Escapade (6 page)

“I imagine you have some sort of dancing party arranged,” Sara said.

“Yes, a ball, but that must be at the end of the visit, for it takes a little setting up, and a few impromptu dances in the evenings. I came on such short notice everything is at loose ends. What are we to do with our days? I know Lady Honor does not care for riding,” he bowed to Honor, who acknowledged her lack of horsemanship with a blink. “I was hoping to come up with some less strenuous entertainment,” he continued, turning back to Sara.

“The ladies will enjoy being driven about the countryside in carriages if they do not like to ride,” Sara informed him. “They will want to go to the village one day and go through the shops. Girls always like a shopping spree in a new place better than anything, you know. Then if they can't amuse themselves, you can always set them to decorate your ballroom for one of your dances, or get up a masquerade party that will take up an afternoon in arranging their costumes."

“I knew I might count on your good sense,” he said, with a truly warm smile. Till then Ella had not realized he had such a winning smile. Sara was always talking about it, but it was not the one he usually wore to London parties, and this was the first time Ella had been exposed to it.

“Oh, don't worry about it, Clare,” Sara said, perfectly at home with him. “Young people will amuse themselves. They will have their little flirtations to while away the time you must know, and no doubt you have a dozen cats and dogs around somewhere that will provide a diversion. Then, too, they will all be dashing off notes to their bosom bows back in London, telling what a gay time they are having. There is the whole palace to explore—that will take an age—and they may have some ideas of their own too. What was it we did when we were young?” Sara asked of the Marchioness, desiring for the sake of civility to include the Sedgleys in the talk.

“I was married my first year out and had always the job of looking after three houses, which didn't leave any time for fun,” the Marchioness flattened them all by stating.

Clare flashed a quick, intimate glance at Sara, that said mutely,
you are wasting your time, my girl, trying to get an idea out of that one.

“Well, I was always chasing after my brothers, riding anything with four legs, and fishing and shooting, which won't suit your quiet guests,” Sara said. “But perhaps you young girls have some ideas. What do you think, Ella? You youngsters seem to be having such fun at Fairmont whenever I go."

The fun at Fairmont consisted of such boisterous sports as riding bareback through the meadows, poling across the lake on homemade rafts, and having frog-jumping contests, and Ella was not in a mood to proffer these suggestions to the stone face that was turned to her. She felt betrayed by her aunt, but braced herself to say something. “We—we know everyone there, and we visit a great deal, and have company. Perhaps we might have a sketching party one afternoon,” she added desperately. She abhorred sketching, especially in parties, but it sounded a ladylike activity, which her own pursuits were not.

Sara plunged in to save her. “Yes, Crazy Nellie's Tower would make an excellent subject—from a distance, Clare,” she added.

“Or that pavilion you mentioned,” Ella added, determined to make at least one comment unelicited by a direct question.

“We shall contrive to be merry somehow,” Sara assured him.

“Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment,” Clare said rather depressingly.

“You are too pessimistic,” Sara chided him.

“That, I believe, is a quotation from Dr. Johnson,” Ella advised her aunt.

“Now I see how you amuse yourself, Miss Fairmont,” Clare said, turning towards her again with a hopeful light on his face. “You are a reader. Your entertainment is assured, for we have a very fine library at Clare."

“Have you indeed?” she asked, with the first indication of real interest she had shown thus far.

“Yes, I will take you there later. My librarian will direct you to those subjects you are interested in.” He hoped the lady might now mention her areas of interest, and contribute something to this lagging conversation, but she said only, “Thank you,” in a very small voice.

Throughout the whole time, the Marchioness and her daughter sat like the well-bred statues they were and said nothing. That they were dead was obviously untrue, however, for their eyes occasionally went from one speaker to the other.

To kill time while awaiting the arrival of the others, Clare took the party to his Mama's rose garden, where the Marchioness distinguished herself by recognizing a Queen Anne rose bush, and her daughter by telling them they had many finer ones at Strayward, and Ella did not distinguish herself at all. She liked roses, but like architecture, she knew little about the subject. She preferred keeping her mouth shut and appearing a fool to opening it and removing the doubt. Just before dusk, the party was considerably enlivened by the simultaneous arrival of the Prentiss and Sheridan carriages, and before long the three young gentlemen who were to complete the party—Tredwell, Mr. Peters, and Lord Harley, also came. It was time to change and reassemble for dinner, and Ella breathed a sigh of relief to escape the blighting eye of the Duke.

The meal was served on a grand scale in the formal dining room, with the Duchess of Clare acting as hostess, presiding over a table thirty feet long, laden with an array of silver, crystal, fine Wedgwood porcelain, and enough food to please the greatest glutton in the land. The visitors just arrived added sufficient variety to the assembly that conversation flourished, and the meal was a jolly one.

Mr. Peters and Lord Harley were young blades of the Corinthian set, who looked elegant in their black suits, and more at home in their riding clothes. “Doing the pretty” with the ladies was the price they were willing to pay for the privilege of getting their legs over the backs of Clare's hacks and hunters. The evenings would be dashed dull, but Clare had a well-stocked cellar, at least, to make them tolerable.

The young ladies, Miss Sheridan and Miss Prentiss, were a study in contrast. Sherry was outstanding for her ravishing appearance—crow-black hair worn in the stylish Méduse, a skin like the inside of a white rose, and eyes as black as her hair. Her conversation was insipid, but her looks so staggeringly beautiful that no one ever listened to what she had to say anyway, except her modiste. Her sole subject of conversation was gowns, and a further restriction was that it was usually her own gowns she discussed, though she occasionally offered a criticism of a rival's.

Belle Prentiss was of a different sort entirely. Not strikingly beautiful, but with a lively gamin charm. She was slight and elfin, with titian curls cut daringly short, almost a Brutus do in fact. It was the style to compare her to Lady Caroline Lamb. She was as broad in her interests as Miss Sheridan was narrow. She knew everyone, did everything, from cutting through town in her own high-perch phaeton-and-pair to reading to old Queen Charlotte in the afternoons. She sang, danced, played every known musical instrument, painted, wrote verses, drama, and novels, and still had time to take in every rout and assembly that occurred. She even read the papers and knew something about politics. It was one of her ploys to wish aloud that she were a man, so that she might be Prime Minister, and with her energy and cleverness it was not unlikely that she would have made it, had she been a man. But she was a young lady, and so would make do instead with marrying the prize of the marriage mart, the Duke of Clare.

These two young ladies were accompanied by their mothers, but as beauty and talents were unevenly distributed between the generations, neither of the elder ladies had anything to recommend her but her daughter. They were therefore of only minimal interest to the party, but of prime interest to each other, and vied endlessly for the upper hand in their dealings.

The Duke was obliged, because of precedence, to have the Marchioness on his right hand, for which he compensated by putting Lady Sara on his left. He had placed Ella beside Bippy Tredwell, as he was the only reason she was present. Since she didn't care two hoots for him, she was not at all shy to talk up to him and enjoyed a very pleasant repast. Her pleasure was somewhat mitigated to learn he would be singing after dinner, but she had some hopes of slipping off to the library and did not worry much about the concert.

“Any special song you would like to hear me sing?” he asked.

“I have no favorite,” she replied.

“Like Italian songs?” he asked.

“Yes, they are very nice."

“Could do ‘Tu Mi Chamas’ if you like,” he volunteered.

“That would be fine,” she agreed, without enthusiasm.

When the ladies had retired to the drawing room, Bippy said aside to Clare that Ella wanted to hear him sing ‘Tu Mi Chamas,’ and did he have the music to it. Clare was still surprised at the attraction between the two, but had observed Ella's relative liveliness during dinner, and took it for an accepted thing now.

“One of the ladies will have the music by heart. Since Byron set words to it, it is all the go."

After tea, the gentlemen joined the ladies and all migrated to the music room to be entertained, first by Belle, who displayed at length her talents in singing, dancing, reciting long stretches of Shakespeare's plays that she had by heart, playing the harp, and finally—there was no end to her skills—a pantomime. The silence of this last diversion proved soporific, and the audience was in some danger of falling off to sleep after their long day, but they were soon roused by Miss Sheridan, who sang two country songs very loudly, attempting to make up in volume of sound for the paucity of her accomplishments.

Bippy's superior voice was quite a relief, but when Clare chanced to glance in Miss Fairmont's direction, he saw her yawning into her fist. Having composed her column during the other diversions, she was having a hard time to keep her eyes open. Strange, he thought, that she never once glanced at the stage to admire her suitor's prowess.

The concert finally at an end, the guests were allowed to straggle up to their rooms, amidst a volley of compliments to each other by the performers, and a dull silence from the dazed audience.

Half the party slept late next morning after the rigors of the journey, but neither Miss Sheridan nor Miss Prentiss had the slightest intention of letting the other get the jump on her, and they entered the breakfast room together, pale and heavy-lidded but meticulously gilded at 9:30. By 10:30 they had both eaten and drunk a good deal more than they wanted, and could find no excuse to linger till their host should arise from his bed and join them. When Miss Sheridan decided she would risk a stroll through the grounds, Miss Prentiss insisted on joining her, fearing she had somehow discovered where he was to be found. Sherry congratulated Miss Prentiss on her ‘interesting’ gown, while inwardly wondering why she should choose to make such a sight of herself in a skimpy little mulled muslin with no bows. Miss Prentiss said it was not nearly so fine as Miss Sheridan's, though she was afraid that white with a ruffled bottom would get horribly soiled romping through wet grass.

While they sauntered through the park, eyes and ears alert for a trace of the owner, Clare arose and made a leisurely toilette. At 11:00 he strolled into the breakfast parlor, outfitted in buckskins and hacking jacket, for a cup of coffee. He had breakfasted in his room and came to table only to say good morning to his guests. Mrs. Sheridan and Mrs. Prentiss were there, each praising her own daughter, while mentally cursing her for being absent. They carefully noted the time so the error might not be repeated tomorrow. Lady Honor and the Marchioness were both still in bed, and never arose before noon. Shortly after 11:00, Sara and Ella came into the room, the former in her riding habit. The mothers fumed impotently when Clare invited Sara to accompany him, though he made it clear it was only a business ride, and he would be stopping at some tenant farms to attend to various matters. Again they made a mental note—tomorrow at 11:00, in riding habits.

“You don't plan to ride, Miss Fairmont,” Clare said, looking at her cotton gown.

“No, I plan to take this opportunity to visit your library."

“Ella is an incorrigible bookworm,” Sara explained.

“I shall take you there, and turn you over to Mr. Shane, my librarian, before we leave,” he offered.

The mothers doubly regretted their daughters’ absence when Clare was in such an amiable mood that he was being polite even to the Fairmont girl.

After breakfast, Sara went for her bonnet and gloves while Clare took Ella through rooms and corridors to a library composed of three adjoining rooms, whose every wall was lined with books. Ella had never seen so many assembled in one place before and thought she had landed in heaven. A tall, slight gentleman with blond hair and spectacles arose from a desk and came towards them.

“I have received a price on that Gutenberg Bible from the dealer in Belgium,” he said at once, in some excitement.

“Good, order it if you think the price fair,” Clare said and didn't even inquire the price quoted.

“I think we ought to talk it over,” Mr. Shane suggested.

“No, no, Shane, you decide. It is you who is always after me to acquire one, and you too, I suspect, who will go to the bother of reading it. This is Miss Fairmont, a guest. Show her whatever she wants to see, will you please?” With a smile and a bow he was off.

As he strolled away, he heard the beginning of their discussion.

“What sorts of books do you have?” Ella asked, peering around the stacks and trying to decipher titles.

“We have English, French, Latin, Greek, German, and a small number of Russian volumes, Miss. What are you interested in?"

“Everything,” she stated comprehensively.

At the first door, Clare turned aside and pretended to study a shelf of books. He had some idea the girl was a talented linguist, and as he was interested in oddities, he wished to overhear more.

“You read all those languages?” Mr. Shane asked, impressed in spite of her plain appearance.