by Laura London
“Oh, and he’s the most sought-after rake in London. Why all the women he’s had! Last summer was the most ravishing opera singer—the toast of the demimonde. I saw her once in Hyde Park dashing along in her lovely white carriage with lovely white horses and liverymen all dressed in white.” I wondered if the liverymen had been lovely, too. “They called her the Snow Queen. She was supposed to be irresistible to men, but even she melted away under the heat of the marquis’s boredom, you might say. Hee-hee, Snow Queen, melt away, you get it?” I forced a smile. “Anyway, Lord Dearborne up and gave the fair Snow Queen her marching orders in the most peremptory way, they say. She was simply wretched and wouldn’t sing for weeks. The Prince Regent himself went to beg her to return to the stage. He’s too fatally attractive. Lord Dearborne, I mean, not the Prince Regent.” She shrieked so loudly in appreciation of her own humor that I wondered with horrid fascination if she would expire on the spot. When she had recovered herself sufficiently to talk again, she leaned over to me conspiratorially.
“Now, my dear Miss Cordell, you know that I wouldn’t dream of repeating confidences shared between friends. You live so near to Lord Dearborne. Tell me, has he ever tried…?” She left the sentence delicately unfinished, but I felt the color flame into my cheeks. To my fervent though unexpressed gratitude, our tête-à-tête was interrupted by the fatally attractive one himself. Lord Dearborne strolled leisurely up to us, oblivious to the many covert glances that followed him across the room.
“Your pardon, ladies.” He spoke with such obvious ennui that it must have forever dispelled any notion in Cecilia’s head that he had ever tried… with me. “Miss Cordell, may I drag you away from your companion? Lady Peterby begs that I bring you at once for an introduction.”
Thankfully, a summons from Lady Peterby was the local equivalent to a royal command. I made good my escape on Lord Dearborne’s arm. However formidable Lady Peterby might be, it was tarts to table scraps better than being grilled about Lord Dearborne by Cecilia.
Lady Peterby, as it turned out, was all friendliness and warmth. As I reached her side, she extended a pair of exquisitely gloved hands to draw me to the settee beside her. The merest trace of a French accent filled her voice with fascinating lilts.
“Ah, my poor child, forgive me for having sent for you in such a fashion, but I saw that unsuspecting young Warrington left you with that horrid Macready chit. Then when I saw your cheeks brighten like holly berries I was sure that girl was treating you to some of her dreadful store of… anecdotes. Naturally the color is most becoming to you, but I thought you might prefer to hear no more. No, no, my dear child, there is no need to thank me. Pray dismiss the whole incident from your mind. Cecilia is a notorious rattle-pate with less sense than a molting hen. Now tell me how you go on? You must know that I was very fond of your dear mother. Perhaps you know that she once did us the honor of staying with us?” The truth was that Mama had been too proud to take the hospitality that Lady Peterby had offered and stayed at Petersperch under the condition that she tutor the Peterby daughters in their French. My mother and Lady Peterby had lived in the same province in France before the Revolution, though Lady Peterby had left France to marry Lord Lesley’s father long before the Terror was more than a gleam in M. Danton’s eye. My mother had often told me of the many kindnesses shown her by the gracious Lady Peterby when she had arrived in England, friendless and without means. Indeed, I discovered that Lady Peterby had the most tactfully unobtrusive sympathy and found it frighteningly easy to confide in her.
“And so now you find yourself in the guardianship of Nicholas Dearborne, yes? Ah, he is a good boy at heart, with good intentions, although he does not always live up to them. I’ve known Nicholas since he was a little one. His father was a cousin to my husband—though a distant one. If he doesn’t behave well toward you then you must come and tell me and I will beat him for you with my cane!”
Lady Peterby shook her silver-tipped walking stick so threateningly in the air that I gave a peal of laughter. She was crippled, poor lady, from a hunting accident years ago, and though she couldn’t get around very well by herself, you would hardly notice the handicap, so charmingly did she bear it.
“Ah, now there is a laugh that will turn heads,” said Lady Peterby. “So like your lively mama, I can see. Oh, I suppose you must dance with this Godfrey Woodman, here. He is planting himself beside the chair to gain a dance with you and will obviously not be got rid of until he has it.”
The rest of the evening passed in a delightful haze. I left with a very favorable opinion of balls; everyone had been kind and friendly (except the squire and Mrs. Macready who treated me as tactfully as a pair of nesting swans who have discovered a cuckoo in the nest). I wondered again how Christopher had managed to secure an invitation for me and taxed him with it in the carriage on the way home.
“C’mon, Kit, tell. Mrs. Macready would never have invited me of her own free will. How did you talk her into it? Threaten to whip Jeffrey in another bout of fisticuffs?”
“No, all I did was to have Jeffrey tell his mother that I couldn’t accept an invitation in which you weren’t included. That brought her around quick enough, I promise you. She thinks that I might pay court to Cecilia.”
“You wouldn’t!” I exclaimed involuntarily.
“Lord, no. Have you got windmills in your head? Pay court to that simpering, twittering half-wit?”
He looked so indignant that I hastily begged pardon. “And you know, Kit, I had the best time, so I’m glad that you got me invited,” I said placatingly. “Now I’ll always be able to say that I’ve been to a real ball. It’s not every cottage dweller who is privileged to attend a ball at the squire’s place and hobnob with no less a personage than Lady Peterby herself! She said the kindest things to me. My head was quite turned by it.”
Christopher only sniffed. “Like to know why she shouldn’t say kind things to you. As for the Macreadys, it’s they should be privileged to have you at their ball. You come from a damn sight better family than they do, ’scuse my language. It makes my blood boil that a bunch of provincial nobodies like the Macreadys think they can play the patricians over you.”
“What a disgusting thing to say. Boiling blood—ugh!” I wrinkled my nose. “How do you think I did on the dance floor?”
“Looked like an angel,” my erstwhile dancing master commented simply. “How did you manage to keep Godfrey Woodman’s rapt attention for so long? The fellow hung on your every word—which is amazing considering the time he’s spent perfecting his poetic sulk. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him show any interest in any female other than… ahem. What allurements did you offer to keep him at your side?”
“None. That is, I don’t consider a discussion of the symbolism of Clytië to be an allurement. Not precisely, at least.”
Lord Dearborne raised one elegant eyebrow. “What an odd education you’ve had. One usually doesn’t find young girl with a grounding in the classics. Their mamas are content to rear them to paint in runny watercolors, speak unintelligible French, and pluck on poorly tuned harps.”
Christopher gave me a tolerant grin. “That’s what comes of receiving an education under the tutelage of a harebrained old scholar like Mudbury’s vicar. Elizabeth is so well grounded in the classics that the poor girl is almost more pagan than she is Christian. I believe she prays to Zeus when no one is listening.”
“Just because the poor vicar forgot to remove his nightcap before services Sunday morning is no reason to say he’s harebrained. It might have happened to anyone.” I bristled in defense of my beloved mentor.
“I daresay,” said Christopher skeptically. “But what about last evening when Mrs. Goodbody asked you to read from that book of sermons? Are you going to deny that you said the Lord Jove instead of the Lord Jehovah?”
“No, I’m not. But I daresay that no one else would have noticed it if you hadn’t commenced to snicker. And you say I’m un-Christian!”
“So, who i
s Clytië—some overaroused wood nymph, I suppose?” asked Christopher.
“Yes,” I replied, “though that’s a horridly unchivalrous way of putting it. Clytië fell in love with Apollo, the lord of the sun. She would spend the day lying on the grass watching the sun blaze across the sky. Finally, in mercy, she became a sunflower and eternally tilts her face to the sun’s path.”
“What a familiar story,” said Christopher. “Think of all the Clytiës left gazing at you, Uncle Nicky. How many gardens have you filled with weepy sunflowers?”
“None,” said Lord Dearborne. He had been silently gazing out at the moonlit landscape. “Love is a farce, Kit. You’ll find it only in bad novels and good poetry. All those weepy sunflowers want is my title and income.”
When is the last time you looked in a mirror, Milord?
Chapter Six
The next morning I was awakened by a persistent patting on my shoulder.
“Elizabeth, Lizzie,” Christa stage-whispered. She slipped under the covers with me. “I’ve got something of the greatest importance to tell you!”
She’d slopped tea on my new shawl, I thought sleepily. “It’s all right, Christa, go ahead and tell. I won’t be angry.”
“It’s not an angry thing. It’s a make-fun-of thing. That’s why I didn’t tell you last night when you came home from the ball. I didn’t want anyone else to hear about it. You must promise not to tell anyone about it, or they’ll all laugh at me. No one ever believes anything I say. So swear an oath not to tell.”
“All right, urn… Certain true, black and blue, lay me down and cut me in two. Now tell.”
“I saw a ghost last night. See, you’re smiling—I can see that you’re trying to hide it but it’s definitely a smile.”
“I beg your pardon, pet. Where did you see your ghost and what did he look like?”
“It was just before you returned from the ball last night. I took Cleo out for her walk and saw it slipping away through the orchard. Do you remember the old topcoat that Admiral Barfreston used to wear, the one with three shoulder capes? He wore it again last night.”
I shivered in spite of myself. “Christa, Admiral Barfreston is dead. We went to his funeral and saw them lower his coffin in the ground with our own eyes. Sometimes at night, in the poor light, you can think that you see all kinds of things. It’s your imagination at work. Once when I was out at night I thought I saw a man standing against the house, but when I came closer to it, I saw that it was only an old ladder.”
“That was the night of Henri’s death, wasn’t it? I remember you telling about it at the inquest. Well, listen to this: suppose that Henri didn’t fall from the roof after all. Suppose that Admiral Barfreston’s ghost returned to the house and murdered Henri because he thought he was a French spy!”
“Of all the lurid… Christa, have you been reading those dreadful Minerva novels? First of all, why a spy?”
“Mr. Blakslee says the countryside is just crawling with French spies. You know we are only ten miles from the Channel here. The spies come in at hidden coves with the smugglers.”
“Well, Henri didn’t come to Barfrestly with any smugglers. He came in a perfectly respectable coach from London with the marquis’s other servants.”
“I know that, Lizzie, but how is the admiral supposed to know that when he’s been dead all this time?”
I wished that Christa would stop referring to the admiral as if he were not really dead. It was enough to give one an attack of gooseflesh. I could see that I would be unable to convince her that her imagination had produced the specter, so I switched tactics, distracting her with a reference to our planned trip to Dyle.
“Run along now and get ready for our trip today. At this rate it will be midday before we get away.”
My pessimistic remark proved to be unfounded because when we pulled away in the carriage, the dew had barely dried on the tall grasses around our cottage. The twins, Mrs. Goodbody, and I make an annual excursion to Dyle. Mrs. Goodbody’s brother-in-law sails as a fisherman from the port there. Christopher had expressed a desire to accompany us this year, and he was kind enough to procure the use of Lord Dearborne’s carriage for the ten-mile ride. It proved to be a definite improvement over former years, when we relied on the bumpy public stagecoach.
As we neared Dyle and the seacoast, the tame farmland gave way to low-shingled marshes—a gala dappled swirl of sheer blue greens, russets, and pewter. The air grew sly with the scents of salts and fish. My sisters and I listened for the high calls of the shy bittern and marsh hen, two birds which rarely come so far inland as Barfrestly. The weather, for once, was perfect.
Mrs. Goodbody’s brother-in-law lived with his large, busy family in a snug whitewashed cottage that poked sturdily up from its nest of trimmed evergreen bushes. Their family had lived there for generations—as long as Lord Dearborne’s arrogant ancestors have dominated their thousands of acres, I reflected. I tried to imagine Lord Dearborne in hobnail boots and woolen trousers. I was forced to the unsatisfactory conclusion that he would still look exactly like a marquis.
Christopher, on the other hand, had no airs, no cultivated arrogance to keep him separated from the human race. Kit had something far better than good manners—he was naturally friendly. I watched with appreciation at the way he smiled himself into the good graces of Mrs. Goodbody’s sister and ended up with the largest slice of the potato pie that was served for luncheon. We ate outside to the low rumble of crashing waves; the salt smell was fresh and invigorating as it came in on the breeze. Time passed quickly as Mrs. Goodbody’s brother-in-law kept us enthralled with tales of the sea, with its invisible tides and hidden coves where mermaids and monsters lurked.
After we had lunched, we walked down to the harbor to view the ceremony which served as an excuse for our yearly pilgrimage, the blessing of the fishing boats and nets. This was an important day for fisher-folk. We joined the large crowd at seaside, so large that it stretched up the brow of the hill by the harbor. The gathering was a colorful sight as I turned to look behind me. It is the custom at the ceremony to arrive loaded down with garlands of flowers which are tossed into the water at a certain point as a way of blessing the catch. Dr. Smithfield, the old vicar, had told me that the ceremony dated from the pre-Christian era when the offerings were made to a Roman fertility goddess, and had only been embellished with Christian trappings with the arrival of Christian missionaries. I wondered what the assembled multitude would think if they knew they were participating in a pagan ritual.
The members of the town council, along with the mayor, were standing on a makeshift platform by the quay. The mayor looked important and solemn in his official robes with his chain of office around his wrinkled neck. The gathering hushed as the parson mounted the platform and made his blessing upon the boat and nets. His voice carried over the crowd, rolling and sonorous like the waves that were washing to the beach, as he recited the ancient prayer.
“Good Lord lead us
Good Lord speed us
From all perils protect us
From the darkness us protect.
Finest nights to land our fish
Sound and big to fill our wish
God keep our nets from snag and break
For every man a goodly take
Lord grant us.”
At the finish of the traditional prayer it seemed to be raining gardens as the flowers were tossed in the brine. All about me the people were saying, “Lord bless me” as they rid themselves of their fragrant blossoms.
After the beautiful open-air ceremony, through the crowd were passed baskets full of tiny squares of stale gingerbread, along with flasks of gin from which everyone took a swig. When the flask reached our gathering, Christopher looked at it doubtfully.
“Don’t worry,” said Caro. “The gin is strong enough to kill any bad humors which might be hanging about the flask.” Christopher drank and passed it to me. I permitted myself one cautious sip. Christopher laughed when I pulled a face.
The ceremony was over.
It was Mrs. Goodbody’s intention to return to the cottage with her brother-in-law and his family to enjoy a leisurely coze, sharing confidences in the intimate way one does with members of one’s family. This left Christopher, my sisters, and me with some time to savor the attractions of Dyle. As the sea was too chilly for wading that early in the year, we decided to take Christopher on a tour of the town itself.
Dyle is built up a hillside on a series of terraces that rise from the smooth stretch of beach. The narrow high street cuts through the town and ends on top of the hill in front of the parish church. We took the exhausting trek up High Street to a vantage point below the church, and turned to enjoy the view. The ocean was dark blue under the sun, contrasting nicely with the ochre thatch of the rooftops. It was as if we were standing on the edge of a great bowl. I was certain I could make out the outline of the French coast if only I peered hard enough.
“Lizzie, why are you making that awful squint?” asked Christa.
“She is trying to see France,” returned Caro, whose intent, furrowed brow indicated she was undertaking the same project.
“The wind is very strong up here, isn’t it, Christopher,” I shouted. He was standing on a large rock, pointing at something and shouting back.
“Over there to the south,” he was saying. “What are all those grayish rectangular buildings there?”
I scrambled up the rock after him and looked where he was pointing, shielding my eyes from the sun.
“Those are army barracks,” I said. “There’s a lot of invasion scares on the coast here. Look behind us; you can see the Martello towers, and down below, that dark line of water coming out from behind that bluff. That is the Napoleonic Defensive Waterway. The army built it.”
“Think that canal’s going to keep Napoleon out?” said Christopher, grinning.