by M C Beaton
“But of course,” began Fanny, but was frowned into silence by Mrs. Waverley. Fanny often argued that their cloistered life was a sham and showed a lack of courage. They had no hope of advocating the independence of women if they sat mewed up in Hanover Square and showed the world not only that they were afraid of men, but afraid of enjoying themselves.
“All frivolity is tedious to the educated mind,” said Mrs. Waverley severely.
“But you go too far,” pursued Lady Artemis. “You have three beautiful daughters. Why do you dress them so drably and allow them only one little walk in the outside world each day? Do you not want to spread your message among the ladies of the ton? Who has ever heard of you?”
“You, for example,” bridled Mrs. Waverley, remembering the blandishments of their first meeting.
“Yes, of course,” said Lady Artemis hurriedly, “but I am not in the ordinary mold. Would you not say so, Lord Tredair?”
“By no means,” he said gallantly. “Your charm and beauty set you apart from most.”
Frederica and Felicity promptly dismissed him as a useless fop. And yet there was nothing of the fop about the earl with his athletic body, beautiful legs, and clever face. But they had judged him to be the property of Lady Artemis and if he could favor her, he was beneath their interest.
“Now,” said Mrs. Waverley, “we have a treat in store. Miss Dunbar is to read us her latest poem.”
Lady Artemis rolled her eyes to heaven. “What a fascinating evening,” murmured the earl to Fanny. “I have never experienced anything quite like it before.”
“Serves you right,” said Fanny, looking amused. “But now that you and Lady Artemis have satisfied your curiosity, why do you not take your leave?”
“How can I tear myself away from such beauty as yours?” he said.
“That sounds like a plaster,” said Fanny equably.
“I beg your pardon?”
“When you rise to leave, my lord, I expect to hear a ripping sound as you tear yourself away.”
“Really, Miss Fanny …”
“Shhh! Miss Dunbar is about to begin.”
“I thought of this poem,” said Miss Dunbar, looking modestly down her nose, “when my watch was returned to me from the mender. It is entitled ‘On a Watch—That Had Been Repaired, Being Hung Up Again in Its Case.’
“Welcome, welcome, little stranger,
To thy neat and safe abode;
There thou art, quite free from danger,
There is naught to incommode.”
A snort of laughter from Frederica, quickly stifled.
“O! how often have I miss’d thee,
Sought in vain the time to know,
And still oftn’er have I wish’d thee
Back, to see thy movements flow.
Days, hours, and minutes, as they pass,
Thou faithfully dost tell,
And art a warning to mankind
To spend e’en moments well.”
All the ladies, except Lady Artemis, clapped enthusiastically. “What a gift education is to women,” mocked the earl, leaning toward Fanny. “It certainly is,” said Fanny. “There was a time when poor little Miss Dunbar could barely even write her own name. She has learned much from Mrs. Waverley. Her father was a brute and refused to pay a penny on educating his daughters.”
The earl promptly felt every bit as churlish as he was sure Fanny had meant him to feel.
There was more poetry reading. The earl hoped Fanny would perform, but she sat on beside him, sedate and unruffled.
Then Mrs. Waverley announced there would be a break for refreshments. Felicity would play for them. The earl sat back, prepared for refreshments such as they served at Almack’s, and for the indifferent playing of Felicity who would no doubt hammer out some piece like “The Woodpecker.”
But Felicity began to play a piece by Scarlatti with such verve and polish that he sat up straight and, almost without thinking, held up his hand for silence. If this is what education does for women, he thought dreamily, then let there be more of it, unaware that his absorption in the music had roused the first feelings of unease in Fanny’s bosom. Fanny was jealous, but did not know it. Before the arrival of Lord Tredair, the only man who had been allowed in the house was the music teacher, an elderly German of superb talent. But that stab of unrecognized jealousy made Fanny painfully aware of the earl for the first time. Here was a man who exuded a male aura of virility, making the high-ceilinged drawing room appear small and cluttered and overfeminine with its pretty gold and white striped curtains and its dainty china figurines. Fanny was glad the musical entertainment was of short duration. Too much attention, she told herself firmly, was bad for Felicity.
To the earl’s surprise the refreshments consisted of iced champagne, crab patties, cheese puffs, cold lobster salad, and thin wafers of Westphalian ham served with slices of near transparent bread and butter. He noticed that the three Waverley girls all drank champagne as did the three visiting spinsters.
Emboldened by the wine, Miss Dunbar, Miss Baxter, and Miss Pursy all tried to engage the earl in conversation. But he would answer their sallies politely and then turn back to Fanny.
Poor Fanny’s equanimity had gone. His presence was making her feel stifled and overpowered and sick. Her legs trembled and she jammed her knees together.
“Do you think I can persuade your mother to let you go about in society?” asked the earl.
“Mrs. Waverley is not my mother. I am adopted, as are the others,” said Fanny. “We were all taken from the orphanage—a very low sort of orphanage,” she added severely, hoping unconsciously to give him a disgust of her so that he would not look at her with that caressing expression in his eyes that made her feel so weak.
“You are fortunate. Where does Mrs. Waverley come from? I am not familiar with the family.”
“Mrs. Waverley is from Scarborough. Her late husband was extremely rich, and on his death she gained her freedom and was able to do as she wished.”
“I would not like to be married to a lady who regarded my death as a release from bondage.”
“Naturally, not,” said Fanny, “but that is how most women feel about marriage.”
“You must be quoting Mrs. Waverley. You do not seem to be allowed to meet other women—I mean, married women.”
“I would … well, I confess I would like to go out to a theater or a party, just once,” said Fanny wistfully. “But perhaps Mrs. Waverley is right. Gentlemen in society can be so cruel.”
“For example?”
“For example, there are many children fathered out of wedlock by members of the ton.”
“True. There are a great deal more fathered out of wedlock by everyone else.”
“But not in such a high-handed manner,” said Fanny desperately.
He smiled into her eyes. “Miss Fanny, I long to hear you describe a high-handed seduction.”
“Oh, you are determined not to take me seriously.”
“I take you more and more seriously by the minute, I assure you. Give me another example of the wanton cruelty of society.”
“Well, there was the case of Mrs. Comfrey, a widow who lives in Berners Street. ‘Tis said she snubbed young Lord Palmont at a ball. He dressed himself up in butler’s livery and went from shop to shop, ordering everything he could think of in her name, and directed it all to her home in Berners Street—even a coffin! The street was blocked for the whole day, and the hysterical lady was beset by tradesmen of every description, porters, medical men, artists, servants wanting places, until the whole of Berners Street was like a fair, it was so crammed with people and wagon loads of goods. Every police officer that could be found was ordered to the area, but it was nightfall before the poor lady could get any peace.”
“A childish joke, I grant you. But hear the other side of the story. Lord Palmont proposed marriage to Mrs. Comfrey and was accepted. She did not just snub him, she told him most cruelly, in front of a listening audience of fashionable
s, that she had changed her mind, he was not good enough for her. He protested. She went on to maliciously describe his physical defects, ending up by announcing with a coarse laugh that he wore false calves.”
“Oh, dear,” said Fanny. “Then, perhaps it is as well I do not go about in society, for the women appear to be as bad as the men. You yourself and Lady Artemis came this evening out of vulgar curiosity. Neither of you gives a fig for the plight of the modern woman.”
“Nor does Mrs. Waverley. I am persuaded she is secretly a timid woman who has bought love and loyalty from the orphanage and does not dare go about lest she lose her court.”
“I am persuaded you do not know the first thing about love and loyalty,” said Fanny fiercely.
His eyes caressed her furious face. “On the contrary, I do know a great deal about love.”
“I was not talking about either lust or sexual experience,” flashed Fanny.
Unfortunately, her voice had risen at the moment when everyone else in the room had stopped talking.
There was a shocked silence.
The earl rose to his feet and bowed in front of Mrs. Waverley. “My congratulations on the education of your girls,” he said. “Such wit and grace and style! I am quite overwhelmed.”
“Fanny …” said Mrs. Waverley desperately. She had not been able to believe her ears. “You must apologize.”
“No need for apology,” said the earl with a mocking smile. “Miss Fanny is as you have made her. How wise of you to keep her locked up. Lady Artemis! We shall take our leave.”
“Gladly!” said Lady Artemis, tossing her head.
Fanny sat with her head bowed as the guests left.
Out in the square, Lady Artemis looked up at the earl, who was escorting her across the square to her home. “Can I persuade you to return and share my tea tray?”
“No, my lady. I am going to my club to immerse myself in the company of men. But I shall send you a hundred guineas.”
“Generous of you. But I feel it is I who should pay you,” said Lady Artemis. “I am persuaded they are all frauds and none more than the beautiful and farouche Miss Fanny.”
“Perhaps. But I cannot remember when I was last so well entertained,” said the earl. He touched his hat with his gloves and strode off across the square.
Lady Artemis went slowly indoors. That was that. He would smile at her and nod to her across some ballroom, but unless she plotted and planned, she had no hope of being in his company again.
The evening had been strangely exhilarating. Funny, ridiculous, infuriating, but not boring. The key to Lord Tredair’s flinty heart lay with the Waverleys. He seemed to mock them, he had been furious with Fanny, but Fanny had kept her by him for the whole evening. So education was the clue. What had Fanny been talking about before she had made that dreadful social gaffe? The only way to find out was to cultivate the Waverleys.
Lady Artemis thought of her own conversation. Usually she gossiped, passing around the latest on-dit when she found herself in the company of women, which was seldom. With the men she talked light nonsense and flirted.
Her butler relieved her of her cloak and stood waiting for orders.
“Have all the morning papers delivered to me in my bedchamber at nine in the morning with my chocolate,” said Lady Artemis. The butler blinked. Nine o’clock was dawn in fashionable London. “And hire me tutors. I have to learn Greek and Latin. And I need a music teacher. A good music teacher. I want to play complicated and difficult pieces. And go to the shoemaker in the morning and bring him around here to measure my feet. I want walking shoes.”
“Yes, my lady,” said the butler gloomily, for, as he confided to the other servants, my lady was probably as drunk as a lord and would throw things at his head when she was awakened at nine in the morning.
The following morning, after the chambermaid had lit the fire in my lady’s room and opened the shutters and drawn back the curtains, the butler entered carrying the requested cup of hot chocolate and nine morning papers.
Lady Artemis was lying snoring, her mouth open. One white breast had popped out of her nightgown, and the nipple stared up at the butler like one accusing eye.
If he woke her and she found that naked breast, then he would be dismissed for looking at her. And yet it was forbidden for a manservant to touch his mistress’s bare flesh. The chambermaid was too lowly a creature to do it. The lady’s maid was in bed with the grippe. Problems, problems, thought the butler with a sigh. He took out a clean white handkerchief, covered his hand with it, and, leaning over the bed, tucked the bare breast out of sight. Then he coughed loudly.
Lady Artemis came awake and glared at him and then glared at the clock. Then memory came flooding back. She struggled up against the pillows, took the proferred newspapers, and began to read.
“Must be love,” thought the butler. “She’s fallen for a pedant. It won’t last a day.”
At two o’clock Mrs. Waverley appeared, but with only two girls following her. She found to her annoyance that Lady Artemis appeared to have sprung from nowhere and had joined them.
“And where is Miss Fanny this morning?” asked Lady Artemis.
“She is in disgrace,” said Mrs. Waverley. “It all goes to prove my point that the company of gentlemen is destructive.”
“To one who has not been trained in the arts of social conversation,” said Lady Artemis impatiently. “My dear Mrs. Waverley, if I may be so bold, you scuttle around this square like a mother hen. No wonder your daughters have become odd and unruly.”
Mrs. Waverley stopped so suddenly that Frederica and Felicity bumped into her.
Lady Artemis waited curiously. She wondered whether Mrs. Waverley had gone into a trance.
Mrs. Waverley was thinking deeply. Fanny’s bold and brazen remark to Lord Tredair had shocked her. She had been proud of her girls, considering them paragons of all the virtues. She could not bear failure and detected a certain amused contempt in Lady Artemis’s eyes.
“Courage,” murmured Lady Artemis, when Mrs. Waverley did not speak. “The Park is beautiful this afternoon. Why not promenade with me a little farther?”
Mrs. Waverley still stood as if turned to stone. She wanted to refuse. She wanted to berate Lady Artemis for having brought a man into her salon. But for the first time in years, she felt ridiculous and eccentric.
“Besides,” cooed Lady Artemis, “I did not come last night to mock you, Mrs. Waverley. But to learn. You appear to think you have a mission to educate women. Would you spurn me—I, who have so much to learn?”
Mrs. Waverley took a deep breath. “Very well, Lady Artemis. What is it you would like to learn first?”
All at once Lady Artemis thought of those housekeeping books that she could never check because she could not add figures. “Mathematics,” she said with a laugh. “But you will need to begin at the beginning.”
Fanny looked down from her bedroom window. She could see Lady Artemis talking to Mrs. Waverley with Frederica and Felicity standing behind them. Soon, thought Fanny, they would move; the snubbed Lady Artemis would go back to her home and the other three back to walking around and around the square. Then to her surprise, they all moved off together and disappeared out of the square.
She was furious. The first steps into the outside world had been taken without her. She would not admit to herself that most of her fury was caused by the unrealized thought that in that outside world somewhere was the Earl of Tredair. Fanny had been told to stay in her room all day as a punishment. She longed to run after them, to disobey. But at the back of her mind, there was always the fear that Mrs. Waverley might send her back to the orphanage. Well, she could hardly send a great nineteen-year-old back there, but she could just send her away.
Fanny wanted to rebel, but she was not ready yet.
***
The Earl of Tredair was sitting in his club in the coffee room, reading the newspapers. He liked his club. He liked it best during the day when it had a cathedral-like hu
sh and the gentle, dismal peace of one great communal hangover dwelt in the high-ceilinged rooms.
His peace was disturbed by the arrival of his friend, the Honorable John Fordyce who plumped himself down in a chair opposite and exclaimed, “I have seen a most odd sight.”
“What?” asked the earl irritably. “Some freak? The man with the two-headed cow?”
“Better than that. I crossed the Park a short time ago, and there, under a tree on a park bench, I saw the beautiful Lady Artemis. She was seated beside a fat, dowdy matron and two drab schoolgirls, and you will never guess what she was doing.”
“No, I can’t guess. Put me out of my misery.”
“She was reciting her multiplication tables—you know, like in a schoolroom, with the fat woman and the girls chanting along with her. Two times two is four and all that.”
“Two schoolgirls,” said the earl slowly. “Not three?”
“No, two. And Lady Artemis …”
“Was one of the girls divinely fair?”
“No, I tell you, just two drab little girls and I could not tell the color of their hair, for they wore the ugliest bonnets I have ever seen.”
“So fair Fanny’s probably in disgrace,” mused the earl aloud. “Good! Serves her right.”
“What are you talking about? Do you know such people?”
“I know a surprising number of oddities,” said the earl, and changed the subject.
Chapter Three
The Earl of Tredair had hit on the correct reason for Mrs. Waverley’s seclusion. She was at heart a timid woman who not only feared the world of men, but the rest of the world at large. She had used her great wealth to buy herself companionship in the shape of the three girls and to buy the house in Hanover Square to keep all the things she feared at bay.
She was herself a highly educated woman with a gift for teaching. Despite the fact that Lady Artemis was using Mrs. Waverley in order to see the Earl of Tredair again, that frivolous creature of society had to admit to a certain feeling of exhilaration as the days passed and the lessons continued and all those mysterious figures began to make sense.