Escapade (12 page)

He smiled quite boyishly. “Miss Fairmont was a happy accident,” he admitted. “A friend of Tredwell's and, of course, I have known Sara forever."

The duchess was a little sorry to hear Miss Fairmont was Bippy's friend, still she thought from his smile Patrick was not quite immune to her either. “She's nice. I like her better than those dull beauties you usually drag down here."

“Yes, Sara is nice,” he returned, misreading his mother's meaning, so that she had to straighten him out.

“I was referring to Miss Fairmont. A nice sensible girl."

“Sensible? How can you say so, when I told you about her escapade on the pond?"

“Pooh, that is merely high spirits. I have been wondering, Patrick, did she actually induce Lady Honor to go chasing frogs?"

“No, Lady Honor induced me to do it for her."

“That's more like it. Well, don't let me keep you,” she said, fingering her book impatiently.

“I can take a hint, Mama. I shall tell the Marchioness you are lying down with your vinaigrette."

“Tell her I took a few drops of laudanum, or she may take it into her head to drop in and see how I do. I'd hate her to catch me red-handed."

“It would serve you right,” he remarked, rising.

“And don't lose my list of books,” she called after him.

“I have it right here.” He reached into his pocket, but felt some larger pieces of paper, and remembered the limericks.

He waited till he was outside his mother's door to read them. One had only the two lines, and he knew that it was Lady Sara who had abandoned hers after a minute. He was therefore very well aware who had written the other. He was amused—a clever way with words, due to her haunting of libraries he supposed. He was about to return them to his pocket, then read Ella's again. That last line—'What one thought of him he didn't care.’ Not quite justified. Still, he supposed the general impression was that he didn't give a damn for public opinion. He shrugged his shoulders and returned to the drawing room, to find Miss Fairmont recounting a story she had read in the books of supernatural phenomena borrowed from his library.

“...and when the heir died, all the swans left the lake, and there was a horrid eerie cry in the chimneys, and the parson passing by saw a white cloudlike thing leave by the outer chimney, only it wasn't smoke, but much more substantial, he said, and it circled three times around the roof, then dissipated."

“Nonsense!” Clare said firmly, a light kindling in his eye.

“Very likely,” she agreed. “I am only telling what I read in a book from your library, and supposedly it happened right here at Clare Palace, in the year 1699."

“I should have warned Shane to keep those volumes away from you."

“You forget my powers of persuasion with Mr. Shane, Your Grace,” Ella replied meaningfully.

“There is nothing wrong in a ghost story,” Belle interjected.

“No, I imagine it is the others on the same shelf dealing with black magic and necromancy and such things that His Grace is worried about,” Ella explained.

“How horrid!” Belle squealed. “You must show me where, Miss Fairmont."

“Going to write up a ghost story, Miss Prentiss?” Bippy asked.

Before she replied, Sherry had to have a portion of the duke's attention. He had not said a word about her latest gown.

“Do
you
believe in ghosts, Clare?” she asked.

“No. And don't tell me you people are gullible enough to believe, either. Now I know Lady Sara, for instance,” he bowed in her direction, “is much too sensible a dame to swallow such slum."

“Except on nights like this,” Sara returned. Wind came down the chimney and the flames danced in the grate. There was a whining of the storm at the windows, and somewhere in the great house a shutter banged ominously.

“That would be your great-great Uncle Ethelred come back to scold you for saying he didn't rise up the chimney,” Ella told him.

Miss Sheridan shivered and pulled her paisley shawl closer about her. She nudged closer to Lord Harley, who sat beside her on the settee. He looked shocked and moved away a little.

“That would be the loose shutter in the yellow guest suite,” Clare contradicted.

“Spoilsport,” Bippy chided. “Tell us another one, Miss Fairmont."

“We have a ghost at Strayward,” Lady Honor said in a sonorous voice.

“A monk,” Miss Sheridan quoted. She had a good memory for anything pertaining to the nobility.

“Yes, tell them about Crazy Nellie, Miss Fairmont,” Clare added, suddenly changing his tack. An evening of ghost stories would be preferable to an evening of Miss Prentiss performing Shakespeare solo.

“I didn't read anything about her,” Miss Fairmont said. “But there was an excellent story about some ancestor in the fifteen hundreds, in Elizabethan times, who was a witch. In the sketch she had one of those ruffs around her neck."

A murmur of interest ran through the collected company, and Miss Fairmont settled back to unfold the tale of Lady Matilda, as Clare informed her the ancestor was named.

“She was very beautiful,” Ella began, in a hushed voice.

“It is a family characteristic,” Clare added.

“Very beautiful and
ill-natured
,” Ella said, with a pointed look at her interrupter. “She kept all the important and eligible gentlemen of the neighborhood dangling after her in the worst way, so that the other ladies all hated her."

“Another family characteristic,” Lord Harley shot in.

“And every time one of them would start to desert her and settle on any other lady,” Ella continued, “he would meet with some horrid fate."

“Bear that in mind,” Clare said to Harley.

“Stop interrupting, you two,” Belle scolded. “Pray continue, Miss Fairmont."

“Well, I'm not sure I remember all the details, for there were scores of suitors, but one of them got stung on the eye by a bee and went blind. It was particularly bad, for he was an artist, and the lady he was to marry a great beauty. They had an apiary at Clare in those days, and..."

“Still have,” Clare commented. Several hostile pairs of eyes were turned on him.

“We have an apiary at Strayward, with one hundred and fifty hives,” Lady Honor said.

Sherry looked at her and smiled, and after a respectful silence to ensure that no more was coming, Miss Fairmont continued. “Another suitor went swimming, an excellent swimmer he was, but he took a cramp and drowned."

“Can't blame that on poor old Matilda,” Clare pointed out.

“There was some circumstance that linked her to it— she was with the party at the time, I believe. And finally, the most mysterious bit of all, one gentleman called on Lady Matilda to tell her he was offering for a neighbor, and he was never seen to leave the house. He just vanished. Now that, you must own, looks highly suspicious."

“It's a big house. Perhaps he got lost."

“Ain't that big,” Bippy objected.

“You get lost every time you come here,” his host reminded him.

“Not forever. May wander about for half an hour or so, but I always meet a maid or someone who can show me the way. Deuce take it, this fellow's been lost since the days of Queen Elizabeth. He must have been done in by Matilda."

“That was certainly the feeling in the neighborhood at the time,” Ella resumed. “That is when it was decided she was a witch, and no one would have anything to do with her."

“Thought they dunked witches, or some such thing,” Bippy mentioned.

“Not when she was a lady of so much consequence,” Belle explained. What she didn't know she made up out of whole cloth, for she had a high reputation for erudition to maintain.

“That's a good story,” Peters complimented Ella. “You know any more?"

“I'm not finished this one yet."

“If only everyone would stop interrupting Miss Fairmont,” Belle charged them.

“Well, it seems that Matilda, not content with doing away with that suitor who came to call and vanished, lay in waiting on the road one dark night to kill his sweetheart. She had a jade sword she meant to use, but when she raised her hand to kill the poor girl, the sword was turned against her by some unseen force, and took her own head clean off."

“Rubbish,” Clare scoffed.

“Yes, just missing her ruff by a fraction of an inch,” Ella assured him. “And she, with great presence of mind, I must admit, picked up her own head and walked home with it underneath her arm."

“Oh, how horrid!” Miss Sheridan gasped, feeling her neck. “I shan't sleep a wink tonight. I know I shan't."

“And be hagged tomorrow,” Belle teased. “What a silly you are. I wonder, Clare, if Matilda might not be your Crazy Nellie."

“No, Nellie is definitely a lady of the Queen Anne period, with a head still on, and red hair."

“Like Miss Prentiss,” Miss Prentiss said mischievously.

“Just so, and a pink gown."

“The family is full of lunatics,” Lady Sara said amiably.

“And ghosts,” Clare added.

The shutter in the yellow suite set up its banging again, and a breeze keening through the ill-fitted French door chose that moment to extinguish two candles.

“I hope that storm lets up, or the roads will be very bad for that little party you plan tomorrow night,” Lady Sara remarked to Clare. “Though if it is still raining tomorrow morning, we can spend the day decorating your ballroom. How would you like it done?"

“Why not make it a ghost party?” Ella suggested. “With so many of your dead relatives wandering around, it is a fitting atmosphere."

“Yes, let's,” Belle cried, clapping her hands and envisioning an early performance of Anne Boleyn.

Honor yawned, and looked at her thumbs.

“How does one decorate for a ghost party?” Miss Sheridan inquired. “And what sort of dress ought one to wear? I had planned to wear my violet gown..."

Lady Sara had no recommendation for a gown, but for decorations thought some old sheets draped over furniture and a dimming of the lights would give the place a feeling of disuse.

“Cobwebs,” Harley added.

“Where the devil do you think you'll get cobwebs?” Bippy asked.

“From spiders! Attics, barns, lots of places."

“You may be in charge of providing cobwebs,” Clare told him, with a mental note to tell his mama of this delightful folly.

“Certainly, glad to help out. And the ladies can be in charge of sheets."

“Old chains, too,” Ella added, “preferably hanging loosely, so that they rattle and clank."

“And you may be in charge of chains, Miss Fairmont,” her host informed her.

“Let's all dress up in costumes,” Belle exclaimed. She was finding it hard to keep up with the inventive Miss Fairmont in new ideas.

“Oh, but I was going to wear my violet gown!” Miss Sheridan said. “I didn't bring a costume with me."

“No one did, silly,” Belle told her. “I daresay Clare has an attic full of old outfits. We can find something."

“Is Miss Prentiss in charge of costumes?” Ella asked Clare.

“Oh no!
I
cannot contrive an outfit for everyone. We must all get our own."

“We shall spend a delightful morning in the attics, breathing dust and rummaging through old trunks,” Clare said with a mock smile.

“Jolly good sport,” Peters agreed happily. “What have you got up there, Clare?"

“I have never been in the attics,” he said, not quite truthfully. “Mama could tell you better, but unfortunately she is—not feeling well."

“What is the matter with her?” Sara asked.

“I believe your niece could tell you the precise name of her ailment,” he returned, with a conspiratorial smile at Ella, whom he had seen biting her lip when he pronounced his mama ill.

“Just a headache, I believe she said,” Ella replied in some confusion.

“Severe headache. She has taken some laudanum,” Clare added, looking towards the Marchioness, who had been sitting listening with the older ladies to the plans of the youngsters.

“That is too bad,” Sara commiserated. “You know, Clare, I have been thinking, if it is to be a costume party, you must let all the people from the neighborhood know about it."

“You're right, and there is my morning taken care of. I'll have to make a tour and tell them. I certainly hope the rain lets up."

“I shall go with you,” Lady Honor informed him.

“You are very kind,” he replied, inclining his head slightly towards her.

Her declaration raised a furor in many breasts, but when Honor spoke a thing was settled. Miss Sheridan nibbled her finger. She would have liked very well to be of this party with two members of the nobility, one of them her beloved Clare, but a moment's consideration recalled her to the rigors of her toilette. It would be a scramble indeed for her and her mama and their women to arrange a costume for her in only one day. She could not imagine how it could be creditably contrived in time.

A general discussion followed, with everyone putting forward an idea for the decorations of the ballroom and the costumes to be worn.

“How will you go, Miss Fairmont?” Bippy asked her.

“It is a secret,” she replied, and said not another word on the subject during the ten minutes he continued to prod her playfully, suggesting such unlikely disguises as a Princess, by Jove, or a flower. Lady Sara, too, was strangely silent, for she did not wish to reveal the excellent idea that had come to her, in case someone else should steal it.

The storm continued, and after a suitable period of time, yawns began to be irrepressible and someone suggested bed. Clare strolled to Ella's side and detained her on her way past. Belle Prentiss sat on the edge of a chair and untied her shoe, so she had the excuse of having to retie it to stay there and listen to them.

“Thank you again, Miss Fairmont,” Clare began.

“Oh, for what?"

“For another of your brilliant ideas—the ghost party."

“I don't think you cared for it?” she said, making it a question.

“It is a host's place to provide what his guests like, and mine appear to like your idea prodigiously. Much better, in fact, than I like your limerick about me."

“But I didn't—how did you come to see it?"

“Picked it up out of the wood basket. I thought it might relieve your mind a little to know I do plan to attend this party. In fact, I even care what some people think of me. You have been taking your impression of me from Prattle, I fear."