by Edith Layton
Lord Deal shook his head in sorrowing wonderment.
“What merriment those sorts of stories elicit! Even I’ve heard scores of them, most not half so clever, and still that’s not a fraction of them, since tattle-bearing tongues usually still in my presence.”
But, he noted, his own tales seemed to be having some good effect on his audience, for the girl had regained her natural color, and when he smiled at her and asked meekly, gesturing to her, “Is it such a damned spot, or is it the part of Lady Macbeth you’re after?” she laughed briefly, but left off twisting her hands and wringing his handkerchief.
“You warned me,” she said at last, softly, and then raising her eyes to his, she said so quietly that he had to bend forward to hear her, “but I thought you were exaggerating, only spoiling sport, just trying to make me behave according to your own code, and because I thought I was only staying on for a little while I thought it made no matter. But it does,” she said wonderingly, like someone who has examined herself after an accident and is amazed and disbelieving at finding a bleeding wound.
“It was a nasty thing to do, because it more than poked fun at me. Because believe me,” she said with a bit more spirit, “we make sport of foolish folks at home too. But this was more than that, it was more than unkind, it was as though by sending me those dirty feathers they were dirtying me. The worst part of it is that now I feel as though everyone has been mocking me, all along. How shall I know whom to believe now?” she asked as much to herself as to him, blinking in surprise at the query and paling again, as though that question was far worse than the incident which had prompted it.
But as it was a question which he suddenly realized that he had never successfully answered for himself, he fell silent for a moment. Then, forgetting his own struggles with the problem, he said that which he supposed was the right thing to comfort her with. Yet even as he spoke it, he began to understand that he did mean every word of it, that he must have resolved it, after all.
“You must believe in yourself, Faith,” he said seriously, “because you know you’re not a fool. You must continue to trust those people you feel comfortable trusting. Never give up the trusting. The worst that can befall you is that you will have been wrong in your judgment and might invite more insult, and lose a little more faith in the general run of mankind. But insult was invented the same day praise was. And disillusion’s only part of growing up. Bruising your pride is as common an experience in that process as skinning your knee is. You Americans do take a little tumble every so often when you learn to walk, just as we do, don’t you?” he asked gently.
“I think,” he went on, knowing from the ease with which the words came to him that what he was saying was more than exactly right for cheering her, it was precisely true for him as well, “that just as it would be absurd to give up learning to walk because of a misstep, it would be folly to give up on all mankind because of such injuries. Because then you’d be crippled in some wise as well. Likely then you’d find it that much simpler to become just as small and cruel as those you shun. No, far better to trust and be betrayed, than lose faith forever. Now, not only am I convinced that I might have put that better,” he paused to consider, “but it also illustrates what trouble that name of yours gives me. It wouldn’t have felt awkward in the least,” he complained, “if I had said, ‘lose Mary or Henrietta’ forever. But, then too, I don’t think I’d mind so much if I lost them, it’s Faith I’m concerned with,” he said, in hopes of seeing her smile.
But she sat quite still, her head cocked a little to one side as she pondered his words. He found that he was tempted to laugh and mention her characteristic pose to her as he had once before. He found that he was tempted to do far more. Then, because she remained silent, he knew that too many emotions were tangled in her mind right now. So he said lightly, “I know just how you feel.”
And to show her that he was not just mouthing an idle cliché, he went on to tell her why he’d said it.
It took quite some time for the duchess to convince her best friend that the exquisite gown she’d planned to wear tonight was unsuitable, because the only real reason (though if the duchess were persuasive enough her friend would never know it) was that it was far superior to her hostess’s own frock. The gardener and Lady Mary were horrified to discover that the columbines were past their best bloom and the stock in little better case, since both flowers insisted on shedding their tiny bells as soon as they were nicely settled into their arrangements. And so Lord Deal had time and to spare to tell Faith how he’d acquired his nickname, and discovered he needed every minute of it.
He carefully told her the entire story, leaving out only that part of it where he placed the blame upon Methley. That omission was not so much because he was noble or raised as a gentleman, as he’d halfway convinced himself that it was, but because, he came to realize in the midst of his story, he wasn’t sure of her feelings for Methley and didn’t know if it would displease her. And he discovered that he very much wished to please her.
He told her about Nettie’s painful ending and beyond.
To prevent Faith from imagining her ugly birthday surprise present that unique, he told her about all the gifts of horns, of antlers and rams’ horns, drinking horns and musical ones, all and every physical embodiment of the plays on words about the cuckold’s emblem that had ever been thought of, that had found their way anonymously to his doorstep in those bleak months that followed his having been given the name Viking. All of them, he assured her, had been long forgotten, but the name would be with him forever.
“So you see,” he said at length, “a foolishness of feathers, which no one saw but us, and which can and will be easily disposed of, is not the worst that can befall one by far.”
“But I never thought your name insulting,” she protested. “Indeed, it’s very dashing. Whatever it was meant to signify at first, you’ve turned it into a neat compliment by the way that you live up to the better meaning of it. Well,” she said, as he gave her an ironic smile, “it’s very much like what Mr. Kensington, who’s quite an old man and lives with his daughter down the street from us at home, said. You see, he told me that originally you English thought calling us ‘Yankee Doodle Dandies’ was the worst sort of slap. You meant it to mean bumpkins. We took it differently, and we’ve cause to be proud of it now. Truly.”
“Surely not ‘we’ English—I wasn’t even conceivable at that time. I mean,” he explained as she looked at him oddly, unsure of his point, “while forty years might be just a drop in the bucket for your Mr. Kensington, my parents hadn’t even been wed at that time. No,” he corrected himself as she began to color up, at last understanding his pun, “I lie. I was, for at least they had already been introduced by then.”
She thought he might be trying to get her off a painful topic with his jests and appreciated the gesture, if not the mode of it, but also knew there was one other thing she must say before he left the subject completely. It was remarkable how he’d sat and spoken with her and in the space of an afternoon made her feel she’d found a true friend. It might be, she thought, that he’d only done so to save her from self-pity, or to cushion some of the pain she’d experienced when she’d seen that ghastly “present.” It might all have been no more on his part than the courteous act of a gentleman who’d unwittingly witnessed a female’s distress. Whatever the spur for his gallantry and friendship, it was possible that they might never speak that way together again. He’d spoken of trust, but she could already feel that virtue ebbing away within herself. Still, there was a thing she wanted to make clear to him, so she battled with her misgivings and said all in a rush, “But I was trying to say that whatever the name originally meant in your case, there’s no shame to it. For you couldn’t help what your fiancée did.”
“Yet, I might have,” he said slowly, “if she’d confided in me.”
“Yes and then what?” she argued, as always forgetting both embarrassment and her place in the cause of justice. “Wou
ld you have married her? Would you have accepted another man’s child as your own? And speaking of trust, you might well lecture to me about it, but could you ever have trusted her again? Her ... her lover was still available to her. But what if, justly shocked, you’d refused her then? Why, there’s no guarantee she would have lived longer, but then you would have had much more cause for feeling guilt.”
This was so reasonable that he had no answer, but only gazed at her in dawning wonder at that entirely new and comforting rationale she’d given him, as she rushed on, “I think it wasn’t the sort of situation where you could’ve done anything right, even if you’d have had a chance to do anything at all. She was a weak creature of unseemly passions, and you certainly couldn’t help that.”
He’d been listening quietly to all she said, and his eyes had never left her face until the very last. Then he stiffened somewhat and an expression of disbelief came across his face.
“But no,” he said, shaking his head, “surely you don’t believe she was ever that? She loved the fellow, though perhaps she shouldn’t have, for a number of excellent reasons. He’d never have been able to court her honestly, nor ever had the slightest chance of winning her legally, and he’d wed another because he’d known it, besides. She may well have been weak. But ‘unseemly passions,’ Faith? What is a ‘seemly’ passion?”
“Why, I don’t believe there are any.” She laughed, and was puzzled when he did not laugh along with her.
“Well,” she said nervously, rising and shaking out her skirts, “now may I see what present you’ve brought me? Although you’ve eased my mind so much about that other wretched one, I think that alone is present enough for me.
But he did not rise to her remark, instead he raised himself from where he’d been leaning, watching her, and came to stand in front of her. He seemed very tall now, she thought anxiously, for he looked down at her from what appeared to be a great distance and for once there was no laughter in the clear eyes, and his face was unnaturally somber.
“Faith,” he breathed so softly that she thought she’d never heard her name spoken so much like a sigh, “do you think passion itself unseemly? It isn’t, you know.”
And then very gently, very carefully, and with great tenderness, he bent his head and kissed her lightly on the lips. She stood absolutely still, and when he’d lifted his mouth from hers, she opened her eyes to find him looking at her strangely. He seemed more perturbed than impassioned as he said softly, curiously, “You lock your lips against me when I touch them, does that mean you withhold yourself from me as well? It’s only a little thing, a kiss. Are your lips so cold because you disapprove of me, or of my actions?”
There was nothing of the ardor she dreaded in his voice, and he didn’t seem as if he were about to touch her again either. Still, she was taken aback. Never before had any man asked her about her reaction to his kiss, not even after she’d bolted and run away from them. If anything, they’d always signified they disliked the lack of kisses from her, rather than finding a lack within her kiss. But she’d never discussed such things with any man, not even with Will. All they had done together was to laugh when the embrace ended. Now all she could say in her great astonishment at his question was, “No, I like you very well. Really.” “Ah well then,” he said with a smile, “we’ll put it down to surprise. And try again.”
But this time he didn’t so much as brush his mouth against her lips as she stood frozen in surprise, for when he came close enough to do so, he drew back and said chidingly, “Faith, now what sort of new American craze is this? Kissing with the lips closed? I can’t think that it will become the rage here.”
She drew breath to argue his mistaken impudence, and as she opened her lips to tell him of it, he chuckled and then even as he breathed, “Yes, just so,” he kissed her again. His mouth was warm and extraordinarily sweet against her own, and she discovered herself leaning in toward him, relaxing in his arms as they held her with gentle comfort. Yet even as she felt herself stirring, she felt the familiar thrill of blind terror arising along with the excitement he began to make her experience. But thankfully, before it could overwhelm her, he drew back and looked at her again with something more than desire and less than passion in his searching gaze.
“Ah yes,” he said, and she thought his voice was a bit uneven, although his face had become unreadable. But in the next second there was no trace of anything but amusement as he said, “You’re right, it’s bad enough they send you feathers, but if I continue and someone spies us, they’ll be sending you little caps with Viking’s horns sewn on to tease you with. I only closed the door,” he said as he left her and went to open it wide again, “so that not even a servant could get a glimpse of that vile jest they presented you with. I meant it to go into the fire unremarked by human eye as well as tongue. And if you were good enough not to accuse me of closeting us together so that I might begin a seduction, the least I can do is to honor that trust, so much as I’m loathe to.
“But,” he said brightly, taking the large package and placing the slimmer one he’d originally given her atop it, “I think I shall be an Indian giver, after all,” and he paused to smile before he explained, “I find there’s quite a different gift I want you to have tonight. So I must go and see to it. I’ll study this barnyard joke before I consign it to flames, but I doubt I’ll discover more than how badly it’s been put together. Don’t trouble yourself about it. Whoever sent it won’t confess, and there’s little point of suspecting everyone. Let’s think of it as its author or authors doubtless will, as a bad joke spoiled further. I’ll see you this evening—nothing short of violent death will prevent me. Good afternoon, Miss Hamilton,” he then said as went into the hall. He bowed for the oncoming butler’s benefit, before he smiled for hers, and then he left her.
There’s nothing like a party with a theme to bring out the child in all the invited guests. Let a group of people already bored to bits by each other’s company discover themselves asked to the same masquerade and they will inevitably be in uproarious spirits and perfect charity with each other within the first hour of their arrival. This is because all the same old faces and places will have been transformed by masks and costumes and decorations to the point where the guests can deceive themselves into thinking every bit of it new and exciting. It’s the same principle used in the theater, where a length of rippling blue fabric can invoke an ocean, and a few bright spangles and a dash of kohl can create a Cleopatra from the stage manager’s maiden auntie. For there is scarcely a human who does not react to a bit of applied fantasy. And so the guests at Marchbanks entered the ballroom to discover themselves enchanted.
The flowers announced themselves even before the eye could take them all in. Lady Mary and the gardener had worked prodigies. Great vases, huge urns, even enormous cooking vessels had been pressed into service and filled to overflowing with blooms. Where Marchbanks had failed them, the village had met the challenge. A great many bees in the locale might find the next few weeks’ work netted meager pickings, but tonight the ballroom at Marchbanks was transformed into a bower of red, white, and blue blossoms.
The duchess’s wooden trellis, which was dutifully trotted out every season to decorate her every party, had not been neglected either. But this time, it had been swathed in streamers of red, white, and blue fabric and similarly colored blooms had been affixed to its well-worn railings. The punch bowl had been enlivened with cherry and strawberry syrups, a pale lemon ice melted into the center of it, while a few blue blossoms floated on its surface. It might not, as one gentleman sadly noted, have tasted like much, but it was at least a stirring sight.
All the ladies wore frocks that were in keeping with the theme, save for the chaperones and several mamas who never participated in anything but the gossip and eating at such affairs. Lady Mary wore white, with ribbons of red and blue affixed to her hems and sleeves. The perennially Incomparable Miss Merriman was dashing as ever in a flowing blue frock with a vivid scarlet overskirt.
The Washburn twins plunged into the spirit of the evening in bold fashion by donning different outfits for once, one of them daring to wear a blue frock and the other, white. But this was unfortunate, since it left an opening for some wags to recall that old scurrilous story, and wonder aloud in whispers and snickers as to whatever had happened to the poor Washburn chit in the red dress.
And Miss Hamilton, the guest of honor, stood in the center of the ballroom to receive her guests in a low-cut blue gown with a narrow panel of white which began just below her high breasts, and then gradually drew further open to disclose more white fabric as it widened to the hem. Lines of small red bows beginning modestly with only two bows in the first row, a few more in the one beneath that, then increased in number as the rows descended in orderly fashion, stretching across the gathered white material as the panel grew wider, clinging to the front of the frock like butterflies alighting. Her long sleeves were slashed open to show more glimpses of white satin held together by tiny red bows. The local dressmaker had earned herself more than commendations for her efforts.