by Joan Smith
“Do you think I really fool anyone? I hope so. No one would vote for him if it ever got out he’s an idiot. It was Henry Wotton who defined an ambassador as ‘an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.’ I think of myself as an ambassador from London, sent to Crockett to lie for the good of my party. And the party would be good for the country. Having some experience in rationalization yourself, I think you follow my sophistry?”
“I don’t know how you sleep nights!” she said, shaking her head and half-smiling to denote forgiveness.
“I didn’t know you cared, or I should have told you sooner. On my stomach, and you?”
She looked startled, and rushed in, “I didn’t mean that!”
“Did you not? Well, I don’t snore, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he added, pretending to be perplexed.
She felt obliged to be incensed at this, and assumed a pretty good imitation of it. “There is your puppet with the corn merchants. You’d better run over and slip him a few clever lines or he’ll be telling them he means to cut the price of corn to six or seven shillings a bushel.”
He looked at Fellows in alarm. “Oh Lord, I must go. Such a brief ray of sunlight as I am allowed at these wretched meetings of ours! See you at your aunt’s tea party tomorrow. Don’t let Alistair turn you into a Tory.”
Alistair turned aside, for this last was said in a loud voice as Hudson walked away, and Lillian was again back in the Tory group, neither pleased nor entirely displeased with the short talk. She became quite definitely displeased, however, when Martha told them on the way home that Mr. Fellows had particularly asked them to send a card for the tea party to the Ratchetts. She went on to say that it was Hudson who wanted them invited. As Hudson was now distinguished and rich and all the rest of it, Martha hadn’t a word to say against it, but wrote up the card and had it posted off before ever they sat down to lunch.
* * * *
The tea party was set for Monday afternoon, and that morning they were quite busy preparing for it. On a busy Monday it would be mostly ladies who were free to attend, with a few elderly retired males.
Miss Ratchett, the last invited, was amongst the first arrivals, for she had been trying to scrape an acquaintance with the ladies at New Moon for some time. Lillian didn’t have to be urged to make herself known to the girl, for she was highly eager to get a closer look at her. She was as elegant and pretty close-up as she appeared from afar. Her skin was clear, her eyes were bright, and other than a set of teeth small and sharp like a cat’s, there was nothing amiss in her looks.
Miss Ratchett proved to be an enthusiastic talker—and her talk was all of Mr. Hudson. He was “smart” and “elegant” and “a real gentleman.” Her own elegance proved to be merely physical. Her opinions and speech were common in the extreme. This was a great relief to Miss Watters.
“I never saw such a smart gentleman since I left London,” the girl told Lillian. “So clever and witty. He told me I was wasted in Crockett and should be in the City. I’m sure I’ve told Papa a hundred times we never should have moved out to the sticks, for how is a lady to find a decent partie in Crockett. Till Mr. Hudson came there wasn’t a smart gentleman in the whole town, and he isn’t planning to stay on after the election is over. There’s Mr. Alistair, but he’s so top-lofty there’s no bearing it, and now he’s dangling after Miss Monteith he’s as good as caught. She’s an elegant girl, don’t you think, Miss Watters?”
“Yes, I like my cousin very much.”
“Oh, she’s your cousin. I wondered what you were doing here. Mr. Hudson never told me that. He mentioned New Moon a dozen times, but he never said you and Miss Monteith was cousins. He’s coming to dinner, Mr. Hudson.”
“Is he indeed?”
“We’ve sent all the way to Bristol for Westphalian ham, and hired two extra boys to serve table. I wanted Papa to serve champagne through the whole meal, but Mama says it’s nouveau riche. Well, better nouveau than never, says I! Did you ever see such a quiz as that Mr. Fellows? A regular Bartholomew Baby, but he can certainly talk a blue streak. If he’s the best man the Whigs can put forward they shouldn’t bother running anyone, my papa says. And I told Mr. Hudson too, for he’s the kind of a gentleman can take a joke. Mr. Hudson says Mr. Fellows is smarter than he looks, but then, he couldn’t be dumber, could he? And they’re saying around town it’s even money he’ll get in. I told Mr. Hudson if he gets in it’s uneven money that will do it, for he’s spending a shocking amount.”
“Both parties are spending a good deal of money, I believe,” Lillian said. Her relief at their guest’s vulgarity was not total relief. She was vulgar, but also lively and amusing, and really Mr. Hudson did not appear in the least particular regarding vulgarity.
“I see you have a piano here. We have one too. I’m taking lessons from Miss Thistle. What a dowd she is! She wears the same dress every week. Look—there’s Fellows and Hudson just come in now. My, he certainly is a smart-looking gentleman. Look at that, he’s even speaking to the Floods. Whatever made your aunt ask them? They haven’t even got a gig or a pony to their name.”
Lillian was happy enough to escape the chatterbox, and went to greet the guest of honor. “By Jove, this is a bang-up do, Miss Watters. I could do with a cup of tea and a cake. We ate at the Cat’s Paw again—a wonderful meal.”
“The meat tough?” Lillian inquired politely.
“We had a brace of pigeons. Tainted, I fear. I felt sick as a dog, but Matthew says it was the third slice of plum cake that caused it. Daresay he’s right. A clever fellow. I’ll just bob along and make a few bows as Hudson told me to.”
Hudson had already made his bows to Lady Monteith and Martha and was circulating amongst the crowd, smiling, complimenting, looking like a diplomat with his ceremonial bearing, and leaving behind him a row of smiles and blushes that told a truer story of the sort of conversation he was making than his appearance suggested. Miss Watters was keeping a sharp eye on him, as was Miss Ratchett.
Lillian noticed with joy that he had not distinguished the girl with any gallantry. She heard him discuss with apparent interest Mr. Pughe’s gout and Miss Fellows’s trouble with preserves going bad on her. Mr. Porter’s cat was good for five minutes, its problem being that its hair was gone loose in its old age, and the poor thing was swallowing such a lot of it when grooming herself that she was getting colic. He recommended a dab of grease or oil for the condition, and moved on to the next vote.
Lillian was pouring tea to relieve Lady Monteith, who disliked pouring as it slowed down her own intake of cook’s lovely macaroons and petits-fours. Three-quarters of an hour passed before Matthew strolled up to her with his cup empty.
“Good afternoon,” he said. “What are you doing with yourself these days?”
“I’m surprised you find it necessary to ask. We have all been working hard for you getting this stupid tea party ready—and not one single man at it.”
“On behalf of Mr. Fellows and myself, I must take exception to that statement. We are both single men.”
“Not a single vote is what I meant. And pray don’t bother to point out that Mr. Fellows has a vote. I trust that even he will know enough to vote for himself when it comes time to cast his ballot.”
“I don’t think I need tell him that, but I will, now that you mention it, just to be sure. But you underestimate the value of your party. We have had six invitations to call and three to dinner. There’s a possible nine votes.”
“A possible nine new flirts for you as well.”
“Ten. The Whitlocks have no girls, but the Humbers and Dalmys have two each.”
“It is not just the votes you are tallying up, I see.”
“I have many interests, not least among them being attractive young ladies.” He accepted his filled cup with a smile, but his eyes were soon roving around the room, and before long they had settled on Miss Ratchett, “I see you succeeded in getting Miss Ratchett here.”
“Yes, as you most particularl
y requested it.”
“She’s an attractive girl, and her papa’s pretty well inlaid, you know.”
“A very wealthy merchant, I am given to understand. And she an only child too. Is marrying a fortune another of your varied interests?”
Hudson narrowed his eyes and looked prepared to be angry, but then smiled instead. “Not nice, Miss Watters. Upbraid me for my political machinations as much as you please and I shall endeavor to accept it with good grace, but don’t, please, cast aspersions on my personal conduct or I shall take it amiss. I keep the two quite distinct.”
“It seems to me you have mentioned mixing business and pleasure.”
“Oh yes, but not business and romance, and certainly not business and marriage.”
She looked at him closely, trying to figure out what he was saying, for he was regarding her as if he meant her to read some significance into the remark. “You recall we used the word ‘flirtation’ in connection with the young lady. With Miss Ratchett and her father it is business and pleasure, but not romance."
This was agreeable news, but Lillian had already gone on ahead of him, trying to figure out the nature of his connection with herself. The word flirtation had not been used, but certainly he had been flirting with her.
“Now don’t frown at me, please. You know we can only ever meet for minutes at a time. Let us not waste our precious minutes in quarreling,” he said.
“We’re not quarreling,” she answered, shocked at the tender tone of his voice and the look he was giving her. If this was flirting, it went a good deal beyond anything Lillian had been involved in before, and she had had more than one flirt in her twenty-one years.
“Good!” he said heartily. “We’ll quarrel as much as you like after this election is over, but for the present getting Tony elected is a big-enough problem for me. I don’t want to have to worry about having hurt your feelings, too. Have I? You seem awfully quiet and have been noticeably bad-tempered of late.”
“No, no. My feelings are not so sensitive as that.”
“I think they are, but I didn’t mean to rip up at you. Perhaps I’m more sensitive myself than this cowhide veneer I wear would suggest. Miss Ratchett does not misunderstand the matter, you know. I am not making up to her in any way that could possibly suggest to her a serious attachment. It is hardly even a flirtation.”
Lillian could accept that this was true, at least practically speaking, for Miss Ratchett had already said that Mr. Hudson had no intention of remaining in town. But why Hudson should be telling her was not at all clear. “I didn’t accuse you of leading her on,” she said, hardly knowing what reply to make him, but clearly he was waiting for some exculpation,
“Then we are still friends?”
“Yes, certainly.” She was becoming more lost by the moment.
“Good. How about a ray of sunlight before I go, then? A smile—just a little one?” he asked, smiling himself. She laughed in confusion. “That’s better. You have a lovely smile, you know. Notice that I don’t suggest you use it to buy us votes. And especially don’t feel required to use it on Alistair!”
After this enchanting piece of flirtation, he turned and walked straight over to Miss Ratchett, to spend a near-fifteen minutes with her in apparent delight that gave a strong hint of romance, whatever he might say to the contrary. And he had not spent five minutes with herself. Then he would go home and change his clothing . . . to dine with the Ratchetts!
He received no more of Lillian’s sunlight that afternoon, and after he had left his speech and behavior were subjected to a scrutiny that would have astonished him had he been aware of it. Lillian vehemently deemed him an utterly treacherous man. He would say or do anything to gain his ends, and if he thought he would receive no more quarrels from her, he was badly mistaken.
Chapter 9
The harvest ball, ostensibly arranged by Basingstoke and his friends, was much discussed and looked forward to in Crockett. It was to be something different from any party ever thrown before. Some genteel families assumed that the price of a guinea a couple would keep out the riff-raff, but it was not the organizers’ wish that anyone with a vote be excluded, so they gave away more tickets than they sold. The dinner preceding the ball, however, was limited by the size of the hall to one hundred persons, and it promised to be a more decorous do than the dancing afterward.
On the arranged evening, Fellows and Hudson called for the ladies of New Moon and the six proceeded to the Assembly Hall, where the one hundred of Crockett society were gathering, the gentlemen in their black jackets and pantaloons, the costume chosen by the whipper-in who did not wish to put the local worthies to the expense of satin breeches they would not be likely to require again in their lives.
The ladies, however, had no limits placed on how grand an ensemble they might devise. There were satins, silks and laces enough to equal the greatest ton party in London. Nine-tenths of the jewels might be paste and the pearls coated with fish scales, but in the candlelight they sparkled and glowed as well as genuine jewels, and gave the wearers as much pleasure.
Fellows had Sara on one arm and her mother on the other, while Hudson escorted Lillian and her Aunt Martha. Alistair and his whipper-in were present, for no overt political overtones were to be acknowledged. In fact Hudson had given him two tickets, for it seemed ungentlemanly to force them to contribute a guinea to the Whig cause. These matters were understood to a nicety between them.
Alistair accosted Fellows’s party as soon as they entered and made himself pleasant to them all. It was only Sara who showed any joy at this circumstance. She detached herself from Fellows with such unexpected alacrity that no one had time to pull her back into the fold.
“Has anyone else been throwing potatoes at you, Mr. Alistair?” she asked eagerly. Having the keenest interest in the campaign, about the only fact she had discovered for a week was that people threw potatoes at Mr. Alistair, and she thought it very mean of them.
“No, no, I am not so unpopular as that,” he assured her.
“Indeed you are not! I’m sure you must be the most popular gentleman in the parish.”
“I hope I am the most popular in the constituency, in any case.”
“There too. I am sure no one else looks half so well in evening clothes.”
The lady was so beautiful and so admiring that Alistair was much of a mind to remain at her side, leaving Reising alone to politick for the party. All through the two glasses of sherry preceding the meal, she inveighed against people who threw potatoes, till finally Mr. Hudson went after her himself and tucked her arm in his, to lead her to the table.
Mr. Fellows was too well occupied gossiping with Allingham and Basingstoke to notice her defection, or to think he was wasting his own time preaching to the converted. Indeed he was not preaching at all, but hearing with dismay from Mr. Basingstoke that he had been thrown over by his flirt, Lady Marie Sinclair, with whom he had long been waging a campaign.
“She has given me my congé, Mr. Fellows,” Basingstoke said. “I lay the fault at your door. It was you and Hudson barging in at Ashley Hall that aroused Sir John’s suspicions. I don’t believe he had tumbled to it at all till you went there.”
“I wonder Hudson did it, for he is generally pretty surefooted in these matters,” Fellows said.
“Well, he ain’t infallible, I suppose.”
With no notion what the word meant, and no dictionary to aid him, Fellows replied only obliquely. “The devil you say, Mr. Basingstoke. Well, unlucky in love, lucky in war, what?”
Mr. Basingstoke did not immediately grasp the import of words, but Fellows explained, “The election, I mean. Lucky in the election.”
“Oh, aye, the election—there was the casus belli between us.”
Fellows hung on his every unintelligible word, hoping subsequent talk would reveal their obscurity to him. “Aye, the cause of the war between us was politics,” Basingstoke went on. “Sir John, her good man, is a Tory, and I am persona non grata at Ash
ley Hall.”
Persona non grata was a phrase well-known to Fellows, from being so often one himself, but he did not quite grasp the other foreign phrase and was eager to do so. “So you and Lady Marie are at casus belli, are you?” he ventured.
“Politics—there’s your casus belli, but I daresay after the campaign is over she’ll let me back in. Amor omnia vincit, you know.”
“Just what I say myself, old chap.” What a clever devil he was, to be sure. Always a new twist to him. “So it’s au revoir to Lady Marie till after the casus belli, I take it?” Fellows asked, feeling that he had at last translated the phrase accurately.
“Au revoir and adieu, auf Wiedersehen and adios.”
“By Jove!” Fellows gasped, marveling at this long-headed wizard with the power of so many tongues.
Lillian and Martha were presented to this font of wisdom and were as struck by his words as Fellows, but in the opposite way. They were aghast to see that the “long-headed Basingstoke” was none other than a foolish, dumpy squire, cast in much the same mold as Fellows himself and respected only because he had got to university and peppered his speech with foreign phrases.
At dinner, Alistair sat across the table from Sara, and they spent so much time looking and smiling at each other that neither overheard a word of Mr. Fellows’s multilingual table-talk, in which casus belli’s and sine qua non’s jostled with caveat emptor’s in terrible confusion.
Mr. Hudson supposed there might possibly have been an hour in his career that equaled this one for sheer horror, but he could not put a finger on it. Between Sara cozying up to the Tory—and she was so lovely that she was much regarded despite her stupidity—and Mr. Fellows making an ass of himself, he was on tenterhooks from soup till sweet. Fellows inveighed against every morsel of food he ate, and he consumed a good many tasty morsels. He spoke in a loud voice down the table to Mr. Basingstoke, letting the locals know he had tasted better fish and fowl elsewhere, in London to be precise. And every bite of it made and donated by his voters’ wives! A silent glare from Hudson reminded him of his duty and he added punctiliously, “Of course, it’s very fine for such bad food.”