Maggie MacKeever (11 page)

“Sara,” persisted the dowager, in case young Arthur truly was a mooncalf, and slow to take the point, “is penniless, though of respectable enough birth. If she ever marries, it must be to someone plump enough in the pocket that her own lack of fortune will not signify. Not that I expect her to climb down off the shelf! I trust you take my meaning, young man?”

Lest he displease the dowager duchess—and he was beginning to think “old gorgon” might be much too mild a term—Arthur dared not voice his confusion. He agreed, and then hastily sought to introduce a new topic of conversation.

But Lady Blackwood was not interested in Arthur’s journey, which had terminated at the Saracen’s Head, atop Snow Hill, even though it was an adventure for which she had paid. “A wise young man,” she interrupted, as with regal measured pace she closed the distance Arthur had placed between them, “would not hesitate an instant when given the opportunity to take a wealthy female to wife.”

The dowager duchess halted in front of him. “Wife?” Arthur echoed faintly, noting how the flickering firelight cast demonic shadows on the dowager’s raddled face.

“You are a very fortunate young man, Arthur Kingscote.” Even more diabolically, Lady Blackwood smiled. “A very fortunate young man indeed.”

Though Lady Easterling had not been privileged to view thecelebrated Catalini at the King’s Theater in the Haymarket, she was among the guests at a private musical party when the temperamental prima donna performed selections from various of Mozart’s operas, thus displaying a voice of extreme richness and powerful flexibility. Accompanying Jaisy to this concert were the Dowager Duchess of Blackwood and Arthur Kingscote. And though Jaisy might profess herself well satisfied with the entertainment, and the dowager bestow upon Catalini a flatteringly benign inclination of the head, Arthur’s frame of mind was a great deal less appreciative.

It was not the evening’s fare that dissatisfied him. Arthur was no ardent admirer of musical concerns, but he could not help being fascinated by this first glimpse of life among the Upper Ten Thousand. The elegant rooms were so crowded that several young man lay on the carpet with their heads resting in a positively Oriental fashion—or did he mean Roman?—against the cushions of the sofas on which their ladies sat. Their conversation, when the prima donna paused between arias to refresh herself, was no less engrossing.

Princess Charlotte, only offspring of the Prince Regent, had just married Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Arthur learned. The bride had worn a wreath of diamond roses and a shimmering silver gown; hundreds of people had spent the afternoon in the park outside Clarence House, cheering and clapping and calling for the bridegroom to show himself on the balcony. The ceremony, during which the bride and groom had knelt on crimson velvet cushions beneath candlesticks six feet high, had taken place at Carlton House. Crowds of notables thronged into the Queen’s House facing St. James’s Park to congratulate Her Majesty on the marriage; they came in such vast numbers that it had taken over two hours to progress from the entrance lodge through the colonnade at the grand staircase. Ladies had their dresses torn, gentlemen lost their hats. Meanwhile, the bride’s exiled mother had shocked all of Athens by dressing almost naked and dancing at a ball with her servants.

This, then, was life among the
haut ton?
Crowded rooms where one could find place to neither stand comfortably nor breathe, where one was pushed about and shoved and kept in hothouse temperatures? Even one’s marriage, it appeared, would be conducted similarly, amid a crowd of curious people, under eyes quick to note every
faux pas
and gaucherie. To Arthur it all sounded very grim. He was a shy young man, and, currently, marriage was not a topic which sat well with him.

Nor were Arthur’s spirits elevated by the other
on-dits
which he overheard. Beau Brummell, having been denounced in White’s as a swindler by one Mr. Meyler, had fled to Calais on the same day that notables had thronged into the Queen’s House; and all the town was abuzz over a novel called
Glenavron,
a libel published anonymously by Lady Caro Lamb against her family and friends. Though Arthur had no inkling of who these people were, of one thing he was certain: such goings-on wouldn’t be tolerated for one moment where he had come from.

The entertainment having ended, the guests thronged into an adjacent chamber where a long table heavily laden with choice refreshments had been set up. Behind the table uniformed maidservants presented each guest with his or her request. Arthur had no appetite. He fetched a plate for Lady Easterling, but confined himself to a noble concoction of steaming port and roasted lemon. Even the punch, despite its excellence, failed to soothe. Arthur was destined to be immolated on the altar of filial duty, and he did not relish the prospective sacrifice. In the gloomiest of manner, he regarded Jaisy, who wore an evening dress of rose-pink crepe vandyked around the petticoat. It occurred to Arthur that Lady Easterling would meet with the approval of his father, a bluff and outspoken country squire whose existence was devoted to country pursuits and heavy drinking. It occurred to Arthur also that his own untenable position might be blamed directly upon his father’s voracious appetite for life.

All the same, Arthur could not resent his father, of whom he was fond, despite the squire’s myriad character flaws; and no matter how he tried he could not enter into his sire’s undoubted sentiments on the subject of Lady Easterling. Fortunate, the dowager duchess had called him. Fortunate! Never had any young man been so lamentably
out
of favor with Dame Fortune. If Arthur failed to do his duty, his whole family would be made to pay the price of his negligence. He must gird his loins and screw up his courage and do the duty required of him by Lady Blackwood. Arthur ground his teeth.

Deplorably frivolous as she was, rag-mannered and of a common turn of speech, Lady Easterling was also kind. No sooner did she become aware that Arthur’s lugubrious aspect was casting a damper on her own enjoyment than she determined to smooth the wrinkles from his brow. Jaisy had nothing against Arthur; it was not his fault he lacked town-bronze; she supposed Georgiana threw them so often into each other’s company so that Jaisy might impart to Arthur some of her own polish. There was no accounting for Georgiana’s whims, decided Lady Easterling; the dowager duchess no sooner finished scolding Jaisy for contumacious behavior than she indicated that Jaisy should show Arthur how to go on. In this matter, at least, Jaisy deemed it prudent to oblige. She pinched her companion’s arm.

“What’s put you in a tweak?” she inquired brightly of Arthur.
“I
know; this sort of thing ain’t to your taste. I’ll tell you a secret: nor is it to mine! But it don’t do to say so to Georgiana, lest she get upon her high ropes. I daresay you wouldn’t like to see her take a distempered freak.”

Certainly Arthur would not enjoy such a spectacle, which was one cause of his current distress; Georgiana would doubtless do that very thing, did he fail to comply with her sly schemes. He wondered if he dared inform Lady Easterling of the dowager duchess’s intent.

“Come, come!” Jaisy chided, blissfully unaware of the cause of her companion’s melancholy thoughts. “You must not look so Friday-faced or people will think you do not wish to be here, and that will never do. Later, when you are better established, you may look as bored as you please.” Having dispensed this good advice, Lady Easterling beamed. “I know! You shall tell me about cockfights, like you promised. Easterling would never let me attend one—no, nor a bull-baiting, either!—which I thought very shabby behavior in him.”

If the behavior of any Easterling was shabby, thought Arthur, it was not that of Jaisy’s deceased spouse. Arthur pondered Lady Easterling’s probable reaction to his revelation of the dowager duchess’s grand plan, and at the same time studied Jaisy’s lovely, willful little face. She would not like it, he decided. Probably she would rip up at him, her partner in misfortune, and the bearer of bad news.

There must be some other solution to his dilemma, decided Arthur, in a manner that he freely admitted smacked of cowardice. He would pretend to go along with Lady Blackwood’s schemes, would show every outward indication of compliance, and meantime pray devoutly for heavenly intervention, and rescue from a fate the mere contemplation of which made his flesh crawl on his bones.

As he pondered that fate, from all current appearances destined to be grim, Arthur obliged his companion as requested with a description of a cockfight. Gory as this pastime was— and for the sake of the thin-skinned reader, there will be no description included herein of the gruesome havoc wrought on one bird by another with sharp spur and claw and beak— its precedents were long-established. Cockfighting had been practiced in England even before the Romans arrived.

Because Lady Easterling appeared so very interested inthe subject, Arthur went on to explain the care and feeding of the fighting birds, whose diet included wheat flour, eggs and butter worked into a stiff paste and baked, and hot wine. Daily massage was highly recommended, he concluded sagely, and a salve of fresh butter mixed with leaves of rue and hyssop and rosemary was thought to be most efficacious. “It is a pity this isn’t the last century!” he added, in response to Jaisy’s expressions of envy. “Because it was nothing for fine ladies to attend cockfights then.”

“Oh, yes!” Lady Easterling turned upon her escort a glance of such marked approval as to place them both temporarily in the good graces of the sharp-sighted dowager duchess, who from a discreet distance kept close watch on their progress. “And I should also like to make the acquaintance of Gentleman Jackson, who has a boxing academy in Bond Street, because I am a great follower of the Fancy, and John Jackson is known as the emperor of pugilism, even though he has fought only three battles in his life!” Arthur made a strangled noise and she giggled. “Silly! I did not say I would do it, merely that I
wished
to. But I hear music! The dancing has begun,”

With no little relief did Arthur learn that Lady Easterling sought no closer knowledge of a sport that had almost as adverse an effect on its exponents as cockfighting had on roosters. Tactfully, he refrained from informing Jaisy that he considered her sporting predilections not only most unsuitable for a female of her station in life, but also quite frankly absurd. Simply put, Lady Easterling was very much of an oddity.

Unaware also of this opinion—which, to her, would merely confirm Lord Easterling’s profession that his wife was not cast in any ordinary mold—Jaisy chattered gaily to her companion. The reasons for this conviviality were threefold: Jaisy was very much in charity with Arthur, due to his graphic description of the cockfight; she thought the sight of herself enjoying the company of another gentleman might strike jealousy in Carlin’s breast; and she had indulged somewhat more than was prudent in the noble punch.

This latter indulgence—another less-than-ladylike preference learned from her late spouse—had inspired in her a mellow friendliness. Arthur had been so kind as to explain to her a cockfight. In turn, she would drop a hint or two about the ways of the world. What better person to explain the universe than the lady around whom it revolved?

Jaisy did not think of the matter in those precise terms, though had the viewpoint been presented to her, she would doubtless have agreed. “It only wants a bit of resolution,” she said sternly, “to take the field. Throw your heart over and your horse is bound to follow. Why, look at me! I told Georgiana—or maybe it was Sara—that I would make an eligible match quick as winking. And so I shall, no matter what Georgiana says!”

Here was a topic near Arthur’s own heart. “What
does
Lady Blackwood say?”

“Nothing civil, that’s for certain!” Enchantingly, Lady Easterling pouted. “Kind words from Georgiana are scarce as hen’s teeth. She’s forever boring on about my conduct, and threatening to send me back to the country—and so she would, I’ll warrant, did she but think I’d go! But she fears I
wouldn’t,
and would instead set up housekeeping on my own, which would be very awkward for her, and which is why she don’t wash her hands of me! Take a lesson from my book, Arthur, if you don’t want Georgiana to make a cat’s-paw of you! How pulled-about you look. I did not mean to put you on the fidgets.I daresay Georgiana only wants to see you comfortably bestowed!”

The dowager’s notion of comfort, alas, did not accord with Arthur’s own; and Lady Easterling’s attempts to lighten his spirits had only deepened his gloom. In addition to her other numerous failings, Jaisy was also horridly headstrong, he realized. Wondering if increased acquaintance with the lady would reveal further defects of character, and fearing very greatly that it would, he regarded her.

Lady Easterling did not note her companion’s somewhat grim expression; she was craning her lovely neck to see into a room that had been set up for dancing. “Arthur!” She pinched his arm. “Look, there is Carlin! Walk with me a way, so that he may see us, and invite me to stand up with him.”

Relieved that he would not be immediately called upon to perform this duty, for he disliked to dance, Arthur gave Lady Easterling his arm. “Who is Carlin?” he inquired.

“Do you not see him? Over there, the superior-looking gentleman with brown eyes and hair. Oh, you mean who
is
he! Carlin is London’s most eligible bachelor, and rich as Croesus to boot—not that I care for
that
because my own pockets are very plump!”

Lady Easterling was
épris
in that direction? Arthur, among whose plentiful siblings were several younger sisters, recognized the signs. Immediately his heavy spirits soared. He would strive his utmost to lend assistance to romance, a decision that would have greatly startled his own sisters, who had tried on several occasions to persuade Arthur to emulate Cupid, but in vain.

“At home to a peg, is he not?” sighed Jaisy, as their steps brought them closer to the viscount. “A regular Trojan! Prime and bang up to the mark! You must promise not to mention Carlin to Georgiana, Arthur; she’s taken it into her head that my bold manners have given him a disgust, and doesn’t believe he can be brought to make me an offer. Which is all a great piece of poppycock!”