Ianthe and the Fighting Foxes: The Fentons Book 4

by Alicia Cameron

  But supposing she could find provisions and dust a little. What might the party find? Draughty accommodations with rent linen, mouse nibbled mattresses, and broken casements. The gentlemen would hunt, no doubt, but it was summer now and not the right season for many sports. And what might the ladies, if ladies there be, do? She knew to her own cost that it did not do to sit still anywhere indoors further away than three feet from the fire in the Great Hall. Thank goodness it was summer, otherwise the entire party would depart after the first morning, when they found that ice had formed on their coverlets.

  The Castle was ancient and venerable, no doubt. The muniments room attested to the importance of it and the Fortune family since medieval times. However, there was no doubt it was draughty. Their family and servants were numerous, but Georgette was convinced that a bustling medieval castle would have had far more people and that it would have been heated mostly by bodies. Modern fashions for ladies, with thin muslins and only one petticoat, were not suitable for castle life. She had found a lustring sack dress of her grandmama’s in a chest upstairs and the acres of heavy silk and the multiple petticoats that went under it seemed to Georgette the minimum necessary for comfort on these windy halls, needing only three cashmere shawls and woollen hose extra. Even better, the ancient lords had known how to brave the cold, as she had discovered as an inquisitive child. In a chest in one of the attics there was a very ancient, floor-length, fur-lined robe, with the remnants of intricate embroidery still visible, that had no doubt been everyday castle wear centuries ago. She had longed to put it on, but it had begun to rot even as she touched it.

  Nowadays, Georgette took refuge in a tiny room off the Great Hall, that her mama had used as a sitting room, where she could think a little. The window seat allowed one to bask in the sunshine in summer, and in the winter one could pull the curtains over the embrasure, arrange a bolster at the window panes to keep out the worst of the draughts, wrap one’s self in several shawls, and read. There were ways, in other words, to make living here tolerable, but it took a lifetime of knowing to adopt them. How could one say to Lady Hoity-toity, ‘If you keep some slippers near you by the bed to throw when you hear the chomping, the mice are quite harmless. And if you stick some folded paper and two shawls over the shaky casement, you might not be awakened in the night by the wind plucking at the bed curtains.’ This last had caused a childhood friend of hers to scream that the castle was haunted.

  Today, her seventeen-year-old sister Jocasta tripped in excitedly, and Georgette thought of Titania indeed. She was a fair creature, rivalling Miss White’s fairy-like features. Her hair was not so blond though, and occasionally her pretty face betrayed her self-satisfaction, whereas Miss White showed an innocent face to the world. Jocasta was dressed today in a charming sprigged muslin gown, bought for the season she had just enjoyed — but no doubt she had added a flannel petticoat beneath. ‘Have you heard of the party? Isn’t it exciting? I don’t suppose we have ever had a house party so large here before.’

  Georgette looked at her. ‘And there is a reason for that Jocasta. Can’t you see? The place is hardly fit for visitors.’

  ‘Papa says that very few gentlemen can boast such an ancient home and so old a lineage,’ said Jocasta pertly.

  ‘Yes, but who in their right minds would come to this veritable sty for entertainment?’

  She watched as Jocasta, never the quickest spark, arrived at the truth ‘Oh my goodness! The bed chambers!’

  ‘And much more!’ sighed Georgette. You had best bring the girls here, we have some work to do.’ The younger girls arrived eventually, and Georgette began the task list she had frantically concocted in her head since her father had broken the news. ‘Leonora and Marguerite,’ she said to the fourteen-year-old blond twins, who showed fair to be the prettiest of the Fortune girls, ‘Find some chalk and search the chambers on the first and second floors for the least damaged mattresses. Any that can be patched, let us know by marking the door with a circle and a tick if the mattress is good, a cross if it is useless. We need at least as many sound ones as we can find. You will have to open the shutters to do it, but shut them up again when you are finished. There are some broken casements and we do not mean birds to enter if we can avoid it.’ She would set the servants to move the best to the floor above, on the same level as their own chambers, where the centuries of dust had at least been disturbed recently.

  ‘May not the servants do that?’ asked Jocasta with a whine.

  ‘Trust me, the servants will not be idle. Oh, and girls,’ she said as the twins tripped away, obviously treating their task as an adventure, Leonora in the lead, as ever, ‘any chipped jug and ewers, lay outside the doors for the servants to find. Katerina,’ she said to a young lady of sixteen with red hair and a mulish look on her face, ‘you may lay out everyone’s best gowns in your room, so that we may plan our ensembles.’

  ‘What ensembles? I do not have any ensembles,’ replied Katerina.

  ‘Well you are to have some. Papa wishes you to - to enjoy your first party and be presented to the ladies and gentlemen.’

  ‘I do not wish to be presented. I am too young to be presented. Then I shall become silly, like Jocasta.’

  Jocasta pulled her hair, reverting to schoolroom ways.

  ‘Stop that, girls,’ sighed Georgette, ‘we shall all do what Papa wishes. Katerina, get the dresses, the rest of us shall arrive in a half hour to begin to sort. Leave Jocasta’s. She has quite enough after her season.’

  And to Portia she said, ‘You may check the casements in the rooms. Use your judgement. Make a list of the most broken, and take a look at the curtains and coverlets. If there are any that are too moth eaten, we must change them out for something better, if it can be found.’

  ‘My coverlet is completely full of moth holes, but it is so heavy that I cannot give it up,’ said Portia. At fifteen, she was Katerina’s junior by a year, but much the more mature. She had Cassie’s self-assurance and vivacity, but was taller, with red lights in her copious brown hair, and was moreover a trifle more intelligent.

  ‘Since I do not suppose many guests will enter our chambers,’ instructed Georgette, ‘we might all have the damaged ewers and the moth-holed coverlets, I suppose. Just so long as our guests do not.’

  ‘I do not suppose that Papa would have thought of any of this, Georgette,’ Jocasta said. ‘We do not notice the state of the place generally, but whenever any of the Baileys come over, I perceive a pained look, though they try to suppress it. It was some time after Mama died that I noticed the state the place was in. And then it got rather better afterwards,’ she added vaguely.

  Well, at least she’d noticed the effort, if not who’d made it, thought Georgette. The girls were dispatched on their errands, and she sighed contentedly. She was going to enjoy her next task. She summoned Dickson the steward, Mrs Firestone the housekeeper, and Mrs Scroggins the cook to meet her in her mother’s sitting room. Her father, who had come in to look for her, saw their backs, and left precipitately.

  ‘Lord Fortune is giving a house party the weekend after next. There will be twenty-six guests.’ Mrs Firestone gasped, and Georgette said lightly, ‘Or perhaps more. These occasions are not at all formal as to arrangements, you know. Someone may bring a friend or two at the last moment.’

  ‘Twenty-six rooms to prepare?’

  ‘Indeed, you had probably better make it thirty.’ She explained what she had already set her sisters to do to Mrs Firestone. ‘They will need to be thoroughly cleaned, of course,’ she added as Mrs Firestone looked as though her blood would boil. ‘You may hire another four girls from the villages or farms, if you wish. And perhaps some extra staff for the stable. And then, you know,’ she turned to the steward, ‘the garden needs some attention… The trees on the carriage drive need to be cut back, the courtyard tidied. You may give the orders, Dickson.’ The steward regarded her with a baleful eye, but did not speak.

  ‘And where are we to find food to feed all those
folk?’ Mrs Scroggins said rudely, in her rage. Georgette’s eyebrows rose. ‘The ladies and gentlemen,’ amended Mrs Scroggins with bad grace.

  ‘Where indeed?’ said Georgette lightly, but thinking it high time someone else made a contribution. ‘I am sure Mr Dickson is full of ideas. You have related tales of the parties in my grandmama’s days, have you not, Dickson? How fine those days were?’

  ‘Those were different times, Miss Georgette. Very different,’ the steward answered repressively, annoyed that he had been moved to comment.

  Georgette smiled upon him sweetly. ‘But I have faith in you Dickson, I’m sure you can rise to the occasion.’ His eyes glittered, but he remained silent. ‘That is all. I thank you.’

  The hard-pressed ladies left muttering, and only Dickson remained. ‘I shall attend you with a list of my needs tomorrow morning, ma’am,’ he said, with relish.

  Georgette, feeling a sudden energy of panic, put on a cloak and bonnet and took off along the woodland path, to Great-Aunt Hester’s abode. Lady Hester never visited the castle, since she had for many years declared that she never wanted to see her idiot nephew’s face again. ‘I could bear it for your mother’s sake, dear, but not a one of you will be cross with me for saving myself from killing a man.’ As a child, she had fancied that this cottage, set in a wooded clearing, was very like that of the grandmother in M. Perrault’s tale of Red Riding Hood, the original French version one of her favourites from her mother’s library. Her cloak today was red, and so she laughed at herself, but surreptitiously kept a lookout for the wolf.

  The old lady, dressed in an old-fashioned mob cap and still in her peignoir, greeted her warmly, and Georgette quickly told her the reason for their visit.

  ‘So — what do ladies do on such a visit, great-aunt? Can you remember?’

  ‘Of course I can. I am not yet senile.’ Georgette looked suitably reproved, and her aunt continued. ‘Well … there was hunting of course. Ladies rode to hounds—’

  ‘Not quite the season—’

  ‘Well, we embroidered and read, oh and there was archery! We would practice a little each day and have a tournament at the end.’

  ‘Archery! I wonder if we can find the equipment?’

  ‘I doubt your father would give himself the trouble to dispose of it, so I imagine you may … and there was often a treasure hunt on good days, this was a really good opportunity to get lost in the woods with a beau!’

  ‘They were, I fear, less God-fearing days,’ said Georgette primly, forestalling one of her great-aunt’s shocking tales. Old King George’s early reign seemed rather full of young ladies taking snuff from gentlemen’s wrists, arranging secret assignations by the deft use of a fan, being led astray for a kiss in Vauxhall Gardens, and thinking that a masked ball permitted all sorts of scandalous behaviour to be indulged in because one may not be recognised. No such liberties would be permitted in the modern world of today. ‘What might we hide for the hunt?’

  ‘Oh, a trinket, like a trumpery piece of jewellery, perhaps, or even a lady’s ribbon, in those romantic times, was quite sufficient. It was all for the fun of the hunt. And then there are the walks you know, or the lady’s bathing pool.’

  ‘We could not take our guests there!’

  ‘Why not? The cove is not overlooked, if you set a servant to guard the path. And if the weather is good, it is such a sheltered spot.’ Georgette frowned, ‘I do not know how such a generation as mine spawned such prissy grandchildren. I suppose George has foisted it all upon you?’

  ‘Well,’ said Georgette honestly, ‘Papa had only to foist the knowledge that he was not about to lift a finger himself upon me, aunt. I could not bear the humiliation of a house party arriving and nothing done. I doubt he even knows that I am doing anything at all.’

  ‘Depend upon it, my nephew knows what he is about. He sees a deal more than his lazy eyes would have you believe.’ She sipped her tea with narrowed eyes.

  Thus, for the next week, the castle was in an uproar. The nursery, where the girls by habit occasionally congregated, was permitted a small fire, and Georgette had made the mistake of volunteering all of them to help with the task of patching linen. It was evident that Mrs Firestone took this as carte blanche to avoid the task at all, and a mountain of sheets and pillows cases was delivered to that chamber, and with many groans, the work began. Some of the sheets had avoided the moth, and Georgette took delight in delivering these back to Mrs Firestone for laundering. Soon, every bush and tree around the grounds was decked with linen, rugs were hung and beaten, and dust banished from one room, only to find its way into the next. The kitchen garden and hothouse yields were computed by Georgette, accompanied by a snorting Mrs Scroggins, there to tell her how far she was off in her computation. Another sack of flour and some sides of beef were ordered to accompany their own meat and game supplies and meeting with Lady Ludlow in the village while doing so had been fortuitous, for she offered the fruits of her own garden and hot houses, and therefore Georgette extended an invitation for one of the evenings of the party to the Ludlow family. Papa would not be best pleased, since this included two very pretty daughters of Lady Ludlow’s own. Mrs Scroggins, too, would no doubt be delighted at the four extra guests. This knowledge warmed Georgette’s heart, for since reluctantly taking up some of Mama’s duties, the cook and housekeeper had set out to make their young mistress feel her youth and inexperience.

  Georgette made Papa banish Hades for a week from anywhere but his own chamber or the stables, and she was able to trim the chewed damask in Papa’s chair with some scissors, slide a piece of similar coloured fabric (from Grand-papa’s waistcoat) beneath one slit, stick it down with flour paste and some stitches, and hope it might be ignored. Mama would have been appalled and amused in equal measure, but Georgette must move along to the next task. Hades’ favourite sofa was beyond redemption and in need of being completely upholstered, so they exchanged it for a very heavy, possibly even medieval, carved wooden structure, for which Jocasta discovered some dusty hassocks to make it tolerable to sit on. The ancient wainscoting and tables were waxed and polished, candlesticks found for nearly every bedchamber, and flowers arranged — though not with the artistry of the late baroness, Georgette feared.

  Their wardrobes were a little more difficult. Georgette sacrificed all but four of her London morning dresses to the other girls, and there had been much taking in and out and letting up and down, and ribbons or silk flower garlands disguising the alterations. No one would be looking at her, after all, and the twins were very young, so their wardrobe need not be so extensive. Evening dress had tried them to the utmost, and each of the elder girls had a bare five dresses each, by dint of jiggling Georgette and Jocasta’s stock to fit three. Twins Leonora and Marguerite would not need evening dress, of course, being excluded from dinner in favour of supper in the nursery. Simple muslin would be sufficient for the twins.

  The chambers had swept floors, jugs and ewers largely un-chipped, clean linen that no one might put a toe through, spotted mirrors ferreted out from corners of old rooms, and a candlestick each with wax candles, not tallow, though Papa would scream at the expense.

  The family (all but Papa, who had spent a great deal of time at Ludlow Hall or at the Baileys’, recently) and the servants were all exhausted. And this was before the party began.

  Her brother George arrived a day before the guests, and Georgette heard him give a satisfying gasp at the state of the Grand Hall, denuded of chewed furniture and dog hair, and gleaming with wax upon the huge dining table. The area close to the fire had been bracketed by chairs and sofas from various other rooms while draught screens (some worked by ancestors whose dusty portraits hung on the staircase wall) were arranged nearby in case of inclement winds. Georgette was perfectly sure that even when all was still without, the Great Hall of the castle was plagued by inclement winds. ‘Well done Dickson,’ George said to that functionary as he dropped his driving coat into Dickson’s arms negligently. ‘I never thought
the old place could look so handsome.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Dickson, one eye meeting Georgette’s with an evil gleam.

  ‘You are not wearing that tomorrow, Georgette, are you?’ asked George looking at her faded cambric gown.

  ‘No, it’s my gardening—’

  ‘Good!’ he said and threw himself into a settle. George Fortune was a rather handsomer version of his papa. He was taller than the usual, and had what her father referred to as the Fortune build: broad and athletic. The height was certainly reflected in the rather over-sized suits of armour that were dotted about the castle corridors, so Georgette was sure it was hereditary. He had a copious shock of black hair, similar to the grey of his father in its tendency to stand up from the head, though George kept it from being a mane by dint of a scented pomade. He was modish, in a careless fashion, and supremely confident of his own worth. ‘Where are the dogs?’ George asked, idly looking around.

  ‘Outside, where they will stay until after our guests have left,’ said Georgette with rather more force than she usually used to him.

  George looked at her interestedly. ‘Nonsense,’ he said with all his father’s command. ‘People expect dogs around in the country.’

  Dickson entered and exchanged a look with Georgette, who was composing a suitable answer, without recourse to tearing her brother’s pomaded locks. ‘They do, sir. But the dogs of Fortune Castle are a little unregulated, sir. They have a propensity to chew furniture, and perhaps the odd boot, sir.’

  George laughed. ‘Yes, Papa has not trained his brutes well, I suppose. Very well, no dogs for the time being,’ he added with the air of one conferring a boon. ‘Lord Paxton is rather too fond of his boots as it is.’