The Indian Maiden (15 page)

“Can it be that my recent spate of sociability has so exonerated me socially as to make my hosts trust me completely?” he asked bemusedly. “Not that I planned to molest you, mind, not that that’s such a terrible idea,” he added quickly on a smile, “but it’s singular to find that such correct persons as my hosts have decided to trust me not to do so. There isn’t another person in sight,” he mused, clearly not altogether pleased at this freedom he was supposedly extolling, “and we’re not even on horseback.”

But now Faith’s wits had returned to her. “I think,” she said wryly, “that it might be more that they don’t care a jot anymore. No, no,” she corrected herself hastily as she saw the quick sympathy spring to his eyes, “that’s not strictly true either. It’s only coincidence, I suppose. The duchess is away just now, and Lady Mary has last-minute party arrangements in hand, and everyone else is off primping or some such, I expect. I don’t know, really,” she admitted, a little hurt, now that she thought about it, by the notion that they thought her so disgraceful or believed her reputation so defiled that there was no further need of protecting it, so that she went on to say boldly, “And I really don’t care, not really. I expect you’ve better things to do with your afternoon than molesting me, anyway. But thank you very much,” she said sincerely, looking down at his present and so missing the wicked grin he put on at her words, as well as the step closer that he’d taken to her.

She had only begun to take off the wrappings, finding herself almost as a child again in her eagerness to see the present, feeling the same juvenile wonderment and pleasure at knowing that whatever it was, it was something that he’d thought about and brought expressly for her when she hadn’t even been thinking of him, when their privacy was ended.

The butler appeared at the doorway to the salon, bearing a large, gaily wrapped parcel. “Excuse me, my lord, Miss Hamilton,” he said after he saw that he’d gained their attention. “Lady Mary said that I might find you here, Miss Hamilton, as it appears that this package has just been delivered by a messenger, and is addressed to you.”

“No, no,” Lord Deal said at once, taking his own package from her hands so she could receive the one the butler handed to her. “Now I insist you open up the other first. It might be,” he jested, “that mine will be so diminished by this one that I’ll want to hide it in the coal bin. It’s only fair,” he protested, holding his present behind his back and sidestepping her as she laughingly attempted to take it back again. “You have to give me the opportunity to snatch mine back and get you a better one if I have to.”

By the very way he said it, Faith was sure his gift was unique and wonderful and she was doubly anxious to see it. But obediently, she turned her attention to the other one first.

“It’s not signed,” she said in puzzlement, turning the white card over in her hand before she set it down and began to unwrap the box. “It only wishes me the happiest returns of the day.”

Her attention was so fixed on what she was doing that she didn’t see his smile slip at her words. It was only when she’d opened the box and drawn the tissue paper back that she at last looked up at him. But then she was in no condition to note what expression he wore. Her face had grown paper white, and her hands trembled almost as much as her lips did when she broke from her immobility and at last lifted the present out from the box. Even then, she only held it out to him at arm’s length, and very quietly, her head shaking unbelievingly from side to side, asked him only, “Why?”

It was a large and cumbersome mass of feathers she held out to him. For a bizarre moment, he believed, in his confusion, that it was some sort of large dead bird. The barnyard scent of it was repellent enough for that. But then he made out its apparent shape and form. It was obviously a clumsy attempt at a representation of a feathered headdress, fashioned of rudely cobbled together chicken and turkey feathers, all still with bits of clotted ingrained filth of the henhouse still clinging to them, the whole bound by a profusion of bright red, white, and blue ribbons.

Another white card fluttered down from the mass of it as she held it out with shaking hands. He automatically stooped to retrieve it, and saw the bold, large, printed words, “For our Indian Maiden,” inscribed there.

“Why?” she asked again. And for all his supposed glibness and quickness of mind, in that moment, though he thought he knew only too well, there was no sane answer he could give her in reply.

NINE

T
he gentleman moved
swiftly. He was a guest within this house, and yet despite social dictates he did not hesitate to go immediately to the door and close it almost all the way. Then he went to the young woman who stood before him and took the loathesome bundle of ragged noisome feathers from her nerveless hands and dropped them back within the box they’d come from. As he closed that box and retied it securely, he said curtly, throwing the remark over his shoulder, “Sit down at once, before you fall down. This shall not trouble you again, you shall not see it again.”

When he’d done, he turned and saw that the young woman had seated herself as he had bidden her, but that she still held her shaking hands out, fingers parted as though they dripped gore and she could not bear to acknowledge them as her own. “But why?” she repeated, in a shocked whisper.

He gave her his handkerchief for reply and she absently took it and unconsciously began scrubbing motions with it, twisting it and her hands together, though she never took her eyes from his face, nor did the question leave those wide, dazed gray eyes.

He stood before her, looking down at her, considering what he should say, for all at once she seemed very young. Her creamy skin had gone so dead white that only a few faint previously undetectable light fawn freckles lent color to it high on her cheekbones, and with her long light straight hair worn back and down against her neck as it was, she seemed very vulnerable. But as her eyes searched his, some of their bright intelligence already returning, he sighed and knew that there was no other answer he could give her but the truth.

“Someone thought it was amusing,” he said coldly, and then realizing that the harshness in his voice startled her as much as his words had done, he explained more gently, for his anger was never at her, “I’d like to get my hands on whoever it was, but I doubt we’ll ever know.”

But he did know that though it might have been anyone, there were, in fact, several he instantly suspected, and more whose loose talk doubtless had provoked the incident. Not the least of the vindictive gossips was doubtless her own hostess, but as she had to remain within this house for a while longer, and as his fury was tempered with each passing moment, he was grateful that he’d always followed the dictum that what he could not prove, was best forgotten.

“Be assured,” he went on angrily, “that it was someone’s idea of high good humor. No,” he said gruffly, “never that, there wasn’t anything good in it. It was sheer cruelty, but, you see, in certain circles, that is considered the highest sort of humor.”

She watched him closely, as a good student might attend a tutor the day before an examination, so he paused to marshal his thoughts and find a way of explaining it to her without adding, as he’d just caught himself about to do, that it was precisely what he’d warned her about. Whatever else she needed now, he thought, it was not to have him tell her righteously that he had told her so. And then, too, he realized, for all he’d known the possible consequences of her behavior, since she’d never before associated with any ornaments of the
ton,
there really had been no way she could possibly have anticipated the sort of cruelty she’d invited. She could never have encountered it at home. Only an extremely sophisticated, weary, and
blasé
society could breed such a concept of humor. And so he tried to tell her.

“You see, Faith,” he went on to explain, as he leaned against a desk near to her, “anything that can be done and then later amusingly related to others to while away a dull hour is considered capital fun. If it’s outrageous enough to then merit being passed on by yet others, it becomes even better. The stuff of anecdotes is the stuff of fame, and fame is the goal; whatever pain it causes is of no account. No one’s immune. High rank only enhances it—just look at Prinny. You could paper a palace with the cruel caricatures of him. The stories about his foolish deeds are too commonplace to even raise a chuckle anymore, and insults given to him behind his back are the prime meat at every
ton
dinner. And he is our Prince, our Regent.

“Brummel’s ruined himself because of one of his jibes about ‘his fat friend,’ but since the quote’s become so famous, I’m not at all sure he still doesn’t believe it was all worth it. After all, if you’ve spent your life in pursuit of the one devastating, quintessential shocking statement, how can you regret finally having made it?

“No,” Lord Deal sighed, “it isn’t done just in the name of princes either. Nor is it only coxcombs who indulge in the sport. Everyone, everywhere in society, loves to hear the latest
on-dit,
and will be in
ecstasies
if there is a good quotable, vicious jest in it. You wouldn’t know most of the parties involved, but you may have heard of our playwright Sheridan? His name comes to mind because he’s lately fallen gravely ill and so everyone’s been reminiscing about him. And as they still delight in remembering, when his son married a dowerless girl and he lamented it, young Tom told his father not to worry, for, as he said, though the lady was poor, her parents were industrious in that her father was allowed by everybody to be the greatest swindler in England. Perhaps it was that quip alone which reconciled old Sheridan to the marriage, for a good mean tale is coin and currency in our world. And the young man was talking about his own wife’s family!”

Lord Deal shook his head in sorrowing wonderment.

“What merriment those sorts of stories elicit! Even I’ve heard scores of them, most not half so clever, and still that’s not a fraction of them, since tattle-bearing tongues usually still in my presence.”

But, he noted, his own tales seemed to be having some good effect on his audience, for the girl had regained her natural color, and when he smiled at her and asked meekly, gesturing to her, “Is it such a damned spot, or is it the part of Lady Macbeth you’re after?” she laughed briefly, but left off twisting her hands and wringing his handkerchief.

“You warned me,” she said at last, softly, and then raising her eyes to his, she said so quietly that he had to bend forward to hear her, “but I thought you were exaggerating, only spoiling sport, just trying to make me behave according to your own code, and because I thought I was only staying on for a little while I thought it made no matter. But it does,” she said wonderingly, like someone who has examined herself after an accident and is amazed and disbelieving at finding a bleeding wound.

“It was a nasty thing to do, because it more than poked fun at me. Because believe me,” she said with a bit more spirit, “we make sport of foolish folks at home too. But this was more than that, it was more than unkind, it was as though by sending me those dirty feathers they were dirtying me. The worst part of it is that now I feel as though everyone has been mocking me, all along. How shall I know whom to believe now?” she asked as much to herself as to him, blinking in surprise at the query and paling again, as though that question was far worse than the incident which had prompted it.

But as it was a question which he suddenly realized that he had never successfully answered for himself, he fell silent for a moment. Then, forgetting his own struggles with the problem, he said that which he supposed was the right thing to comfort her with. Yet even as he spoke it, he began to understand that he did mean every word of it, that he must have resolved it, after all.

“You must believe in yourself, Faith,” he said seriously, “because you know you’re not a fool. You must continue to trust those people you feel comfortable trusting. Never give up the trusting. The worst that can befall you is that you will have been wrong in your judgment and might invite more insult, and lose a little more faith in the general run of mankind. But insult was invented the same day praise was. And disillusion’s only part of growing up. Bruising your pride is as common an experience in that process as skinning your knee is. You Americans do take a little tumble every so often when you learn to walk, just as we do, don’t you?” he asked gently.

“I think,” he went on, knowing from the ease with which the words came to him that what he was saying was more than exactly right for cheering her, it was precisely true for him as well, “that just as it would be absurd to give up learning to walk because of a misstep, it would be folly to give up on all mankind because of such injuries. Because then you’d be crippled in some wise as well. Likely then you’d find it that much simpler to become just as small and cruel as those you shun. No, far better to trust and be betrayed, than lose faith forever. Now, not only am I convinced that I might have put that better,” he paused to consider, “but it also illustrates what trouble that name of yours gives me. It wouldn’t have felt awkward in the least,” he complained, “if I had said, ‘lose Mary or Henrietta’ forever. But, then too, I don’t think I’d mind so much if I lost them, it’s Faith I’m concerned with,” he said, in hopes of seeing her smile.

But she sat quite still, her head cocked a little to one side as she pondered his words. He found that he was tempted to laugh and mention her characteristic pose to her as he had once before. He found that he was tempted to do far more. Then, because she remained silent, he knew that too many emotions were tangled in her mind right now. So he said lightly, “I know just how you feel.”

And to show her that he was not just mouthing an idle
cliché
, he went on to tell her why he’d said it.

It took quite some time for the duchess to convince her best friend that the exquisite gown she’d planned to wear tonight was unsuitable, because the only real reason (though if the duchess were persuasive enough her friend would never know it) was that it was far superior to her hostess’s own frock. The gardener and Lady Mary were horrified to discover that the columbines were past their best bloom and the stock in little better case, since both flowers insisted on shedding their tiny bells as soon as they were nicely settled into their arrangements. And so Lord Deal had time and to spare to tell Faith how he’d acquired his nickname, and discovered he needed every minute of it.

He carefully told her the entire story, leaving out only that part of it where he placed the blame upon Methley. That omission was not so much because he was noble or raised as a gentleman, as he’d halfway convinced himself that it was, but because, he came to realize in the midst of his story, he wasn’t sure of her feelings for Methley and didn’t know if it would displease her. And he discovered that he very much wished to please her.

He told her about Nettie’s painful ending and beyond.

To prevent Faith from imagining her ugly birthday surprise present that unique, he told her about all the gifts of horns, of antlers and rams’ horns, drinking horns and musical ones, all and every physical embodiment of the plays on words about the cuckold’s emblem that had ever been thought of, that had found their way anonymously to his doorstep in those bleak months that followed his having been given the name Viking. All of them, he assured her, had been long forgotten, but the name would be with him forever.

“So you see,” he said at length, “a foolishness of feathers, which no one saw but us, and which can and will be easily disposed of, is not the worst that can befall one by far.”

“But I never thought your name insulting,” she protested. “Indeed, it’s very dashing. Whatever it was meant to signify at first, you’ve turned it into a neat compliment by the way that you live up to the better meaning of it. Well,” she said, as he gave her an ironic smile, “it’s very much like what Mr. Kensington, who’s quite an old man and lives with his daughter down the street from us at home, said. You see, he told me that originally you English thought calling us ‘Yankee Doodle Dandies’ was the worst sort of slap. You meant it to mean bumpkins. We took it differently, and we’ve cause to be proud of it now. Truly.”

“Surely not ‘we’ English—I wasn’t even conceivable at that time. I mean,” he explained as she looked at him oddly, unsure of his point, “while forty years might be just a drop in the bucket for your Mr. Kensington, my parents hadn’t even been wed at that time. No,” he corrected himself as she began to color up, at last understanding his pun, “I lie.
I
was, for at least they had already been introduced by then.”

She thought he might be trying to get her off a painful topic with his jests and appreciated the gesture, if not the mode of it, but also knew there was one other thing she must say before he left the subject completely. It was remarkable how he’d sat and spoken with her and in the space of an afternoon made her feel she’d found a true friend. It might be, she thought, that he’d only done so to save her from self-pity, or to cushion some of the pain she’d experienced when she’d seen that ghastly “present.” It might all have been no more on his part than the courteous act of a gentleman who’d unwittingly witnessed a female’s distress. Whatever the spur for his gallantry and friendship, it was possible that they might never speak that way together again. He’d spoken of trust, but she could already feel that virtue ebbing away within herself. Still, there was a thing she wanted to make clear to him, so she battled with her misgivings and said all in a rush, “But I was trying to say that whatever the name originally meant in your case, there’s no shame to it. For you couldn’t help what your
fiancée
did.”

“Yet, I might have,” he said slowly, “if she’d confided in me.”

“Yes and then what?” she argued, as always forgetting both embarrassment and her place in the cause of justice. “Would you have married her? Would you have accepted another man’s child as your own? And speaking of trust, you might well lecture to me about it, but could you ever have trusted her again? Her
...
her lover was still available to her. But what if, justly shocked, you’d refused her then? Why, there’s no guarantee she would have lived longer, but then you would have had much more cause for feeling guilt.”

This was so reasonable that he had no answer, but only gazed at her in dawning wonder at that entirely new and comforting rationale she’d given him, as she rushed on, “I think it wasn’t the sort of situation where you could’ve done anything right, even if you’d have had a chance to do anything at all. She was a weak creature of unseemly passions, and you certainly couldn’t help that.”

He’d been listening quietly to all she said, and his eyes had never left her face until the very last. Then he stiffened somewhat and an expression of disbelief came across his face.