Felicity Carrol and the Perilous Pursuit

by Patricia Marcantonio

  “Don’t you want to marry?” Helen had asked Felicity on the way to Wheaton House.

  “I must first fall in love.” Felicity sat back in the carriage and closed her eyes. “And he would have to be something special. He must be intelligent and accepting of who I am.”

  “That’s a start.”

  Felicity had caught herself sounding as daft as the silly girls she detested. She sat up and opened her eyes. “That kind of romantic love can wait for the time being. There is much more to learn about life.”

  “Such as, Miss Felicity?”

  “That is what I am hoping to find out, Hellie.”

  “Mark my word, young lady, one day Cupid’s arrow will hit you,” Helen said.

  “Not if I duck,” she had replied.

  As the ball twirled and eddied around her, Felicity glanced at her watch. She had been there for an hour, but the time had dragged on for what felt like a millennium. Then she spotted a young man talking with a group of men and women. Wavy brown hair was swept over a face solid with poise and promise. She guessed him to be in his late twenties. From his comportment, this man was a titled noble. She would wager her father’s money on it. Straight back. Expensive clothing. Taller than the rest of the men in his party, as if he ruled over them. He could have posed for one of those familiar portraits she had seen in many an art gallery. A painting of a young king, vying for greatness, even Arthur himself. All right, yes, he was striking. Never had she witnessed such confidence in a person.

  Standing near her, a group of young women also watched the young man. Their faces reminded Felicity of lionesses hunting a gazelle.

  “He is a catch. Handsome. Rich. Everything a lady requires in a husband, and much more,” said a young woman with a massive pile of curls atop her head.

  “One of England’s most desired bachelors,” remarked another, fiercely fanning herself.

  “Yes, indeed he is, but who will catch him?” said another young woman.

  “I hope it’s me,” one of their companions added, inciting giggles from all of them.

  The young man took up the hand of a lovely girl in his party and danced away. Not surprisingly, he was an excellent dancer.

  “Goodbye, Prince Charming,” Felicity whispered to herself, and laughed.

  “Miss Carrol.”

  Felicity spun about. Lindsay Wheaton Junior stood in front of her. The young man was slender like his father, with wide-set eyes behind round spectacles. She had met him several times at teas, hunts, and other societal functions. Felicity inwardly moaned whenever she saw him. Compared to Lindsay Junior, a lazy Sunday afternoon in the country was downright thrilling. She suspected his only interest in her arose from the sizable dowry her father would pay. The Wheatons were wealthy but not as wealthy as her father.

  “How lovely to see you again.” He kissed her hand.

  She was happy she had worn gloves.

  Young Wheaton started in on the only topic he liked to talk about—his horses. He called science a threat to civilization, novels a waste of paper and ink, and history a dead subject. He read only sporting magazines and business journals. That alone would have been reason enough for Felicity to avoid him.

  “Let’s go look at the garden, shall we? It is spectacular this time of year.” He held out his arm for her to take.

  Although she didn’t consider herself much of a romantic, this man exuded as much ardor as a greasy piece of mutton. Wheaton Junior led her to the balcony and relative quiet away from the ball. The garden turned out to be more humdrum than impressive. Possibly it looked better in the day, Felicity thought, giving him the benefit of the doubt.

  “I am mindful we have only met a few times and at social events, but I feel you would make me a superlative wife,” Wheaton said.

  “What did you say?”

  “Our marriage. Your father and my family have entered into discussions.”

  Felicity bit her lip and tasted blood.

  He patted her hand. “Sometime next spring. Spring weddings are always nice.”

  Her ears roared like the ocean battering the coast. “Marriage is simply impossible. Not in the spring. Not ever.” Her jaw was clutched so tight in anger she was surprised she could speak.

  His familial reserve didn’t change. “Many marriages are made from less.”

  “We have less than nothing. Nothing at all in common. Let me amend my statement. The only thing we have in common is residing on the same island.”

  He flicked a hint of lint off his lapel. “We could learn affection. Many couples do. The advantages outweigh the emotion.”

  She licked her lips. Her hands became silk-covered fists. “What do you even like about me other than my sure-to-be-huge dowry?” She gave the sweetest of smiles.

  “You are very beautiful and clever, from what I have observed.”

  Her mouth dried from the shame.

  “Anything wrong, my dear?”

  “Only that I have allowed myself to be put on display again. Like a heifer at a county fair for auction to the highest bidder.”

  “A heifer?” Young Wheaton’s face hardened with puzzlement.

  “Yes, a heifer with a price tag. I am leaving, Mr. Wheaton. Thank you for the trifling evening, and one more word.”

  “Yes?”

  “Moooo.” Her imitation was a good one.

  On their way back to Carrol Manor, Helen did not talk, which was another reason Felicity loved her. Helen let Felicity be silent when she wanted to be. Besides, Helen had probably already guessed how the evening had turned out when Felicity found her sitting with the other chaperones. Felicity had announced, “Time to go home” in the manner of a person who wanted to escape Hades.

  Halfway to the manor, Felicity did tell Helen what had transpired with Wheaton Junior.

  “I had no idea about the marriage discussion, Miss, honestly I didn’t,” Helen said, panic wavering her voice.

  “I believe you, Hellie. My father doesn’t discuss business deals with anyone but his solicitor. Both of us were left out of those talks.”

  At the manor, Felicity told Helen she was going to take a walk.

  “So late, Miss?”

  “I have much to think about.”

  Helen nodded and went into the house.

  Wearing her ball gown, Felicity ambled along the pasture and through meadows and the thick woods on the estate. The resplendent full moon escorted her and lit her way, although she knew every step. Above in the branches, fat olive-colored willow warblers blew their short bursts of whistles.

  She ended up at her most treasured spot on the estate. A large, oval-shaped lake two miles from the house. Maples and elms encircled the lake, giving the setting immeasurable peace. In the middle of the lake was a small island with a wooden pavilion and, under that, a stone bench. Around the pavilion and bordered by a line of stones were wildflowers that returned each spring and summer with regularity. Gooseberry bushes reaching up to her waist dotted the island. They offered delicious berries once she got past the sharp spines. Fairies and magic dwelled among the foliage and hid behind the pavilion, or so she had believed when she was young.

  Felicity stood alone on the shore of the lake. Much of her childhood had been spent alone. No siblings, no mother, and a father who barely spoke to her. In their place were tutors, maids, a governess, and Helen Wilkins. With Carrol Manor several miles from any neighbors, Felicity had had no young playmates. By nine years old, she had counted as her friends the characters in the books in the manor’s massive library. She could rely on them to never change or desert her. Tales of adventure and wonder were her favorites. She would row out to the island with a pocketful of biscuits and an armful of books to charge her imagination. After reading tales by Jules Verne, she would glance up and wish she was heading to the moon, circling the globe in a balloon, or leagues under the sea with Captain Nemo. Other times, she envisioned herself hunting treasure with Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

  She loved the tales of King Arth
ur and his knights fighting for good against evil. She would always study the surface of the water in hopes of seeing the Lady of the Lake holding up Excalibur for Arthur. In her childhood visions, the Lady had long flowing yellow hair and wide blue eyes. A small faultless smile in a face like a lily, always blooming. The vision was much like that of her mother in the portrait hanging in the library. Felicity wanted to believe that her late mother hadn’t gone to heaven at all but rather had transformed into a spirit living deep in the water. Her own Lady of the Lake to send her on to her destiny as Nimue did young Arthur. Perhaps not with the gift of Excalibur, but with bravery and endurance.

  Now, as an adult, Felicity studied the lake, which was fluid gold in the moonlight. She had not been bothered by her loneliness for a long time. Until tonight. The downheartedness had nothing at all to do with lack of a husband or dispatching the advances of young Lindsay Wheaton. In fact, she was especially joyful about the latter. Mostly, Felicity felt distanced from the world of Carrol Manor, her father’s world, and his expectations for her.

  The water lapped at the hem of her gown as rhythmically as a heartbeat. The lake’s waves resembled undulating black fabric. She smiled and narrowed her eyes, seeking a sword to appear out of the water, or at the very least, for some magic in a world with very little.

  When none appeared, Felicity tapped the mud from her black ball slippers and headed back to the house.

  * * *

  At eight the next morning, Felicity and John Ryan stood in front of the burnt skeleton of the east wing. Unlike her feelings for Horace Wilkins, who supervised the domestic staff, Felicity enjoyed Ryan’s company. With a sense of humor robust as his frame and thick white hair, he had a habit of hiking up his pants as if he had someplace to go.

  “Miss Felicity, you probably should leave science to Thomas Edison,” Ryan said.

  “Are you suggesting I take up needlepoint, Mr. Ryan?”

  “Aye.”

  She laughed. “I’m sure even Mr. Edison had a few mishaps when he started out.”

  “Like burning down his laboratory?” Ryan said.

  “Perhaps not. But what say we build my new laboratory a distance from the house in case any of my science goes awry. My father can decide whether he wants to rebuild the wing. Maybe he will collect French art this time.”

  “I’m sure he will. By the way, happy birthday, Miss Felicity.”

  She scratched her chin. “Twenty years of age. Anywhere in the British Empire, I would be declared an official spinster.”

  “Begging your pardon, Miss, but if you’re a spinster, I’m the king of Sweden.” He bowed and went about his duties.

  In one of the smaller dining rooms, Wilkins supervised preparations for her breakfast. Standing near the door, he motioned for another servant to spoon out poached eggs from a silver serving dish on the sideboard and serve them to Felicity, who sat at the head of a long table. Fruit and toast had already been placed in front of her, along with an ironed copy of The Times.

  Wilkins approached the table. “Everything satisfactory, Miss?”

  “Up to your outstanding standards, Mr. Wilkins.”

  The head butler returned to his place by the door, every movement performed with self-possession. Complete with a facade of metal, he was a tin soldier who treated her with respectful disdain even though she was the only child of his employer. At a younger age, Felicity had been terrified of Wilkins and had run in the opposite direction at the sound of his clipped footsteps. These days, she and the head butler lived in a state of mutual tolerance, and not by her choice.

  Before eating, she placed her hands on the table. “Mr. Wilkins, about last night.”

  “Miss?”

  “I did not mean to take lightly the destruction of my father’s artwork. I realize what they meant to him and in what high regard you hold my father.”

  His nod was imperceptible. “Anything else you require, Miss?”

  She was a child once again. “No, thank you.”

  He bowed and left without a hitch in his crisp manner. Felicity sighed at the snubbing of her olive branch.

  Starting in on her eggs, she opened the Times. Assimilating information like a dry cloth thrown into water, she recalled whatever she read, and she read a lot. At one time, she had believed this ability cast her as even more of an outsider in society, until she had accepted that it was, in fact, a gift. The words she read came to her when she needed them. She would pick facts and details like daisies in an abundant garden. Politics, economics, science, business, world events, crime. Felicity took satisfaction in her interest in everything except being a proper young lady of English society. She didn’t tap her accumulated information at the social functions she attended at her father’s request. The conversations of the young women there always centered—as they had at the ball the previous evening—on the latest fashion and empty gossip. When she attempted to join the more stimulating chat of the gentlemen, the men spread out as if she carried the plague on her white gloves.

  As she cut a piece of ham with a knife, her eyes were drawn to an item on the front page.

  EARL WILLIAM KENT KILLED DURING ROBBERY AT MUSEUM

  The body of Earl William Kent was found by a guard early Sunday morning at the British Museum in Bloomsbury, London. Guard Macintosh Leary was making his rounds when he came across his lordship’s body in the new King Arthur exhibit.

  The late Lord Kent had suffered a fatal wound to his chest. Scotland Yard inspector Jackson Griggs Davies relayed that police could not locate the murder weapon in the museum or nearby. The police could not even say what kind of weapon had been used in the attack. The unknown killer remains at large following the terrible crime against his late lordship, who was a relation to Queen Victoria.

  Stolen was a copy of a valuable and ancient manuscript Lord Kent had loaned to the museum for the exhibition, “The Legend of King Arthur.” No other items, including the sizeable amount of pound sterling on the victim’s person and other treasured antiquities at the museum, were taken in the ghastly incident.

  Earlier in the evening, Lord Kent had attended an exclusive reception celebrating the opening of the exhibit. After the event ended and all the guests departed, Mr. Leary witnessed Lord Kent walking around the museum, but this was his lordship’s habit, said the guard. On the night of the murder, Leary saw no one else. Inspector Davies postulated that his lordship had returned to the exhibition, surprised a robber during his criminal act of theft, and been killed.

  Museum curator Mr. Robert Foxborough reported that Lord Kent had been a generous patron of the museum and spent much time there. The curator also called Lord Kent’s death a great loss to society.

  Lord Kent was sixty years old. He was preceded in death by his wife, Lady Marcia Kent. He left no survivors.

  The article went on about Kent’s own extensive collection of art and antiquities.

  While reading, Felicity absently clutched the knife’s blade with her left hand. With each word, her fist tightened. When she had finished the article, she regarded her hand. The knife had slashed into her palm. Blood stained the white linen on the table, but Felicity felt no pain.

  CHAPTER 3

  With a bandaged hand on her lap, Felicity watched the world tremble past. Helen sat across the carriage, but Felicity didn’t feel the presence of her friend as they headed to London. Since Felicity had read the news about William Kent, she had eaten little and suffered a thirst no amount of water would satisfy. Her very blood ached as it flowed through her veins. Rubbing a circle at her right temple, she hoped the muted pain would diminish. She seemed to succeed only in pushing it to the left side of her head. Felicity squeezed her injured hand. The throb from the cut echoed hurt, as if it came from far away. Her whole being was deadened and vacant like she had beaten her soon-to-be buried friend and mentor to the grave.

  She was grieving, and this was a new experience for her.

  Her mother had died when she was six months old, and her older brother Chr
istopher had passed at the age of seven when Felicity was but five. She had been too young to mourn them. But she wept for William Kent. She mourned him. Ironically, she had known him longer than both of her deceased family members.

  During her first year at the University of London, she had signed on for one of Kent’s courses on the history of England. Even though the institution had been the first in England to admit women to work toward degrees years before, many of the male students continued to gawk at Felicity’s attendance. She might as well have been a woman of the streets who had dared breach their masculine territory. Whenever she entered a classroom, men puckered their lips as if she had personally insulted them. Maybe she had. She had started attending the university at age fifteen and could already outthink most of the male students in her classes. Being an outsider hadn’t bothered her, though she would have liked to have a friend on the campus. Unexpectedly, she had found one wearing the dark billowy robes of a professor.

  Young and admittedly a bit immature, she had walked into William Kent’s classroom and guessed him to be nearly eighty due to his thick white hair and a countenance belonging to the ages. As if he had lived through all those historical eras he would discuss.

  During his lectures, however, the past turned vibrant and relevant. His voice resonated with knowledge and a love for the times long ago. He presented history as a matter of cause and effect. Be it war, plague, or a new king, the effect of that occurrence rippled through time and created change, which in turn created more change. Until then, she had viewed the past only as a list of events to be memorized and tested on, like learning the names of all the English monarchs. Her enthusiasm about this revelation had resulted in lots of questions in his class.

  After one session, Kent had asked her why she had signed up for the history course.

  “What happened years ago influences present events and is a guide to the future, if we choose to take note. And I choose that very thing,” she had replied.