"So you rushed into my house like a savage?"
"I felt compelled to take this dire measure, madam, for fear you would not agree to see me if I waited in the hall, and after coming all this way—"
"You might have put your thoughts in a respectable letter, girl."
"I might have done so, madam, but the tone of a letter could be misinterpreted. Do you not agree? I believe that matters of the greatest importance require prompt and face-to-face attention."
"That depends upon the face," Harry muttered dryly, slowly unraveling from that too-small chair and standing before her.
"This is my nephew," said his aunt. "I understand you have not been formally introduced."
"Commander Thrasher." Here she bobbed another curtsey, still teetering on one foot. "To you I also owe an apology, of course, although you would not take one before."
He bowed sharply. "Your eagerness to apologize in person shows some bravery of spirit, Miss Hathaway. However, I'm afraid the odor you brought with you on this occasion has made the greater impression." He knew she was in danger of outstaying her welcome in his aunt's drawing room, for Lady Bramley was best managed with patience— information spooned to her in occasional increments, allowing careful digestion of the facts between each mouthful. But this young lady was a bombardment upon the senses. "My aunt assures me that your unprepossessing appearance alone is a guarantee of villainy. But perhaps a hanging won't be necessary. This time."
Before the penitent could reply, the little dog suddenly launched itself in her direction and Harry's reflexes snapped into action. He caught the beast with one hand under its belly, just in the nick of time— all four of its paws still paddling in mid air.
"Shoo, Miss Hathaway, before any further damage is done. And do try not to break, steal or burn anything on your way out."
She nodded and backed slowly toward the door, squeezing her arms to her sides as if to make herself as narrow and harmless as possible. The butler followed, wafting his hands at her impatiently and muttering under his breath about the lure of a peaceful retirement.
A moment later the door was closed and all that remained of their visitor was a faint trace of fish guts and one damp footprint.
The thwarted animal, now tucked under Harry's arm, growled and writhed in frustration until he was returned to Lady Bramley's custody.
"Well, of all the sauce!" she wheezed, hugging the little dog to her ample bosom. "I begin to think those students learn nothing under Julia Lightbody's care. What is the world coming to?"
"One hesitates to imagine, madam."
Now safely outside the drawing room, their visitor could still be heard pleading her case, even as the butler ushered her swiftly across the hall.
"Fancy, bursting in and demanding to be seen!" his aunt continued. "And so disheveled! In my day, young ladies did not dash about town on a whim, untended and unchaperoned."
"No indeed. I've always thought the world would be a much safer place in general if young ladies were kept tethered and bridled."
"Now you're just being foolish again."
Harry strode to the window and looked out as the windblown woman was prodded onto the front steps by one stern finger of the butler's white glove. There she stood for several breaths, her face screwed up in frustration, before swiveling on her heels and marching off down the street. Other folk out on the pavement that day passed the unescorted female with questioning glances. Most gave her a wide berth. Wise, on their part.
"What are you going to do about her?" he inquired softly of his aunt.
"She needn't think that by coming here and throwing herself upon my mercy with wide, puppy-dog eyes she can play upon my sympathy."
Returning to his chair and reopening his book at any random page, Harry said calmly, "I quite agree." He sniffed, studying the open page while registering none of the words printed there. "And, as you say, she needs guidance. Someone to put her in order before she turns out completely rotten."
"Hmm. Indeed." When he glanced upward she was brushing stray dog hair from her bosom.
"Since your name is affiliated with that school, madam, you cannot afford to have its students turned out as disastrous young women and released upon an unsuspecting world."
That remark, uttered quietly and casually, caused his aunt to still her fidgeting.
"Someone," he added with a yawn, "with the proper skills, ought to take over her training, where that Lightbody woman has evidently failed."
Her eyes glimmered. "Why yes! I suppose I could."
He feigned surprise. "But would you have the time, madam? Your day is so full now—"
"Nonsense. I can always set an hour or two aside for charitable causes."
"Then who better for the task than you, madam?"
"Indeed I ought! Yes. Yes, you are quite right, Henry. What a splendid idea."
Hallelujah. Perhaps now his aunt would leave him in peace.
* * * *
"Lady Bramley has decreed that you will serve as her companion for the summer," Mrs. Lightbody announced. "I advised her against it, naturally, warning her of your many evils. But she is adamant, and as a member of the school board she must get her way." She sneered. "If the fine lady thinks she can do a better job than me on her head be it. I daresay you will put her in a grave." Under her breath she muttered, "The meddling old hag has no idea what she's taking on."
Georgiana had been called into the parlor while the headmistress, suffering one of her infamous "heads" and extremely late rising from bed, was still in her night gown with a ruffled dressing robe thrown over it, and a tattered wig tugged hastily into place. Today there was no other pretense put on and she did not even try to curb the rough, unpolished edge of her real speech— a sharp accent recalling shades of Smithfield Market, rather than the elegant drawing rooms of Belgrave Square.
"If you embarrass me any further, you'll feel the full heat of my wrath!" With one hand holding her hair in place, she stumbled around her desk, bumping her hip into the corner. The odor of gin was rife that morning— a reason, perhaps, for her failure to keep up the facade. "Just you remember, girl, I have a school to run. You ruin my bleedin' reputation and I'll ruin yours, make no mistake."
Ah yes, the school. Georgiana had often wondered how Mrs. Lightbody ever came to open an academy for young ladies. She was not a woman who set a very great example to her pupils. She appeared to have stumbled into this profession by some clerical error, rather than ability or inclination. Most of the time she left her "teaching" duties to the older girls, letting them tutor the younger ones while she remained shut in her parlor with the door bolted.
Julia Lightbody was socially ambitious, but women like Lady Bramley merely tolerated her presence at the school. She had never been one of their "set" and never would reach those heights. But as the headmistress of that school she was able to assure herself that she was, in fact, a "somebody", even if her students— once they achieved a successful match and moved up in society— became completely embarrassed by the old association and would deliberately not recognize her in the street.
Georgiana, who had always loved a good mystery, knew there must be more to Mrs. Lightbody than met the eye. Somehow, somewhere she had influence, of a sort that didn't want to be visible.
A year ago, while being punished and sent to clean the lady's parlor, Georgiana had discovered a thin diary, fallen down the back of a bookcase. According to the cobwebs enclosing its worn leather cover, the palm-sized book had been forgotten there long since, but it contained a vast amount of eyebrow-raising information, penned in tight lines of tiny scribbles across its yellowed pages. And it was this book which inspired Georgiana's wicked imagination and first gave her the idea for His Lordship's Trousers.
That little mine of information had actually provided her with a more useful education than anything else she gleaned at the school. Julia Lightbody, meanwhile, had no idea that her least favorite student was now privy to the secrets of her less than proper past.
"I sho
uldn't be surprised if her high-and-mighty ladyship sends you back by the next post, Miss Sharp-Mouth. Once she realizes what she's gone and got herself into. Don't expect a welcome return here. I've no intention of taking you back."
Mr. Frederick Hathaway, once informed of Lady Bramley's intent to supervise his troublesome daughter's launch into Society, accepted the offer with delight— and probably relief. In his eyes it was a coup, and since he was in no haste to have Georgiana back home again, he raised no opposition to the plan.
"I am to be put 'out' by Lady Bramley," she told her friends with a chuckle. "Presumably like a cat."
Always interested by new people and situations, she did not see this as a punishment at all and was rather surprised that this was the best her ladyship could come up with. But perhaps, like Georgiana herself, Lady Bramley thought no one beyond saving.
Her friends were less optimistic. As the three of them discussed this development the mood was somber. Gathered in their small room high under the eaves of the house they pondered the future while supposedly helping Georgiana pack her trunk. Not that the other two were being much use.
"Lady Bramley seems quite a tyrant, but it might not be so very dreadful for you. You're much braver than I." Emma sat with her elbows on the window sill, her small chin resting in one upturned palm. "We are all to go our separate ways now, I suppose."
"But not for a while yet. I am not going too far, and you two have escaped punishment. Lady Bramley has declared you both innocent of any charge." Georgiana had not told her friends about the daring visit to Mayfair on the back of a fish cart, so they had no idea of her hand in their clemency.
"Nevertheless, the end is coming. This reprieve is only temporary. As soon as Mrs. Lightbody finds a post for me I shall be sent away." Emma followed the wobbly progress of a raindrop down the glass with her fingertip and sighed glumly. "I will miss you both— my greatest and dearest friends."
"Oh, do be a little more cheerful, Em," Georgiana exclaimed, folding a petticoat as neatly as she could and then giving up, cramming it with no further care into a corner of her trunk. "We three will always be friends and that will never change. Wherever we go, we can write and keep each other abreast of our adventures."
"I'm sure I shan't have any adventures. I never did, until you two came along."
As the "natural" daughter of a gentleman who wished to remain anonymous, Emma Chance had been left with Mrs. Lightbody when she was a newly weaned babe. One might think this beginning likely to engender some affection between the woman and the little girl abandoned to her care, but this was not the case. Because no one appeared to want the child and her mysterious father paid only the bare minimum to keep her fed and clothed, Emma was treated at first as just another servant in the house— and frequently punished with a willow switch across her fingers— until Melinda and Georgiana arrived at the school and befriended the poor girl. From that moment onward the three of them were inseparable.
"Whatever else happens, we will always write," Georgiana assured her friends."Certainly," said Melinda. "But Emma is right. Fate will send us all off in different directions eventually, and what can we do about it?" She fell back across her bed in an ungainly flop. "I am to go home to my father, although I am not certain the house has a roof at present. The last I heard he had sold off all the furniture. I know he hoped I'd catch a rich husband to get him out of debt, but that seems impossible." Tucking both arms under her head, Melinda inadvertently exposed a tear in the seam under her sleeve— a gaping hole that proved the frequency of this comfortably unladylike pose. "Unfortunately, I'm not exactly a diamond of the first water and I have no dowry of which to speak. So I must take what I can get for a husband and be grateful." She sighed gustily. "Besides, there's always bonnets."
"Bonnets?"
"Decorating bonnets," Melinda explained. "When all other avenues of pleasure and expression are closed to her, a lady may resort to the comfort of Desperate Millinery. I always rather fancied opening a shop and calling it that. If I ever find a rich husband who is also corrupt enough not to care about the many disgraces of my family. I'll need his money, of course, to fund it."
"Bonnets?" Georgiana repeated flatly. "That is your only idea for the future?"
"What else could there be?"
She felt her temperature rising. Her palms itched, her corset chafed and her feet began a frustrated pacing around the bed. "I have never heard such pitiful resignation. It's very fortunate you have me to keep the two of you off the straight and narrow."
Melinda laughed, but Emma's shoulders sank into further despondency, as if only the palm under her chin was keeping her from sliding down the window along with the raindrops.
"Do you not remember when we studied those globes downstairs and stuck pins in all the places we swore to visit together one day?" Georgiana reminded them. "The three of us made such grand plans to explore the world and have Grand Romances with illicit passion in overgrown Roman ruins. We dreamed of sailing overseas, of riding camels in Egypt and climbing mountains in Austria. Now you're both ready to give up and do whatever you're told, go meekly wherever you're sent and marry the first dull fool who comes along! Some adventurers you are!"
"But we were younger then," Emma replied solemnly.
"It was a mere two years ago!"
"Two years is quite a long time at our age. At sixteen and seventeen we were free to day-dream of exotic places, for the future seemed so far away. Now we must face reality and be prepared for it."
"Well, I say reality should be prepared for us," Georgiana replied grandly.
"You are much too bold, Georgie. In the words of Monsieur de Talleyrand, The bold defiance of a woman is the certain sign of her shame. When she has once ceased to blush, it is because she has too much to blush for."
"And to quote Will Shakespeare, Thou art pigeon-livered and lack gall."
Emma glanced over her shoulder at Georgiana and softly teased in return, "Some of us might be daring enough to ride down a banister, but most prefer the steadier progress of steps to arrive at our destination with a little bit of dignity."
"I can assure you, Miss Chance, that I shall make my own direction. No one is going to tell me what to do, and I shall continue sliding down banisters whenever necessary, even if I am one hundred and eight."
Secretly, of course, Georgiana had already begun carving out her future, writing that anonymous column for her father's paper. What started out a year ago as a daring prank and a way to exercise her lively imagination, had turned into a mission of sorts, her chance to mock the antics of the filthy rich and idle— men like Viscount Fairbanks who once dismissed her sister as a "Norfolk Dumpling".
Since the first chapter, His Lordship's Trousers had become a very popular feature in the paper and led to much speculation about the author, as well as the identity of the rake whose life was exposed without mercy in all its awful decadence.
Georgiana's plan, eventually, was to reveal herself to her father as the creator. He would be horrified, no doubt, when he discovered that His Lordship's Trousers was penned not only by a woman, but by one of his own daughters. But surely it was time he saw that she was a real person with an able brain and the will to use it.
However, Georgiana realized now that she'd been selfishly preoccupied with her own secret success, when she should have been thinking a great deal more about her friends and how to help them. Clearly suffering a lack of imagination, they needed her to provide them with alternatives. Looking at both young women now, she felt a sad twinge in her heart, followed by the fierce determination to help them somehow.
As the girls embraced, vowing to write often, Georgiana struggled with a great lump in her throat but determinedly fought it back and swallowed it down. This was no time for tears, not with true adventure around the corner at last for all three of them. If they saw her downcast, they might lose all hope.
So she cheered the other girls with a smile and a merry reminder, "Once again unto the breach, my Ladies
Most Unlikely, and if one must go down in something, it may as well be the good ship Infamy."
Chapter Five
Excerpt from “His Lordship's Trousers” (censored)
Printed in The Gentleman's Weekly, May 1817
This evening's attire: Silk pantaloons with buttons the entire length of the leg. An extremely tight garment, apparently meant to provide a shapely silhouette and draw the unsuspecting eye to thighs, calves and any other bulging accoutrement of the gentleman's figure. Best not seen in harsh sunlight. A room lit by one or two candles is perhaps their best venue. If one cannot arrange the welcome relief of complete darkness.
My master has been indulging his sweet-tooth in a great many puddings of late. Perhaps that is all I need tell you, when describing the sweat-and-curse drenched, half hour effort required to squeeze just one of his lordship's limbs into this peculiar atrocity upon the eyeballs.
"Well, good lord," he said to me, puffing out little breaths as he stood before his mirror and examined his appearance. "That took you long enough. I've never known such belaboring of a simple task. What the devil is amiss?"
"I must beg your forgiveness, my lord," I replied. "My mind was not fully on the task at hand. I fear my thoughts wandered to the sausages waiting for me below stairs."
"Sausages?"
"Yes, my lord. They are particularly succulent and bursting out of their skins. My mouth waters at the mere expectation of consuming them later."
"Then you should pull yourself together, man, and stop thinking of your stomach's needs until you have fulfilled your duty to my own."
"Indeed, sir."
Having watched my master attempt three times to retrieve a fallen handkerchief from the carpet while risking the integrity of his pantaloon seams— and my own spleen— I finally gave in and stooped to retrieve it for him. "Allow me, my lord."
He snatched the silk square from me. "I daresay I shall not return until first light. You may consume all the sausages your little heart desires in the meantime."
The Trouble with His Lordship’s Trousers Page 5
