A Most Lamentable Comedy

by Janet Mullany

  I slump into a chair, head in hands, and weep, tears running through my fingers, helpless with grief over a dog I’d hardly thought of in the last decade. I remember Ruby’s muzzle working its way into the palm of my hand as she walked with me, her joy when she ran to retrieve sticks, her unabashed adoration. Part of my mind realises that Simon, somehow during these years, has learned a little of the guile that I possess in abundance; blood will tell, I suppose. He knew exactly how to unman me and did not hesitate to unleash his weapon.

  And I’m weeping for Ruby and myself, and my half-brother, and our father, and Caroline, while Simon pats me on the shoulder and croons, ‘There, there,’ in a particularly idiotic way until I shake him off.

  ‘You bastard. Your grace.’ Barton couldn’t have done better.

  He grins. ‘No, you’re the bastard. Why didn’t you write to me?’

  I take the handkerchief he offers me – a very fine lawn, with a T and a coronet embroidered on it – and blow my nose in a way that, with his efforts earlier, renders it unusable.

  ‘Well, Sion. At first I was too poor and too angry. Then, when I could afford to do so, I was still angry. And then embarrassed because it had been so long. I did, however, write to Pickering.’

  ‘You wrote to my land agent but not to me?’

  I shrug. ‘I always liked Pickering, and I was his apprentice.’

  Simon’s face reddens. ‘Damn him, he should have told me.’

  ‘Why?’

  I know he’s longing to reply that it was Pickering’s duty, as a subordinate and servant, to tell him, but he clamps his mouth shut. He sits on a rickety chair next to mine and tips melted wax from a guttering candle so it may burn a little longer.

  ‘His rheumatism is getting quite bad,’ he says eventually, in an offhand manner. ‘He’s been thinking of retiring and going to live with his sister.’

  ‘He didn’t say.’

  Simon, owner of many sheep, leans forward and fingers the sleeve of my coat. ‘Hmm. Wool with silk? Very nice. I’m glad you’ve done so well for yourself. What profession did you choose after your, er, naval career?’

  ‘It’s rather difficult to explain. By the by, I should offer my congratulations on your marriage to Miss Julia Longbenton.’ Pickering has kept me informed of his grace’s activities, and I’m anxious to change the subject.

  Simon, saintly though he may be, is no fool. ‘Are you in trouble, Nick?’

  We’ve stopped sparring at each other, more or less, and besides, he’ll drag the truth from me sooner or later. ‘Yes. I’ve seduced a gentlewoman and broken her heart. I love her to distraction but I’m afraid she’ll only think I’m after her money.’

  ‘Oh, dear me.’ He wrinkles his brow and actually wrings his hands. ‘Maybe I can help. Who is she? Is she here?’

  I tell him.

  He becomes so still I wonder if he’s turned to stone. ‘How long have you been back in England?’

  ‘About three weeks.’

  ‘Then you haven’t heard that Lady Caroline Elmhurst is on the run from creditors. She doesn’t have a penny to her name, and word has it that she’s on the lookout for a new protector. Her last lover, a military gentleman, left her deeply in debt. She is a notoriously . . .’ He pauses for the right word. ‘. . . indiscreet person.’

  I can only gape at him in astonishment. ‘But her maid told my man that—’

  ‘Well, of course she wouldn’t want you to know. Obviously she was after your money.’

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  This is far worse than I could have imagined.

  My brother continues, ‘You have had a very lucky escape, Nick.’

  ‘On the contrary, she has had a lucky escape from me.’

  ‘You mean . . .’ You can almost see my brother thinking. I always won from him at cards, so transparent was his face.

  I hang my head and mutter, ‘I thought she was rich, and although I was after her money initially, I love her. I led her to believe I was wealthy, but I have hardly any money. I’ve broken her heart and insulted her greatly. I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘You fool,’ my brother pronounces. ‘Who else knows of this unsavoury liaison between you and Lady Elmhurst?’

  ‘Mr and Mrs Linsley, Mrs Gibbons and Mr Darrowby, at least. I’m not sure about Otterwell, but he’s not a friend, and—’

  My brother stands, strides to the door and shouts for a footman. The Duke of Thirlwell is about to take charge of one of his responsibilities – myself – and I don’t care for it one bit.

  Lady Caroline Elmhurst

  I see it all now. One long pattern of seduction, and I was fool enough to believe him and his protestations of love. Thank God I shall never see him again.

  I shall never see him again.

  I think I shall die, I am so desperately unhappy.

  I creep back into the house, my wet drapery clinging to me in an obscene fashion, and fortunately meet no one on the way back to my bedchamber. Mary doesn’t rise when I drip my way into the room – she is huddled on a chair, weeping.

  I stand as wet as a drowned rat, and realise she doesn’t even know I’m there.

  I touch her shoulder. ‘Mary, what’s the matter?’

  She jumps, startled, and rises to her feet, tears streaming down her face. ‘He’s gone, milady. Barton. He told me – told me he was leaving Mr Congrevance’s service and he couldn’t take me with him, though I wanted to go with him, but he said it was over, and – oh milady, I love him so.’ She heaves with sobs.

  I don’t have the heart to give her the bracing sarcasm she so badly needs. I put my arms around her, thinking that she cannot make me any wetter than I am, and let her howl upon my shoulder.

  After a while she stops and wipes her nose on her sleeve. ‘Don’t you cry too, milady.’

  ‘I’m not. I never cry.’

  She opens her hand and shows me what she formerly had clenched in her fist – not, as I would have thought, a flower or trinket from Barton, but a small packet. ‘He said I should give you this, milady, and not to trust his master, for he’s a bad’un.’

  I unfold the paper. Inside are my earrings, the ones Congrevance won from me at cards.

  And the two of us descend into a soggy female morass of grief, no longer mistress and maid, but two stupid, gullible women who have loved men who didn’t love us back.

  Mr Nicholas Congrevance

  I suppose it is one of the advantages of being a duke that you can take over your host’s household, for within a very short time Simon has assembled my fellow actors in Otterwell’s library, and has commandeered a vast amount of food and drink from the ball. Had he lived in medieval times, Simon would amass an army, and I suppose that is what he is doing now; besides, my half-brother always had a taste for the dramatic.

  He dismisses the footmen, fusses over chairs and who shall sit where – I prefer to stand, feeling that I am on trial – and then calls us to order. I still don’t know what he’s about, and am touched and surprised when he introduces me as his long-lost half-brother with a great deal of affection – possibly more than I feel for him at the moment. Dry clothes and some of Otterwell’s brandy have improved my mood greatly, but I suspect the worst is to come.

  ‘So were you really a spy in Europe?’ Darrowby asks.

  ‘Among other things, yes, although it was quite tedious work.’

  ‘And the other things?’ Simon actually steeples his fingers.

  I take a deep breath. ‘Dancing master, music master, footman, tutor, fencing master, valet, cabinet-maker, doctor, priest—’

  ‘You became a Roman Catholic?’ Simon jumps to his feet, horror on his face.

  ‘Well, no. Not as such. Someone needed a child christened and I obliged for the parents’ sake.’ I continue with my list. ‘Fortune-teller – I wasn’t very good – ratcatcher—’

  ‘Cicisbeo.’

  We all turn to stare at Mrs Riley, who for some reason decided to join us although Simon did his best to dissuade he
r.

  She cackles. ‘Aye, were I a rich woman and not married to the Admiral, I might have taken you on. You’d have given me value for money, I wager. I knew it from the first time we met.’

  I keep my mouth shut as the room explodes into a frenzy of supposition and accusations.

  My brother leans towards me and whispers, ‘Nick, you mean women paid you to"’

  ‘More or less,’ I whisper back. ‘They usually offered me, well, gifts, and it wouldn’t have been polite to refuse, and—’

  ‘You were a male harlot!’

  That makes me extraordinarily uncomfortable, although he doesn’t sound nearly as shocked as at the possibility of my turning Papist – merely titillated. ‘I didn’t think of myself that way. I mean, yes, I went to bed with them but I talked to them as well. You’d be surprised how many women have never had a conversation with their husbands. I nearly always liked them, too.’

  ‘How much did they pay you?’

  I am spared having to present my brother with a bill of fare by a comment from the sweet, virtuous, pregnant Mrs Linsley, made to Mrs Gibbons but audible to the whole company. ‘Heavens, he must be exceedingly good in bed.’

  Linsley, already scarlet at his mother’s admission, leaps to his feet, his chair clattering over on to the floor. ‘If you’ve touched my wife, Congrevance—’

  ‘Of course he has not, sir,’ cries my brother, who is thoroughly enjoying himself. ‘Have you, Nick? Sit down, Linsley, pray calm yourself. No, I regret he has eyes – and other parts, too – only for Lady Elmhurst.’

  I, aghast that my brother should attempt a mildly indecent witticism, interrupt him. ‘I must speak out in Lady Elmhurst’s defence as I promised her I would. She does not seek Mr Linsley as her lover and is a more honourable woman than you suppose. You have wronged her.’

  A silence falls on the room.

  Linsley stands. ‘I wish to say that whatever transpired in the past between me and Caroline, it is over long ago. She has no designs on me, or I on her.’

  Philomena takes his hand and smiles.

  Linsley continues, ‘Caroline has her faults, but she is loyal and honest.’

  ‘I never really believed that horrible rumour about Elmhurst,’ Mrs Gibbons says.

  ‘What rumour?’ I must know the worst about her.

  They tell me about the duel Elmhurst fought, suspecting Caroline’s flirtation with another man to be something more, and how his wound, at first a trifling matter, festered and eventually killed him. A vile rumour started that someone eased his agony as he died a slow and painful death. Caroline was at his bedside until the bitter end.

  ‘That was last summer,’ Linsley says. ‘And ever since, accusations have been made, from a pillow over his face to an increased dose of laudanum.’

  ‘And I say she’s a brave woman, whatever she did.’ I remember oline’s sadness as she sat by the window, just two nights ago, a lifetime ago; the only time she mentioned her husband to me.

  ‘And of course society said she was a fortune-hunter, marrying Bludge, her first husband, quite a bit older than her, and very rich,’ Mrs Riley says. ‘I don’t believe she killed him, though.’

  ‘Only with connubial delight. I heard that Bludge shuffled off his mortal coil under rather intimate circumstances with her,’ Linsley says. ‘Doubtless he died happy.’

  His wife slaps him, but in a friendly sort of way. ‘I like her,’ she says. ‘I thought she was vulgar and fast when I knew her in London, but she is much improved.’

  ‘So,’ says my brother with great glee. ‘What’s to do next?’

  ‘What’s to do?’ I wish heartily that he would mind his own business.

  ‘Doubtless Lady Elmhurst’s creditors will catch up with her and throw her into debtors’ prison,’ my brother continues. ‘I heard a figure of several thousand guineas bandied around. She is entirely alone in the world, for her family cut her off years ago. What do you intend to do, Nick?’

  I was right; I am on trial. Possibilities flash through my mind. A wager at cards or on a horse – unreliable; an affaire with a wealthy woman – untactful; a loan – but not from my unpleasantly smirking brother; a job – but as what?

  ‘You need honest employment,’ Simon says as though lecturing an indigent tenant, but I suppose that’s how he sees me. ‘And as the retirement of my land agent is imminent, and you trained – or began to train – in that profession before you went abroad, I shall consider you for the position.’

  ‘An excellent decision,’ Linsley says. ‘Congrevance has a good eye for land, your grace.’

  ‘But it won’t keep Caroline out of debtors’ prison,’ I say.

  ‘My father, the late Duke, left you a small bequest, Nick. I invested it for you because I . . . I didn’t know what to do with it, to be honest. I believe it’s worth a few thousand now. I am willing to make you an advance on that money to pay Lady Elmhurst’s debts.’

  ‘I have money?’ All this time, raking around Europe, I have had an inheritance. If only I’d known. I really should have written to Simon, fool that I was. I grit my teeth. ‘How very generous of you, your grace, to lend me my own money.’

  ‘And there’s a house on the estate. I’ll rent it to you for a modest amount – we can speak of that later. It needs a new roof, however.’

  ‘You’ll charge me rent on a roofless hovel?’

  He gives a ducal wave. ‘Details, Nick. Details. Now, will Caroline have you? For you must make an honest woman of her, Nick. I can’t have you living in sin and setting a bad example to the tenants.’

  In the pause that follows all eyes are upon me and my brother taps his foot waiting for my response. I have the floor.

  ‘Your grace, ladies and gentlemen. Apparently you expect me to ally myself with a woman who is notorious for her indiscretions, her gambling and her general profligacy; moreover, you expect a lady who is accustomed to life in fashionable London to live in a roofless house in a field full of sheep.’

  ‘Nonsense, Congrevance!’ says Mrs Riley. ‘Why, but a moment ago you were defending the lady to us.’

  ‘So I was, ma’am. I was obliged to do so, but possibly I consider my obligation at an end.’

  My brother ignores me. ‘It’s a perfectly decent house. You remember the one – Pickering used to live in it before his family grew up and went away. I’ll throw in an allowance for firewood, too. She’ll love it. It’s very fashionable to retire to a cottage to contemplate the glories of nature.’

  ‘Most tempting, your grace. And you suggest I should use my inheritance to bail the lady out of the debtors’ prison in which she so rightly belongs.’

  Simon smiles and, damn him, steeples his hands again, an effect spoiled by the chicken leg he holds. ‘The legacy was to be released at my discretion, I’m afraid. It’s the way Papa set things up.’

  ‘Oh, surely Caroline will have you, Nick,’ says Mrs Linsley. ‘She is in love with you – anyone could tell that.’

  ‘It is your duty and obligation, sir,’ says my brother, very frosty and aristocratic, despite the chicken leg. ‘You admit you seduced her, and she is a gentlewoman. She has no brother or male relative to protect her. Besides, I wouldn’t think,’ he says, starting on another chicken leg, ‘that a male harlot could afford to be too fussy about the sort of woman he’d marry.’

  ‘I am not a . . .’ I fling my hands up in the air. ‘Don’t you see? It’s too late. She wouldn’t have me. I insulted her grossly, thinking it was better she should feel anger towards me than grief, for I could offer her nothing. I cannot go hat in hand to her now. I truly believe we’d kill each other, and she’d rather go to debtors’ prison than let me near her.’

  ‘It would not be an auspicious start to a marriage, your grace,’ says Darrowby. ‘These matters should be resolved first.’ I remember that he has proposed marriage to a woman who has borne another man’s child, and is still remarkably well-disposed towards the child’s father.

  ‘Caroline has a great
deal of pride,’ Linsley says, a remark that earns him a frosty glare from his wife.

  ‘Well, well,’ says my brother. ‘We shall have to come up with another plan.’

  And he does.

  It is so ludicrous, senseless and stupid a plan that I feel I am back in my nightmare again. Yet everyone crows with delight and is delighted to be part of the deception, and assures me that all will be well, and the necessary separation can only do Caroline and me good.

  And, as my brother points out, it will give me time to put a roof on the house in which she and I shall enjoy married bliss among the Northumberland sheep.

  ‘There’s one thing more,’ I say to him. ‘If you lay one finger upon her, I’ll make a eunuch of you. And then I’ll kill you.’

  ‘Just as I thought,’ says Mrs Linsley, who overhears this fond brotherly exchange. ‘You’re in love, Congrevance. How delightful!’

  THE FALSE PROPOSITION –

  A Play in One Scene

  The would-be protector played by His Grace the Duke of Thirlwell

  The mistress-to-be played by Mrs Gibbons (late of Sadler’s Wells, etc.)

  As himself, Mr Nicholas Congrevance (late of disgraceful carryings-on on the Continent) Scene – Otterwell’s library, late that night.

  THIRWELL: Come now, Nick, I thought you were the great seducer, yet you have been of no help whatsoever.

  CONGREVANCE (sighs heavily): Not so, brother. She has undone me, unmanned me. Oh, very well. Let us begin, then. You come upon her walking in the garden.

  Enter Mrs Gibbons, smiling and smelling imaginary flowers.

  THIRLWELL: Good morning, ma’am. I am a duke but I shall allow you to address me as Thirlwell.

  CONGREVANCE: Stop! That will not work, brother. She does not respond well to condescension.

  THIRLWELL (deeply offended): But I am a duke, Nick.