A Banbury Tale

by Maggie MacKeever

  Alathea flounced off the bed. “I might have known you would prove unsympathetic!” she cried. “Mama has often said that your upbringing was not what it should have been. I will leave you, then. No doubt you have matters of more importance to exercise your mind.” On this Parthian shot, she departed. Maddy, who now could add a severe headache to her other concerns, returned her attention to Lady Henrietta’s note. She was not to be left to scan this missive in peace; Motley, wearing an expression of the severest censure, slipped into the room.

  Motley was not best pleased with the progression of events, and her current role afforded her neither the leisure nor the opportunity to play the chaperon. Her lot was not as hard as that of the little housemaid, an orphan from the foundling home whose final duty each night was to carry cans of hot water to the various bedrooms, but neither was it as pleasant as her companionship to Lady Henrietta had been, despite that household’s straitened circumstances. Motley was not accustomed to being confined to the servants’ hall.

  Nor were Maddy’s fortunes improving as she had hoped they might. Motley had been privileged to view Lord Chesterfield, who had called to most properly request permission to take Maddy for a drive, and thought, despite his stiffness, that Lionel would be the perfect person for Maddy to wed. That headstrong miss, however, showed little inclination to bring the young Marquess to the speaking point. Motley suspected that Maddy, pleased enough to be seen in Lionel’s company, meant to ensnare Wilmington. The puzzle of the matter was that the Earl appeared to permit the game.

  “Motley.” Maddy frowned at her letter, unaware that Motley was remorselessly consigning her latest admirer to perdition. “It is the strangest thing, but Mama’s pearls have disappeared.”

  Motley, who had a decided notion as to the probable fate of those gems, did not answer, having other, more pressing, matters in mind. She strode to Maddy’s side and wordlessly held out a much-creased note. “What is this?” Maddy inquired, and glanced at the paper. “I see.” She quickly folded it again.

  “It was given to me by a young lady,” Motley replied, “who accosted me as I was returning with the ribbon for your dress. She begged that I give it to you, and even swore me to secrecy.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Maddy, who well knew that wooden tone of voice. She treated her governess to a beseeching look. “And you cannot approve?”

  “No,” retorted Motley, “I cannot. You must know that clandestine correspondence is not something which I can countenance.” She had little liking for this censorious role, but play it she must. “I doubt that your aunt would be any more pleased, were she to learn of this.”

  “Motley!” Maddy flew from her chair to engage her governess in an artless embrace. “Dear, understanding Motley, promise me that you won’t tell her!”

  “Just as I thought.” Motley disentangled herself. “You are engaged in some prank, Maddy, and I shudder to think what may come of it. I had hoped that you would comport yourself with decorum, at least while under your aunt’s roof.”

  “Oh, I shall!” Maddy promised, with no intention whatsoever that this should prove to be the case. “I shan’t get into trouble, honestly. I cannot explain now, because someone else is involved, but I will make a clean breast of the whole as soon as I possibly may. Please trust me, Motley. You know I would never do anything that was dishonorable.”

  Motley, who had more than a passing acquaintance with the de Villiers notion of honor, experienced an unpleasant premonition, but told herself she was indulging in a spinster’s foolishness. “I already gave my word,” she said gruffly, “to the other young lady, and although I already regret my action, I will not go back on it.”

  “Motley, you are an angel!”

  “I might add,” Motley interrupted, “that I am not so great a ninny as you seem to think.”

  Maddy’s eyes opened wide. “What can you mean?”

  “Simply,” retorted Motley dourly, “that I am in full possession of my faculties.” Maddy’s expression was one of guilt. “The young lady has not changed out of all recognition, even though I have not laid eyes on her for several months.”

  * * * *

  “Ma cocotte!” cried Clemence, and offered Maddy a delicately scented cheek. “I protest, it has been an age since we met.”

  Maddy surveyed her friend and thought that Clemence was not at her best. Her fine features were pinched, and her blue eyes almost feverishly bright. She cast an anxious glance at Motley, whose rigid spine was indicative of disapproval. Maddy could spare little thought for her governess’s sentiments at overseeing a surreptitious meeting in a public park, or for Motley’s undoubted wrath were she to learn that Clem was now an actress. They were pressed for time.

  “Tell me quickly,” Maddy insisted, drawing Clemence farther into the leafy copse, “what has happened. I might tell you that I was utterly dumbfounded to see you upon the stage.” Her voice was low.

  “It’s a simple tale.” Clem’s elegant attire was, on closer inspection, shabby. “My future was well on the way to being settled when the family fortunes were discovered to be nonexistent. A matter of careless management and an untrustworthy steward, I believe, though I was not considered of sufficient maturity to be trusted with the whole.”

  “Clem!” Maddy was aghast. “That’s disaster, indeed. But how can your family countenance your present profession?”

  “Let sleeping dogs lie,” retorted the actress. “Suffice it to say that they neither know of my current whereabouts nor, I suspect, do they particularly care.” She noticed her friend’s expression. “They sent me as companion to my Great-Aunt Beatrix! Can you imagine me in that gloomy house? I was expected to read to her from dreary old books and walk those beastly dogs.”

  Maddy could sympathize, having been privileged to meet this ancient, who mixed religious mania with a more practical passion for raising Pomeranians, which were invariably as ill tempered as their mistress. “I could not bear such a dreary existence,” Clem added with a grimace. “My aunt made it clear that I was an object of charity—even the servants ranked higher than I! And 1 was considered a failure because I remained unwed.” She grimaced. “Whom could I marry, pray? Some hayseed, a farmer’s son? Never! So, I ran away.” Clem surveyed Maddy with a hint of her old mischievousness. “And do not frown at me so severely, for you would not have stayed with Aunt Beatrix, either! Were your situation similar, you would be far more likely to follow me upon the primrose path.”

  Maddy did not think it the time to inform her friend that their situations were far more similar than might be imagined. She murmured sympathetically.

  “Now,” Clem sighed, “it seems that I have a very large problem, but not one that you can help me with. I should not tell you, I suppose, lest I besmirch your innocence.”

  “Fudge!” retorted Maddy. “I apprehend that you are having difficulty choosing among the aspirants to your hand.”

  Clem smiled wryly. “My hand?” she repeated. “Would that their intentions were so honorable!”

  Maddy experienced a tingle of shock, not unmixed with envy. “Clem!” She had equated the actress’s other admirers with Kenelm, who would allow no improper word concerning his goddess to pass his lips. “You cannot mean to become someone’s mistress!” She whispered the word, with a wary glance at Motley, but that stony-faced sentinel appeared to have been stricken both deaf and dumb.

  “That,” Clem retorted, “is exactly what I want!” She did not appear particularly happy about this fate. “Or rather, it is the best for which I can hope. What do you think happens to actresses, my friend? Or why do you think I chose this course? It is the only way I can hope to continue in the style to which I have become accustomed, and is a great deal better than being consigned to tend someone’s passel of brats!”

  “That may be, but surely there must be some other way.” Maddy’s notions of the ramifications of such a relationship were vague, and gleaned primarily from those romances wherein young ladies so daring invariably met with t
ragic fates. Her curiosity concerning such matters had greatly increased since the advent of the Earl. Unaccountably, she blushed.

  “Do you not think I have considered the alternatives?” Clem inquired tartly. “If there was any other way open to me, I would surely leap at it, but the fact remains that there is not.”

  “We will surely hit on something,” Maddy insisted, “if we just set our minds to it. Were matters different, you could live with me.”

  “An actress?” Clem mocked. “Think how your credit would suffer! I would not bring you down with me. You’ve been too dear a friend for that.”

  Maddy was more shocked by this bitterness than by anything Clem had previously said, for it was entirely foreign to the girl she’d known. “I’ve no great notion of my talents,” Clem added. “My popularity arises only from my novelty on the stage, for I am known to be of good birth. I must make a decision—and soon, as my employer so constantly reminds me. I suspect that his insistence arises from the fact that my future protector will reward him handsomely—and I suspect that he has already been bribed, for he mentions Alastair Bechard’s name in every other breath. Paugh!” Her expression conveyed extreme distaste. “I cannot abide the man.”

  “Lord Bechard!” Maddy’s spirits plummeted at the thought of that gentleman as her friend’s paramour. “It will not do, Clem! Even my mother warns that he is an extremely dangerous man.”

  “The Lady Henrietta,” said Clem cryptically, “may have cause to know.”

  “Would it not be preferable to remain on the stage?”

  “Not,” retorted Clem, “when my chastity would bring the equivalent of several years’ work treading the boards!” She regarded her friend with sympathy. “Poor Maddy, I strongly exacerbate your sensibilities. At first, I thought the stage a fairy-tale place, but I quickly learned otherwise. I have ruined myself, can you not see? Did I but think I could rise to fame, I would pursue the profession, but I suspect my best acting is done off the stage.”

  “Oh Clem,” said Maddy helplessly.

  “It has not been so bad,” Clem replied quickly. “If it comes to the worst, I can always find employment at the music halls.”

  Maddy, never having been privileged to visit such an establishment, could only guess the significance of her friend’s presence there, but the thought was not heartening. “There must be some alternative,” she argued stubbornly. “Hush, and let me think.”

  Clem obediently fell silent. Since she had left her home, she had learned a great deal, the greater part of which she would have given much to forget. She had seen the slum houses in the great rookeries, the decaying piles of tenements in the shabbier parts of central London, the worst of which was possibly Seven Dials, where the theatrical company had their lodgings. Tall crazy houses lined the dark, dilapidated streets; entire buildings frequently collapsed, causing countless unmourned deaths. Children played in the filthy gutters.

  Maddy thought frantically, determined to save Clem from the fate that she had so blithely chosen. If only she were already established, she could easily make provision for her friend; but Maddy’s funds were as well as nonexistent, and she dared not send Clem to Lady Henrietta while Claude was in residence.

  Clem had little hope that Maddy would hit upon a scheme that would extract her from her difficulties, which were in actuality worse than she’d intimated to her friend. She was safe enough for the moment; the master of her troupe, whom she considered an oily scaly snake, would see that she came to no great harm as long as he thought that he could profit; but this unctuous individual was coming to the end of his short patience, and Clem did not imagine that she would long survive on her own, particularly penniless and resented as she was by the other members of the troupe. She could not even seek shelter at a padding-ken, filthy and disgusting as such places were. Nor could she eke out a living begging, as others did. Many burned their bodies with a mixture of acids and gunpowder to achieve the effect of a grievous accident, or applied strong acids to wounds previously punctured with pins, so that they appeared a mass of sores. To become a rich man’s mistress, no matter how temporarily, seemed paradise in comparison.

  Motley made an imperious motion, and Maddy reluctantly rose. “To delay longer will give rise to comment,” she said miserably. “We must meet again, and soon.”

  “It would be better,” Clem protested, “if we did not.”

  “No.” Maddy’s eyes flashed. “We must. I will hit on a solution, if given time to think. Can you put off Lord Bechard a while longer? We must have time to plan.”

  Clem shrugged. “A day, a week, who knows? I can only try.”

  “You must! We will come about. I own I do not immediately see how the thing is to be done, but I will think very particularly about it. Meet me here again, two days hence. Tomorrow I am engaged with my aunt, and to cry off would arouse her suspicions. Will you do this?”

  “You would do better to wash your hands of me.” Clem laughed at her friend’s indignant face. “But I know you too well to expect you to behave so sensibly. Very well, I shall meet you then.”

  “And do not despair!”

  Motley had firmly taken her charge in tow. Clem walked slowly across the park. She did not believe that Maddy could work a miracle, and it seemed that only a miracle could extricate her from this predicament, but her friend’s stubbornness cheered her. If there was a solution to be found, which Clem seriously doubted, then find it Maddy would.

  * * * *

  Wilmington appeared to have little appreciation of the unmaidenly emotions he’d aroused in Maddy’s virginal breast, and had, indeed, been heard to remark that he had no desire to squander his time in complying with an untried damsel’s whims. Tilda, privileged to view the succession of high-flyers who had enjoyed the Earl’s protection, had little reason to doubt the sincerity of his remarks, though lately she had come to suspect that he’d experienced a change of heart, for he exhibited a marked preference for Miss de Villiers’ vivacious company. Tilda wondered at the capriciousness of women, who would ignore the attentions of a perfect gentleman to cast longing glances at a swarthy rake who discarded mistresses as easily as he acquired them, and who additionally bore the stigma of murderer. The wretched Cassandra had proved to be no less vexatious dead than she had been alive.

  “Are you pleased with your adventure?” the Earl inquired. Tilda gazed about the small supper box, set discreetly in a leafy arbor.

  “Inordinately. Why is it I have never before attended a Vauxhall masquerade?”

  “Because it is most improper.” Micah gazed with distaste upon the remnants of their meal, a sumptuous repast that had consisted of Arrack punch, powdered beef, custards, and syllabubs laced with rum.

  “You have no conscience.” Tilda laughed huskily. “Admit that it was reprehensible of you to bring me here.”

  The Earl watched as she rose. “Have you come to a belated awareness of the proprieties, Tilda? Do you wish me to escort you home?”

  Tilda paused by his chair. The sound of revelry was everywhere. “How fainthearted you think me!” she protested. “I have not said I wish to leave.” She felt giddy with a combination of pleasure and champagne. “I vow I could make merry the whole night through.”

  Drunken laughter came closer, and the sounds of a sportive chase through the underbrush. The Earl grasped Tilda’s wrist, pulled her onto his lap, and proceeded to kiss her most thoroughly. Unaccustomed to such treatment, Tilda was too startled to protest. The unknown revelers, upon discovering that this particular secluded refuge was already claimed, offered ribald advice and took themselves away.

  Tilda, when she was allowed to breathe, studied her captor doubtfully. “I suppose that I should thank you,” she remarked, “for saving my reputation.” Her evening cloak, with its concealing hood, lay abandoned on her chair, for the night was warm.

  The countless lamps that illuminated the night threw Micah’s face into shadow. “You may thank me if you wish,” the Earl murmured, “but acquit me
of altruistic tendencies.” His eye seemed to gleam, but not, Tilda thought, with mirth. “I had no thought for your good name.”

  Had Lady Tyrewhitte-Wilson the least degree of prudence, she would have considered the Earl’s notoriety and removed herself forthwith from his grasp. Instead, she sighed and rested her head on his shoulder, most comfortably. “I might have known. Micah, you are no gentleman.”

  “Am I to apologize?” the Earl inquired. So great was his aplomb that he might have every day cradled a rather scantily clad, and somewhat inebriated, lady in his arms.

  “No,” replied the lady, after judicious thought. She peered up at him. “I believe that I would much prefer that you did it again.”

  Micah’s arms tightened around her. Tilda saw devils dancing in his eyes before his face blocked out the light. It was with some shock that she found herself placed firmly on her feet.

  “My darling,” said the Earl, with a note of laughter, “you try me too far. If we remain here longer, alone, I will not answer-for the consequences.”

  Tilda concentrated on maintaining her balance, for the world had developed an unsettling tendency to spin, and sought to mask her absurd disappointment behind dignity. The Earl caught her face between his hands and would not let her speak. “Or would you prefer to forget who you are?” he murmured. “Forget your title, and your fortune, and your damnable propriety?”

  In truth, this was plain speaking. Tilda’s eyes widened. Micah’s lips brushed her forehead, then he enfolded her in the concealing cloak. “Come,” he said. “There is much more for you to see.” There was no anger in his voice. “Before I restore you safely to Agatha, who would curse the pair of us heartily were she to learn of this escapade.”

  It was all because of the yellow dress, Tilda thought fuzzily as she took his arm. Cut on simple lines, the clinging silk was caught in at the waist by a thin gold belt Agatha had pronounced the garment more suited to a courtesan than to a gentlewoman, and judging by Micah’s behavior, her opinion was meritorious. Tilda giggled softly.