In the Brief Eternal Silence (27 page)

Andrew, quite comically and unpredictably,
had stationed himself outside of her bedchambers and paced the
hallway as he waited for the grand undertaking of trying to turn
Miss Murdock into, if not quite an incomparable, then at least
someone memorable.

And Miss Murdock, seated with apparent
meekness, was in turns despairing at the pointlessness of it and
amused to such a degree that intermittent giggles escaped her.

“That will not do, Alphonse,” the Duchess
commented over Lady Lydia's unhelpful directions. “That is nearly
as prim as the bun she wore.”

Miss Murdock bore the hard pulls on her hair
as he ripped out all the combs and pins he had just spent the
previous half the hour putting in. They rained down like a shower
onto the floor and Jeannie again bent to retrieve and order them.
Miss Murdock gurgled another laugh, trying to stifle her amusement
into her hands. For her troubles she received a glare in the mirror
from the hairdresser. “She does not have the proper respect for
what I am trying to do!” he exclaimed in his thick accent to the
Duchess. “How am I to work miracles when she only sneers and laughs
at my efforts?”

“Forgive me!” Miss Murdock begged him, even
as she tried to control her amusement at the pained expression on
his face. “I am not sneering. It is just that—it is so very
hopeless, you know!” and she covered her face with her hands and
gave herself over to the silent shaking of it.

“What do you want from me?!” Alphonse
demanded of the Duchess. “This style too prim! That style too
elaborate! Bah! I have gone through every mode that is currently in
fashion and you like none of them!” He threw his hands out in a
mixture of defeat and disdain. “Mon Dui, but it is too much to ask
of any man.”

“Something fashionable,” Lady Lydia
exclaimed. “As I have been

saying all this time.”

The hairdresser spared her a murderous
look.

“Something simple,” the Duchess countered.
“Look at her, please,

Alphonse, and tell me what you see.”

“Certainly, madam,” Alphonse said with
simmering dignity. He turned to look at Miss Murdock who uncovered
her face and returned his gaze with her solemn eyes, only a corner
of her small mouth twitching.

Alphonse obviously had begun his study of his
project only to humor the duchess but his frustrated features
lightened and he made a thoughtful noise and put one finger beneath
his chin. “Ah,” he said at last. “Yes. Simple. Straightforward. A
little severe, I think, but as you said, not prim. Nothing on her
forehead, I think, for we do not wish to take any attention away
from her eyes. You know, of course, madam, that she is much too,
how do you say it, sun browned?”

“Yes, Alphonse. I know,” the Duchess
returned, her initial enjoyment at this frequent observation fast
turning into tedium. “But you begin to see, I hope, that anything
currently in fashion is not going to suit Miss Murdock?” Her words
turned more acerbic, “For if it would suit her, we would not need
you, then, would we, Alphonse? Any other hairdresser in town is
quite capable of turning out what every one else is wearing.”

He gave her an injured look, but said, “Of
course, you are right, madam. This is an assignment that only
Alphonse can do.” He held out his hand to Jeannie. “Brush!” He
brushed Miss Murdock's hair back from her forehead and high onto
the crown of her head. “Combs!” he commanded, holding the thick
length of her hair there and passing his other hand over for
Jeannie to fill. He fitted the combs so tightly that Miss Murdock
felt that he were jamming them into her very skull. Then he removed
his hold. Her hair was pulled back from her face to a point just
above and beyond her ears, from where it flowed in a heavy cascade
down her back. Alphonse nodded in determination. “Hot iron!”

He curled innumerable ringlets down her back,
until her hair was a mass of shining, dancing curls. The effect,
when he at last called finish with a flourish, sweat standing out
on his brow, and Miss Murdock was allowed to turn and see herself
in the mirror, was such a subtle and yet such a total
transformation that she could only stare at herself.

The solemnity of her eyes was still evident,
but the curls added such a mischievous aura about her that her eyes
seemed to twinkle with it, like a well-hidden joke that only she
was privy to and found enjoyment in. Her features were small and
delicate, as they had always been, but now they were immediately,
and somewhat entrancingly, she dared add to herself, noticeable.
Her arched brows were exposed so that her every thought, nearly,
was expressed in their slight raising or lowering. The high collar
of her red and white dress (which as she was not to be delivered of
any other until the following morning, she was still wearing)
seemed an enchanting and appropriate setting for the sudden
flirtatiousness of her new look, and for many moments, Miss Murdock
could only stand and, in truth, look at herself in wonder.

She had the sudden vision of half-hooded gold
eyes opening from some lazy, languid, drunken half-slumber, and
nostrils quivering at her unexpected nearness.

“Turn, child, so we may see the full effect,”
the Dowager commanded her. Miss Murdock did so, her hands trembling
a little and a flush warming her face. The Duchess appraised her,
her faded eyes studying her with ever growing satisfaction. “Yes,”
she said at last. “That is how it should be. I am sure Dante will
be very surprised when he arrives tonight.”

Jeannie said, “You look very well, miss. It
is a stunning success, if I may say so.”

Alphonse drew himself up to his full, not
very impressive height with each of these praisings. “It shall be,”
he announced, “all the rage in a fortnight, I have no doubt.”

Lady Lydia at last spoke, having been, for
once, struck silent. “I am sure it will be,” she said, and if there
was a sudden dryness to her voice, Miss Murdock really did not pay
attention to it, too intent, still, on the Duchess's words of St.
James to be there that night. She had not forgotten that he would
come, but somehow it seemed his arrival was now very immediate and
the strange giddiness that was coming over her, and the painful
shyness, had her feeling more confused with each passing
moment.

The Duchess glanced at the time, said in her
autocratic manner, “Well, enough of this. It took long enough is
all I have to say. But it is near dining time now, shall we go
below? Well done, Alphonse.”

“Thank you, madam,” and he clicked his heels
as he bowed.

In the hallway, Andrew turned to them when he
heard the door open. “Devil take it, but you have been long enough
in there! I had nearly decided to go to White's rather than sit
about here any—” He stopped at sight of Miss Murdock. Then he
strode over, took one of her hands and stared down at her. “Miss
Murdock,” he said at last, “you are lovely.”

“I—why thank you,” Miss Murdock stammered.
“But really, Earl Larrimer, it is only my hair,” she could not help
adding for there was a certain disgruntlement to be felt with
discovering that something she had always disdained as rather silly
and wasteful of time could in fact be, apparently, so
important.

“But what lovely hair it is. And its effect
is to make you positively charming,” he returned with boyish
admiration.

“I think,” Miss Murdock said as she looked at
him, “that a new hair style only has the effect of making a female
more susceptible to the flattery she would have dismissed out of
hand prior to it.”

To which Andrew burst out laughing. “You may
be right, Miss Murdock,” he agreed and returned to the warm
friendship they had begun cultivating earlier that day. “But isn't
it delicious?” he asked with an impish grin. He held out his arm to
her to escort her to dinner and took his grandmother's hand onto
his other arm, leaving Lady Lydia to follow behind.

“I believe it is,” Miss Murdock agreed, her
eyes twinkling and feeling at last more herself with his easy
bantering. “If for no other reason then to see young,
silver-tongued rogues such as yourself stretching the limits of
credibility even further than I would have first supposed.”

They were laughing as they descended. The
duchess snorted at their comments, bade them to go on, as she was
slowing them down, and as Ashton came up the stairs to assist her,
they relented and did as she bid. Andrew escorted Lizzie into the
drawing room where he proclaimed they should first have a glass of
sherry before dinner. He poured their glasses and then toasted her,
“To the new Miss Murdock, who looks as enchanting and shining as I
already knew her to be.”

Miss Murdock gave a wistful smile. “Thank
you, Andrew. I shall need practice deflecting such comments as
these, if I am to suppose every other young man in town has the
deplorable habit of being so flip with his praise, and it is good
of you to help prepare me.”

He had just begun to protest when the Duchess
came in the room with Ashton and the sudden ill-humor of her mood
was immediately noticeable to them. “Blast him!” she was exclaiming
to no one in particular. In her hands was a short missive, which
she had apparently already read through once and was now perusing
again. “I have never known him to be so impertinent. Not to me at
least! He has never before dared,” she fumed.

“Grandmother?” Andrew asked, his gaiety
leaving him. “Whatever is the trouble?”

Miss Murdock took one look at the wrathful,
disappointed countenance of the Duchess, who was standing leaning
on her cane despite Ashton indicating her large chair in readiness
for her. “Is it St. James, Lady Lenora?” she asked, somehow knowing
only he could inspire such anger and hurt in the old lady.

The Dowager turned her eyes to her, and there
was such a frown between the faded silver brows that Miss Murdock
was at once alarmed and also reminded of St. James' similar habit
of glaring doom when crossed. “There is a part in here for you,
Miss Murdock,” the Dowager told her, her rage so biting that she
did not even soften her tone as she normally did when speaking to
her young protégée. “You may as well read it and draw whatever
conclusions from it you like. Though I would say his very absence.
. .” and she trailed off, at last seating herself in a sad and, for
her, rare, defeated manner, “is in itself damnedable.”

Miss Murdock took the missive that Ashton
held out to her, scanned the lines, . . .comforting to know that my
attention has not strayed. . . and in a sudden spasm of extreme
rage and, even more upsetting, disappointment that he was in fact,
not coming, crumpled the letter in her hand.

“What ever is it?” Andrew asked.

Miss Murdock did not even glance at him. “It
is nothing!” she said, her voice a little desperate. “Nothing.”

“Well, it certainly seems to be something,”
Andrew pressed.

She looked at him then, said with a little
more control, “I expressly wished to speak with him this evening,
as I think I had made clear earlier, about my returning home. And
he has. . . begged off.”

“But he could not possibly know that this
meeting with him held some importance to you, could he?” Andrew
defended his cousin, his voice confused. “I mean, he could not know
that you suddenly wished to leave.”

“Certainly he could know,” Miss Murdock
returned. “In fact, I would not put it past him to have known and
deliberately not be coming this evening because of that
suspicion.”

“Why,” Andrew replied, taken aback by her
cold fury, “that is hardly reasonable to assume—”

“Well, he is hardly reasonable, is he, Earl
Larrimer?” Miss Murdock returned with more scorn in her voice than
she had intended. She turned to the Duchess, who had been watching
her with a renewed interest. “Do you have further need of this,
ma'am?” she asked, holding the crumpled letter in her hand.

“No. Not at all.” The Dowager's sniff told
her feelings on the subject and the writer of the letter.

Miss Murdock, without further ado, tossed the
letter into the fireplace where it caught flame, said to everyone
and no one, “Forgive me, I should not let my—my disappointment at
being unable to make my arrangements with any degree of firmness
tonight as I had planned disrupt our evening.”

“Of course, Miss Murdock. We quite
understand,” Andrew told her.

“Indeed, we do,” Lady Lydia, who had come in
just a moment behind the Duchess and had caught the most part of
Miss Murdock's small scene agreed. “St. James is in no way ever to
be relied upon, and I can quite sympathize with how you are
feeling, having felt equally as frustrated myself in the past with
him. He utterly refuses to take into account any one but
himself!”

“I still am certain—” Andrew began but Miss
Murdock cut him off.

“I—I don't wish to speak any more about it
now,” she pronounced. “Please, can we just go in to dinner, I
really must be more tired than I thought to be reacting in such
a—such a foolish manner.”

“Yes, I'm sure you are still tired,” the
Duchess agreed. “Ashton, if all is in readiness?”

He bowed, his face impassive, and yet still
managing to convey a warm sympathy, “Yes, milady.”

The Dowager made a motion to get up and
Andrew helped her from her seat and they went in to dinner. Miss
Murdock ate as well as she had ever eaten, but somehow despite
Andrew's occasional admiring look, she felt extremely silly with
her new hair style and her new dress, and where before she had
wanted to go home to escape greater difficulty with the duke, now
she found herself positively longing for home, her weak, comical
father, and her oh-so brown, unassuming dresses.

St. James had ordered a closed carriage to be
hired, plain and black, with a pair of black horses to match. The
Queen's secretary had asked him to use discretion and the
commonplace envelope that his summons had been delivered in showed
that they had evidently been following their own advice. So now, as
the carriage was drawn up to the front of his house with one of his
own grooms at the reins, St. James stepped out of the door and down
the wide granite steps to alight into the carriage.