The Scandal of the Season

by Sophie Gee

  Teresa, however, made no attempt to follow.

  There are people who, no matter how dearly they have longed to witness the humiliation of a rival, will nonetheless wince if the spectacle really should come to pass. Teresa Blount was not among them. Arabella’s distress did not move her. In the past, Arabella had seen her unhappy and uncertain, too, but such sights had not softened Arabella’s temperament, nor disposed her to behave more generously toward her cousin. Teresa did not imagine that, had Arabella not existed, Lord Petre might have married her instead. Neither could she change Arabella’s outcome by feeling compassion for her now. Both Arabella and Teresa understood that they belonged to a world that set no particular store by the virtues of fortitude, charity, and humility. Yet neither of them had ever been tempted to forsake it for another.

  So, when Martha turned back to her sister and said quietly that they should accompany Arabella home by river, Teresa replied, “No need for both of us to go, is there? I am going to be presented to Her Majesty.”

  Martha remonstrated with her by alluding to Arabella’s misfortune. But Teresa shook her head fiercely and answered, “I do not intend to give up my last day’s pleasure because Arabella did not get her own way with Lord Petre. Anybody might have told her that it would turn out thus. Attend to her if you wish, but you will not be thanked for it afterward.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Love in these labyrinths his slaves detains,

  And mighty hearts are held in slender chains”

  The next day Martha told Alexander what had happened.

  “That is quite a tale, Patty,” he said when she came to the end of it. “What I wouldn’t give to have seen Miss Fermor’s face when the baron snatched away her hair. Nor your sister’s when Miss Fermor fainted. What a mighty spectacle it must have been.”

  “It was most unfeeling of Teresa not to accompany Cousin Bell home,” said Martha, wanting to make sure that Alexander had noted this part of the story.

  “Perhaps not so unfeeling as you think, Patty,” he replied. “Arabella may not have wished Teresa to be there, either. She is not the sort of person who would want her rivals to see her languishing in the Cave of Spleen.”

  “The Cave of Spleen?” echoed Martha. “How fanciful your speech is sometimes. Arabella was very dejected on the way home, it’s true. If I did not know you better, I would begin to think you felt sorry for our cousin Bell.”

  “I should be a hypocrite indeed were I to feel sympathy for her now,” Alexander replied. “But one does not wish to see Miss Fermor in her fallen condition—it is so much at odds with the character she shows the rest of the world.”

  “I have never known you to defend Arabella before,” said Martha. She looked at Alexander suspiciously. “What can be the reason for this change of heart?”

  Alexander looked back at her with a guarded expression. “No, no—no change of heart,” he said. “But there was something flawless about Miss Fermor’s poise,” he continued. “She wore her beauty as a knight wears his armor. I had not thought it could be so easily dented.”

  Martha laughed at this, feeling more like Teresa in her desire to make fun of him. “Angels, fallen women, knights at arms! Dear me, Alexander,” she said. “What a confusion of ideas this tale has roused in you. You need only add an epic battle to your narrative, and you could take on Homer, Spenser, and Milton in a single morning!”

  There was a glint in Alexander’s eye, and she wondered if he would reach for pen and paper then and there.

  “Mind you give me proper credit,” she added with a teasing look. She was beginning to enjoy the new footing on which they stood. Once again she wondered what it was in Alexander’s character that made people want to taunt him. Perhaps it was all ambitious people were the same, she considered. Or all successful people, she corrected herself, reflecting that however gratifying it might be to mock Alexander or Arabella, there was not much pleasure to be gained in poking fun at Teresa’s unrealized hopes.

  Two days later, Martha and Teresa left London to return to Mapledurham. A week after that Alexander departed likewise. His adieu to Jervas was delivered with a mixture of relief and regret, to which Jervas replied in his customary manner.

  “I am not suited to melancholy, Pope—I do not like feeling sad. So I shall not say that I will miss you, but rather that I am looking forward to your return.”

  Alexander pressed his friend’s hand, and thanked him sincerely for all that he had done. “I shall return as soon as I have a poem to sell,” he added.

  Jervas said good-bye with a cheerful wave.

  After the events at Hampton Palace Arabella thought that she would never show her face in public again. It was not merely the fact that Lord Petre had abandoned her that was so shaming—the riskiness of their romance had always been a reminder that she may not attain her end. But if she had imagined their parting, it was as a private affair, engendered by his family’s refusal to permit the match. She had pictured it as tearful and anguished on his part, regretful and dignified on hers. Of course, she had believed that he would defy his family’s prohibition to marry her anyway.

  When she thought about what had happened, she was certain that Lord Petre’s family had demanded a public separation, wanting to be sure that the relationship would never be resumed. She wondered what leverage had been used to force him to agree. The motive must have been powerful. She was firmly of the belief that his passions in the past had been compelled by sentimental rather than moral feeling, which was inconsistent with the resolve and cold ruthlessness with which he had just acted. It had been out of character.

  As the days passed, her feelings of mortification and betrayal gave way to an unexpected relief. She realized that everybody had known of their affair; if it had been broken off privately she would have become an object of pity, the pathetic dupe of a wealthy, charming nobleman. But as things stood, it was he who came off badly—making use of the protection offered by a public setting to perform so dishonorable an act. Had he married Arabella, he would have declared his real nobility, showing that he was rich enough to marry for love and confident enough to marry as magnificent a creature as Arabella Fermor. She hoped that society would view the marriage to Catherine Walmesley as a feeble retreat, a naked attempt to line his family’s pockets through marriage to a woman whom nobody cared for.

  If Arabella managed her situation well, she might become even more distinguished a prize. She decided to quit London for a season, go instead to Bath, and return to the capital the following year, by which time Lord Petre and Miss Walmesley would have been married long enough to have begun the unglamorous business of breeding.

  She was invigorated by these reflections and her decision. But she couldn’t help a bitter underlying disappointment that afflicted her private hours. The nature of this regret surprised her; she had told herself that she was pursuing Lord Petre because she wanted to be a baron’s wife—and for the adventure of it, which thrilled her. She saw in hindsight that the affair had been exquisite because of more than his rank and fortune; her motivating ambition had been displaced by more complicated emotions. Their regard for each other had been reciprocal. There had been no need for her to indulge in flights of romantic fantasy when they were in fact united by understanding and likeness.

  But as soon as she acknowledged her feelings of real attachment to him, she experienced a sudden release. She was amazed. How could it be that by admitting that she had come to love Lord Petre, she had been spared the lashings of remorse and longing that she had expected to overwhelm her? For the first time in her life, the workings of the human heart astounded her. In spite of these discoveries about herself, however, she did remain in one fundamental sense true to her former character. She would never discuss the episode, or her feelings about it, with any of her friends, who wondered at Arabella’s unflaggingly cheerful disposition and the resumption of her determined social manner. Since they had no insight into the intricacies of her heart, they concluded that
she had recovered so quickly because she was not capable of deep feeling.

  She was relieved to leave town with her parents, who decided that their daughter’s best chances for success in the next season depended upon her being removed immediately from the present one.

  Lord Petre’s emotions were of a different order. He missed Arabella even more now that their separation was complete, and he reflected how ironic it was that he, most enviable of creatures, should have to suffer the unfairness of losing his one true love. But he decided that he would not seek Arabella out after his marriage to Miss Walmesley, despite his earlier desire to keep her as his mistress. He told himself that it would be up to Arabella to make the first move, and that if she did not, he must submit to his ill fate.

  In due course he would hear that Arabella had returned to society more beautiful and triumphant than ever, and the news would intensify his sense of heroic exile—he alone was doomed to unrequited love; Arabella’s passion had obviously been superficial in its nature. If they were to be united again, he reasoned, it would be not as god and goddess but as mere mortals, and Lord Petre was rather afraid of the demands that mortality might make of him. As he sensed her drift away, magnificently self-possessed as ever, he vowed that he would always honor her as the great love of his life, even if he should one day find himself in the arms of another mistress.

  In the meantime, however, Lord Petre and his family returned to Ingatestone to prepare for the wedding.

  On the day that he left London, Alexander stopped at John Caryll’s house at Ladyholt; he was to be collected there by his father’s little carriage the next morning. After breakfast the following day, Caryll invited Alexander to walk in the gardens. As they passed through the well-tended borders, looking out onto the gentle summer prospect of grass and grazing cows, Alexander felt a tide of relief wash over him. He had been pent up in the city for too long. The view also reminded him of his poem Windsor Forest, of the verses that awaited his attention when he returned home, and of the very few weeks of summer that now remained. He had meant to send another poem to Tonson by the autumn. As he watched Caryll’s slow, wandering step he felt impatience. He was stricken with the thought that he might get no more work done in the country than he had in the town.

  At last Caryll began to speak. “I heard recently of a rather sorry affair,” he said. Alexander wondered if his host had brought him outside expressly to discuss it. He turned to him with an interested expression, but said nothing.

  “The matter concerns two families who are very dear to me,” Caryll continued. “The Petres and the Fermors. Two of our most ancient lines. Devout, of course.”

  Alexander was intrigued; he longed to hear Caryll’s account of the events. He did not confess to having heard the tale already, wanting Caryll to tell his version of the story without interruption. Perhaps Caryll knew more about why things had turned out as they did. He was curious.

  “The Petres and the Fermors have long been intimate,” Caryll began. “There was once some talk of a match between the eldest Miss Fermor and my ward, the baron. Her fortune is not large, and there are seven younger sisters still to be provided for, but I had always thought it an excellent notion to unite two such ancient houses. But lately a coolness has arisen between them.” Caryll knew that his young friend was looking to write a new poem, and he hoped that he might use Alexander to compose a public record of the events.

  He paused, correcting himself. “It is more than coolness; there is anger. The Fermors are angry with the Petres, perhaps implacably so. And upon so trifling a basis! Lord Petre, in a moment of high animal spirits, stole a lock of Miss Arabella Fermor’s hair. The jest has been taken too seriously. It has caused an estrangement between the two families, though they have lived long in friendship before.”

  “I am grieved to hear it, sir,” said Alexander. “As you observe, it appears a trivial thing to cause such dire offense.” He suspected still that Caryll knew more than he was letting on, and he was about to insist on hearing the details. But he stopped himself.

  “Amorous causes too often give rise to mighty contest, I fear,” Caryll said. “But I believe that you may be instrumental in providing a cure, Pope.”

  “I, sir? How so?” Alexander dreaded to hear what he would be asked to do.

  “I desire you to write a poem to make a jest of it, and laugh them together again.”

  Alexander’s heart leapt. It was a brilliant idea!

  “A poem upon Miss Fermor’s stolen lock,” he answered slowly, not wanting to appear too eager lest Caryll wonder why he liked the idea so much. “The subject is slight,” he added.

  “But perhaps you will find that more might be made of it than meets the eye,” Caryll suggested, slyly. Alexander was grateful for this interjection and, once again, decided not to enquire too closely as to its cause. What did it matter if Caryll knew something more about Arabella Fermor’s ravished hair? It would be he, not Caryll, who would set the episode in writing.

  “I have affection for Miss Fermor and her family,” Caryll continued, “and I should like to see her happy again. Particularly when the offense is founded upon so insignificant an episode.”

  “As you justly observe, sir, that is what lends the subject its peculiar charm,” Alexander answered.

  As they walked back into the house, he thanked John Caryll for his suggestion, and promised to give the idea thought. But then he felt a pricking of compunction. Caryll lived far from the court and the town, thought Alexander; despite his bravado about traveling to London, he enjoyed a retired life, surrounded by a loving family and old friends. Caryll had probably made this proposal out of affectionate solicitude for people whom he knew to be devout Catholics and respectable landholders. Ought Alexander to let his friend know that there had been a more intimate involvement between the two parties than he realized? How differently might his friend feel if he knew all the details? But he decided against speaking out. He did not want Caryll to change his mind about his writing the poem, as he undoubtedly would if he was apprised of all the facts. He reasoned that Caryll need never learn the truth of the affair.

  Caryll watched Alexander carefully. He had thought, for a moment, that Alexander was looking at him awry, almost as though he guessed the secret. But Alexander’s face cleared, and Caryll concluded that he did not suspect. He decided against telling Alexander what had really happened. Poets, after all, were not to be trusted with the truth. He knew that Alexander longed for fame—he would be far too tempted to make the story into a scandal—which was exactly what Caryll hoped to avoid. He glanced at Alexander again, benevolently. His fears were needless; Alexander clearly suspected nothing.

  It took Alexander three weeks to finish the first draft of the poem. He spent hours in his room, blocking out the noises that constantly threatened to distract him: the housemaid treading up and down the staircase with her mop and brooms, the cook and kitchen boy calling to each another outside in the yard, his mother talking to his father from one room to another. He broke off for meals, thankful to have a reason to lay down his pen, and yet anxious to be back at his desk as soon as he was away from it. The worst moments in the composition came at the beginning of each couplet, when all he had were two words or a snatch of a phrase that he wanted to make rhyme. He struggled to recall the thoughts he had had about the episode when Martha first described it to him. He paced about his room, lay on his bed for long periods, read his lines over and over until they made no sense. He realized, when he had finished the first canto of the poem, and was beginning work on a second, that he could no longer remember which of the lines had been funny when they had first come to him, and he wished that he had put a mark next to the words that had seemed particularly inspired.

  Each day he would take long walks with his father, but while they were out he was constantly thinking of ideas and trying to find ways to remember them.

  One morning, Alexander’s father asked him what his new poem was about.

  “Oh,
it is a satire, sir,” Alexander replied, dreading his father’s reaction to the news. “On the court and the men and women of fashion,” he added, hoping that this description might modify what he knew must be coming.

  “A satire!” his father replied in surprise, disapproval edging his words. “You told me that you were going to write a sacred hymn called The Messiah.”

  Pope hesitated. He remembered mentioning such a poem when he had written to ask if he might stay in town longer. He had never imagined that his father paid the slightest attention to what he was doing—but he should have guessed that this particular detail would be remembered.

  “I have been writing The Messiah, sir,” he said, trying not to sound guilty. “But Mr. Caryll has asked me to break off from that work to compose the present verses. They are intended to help two Catholic families to become friends again.”

  “Mr. Caryll!” exclaimed Alexander’s father. He paused, and then added in an appeased tone of voice, “He would encourage you in nothing that was wrong.” Another pause, and then, “Who are the two families?” Alexander knew that this was his trump card. “The Petres and the Fermors,” he said. His father nodded, savoring the names. Alexander smiled to himself, but felt a sting of conscience.

  By way of atonement he decided to divulge something that he had been planning to keep to himself. “I have been thinking, sir,” he began, “as I reflect on all that I did and saw while I was in London, that I do not properly fit into the world of the town. I wonder if I ever will. I am so very different from Charles Jervas and Richard Steele—and from Lord Petre, of course.”

  “Well, you are not a baron’s son, that’s certainly true,” his father replied.

  Alexander looked at him and saw that his father was embarrassed, refusing to meet his son’s eye. It had not occurred to him until now that their lack of position might be why his father so resisted Alexander’s joining the fashionable world. He felt a pang of remorse for his own failure to understand.