by Amanda Elyot
The writer and director exchanged looks. “Let’s try it,” Beth announced.
“Can we just run it now?” C.J. asked, trying to sound casual. “I want to make sure the timing is right.”
Elsie looked at her watch, then at the director. “Up to you, boss. It’s 10:45 and we’ve got an Equity break coming up in fifteen minutes.”
“Let’s do it,” Beth said. “All right, C.J., let’s see your idea in motion.”
C.J. checked her props, ensuring that all the medicine envelopes were tucked away into the carpetbag, then brought the bag onstage and placed it on the floor near Jane’s writing table. She reinventoried her costume accessories to make sure that she had everything she needed to travel to Bath. Having the last line of the act back was a blessing. Now if she could convince Beth and Humphrey to keep it that way, she might be home free, in a manner of speaking. This time it would be no strange twist of fate, no surreal accident. She was making a considered choice between her own world and 1801. De Montfort had closed; the portal from the other side was no longer open to her now. If C.J. did manage to return to Bath, she stayed there. No Broadway debut; no stage career; no rent-stabilized three-bedroom two-bath Manhattan apartment; no toilets, tampons, or television. No Internet, and a permanent farewell to her twenty-first-century friends and colleagues. She was effectively and irrevocably sacrificing everything she had ever known and strived for to try to save the life of the woman who had rescued hers. To remain in this century knowing there was something she might have done for Lady Dalrymple was unthinkable; she would feel guilty about it to her own grave.
C.J. was willingly choosing the waning Age of Enlightenment over the thriving Information Age. But back in 1801 were new friends, a new love, and someone who needed her more than any of them—and more than C.J. needed to be a Broadway star. For Lady Dalrymple, it was a matter of life and death—and because of that, C.J. was choosing life.
She delivered the act’s curtain line. And this time, as she exited the stage and passed through Ralph’s newly repaired doorway, C.J. found herself drowning in a pool of blackness. Finally, she thought, both trembling and relieved. It was working like a charm.
Chapter Twenty
Wherein our heroine returns to Bath in the nick of time and is reunited with an old friend, though spies abound in an enemy camp; Lady Dalrymple enjoys increasingly restored health, but a morning’s excursion is marred by a rumormonger.
LADY DALRYMPLE’S BEDCHAMBER was a somber sight. Good God . . . how long have I been gone?
C.J. elbowed past the dowager’s visitors in a highly unseemly fashion for a gently bred young lady. The countess, pale and weak, lay against a sea of white linen, her eyes half closed. But upon seeing C.J. again, she found a renewed energy. “Come here, Niece,” she beckoned.
C.J. approached the bedside and gave her “aunt” a warm hug. How much more frail the countess had become; her ladyship’s previously plump form seemed little more than a sagging sack that hung about her feeble bones. In her infirmity, her ladyship was beginning to show the signs of her true age. “I promise I will not leave this room until you are cured,” she assured her benefactress.
“Nonsense,” retorted Lady Dalrymple, her voice as hoarse as a whisper. “You have dances and parties to attend—walks—and shopping with that delightful Miss Austen. Never mind an old lady like me. Life is for the living. Besides,” she added, gesturing to a slender figure shyly hanging back amid the shadows, “Mary can stay right at my elbow. I have full confidence in her nursing abilities.”
Mary? Mary Sykes?
Lady Wickham’s former scullery maid stepped forward into the candlelight. In livery that properly fit her narrow frame, and with clean and shining dark hair peeking out from under her white mobcap, she was not at all an unattractive girl. With no thought of censoring her behavior, C.J. rushed forward to greet her. For a moment, they held each other like long-separated siblings, their faces streaming with tears.
“I’ve tried to do my best by ’er ladyship,” Mary sniffled apologetically, focusing her attention on the palsied medic who was pacing the room.
Dr. Squiffers appeared self-conscious when C.J. cornered him. “At your insistence, Miss Welles, I have not bled her ladyship,” he assured her.
She shot him a look of warning. “You had best be telling me the truth or you have only begun to taste my displeasure.”
Suddenly, C.J. realized that two more pairs of eyes had been upon her since she’d entered her aunt’s room. Lady Oliver sat by the other side of the bed like Cerberus guarding the gates of hell. If she had indicated her disapproval when Miss Welles embraced the new serving girl, C.J. never heard it. Lady Oliver’s nephew had positioned himself by the window, where he hung back, alternately twisting his signet ring and anxiously chewing on his thumbnail in a most ungentlemanly fashion.
C.J. had not seen him since the first and only time they had made love.
“I was watching for you, Miss Welles,” he admitted as he drew C.J. into his arms. Not even Lady Oliver could object to such compassion during a time of crisis. His warmth and the security of his embrace were a godsend.
“What is Dr. Squiffers doing here?” C.J. whispered suspiciously.
“What he perceives to be his duty, I imagine.”
“I expressly forbade his presence.” She noticed someone skulking in a corner of the bedchamber trying to appear invisible. Saunders. Only the mistrustful lady’s maid could have been responsible for Squiffers’s return.
“Have no fear,” Darlington soothed. “He has done nothing but wring his hands and wear out the carpet with his steady tread.”
“I should like everyone to leave the room,” C.J. requested of the earl. Her wish became his effectively issued command, and with minimal fuss the countess’s visitors were hastily ushered from the bedchamber.
C.J. filled a tumbler with cool water from the ewer by the bedside table. Then she opened the carpetbag, removed the blue velvet spencer that had protected the bag’s important contents from discovery, and drew out the various envelopes of pills, placing them on the table by the bed. She had no way of knowing that Saunders had sent Mary down to the kitchen on some pretext and was herself squinting a jaundiced eye through the keyhole. Lady Oliver, refusing to wait in a corridor like a commoner, suggested that Dr. Squiffers join her in the parlor for a glass of her hostess’s finest ruby port, declaring, “Neither time nor wine should go to waste.”
C.J. extracted a nitroglycerin tablet, electing to give the countess a low dosage of the beta-blocker. “Aunt, I am going to make a highly irregular request of you: I pray you not to ask me what apothecary provided this remedy, nor how I came by it.”
Lady Dalrymple looked at her “niece,” her eyes as wide and trusting as a small child’s. She regarded the colorful object in C.J.’s hand. “It looks quite like a pastille,” she said, managing a laugh. “You truly believe that this magical pill will cure me?”
“If you do not take it, I cannot promise that you will regain any greater degree of health than you enjoy at present,” C.J. counseled gravely.
“Well then,” the countess sighed dubiously, “if following your regimen will enable me to feast at your wedding breakfast,” she continued slyly, “I see no other alternative. Hand me the glass, Cassandra.”
There was a discreet knock at the door. C.J. hid the envelopes, then admitted Mary, who slipped into the room with a cup of tea.
“For ’er ladyship.”
“Thank you, Mary. But you did not have to make tea at this late hour.”
“But I did,” the serving girl corrected. “Saunders told me ’er ladyship required it. And not to dawdle, or I’d get what for, for sure.” She placed the steaming cup of fragrant chamomile tea on the table by Lady Dalrymple’s bedside.
Saunders again.
“Not to dawdle?” C.J. was appalled. “Mary, I can only surmise by your presence here that you no longer work for Lady Wickham. And you certainly are not to take orders from
Saunders. She is out of her part if she is giving you instructions, and I assure you, my aunt will hear of it. And Mary? No one in this house gives anyone ‘what for’; do you understand?”
“But I arrived just yesterday morning. And Saunders has been in ’er ladyship’s employ ever so much longer than I have,” protested the new girl in her own defense. “’Sides, she’s a proper maid, and I’m just lucky to have a situation at all.”
C.J. gently drew Mary aside. “You sweet, trusting girl. We do not threaten anyone with eviction or termination here. We are the ones who are lucky to have you in service. Remember that, Mary. Mind you, I have no proof in any way,” she whispered to the former scullery. “It’s merely a feeling that I have in here,” she continued, her hand to her heart. “I do not trust Saunders. Not that she means my aunt any harm, but I believe we must keep a watchful eye on her . . . as a mother bird does her young.”
“Gentlelike?” Mary asked.
C.J. smiled for the first time since her return. The girl merely needed a bit of oil on the rusty gears of her untested mind. She had suffered others’ low opinions of her for so long that she believed herself stupid and incompetent. Once the subject was raised, Mary easily grasped the concept of affecting a concerned vigilance without raising suspicion.
“I cannot express enough gratitude to you, Aunt Euphoria, for releasing Mary from Lady Wickham’s employ. You will certainly have no cause to regret it, for she is good-natured, courageous, and most devoted. However did you manage it?”
“Will you think any less of me, Niece, if I confess I had nothing to do with the matter?”
“But . . . ?” C.J. was baffled. “If you did not convince Lady Wickham to release Mary, then . . . ?” Silence. Clearly, the countess was not willing to divulge the name of the hero or heroine responsible for Mary’s arrival in the Royal Crescent. It was the subject herself who revealed the Samaritan’s identity when she shyly mumbled a few words about his most handsome and generous lordship.
“Percy!” whispered C.J. Evidently, he had been paying considerable attention to her tirade that rainy afternoon in his salon. Was the man who had rescued the little maid from an aristocratic employer who routinely beat her the very same Darlington who had so vociferously defended the efficacy and inviolability of the English class system? She bade Mary fetch the earl and bring him to Lady Dalrymple’s bedchamber.
“How can I properly express the enormity of our gratitude?” C.J. said softly. “Your lordship has done all of us the greatest kindness.” She tugged lightly at his sleeve to draw him nearer. “What did you do? Pay the old bat off?” she whispered, curious about the possibility of some sort of sensational form of rescue, through bribery, extortion, or equally devious means.
“Miss Welles, if you and your aunt are pleased that Mary Sykes has come to reside under Lady Dalrymple’s roof and will now be in her employ, that is all the thanks I require. Please forgive my unwillingness to discuss the matter any further.” Miss Welles had no need to ever learn that he had paid the greedy old gimp handsomely with a hundred pounds in bank notes, the loss of which did much to further increase his debts on his already overmortgaged estate.
“VERY RESOURCEFUL, SAUNDERS. Very resourceful,” Lady Oliver praised, pressing a golden guinea into the servant’s eager hand. Suspiciously eyeing her benefactress, Saunders bit the coin before it disappeared into her apron with the speed of a sleight-of-hand trick. Saunders narrowed her small gray eyes in an expression of tacit thanks, with the complete understanding that there might be more guineas that would be freely parted with upon the exchange of such similarly valuable intelligence. She didn’t worry about the suspicion that might arise from trying to spend such a large denomination. Saunders had no use for feminine fripperies. Enough of Lady Oliver’s guineas, and she could kiss servitude good-bye.
Her ladyship pursed her lips thoughtfully. “How clever of you to keep a small pencil and a scrap of paper hard by so that you may remember such things as they occur. You have been most accommodating, Saunders. And quite observant.” She knocked on the bedchamber door. “I shall pay my respects to your mistress and collect my nephew. Clearly, his infatuation is far worse than even I had suspected. But,” she sighed, “something will be done about it, and if I have any say in the matter, the sooner, the better.”
“I AM WELL ENOUGH to walk on my own!” Lady Dalrymple announced days later, dismissing her chair carrier just outside the Pump Room. C.J. scrambled to keep up with her aunt’s morning constitutionals. To ensure Lady Dalrymple’s continued recovery, C.J. had confided in Mary, who was now the only one of the household staff on whom C.J. could rely to keep her counsel regarding the dutiful dispensary of her ladyship’s “magic pills.”
The countess had a renewed interest in life, following C.J.’s directives, not only with regard to the strange little tablets but also to the judicious taking of regular but moderate forms of exercise, which were chiefly borne out in daily visits to the Pump Room, and the taking of the waters both internally and externally, followed by extravagant shopping expeditions.
C.J. made certain that her ladyship drank her prescribed three glasses of water every day; and she herself was finally growing accustomed to the sulfuric odor and taste of the beneficial waters pumped directly into the elegant social hall from the source below and served warm to the patrons. It was quite an acquired taste for the modern palate.
When the crowd was thin, C.J. had the opportunity to admire the atmosphere of the room itself, finding the pale blue, cream, and gold interior restful and pleasing to the eye. But from late morning through the afternoon, the room bustled with the well-heeled ton of Bath, who came to the Pump Room every day to see the same circles of friends and cadres of enemies, and to catch up on the latest social scandals—all in the name of healthful pursuit. The quotidian excursions also provided the opportunity for couples to engage in flirtations under the protective noses of the young ladies’ chaperones.
The Miss Fairfaxes made excursions to the Pump Room an integral part of their daily routine, with their mother in tow clucking all the while like a hen about Lady So-and-So or Countess Whatnot as though they were intimates. In fact, Mrs. Fairfax appeared to be a repository for gossip, though where she got her intelligence, no one quite knew. Rumors abounded that the woman used the discretionary allowance provided to her by her gentle and amiable husband to cross the palms of several well-situated servants employed by the most influential members of society.
The seventeen-year-old Miss Susanne invariably appeared mortified by her mother’s conduct, remarking once to C.J. how unfair it seemed that the behavior of her mother—and her elder sister as well, who took too much after the Fairfax matriarch by vociferously flaunting her ignorance in public gatherings—should reflect upon her father and herself, who surely didn’t merit such censure.
Mrs. Fairfax waved to C.J. and Lady Dalrymple, indicating that she and her brood had intentions of joining the countess’s party.
“Are you quite up to her company this afternoon, Aunt?” C.J. asked solicitously.
“Heavens!” Lady Dalrymple responded. “The way the woman taxes one’s nerves on occasion is a great stimulation to my constitution. Without a proper argument now and again, I feel my brain becoming addled from lack of use. You must look upon it as sport, child. And despite the occasional vulgarity of her manner, one must remember that she is a well-intentioned woman and a devoted mother.”
The Miss Fairfaxes were in the midst of an animated discussion of a highly inappropriate nature for public consumption—and of which their mother most emphatically disapproved—when their party approached C.J. and the countess.
“Well, it is a good thing Lord Digby apparently shares my sentiment on the ill effects of education on young women,” the matron said, drawing herself up.
“Whatever do you mean, Mrs. Fairfax?” asked C.J., already feeling a lump rise in her throat at the mention of Lord Digby.
“Oh, goodness, I thought everyone had heard the
news, especially you, Lady Dalrymple, as you are so thick with Lady Oliver.”
This time it was the countess who raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Augusta Oliver, whatever her faults, does not traffic in idle gossip,” Lady Dalrymple replied smoothly, masking an anxiety that rivaled her “niece’s.”
“Well,” burbled Mrs. Fairfax, “I have it on the best authority that Lord Darlington’s estate is overmortgaged and in absolute ruins, and the only way that Delamere can possibly be salvaged is through a highly advantageous match between his lordship and an eligible young heiress. By all accounts, Lady Oliver is quite settled on her godchild, Charlotte Digby.”
C.J. felt her heart plummet to the marble floor and shatter at her feet. “But they barely know one another!”
“Quite true. Quite true,” Mrs. Fairfax acknowledged, oblivious to Miss Welles’s consternation. The matron was beside herself with pleasure at being able to provide intelligence to her social betters. “The Digbys are from Dorsetshire. Their son, Lady Charlotte’s elder brother, is Henry Digby, better known as the Silver Captain for the store of gold coins he seized from the Spanish treasure ship Santa Brigada in 1799.”