Read A Most Lamentable Comedy Online
Authors: Janet Mullany
A Most Lamentable Comedy (19 page)
CONGREVANCE: Again, if you please. Your grace.
THIRLWELL: Good morning, ma’am. Why, you are as pretty as those flowers.
MRS GIBBONS: Thank you, sir.
(She curtsies.)
CONGREVANCE: She would not respond so.
MRS GIBBONS: You are correct, sir.
(Addressing the Duke.)
Who the devil are you?
CONGREVANCE: No, no. It will not do. Simon, please try again
THIRLWELL: What a pleasant day! That reminds me, I must find a mistress to ease my lonely hours in London. Why, ma’am, forgive me, I am thinking aloud. I am a duke and exceedingly rich, by the way.
CONGREVANCE: Well, it is to the point, I suppose, if lacking in subtlety.
MRS GIBBONS: Why not congratulate the lady on her acting last night, your grace?
THIRLWELL: Oh, capital, Mrs Gibbons, capital. Ma’am, I much admired your bosom last night.
CONGREVANCE: Her acting, you numbskull.
THIRLWELL: I much admired your acting last night, ma’am. Did you wear stays?
CONGREVANCE: For God’s sake!
(Exit, slamming the door.)
THIRLWELL: I am afraid my brother is unhappy.
MRS GIBBONS: A moment, sir.
(Exit, following Congrevance.)
Thirlwell examines one of the porcelain ornaments upon the mantel and in so doing knocks another off. He looks around guiltily and pushes the pieces beneath the carpet. Mrs Gibbons and Congrevance enter.
MRS GIBBONS: Sir, be easy and natural, and all will be well. Shall we try again?
O
n the first morning of the day after my life has been ruined it rains steadily and I walk up and down Otterwell’s long gallery trying to decide what I should do. Mary has cried all night and I have packed her off to iron my gowns – they don’t need it, but she needs something to keep her busy. It’s very early in the morning, and after the late night, my fellow guests are still abed.
I don’t wish to see them and I am sure they do not wish to see me, for they are no longer my friends.
My choices are not attractive:
Throwing myself upon the mercy of my sister. I daresay I shall become accustomed to her smugness and the tedium of country life. Her husband’s parishioners would come to love me as I visited them on their sickbeds, forcing unpleasant foodstuffs and piety upon them. At least I would learn the names of my nieces and nephews.
Under an assumed name, I could become a governess. Of course this would necessitate the purchase of at least two Quakerish sorts of gowns (which I cannot afford) and an intensive study of everything I have forgotten from my own rather haphazard education.
Setting myself up in a genteel, impoverished sort of way doing embroidery, making silk flowers and painting china and so on. Not that anyone would offer me such work, once they knew who I was, and my skills with paintbrush and needle leave much to be desired.
Flinging myself into a river, my pockets loaded with stones. Absolutely not – it would give far too much self-righteous satisfaction to too many.
Escaping to India, where my brother lives, or to the Continent, where I have heard one can live exceedingly cheaply, but getting there may be a problem.
Healing my broken heart, and hopefully my finances, in the arms of Another.
Up and down the long gallery I pace, my shoes making scarce a sound on the aged wooden floor, and the eyes in the portraits seem to follow me, accusing me of all sorts of wrongdoing. Rain trickles down the windows.
At the far end I see one of the footmen gesture towards me, and two gentlemen approach. I suppose they must be guests from last night – I never did make an appearance at Otterwell’s ball and missed supper entirely. But as they approach I see they are not gentlemen – they look like clerks or tradesmen of some sort.
How could I have forgotten that small detail that complicates all of my unhappy options – why, number seven in my list is to go to debtors’ prison. Oh, quite definitely they are here on business and hold a warrant for my arrest.
‘Lady Elmhurst?’ They stop a few feet away from me and bow. The one who addresses me is the taller and stouter of the two.
‘Oh, you are mistaken, sir. I am not she. I believe she may have left the house early this morning.’
They look at each other. ‘It’s her,’ the shorter, thinner one says with a regrettable lack of grammar.
They take a step towards me. Mr Tall and Stout says, ‘I regret we must take you away, as this paper says, unless you can pay your debts, milady.’
There’s little use in denying who I am – they must have experience with people such as myself. Besides, the footman has told them my identity, but I decide to try one more time. ‘It’s remarkable how often the lady and I are mistaken for each other at a distance, sirs. I am sorry to disappoint you.’
‘Come along, Lady Elmhurst – we don’t want to make a fuss, now, do we?’
If there is one thing I have never feared it is making a fuss, but they are not to know. I turn, gather my skirts and run as fast as I can, heading for the other end of the gallery. I pause briefly to overturn a side table and a pair of chairs to slow them down, but although they swear and stumble, I can hear their footfalls thud behind me. I’m nearly at the end now, and can either run into the garden, which I know so well now, or—
I cannon into a gentleman who appears from a doorway and land sprawling on the floor, out of breath.
The two sheriffs bound heavily towards me. ‘Lady Elmhurst, I am arresting you—’
‘Gentlemen, what the devil are you about?’
‘Out of our way, sir, if you please.’ Mr Short and Skinny lunges towards me, and I gather my skirts around my ankles and skid with little dignity across the floor away from him.
‘You are addressing the Duke of Thirlwell, my good man.’
They both stop short then, and engage in some obsequious forelock-tugging.
For the first time I get a look at my deliverer – or at least, my delayer – and my heart nearly stops.
It’s Congrevance.
No, it isn’t. What a fool I am. To be sure, he has similar colouring – but with blue eyes, not those beautiful grey ones – and is not so tall and lean and graceful. Like all gentlemen of high rank, he is dressed in a down-at-heel way for the country, in a threadbare riding coat and scuffed boots. He rubs his hands together as if enjoying himself, then offers me one so I may rise.
‘I trust you’re not hurt, ma’am.’
I assure him I am not and curtsy.
‘Now, what is the trouble, gentlemen?’
‘Beg your pardon, your grace, but we must arrest Lady Elmhurst for her debts.’
‘Good heavens!’ he exclaims. ‘What a dreadful thing, indeed.’
‘Oh, it is but a simple understanding, your grace,’ I say. ‘Why, I was just about to fetch the trifling sum I owe to pay off these good gentlemen. If you’ll excuse me, your grace, sirs, I shall fetch the money and pay you directly. It is upstairs in my bedchamber.’
The two sheriffs laugh. ‘They told us you were a cunning one, Lady Elmhurst. We’ll send for your maid, shall we?’
The Duke meanwhile watches this exchange with a broad smile on his face. ‘Why, Lady Elmhurst, you do not look like a hardened criminal.’
‘Oh, sirs.’ I produce a handkerchief and sniffle into it. ‘May I – may I not step into Lord Otterwell’s chapel and pray for strength to endure my ordeal?’
‘No, Lady Elmhurst, you can pray all you want in prison.’
‘A moment.’ The Duke plucks the warrant from the sheriff’s hand. He beckons to the footman who lingers in the doorway watching the scene, to my mortification, and murmurs of refreshments.
I see it is the same footman who assisted me in breaking into Lady Otterwell’s tea caddy. ‘Sorry, milady,’ he mutters as he passes me. ‘I didn’t know who they were, otherwise I would have sent them away.’
‘It’s not your fault. Pray do not concern yourself.’
Mr Short and Skinny, seeing this brief conversation, steps forward and grips my arm.
‘Unhand me, you blackguard!’ I shriek quite loudly.
‘You’ll not corrupt the servants, Lady Elmhurst. You’ – addressing the footman – ‘go about your business as his grace told you to.’
The footman nods and leaves, and my captor (the effrontery!) leads me to the small group of chairs around the table, now righted, that I knocked over in the pursuit. There we sit and wait until footmen arrive with tea. It is all quite civilised; at least I am not clapped into chains just yet.
The Duke sends a footman off on another errand and continues to peruse the warrant.
‘Dear, dear,’ he comments. ‘You are indeed in Queer Street, Lady Elmhurst.’
I do not answer.
All three men look at me and then at the teapot. Thinking how extraordinary it is that even under these circumstances a lady is expected to pour, as though men’s hands somehow cannot grasp the handle of a teapot, I do so. The fools – what if I choose to hurl the teapot, a formidable weapon of porcelain and near boiling water, at their heads?
A gentleman appears with writing materials, and it is quite obvious from his demeanour that he is some sort of personal servant to the Duke, although not in livery. He, his master and Mr Tall and Stout withdraw a short distance away. They have a conversation I strain to overhear, while Mr Short and Skinny keeps his eyes fixed upon me, doubtless expecting me to dive through the window.
‘There is no need to stare at my bosom so, sir. I assure you I have no weapon hidden there.’
He blushes bright red and spills tea on the table, to my great pleasure.
The three men return. It is evident that some sort of arrangement has been made. Thirlwell’s servant, or rather his secretary, sits and draws up a document – although I try, I cannot read what it says, for it is at the opposite side of the table and on a portable writing desk. Thirlwell signs, and stamps it with his signet ring.
There is more obsequiousness, bowingso on, to the Duke. The two sheriffs give me a cursory sort of bow and depart.
‘I take it, your grace, that you have assumed my debt. Why?’
‘Walk with me if you will, Lady Elmhurst.’ He offers his arm and nods to his secretary, who stands aside.
‘I’m not thanking you yet, your grace, because I have learned that acts of generosity are rarely unconditional.’
‘Dear me, such cynicism. Well, you see, I am away from my estate at the moment because I have some pressing business at the British Museum. There are some recently acquired items there I wish to study . . .’
He drones on for a while – obviously this is his passion, ancient fusty things – and I make the right sort of encouraging sounds and wait for him to get to the point. I’ve heard – who has not? – of the famously rural and scholarly Duke of Thirlwell, who spends his infrequent time in London in the House (rumour has it he is awake most of the time so others may sleep undisturbed) or investigating antiquities.
Now apparently the Duke has decided he will have a third occupation in London – or, to be precise, a second, since Parliament is in recess. That occupation is my person. I have never heard that he is in the habit of keeping a mistress in London, where he seems to live as a monk. I believe there is some sort of rural Duchess at his country seat, doubtless a horse-faced paragon of virtue who divides her time between brewing concoctions in the stillroom and performing good works.
The gentleman even has a secretary standing by to draw up a contract. But one thing concerns me . . .
‘Your grace.’ I interrupt a lengthy blather on what colours were used on Greek statues (what nonsense! Why should anyone care, even if it was so?). ‘Are you sure you act alone on this matter?’
He stops so suddenly I almost trip over. ‘I beg your pardon, ma’am?’
‘Surely, sir, you must admit it is an extraordinary coincidence that as I am pursued by the law, you appear as though by divine providence?’ I add, just to see if I can disturb him further, ‘I am sure I do not know what I can do to repay you, sir. I have no income, I fear. Do you, perhaps, need a governess?’
For one worrisome moment I fear he will think I am offering to take a riding whip to his backside (something I have not encountered yet, although I hear it is a common preference among gentlemen).
‘Oh, good heavens, ma’am, no. My nursery is empty, I regret to say.’ He clears his throat. ‘There are certain – needs a gentleman has. I am sure you understand, ma’am. While in London, away from the comforts of my house, I seek . . .
congenial female
company
.’ The last said with great emphasis and so much head-nodding he blurs.
