Lord Foxbridge Butts In

by Manners, Robert

  She didn’t speak at all as she concentrated on my face, and Partridge was completely silent as she pulled out my curls and arranged them in a poodle-like pile on top of my head. So of course I felt the need to fill the silence, and kept up a steady stream of chatter about my experience as Miranda, what the costume was like and how terrible an actor I turned out to be. Lady Caroline laughed politely, but wasn’t really paying attention, as apparently making up someone’s face required the concentration of a surgeon.

  “Oh, but you’re lovely!” she finally exclaimed when she’d finished, stepping back to examine her handiwork, “But don’t look yet, you need some jewelry. Partridge, get my garnets, and the diamond aigrette. Come on, Foxy, lets get you into some stockings and a slip.”

  The stockings felt lovely going on, cool and soft and smooth, as did the silk slip; ladies’ underclothing is so much more sensuous than men’s. Lady Caroline helped me into the gown, holding it open so I could step into it, then sliding the straps up over my shoulders. The thing fit me rather tighter than it was meant to do, especially around the chest; for though I was quite lissome for a young man, I wasn’t quite as slim as Lady Caroline.

  Partridge returned with the jewels, and Lady Caroline put them on me, screwing the earrings into my lobes while the maid fastened the necklace; the earrings were shockingly uncomfortable, pinching the lobes cruelly, I don’t know how ladies wear them all night long. But then I was introduced to the agony of high-heeled shoes, which were a bit too small for me; though it seemed that they would have hurt even if they did fit, forcing the foot into an unnatural arch. I guess the discomfort of earrings and shoes balanced out the pleasure of the silken underthings.

  “There now,” Lady Caroline finally finished with me, and led me over to the floor-length glass that stood between the two windows, “Aren’t you pretty?”

  “Oh, my goodness,” I was amazed by the vision in the glass: I not only looked like a real girl, but I looked like a really beautiful girl. My hair looked a little silly, but the aigrette fastened on one side lent it dignity; my powdered face seemed featureless, like a painted egg; my eyes were lightly outlined with kohl, the lashes thickened and lengthened with mascara, and my lids were powdered with shimmering greenish silver; my mouth was scarlet, and the apples of my cheeks a delicate pink.

  I simply didn’t recognize myself, and it was the oddest sensation to look in a glass and see someone else reflected back.

  “Now we’re even,” she said, standing next to me and putting her hand on my waist, “You found me attractive in white tie, and now I find you absolutely delicious in this frock.”

  “I rather fancy myself in this frock,” I laughed, entranced by the illusion.

  “Partridge,” Lady Caroline stepped back and pulled me to the center of the room, “go get the gramophone off the terrace, I want to dance with Lord Foxbridge.”

  “Yes, my lady,” the maid-of-few-words retreated from the room.

  “Will you marry me, Lady Caroline?” I blurted out as soon as the maid was gone, “I’d go down on one knee in the traditional manner, but I don’t think I can, in this dress.”

  “You’re supposed to cough up a ring, too,” she laughed at me.

  “All in good time,” I replied seriously, “I’ll have to ask your father, and tell my father. But when I do all that, will you say yes?”

  “I think I will,” she said after thinking it over a bit, “But let’s not start all that this Season. I don’t want to be engaged yet. Availability is a great part of my charm.”

  “All right,” the maid returned and set the gramophone on a side-table by the fireplace, wound it up, and set a jaunty tango on the turntable before disappearing again, “End of next season, we’ll do it all formally.”

  “Good. Now dance with me.”

  “Can I lead?”

  “Not on your life, Miss Foxy,” she laughed and pulled me close.

  We spent an hour or so like that, dancing and chatting, flirting and kissing. And much to my surprise, I found myself becoming rather aroused; I think Lady Caroline was, too, though it’s difficult to tell with women. The whole thing was very strange yet very pleasant. But nothing can last forever, and teatime approached, so I went into the bathroom to wash my face, brush my hair, and get back into my own clothes while Partridge changed her mistress into a lavender organdy tea-gown.

  Tea at Buckland House, which was served in the Painted Drawing Room on the ground floor, was mostly a family affair; but there were a great many Chatroys in Buckland House that summer, so it was a fairly large occasion. The Duke was of course absent, since Parliament had not finished for the day; the Duchess presided over the tea-table, a magnificent matron with piled-up Titian hair and a pearl-draped bosom, assisted by her companion-secretary and cousin, Miss Gertrude FitzHenry, a less arresting version of the same model, with bobbed chestnut hair and a sensible gray suit.

  The eldest son, Marquess of Petterby, who’d been two years ahead of me at school, was also absent, having gone down to Castoris Castle for some estate business; but the other five Chatroy children were there: Lady Caroline is the second eldest at twenty, followed by the almost-identical Ladies Amelia, Catherine, and Eleanor, aged seventeen, sixteen, and fifteen, respectively; and the youngest, Lord Robert, a pretty stripling of twelve on his way to Eton in a few weeks. They all had the same exquisite heart-shaped FitzHenry face, but the Chatroy coloring of pale gold hair and crystal-blue eyes.

  And then there were a pretty pair of elderly female FitzHenry cousins from the Duchess’s family, some dark and lively male Chatroy cousins in their teens, and an ancient lady with a Bath-chair and an ear-trumpet who was the late Dowager Duchess’s sister. Pulled into this orbit by the Chatroy comets were a half-dozen outsiders like myself, who had been in company with a member of the family and were dragged in to tea by force of gravity.

  Quite a change from a quiet cup and cake in my sitting-room with Twister coming to visit once in a while. Lady Caroline set me adrift amongst her clan, since I knew them all (my Nanny was sister to one of their nannies, so we’d all more-or-less grown up together), and latched herself onto one of the outsiders her cousin Claude Chatroy had brought in, a handsome but somehow sinister-looking man in his thirties wearing a rather foppish black suit.

  I chatted with Lord Robert about Eton, allaying some of the fears his elder brother had instilled in him, assuring him that boys were not flogged daily as a matter of course, that fagging wasn’t that hard of work, and that though the baths were usually quite cold when the younger boys got to them, nobody had ever actually frozen to death nor lost any extremities. Then I was cornered by the three younger Chatroy sisters and quizzed about London balls, Eights Week dances, and the Royal Academy.

  “Foxy, come meet Louis,” Lady Caroline came and snatched me away from her sisters, explaining on the way, “I had to rescue you before they started taking actual bites out of you.”

  “I’m forever in your debt,” I laughed; the questions hadn’t been so bad, but my ears were ringing from the barrage of high-pitched voices, “Who’s the old buster in black?”

  “He’s not old!” she whispered at me, as we were now in earshot of the gentleman in question, “Louis, I’d like you to meet my dear friend, Foxy — Viscount Foxbridge, that is. Foxy, darling, this is the Marquis de Mazan.”

  “Oh! But monsieur le marquis is my neighbour,” I shook the man’s hand, amused by the way he winced at my schoolboy French. I’d seen his name in the register when I checked in, and had spent the next months wondering who he was.

  “A pleasure to finally meet you, Lord Foxbridge,” the man bowed smartly, “I have heard much of you, but we never seem to cross paths at Hyacinth House.”

  “I don’t spend a lot of time in the public rooms,” I said apologetically, “I haven’t met half the residents yet.”

  “You are missing very little,” he smirked viciously, then smiled radiantly, “But now we have met, you must call me Louis.”

 
; “And I’m Sebastian,” I smiled at him. Aside from his sinister mien, he was really quite attractive, with an angular face and liquid black eyes, thick shiny hair, and a mobile red-lipped mouth. I didn’t much care for the pencil mustache, but it didn’t mar his looks; the black shantung suit, the much-too-high collar and scarlet tie, rather flamboyant white cuffs, and very pointed patent shoes were a little too modée for an English gentleman’s tastes, but they showed off his figure admirably.

  We chatted for a bit, then I was drawn away by Miss FitzHenry, who wanted me to come tell the Duchess how my aunt was doing now her summer cold had passed; I happened to know she was flourishing, as Nanny’s letters had said so, though Aunt Emily’s letters sounded like she was being terribly brave in the face of certain death. I gave the Duchess a blended account, and promised to give Aunt Emily the Duchess’s regards when I wrote back.

  The party broke up shortly after that, the various Chatroys and FitzHenrys scattering to their rooms while the outsiders drifted out of the house under their own steam. The Marquis offered to give me a lift back to Hyacinth House in his gorgeous black-and-scarlet Bugatti roadster; I gladly accepted, as the day had turned sultry and the streets had taken on that nasty gritty feel that hot afternoons in London sometimes have.

  “Young Claude is quite the charmer,” the Marquis said after a lengthy silence.

  “He seems nice enough,” I shrugged, “Very handsome, all of Lord John’s children are, their mother is Italian. But he’s not very bright: his father didn’t send any of his children to school, so they tend toward silliness.”

  “Oh, but I like silly boys,” he licked his lips suggestively, like a wolf licking its chops, “They’re so... pliable.”

  “You’re not planning on taking him to bed, are you?” I was a little shocked, “He’s awfully young.”

  “Bed? No,” he spared me a patronizing glance as we came to a traffic-stop at Hyde Park Corner, “Beds are so bourgeois. And he’s seventeen, that’s quite old enough.”

  “Old enough for what?” I was rather fond of beds, myself, and couldn’t imagine what he meant.

  “Perhaps I should show you?” he suggested as the signal changed and the Bugatti shot past Apsley Gate and into Piccadilly.

  “Some other time, perhaps?” the way he said that made me deeply uneasy, so I invented an excuse, “I’m having an early supper with a friend, before going to the opera, so I have to get changed.”

  “I will look forward to that other time with relish,” he leered, making me even more uncomfortable. Fortunately, he drove so fast that we were in front of Hyacinth House in very short order, and I escaped into the house while he instructed a new porter on how to garage the car.

  “Pond!” I entered the service hall through a door hidden in the paneling of the corridor outside my rooms.

  “Yes, my lord?” he popped out of the tiny pantry in his shirtsleeves and a green baize apron, a silver teapot in one hand and a polishing cloth in the other.

  “Sorry to disturb you,” I apologized, “But I’ve just met the Marquis de Mazan, and I need to know all you know about him.”

  “I don’t think your lordship would care for the Marquis’s attentions,” he said gravely.

  “I don’t think so either. Oh, do sit down: this is your domain, you shouldn’t be uncomfortable,” I waved him back to his chair and sat down on the service steps, “No, the man gave me the willies after a very short acquaintance. But he does have designs on Lady Caroline’s cousin, Claude, who brought the Marquis to tea at Buckland House today.

  “I would recommend your lordship strongly advise the boy against cultivating the acquaintance,” Pond said very stiffly.

  “What is it with him, though?” I wanted to know, “He’s madly attractive, I was quite taken with his charm; but I found him repellant as soon as I was alone with him.”

  “Your lordship has excellent instincts,” Pond intoned, “an advantage which many others do not have. The Marquis de Mazan is a disciple of de Sade. He enjoys cruelty, inflicting pain, and humiliating young men.”

  “Oh, dear,” I gasped. I’d heard of such things happening in the darker corners of the world, but didn’t expect to encounter it at tea in a duke’s house.

  “He has abused three of the bellboys here in that manner,” Pond went on, “as well as two kitchen-boys and one porter. Some were so distraught over his treatment that they gave notice. Unlike most who practice sadomasochism, he does not care for willing victims. He likes the struggle to be genuine.”

  “Oh, dear,” I gasped again, imagining poor silly Claude bound and tortured and violated; I’d read Justine, and would hate for all that to happen to any friend of mine.

  “If the Marquis were not living here,” Pond went on, his hatred of the man bubbling like a pot of porridge, “I would inform on him to the police. But we don’t want any more police involvement at Hyacinth House than we can help.”

  “I see your point,” I thought about that: if de Mazan was publicly accused of forcing his unsavory attentions on members of the staff, Hyacinth House would be mentioned in the reports, and we’d all have to move out as quickly as possible before the Press got hold of it, “Still, there must be something we can do about him. The man is a menace.”

  “I would be glad to poison him,” Pond said grimly, “I’m sure to be able to gain access to his food.”

  “Well, I’d rather you not expose yourself to a murder charge,” I stood up and patted him on the back, “Though I’ll remember this poisoning trend of mind you have before I make you angry again.”

  “Your lordship is in no danger,” Pond smiled at me and went back to his polishing.

  “Good to know,” I grinned back, “I’m going to go write some letters. I’ll be dressing early, I told the Marquis I was having an early supper, and I don’t want him to find out I’ve lied to him. Six-thirty, say?”

  “Very good, my lord.”

  I’d intended to write to Aunt Emily, but I was so distracted by the information regarding the Marquis that I couldn’t get past ‘Dearest Auntie’; so I was quite relieved when the telephone rang, offering me an avenue of escape.

  “Foxy, darling,” Lady Caroline crackled from the other end of the line, “I just opened your lovely gift! The seals are absolutely adorable. Do you know the heraldry on them?”

  “No, I’m afraid I bought them at a pawn-shop in Soho, and the proprietress didn’t know the history.”

  “A pawn shop?” she trilled delightedly, “You do lead the most adventurous life.”

  “Says the lady with a costumier in Fitzrovia.”

  “Oh, Charley gets up to shenanigans in all parts of London, but Lady Caroline wouldn’t be caught dead east of Covent Garden.”

  “Speaking of shenanigans,” I changed my tone along with the subject, “I want you to warn your cousin Claude off of that Marquis de Mazan. He’s a bad hat.”

  “Louis? But he’s such a pet. Claude absolutely dotes on him.”

  “Is Claude one of us?” I asked.

  “Not so far as I know, but boys will be boys when they’re boys. Grecian romances are so fashionable these days.”

  “Well, I don’t want him to get hurt, and the Marquis is a devotee of another Marquis of some infamy, if you take my meaning.”

  “I don’t,” she laughed at me, “But I’ll tell Claude, and I certainly won’t invite him to dinner when you’re coming.”

  “That’s fine,” I replied, noting that she didn’t actually say she wouldn’t have him to dinner, only that she wouldn’t if I was also invited, “While I have you on the line, I was wondering if you’d prefer the Saint-Clair ring when we announce our engagement, or should I start shopping for something new?”

  “What’s the Saint-Clair ring look like?” she asked, practical and to the point.

  “It’s an unfaceted ruby, about as big as a quail’s egg, been in the family since the Restoration. Remarkable stone, but ungainly; Mummy had to wear it on a chain, she was always banging it i
nto things if she wore it on her finger.”

  “Well, I do have rather large hands, I might be able to carry it off” she mused, “And big cabochons are becoming very popular since Cartier did all those maharajahs’ crown jewels. But if I see something I like better, I’ll let you know.”

  “That’s fine. Ring me next time you’re going to the Green Parrot, I’d love to come along.”

  “Right-o,” she said in her Charley voice, “Ta, ducky.”

  “Ta!” I rang off and sat in thought. It struck me how I’d gone from not intending to get married until after Pater died, to being engaged to become engaged, in a matter of weeks. Life has a funny way of changing one’s mind about things.

  After a quick shower, I let Pond put me into white tie and went out to Brooks’s for a drink and maybe supper before hunting up a show to see. It was still fairly early, and the club’s lofty chambers mostly empty, but I came across Bunny Vavasor looking forlorn and lonely in the drawing room, and collared him for company.

  “I say, Foxy,” Bunny said after we’d ordered our suppers, “You wouldn’t want to go to the opera tonight, would you?”

  “I’m damned!” I exclaimed at the coincidence, “I just told a whopper of a lie to get away from a chap, told him I was having an early supper with a friend and then on to the opera. And you’ve made it all come true!”

  “You’ve always had the damnedest luck, Foxy,” Bunny wasn’t very surprised by this intelligence, “Too bad you can’t pick a horse for the Derby without it falling down in the straightaway.”

  “I still say someone hobbled that nag,” I snorted at the memory of losing a whole quarter’s allowance on a supposed dead cert, two years back, “But that’s neither here nor there. How do you come to need a companion for the opera? Get stood up?”

  “Yes, damn the man. I asked Twister to come, and he accepted; but then some pal of his in the Equerry ragged him about it, so he called me here and begged off at the last minute. Him and his bally reputation.”