The Indian Maiden

by Edith Layton

  She saw the earl at dinnertimes, of course, there was no eluding that. She could, and did, plead weariness each night after that meal in order to make an early retreat to her rooms. But had she announced any infirmity that might keep her from communal dining, not only would she have been dosed by her solicitous hosts, she’d be forced to give up her part in planning the forthcoming party. Faith weighed the disadvantages of her present situation against the possible drawbacks which might arise if she avoided the company entirely, and found herself willing to swallow some of her pride along with her dinner opposite the earl each night. There was, after all, only so much that could politely be spoken at a crowded dining room table, and whatever that might be, it would surely never be an offer.

  Thus, while Faith thought that the earl looked each night as though he dined on canaries rather than mutton, he only whispered jests and gossip into her apprehensive ears. She was relieved that he was clearly vastly amused, rather than insulted, by her sudden shyness and reticence in his presence. She supposed he’d taken her rejection in the proper spirit, but then he was known to be a sophisticated gentleman, and, she imagined, found an insignificant foreign miss’s distaste for his passionate embraces about as important as he’d discovered those same embraces to have been. Which was to say, she decided, if his reactions had been anything like her own, that he’d found the incident to be almost as pleasant as finding half a worm in one’s half eaten apple. She was only grateful that it seemed not to have affected his pleasure in her company as a dinner partner, at least.

  She managed to avoid the other gentlemen even more completely, but since she was making her presence a rare sight to the ladies as well, they none of them could take her absence at their entertainments each evening as a personal affront. Instead, they were all heard to say at various times, and with various underlying meanings, that they could scarcely wait until Saturday night, for it was clear that this birthday party of Miss Hamilton’s promised to be the capstone of their stay at Marchbanks.

  No one scolded Faith for her total involvement in the coming party except for Lady Mary, who complained now and again that her friend ought not to work so hard for her own celebration. It was, she said with concern, not fitting that the recipient of honors should have to slave so hard for them. Still, her mama was pleased that the unpredictable chit was no longer under foot, and even Will, while displeased that he could not so frequently see Lady Mary, was more than happy with things as they stood, though he would rather have died ablaze at a stake than admit to being so much of a mind with the duchess. But then, in all honesty, he was more concerned with matters having to do with the unpredictable chit’s open mouth than he was with anything to do with feet.

  So Faith involved herself with gardener and housekeeper and butler, coordinating and planning as well as ruling on all matters American, although she had never given such a party before and by the end of the week had decided never to do so again. For no, she’d told the musicians, reels and squares were well enough, but Americans also waltzed, and yes, she’d informed the housekeeper for the fourth time, Americans did use cutlery as well as knives when they sat down to eat, and napery as well, and, she explained to cook with great patience, their food was comprised of more than pumpkins.

  With all her tribulations, she also realized glumly that all of them, from lowest maid to highest guest, itinerant musician to resident staff, believed her to be laboring, like an ancient pharaoh, only for her own greater glory. Not one of them suspected that it was only that she’d have gladly flung herself headfirst into any project in order to avoid, as well as to avoid thinking about, all those she’d so soundly embarrassed herself among: her hosts, the company, and the earl. And most particularly, of course, Lord Deal. Although now, from the safe vantage point of a week’s time passed, she could begin to vaguely understand that in his case it was not so much that she’d embarrassed herself before him as it was that his mere presence had the uncanny power to embarrass her.

  Thus it was with extremely mixed feelings that she went to meet him when she was told he’d come to call upon her the afternoon of her party. Doubtless the duchess would have come running to the small salon as well, not so much to play chaperone as to ensure that not a word passed between them escaped her. But that lady was off on a visit this afternoon assuring herself as to the perfection of the ensemble she planned to wear for the gala tonight by passing judgment on her old friend Lady Moore’s outfit for the evening. Lady Mary hung back with the housekeeper and waved Faith on, telling her she’d continue to see to the floral arrangements. And so Faith had to face the gentleman alone.

  That wasn’t why she hesitated before entering the room where he awaited her. It wasn’t any proprieties that she feared she’d overset by meeting with him alone. Even as she turned the knob in her suddenly cold fingers, she became aware that it was her own equanimity she didn’t wish to upset. But nevertheless, she didn’t hesitate to enter, because though in some strange fashion he always alarmed her, he never failed to be the person she found herself enjoying conversation with the most since she’d arrived in his country. There had been, despite her trepidations, many innocent chats shared when she’d been at his house, even after that disastrous ball. All of them always, of course, in a room filled with people, always, of course, on innocuous subjects, but just the same always fascinating and enlivening as well.

  And too, though she hadn’t laid eyes on him for a week, it seemed she often thought of him in the night. Then she discovered herself, all unbidden and unplanned, suddenly envisioning him, both face and form, where he didn’t belong. For she often saw him right along with the omnipresent pictures of floral arrangements and table plans that seemed to have branded themselves on her brain so that they came to her as patterns printed on the underside of her lids when she closed them to sleep, as such things tend to do after so much long and concentrated study of them.

  It was curious how it was the small things she most often recalled in those unguarded flashes of recognition, minute details of his vivid face she scarcely remembered noting were those that most frequently sprang to her mind. It was not so much his white-toothed smile she envisioned, for example, as it was the three arced parallel lines that etched themselves in his lean bronzed cheek just to the left side of his mouth whenever he smiled at her. Nor was it so much any picture of his tall athletic person she often found herself imagining, but rather the long, strong shapely hands that mutely spoke so eloquently of the rest of his graceful form. Then always, she would force herself to other thoughts, even to longing for home, since those reveries, although far more painful, were somehow less disturbing than those odd, unsought images of him were.

  Now, as she entered the room, she noticed the differences between the real and imagined man very much as an artist might, seeing that the shaggy, sun-burnished locks had been trimmed back a bit, and the tanned vital visage was just perhaps a shade more golden, as was the hand that took her own. She fought back the strange joy she felt at his action by forcing herself to note, prosaically, that it was only natural that this should be so, for he passed so much time out of doors and it was high summer now.

  He gave her no reminder of her past folly. There was no censure in his admiring glance, no undercurrent of malice in his voice, as he said, with a smile to grace his graceful bow, “I’ve come to bid you the happiest of birthdays, Miss Hamilton, and to present you with a little token of my esteem for the occasion, because since I’m not a guest at Marchbanks, I couldn’t give it to you this morning when you awoke, and didn’t wish to hand it to you in all the confusion tonight.”

  Faith accepted the slim parcel he handed her, along with a sudden realization of a quandary, for she was wondering whether she ought to tell him that so far no one had given her so much as a bit of rat cheese for her birthday, even as she just as suddenly recalled she hadn’t expected to receive any presents either.

  Since she said nothing in that moment, but only held the parcel limply and looked back at him
, amazed, he went on pleasantly, “Perhaps you think it’s odd in me to rush my fences, but there’s nothing so belittling to a fellow’s taste as to have his gift admired in the midst of evidence of everyone else’s better taste and better-thought-out tributes, and I suspect, nothing more difficult for a lady than to have to feign ecstasy at each and every one she dutifully unwraps. For both our sakes, I’ve brought mine to you now, so that you can open it in private. It is rather private in here, isn’t it?” he observed, looking about the otherwise empty room.

  “Can it be that my recent spate of sociability has so exonerated me socially as to make my hosts trust me completely?” he asked bemusedly. “Not that I planned to molest you, mind, not that that’s such a terrible idea,” he added quickly on a smile, “but it’s singular to find that such correct persons as my hosts have decided to trust me not to do so. There isn’t another person in sight,” he mused, clearly not altogether pleased at this freedom he was supposedly extolling, “and we’re not even on horseback.”

  But now Faith’s wits had returned to her. “I think,” she said wryly, “that it might be more that they don’t care a jot anymore. No, no,” she corrected herself hastily as she saw the quick sympathy spring to his eyes, “that’s not strictly true either. It’s only coincidence, I suppose. The duchess is away just now, and Lady Mary has last-minute party arrangements in hand, and everyone else is off primping or some such, I expect. I don’t know, really,” she admitted, a little hurt, now that she thought about it, by the notion that they thought her so disgraceful or believed her reputation so defiled that there was no further need of protecting it, so that she went on to say boldly, “And I really don’t care, not really. I expect you’ve better things to do with your afternoon than molesting me, anyway. But thank you very much,” she said sincerely, looking down at his present and so missing the wicked grin he put on at her words, as well as the step closer that he’d taken to her.

  She had only begun to take off the wrappings, finding herself almost as a child again in her eagerness to see the present, feeling the same juvenile wonderment and pleasure at knowing that whatever it was, it was something that he’d thought about and brought expressly for her when she hadn’t even been thinking of him, when their privacy was ended.

  The butler appeared at the doorway to the salon, bearing a large, gaily wrapped parcel. “Excuse me, my lord, Miss Hamilton,” he said after he saw that he’d gained their attention. “Lady Mary said that I might find you here, Miss Hamilton, as it appears that this package has just been delivered by a messenger, and is addressed to you.”

  “No, no,” Lord Deal said at once, taking his own package from her hands so she could receive the one the butler handed to her. “Now I insist you open up the other first. It might be,” he jested, “that mine will be so diminished by this one that I’ll want to hide it in the coal bin. It’s only fair,” he protested, holding his present behind his back and sidestepping her as she laughingly attempted to take it back again. “You have to give me the opportunity to snatch mine back and get you a better one if I have to.”

  By the very way he said it, Faith was sure his gift was unique and wonderful and she was doubly anxious to see it. But obediently, she turned her attention to the other one first.

  “It’s not signed,” she said in puzzlement, turning the white card over in her hand before she set it down and began to unwrap the box. “It only wishes me the happiest returns of the day.”

  Her attention was so fixed on what she was doing that she didn’t see his smile slip at her words. It was only when she’d opened the box and drawn the tissue paper back that she at last looked up at him. But then she was in no condition to note what expression he wore. Her face had grown paper white, and her hands trembled almost as much as her lips did when she broke from her immobility and at last lifted the present out from the box. Even then, she only held it out to him at arm’s length, and very quietly, her head shaking unbelievingly from side to side, asked him only, “Why?”

  It was a large and cumbersome mass of feathers she held out to him. For a bizarre moment, he believed, in his confusion, that it was some sort of large dead bird. The barnyard scent of it was repellent enough for that. But then he made out its apparent shape and form. It was obviously a clumsy attempt at a representation of a feathered headdress, fashioned of rudely cobbled together chicken and turkey feathers, all still with bits of clotted ingrained filth of the henhouse still clinging to them, the whole bound by a profusion of bright red, white, and blue ribbons.

  Another white card fluttered down from the mass of it as she held it out with shaking hands. He automatically stooped to retrieve it, and saw the bold, large, printed words, “For our Indian Maiden,” inscribed there.

  “Why?” she asked again. And for all his supposed glibness and quickness of mind, in that moment, though he thought he knew only too well, there was no sane answer he could give her in reply.

  NINE

  The gentleman moved swiftly. He was a guest within this house, and yet despite social dictates he did not hesitate to go immediately to the door and close it almost all the way. Then he went to the young woman who stood before him and took the loathesome bundle of ragged noisome feathers from her nerveless hands and dropped them back within the box they’d come from. As he closed that box and retied it securely, he said curtly, throwing the remark over his shoulder, “Sit down at once, before you fall down. This shall not trouble you again, you shall not see it again.”

  When he’d done, he turned and saw that the young woman had seated herself as he had bidden her, but that she still held her shaking hands out, fingers parted as though they dripped gore and she could not bear to acknowledge them as her own. “But why?” she repeated, in a shocked whisper.

  He gave her his handkerchief for reply and she absently took it and unconsciously began scrubbing motions with it, twisting it and her hands together, though she never took her eyes from his face, nor did the question leave those wide, dazed gray eyes.

  He stood before her, looking down at her, considering what he should say, for all at once she seemed very young. Her creamy skin had gone so dead white that only a few faint previously undetectable light fawn freckles lent color to it high on her cheekbones, and with her long light straight hair worn back and down against her neck as it was, she seemed very vulnerable. But as her eyes searched his, some of their bright intelligence already returning, he sighed and knew that there was no other answer he could give her but the truth.

  “Someone thought it was amusing,” he said coldly, and then realizing that the harshness in his voice startled her as much as his words had done, he explained more gently, for his anger was never at her, “I’d like to get my hands on whoever it was, but I doubt we’ll ever know.”

  But he did know that though it might have been anyone, there were, in fact, several he instantly suspected, and more whose loose talk doubtless had provoked the incident. Not the least of the vindictive gossips was doubtless her own hostess, but as she had to remain within this house for a while longer, and as his fury was tempered with each passing moment, he was grateful that he’d always followed the dictum that what he could not prove, was best forgotten.

  “Be assured,” he went on angrily, “that it was someone’s idea of high good humor. No,” he said gruffly, “never that, there wasn’t anything good in it. It was sheer cruelty, but, you see, in certain circles, that is considered the highest sort of humor.”

  She watched him closely, as a good student might attend a tutor the day before an examination, so he paused to marshal his thoughts and find a way of explaining it to her without adding, as he’d just caught himself about to do, that it was precisely what he’d warned her about. Whatever else she needed now, he thought, it was not to have him tell her righteously that he had told her so. And then, too, he realized, for all he’d known the possible consequences of her behavior, since she’d never before associated with any ornaments of the ton, there really had been no way she cou
ld possibly have anticipated the sort of cruelty she’d invited. She could never have encountered it at home. Only an extremely sophisticated, weary, and blasé society could breed such a concept of humor. And so he tried to tell her.

  “You see, Faith,” he went on to explain, as he leaned against a desk near to her, “anything that can be done and then later amusingly related to others to while away a dull hour is considered capital fun. If it’s outrageous enough to then merit being passed on by yet others, it becomes even better. The stuff of anecdotes is the stuff of fame, and fame is the goal; whatever pain it causes is of no account. No one’s immune. High rank only enhances it—just look at Prinny. You could paper a palace with the cruel caricatures of him. The stories about his foolish deeds are too commonplace to even raise a chuckle anymore, and insults given to him behind his back are the prime meat at every ton dinner. And he is our Prince, our Regent.

  “Brummel’s ruined himself because of one of his jibes about ‘his fat friend,’ but since the quote’s become so famous, I’m not at all sure he still doesn’t believe it was all worth it. After all, if you’ve spent your life in pursuit of the one devastating, quintessential shocking statement, how can you regret finally having made it?

  “No,” Lord Deal sighed, “it isn’t done just in the name of princes either. Nor is it only coxcombs who indulge in the sport. Everyone, everywhere in society, loves to hear the latest on-dit, and will be in ecstasies if there is a good quotable, vicious jest in it. You wouldn’t know most of the parties involved, but you may have heard of our playwright Sheridan? His name comes to mind because he’s lately fallen gravely ill and so everyone’s been reminiscing about him. And as they still delight in remembering, when his son married a dowerless girl and he lamented it, young Tom told his father not to worry, for, as he said, though the lady was poor, her parents were industrious in that her father was allowed by everybody to be the greatest swindler in England. Perhaps it was that quip alone which reconciled old Sheridan to the marriage, for a good mean tale is coin and currency in our world. And the young man was talking about his own wife’s family!”