Kitty Bennet's Diary (Pride and Prejudice Chronicles) (14 page)

Which leaves me forced to fall back on my second plan.  The plan I suppose I always knew I would come to in the end.

It is past three o’clock in the morning; I know because I have just heard the downstairs clock chime.  Mary is curled up in her own bed, peacefully asleep on the other side of the room from me.  And I have lighted the candle beside my bed and started writing in this book—because anything is better than lying in the dark and staring up at the canopy above my bed.  As I have been for the past seemingly endless hours.

Tonight was the night of our excursion to Vauxhall Gardens.  And since I managed—at least slightly—to progress on both the fronts of detaching Mary from Lord Henry
and
retrieving Jane’s necklace from Mrs. Hurst, the evening ought to be counted a success.

Even if my hands are still shaking almost too much to write.  Looking at this page, anyone judging my handwriting would think that it was I instead of Lord Henry Carmichael who had been intoxicated tonight.

But I do not seem to be telling this at all coherently.  To begin properly, then: 

I had never been to Vauxhall Gardens before and did not know what to expect.  But it is a pretty place—the trees are all strung with hundreds of coloured lanterns, and the various paths and walkways are lighted with chains of tiny white lamps that glow like stars.  If I were in a more romantic mood, I might say that it looks almost like a fairyland.  However, since I am emphatically
not
in such a mood, I will only write that the effect is very pretty indeed.

In the centre of a grove of trees is the grand Rotunda, ringed by colonnades sheltering the various private supper boxes.

The event tonight was a masquerade ball, intended to raise funds for an East End charity called the Good Christian Military Widow’s Friend—which is an unwieldy name to write out, much less say, but it does have a worthy goal.  The purpose of the charity is to support the widows and children of soldiers killed in the war—many of whom have no appreciable source of income with their husbands and fathers gone.  Guests could pay to reserve one of the supper boxes, and the resulting moneys would go to the Military Widow’s Friend.

My aunt and uncle had themselves reserved such a box—where I would have been perfectly content to remain the entire evening.  But my aunt insisted that we all go to the Rotunda and dance.

Aunt Gardiner had settled baby Susanna for the night before we departed, and she had left Rose with instructions to listen for the baby in case she cried.  I know it was hard for her to leave Susanna even so.  But I think that my aunt was also rather delighted to have an evening’s entertainment away from home and in such an elegant place as Vauxhall.  Aunt Gardiner was dressed for the masquerade in a pink Domino that she must have worn in her youth.  And she had managed to persuade my uncle to don the costume of a Crusader knight, which cannot have been easy, despite Uncle Gardiner’s good temper and the fact that he plainly adores her. 

At any rate, I did not wish to spoil their evening.  Besides which, I could see that Mary was itching to join in the dancing—and the entire purpose of my having come along was so that I might discreetly keep an eye on her.  So we all proceeded to the central Rotunda.

The Rotunda was absolutely ablaze with lights.  Hundreds of wax candles in the chandeliers over the dance floor showed the guests spinning through dance after dance.

There were costumes of every sort, from gypsies to monks to dashing cavaliers, and from Mary, Queen of Scots, to Egyptian maidens.  An orchestra played from a balustraded gallery, and the noise—combined with the sounds of scores of raised voices—was nearly deafening, making it impossible to converse.   Almost as soon as we entered, Mary and my aunt and uncle and I were all separated by the crowds, and it was all I could do just to keep Mary in my sight.

I saw my Aunt Gardiner present to Mary a gentleman—I suppose a young man of my aunt’s acquaintance—dressed as Robin Hood, the upper half of his face hidden by a black satin mask.  The young man bowed and extended his hand, apparently asking Mary to dance.  Mary accepted, and they moved onto the dance floor.  Though I saw that even as she danced down the line of other couples, Mary’s head kept turning, scanning the crowded room as if she were looking for someone.

Several costumed men approached and asked me to dance.  And Uncle Gardiner found me, as well, and asked whether I was not enjoying myself, and would I like him to escort me back to our supper box?  But I refused all the dance offers—and told my uncle I was quite well, and that he ought to go and dance with my aunt.

“Miss Kitty Bennet!  That
is
you, is it not?”  The voice at my side made me turn to find Louisa Hurst standing beside me.  Despite her mask, I had no more difficulty in recognising her than apparently she had me.  She was dressed in a violently pink and blue shepherdess’s costume that did nothing to flatter her plump form.   Her prominent eyes studied me from behind her half-mask and she pursed her lips.  “I declare, you are turned into an utter wallflower since first we met in Hertfordshire.”  She let out a high, trilling laugh that scraped my ears even above the noise of the crowd.  “Miss Kitty Bennet, the belle of the Hertfordshire militia, refusing to dance at a masquerade ball.  I declare, I should never have believed it, had I not seen it with my own eyes.”

John was a captain in the Hertfordshire militia—before he joined the regular army.  I clenched my teeth.   And then I realised that Mrs. Hurst was wearing Jane’s diamond necklace.

Well,
a
diamond necklace, at any rate.  I could not of course be certain that it was Jane’s.  But it was of old-fashioned design, the diamonds worked into a central pendant that had been crafted in the shape of a bow.  And it was made with far more delicacy and good taste than anything I should have credited Mrs. Hurst with ordering for herself.

 I opened my mouth.  And at that moment, I caught sight of Mary slipping out of the Rotunda with a young man dressed in the costume of a Spanish matador.  His back was to me, and I saw only the familiar set of his shoulders and the back of a head of fair hair.  But I had a sinking feeling that I knew exactly who he must be.

I ground my teeth.  But I still had no practical ideas for how to go about forcing Mrs. Hurst to give the necklace back to Jane.  And standing there and allowing myself to trade polite insults with her would accomplish nothing.

I murmured an excuse, turned, and pushed my way through the crowds to follow after Mary.

For a moment after I had exited the Rotunda, I thought I had lost her in the crowds of revellers milling about between the supper boxes.  There was to be a fireworks display in an hour, and already the masquerade-goers were organising themselves so as to procure the best places on the main lawn from which to watch.  And then I saw them: the gold epaulettes of the Spanish bullfighter, and Mary’s purple silk costume of a Turkish sultana, weaving their way towards the shadowy grove of trees that lines the Lover’s Walk.

I was alarmed—truly alarmed.  The Lover’s Walk at Vauxhall Gardens is rather like the London debutante’s equivalent of the bogeyman stories used to frighten children.  Everyone has heard whispered tales of girls whose virtue was irretrievably ruined in the private glades of the Lovers’ Walk.  Even if only half of the stories bear any resemblance to truth, the Lover’s Walk is still no very respectable place to be.  And Mary was about to enter it with Lord Henry Carmichael.

I stood frozen while my mind spun uselessly through various possibilities for action.  I might be standing there still—except that someone crashed into me from behind.  A grey-haired, billowy, grandmotherly-looking woman wearing—rather improbably—the costume of Helen of Troy.

I clutched her arm.  “Oh—do you think you might help me?”  I spoke in a breathless rush, letting a quaver—not entirely a false one—creep into my voice.  “I am sent after that girl over there—the one wearing the purple Turkish costume.”  I pointed to Mary.  “Her aunt asked me to give her the message that her sister is ill and requires that she return at once to their supper tent.  Please, do you think you might pass the message on for me?”

Fortunately the grandmotherly woman did not pause to ask why I did not simply carry the message the remaining fifty feet and tell Mary myself.  I have noticed before that if one speaks very quickly and urgently, people seldom do question the logic of what you say.

The elderly Helen of Troy patted my hand and told me kindly that of course she would do as I asked.  She waddled off in Mary’s direction, and I ducked behind one of the statues that dotted the lawn.  Peering out from behind Adonis’s marble elbow, I saw Helen of Troy deliver the message.  Mary frowned, said something to Lord Henry, and then sped off in the direction of the supper boxes.

Lord Henry looked after her a moment, shrugged—and sauntered into the entrance to the Lover’s Walk on his own.  I stared after him.  I had thought only to separate him from Kitty, but now I had before me the chance to do what I had resolved on before—speak to Lord Henry alone.

I still had to force my feet to move, following him across the lawn and into the shadows of the tree-lined path.  It was much darker there, the lanterns in the trees being placed at farther intervals.  And quite cold, as well—which I suppose accounted for the path being almost deserted.   Far more lovers probably take advantage of the place during the spring and summer months.

Tonight, I surprised a Lady MacBeth locked in a passionate embrace with a man wearing the hunchback and neck ruff of a Richard III.  But apart from them, I met no one as I sped along the paths, searching for Lord Henry.

I found him at last in a small clearing which had been made about a marble statue of—  Actually, I have no idea of whom the marble carving was supposed to be a representation.  Some male worthy or other.  My heart was beating hard as I approached a bench on the opposite side of the glade—where despite the darkness, I could see a man in matador’s knee breeches and spangled coat sprawled back, his legs stretched out before him.

I had a momentary qualm—thinking that I was going to feel an utter fool if the man proved not to be Lord Henry after all.  But it was he; he had taken off his mask, and as I approached, I recognised him at once: the charmingly tousled blond hair, the boyishly handsome features which—though I had never noticed it before—concealed the weak line of his jaw.

He was alone, at least.  That had been my other fear, that he might have entered the Lover’s Walk for the purpose of some other assignation.  And he was also extremely drunk.  His head wove and his eyes struggled to focus themselves as he looked up at me, frowning as though he were trying to decide whether I were real or some hallucination.

“Hallo,” he said at last.  Slurred, rather; his words were even more indistinguishable than Ben’s at his most inebriated.  “Won’t you join me?”  He spread out his arms in invitation.  Then took another swallow from the engraved silver flask he held.  He tried to wink and—not quite being able to manage the effort—ended by blinking both eyes.  “Plenty of room here for two.”

“No.”  Coming face to face with one’s own past is seldom precisely pleasant.  I surely have learned that lesson well enough in these last months.  But coming face to face with this particular slice of my past was proving especially disagreeable—since I was forced to wonder how on earth I could ever have been idiot enough to be taken in by the man before me now—to have been infatuated enough that I had actually hoped to marry him.

Though I could at least console myself with the fact that I had
not
succeeded in marrying him.   If I had, I would surely have even more reason to repent of my idiocy than I do now.

My voice was still short, though, as I snapped, “I have come to tell you to keep away from my sister.”

Lord Henry blinked slowly at me, his head still weaving slightly from side to side.  “Afraid I don’t quite follow you, m’dear,” he said at last.  “What’s your sister”—the s’s in that sentence nearly undid him— “Whatsh your shister got to do with me?”

I drew a breath.  I had wanted to find Lord Henry alone.  What I had
not
accounted for in my plans was that he might be too addled by drink to take in anything of what I said.  “My sister is Miss Mary Bennet.  I want you to stop paying her attentions—stop dancing with her, stop seeing her altogether, in fact.”

Lord Henry gazed blearily up at me, and then he shook his head.  “Can’t do that, I’m afraid, old thing.  There’s the bet, you see.  Got to win the bet.”  He leaned forward and spoke confidentially.  “Can’t let old Squiffy—the Earl of Southampton, you know—get the best of me.”

“Bet?”  I repeated, frowning.  It seemed as though he really was too intoxicated to make any kind of sense.  “What bet?”

“A wager, you see.”  He tapped the side of his nose and looked cunning—or as cunning as a man is capable of looking when his eyes are refusing to focus in the same direction at once.  “Something entirely new.  My own idea, actually.”  The word came out more like,
ackshully
.  “Wagering on horses—that’s been done to death.  And so’s betting on bear baiting, cock fighting, boxing matches—it’s all been done.  No, my idea’s entirely new.  Each of us picks a girl who’s an absolute pillar of virtue.  The sort of blue stocking who won’t let a man so much as kiss her hand.”  He took another pull on the silver flask, belched, and then wiped his mouth on the spangled cuff of his matador’s coat.  “First one to make a conquest of his girl wins.”

I stared at him.  Feeling as though—

Actually, I am drawing a complete blank on finding any comparisons to describe what I felt.  I am perfectly certain that my mouth dropped open.  And my voice, when I finally found it, emerged sounding high and squeezed-off.  “You mean to tell me that you are attempting to seduce my sister as part of a
bet
?  A wager with your disgusting friends to see who can compromise a respectable girl’s honour first?”

Lord Henry blinked at me, looking entirely taken aback by my furious tone.  He had apparently reached the stage of drunkenness where he was unable to see anything but the perfect reasonableness of his own plans and ideas.  “Yes, what about it?  She seemed perfect, to me.”  He tipped his head back and laughed.  “Lord, what a born ape-leader.  The sort of girl who probably wears a—”