brethren at all? Perhaps I will go to their next meeting and see what goes on for myself.’

‘Nothing but licentiousness and general debauchery, I should think,’ Rayven said.

Knowing his friend’s serious character, he did not think he would find much pleasure there.