The Indian Maiden

by Edith Layton

  Although Faith might be gratified at how the house had been transformed in her honor, it soon became apparent to her that not all the guests knew precisely why this should be so. Gilbert North congratulated her roundly on her birthday and then told her that he thought it was devilish good and neighborly of her to get herself up in the colors of the Union Jack for the occasion. But when the Earl of Methley unbent from his great height to reassure her by mentioning that the lad could have as easily been insulted by the fact that she and the room were gotten up in the French tricolor, she laughed and agreed that it didn’t matter in the least. The room was lovely, her gown much admired, and try as she might, she could detect no malice in any voice that congratulated her, nor see anything but smiles upon all of the surrounding faces.

  Thus it was very natural, she told herself later, that when Lord Deal was announced she should feel her stomach contract with anxiety. And when she watched his graceful figure making its way to her through the crowd, it was only to be expected that she should feel her fingertips grow cold and her heart pick up its errant beat. For, as she convinced herself when she found herself so unexpectedly frightened by his appearance, it was only that the sight of him brought back the nightmare incident of the afternoon. Perhaps it was the artificial glamour of the night that accounted for it, but if it hadn’t been for his presence she wondered if she would have believed the shameful thing to have happened at all. So when he bowed over her hand and looked up into her eyes, Lord Deal found no welcome in those grave gray depths, but only doubt and confusion.

  There was to be dancing, there was to be a late dinner given, but all of that, everyone decided, should wait upon Miss Hamilton’s receiving and opening her presents. It was not that anyone expected to see anything very extravagant or unduly impressive given. This was not only because Miss Hamilton was a virtual stranger to most of them. After all, here in the countryside the guests had been cut off from all their favorite shops, and a party given on a mere week’s notice was considered to be impromptu in any event. But there was, as always in such cases, a great deal of curiosity about how creative or foolhardy one’s fellow guests had been, since half the fun of giving gifts at such affairs was in seeing what the other fellow had brought.

  But evidently such was not the custom in the Americas, since Miss Hamilton seemed unwilling to open any of her gifts. It wasn’t until Lord Deal suggested making a merry ceremony of it, he reading out the cards, Mr. Rossiter passing the parcels to her, and she then opening them, that she agreed to the plan. And so in due course, the party was enlivened by the appearance of several combs, quantities of ribbons, two pairs of gloves—one short, one long—a few fans, a gilt brooch, a pair of paste buckles, a small scent bottle, three ink wells (for foreign correspondence, the assorted donors explained), several packages of french soaps (for domestic baths, a wag volunteered), and seven different handkerchiefs, each successive one greeted with a louder groan. There were some more substantial tributes from her closer friends, who’d evidently ranged farther afield in their efforts to please her: a pretty brocade fabric-covered lady’s notebook from the earl, a fringed Chinese sunshade with a silver knob from Will Rossiter, a handsome little beetle with golden wings and ruby eyes from the duke and duchess, and an enameled sewing case, all over miniature roses, from Lady Mary.

  At the end of the spontaneous gift ceremony, Lord Deal suggested that the musicians strike up. As several of the gentlemen began immediately to edge or elbow their way to the ladies of their choice so that they could have first call on the first dance, one of the guests noted that there were still three unopened gifts on the table that had held them all.

  “Here,” Lord Greyville called, snatching one of the large ones up. “What’s the matter with this lot?”

  There was a certain grieved note in his demand, since the young gentleman himself had given what he deemed a perfectly nice handkerchief and was still smarting over the way everyone had greeted it with catcalls.

  Lord Deal coolly divested him of the package and placing it back upon the table gently said, “Why, these two arrived with no signatures on them, and so not knowing what to announce, I simply didn’t announce them. Then too, as it turns out, since everyone’s present is accounted for, I didn’t think it necessary.”

  While quicker wits groaned at his statement and Lord Deal bowed at their unwilling acclaim, Lord Greyville continued to eye the parcels suspiciously.

  “Didn’t see yours anywhere neither,” he muttered.

  This was undeniably badly done of Lord Greyville, since it was the height of rudeness to point up another fellow’s omission. But several eyes opened wider at this declaration and a general mumbling followed it, none of it so much in condemnation of the rash statement so much as it was in acknowledgment of the truth of it. Faith, of course, had realized it long before Lord Greyville’s unkind comment, since she’d been looking for the parcel she’d almost opened earlier in the day, and not seeing it, had found herself unable to stop wondering about what it had been replaced with, even as she’d been unmasking all the fans and handkerchiefs.

  “I had hoped to present this more privately,” Lord Deal sighed as he picked one small box from the table, and several ears almost visibly picked up at the intimate nature of his admission, “if only so that my exquisite taste wouldn’t embarrass everyone else.” As charmed ladies sighed along with Lord Deal, and the wiser gentlemen smiled at the deft way he handled abuse, and still smaller-spirited ones grudgingly thought it was only because he’d had to learn to do so, the gentleman presented the box to Miss Hamilton.

  He did not read the card aloud this time, but she saw it and read it to herself and didn’t know whether to laugh or weep at it. But he’d said “trust” this afternoon, he’d specifically recommended it, so she slipped the card saying “For our Indian Maiden” into her skirts and, taking one deep breath, brought out his present into the candlelight.

  At first, she only saw feathers, and it seemed that her heart and her breath stopped together. But then as she heard the other ladies coo and comment with delight, she saw it was far more than that. It was a stiffened blue silk headband, set at intervals with small light trembling aquamarine, rose, and crystal pendants. And there were indeed three feathers on it, three soft, silky curling plumes, set in ascending height from front to back. The first was dyed in graduated shades of red, and that plume swept back into the second which was purest white, which in turn drifted into the last, of clearest blue. If the band were affixed correctly, the plumes would sit above a lady’s right ear, and seem to grow back into her hairdo in the latest, most fashionable manner.

  Lady Mary played abigail and immediately set the band into place for Faith. No sooner was that done than Lord Deal took her astonished thanks and asked for the first dance in return. And as he led her into the set, he lowered his head and whispered so softly that the rest of the company, even those in the same dance set, only saw the plumes tremble from the weight of his breath upon them—but then, they would not have understood what he said anyway. “Use,” he whispered, setting the plumes to dancing, “that which cannot be ignored.”

  And then he led the American lady, her head held very high, into the dance.

  She had cause later, to hold her head so high for so long that it caused her neck to ache. For even as she stepped into that first set, the disgruntled Lord Greyville, assisted by a few bored, mischievous friends, opened the remaining unclaimed parcels and unearthed another feathery tribute, this one so unhygienic, not to mention unaesthetic, that the butler eventually had to set a footman to take it between two fingers to the trash. The other was only a long pipe of the sort that Dutch burghers favored, but it had been wrapped around with tricolored ribbons and anointed with various feathers as well, these however, looking as though they’d been pillaged from a pillow. In both cases the gifts were addressed to “The Wild Indian.”

  When the Duke of Marchbanks finally arrived at his bedroom late that night, he was shocked to find a note f
rom his duchess awaiting him, requesting his presence in her chambers immediately. A hurried consultation with his valet assured him that it was only the first week of the month, and as he had already dutifully asserted his husbandly rights toward the end of the previous month, he could not imagine why his lady required him in her rooms so soon again at such an hour. But he was never one to doubt her wisdom.

  Even so, he said “London?” with such great surprise evident upon his usually bland round face a few moments later that his lady fixed him with a look of great annoyance. “But no one is there now,” he exclaimed, consigning some ninety thousand unfashionable souls to oblivion.

  “Just so,” the duchess agreed, sitting back against her propped pillows contentedly. “And as someone is attempting to smear your trading partner’s granddaughter’s name here, it is best that she go there.”

  At that, the duke looked about himself furtively, though he ought to have remembered there could be no one in the rooms with the couple, otherwise his lady would never have made the ugly reference to the reason why Marchbanks and all their personal treasury was still in such good heart.

  “It can’t hurt Mary, she’s already got her pick of the cream of the crop. But tonight’s whispering and snickering about those hideous ‘gifts’ and the American creature’s reputation can do no one any good. It might well begin to rub off on even such a faultless girl as our Mary if it persists,” she said threateningly. “Slander smears everyone. At least in London there’ll be no one to notice, and since the American chit did stay here for some weeks, if she isn’t exposed to the ton for the rest of the summer, no one can say you haven’t tried. Then too,” she said slyly, “by autumn Mary may well be settled better than we’d hoped. Yes,” she said with great pleasure, “it was none other than Deal himself who suggested the plan.”

  “Ah,” the duke said.

  “And, he assured me he will be there in London too.”

  “Aha,” the duke replied.

  He gave his consent to the plan, and more. For his lady was in an excellent mood that night and willing to put up with a great deal from him. Because, as she thought later, when she had to think of something to keep her mind occupied while the rest of her person was being otherwise employed, the plan was both practical and pleasing. Mr. Rossiter would have to find himself rooms apart from them, a guest in town being quite a different matter than one accommodated at a country estate, since in the city a gentleman was expected to secure his own lodgings. Miss Hamilton would be in social seclusion, and Lord Deal, available.

  The plan was an excellent one, she sighed, inadvertently encouraging the duke to excesses she didn’t mind, as she didn’t notice them, being too busy contemplating the remove which would relieve her of two Americans, and perhaps, with luck, in time, even a daughter.

  TEN

  The remove to London was only marred twice by the American girl. Although her compatriot had the decency to blush for her, and her host and hostess retained their civility, however barely they did so, her younger hostess had abetted her to the point where she let herself in for a good scold when her mama finally got her alone in Town. For the journey, which ought to have been accomplished by dinnertime, was delayed so long by Miss Hamilton’s whims that it was darkest night when the family carriages finally pulled into view of Piccadilly.

  Then, of course, it was too late to send Mr. Rossiter scrambling to see to his new rooms, and it was only Lord Deal’s kind last-minute offer that kept the Duchess of Marchbanks from doing, out of sheer courtesy, that which she had no wish to do in cold reality, which was having to offer the chap accommodations in her own townhouse.

  The earl, who had accompanied them to town as well, had made no such generous gesture. But a glimpse at his face, even in the dim gaslight outside of the Duke and Duchess of Marchbanks’ townhouse, would have told an acute observer that the omission might well have been caused by physical constraints as profound as the mental ones the duchess experienced. Everyone knew that the earl’s own townhouse was let out each season for a fee to other families. He made do with rented rooms in a respectable, but less exalted part of town with the excuse that one man did not need so much dwelling space. That hypothetical thoughtful observer might also have realized that it could have been that he had neither the extra servants, funds, nor rooms to afford such generosity. But for once, the sin of insolvency did not lower the earl in the duchess’s esteem, since she preferred to think his lack of hospitality was due to a laudable disinclination to fraternize with Americans any more than he had to do, poor fellow, in order to wed his fortune.

  Not that she truly feared Mr. Rossiter’s attentions would turn Mary’s head; Mary was too well trained for that. The duchess had already firmly ruled the fellow ineligible, no matter how pleasant his person or personality, or more importantly, how full his pockets, since he had neither family nor background. There was no real immediate cause for alarm despite his obvious interest, since he hadn’t approached the duke with any offer. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry, forewarned was forearmed, the duchess thought, and a great many other adages she’d seen on samplers besides, because there was no question that the annoying young man had been monopolizing Mary’s time since he’d come to England.

  But, as the outraged duchess later fumed to Mary when she’d gotten her safe to her rooms, even Mr. Rossiter had been embarrassed for his countrywoman’s inexcusable behavior. And rightly so. Imagine, having to halt a remove to Town simply to get out and stroll about goggling at castles? And ruins of them too, rather than proper ones. Because neither of the attractions that Miss Hamilton had gasped at had a smidge of fine art, furniture, or treasures to be seen, and not surprisingly so, because neither of them had any roofs either. The only old families in residence in those ruins had been those of mice and daws, and still the girl wasted time on them, as she stood and gaped like a ninny.

  Deal and Methley had displayed the most exquisite manners, of course, both accompanying the chit so she wouldn’t turn her ankle or plunge off a battlement in her wanderings. And Mr. Rossiter had, of course, followed Mary everywhere, as constant as the shadow she cast on the cracked pavings. As the duke had dozed, and the servants snickered, the duchess had sat and fumed in her carriage. Bad enough that she had to put up with such behavior, worse that it had been her own daughter who’d ordered the procession to stop each time. Shocking as she was, the American girl would have had neither the authority or the temerity to do so, the duchess now howled, so loudly that her own maid, accustomed to outbursts, forgot herself so much as to visibly wince.

  “But Mama,” Lady Mary protested, “it meant so much to her. In fact, when I told Faith that we’d lived near to Old Sarum Castle forever, and had never so much as stopped there, not once, nor knew anyone who’d ever even roamed around the place, she was staggered. For Mama, there aren’t any castles in the Americas, not one.”

  This information silenced the duchess for a moment, but Lady Mary didn’t know that it was contemplation of her daughter as well as of the barbarous nature of America that stilled her mama’s tongue. Never had her daughter disputed with her before. It wasn’t much of an argument, indeed, it might not have seemed precisely to be one to anyone else, but it was so unheard of for Mary to protest a good scolding that it was as if she’d raised her voice and shouted her mama down and out of the room.

  The duchess had borne four children, three of them now grown, and those three, as she thanked her creator daily, males. So she had known her share of opposition in her time, however blunted it had been by years of dealing with a firm parent such as herself. Thus, she realized that the worst thing she could do would be to further vilify Miss Hamilton. The duchess knew very well that a child might do more mischief in defense of a friend, than that friend, however dangerous, could ever do to the child. She dropped the subject suddenly, refusing to utter another word. Then, stiff with insult and seemingly stung nearly to tears, the obviously wounded mother sent her daughter directly to bed.

>   The duchess refused to smile as she wished to when she saw the frightened glance her daughter gave her as she slunk off to her rooms. Only when she was alone did she indulge herself, because she believed the specter of guilt would make a good bedmate for her daughter this night. And then, thinking of beds and mates, she resolved to summon Methley to her house the next day to have a good long coze with him. And then again on the next day, to invite him to dinner, and the following day to tea and dinner, as well. It was obvious now that the more accessible he was to Miss Hamilton, the sooner he’d be able to take her off their hands. Only then, with her gone, would Mary return, chastened and obedient, to herself and to her mama again.

  But at an indecently early hour of the morning, before such a fashionable fellow as the Earl of Methley had even been shaved, Lord Deal and Will Rossiter paid a call upon the noble Boltons at their new London lodgings. It was then that the duchess realized that one ought to be quite specific in one’s wishes, since even the most well-meaning acts of providence could get the spirit of the thing right and the mechanics of it all wrong. For though it was true that Mr. Rossiter was now off her hands and safely snugged away elsewhere, at least for the meanwhile that somewhere was Lord Deal’s townhouse, and thus if the nobleman was to be allowed to pay court to Lady Mary, Mr. Rossiter would have to be admitted each and every time as well.

  The ladies’ riding horses having not arrived from the country as yet, and Lord Deal’s handsome sport curricle not really being suitable for four, the quartet decided to go for an early morning promenade to show Miss Hamilton her first glimpses of London. The duchess watched from her window as they set out, the two couples deep in animated conversation, Lord Deal and Miss Hamilton first, then Mary and Mr. Rossiter, with two maids following a few paces behind. Of course, the duchess admitted, the sidewalks were too narrow for them to walk four abreast, and of course, Lord Deal, as a native and a gentleman, would understandably be expected to partner Miss Hamilton and point out the sights to her, just as in all propriety, Mary would do the same for Mr. Rossiter. But they walked at so slow and stately a pace that the strange parade had an eerie uncannily processional air to it, and the duchess’s hand flew to her heart as she thought for one mad moment that she detected the distinct scent of orange blossoms hanging in the air.