Lady Madeline's Folly (12 page)

Henry was also involved in seeing the disreputable side of London. Like any new young buck on the town, he wished to see the gambling dens, the green room at the theaters where the actresses and dancers met their patrons, the Comus courts where the fellows went after a night on the town, to top off with a sing-song.

This was a part of his education that he considered necessary and she tolerated. She had learned that Henry did not like being bear-led. Once a week he was let off the leash to go slumming with Taffy or some other gentleman friend. If the spot to be visited were not
too
disreputable, he allowed her to tag along. She had accompanied him to Mrs. Bristol’s private gaming hall, for instance, a spot on the fringe of accepted society, where you could lose your money in a high style, with a dinner afterward. The crowd was roisterous, not her own set, but interesting and amusing for
one
visit.

On this particular evening in February, Henry’s night to go slumming, he was taking her to the Pantheon for a masquerade party. The white gown Auntie Meg disparaged would be partially concealed under a blue domino, and her face covered by a mask of egret feathers. That she was going to the Pantheon at all was likewise to be concealed from her father and aunt, who would disapprove. Ostensibly, Henry was taking her to the opera, but concealed in her father’s carriage would be a pair of blue dominoes and masks. She was as exhilarated as a schoolgirl sneaking a forbidden book into her dormitory as she passed the dominoes along to Henry for hiding. Her eyes were shining with pleasure.

“I begin to think you are not such a well-behaved lady as I had thought,” Henry teased, slipping his arm around her waist to steal a kiss.

“Think again, sir. I expect you to protect me this evening. I hear the Pantheon has become disagreeably rowdy. I know I shall adore it.”

“Hoyden! So shall I, when I am with
you.”

“Oh, and the opera we are not seeing is
Martha,
if the subject should arise when we return. Eskott recommended it highly.”

“Then it is bound to be a dead bore.”

“Very likely. It deals with two English ladies who pose as servants and get themselves jobs at a hiring fair, only to discover their contracts are binding.”

“Excellent preparation, Maddie. Better let on we went to one of the routs we have cards for afterward, as I don’t expect we’ll be home before two.”

“Milner’s is likely to be a tight squeeze,” she mentioned.

“We’ll say we went there, and no one will be the wiser. What are your father and aunt doing this evening?”

“Papa stays home. He does not care for the opera, and is tired from all his work. Aunt Margaret never goes out if she doesn’t have to. When I am so respectably occupied, she does not feel it necessary to accompany me.”

“What a blessed relief it will be to be free of her for once. She guards you as though you were a deb on preferment.”

“I know. She wearies me to death too, Henry, but I wish you would try to be a little patient with her.”

“I
do
try, my dear. I would have given her a piece of my mind long ago if I were not trying so very hard to behave.”

“About the expenses for tonight, Henry...” she began uncertainly. She knew Henry’s stipend was small. As many of his expenses involved herself, she could occasionally induce him to take a little cash. But he disliked it.

“I have money,” he said quickly.

“I know you have, but I turned in the opera tickets we are not using, and got a refund for them. Now
do
take it, please.”

“Oh, very well, but I shall add it to my tally and repay you in full when I am higher in the stirrups. I hate taking money from a lady.”

“I hope you don’t take it from any other lady but
me!”
she teased, slipping him a larger sum than the imaginary refund of the tickets would have amounted to. He would so seldom take any that she was sure to give more than enough for the night’s entertainment when he was in a taking mood.

“How can you even
suggest
such a thing?” he asked, offended.

“I didn’t mean it, goose! I was only joking,” she said, sorry to have hurt his feelings. Henry was so foolishly sensitive.

By the time her father’s carriage deposited them at the south side of Oxford Street for the masquerade, their dominoes and masks were in place. The others entering were similarly attired, so that no identities could be distinguished.

“One would never take this for a haunt of the rabble,” she said, glancing at the magnificent structure.

“I daresay it is nearly as fine as Carlton House. Chandeliers, gilt, and glitter everywhere. When are you going to get me a bid to the regent’s palace, Maddie? You have been promising it for an age.”

“As soon as ever I can, but one cannot go there without an invitation, you know.”

They hired a box and sat for a quarter of an hour, watching the show below while they sipped their wine. Their pastime was divided between holding hands and flirting with each other and making outrageous guesses as to what lofty personages were hiding behind the masks, and misbehaving below. “I bet that corpulent gent chasing the demi-rep in the low-cut gown is the Duke of Clarence,” Henry said.

“Impossible. He spends all his time chasing ladies of fortune, for since he has turned Mrs. Jordan off, he means to set up as a respectable married man. I bet it is one of his brothers.”

“You don’t suppose the red-haired filly staggering toward the door is Caro Lamb?” was his next suggestion.

“I shouldn’t think so. She doesn’t drink to excess. It is a lightskirt. In fact, I think
all
the women here are. Henry, I don’t believe I shall dance after all. The place has got very rough and wild since I was last here a few years ago.”

“My dear girl, you don’t go to France and not drink the wine. Of course we shall dance. Am I not here to protect your fair name and honor? Come, drink up your wine. They are playing a waltz.”

“But if anyone should recognize me and word got back to Papa...”

“Don’t be an old prude, Maddie.”

The word
old
could always prod her on to any foolishness, for it loomed much larger in her mind, that year’s difference in their ages, than it should have. She was as sensitive about it as Henry was about the disparity in their social and financial positions. Not that he ever purposely brought the subject up; it was only at such minutes as this that it arose.

“Oh, very well, but if I am found out and ostracized from decent society, I shall hold you to blame.”

They went below to join the dancers on the floor. With such a throng, even waltzing with Henry was no pleasure. Their elbows were constantly being hit; collisions occurred at every step. The heat too was unpleasant, while the level of noise was beginning to give her a headache. Henry, on the other hand, reveled in it all. For three-quarters of an hour it went on, till she could bear it no longer.

“Let us go back to our box and have another glass of wine,” she begged, hoping from there to have him take her home.

When they got upstairs, their box had been taken over by a merrymaking group of bucks, accompanied by three females who looked like actresses, or worse.

“I’m afraid this box is taken,” Henry said, in no impolite way, but firmly.

“So it is, my good man, by
us,”
one of the bucks replied. The crowd was tipsy enough to find this rejoinder highly amusing.

“I must ask you to leave. We were here first,” Henry told him.

“First come, first served,” one of the girls said, hopping up to vacate the box.

“Sit down, Belle,” her escort ordered, grasping her wrist and pulling her roughly to her seat.

“Let us go, Henry,” Madeline said at once, happy for an excuse to leave.

“We paid for this box, my dear, and we shall have it,” Henry informed her. It may have been the wine, or perhaps anger, which caused his voice to deepen menacingly.

“Really, I do not want to stay at all. I have had a headache this past half hour.”

“There, your ladybird has more sense than you,” the first speaker said, talking over his shoulder to Henry in a dismissing way, as he reached for the bottle of wine.

Henry’s hand went out, quick as a lizard’s tongue, and snatched the bottle. “You can have this in another box, or you can have it over your head in this one, sir. Which is your choice?”

“Well, well, and just when I feared the party was about to get dull,” the man said, arising with a slight wobble to face the challenger.

“Please come away, Henry,” Madeline begged, clutching at his sleeve.

Henry pulled free of her fingers and struck the first blow, square on the man’s nose. The women hopped to their feet, chirping in glee. Madeline had some fear the other two men would join in and thrash Henry soundly, but they considered themselves gentlemen, though she did not recognize them, and limited their support to shouts of encouragement.

A crowd had soon gathered at the door of the box, to heighten the commotion into a regular carnival. She did not know whether to be relieved or horrified when six waiters came struggling through the throng and pulled the brawling men apart. Henry’s face was red from anger and blows, his hair disheveled, his jacket all askew. He looked like nothing so much as a belligerent, sulky young boy.

“I demand a constable,” the opponent declared. “This man assaulted me.”

He was roundly supported by five noisy patrons, while Madeline tried to hide herself in the throng, fearful lest she be discovered. Watchmen were never far from the Pantheon, where half a dozen brawls a night required their services. Before she could escape, one came forward to herd them all off into a more private room, the manager’s office. She went along, mortified, but unwilling to strike out all alone through the unsavory crowd. It was the word of six against one, and in fact Henry
had
struck the first blow, though with some justification.

“Do you know who I am?” he demanded stiffly. “Lady Madeline, will you be kind enough to go home and inform Lord Fordwich what is going forward here?”

He did not read her appealing glances, meant to convey he should at all costs keep their true names out of the scandalous affair.

“Aye, tell the prime minister while you’re about it, milady,” one of the girls laughed.

“‘Twould be better to tell them at the watch house,” the constable answered, unimpressed by fine boasts. Without more ado, Henry and his opponent were hastened off to the closest watch house, while the other five returned to occupy Henry’s box and discuss the marvelous entertainment they had just viewed. Madeline stood alone in the manager’s office with a clerk.

“Can I call you a hackney, mum?” the man offered.

“Call my carriage, if you please. Lord Fordwich’s carriage,” she added, wishing she had thought to use a different name when they had stabled it.

The clerk sprinted forward with the greatest alacrity when he heard the name. When he returned to accompany her to the door, she asked, “Where did they take the gentlemen? What will be done to them?”

“Now you must not worry your head, mum. It’ll be a night in the watch house for your friend. He’ll be admitted to bail, present himself with his solicitor or some character reference in the morning at Bow Street, pay his fine, and that’s all there is to it. Never fear they’ll imprison him. We get a half-dozen cases a week worse than this little scuffle. It’s the wine that causes the mischief.”

“What watch house?” she inquired, and got the address of the closest one.

“Will it be possible to get him out tonight?”

“If Lord Fordwich personally wished to intervene...” the clerk said, his incredulous voice telling her how unlikely he found this. She knew it was impossible to go to her father with the story. Quite apart from finishing Henry’s chances, it would embarrass her father unbearably. No, she must find help in some other quarter. Upset, nervous, humiliated, and uncertain though she was, she squared her shoulders, thanked the clerk, and left.

Chapter Ten

Her decision was not long being made. Eskott’s was the first, the only name that popped into her head. She disliked very much to appeal to him, but knew she could not go herself, a lady alone, to a watch house. She knew too that Eskott could be imperious, arrogant, demanding, when the occasion called for it. He would get Henry out with no trouble.

The greatest difficulty encountered was to discover where he might be passing the evening. It was not yet late enough that he would be at home, not even eleven o’clock. She discovered at his own home that he was at Milner’s rout party, that same one she and Henry intended to say they went to. She did not have her card for it with her, but was admitted with no difficulty. Lady Madeline Morash was not likely to be refused entry, with or without a card. She waited in a small saloon while a servant fetched Eskott for her. She was unable to face the milling group.

He came within a minute, smiling with pleasure that she had sent for him, that he found her alone waiting for him. The smile faded as soon as she turned her troubled eyes to him. Her face was pale, traces of tears still drying on her cheeks.

“Eskott, help me,” she said, arising, her hands stretched out to him.

“My dear, what has happened?” he asked, his voice sharp with worry. Her fingers, resting in his, were cold, trembling. “Come, sit down and have a glass of wine. It will calm your nerves. Was there an accident?” He tried to lead her to a chair, sustaining her with one arm about her waist.

She stopped, turned to him, shaking her head and screwing up her courage to tell him. “It’s Henry,” she said. His fingers tightened on her wrist, till they felt like steel.

“What has he done?” There was no longer any trace of concern in his voice, but only anger and suspicion. She could see the immediate change in him. Till then, she had not realized Eskott actually hated Henry. She knew he jeered at him, made fun of “the boy,” but had thought it more a reflection on herself than anything else.

“He got arrested, at the Pantheon. He is in a watch house. We must get him out.”

“He had the gall to send for
you
with such a message!”