Danse de la Folie

Danse de la Folie

Sherwood Smith

Book View Café Edition
August 21, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-61138-193-1
Copyright © 2012 Sherwood Smith
www.bookviewcafe.com

It is said that the quadrille was first a military exercise
performed by pairs of horsemen before the admiring court. Only later did it
migrate to France in the form of a lively dance performed by two couples in
squares.

The more stately quadrille that came to England was still a
few years off when my story begins; imagine the opening strains playing a
sprightly air in celebration of the hunting season in the first year of the new
nineteenth century, deep in the county of Hampshire.

My first heroine, the Honorable Miss Clarissa Harlowe, smiled
to discover with the morning post the new edition of Wordsworth’s
Lyrical Poems
. She looked forward to taking
advantage of the last gasp of summery weather by reading in the garden, but
before she could excuse herself, the butler entered the ladies’ breakfast room
with a summons from his lordship for his eldest daughter.

Lord Chadwick seldom interfered in the lives of his
offspring. Clarissa’s step-mother and her half-siblings looked
surprised—everyone exhibited surprise except Aunt Sophia, who made a business
of folding her napkin, with enough smugness in her countenance to serve as
warning.

Clarissa went straight to the library, a room only used for
interviews. Her father stood before the fire, a tall, fair-haired, hawk-nosed
man in his favored riding clothes. Not ordinarily given to any pursuits that,
as he put it, “rattled his brain,” he eyed his eldest daughter with brow-furrowed
bafflement.

“Here, girl,” he greeted her, “that’s a fine gown.”

Clarissa smiled a little at the spurious compliment, and curtseyed.
“Thank you, Papa. You sent for me?”

“Now, girl—Clarissa—you’re deuced—ah, very modest, which is what
everyone wants in a girl, and you’ve prodigiously shining parts.”

To hear herself thus complimented for precisely those intellectual
qualities she’d been scolded for by her aunt might have inspired another smile,
except Clarissa now suspected she was not going to like the intent of this
interview.

“Shining parts, reading, and the like,” Lord Chadwick added,
with a vague wave of his riding whip toward the undisturbed books resting on
the shelves around them.

He eyed his daughter’s inquiring expression, harrumphed, and
took refuge in defense. “Your mother was always buried in a book. Which is why
I let your grandmother the duchess pick your governesses, though monstrous
interfering I found it, and as for that sour-faced French one, hey day! What a
fright that woman put me in every time she poked her nose into a room. As if
your step-mama couldn’t have found a better... well! What’s past is past, and I
don’t mean to be criticizing her grace.”

For a moment an expression akin to fear crossed his features,
as if the redoubtable dowager were listening through the keyhole, and he
hastened on. “But here I thought it settled that you would make a match with
the Wilburfolde boy. Good thing on all sides. Doubtless your grandmother thinks
so as well, if only we knew,” he added somewhat hastily.

Ordinarily Clarissa would have been diverted. She alone of
her family was very fond of her awe-inspiring grandmother, but now with her
future at stake she turned the subject back, asking quietly, “Has Lord
Wilburfolde called on you to that end, Papa?”

Lord Chadwick took a couple of hasty strides across the
room, then turned to kick at a log in the fireplace with the tip of a glossy
boot. “Yes, with his Mama. Yesterday, while you and the girls was at the vicar’s.
Made his offer, with prodigious punctilio. I said I’d speak to you, and send
your answer over this afternoon.”

“Did you inform him that I have stated that I have no
present wish to marry, Papa?”

“I did. Lady Wilburfolde put that down to modesty. Said she
likes that in a lady. Wouldn’t want anyone at The Castle who was not
bien élevée,
and you were the finest
young lady in the parish, and there was a lot more on that order. Here, you don’t
mean to refuse, do you?” At Clarissa’s nod, he frowned. “I can’t write that! Devil
take it, what a monstrous position to put me in.”

“Papa,” Clarissa said softly, “when I was small you promised
I should not be made to marry anyone I did not favor.”

“Aye, and so I promised all you girls.” He flung his riding
whip on a side table and ran his fingers through his thinning blond locks. “But
you know, you’ve got to marry
someone
,
and out of all my pack of brats I thought you was the least headstrong and had
the most sense. What’s against young Wilburfolde?”

“Nothing at all,” Clarissa said, though she was thinking of
Lady Wilburfolde. But it seemed indelicate as well as impolite to refuse a
gentleman because one had taken a strong dislike to his mother. “We’ve scarcely
met above twice. But I was serious when I said that I do not wish to marry.”

Her father eyed her with baffled exasperation; the truth was,
of all his pack of brats she caused him the least trouble. She wasn’t a Diamond
like the rest, so one would have thought she’d be glad to find a leg-shackle
ready to hand. “Every girl says that,” he replied. “Until she’s asked. The
females are all agreed it’s a good match.”

Clarissa suppressed the urge to retort that
they
could marry him. She apologized,
temporized, and endured the short-lived storm of her father’s temper, for she
knew that it arose out of vexation, not real anger. Her Papa was too fond of
his family (and too indolent) to remain angry long.

Clarissa was dismissed to resume her breakfast while Lord
Chadwick went out to ride his temper into cheer again. As expected, her aunt
scolded with all the fretful vehemence of the person whose cherished project
has been smashed. Aunt Sophia’s tangled sentences about gratitude,
expectations, and the care older and wiser heads took for heedless youth showed
no sign of coming to a natural end, moving Clarissa’s pretty step-mother, who
cherished peace even more than Papa, to murmur, “Clarissa, dear, did I not
understand that you were agreed on this marriage?”

“Not I, Mama,” Clarissa replied firmly.

Lady Chadwick blinked, then turned to look at Aunt Sophia. “Well!
Odd, how one gets these impressions... wasn’t it you, Mrs. Latchmore, who said
so?”

Clarissa kept quiet. She knew that her aunt had been busy on
her behalf, and while she sympathized with her aunt—no one could wish to end up
an indigent widow, living on her younger brother’s charity—she was not willing
to sacrifice her life so that her aunt might make herself out to be a
matchmaker, a person of interest in county society.

Aunt Sophia raised her voice to the pitch of righteous
anger. “What, pray, is amiss with Lord Wilburfolde, that you should be so
nice
in your tastes
at your age
?”

Clarissa was caught. She could not, especially before the
wide eyes of her young half-sisters, declare that she had yet to meet a
gentleman with whom she wished to share anything more intimate than a book.

“I do not wish to be married,” was all she said.

o0o

Two months later, Clarissa reflected on how she ought to
have foreseen that a young lady setting herself up in opposition to her betters
would cause her aunt to ring such a peal that Papa would take steps to restore
order to his house.

Aunt Sophia ought to have foreseen that her brother would
remove
all
the causes of contention.

Clarissa had always wanted to travel, but the difficulties
in France had made that impossible. Papa told Clarissa that she could visit her
maternal aunt while peace was talked of, and told his sister that she would be
delighted to accompany her niece.

So here they were ensconced on her Papa's yacht in the
middle of winter weather.

Aunt Sophia put her cup down with a clatter.

“Clarissa!” Her voice sounded like the last, quivering gasp
of a dying Christian Martyr. “My love,” she added, clasping her hands fervently
to her impressive, lace-ruched bosom.

The drama of this gesture was missed by Clarissa, who was
gazing out the porthole at the last of the harbor, diminishing behind them.

“Clar-issa!”

The thrilling moan on the first syllable once again evoked
arenas and raging lions, but the pettish rise of
issa
made Clarissa think of a shed full of squabbling hens.

The older woman lay back on the cushions, assuming the look
of patient suffering that she had demonstrated before her mirror when her
vexatious brother insisted she must go on this horrid jaunt.

But Clarissa saw only that her aunt’s claim of faintness accorded
a trifle oddly with the rich crimson of her plump cheeks. “Your pardon, Aunt?”

“Oh, Clarissa,” Aunt Sophia moaned.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Sophia. I am looking forward to traveling,
and seeing a little of the world.”

“In
winter
, with French
revolutionaries hiding in every bush? I just pray we do not end up on the
guillotine!”

“I do not believe that the French would use the guillotine against
English ladies.” Clarissa leaned forward earnestly. “Since peace is all but
declared, this is the only opportunity to travel that has come my way, I am
grateful that Papa furnished this opportunity. If you are ill, dear aunt, you could
return home. I really believe that my father’s steward, my maids, and the men
who sail the yacht, will see me safely across the Channel into Holland, and Aunt
Beaumarchais’ hands.”

Aunt Sophia gave a loud, comprehensive sniff, which
effectively expressed her disdain for this host of nominal persons. “I would be
Failing in my Duty if I did not see you safely there.” The capital letters were
clearly enunciated. “No, I do
not
wish
to go, but no sacrifice is too large for my family!
I
was taught that a true lady always performs her duty. Just as I
did when my sainted Papa made a match for me with my sainted Latchmore, though
I hardly knew him—had not met him above twice, and that in company.”

Clarissa looked down at her gloved hands. “Yes, aunt.”

Snapping her fan out, Aunt Sophia flapped irritably at her
purple cheeks. “Many a female at your age would feel grateful for any offer,
much less one to be so highly desired.”

Clarissa said, “I would feel grateful if I was wishful to
marry. But I am not.”

“So say you now. But trust me, when you are my age, or even
the age of poor Miss Frease, forced to accept Sir Pericles Denby, and who is to
say that he will be any better on his third marriage? She will be forced to turn
a deaf eye to his... his tendencies toward unmarital felicity. There is nothing
humorous in this.”

Clarissa tried to smother her guilty laughter. “I beg your
pardon, aunt. I agree about Sir Pericles, it was just Miss Frease’s unhearing
eyes that—”

Aunt Sophia said impatiently, “I have always sincerely
pitied Olivia Frease, though she is
not
biddable, and indeed has said she never
wished
to be married. But when the old baronet died, there she was, a burden that her
brother’s wife declared they would do well without. So there she was.”

There she was without the means to set up her own
establishment, Clarissa thought. But it would be indelicate to remind her aunt
that this was not her own case; it was so very not the case that Aunt Sophia
was sure to be vexed.

Aunt Sophia was already vexed. “You are nearly
five-and-twenty, and you do
not
have
the looks of your sweet sisters. It was no mistake that Hetty went off in her
first year last spring, and it shall be the same for Amelia this year. And when
you stand by her, even the immensity of your dowry, which I always told your
Papa would only cause you to set yourself up unbecomingly, and it is just as I
foretold…” Aunt Sophia paused, trying in vain to recover the thread of her
discourse. “Well,” she finished with a twitch of her shoulders. “I have
done
with you. I believe I’d be better
employed trying to compose myself a little before we are sunk, or attacked by howling
Thermidorians.”