Lace for Milady (16 page)

“It’s the open carriage, Your Grace,” Slack explained. “Mr. McMaster always brings his open carriage, to ensure
my
staying at home, you see.”

“He’s not such a slow top as I thought,” Clavering said, then looked around the room, as though searching for something. “You have no pianoforte here. What a pity; it would go well on this festive occasion, and soothe this savage breast, too. Why have you no pianoforte, Priscilla? The food of love is quite lacking here.”

“I should get one; Miss Slack plays very well,” I replied, suppressing any mention of cherries as a suitable substitute for music in fuelling love.

“I have a clavichord at home that no one plays,” he said. “Since getting the pianoforte, the clavichord has been consigned to a dark corner, unused, and probably completely out of tune, while the pianoforte has the place of honour, also unused and out of tune. If you would like to have the use of the clavichord, I will have it shipped down.”

“Now that is poorly done of you, Your Grace! Having an instrument to while away our evenings will only encourage us to stay about. You’ll never be rid of us,” I cautioned, while wondering furiously what he was up to.

“You notice I didn't offer the pianoforte. I’m hedging my bets; but as you seem determined to stay, we might as well have some music. And my friends call me Burne, by the way.”

“What an odd name!” I said.

“Short for Wedderburne, my first name. Actually another last name, Mama’s, but I had the misfortune to inherit it as a Christian name.”

“Sounds heathen,” Slack said, “Burne.”

“Quite like an injunction to incinerate myself; but I prefer it to being regularly ordered to Wed, which is the alternative,” he explained.

“You aren’t in favour of marriage, then?” Slack asked.

“While there are housetops to jump from, I don’t see why anyone commits the folly. But then the human race dotes on torturing itself. Ladies lace and ride sidesaddle and do needlework, and gentlemen go to Parliament and waltz and shave. And most of this torture, barring Parliament, is designed to make ourselves attractive to the other sex, so that we might achieve the ultimate folly of marriage. Very odd when one considers it, is it not?” he asked with a sardonic smile, thinking to engage us in a futile argument.

“Very odd,” I said quickly, before Slack could enter on a defence of marriage. “But I thought you involved yourself in Parliament.”

“I do. We must all satisfy our little urge to self-flagellation, and it is the least likely to make me a husband.”

“You won’t get any argument from me,” Slack said, “I have no opinion of it either.” I don’t know whether she said this in a mistaken idea that it would please him to agree, or to create the illusion she could have married had she chosen, but in any case it surprised me, and it surprised the Duke, too.

“And you, Miss Denver, do you, too, agree with me?” he asked.

“Absolutely. Especially I think ladies are foolish to marry if they don’t have to, for the advantage is all the man’s.
He
continues free as a bird, but she becomes an unpaid housekeeper and bearer of children, while losing control of her fortune."

He blinked twice and looked from one of us to the other. “She gains a protector, and a certain position in society. The advantage is not all the man’s. What would become of the human race if everyone thought as
you
do?”

“It would die out, of course, and good riddance, too,” I replied calmly. “Nine-tenths of the people one meets are worthless. People by and large destroy the paradise God created. It should be left to the birds and bees and animals who appreciate it. You don’t see them ruining the air with coal dust, nor making war on each other, nor laying mantraps..."

“I never heard such nonsense!” he said, taking the woman’s prerogative and changing his mind.

“Indeed? But surely it is an extension of your own view. Or did you have in mind some means of continuing procreation without benefit of marriage? I almost think that would be worse than anything. Children running wild, with no parents nor home to curb them, nor family unit to raise them as civilised people.”

He settled back with a satisfied smile and continued to argue the point from whichever point of view suited him and made lively discussion. For an hour we discussed half-formed theories of raising children in houses with paid guardians, while the adult population ran about, the men unshaved and the women unlaced, both free to do pretty well as they pleased. His Utopia sounded considerably like Sodom and Gomorrah, with clothing being abandoned entirely at one point, except for the cold weather; but it was all a conceited tease to try to shock Slack and me, who sat impassive, adding such ideas as occurred to us.

Slack expressed some interest in changing her skirts for trousers, which led me to comment that it was my desire to be rid of my curls and have convenient short tresses like a man. Clavering had more trouble than we in hiding his horror at these notions, but would not for the world say so. We drank a good deal of wine, those two devoured many dried cherries, and before he left, the Duke also had a piece of Slack’s birthday cake. He urged us to go to his library
ad lib,
promised he would send down the clavichord as soon as he had it tuned, and finally left.

“He’s an interesting talker, I’ll say that for him,” Slack said when he was gone.

“He’s as crooked as a dog’s hind leg,” I added. “He thinks to become our friend and get Willow Hall from us. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, but he won’t catch us."

“I wonder,” Slack said, and laughed archly.

Chapter Ten

The next morning Slack went in the carriage to borrow books on Roman antiquities, and I remained home to deal alone with Lady Inglewood, who came to inform me I was wasting my time decking myself out in harlot’s gear—no, I do not exaggerate. That was her word—to win the Duke of Clavering. I told her we shared the common view, my paramour and I, that marriage was for fools, which so enraged her that she left before I could tell her about the clavichord; but I did throw in as she left that Slack was even then at his house, arranging the evening’s trysting place. The visit had the unfortunate effect of increasing George’s calls on us to win me back from Clavering’s malign views on marriage, and to spy and see just how much time he actually spent with us and whether I was chaperoned, I imagine. I put him to good use in my lessons and was beginning to feel quite an expert horsewoman. Other than putting on an occasional spurt of uncontrollable speed that terrified me, Juliette was coming under my control. The reins no longer felt like harness straps between my fingers, though I was still not convinced the popular arrangement was the optimum one.

Slack’s conversation, what there was of it, became almost totally incomprehensible to me as she progressed into the esoterica of antiquity. She lost all interest in any period later than
A.D.
200 and reverted to the terminology of the era of her new interest. Londinium and Aquae Sulis were now familiar to me, but Anderida was a mystery for some time, till I eventually learned by induction it was none other than our own Pevensey. Rutapiae and Camulodumun were substituted for Richborough and Colchester, while her only concern with the countryside was to determine whether a little hump in the earth housed a barrow—a burial mound—and whether a stone wall or stretch of road were old enough to be praised. She took to roaming the park with her head bent looking for “artifacts,” and imagining she had found them in bent nails, rusty saucepan handles, and hairpins. When at home her nose was in one of Clavering’s books. I spoke in vain of a new Persian carpet for the saloon, and of putting in a hedge to protect us from the dust of the road, and as to mending the sheets—well! An antiquarian had better things to do with her time.

Clavering gave her every encouragement in this new hobby. He came often at night to peruse the books with her. They were now just plain Burne and Slack to each other, all formality abandoned. I became “Prissie” to them both, a name I abhor; I occasionally called Clavering “Wed” to annoy him, but when he once remarked, “I begin to get the idea,” I ceased. There, my pen is broken, and I shall discontinue this and take a stroll along the beach.

This next section, you will notice, is written in a different hand than Miss Denver’s scrawl. It is being written by me, Miss Slack. I have a first name, incidentally, a detail that has thus far been omitted. It is Maude, and Burne calls me Maude, not Slack. He pointed out to me that I was not slack at all, meaning inactive, negligent, and a host of other dilatory things. He is very quick to make a joke of such things. Miss Denver pointed out that she is not prissy either—prim, prudish—but we call her it in fun, since she never ceases to rise to the bait. I have had the opportunity to peruse her story thus far (I do occasionally glance at some other writing than Burne’s books) and feel impelled to point out that it is riddled with inaccuracies, to say nothing of questionable grammar. It presents a very biased view of the events and particularly of my own part in them. Going back some little way in her tale, I might say that I am not in the least afraid of men, and particularly masculine men, as she redundantly describes them. I do dislike rude, boorish men, which Burne is not, and if it appeared to her I was fond of George, it was only to conceal her own Turkish treatment of him.

I have been accused of stuffing Burne with cherries and wine, but I see it was not mentioned that after the first time he had them at our house, she purchased the very next day a large tin herself, and she loathes them. Nor did she give them to me but set them on the table in the saloon. I leave it to your imagination to work out why. There is also a little tampering with the truth regarding my actions when Clavering was present. She would have you believe I was fawning on him, which I was never with anyone in my life. When the titular hostess sits as mute as a chair and glares at a guest, I feel it incumbent on myself to make some conversation. Her behaviour in his presence was from the beginning peculiar in the extreme. She wishes to give the impression she had no feeling other than loathing for the man, but the fact is, she was smitten. From the first day he brought her home after her tumble she was in love, and I say with no other motive than kindness that her subsequent farouche behaviour in his presence was due to this. He is not handsome, to be sure—a little darker than the ideal, but with very nice eyes and a particularly winning smile. Her chagrin and her behaviour were due to the fact that the feeling was not reciprocated. He came certainly at first to try to get her to sell him Seaview, which she herself calls Seaview on any occasion when Burne is not present or under discussion. I think his present rash of visits has nothing to do with Seaview, and certainly very little to do with myself and my new hobby. I am not foolish enough to think a duke of thirty years has any romantic interest in me. In fact, my remark, questioned by Miss Denver, that I disapprove of marriage is true, insofar as it applies to myself. A fifty-one-year-old spinster must be a ninny to think of it as still a possible alternative, and, in any case, I am very happy with Priscilla.

The only impediment to the arrangement is that I do absolutely nothing to earn my salary. I am a companion paid handsomely for living in a fine home with a young lady who feels it appropriate to give me a diamond ring for my birthday. However, if I left, she would have to hire someone else, and as we have gone on comfortably together for so many years, I have no intention of leaving
yet.
An event might occur in the foreseeable future that would make my companionship unnecessary. I’ll say no more.

It has been hinted that my interest in Roman ruins is spurious. It is far from being the case. I do not simulate this interest to make up to Burne, but have fortunately at this late stage in my life found a hobby of consuming interest, and spend much time reading up on it. The hobby has found
me,
Burne says, as it found him. If I occasionally say Anderida instead of Pevensey, it is because I have so often read it, and one begins to speak automatically in the terms frequently encountered. Priscilla would have you believe she herself takes no interest in all this, but I have more than once found a book I was reading missing, and discovered it later turned to a different page. I cannot think Wilkins, the butler, shares my hobby, and the servant girl cannot read. It was my intention to teach her, and still is, but I find I have little spare time to do so. Actually, I have begun writing up an extract on the ruins around Pevensey, and though it has not been mentioned, I am frequently addressed nowadays as Doctor Slack by my employer.

The firescreen sits abandoned, nor has one been brought down from the attics. I must find a moment to go up and look it over and see if it will do. That was an ill-judged start, the day she ran from the attic to the meadow without telling me, and might have got maimed very easily. Odd about those two men she saw, who disappeared. But the grate no longer rattles, and our little mystery is nearly forgotten. But I was saying I have abandoned the firescreen. It sits in the corner with exactly five square inches worked, and it will stand there unless Priscilla decides to finish it. This is unlikely in the extreme; she is awkward with her needle, poor soul. Never had the knack of it, in spite of my best efforts to teach her. It took her an eternity to finish her riding habit without my help, and truth to tell, it gapes at the neck, though I do not tell her so. She is very sensitive about her appearance these days. The green silk, to spite me cut lower and tighter than is modest, has been put on twice since the birthday party, and though it is nowhere mentioned, there have been two more trips to Anderida where a modiste is this minute making up a gown in rose satin and another in white with a thin red stripe, very pretty. She has also gone to have her hair styled and bought new patent slippers. The reason given is that we are now moving in higher circles than formerly. This is true, and it is quite shocking the short shrift all our other friends have got in this chronicle. Mr. McMaster for instance, was pretty well acknowledged as a beau before the advent of Burne, but now he is played down as hardly even an acquaintance. There are others, too, too numerous to mention in my one chapter, but really we have a good circle of friends, and I no longer think with regret of Wilton. However, it is only one of the new circle of friends who impels her to these unwonted extravagances.