A Most Lamentable Comedy

by Janet Mullany

  ‘I think the ending of the play is silly,’ he says as he casts his line into the water.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Everyone gets married.’

  ‘Why is that silly? It’s what people do.’

  ‘I would have wanted them to stay in the wood and have more people wear asses’ heads.’

  ‘Well.’ I watch my float bob on the water. ‘I suppose that is the dream part of the play, and the getting married business is when people awake. And eventually you do have to wake up.’

  ‘But everyone all at once,’ Will grumbles. ‘Are you and Lady Caro to marry, sir?’

  No, indeed, I wear the ass’s head. ‘I don’t believe I am to have the honour, Will.’

  ‘She is quite pretty,’ Will says. ‘And she can fish and catch a cricket ball, which not many ladies can.’

  ‘True.’ She has other talents too, of which I have had but the merest intimation, but thoughts of her have been enough to keep me awake and amorous and unhappy most of the night. ‘I hate to tell you this, Will, for it must get tedious to hear it repeated so often, but you will understand all this business of getting married when you are older.’

  ‘That’s what Mama says.’ Will swipes at his face briefly.

  ‘I had a stepmother when I was growing up.’ For once, the truth, but I consider myself safe in telling Will of this; besides, he is a child and in distress. ‘After my mother died, I went to live with my papa and some people I had never met before. He and my mother lived apart, as people sometimes do.’

  ‘Your mama died?’

  ‘Yes, when I just a little younger than you.’

  ‘Was your stepmother cruel, like the ones in stories?’

  ‘Not at W She was very kind. But it was strange and lonely at first, going to a place I did not know, and finding my father had others who were important to him. I met my half-brother for the first time.’

  At this point I am most grateful that a fish is good enough to succumb to Will’s bait. He leaps to his feet, his face full of excitement. ‘Oh, sir! I have a fish!’

  Sure enough, he has a bite on his line, and with great pride reels in a carp some four inches long. Although he wants to take it to show to his mother and father, I persuade him to release the gasping, flapping thing back into the water.

  It proves to be the first and only bite we get – it is no wonder, for I suspect the heat makes the fish stupid. The air shimmers heavy above the lake. Will yawns and falls asleep, curled up on my coat.

  I lean back against the trunk of the willow we sit beneath and think of Caroline.

  It seems I do little else these days.

  And those damned earrings. I still have her confounded earrings.

  Lady Caroline Elmhurst

  To think that when I first arrived, the play was but a distraction, a triviality! Now, at this moment, before the velvet curtain draws back, it is the most important thing in the world; more important, almost, than Congrevance, who stands beside me and gives my hand a brief squeeze. He is a part of this new world I discovered, thanks to Otterwell and his play – a world where friendship and affection, and even love, are possible. I have seen Otterwell, pale beneath his actor’s paint, pacing back and forth behind the stage, muttering and nervous, and this sign of weakness almost makes me think well of him.

  I shall have friends again, for Congrevance shall make it so. I heard him approach Fanny Gibbons, who cut him off with a curt request to talk afterwards. This time, now, is when we must forget our petty affairs and adopt instead those of Athenian men and maidens and fairy folk.

  The musicians who are to play at the ball perform a brief overture; Linsley, prompt book in hand, nods to the footmen who work the curtain; it swishes back to display a vast rustling crowd beyond the lamps at the edge of the stage. There is some scattered applause at the set, and, I think, for the actors, as Oberon strides majestically on to the stage to deliver his prologue.

  And I – I am no longer myself. We are all transformed, other creatures, let loose in an inhospitable wood, the playthings of supernatural creatures, until order is restored and all is made well.

  It’s like a dream, a dance – knowing what to say and where to move, and I am assured that the man I am in love with, after misadventures and sadness, has my heart and I his.

  Mr Nicholas Congrevance

  I must tell her I am leaving the next day.

  We exit the stage, our hands still clasped, and I realise I am sweating like a horse. Presumably Caroline is too, for she tosses aside the scarf that has, more or less, decently covered her shoulders and bosom. Around us our fellow actors jostle and laugh, drunk on the success of the play. Someone, Otterwell, I think, claps me on the shoulder and bellows, ‘Well played, sir, Lady Elmhurst! Well played indeed!’

  I ignore them. I see only her, her beauty made exotic by her painted eyes and loosened hair, her hand hot in mine.

  ‘Come. We’ll get some air.’ I am sure she knows what I intend, for I am certain she thinks the same.

  We have learned the jumble of rooms behind the stage well, and know to take a dark, crooked passage that leads to an ancient door. Outside, wind stirs the tops of the trees, and lifts our draperies, ruffles our hair. It is considerably cooler and dark, not the dark of night – it is too early for that – but the dark of heavy clouds. Thunder rolls and mutters quite close.

  She stops and raises her hands to the back of her neck to lift her mass of hair, with a sigh of pleasure. The nape of her neck is warm and fragrant, slightly damp under my lips.

  ‘Damn you, Congrevance.’ She turns in my arms and we kiss, clumsy, our mouths bumping rather than caressing.

  Someone behind us clears their throat and then coughs in an obvious sort of way. It’s one of Otterwell’s footmen. ‘Beg pardon, sir.’

  ‘What is it?’

  The servant tears his gaze from Caroline’s bosom. ‘A gentleman inside wishes to see you, Mr Congrevance.’

  ‘Tell him you couldn’t find me.’ He nods and returns indoors.

  I grab Caroline like a drowning man. I am a drowning man. There’s no denying it, I am in too deep, in something more terrible and wonderful – and much, much better tasting and smelling – than any Venetian canal.

  She breaks her mouth from mine. She’s out of breath, as indeed I am. ‘Too near the house. He – they – they’ll come looking for us. Not here.’

  We start to walk – although indeed it is more than a stagger than a walk, with our frequent pauses to kiss and touch.

  She leads me towards the maze. The wind now comes in powerful gusts, bringing the scent of rain with it.

  I hesitate. I shouldn’t do this.

  She smiles, and says in that lovely husky voice, ‘I explored it this afternoon, like Ariadne with a ball of twine. I wished you had been with me. I—’

  ‘And am I to be the monster at the centre?’

  ‘I hope so. Indeed, you may be as monstrous’ – she glances down where the wind whips my draperies against me – ‘as you please.’

  I growl at her, and she shrieks, laughing, and darts inside.

  I follow without a moment’s hesitation, all my scruples gone. She has the lead on me – I see her draperies flutter around a corner and run to catch up with her. The dark yew hedges give little light, but I can hear the crunch of her feet on the gravel. I take a turn and stop. She isn’t there, and panic rips through me, halting me.

  ‘To your left.’ I take the turn and she stands before me, hands on hips, but before I can touch her she springs forward and dashes around another corner. I lunge to catch her, and my hand closes on the hem of her gown, pulling it from her shoulder for one brief moment before she laughs and wrenches it back.

  She runs fast with the speed and grace of a goddess, remaining just out of my reach, and then suddenly we’re at the still, silent heart of the maze, only a few paces wide. The gravel beneath my feet gives way to flagstones and the thyme planted between them gusts sweet in the air. She stands next to a pli
nth, on which a statue rests; the living woman in drapery mirrors the marble goddess, hand outstretched.

  I take her hand and press it to my lips, falling to my knees before her and burying my head in her draperies. I inhale her scent and warmth. Her hand comes to rest on my hair.

  ‘You caught me,’ she whispers. There is something about this still, green centre – a tiny patch of grass, vivid against the darker green of the yews and dotted with daisies, surrounds the plinth – that invites hushed voices.

  ‘No. You have caught me.’ I turn my lips to her hand and bite her finger. Gently, quite gently. I do not know how long I can be so with her, for I wish to consume her, devour her like the monster I am.

  ‘Ah. And what shall I do with you?’

  ‘Whatever you wish, my love.’ Does that endearment slip too easily from my lips? I don’t know. I don’t know anything, now – the world could be flat, the earth move around the sun, dragons could lurk around us – all that is certain is that she and I are together.

  She sinks to her knees so we are joined face to face.

  And at this point, everything goes wrong. First, after a fumble of what seems like several frantic hours with the drawstring of my drawers, both of us swearing horribly, I forget there are two sets of skirts to contend with. I am only thankful I am not wearing hideous pink tights, not that I think too clearly at this point.

  Yards and yards of damned skirts – how can this be when Caroline’s gown seemed so flimsy? I comment aloud, in my frustration, that it’s like tupping a laundry.

  ‘Most flattering. Ouch! Wait,you fool.’

  Much writhing, sweating, swearing. She wriggles around and I wonder whether she simulates ecstasy or – oh God, it’s like the first time ever, wonderful and surprising, musky and sweet—

  Very much like the first time, in fact.

  Christ, how embarrassing, over before we’ve scarce begun.

  She slaps my shoulder. ‘Get off me.’

  She does not sound friendly, or satisfied (how could she?), or loving, or anything other than annoyed.

  I remove myself from our mingled skirts. ‘I beg your pardon. I—’

  ‘Damned stone under me,’ she mutters, raising her hips in a way that makes me suddenly ablaze again with lust. She produces a piece of gravel that evidently had been trapped under her arse. ‘I tried to tell you, but of course you weren’t listening. That was awful,’ she adds. ‘Quite the worst I’ve ever had. And don’t you dare think we’re going to do it again, because we’re not.’

  ‘I love you,’ I offer, and regret it as she glares at me. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t usually—’

  ‘Oh, of course not.’ She puts herself to rights – damnation, I hardly had a glance at that magnificent bosom – and glares at my nakedness, shaming me to cover myself up.

  ‘Caro, I leave here tomorrow, very early in the morning.’ Why, damn it, why did I choose this moment to tell her?

  She becomes quite still. ‘Wh – where do you go?’

  Her face is pale and thunder rumbles close, very close. The first spots of rain, dark and heavy as pennies, appear on the flagstones.

  Her eyes fill and overflow. Caroline, weeping? Oh God, I cannot, will not make her sad. But I can make her angry; I would far rather she think of me with hatred than with a broken heart. I want her to keep her pride, if I can.

  I rise and tighten the belt of my tunic. ‘My destination is none of your business. Frankly, Lady Elmhurst, I’m bored. The play was amusing enough in its way, as were you. But now I’ve tasted your somewhat overblown charms – I must congratulate you on your chaste reserve, I really expected a faster surrender, from what the other gentlemen told me—’

  She jumps to her feet and slaps my face. ‘You bastard!’

  And she runs from me, briefly illuminated by a great crack of lightning, and thunder rolls as she disappears in the darkness of the maze.

  Rain spatters heavily around me. She may hate me, but I have probably broken her heart anyway. I cannot put out of my mind the expression on her face as I insulted her. Rainwer trickles into my eyes and down my face – I can barely breathe, and I wonder if I am destined to wander this maze lost in pain and shame for eternity. No, that would be too light a punishment for what I have done. Turn right – a voice of reason suddenly cuts in. Keep turning right and you’ll get out.

  And a tedious business it is, but I emerge into the gardens with the rain now almost over. The storm has moved on and the sky lightens, although lightning forks on the horizon.

  My sandals squelch as I walk back to the house. I attempt to make plans. I should pack my belongings and leave. Bath, yes, that would make sense. I can be there in a couple of days, maybe sooner.

  I head for the side door of the house, the one Caroline and I used when we left together.

  It swings open. The man who tried to murder me ten years ago stands there, silhouetted against the light. I come to a stop and we stare at each other.

  ‘Nick?’ he says. His voice cracks. ‘Nick?’

  And he flings himself at me.

  14

  Mr Nicholas Congrevance

  My half-brother the Duke of Thirlwell weeps and hiccups on my shoulder. ‘I – I – thought you were dead. Damn you, Nick. Damn you to hell and back. Damn you.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Simon . . .’ I pat his back, attempting to calm him and wishing I felt more moved by his appearance. To tell the truth, it seems like another episode in a bad, fitful dream that for a very short time (say, ten seconds) was erotic and the rest of the time consisted of getting soaked to the skin and being lost in a maze wearing skirts.

  ‘You’re all wet.’ He steps back, still grasping my shoulders.

  ‘It was raining.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know. We watched it from the ballroom, quite a storm. But what the devil are you doing here? Where have you been?’

  ‘Outside.’

  ‘Before that. It’s been ten years, Nick. Why are you here at Otterwell’s? I could scarce believe it when I saw you in the play. I almost swooned.’ He fishes a handkerchief from his coat pocket and blows his nose. I’d recognise Simon’s nose-blowing anywhere; it has a particularly annoying upward squeak to it, unchanged in the past decade. He has changed, though, as of course have I – he’s taller, broader than the gangling fifteen year old I knew ten years ago. We still look something alike, having shared the same papa.

  ‘I’ve been abroad. I’ll explain. Let me get out of these damned sirts.’

  I push past him – beg pardon, your grace, I think, but don’t say it – and lead the way to the gentlemen’s tiring rooms. There I strip off the skirts. I’m soaked to the skin.

  ‘Who the devil whipped you?’

  My usual answer is that it was when I was discovered in a harem in disguise (absolute nonsense, of course; any sultan worth his salt would have removed more than a few strips of skin from my back), but I am too weary and heartsick to engage in deception. ‘It was when I was a sailor.’

  ‘A sailor?’

  I drop my shirt over my head. ‘I was press-ganged. Don’t worry, I deserted as soon as I could.’

  He frowns. ‘You mean you’re in danger of being hanged?’

  ‘No, a sailor called Simon Allondale is.’

  ‘That’s my name,’ he says so indignantly I almost laugh.

  I take a cloth, dip it into a bowl of salve and rub at my eyes to remove the black. Now I’m thinking furiously as to what I should do.

  ‘Why didn’t you write to me to tell me you were safe?’

  ‘After you pushed me off a cliff ?’

  ‘An outcrop.’ He glares at me.

  ‘A tall outcrop.’

  ‘Very well, a tall outcrop. Fairly tall. I – I’m so sorry, Nick. Forgive me. I ran for help but you’d gone when we came back. I made the men search for you for days . . .’

  I remember the fall, waking with a dreadful headache and one eye sealed shut with blood so I feared I was blind; another bad dream where I got a lift
with a carter to Newcastle, dazed with shock and pain. I remember the discovery that what little money I had with me had been stolen, and innocently thinking that the jovial man in the naval uniform would help me instead of throwing me and a dozen other unfortunates into the bowels of a ship.

  What I can’t remember now is what our quarrel, and subsequent fight, was really about. I remember it started with Simon’s half-joking request that I address him as your grace, and my refusal to do so. So I ask him.

  ‘Why, it was over Molly.’

  ‘Molly?’

  ‘Molly Salthwaite. She married shortly after you – you left, and her first child was born only a few months later. I always thought I could see a likeness there and I hoped it was so. I asked her to name the child Nicholas, but it was a girl, so—’

  ‘Wait. Molly? Molly, the milkmaid with the huge bosom? You thought I—’

  ‘You said you were.’

  ‘But . . . I was sixteen, Simon. Of course I’d say so, particularly if it would annoy you.’

  He sighs. ‘I was dreadfully in love with her. She’d handle the teats in a – a suggestive way while she was milking and wink at me.’

  ‘She used to do that to me too. It drove me half mad.’

  ‘And you didn’t . . .?’

  ‘No, never. I stumbled over my own feet and could scarce remember my own name whenever I saw her.’

  ‘Oh God.’ He blows his nose again. ‘I’m so sorry. But Nick, what have you been doing? Why did you not write? I always hoped you were alive, but I didn’t know.’

  Ah. There’s the question. I squint into a mirror and comb my hair with my fingers.

  He knows I’m playing for time. He waits, with that annoying, virtuous expression on his face, the young Duke caring for his own. And the trouble with Simon is that he is a decent fellow, and he can’t help it if he irritates the devil out of nearly everyone.

  He says, ‘Old Ruby died last month. We buried her with the other dogs, in the shade under the horse chestnuts.’

  ‘Ruby?’

  ‘She was close to fifteen, Nick. She had a good long life. She—’