A Banbury Tale (14 page)

Tilda frowned. “Pray do not press me, Timothy. I do not know my own mind.”

“I am a man of remarkable patience.” Timothy smiled. “As you yourself have said.”

The dignified butler bent and spoke softly in Letty’s ear. There was nothing in this stately person’s mien to indicate that the news he bore was dire, but Letty shrieked, upset her wine glass, and loudly bewailing her son’s fate, fled from the room. It was not to be expected that her guests would refrain from following. Since Timothy was, predictably, the first to offer his assistance, Tilda found herself at the Earl’s side.

“Such excitement!” he commented. “And extremely well timed. Our hostess’s conversation is so insipid that I feared I would fall asleep at her table.”

Tilda cast him a severe look, belied only by the twinkle in her eyes. “Unkind. I wonder what’s amiss?”

Micah offered a chivalrous arm. “Let us satisfy your unseemly curiosity.”

The morning room was a scene of considerable activity. Countless servants milled about, accomplishing nothing more helpful than getting in each other’s way; Letty lay stretched out upon a couch, a hand to her eyes; Kenelm, pale and irritable, was seated upon a chair, while Motley, with Timothy’s able assistance, affixed a bandage to a wound upon his brow. On the floor at her feet was a basin filled with water and bloodied strips of linen. Maddy regarded these with fascination. “Whatever,” she inquired weakly, “has transpired?”

“Well you may ask!” cried Letty, momentarily restored to vigor by the sound of her niece’s voice. She observed her audience and sank back with a moan. “Kenelm has been set upon by footpads! Can you imagine such a thing?” Her gaze fell upon the bloodied basin. “I think,” said Letty faintly, considering this disastrous finale to her dinner party, “that I may swoon.”

“And
I
think,” growled Kenelm, sorely tried by the vast number of people who hovered about him, as if awaiting his imminent demise, “that we would go on a great deal better alone. Alathea, take your mother to her room.”

Alathea, after imprudently giving voice to several scathing comments regarding her brother’s heartless inability to understand their parent’s delicate nerves, was persuaded by Motley to comply with this demand. She led Letty to her bedchamber, there to dose her with Parr’s Life Pills, an admirable remedy guaranteed to cure both constipation and diarrhea, increase women’s beauty, brighten the eye, animate the features, and impart fresh vigor to the whole body. The servants, with notable reluctance, were also persuaded to depart.

Maddy watched, stupefied, as Timothy helped Kenelm to the newly vacated couch. “What’s this?” the Duchess demanded, elbowing her way into the room. “Surely you weren’t set upon!”

“No?” Kenelm inquired, a hand to his forehead. “Then why does my head ache so damnably?”

“Oh, Kenelm!” Maddy gasped. Lionel’s hand closed around hers in a most comforting manner.

“I think,” murmured Tilda to the Earl, who stood beside her in the doorway, “that you have a serious rival.”

“You leap to conclusions,” the Earl replied. “Lionel is no rival of mine.”

“No need to make such a fuss,” Motley said brusquely, and picked up the water and rags. “He’ll do.”

The Duchess’s dark eyes sparkled with interest. She deposited herself in a chair. “What happened?” she repeated. “You were truly set upon? By whom?”

“Footpads,” Kenelm replied, with a wary eye upon this determined inquisitor.

“Where did it happen?” Maddy asked. “Were you in one of the poorer parts of town?” She remembered the neighborhoods she’d glimpsed earlier that day, and thought wealthy gentlemen would find little welcome there. Her cousin nodded. “But that’s unfair, Kenelm! Why should anyone turn on you? You have offended no one.”

“It’s difficult to be discerning when you’re hungry,” the Duchess interrupted, not one to miss an opportunity to ride her favorite hobbyhorse. “There’s even opposition to teaching the children of the masses to read, and do you know why? Because our peers believe that even the most rudimentary education would inspire the Great Unwashed with dissatisfaction with their ordained station in life. And so we condemn them to poverty and ignorance and deny them the opportunity to better themselves. Is it surprising that they will strike the gentlemen who are so foolish as to stray into their territory? To them, Kenelm must appear to have everything which they are denied.”

“Is this what happened?” Timothy asked.

“No,” Kenelm replied weakly, “but I do not wish my family to learn the truth. My mother would make a great piece of work of it.”

“You may trust me.” Agatha’s voice held a note of command.

“Come,” murmured the Earl, and drew Tilda into the hallway. “I would prefer not to overhear these confidences.” He firmly closed the door.

Kenelm complied with Agatha’s order, being a great deal weaker than he looked. “They were hired thugs, two of them. I suspect they meant to do away with me, but they underestimated their man.” He smiled faintly.

“But who engaged them?” Maddy cried with horror. “Who would do such a thing?”

“I haven’t the foggiest notion.” Kenelm wearily closed his eyes. “And I doubt I’ll ever learn the truth, since they got away.”

The Duchess ruminated and Timothy wore a thoughtful frown. Indeed, every member of the Jellicoe household was in some way engaged in thoughtful contemplation of Kenelm’s shocking accident, save one: Lady Tyrewhitte-Wilson was pondering her companion’s strange conduct in the matter of Miss de Villiers.

Chapter Eight

“I suppose,” Maddy said doubtfully, running distracted fingers through her bronze curls, “that she could go into service. What do you think, Motley? Will it do?”

Motley thought of the young Clemence Quarles, and shook her head. “I think,” she retorted, “that you have little notion of what such a position would involve. Can you imagine Clemence dusting and polishing furniture, preparing the table, or attending to fireplaces and polishing grates? Or changing bedclothes, and seeing to her mistress’s wardrobe?” Maddy looked unconvinced. “Be reasonable,” Motley advised, clinching the matter. “Can you picture her emptying slops?”

Maddy wore a ludicrous expression. “Surely it wouldn’t come to that!”

“Yes, it would.” Motley was firm. “She would be expected to perform the most menial chores, if she were engaged at all, which is doubtful, considering her appearance. Only an old woman with no male relatives, friends, or visitors would even consider her for a position. And if she has refused to go as governess, a livelihood for which she is singularly ill equipped, I doubt that you’ll persuade her-to hire herself out as a maid.”

Maddy sighed, and abandoned the most reasonable solution she had thus far hit upon. “But we must do something, Motley,” she wailed. “We cannot abandon her to her fate!”

Motley moved to repair the damage that Maddy’s anxious fingers had wrought to her modish coiffure. Though Motley was both horrified and dismayed by Clem’s current situation, she was too wise to forbid her headstrong charge to further interfere. “The timing is extremely unfortunate,” Motley observed. “Were you settled yourself, you could take Clem in hand without arousing too much censure—providing the thing was done discreetly. It would create quite a stir were you know to have taken a notorious actress into your home.”

“Not notorious!” Maddy protested. “Truly, Motley, Clem has done nothing to invite your censure. If people will look askance at her because of the profession she’s been forced to assume, then let them. I would not wish to know that sort of people anyway.”

“Fine words,” Motley retorted, “and foolish! You will recall that you are
not
settled. We must think of something else.”

This conclusion was easier arrived at than achieved. Solutions were presented only to be discarded as impractical. “I must speak to Kenelm,” Maddy said. “Perhaps he will think of something that we have not. Men are much better at this sort of thing than we.”

“At what?” Motley inquired caustically. “Thinking? I must beg leave to differ. However, it is quite possible that your cousin may have access to information that we do not possess, and might thus be of help. I would wish, from what you tell me of his infatuation, that we might solve the problem without his aid. I fear that his fondness might lead him to further imprudence.”

“You sound so stuffy,” Maddy complained. “It’s not like you.”

“One of us,” Motley retorted, “must be practical. You still have your own problems to solve—to be precise, you must make a good match, and why you choose to behave like the greenest girl over Wilmington I do not know! You must not allow your friend’s troubles to draw your attention from that end.”

Maddy, who did not care to discuss matters of the heart with her governess, or anyone else, remained stubbornly silent. “Very well, then,” Motley conceded, “tell me how you found the Duchess.”

Reluctantly, Maddy smiled. “She is the most redoubtable old woman! She told me that I must return to see her again, when I had the opportunity to do so without the company of esteemed relatives.”

“The Duchess of Marlborough said that in front of your aunt?” Motley was shocked.

“No. Aunt Letty was engaged in conversation with Wilmington.”

Motley recognized the stubborn set of that little mouth, and did not press for further information. It was not that she was incurious about her charge’s opinion of both Wilmington and the Marquess, but she knew from long experience that questions would be useless. One could not force confidences that Maddy did not wish to give.

Maddy saw no reason to enlighten Motley concerning her sentiments regarding the Earl, for she was severely out of charity with that gentleman. His manner toward her was correct, he teased and flattered her and made her the object of his gallantries, yet underlying this apparent devotion was a coolness that Maddy could not pierce. She might have thought it merely an indication of the man’s character had she not observed the warmth of the Earl’s gaze when it rested upon Lady Tyrewhitte-Wilson. Maddy was accustomed to seeing that particular expression in the eyes of gentlemen who gazed upon herself, and was annoyed. Had she paused to consider Micah’s reputation, Maddy might have realized that the Earl knew full well how best to arouse jealousy, and myriad other emotions, in a young lady’s breast.

In addition to the perplexing behavior of the Earl, and Clem’s unfortunate predicament, Maddy had Alastair Bechard to consider. This was a complication that could be discussed with no one, particularly not with the intrepid Motley, who would doubtless have several fits if she knew of her charge’s imprudence. That entire excursion was a matter that Maddy intended to keep from her governess’s ears, having successfully fobbed off anxious queries about her absence with a lame tale of having stepped out for fresh air. This action was reprehensible enough, without the additional enlightenment of precisely where her wanderings had led her. Had Lord Bechard recognized her, as Maddy believed, he could ruin her by so little as an injudicious word. She had been seen not only unescorted and in one of the worst sections of London, but emerging from an establishment that housed the town’s most talked-about actress.

Maddy looked at her governess, who wore the severe expression that betokened deep thought, and regretted her bad temper. Motley might prove an invaluable ally. “I was to particularly tell you,” she added conciliatingly, “that the Duchess would be delighted if, on my next visit, you were to accompany me.”

* * * *

Kenelm was irritable. The wound upon his forehead gave him a dashing air, though the ugly bruise that surrounded it had largely disappeared, due to his mother’s diligent application of scraped root of horseradish, and what remained was largely hidden by the careful combing of his hair; but he was not anxious to accompany Maddy on the proposed afternoon’s expedition. Largely to escape his fond parent’s watchfulness, Kenelm had engaged in the construction of a swimming device that utilized a central longitudinal shaft and a four-bladed propeller to enable the swimmer to proceed both easily and rapidly. Kenelm was anxious to see this creation finished and remarked most bitterly on his cousin’s determination to drag him off to linen drapers and silk mercer’s shops.

Maddy, who had a quite different destination in mind, thought Kenelm deserved to be left unenlightened. It was entirely because of his unobliging attitude that she had not taken him into her confidence.

Despite the many problems that would have sent a less stouthearted young lady into impenetrable gloom, Maddy’s spirits were gay. She thought that she would never grow tired of London, where the streets were filled with noise and excitement. She loved the sound of iron hoofs and wheels, the mettlesome horses that pranced by, and was fascinated by the ballad singers and street peddlers, even the rowdy pedestrians. Blandly ignoring Kenelm’s protests, she guided him to the park. Clemence was there before them, in the prearranged meeting place. Her fine features were drawn, her plump hands clenched in distress. Maddy had the pleasure of seeing Kenelm goggle as if he viewed a ghost.

“
Chérie
!” the actress cried, with a startled glance at Kenelm, and ran to embrace her friend. “I am at wit’s end! It is the most abominable thing!”

Maddy quickly whisked her friend into the leafy alcove where their previous conversation had taken place. The sheltered space was somewhat small for three persons, but Kenelm followed. Maddy thought it little wonder that Kenelm’s suit did not prosper, if he was normally stricken mute by the sight of his idol. “What is it?” Maddy asked. “What’s happened now?”

“It is Alastair!” Clem wailed. “He is truly a son of the devil, that one! He grows tired of my lack of resolution and insists that I make a decision. But listen to the choice he gives me: he will come for my answer this evening, and if at that time I do not go with him, to become his
petite amie
, he will see that I am placed in a brothel! And it will do no good to try and escape him, for he will find me wherever I go, and when he does, it will be the worse for me!”

Maddy, who had only a vague notion of what a brothel might be, observed her friend with dismay; Kenelm, whose knowledge of such places was a great deal more precise, looked grim. “I am distraught!” Clem cried, wringing her hands. “I had hesitated in forming my decision in hope that some alternate action might come to mind, but it has not, and I can no longer hold him at arm’s length. Whatever am I to do?”