Escapade (11 page)

The other inhabitants of Clare Palace were less thrilled with their afternoon. The rain continued, effectively confining even the gentlemen to the house. “What shall we do?” Miss Sheridan voiced the old familiar question. She was not averse to remaining indoors, for her new yellow voile was really a summer gown, and would not do for chasing frogs, if Miss Fairmont started that again.

'The library here is excellent,” Ella volunteered, which statement might as well have remained unsaid for all the interest it elicited.

Only Clare cocked an eyebrow and said to her aside, “Making your debauchery quite public, are you, Miss Fairmont?"

“What do you mean?” Belle asked, moving her chair closer to Clare so that she might join this private chat. “There is no debauchery in books.
I
read all the time."

“It is a private joke,” Clare said in a damping voice.

“Speaking of private jokes, Clare,” she said, softly now, so that Miss Fairmont might not hear, “Did I tell you what we saw in the village two days ago?"

His face stiffened, and his voice when he replied was cold. “No, ma'am, but I have observed you are having the greatest difficulty in keeping it to yourself. Let us hear it, by all means."

“Oh, I can hold my tongue,” she replied, laughingly. He was looking so disapproving that she said no more on that score. “Let's play a word game,” she said, to the room at large. “Do you have letters, Clare?"

“There may be some in the nursery,” he replied, thus stating, either intentionally or by accident, what he thought of the idea.

“Got any jigsaw puzzles?” Bippy asked. Harley reached out and hit him, and Peters rolled up his eyes in disgust.

“We could write limericks,” Ella suggested. No one was enthralled with this idea either, except Miss Prentiss who was so clever with her pen that she was sure she could out-write the others.

Belle took the idea up, and with two interested in it, it was sold to the others.

“Whom do we write about?” Bippy asked.

“Anybody you like,” Belle told him.

“I know whom
I
shall write about,” Miss Sheridan said, twinkling her black eyes at Clare. The angry look Miss Prentiss shot her gave rise to the suspicion that she might have the same idea.

“It's best to write about dead people,” Ella advised. “Or at least people who are absent—public figures. It would be all right to do Wellington or Prinney, or Princess Caroline."

“Let's make out a list,” Sara said. “Henry VIII would be a good one to start with."

“And Lady Godiva,” Ella added.

“You must include Anne Boleyn!
I
shall do her, if I may, since she is the subject of my verse play, and I am familiar with her history."

“I'll do Byron then,” Ella decided.

“I'll do Princess Caroline,” Sara remarked.

“I'll do Prinney's other wife, Fitzherbert,” Bippy mumbled.

“Who will you do, Clare?” Belle asked. “Anne Boleyn's ax-man perhaps?"

“I'll do Prattle,” he replied. He told Lady Honor she would do Shakespeare, and stuck a pencil in her hand. “All right,” she said.

The others made their selections, and the party was soon busy scribbling away, with Miss Prentiss interrupting at frequent intervals to remind them of such necessities as rhyme scheme and meter. No one knew what she was talking about, and Lord Harley finally told her in quite a sharp tone that it was hard to write when someone kept on interrupting you every time you thought of a good rhyme.

In about ten minutes they were finished, and their various efforts waiting to be read aloud, with blushes and grimaces attending the ordeal.

Bippy had forgotten it was a limerick they were doing and wrote nearly a complete sonnet. Lady Honor made up for his profusion by writing only one line. “William Shakespeare wrote plays,” she had composed, at the end of the allotted time.

“That is true,” Sherry pointed out. She was never tardy to compliment the aristocracy on an achievement.

“Dash it, it's supposed to be a poem,” Lord Harley complained. “Never mind if it's true or not."

“Told me I wrote too much,” Bippy interposed. “Now you tell Lady Honor she didn't write enough. No pleasing you."

“A poem of five lines, not a dashed epic."

“The rhyme scheme is all wrong in yours, too, Bip,” Belle informed him.

“What have you got, Miss Fairmont?” Bippy asked, to avoid a reply to Belle, who would start with her old pentameters and hexameters again if he let on that he heard her.

She cleared her throat and read:

There once was a baron named Byron

Who found that of life he was tirin',

Till he journeyed to Turkey

And wrote a poem murkey.

Now for Byron, all London's expirin'.

Peters, who was becoming fond of Miss Fairmont, said this was the best they'd had yet. Belle felt obliged to point out “tiring” was not a true rhyme for “Byron,” and showed them how it should rhyme, as in her limerick on Anne Boleyn, where “head” and “dead” rhymed perfectly, and even had the same spelling so that it looked well on the page. “But that is a fine point I don't expect to find in amateur writing,” she added kindly.

Lord Harley had mistakenly attributed Richard III's humpback to William of Lyons, and as Belle's interruptions had robbed him of his rhyming words—which he assured them had been quite excellent, only he forgot them—his effort won no prize.

“Let's hear from one of the ladies now,” Harley requested, after he had read his effort, to resounding boos.

“I didn't do Caroline after all; I did Henry VIII,” Lady Sara announced, preparatory to reading hers.

Henry the Eighth had many wives.

Some of them were killed with knives,

Or axes was it, never mind,

Their heads they never more could find.

So you who'd marry Kings, beware:

You'll lose your heads, also your hair.

“Aren't you clever, Lady Sara!” Sherry marveled.

“Only
two
of his wives were actually beheaded, of course,” Belle had to straighten them out. “He divorced Katharine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves, and..."

“Yes, we know you've been reading all about it for your play, but let's get on with the poems,” Harley interrupted.

“Actually, the rhyme scheme was all wrong too,” Belle threw in. She was miffed at not getting to rhyme off the fates of Henry's other wives, which she had at her fingertips.

“A gentleman next, since we are going turn about,” Sara said. “How about you, Clare? Prattle is it you are doing?"

“A sad comedown from kings and queens,
n'est-ce pas
?” he asked.

“Oh, but Prattle is the Queen of Gossip,” Belle laughed. “I'm dying to hear what you have to say of her."

“Why don't you give him a chance to read then?” Harley inserted sharply.

After this jibe, no one else interrupted, and Clare read.

There once was a person named Prattle,

Who scribbled up all of the tattle

With a libelous mind

Neither cultured nor kind

About beaux, and their women, and cattle.

“You were too easy on her,” Belle asserted.

“Lady Sara or Miss Fairmont, with their clever pens could have done better,” he agreed.

Miss Prentiss resented being left out of the list of clever pens and read hers on Anne Boleyn again, while Sherry struggled with a rhyme for Beau Brummell. Finding it beyond her, she left off the Brummell and did better than anyone expected.

The others read their verses, and it was Peters who suggested a write-off, in the same manner as the frog race, with the three best writing another limerick.

After some heated discussion, and another reading of Anne Boleyn, the three chosen were Lady Sara, Ella, and Clare.

“What should we write about this time?” Ella asked.

“Oh, I know! Do Clare,” Belle said.

All three of the contestants demurred, and at last Miss Prentiss had to do one herself to show them how easy it was.

“I'm not doing myself,” Clare stated firmly. “I'll do Godiva. No one has done her."

Ella and Sara shrugged and began to tread the thin line between sycophancy and insult in writing a poem to their host. Sara found herself slipping into the easy trap of rhyming Clare with fair, and in disgust crumpled hers into a ball and wrote on Lady Godiva too. Ella's tended in the other direction towards insult. She wrote:

There once was a young Duke of Clare

Who would do anything for a dare.

Throw a party, not come,

Snub the ladies, in sum,

What one thought of him he didn't care.

She was dissatisfied with the result, and after a few moments she too squashed up her sheet and threw it into the basket. From the corner of his eye, Clare observed the discarded papers and wondered what was on them. Ella dashed off five lines in a hurry on Farmer George, and the prize in theory, though in fact there was none, went to Lady Sara. Miss Prentiss was not an official candidate for the prize, but she insisted on reading her work anyway. It was so warm in its praise of the Duke that not only he, but anyone with a jot of sensitivity, was embarrassed at it.

After this brief poetic interlude, the party was happy to switch to cards, puzzles, and letter writing, with repeated hopes that the storm would let up soon. Clare excused himself to see to some business matters, but before leaving he tossed a log on the smouldering fire and pocketed the papers thrown aside by Sara and Ella while he bent over the wood basket.

At dinnertime the wind was still howling with rain streaking against the windows. It was impossible for any company to venture out on such a night and, after their port, the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing room. Upon their arrival, the Duchess forsook the elder ladies with whom she usually sat and went to Miss Fairmont.

“How are you enjoying
Pride and Prejudice
, ma'am?” Ella asked.

“Heaven. Simply heaven. I have been at it all afternoon without letup, and am only waiting a bit so that I may slip back to it without offending anyone.” She glanced at the Marchioness as she spoke. “I have got to the part where Elizabeth goes to visit Collins and Miss Lucas, only they are married by now, of course, and I think Darcy is working up to a proposal. Does he? ... no, no ... don't tell me. She is the absolute end, your Miss Austen. I don't know how it comes I haven't heard of her, only I never see anyone out here in the country who can tell me what is the latest rage."

“She is not a rage precisely. Only a few have discovered her thus far."

“Her characterizations are superb. That mother!"

“And Mr. Collins. She puts him on the pan and turns up the heat bit by bit, simmering him till he is done brown."

“What a phrase! You ought to be a writer yourself, my dear."

Ella gave a start, but the Duchess took it for shyness at such praise and thought nothing of it. She chatted for a little while longer with Miss Fairmont then joined the mothers for a quarter of an hour before claiming a headache. She winked at Ella on her way out, holding a hand to her head as though it were killing her. Sara observed the pass and questioned Ella about it.

“You have gotten on mighty close terms with the mama,” she said leadingly.

“I told you I lent her a book. We were discussing it."

A short while later, Clare went up to his mother to see that she was comfortable and was a little surprised to find her lounging on a chaise longue, a box of her favourite salted nuts by her side, reading avidly.

“Headache all gone, Mama?” he asked quizzingly.

“Yes, Patrick, I've left them all downstairs to bore each other to distraction. I've fed them and done my duty by praising all the young ladies to their mothers. What more do you expect of me? Why don't you do something to keep them entertained?"

“Shall I turn Miss Prentiss loose at the harpsichord?"

“I said entertain, not torture. That girl has no idea when to stop."

“That is invariably the way with these talented women. A definite point in Lady Honor's favour. She neither sings nor plays."

“Nor speaks, unless you draw a word out of her with a pair of pliers. Sit down if you want to,” the Dowager invited, with no great sign of encouragement. Still, her son took up a seat at the end of her chaise longue.

“What are you reading, a new gothic?” he asked.

“No such thing. A very superior novel lent me by that nice little Miss Fairmont."

“
Pride and Prejudice
,” he read. “Never heard of it."

“No, you never bother to dig out a new writer for me. Why could not you have found out about her—this Miss Austen, I mean, who wrote it. Miss Fairmont tells me she has been publishing for some years. She has given me a list of her books, and I wish you to get them and send them to me when you return to London.” She fished the list out from between the leaves of the book and handed it to him. He slipped it into his pocket without looking at it.

“Yes, Mama,” he replied, with so much mock humility that she laughed reluctantly.

“Well, hadn't you better return to your guests?"

“Which means you, my unnatural mother, would rather read than talk to your only son."

“Doesn't an unnatural mother mean something horrid, Patrick? Or am I thinking of natural mother?"

“I collect you are thinking of natural son, and don't try to change the subject."

“Well, I would rather we not both abandon our guests belowstairs. I hope this rain doesn't continue tomorrow, or we'll have them cluttering up the house all day again. I wonder if Miss Fairmont has another novel tucked away in her trunk."

“She came prepared for the dull time they are having."

“I have been wondering why you brought them on such short notice."

“I made the mistake of begging off a party at Straywards by telling the Marchioness I was coming here, and before I got away she had kindly given me permission to bring Lady Honor along."

“But why the others?"

“You can imagine how it would be construed in town if I brought no one but Lady Honor and her mother. They are becoming damned persistent this season."

“Very wise. I knew Miss Sheridan and Miss Prentiss to be your current flirts, but Miss Fairmont is a new one, is she not?"