Reputation

by Lex Croucher

  The weather was very fine. Sun filtered through the trees and flashed intermittently through the windows as the carriage travelled farther from town, and they drank steadily, their stories getting wilder and ruder as the bottles of wine at their feet grew emptier.

  Georgiana was flushed and giddy with pleasure at how easy it all felt; nobody seemed to see her as an outsider, or an unwelcome addition to their party. For the first few weeks of her friendship with Frances, she had almost felt as if she were taking part in an audition – an attempt to earn her place, to prove that she belonged – but no longer; she had won the part, she had arrived, and she could enjoy herself freely without worrying that they might spontaneously tire of her and abandon her at the crossroads with her trunk to await the evening’s post.

  Towards the end of their journey, the toasts grew increasingly ridiculous (‘To the vine that gave us the grape that produced this wine!’ ‘To the dogs that pissed on it!’). Georgiana was absolutely starving, and judged it to be well past lunchtime as they travelled up a very uneven track to the house, and then fell over one another as they tried to exit at once. A mostly empty bottle of wine rolled out after Frances and smashed, but she just laughed and stepped over the mess, throwing her arms wide as if she were presenting the cottage to Georgiana.

  It was much larger than she had anticipated – at least as large as the Burtons’ house, and she’d never dare call that a cottage in her aunt’s earshot. It seemed as if it might be whitewashed under its dense covering of wisteria and ivy. They were surrounded by trees, and turning around, Georgiana could barely make out the track they had travelled up to get there. Once the coachmen had unpacked their luggage and made for town, they’d be quite on their own.

  It was the kind of place that should have been exquisitely peaceful – but of course, there was nothing remotely like peace on the agenda.

  The front door opened and Christopher emerged with a violently lavender shirt half unbuttoned, a bottle of wine in each hand, his arms raised high in greeting. As their trunks were brought in, they followed him through the small entryway and down a narrow passage to what turned out to be the kitchen, already strewn with empty bottles. On the table there was also an assortment of platters: thin cuts of meat, tarts, cheeses and breads all laid out and ready to eat.

  ‘There’s a modest estate about half an hour east that’s almost always empty, so I have employed their staff to keep us alive. They’ll bring us three square meals a day, fresh water, ale – and besides that, the cellar will keep us well lubricated.’ Christopher motioned with one of the wine bottles to an open trapdoor, which he seemed to have recently ascended from. ‘I’m afraid they don’t do much in the way of housework, so you’ll have to be self-sufficient. Try not to faint from the shock, Smith. Dress yourselves, bathe yourselves. Wipe your own arses.’

  They all helped themselves to plates of food, and Christopher passed up more bottles from the cellar, making sure they were all carrying one before leading them through the back of the house and into the grounds. These were not quite the vast, manicured gardens of Longview; there was simply a long, narrow lawn bordered with fragrant flower beds, with a thicket of trees to the rear.

  The grass was already occupied by Mr Russell, along with a couple of other familiar faces from Jane’s party. Georgiana scanned them quickly, and noted that Mr Hawksley was not among them. She hadn’t truly allowed herself to hope that he might be, the general idea being that it would help her weather the disappointment a little better, if it came.

  It hadn’t worked.

  The men looked as if they had started a game of pall-mall and then suddenly found themselves too fatigued to continue and fallen where they stood, as they were lounging on blankets among the hoops, jackets off, some of them still holding their mallets as they laughed and drank. Frances held the bottle of wine over her head like a trophy as she made a beeline for Jeremiah.

  Mr Russell’s hangers-on turned out to both be called James, and Georgiana immediately christened them James I and James II, based on their proximity to her. They didn’t inconvenience themselves by looking up from their discussion about the various virtues of their horses to greet the newcomers. As she had no interest in competitive horse bragging, she seated herself with Cecily, Jonathan and Jane, and ate with them in a companionable silence for a while until the rising volume of equine conversation interrupted their peace.

  Jonathan nodded his head ever so slightly in the direction of both Jameses and rolled his eyes at them.

  ‘I’ll bet you five pounds they’re secretly fucking their beloved horses,’ he said in a stage whisper.

  Jane snorted. Georgiana, who had never heard such obscene swearing in all her life, felt hot with embarrassment for a second before remembering to smile.

  ‘I can’t take you up on that,’ Jane replied drily. ‘The odds are tipped far too heavily in your favour.’ She leaned towards him and continued, sounding bored, ‘I’ll wager you one further – I bet they’re fucking their horses, and I bet their horses are all named after their mothers.’

  ‘He is handsome, though, Jane,’ said Cecily earnestly, seeming not to have heard them. She was gazing at the taller James, somehow immune to the embarrassment of admiring a man they had just named a horse-fucker.

  ‘Don’t let us hold you back, Ces, I’m sure he’s as rich as God,’ said Jonathan. ‘Just give him a nip from me if he tries to feed you a carrot.’

  ‘Yes, or if he insists on keeping you in the outbuildings,’ added Jane.

  ‘Or if he hits you with his crop when he wants you to move a little faster . . .’

  Cecily was already gone, smoothing her dress and hair as she went to see if she could prove herself more interesting than a horse. James II looked her up and down appreciatively as she approached.

  ‘You can hear what he’s thinking,’ said Georgiana in a low voice. ‘Sixteen and a half hands, strong teeth, back nicely curved and positioned for a saddle . . .’

  She and Jonathan fell about laughing, and Jane smirked. Jonathan opened his bottle of wine and drank straight from it, so Georgiana followed suit, knowing that if her aunt could see her now – lounging on the grass drinking with men she didn’t know, unescorted, instead of flanked by responsible parents for a few days of brisk walking and high tea – she would promptly and quietly die of shame.

  ‘This tastes like piss,’ Jonathan said, wincing.

  Georgiana couldn’t tell the difference between good and bad wine if her life depended on it, and bore them all equally without really enjoying them. Jonathan’s tastes, apparently being much more refined than hers, clearly could not be satisfied by what they had. He abruptly got up and walked back into the house in search of something with a better vintage, muttering something darkly about Christopher’s taste as he went.

  Left alone with Jane, Georgiana felt instantly uncomfortable. She struggled to make conversation with Frances’s least loquacious friend even when part of a group; now, after what she knew – and what Jane knew she knew – she was unable to look her in the eye. She wanted to offer some variety of sympathy, but somehow didn’t imagine that would go down particularly well. The constant underlying air of hardness, of distance, made sense to her now; Jane seemed genuinely enamoured of Frances – perhaps as much as Frances admired Jeremiah – and it must have been terrible to watch the two of them constantly engaged in what was tantamount to an upper-class mating ritual. Georgiana had always felt as if she had somehow garnered Jane’s disapproval, but it occurred to her now that perhaps it was life that had disappointed her, causing her to find almost everything and everyone barely tolerable.

  They both reached for their bottles of wine and drank deeply to fill the silence, and although it didn’t breach the awkwardness of the moment, Georgiana felt bolstered by the thought that Jane might be experiencing some of the same discomfort she was. Any evidence of Jane’s humanity was welcome at this point.

  ‘I suppose this all seems terribly exciting,’ Jane said event
ually, and Georgiana looked up.

  ‘Oh! Yes, I suppose it is,’ she replied, trying very hard not to look as if this wasn’t in fact the most exciting day of her life so far.

  ‘Mmm,’ said Jane, clearly not fooled. ‘You do seem like a nice sort of girl.’ Somehow this didn’t sound like a compliment.

  ‘Thank you?’ said Georgiana.

  ‘I don’t say so to flatter you,’ Jane said flatly. ‘I say so to warn you. You aren’t from money – certainly not any significant money, anyway. This is all new to you. You should be sitting in a drab little parlour somewhere, keeping company with local girls until you’re married off to a modest man with modest land, who keeps an elderly cook and one spotty maid to dress you and put pretty paste earrings in your ears.’

  Now Georgiana knew she was being insulted. She made to speak, but Jane continued.

  ‘Again, please do not mistake my meaning. I don’t say this to do you harm. I am simply laying out the facts. You would not be unhappy, I think, with an ordinary life befitting your station. Here – now – you have truly stumbled into the lion’s den. The potential for unhappiness here is vast. Nobody here will be shamed or cast out for the many sins I’m sure they’ll commit before Monday. There is almost nothing we can do that will not be excused because of our wealth, our standing. Our parentage. Can you say the same?’

  Jane had delivered the entirety of this speech in a straightforward, confident tone; Georgiana felt like a scolded child, tears springing to her eyes unbidden, embarrassingly upset in the face of Jane’s impassive expression. Whatever inner turmoil plagued Jane, Georgiana thought, it certainly did not excuse her being such a toad. Perhaps it came from a place of jealousy; Frances had been paying her far more attention than Jane, of late. After all, it was Georgiana Frances had come to call on to discuss the party; Georgiana who had been invited to stay at the house. She had learned Frances’s secrets, and shared her bed, and held her as she cried in the dead of night. Perhaps their intimacy felt like a threat to Jane – a laughable and misplaced notion, considering that Frances was standing and giggling with Jeremiah Russell this very moment, letting him murmur things in her ear, wriggling with pleasure when he pulled an errant blade of grass from her hair.

  Before she could begin to think of how to respond to this tirade, Frances was calling to her, approaching them radiating joyful exuberance.

  ‘Come and play with us, George! We need another girl to make up the teams. Don’t let our Jane bore you to death.’

  Georgiana let her friend pull her away and felt a jolt of cruel satisfaction at the thought of Jane watching them leave her behind.

  The game that Frances needed her to join was so ridiculous that she was sure they must have invented it on the spot. The ladies were to climb onto the backs of the gentlemen, riding them as if they were ponies in cravats, and continue their game of pall-mall. When Frances demonstrated with Jeremiah, Georgiana saw with horror that it required the men to wrap their arms around the ladies’ legs, and the ladies to grip the men between their thighs in return. Even through protective layers of skirt and petticoat, Georgiana blushed to see Jeremiah hoisting Frances so nonchalantly. Nobody else seemed the least bit shocked; Jeremiah looked exceedingly pleased with himself. Georgiana was beginning to suspect that this game was designed solely to give everybody involved a socially acceptable excuse to feel one another up.

  Cecily was to ride her preferred James, and Georgiana realised with a sinking feeling that Frances intended Christopher for her steed. He reached out his arms to her and raised his eyebrows, and Georgiana shrank away involuntarily.

  ‘Oh, come on, little Georgie,’ he said, in a condescending voice that made her skin crawl. ‘I shan’t misbehave, I’m broken in.’

  ‘I think . . . I’m actually still quite hungry, I think I’ll go back inside—’

  Georgiana’s excuses were cut off by an exasperated Frances.

  ‘Come on, George, don’t be a stick in the mud. We can’t very well play with just two pairs.’

  She was pouting, and Georgiana felt all eyes on her as they waited for her verdict. She didn’t think it fair that she was being made out to be the ridiculous one, for not wanting to play a game in which a grown man was to pretend to be her horsey. Regardless, she didn’t really have a choice in the matter; she sighed with frustration and felt thoroughly mortified as she walked over to Christopher and clumsily mounted him.

  Georgiana had never had a man’s hands on her legs, let alone on her thighs. She felt extremely hot under her dress, and her heart was beating so rapidly that she was sure Christopher must be able to feel it against his back. Cecily and Frances didn’t seem at all perturbed, and were laughing prettily as James II and Jeremiah rushed about the garden ‘practising’. The others were drawn in to hand up dropped mallets and keep score, and they played a quick, dirty game that seemed to have few to no rules.

  It was a clear, warm day, and Georgiana could feel heat radiating through Christopher’s back and see beads of sweat forming on the back of his neck above his collar. It was jarring to share a moment of such intimacy with somebody she hardly knew – especially when she so little liked what she did know about him.

  They played miserably, mostly due to the fact that she was trying to touch Christopher as little as possible. When he tried to hitch her up more securely onto his back by grabbing higher, she gave him a swift knee to the ribs and he dropped her with a grunt.

  ‘For God’s sake, it’s just a game!’ he said, trying to sound jovial. There was an edge to his voice that made it clear that he felt she was not being a particularly good sport about it.

  ‘It is just a game, isn’t it, Christopher?’ Georgiana said crossly. ‘And we seem to have lost.’

  While the others were distracted arguing over points and fouls, she dropped her mallet, picked up her bottle of wine from where it sat abandoned on the grass and walked quickly away.

  Chapter Eleven

  T

  he number of guests at the cottage seemed to quadruple between the hours of seven and eight o’clock in the evening. Georgiana lost track of names and faces; it had something to do with the fact that she had drunk her entire bottle of wine and made great headway with a second. They had whiled away the afternoon so thoroughly that she was now sleepily off balance, struggling to distinguish between where her hand ended and the sun-warmed lawn began. She had never before experienced inebriation like this – being too drunk to walk in a straight line, or to mind that Jane was definitely still glaring at her, or to take offence at the increasingly bawdy jokes of the men around her, who thoroughly outnumbered the women.

  As the sun finally went down, some of the more spirited gentlemen with energy to burn started challenging one another to races. Georgiana sat up by the house and watched with Cecily, who kept sighing and telling her about droll things James II had said throughout the afternoon (‘Oh! And he showed me his pocket watch. He said it fell from a general’s coat at Waterloo – it even had a bit of French blood on it, it was lovely.’). Georgiana smiled and nodded – keeping her opinions about the utter mediocrity of Mr Russell’s acquaintances to herself – as she surveyed a garden dipped in the liquid gold of a sunset and felt a deep sense of satisfaction at her current circumstances. She slipped her shoes off, marvelling at the fact that it didn’t feel at all strange to go stocking-footed among a party of strangers, like some kind of . . . well, some kind of wild animal in stockings.

  The only dampener was the lack of anybody attempting to woo her with a blood-soaked French timepiece. Even Miss Woodley had been spotted deep in conversation with a short, determined-looking fellow who kept self-consciously adjusting his cravat in a way that indicated that cantankerous, intimidating women were his particular poison. She had asked around about Mr Hawksley’s attendance, once drunk enough to do so without embarrassment or subtlety, and had received a mixed response, so it did not seem wise to hinge her enjoyment of the evening on the anticipation of his arrival. Besides, she reasoned
with herself, she didn’t need a man to have fun. She was having plenty of fun already, pretending to listen to Cecily.

  She was still talking about James, and twenty minutes later, Georgiana felt that the subject had been thoroughly exhausted. She made vague excuses to Cecily that were hardly words – her friend didn’t notice, as the object of her affection had joined the races and was currently bent into a most advantageous starting position – and then she wandered into the house, looking for some-thing more to drink. She expected to find it empty, the evening too temperate for indoor activities, and paused when she heard low voices emanating from farther down the narrowed, darkened hallway.

  ‘I know,’ somebody – Frances, Georgiana realised – was murmuring. ‘I know. No matter what you may think of me, you must know that I feel the same – but we can’t do this now.’

  She stepped backwards into Georgiana’s eyeline, still looking at whoever she had spoken to as she moved away from them. When a hand reached out to stop her, Georgiana expected to see Jeremiah at the other end of it.

  It was Jane.

  ‘When shall we do it, then?’ she said, sneering and dismissive, her hand holding on to Frances’s arm a little too tightly. ‘Let’s just go. I don’t want to be here. Come with me.’

  ‘Come on, Janey,’ Frances said gently, leaning in close and touching her fingertips to Jane’s chin, her voice softened by wine. ‘We can’t go over all this again. Just for fun, let’s be realists.’

  ‘Let’s not,’ said Jane fiercely, but Frances had pulled herself free and disappeared through a doorway. Jane followed her like a shadow.

  Georgiana stumbled into the empty kitchen, barely remembering why she had sought it in the first place. Then she spotted the trapdoor that led to the wine cellar still open, the glow of a lamp below reassuring her that she wouldn’t be descending into total darkness. She hitched up her skirts awkwardly to navigate the ladder and almost slipped as she felt her way down, swearing softly and then sighing aloud with relief when her feet hit the cool, rough flagstone floor below. She turned to inspect her options, wondering if Christopher’s uncle’s cellar might offer something with a less prodigious vintage but more palatable taste to wash down the conversation she had just overheard – and then let out a scream.