Dame Durden's Daughter

by Joan Smith

  Helver had ridden into Tisbury to pick up a pair of boots he had ordered before leaving nearly eighteen months ago. He somewhat shared his mother’s disinterest in the passing of time. As he walked along the street with the boots under his arm, unwrapped, he spotted Lady De Courcy make her daily exit from her abode and entrance on to the main street. His eyes fastened on her as a hawk’s upon first spotting a rabbit, and his feet automatically took him across the road, though he had meant to pick up some peppermint drops for his mama at the apothecary. Pepper­mint drops, new boots and all other extraneous matters fell from his mind as his eyes travelled along the lines of the modish gown that clung to her equally modish body. The parasol was never opened that day, the first time Milady ever went on the street without its protection. But her eyes were as sharp as Helver’s, and she recognized a Wes­ton coat as quickly as he picked out a Parisian gown. No slower was she to notice a broad shoulder and trim waist than he to pinpoint a high bosom and flowing thigh. They advanced towards each other and not a sound was to be heard in any living room but the very slight rustle of the curtains as they were pushed aside to give a good view of Act One of the drama.

  Helver wasn’t sure how he was to make her acquain­tance. Dogs were fond of him, and he had high hopes the pug would take a leap at his faun trousers, which would require an apology from the owner. If that failed he could always fall into a fit of distraction and accidentally brush against her and be the maker of apologies himself. That they should pass without becoming firm friends never en­tered his head, nor hers, either. But none of the ruses were necessary. While he was still two steps away from her and edging closer to brush her shoulder (the dog was heading off in the wrong direction) Lady De Courcy stopped walking and said in delighted surprise, “Well, if it isn’t Helver Trebourne!” The surprise was not quite genuine, for she had been looking through her own curtains for a week waiting for him to come to town.

  “Good day, Ma’am,” he said, lifting his hat with his one free hand and taking the last step to put him within touch­ing distance of her. He hadn’t the faintest idea who she might be; but he knew she was no local siren, so he said next, “I am surprised to see you in Tisbury, Ma’am. Lon­don, wasn’t it, that we met?”

  “Brighton, I believe, if memory serves me aright,” she answered and wondered if it was possible he had forgotten her. For a whole week he had been a constant companion of Bertie, her late husband, and herself. But, then, he hadn’t really been very sober for any part of that week, and what memories he had of the period might more likely center on a female named Audrey.

  "Ah, yes, Brighton. Visiting in Tisbury, are you? I hope you mean to make a long stay.”

  “Very long. I live here now. Since Bertie’s death, I am come here to rusticate.”

  “Bertie” rang no more bells than the fair charmer her­self, but this was suppressed as a matter of course. “Bertie dead, is he? I am sorry to hear it.” He wondered what de­gree of grief it would be proper for him to exhibit and contented himself with wiping away his smile.

  “Yes, three years ago. And Willowdale was entailed on his brother, you know, so I now am a widow thrown out on the cruel world.”

  That Bertie’s passing had made this vision of loveliness a widow was news good enough to make his grave expres­sion difficult to maintain, but still he could put no name to the lively face. “The world cannot be cruel to one so beau­tiful,” he said with a gracious bow.

  “I’m sure everyone has been very kind. Your dear mother has been to call, and your aunt Sara; Dear Egbert has been a pillar to me. But you have problems of your own, Helver, and I not offering a word of sympathy. I was so sorry to hear of your papa’s death. I shall miss that dear man.” She had never actually met the late Duke, but a corpse was in no position to say so, and she took him on as a surrogate father. “And how do you like being the Duke?”

  The woman appeared to know all about him and his family, and he was becoming quite embarrassed at his in­ability to remember her. How did it come she had not been mentioned at home? He muttered some banalities about the death and his new position and then said, “Have you been here long?”

  She observed his difficulty in recognizing her and de­cided to give him a hand. “Almost two years. When Lord De Courcy passed away—a hunting accident, you remem­ber how horse-crazy dear Bertie was—I tried a while at the Dower House, but really it was impossible. In the wilds of Cornwall, you must know; and when I came to Tisbury I said to Aunt Abbott, my chaperone, she calls herself, ‘This is where we shall settle down, Auntie,’ and so we did. In that little house there on the corner—just a tiny little shelter for me to hide away and grow old in.” A youthful smile accompanied this lugubrious suggestion.

  “It is Tisbury’s gain, Lady De Courcy,” he smiled back, reinforcing her name by using it at once. “May I do myself the honour of calling on you one day?”

  “We are always pleased to receive callers every morn­ing,” she told him and added to herself, “especially when they are eligible young dukes.” “I go out very little and would be delighted to receive you. I have few callers since your dear papa is gone. Bring your mama with you. Do give my respects to the Duchess.”

  He bowed, replaced his curled beaver on his head and walked on, feeling much happier to be back. Milady con­tinued her stroll but still forgot to unfurl her parasol, for her mind was full of schemes to entrap him. And little Bil­lie Paul, only eight years old, who was the sole member of the community to have overheard their conversation, was passed from door to door to be given cookies and other unwonted treats and asked slyly what the pretty lady was saying to Helver. He was able to give only a garbled ac­count, having centered his interest on the dog, but he was sure they were old friends, for the pretty lady was talking all about the Duchess and asking him to bring her to call.

  The villagers’ opinion of the morals of both Lady De Courcy and Helver Trebourne could hardly have been lower, but on the subject of manners both were held to be unexceptionable, the former for having snubbed them all and the latter for speaking and smiling to everyone whether he knew them or not. Therefore, it was not as­sumed by even the sternest matron that they had hove to for a ten-minute chat on no previous acquaintance. It had not been necessary for the pug to be unleashed, so Milady must have been sure of recognition. The next event to be watched for was the arrival of a crested carriage at Milady’s door, and, if that happened, the spring’s entertain­ment was secured.

  Helver was certainly keenly interested in the young widow, but her knowing his family, far from standing in her favour, was a detriment. It was one thing to carry on with a rackety young widow and quite something else to go calling in state with his mama on a respectable lady, available for marriage. This second course was one he had no notion of pursuing. Lady De Courcy was beautiful, friendly and possibly even a real lady, but he strongly sus­pected that she was open for dalliance. There was invita­tion in those amorous dark eyes, and a clinging gown of the sort the lady wore was not chosen to please the women.

  He went to the bother of looking her up in De­brett’s Baronetcy, and he saw her to be the relict of a fifty-seven-year-old minor baron and of no noble stock herself. He still couldn’t recall one single detail of any friendship in Brighton and assumed that she had made it up. Claim­ing a friendship with his father gave him a good idea that she was a liar because the Duke had not been long alive while she was in Tisbury, and quite ill at that time. Next he must find out how strong was this friendship with his mother and aunt. She could hardly have claimed to be on terms with them if it were not at least partially so.

  “Where are my peppermint drops?” his mother asked when they all met at dinner.

  “It slipped my mind, Mama. I’m terribly sorry. I’ll pick them up tomorrow.”

  Pained looks of resignation were exchanged by the Duchess and her sister. “Oh, that’s all right, Helver. I know you are too busy to think of me,” his mother re­plied. “I daresay I shan’t close an eye this
night with the tickle in my throat, but don’t worry about it. I can always take some laudanum if I’m still awake at two o’clock or three o’clock.”

  “I’ll go back to the village after dinner, Mama, and get them. Or you can send a footboy.”

  “Yes, I’d better send a boy, for I would like to have them.” It was pretty clear that even a second trip brought no assurance she would do so, if Helver were the delivery boy.

  a boy, for I would like to have them.” It was pretty clear that even a second trip brought no assurance she would do so, if Helver were the delivery boy.

  “The man came to look at the roof,” Egbert said. “Said the whole thing must be changed. It will cost you a pretty penny."

  “That is nonsense,” the Duchess declared. “Saymore would not have let it fall into decay. He always kept ev­erything up. It is only a few slates, I daresay. When will he do it?”

  “He is coming to see Helver,” Egbert advised.

  “Tell him to go ahead with it,” Helver said with an im­patient wave of the hand, for he wanted to get on with talking about the Baroness De Courcy. “I met a newcomer in the village today.”

  “He is coming to see you,” Egbert repeated. “He men­tioned something in the nature of hundreds of pounds. I could not tell him to do it.”

  “Yes, it must be done. We have to have a roof over our heads. About this lady in the village—Lady De Courcy is her name.”

  “You’d better see him, Helver,” his mother continued with the conversation preferred by the elders. “We don’t want a whole new roof if a few shingles are all that are re­quired.”

  “Mama, you have said the whole top floor is awash. It can’t be only a few shingles. The roof hasn’t been worked on for as long as I can remember. Tell him to do it—do a good job. This Lady De Courcy, she claims acquaintance with you and Aunt Sara.”

  This claim finally got their attention. “With me? Why, she said she was a great friend of yours!”

  “I think I met her once, at Brighton. Baron De Cour­cy’s wife she was at that time. But were you not to call on her?”

  “Call on her!” Sara gasped. “Your papa would have gone through the roof. He thought her common and forth­coming in the extreme. She used to wink and smile at him in church the first few Sundays she was here. Your dear papa was still dragging himself out to church in those days. I don’t think he should have done it.”

  “I thought she mentioned you had been to call,” Hel­ver said.

  “Is that what she’s saying, the vixen,” Lady Sara said in injured accents. “So that’s how she interpreted it, to say we were calling on her. I knew just how it would be. I dare say she put the grease on the street herself to trip us.”

  “I shouldn’t be quite so uncharitable as that in my view,” Lady Saymore objected, wearing a pious expres­sion. “It doesn’t do to look for the worst in people, Sara, and she was quite a good Samaritan to us. Only, of course, she is a common little trollop.”

  Travers smiled at Helver at this charitable opinion, and he asked, “What happened, exactly?”

  “Your mama and I were in the village,” Sara enlight­ened him. “There was a spill of grease on the street in front of her house, that little house there on the corner she has taken and painted the door bright red and put a new knocker on it. Your mama slipped and fell. She didn’t actually fall right down but skidded, you know, and wrenched her knee. Lady De Courcy sent out a servant to see if she could be of help, and as your mama was a little shaken, we went into her saloon to recover. She came and introduced herself, and gave us a glass of wine.”

  “It was very poor stuff. No lemon juice or nutmeg in it,” his mother added.

  “She was quite civil and said she knew you very well,” Sara took up her narrative. “But when she all but got down on her knees to beg us to come to call, despite our not asking her to do so (and she did some pretty broad hinting, too) one could not but wonder if she is quite the thing. Well, the De Courcys, you know, are all fools, and the Baron might have married anyone. She was his second wife, she says. She has the look of an actress about her. Those gowns . . .”

  “A stylish dresser,” Egbert said, knowing he was voic­ing an unpopular opinion.

  “They have no opinion of her in the village,” Travers warned Helver. “She don’t speak to any of the womenfolk but is on good enough terms with all the men. And for all she’s a Baroness, they do say she’s as clutch-fisted as may be. I can’t make heads or tails of her. What would have brought her to a place like Tisbury if it’s a match she’s looking to make? But she goes up to London for the Sea­son. Maybe she stays here to save her money to be able to afford it.”

  This came close to being the truth. Travers held a further suspicion that Tisbury had been chosen with Helver in mind, but in this she did her Ladyship an injustice. She had inherited a mortgage on the house; then, when the owner defaulted, she came into it and found it a useful place to wait for the Season.

  Travers was too cagey to hint to Helver that he was the magnet drawing Milady here. If he took the idea she had scrambled all the way from Cornwall to see him, he might take into his head to favour her with a flirtation. Travers had been dreading the day he came home smiling, as he was today, and asking about DeCourcy.

  “She is not a family friend, then?” Helver confirmed, happy to hear it.

  “If you call sitting in her living room for ten minutes to recover your breath friends, then we are friends,” Sara said. “That is the extent of our acquaintance with her, and let me add, Helver, it is as close as we wish the association to go. That house—she had it rigged out like a bordello.”

  “Are you much acquainted with the decor of bordel­los?” Helver asked quizzingly.

  Lady Sara never made a joke and never suspected any­one else of it. She answered in all seriousness, “No, I per­sonally have never been in one, though I should like to see what they’re like. But in the pictures in our illustrated copy of Scheherezade there are things similar to Lady De Courcy’s saloon. We only saw her front saloon, of course. A great many cushions of rich materials on her sofa—sat­ins and velvets. Strange globes on her candles, with crystal pendants hanging on them; but I think it was the use of purple and gold that gave the impression I speak of.”

  Helver formed a good idea of the garishness soon to greet his eyes when he called on Lady De Courcy, for what he had heard made the call eminently suitable in his view.

  Travers alone at the table read the workings of his mind and undertook to give him a warning. “She’s not the loose sort of a woman you might think to look at her. She don’t carry on with the men but for a little smiling in public. No one ever says that of her, and you may be sure they’d say it if there was so much as a hint of a cause. She looks like a dasher—anyone might be fooled by her appearance—but in my mind it’s marriage she has in her eye. Anyone who takes to courting her had better be thinking along those lines, or he might find himself in trouble.”

  Helver smiled meaningfully at his old friend and said, “Your caveat has been noted.”

  “Eh? What’s that you say, Helver?” Sara asked.

  “I said very likely Travers is right.”

  “Oh, yes, very likely. She’s as sharp as a thorn is, Milady. That’s what they call her in the village.”

  * * *

  Chapter 6

  Dame Durden did not happen to be in the village during the meeting of Milady and Helver Tre­bourne; but she arrived there not long afterwards to visit the library, and Edith was with her. While Edith went through the few shelves looking for The Divine Comedy, the Dame was told that young Helver was setting up a flir­tation with the widow. It was no more than she expected, but she did not mention the Duke to Edith unless she felt it to be necessary. The less her mind was occupied with him the better. Still she felt that when Edith became even more restless and irritable than usual he was the cause of it, and she worried. She spoke a good deal of Dorion Thorne that evening without receiving more than a nod
or a sigh in reply.

  In the village Lady De Courcy had no reason to be so reticent about her hopes for the young Duke. She plumped up her purple and gold satin cushions and waited for her knocker to pound. Her “Aunt Abbott,” who was in truth no relative at all, but a friend from the acting profession employed to give her countenance and an air of respect­ability, sat with her. The chaperone was a formidable big woman with a face like a man, even including a few whiskers about the chin. She was outfitted all in black bombazine, and from her fingers a bit of knitting was sus­pended. It was one of her stage props and had not in­creased a fraction of an inch in all the years she had held it. She had worked out a bit of business which gave a very good appearance of real knitting, but the wool did not ac­tually come in contact with the needles.

  “Now if he comes, you’re not to leave the room, Ab­bott,” Blanche said. Lady De Courcy was born Agnes White and commonly called Whitey by her childhood as­sociates. But on the day she went on the stage the name had been translated into French for purposes of elegance.

  “I know my role, Blanche,” the matron replied. Blanche was punctiliously “Lady De Courcy” or “Milady” in public, but in private no formality existed between these thespians.

  “I doubt he’ll come at night,” Blanche said. “I most particularly invited him to come any morning.” It was now evening of the day of their first meeting.

  “It’ll be a sign,” Abbott decreed. “If he waits till morn­ing, he’s serious; and if he don’t, he’s up to no good.”