Miss Fellingham's Rebellion

by Lynn Messina - Miss Fellingham's Rebellion

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  copyright © 2014 by lynn messina

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  About the Author

  The Harlow Hoyden

  Harlow Hoyden Chapter One

  The Other Harlow Girl

  MISS

  FELLINGHAM’S

  REBELLION

  LYNN MESSINA

  potatoworks press

  greenwich village

  COPYRIGHT © 2014 BY LYNN MESSINA

  COVER DESIGN BY JENNIFER LEWIS

  ISBN: 978-0-9849018-7-6

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All Rights Reserved

  Published 2014 by Potatoworks Press

  Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or my any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without prior written permission of the copyright owner and publisher of this book.

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrightable materials. Your support of the author’s rights in appreciated.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Nobody who was there at the inception of Miss Fellingham’s rebellion had any idea that such an event was likely to happen. Not her mother, certainly, who relied on her eldest daughter’s good sense in the absence of her own. Not her father, who had said not a fortnight before, after a particularly tearful outburst from his second daughter, Evelyn, that nothing did him credit like Catherine’s calm nature. Not her brother, whose repeated pratfalls into disgrace and folly required his clever sister’s machinations. Not even Evelyn, whose exalted status in the household relied heavily on her older sister’s lack of interest in the social whirl, had the smallest clue. No, the only person who might have had an inkling was Melissa, the baby of the family at the age of thirteen. She, however, was not present in the breakfast parlor at that time but rather obliviously ensconced in the schoolroom conjugating French verbs.

  The day started ordinarily enough, with the usual grumblings about the poor quality of the meal.

  “I just don’t see why Cook can’t make chocolate the way Aunt Louisa’s cook does,” Evelyn said, her pretty heart-shaped mouth turning down at the corners as she thought of the lovely morning confections her Aunt Louisa provided, of which she was being deprived. “How difficult can it be?”

  “Dear Evelyn,” her mama comforted, taking a seat at the table and nodding to Hawkins to serve her eggs. “We must be patient. Cook has the rheumatic complaint.”

  “I don’t see what that signifies,” said Evelyn, who had no patience for any excuses but her own. “We are discussing the chocolate, not her health. Certainly, I deserve a decent portion of chocolate in the morning. Do I really ask for so much?”

  “Yes, brat, you do,” said her brother, Frederick, who, at nineteen, was one year her senior. “In fact, you are always asking for something. Weren’t we just talking yesterday at intolerable length about the ostrich-plumed hat you had to have?” He took the seat across from Evelyn and made a flourish with his serviette. Seeing that he was dressed simply in skintight yellow pantaloons and a white lawn shirt, his mama suspected he was going for a round at Gentleman Jackson’s rooms, an activity she found extremely distasteful and unbred.

  “Pooh,” Evelyn dismissed airily. “That’s different. Madame Claude’s ostrich-plumed bonnets are all the crack, and I will look like the veriest quiz if I go around in last season’s fashions. I simply must have one. What I need and what I want are two vastly different things.”

  “Damn me!” a voice ejaculated from the head of the table. Sir Vincent, the patriarch of the Fellingham clan, stuck his head up from behind the morning paper, which he had been reading quietly for more than half an hour. “I say, m’dear, these eggs are atrocious. Why have I been given a plate of runny eggs?”

  “Because Cook has the rheumatic complaint,” Evelyn answered pertly, earning a look from her mama, who wasn’t the least bit entertained by her wit.

  “What’s that you say?” Sir Vincent asked. He was a solid man of medium height, with square shoulders, slanted nose and thunderous black eyes that glared frequently in the general direction of his wife, a petite woman with a sensibility as delicate as her beauty. Together, they made an odd pair, completely unsuited in looks and temperament, and most people, including their children, wondered how they’d ever made a match of it. “Speak up, girl. What’s this about rumors?”

  “Not rumors, Sir Vincent, but rheumatism. I am sure I have mentioned the problem to you before. I daresay you’re not the least interested now, for you never are. Pray return to your reading and don’t worry about us. We shall muddle through as always.” Lady Fellingham raised a serviette to her lips and dabbed gently.

  “How can you say that, Mama?” Evelyn asked, appalled. “I assure you, it is of the utmost importance. This chocola—”

  “Brat, stop teasing your mother,” Frederick interrupted.

  “Me?” Evelyn all but screeched, her pretty heart-shaped lips not quite so pretty as they curled into a snarl. “How can you say that? Mama—”

  “For God’s sake, Liza,” said Fellingham, folding his paper and laying it down on the table. This was most certainly not what he had in mind when he decided to have breakfast at his house instead of his club. “Can’t you keep your brood of heathens quiet for one meal?”

  At that, the room erupted in argument, as Lady Liza defended her brood of heathens and said pagans decried their papa’s unjust characterization.

  “The eggs are runny because Frederick came in last night at four in the morning and had Caruthers wake up Cook to provide him with an early-morning snack. This is her act of reprisal, which seems to me fairly warranted, as Freddy fell asleep at the table before the collation was served. As for the chocolate, it is always weak. Had Cook slept seven hours straight, something that is clearly a most cherished goal, the chocolate would still be weak. I suggest, Evelyn, that unless you’re prepared to visit Aunt Louisa’s kitchens and receive instruction as to how to make the drink yourself, you learn to like your chocolate weak.”

  The four other occupants of the room ceased their chattering and turned to stare at the utterer of these most extraordinary sentences.

  Miss Catherine Fellingham sat at the far end of the table, wearing the same white cotton morning dress that she always wore and reading the morning paper as she always did. Perusing the news to avoid idle conversation with her family was her father’s trick and one she had adopted six years before when every morning was filled with hopeless chatter about this ball or that rout she had attended the night before. During her first season, Mama bombarded her with ceaseless questions: Did she talk to Lord Bessborough? Did she dance with Viscount Eddington? Did Mr. Yardley take her into dinner? Their expectations were so high and her success so low, that she retreated from the social whirl
as soon as she could—and from her family, as well.

  She still attended parties, of course, acting as escort to Evelyn, who was just out this season. And sometimes she enjoyed herself. Only last night, for example, they had seen Kean in a wonderful performance of Hamlet. Of course, Evelyn, not surprisingly, hadn’t been able to sit still, so busy was she examining the residents of the other boxes. But Catherine was able to ignore her sister. Catherine had the questionable ability to ignore every member of her family, except Melissa. She enjoyed being with her youngest sister, who had a quick, agile brain. She didn’t miss much and thought of more than only eligible partis and ostrich plumes.

  Not that Catherine herself was one hundred percent immune to the allure of eligible partis and ostrich plumes. She sometimes longed to wear beautiful gowns and elaborate coifs and chatter sparklingly with handsome beaux who found her enchanting. But her first season had taught her well: Awkward, tall women who can barely rub two words together do not win accolades such as enchanting. Indeed, they do not win any accolades at all because nobody knows they are there. Never mind the engaging gold eyes that could sparkle with keen intelligence when something caught her fancy or the rosebud cheeks that blushed charmingly just before she uttered some teasing reply. These things were not observed during her first season because they were not in evidence. The ton had made Catherine too nervous to be clever or even pretty. She was, instead, an indecently tall lump (five foot ten!) that stood on the edge of the dance floor, at once terrified that nobody would talk to her and terrified that someone would. More often than not, the former happened, but every so often a kind gentleman would try to strike up a conversation and she would stammer helplessly, gutted by a shyness she couldn’t have imagined as an eager young girl in Dorset.

  Six years later, she was still overwhelmed by the beau monde, particularly handsome noblemen who she assumed were looking down on her, though, of course, they frequently had to look up to do it. She had acquired, at least, a modicum of poise in the interval as well as a subtle sense of humor, but despite these improvements, she remained too self-effacing to make an impression.

  Of course, the four family members who contemplated her now, wide-eyed and amazed, were inclined to agree with this assessment. They were used to Catherine’s strange flights of fancy—why else would they let her do something so masculine as read the morning paper at the breakfast table?—but they had never before heard her speak in that tone. Her mother stared at her, wondering if her eldest daughter had just raised her voice.

  “Have you told her yet?” Freddy asked, eating his eggs, which tasted just fine to him. He preferred his eggs with a little bit of run in them.

  Catherine, her spleen comfortably vented, was on the verge of returning to an article on the Coinage Act, but she paused at this. “Tell me what?”

  “Oh, pooh,” Evelyn cried, “does she really have to know?”

  Sir Vincent, who had been on the verge of asking the same thing, turned to his wife. “Really, m’dear, was it necessary to blurt it to everyone?”

  “Tell me what?” Catherine said again.

  Liza Fellingham surveyed the breakfast room. Only her immediate family and Hawkins were present. “Everyone? Surely my children are not everyone. Besides, I have said nothing on the subject to Melissa.”

  At this exchange, Catherine’s concern grew. There was very little her mother endeavored to hide from Melissa—or anyone. She had always been too free in her manners. “Tell me what?”

  Sir Vincent harrumphed and turned to his daughter. He folded up the paper, abandoning with some regret all hope of finishing it in quiet and resolving never to attempt a meal in his own home again. “It seems your mother has gotten herself into a little fix. Nothing to raise the roof over.”

  “Me? Sir Vincent,” cried the accused, alarmed by the blame being laid at her slippered feet. “If it weren’t for your gaming debts—”

  Sensing that one of her parents’ ugly rows was about to erupt, Catherine interrupted. “Hawkins,” she said firmly, “we’re going to retire to the drawing room. We’ll have our tea there.”

  “The drawing room?” asked Evelyn, surprised. “But I haven’t finished my chocolate yet. I don’t want to go to the drawing room.”

  “Yes, you do, brat,” her brother assured her, pulling her chair out. “Besides, weren’t you not a moment ago complaining about the inferior quality of your chocolate? Come on.”

  Evelyn pouted some more but complied, getting to her feet with practiced grace. Her father made a similar show of disgust before yielding. All four followed Catherine into the drawing room, which her mother had redecorated in the latest Oriental fashion, following the lead of Prinny. Although it had been more than a year, the dragon-adorned furniture, Chinese red wallpaper and beech tables carved to resemble bamboo still made her cringe. Fortunately, Lady Fellingham had been unable to gain Sir Vincent’s consent to redo the entire town house in the similar style.

  They all sat down, save Sir Vincent, who chose to lean against the mantelpiece, his elbow resting next to a lacquered pagoda. He was still a youngish man, and his posture and demeanor were ingratiating. Catherine loved her father, although she often lost patience with him for the way he cavalierly treated the family’s fortune and the contemptuous manner with which he sometimes treated her mother. Of course, Catherine realized that her mother was not much better, intentionally bothering her husband with trivial matters that she knew he took little interest in in order to put his nose out of joint. They were a quarrelsome pair and often loud. She had gotten in the habit of leaving the room when she sensed things were about to get uncomfortable. She hated arguments, raised voices and ugly disagreements, so she let Evelyn have her way when she pouted and Frederick her help when he asked. It was so much easier than having a scene. And now they seemed intent on dragging her into their nonsense. She trembled at the thought of what her nonsensical mother could have done now, especially if she was acting out of petulance at her husband’s losses. If he could just leave off playing faro, the entire family would be a lot more comfortable. But nobody had ever listened to her when she talked sense, so Catherine had simply stopped talking altogether.

  “Well, then,” she said after Hawkins brought in the tea and closed the door quietly behind him, “we are assembled privately. What disastrous news need you impart?”

  “Disastrous?” scoffed her sister. “It’s nothing of consequence. A tempest in a teapot, really.”

  “That ain’t true, brat, and you know it.” Freddy said, accepting a cup from his mother before scowling at his sister. “You don’t understand what has happened.”

  “Heathens!” Sir Vincent bellowed. “Enough squabbling. Liza, tell your daughter what you’ve done now.”

  Lady Fellingham, of course, would have preferred to argue some more over her husband’s uncomplimentary description, which was insulting to both her children and herself, but what little sense she had demanded that she stay focused on the more pressing topic at hand. “As dear Evie says, it is just an insignificant snarl. It’s like this, you see. You know my dear school friend Arabella Wellesly?”

  “Of course,” answered Catherine, “Lord Wellington’s cousin.”

  “Exactly!” her mother exclaimed. “There, you see, darling, that wasn’t so difficult.” She folded her hands in her lap and smiled blithely.

  “But, Mama, you haven’t told me anything.”

  “Oh, yes. Well, my dear school friend Arabella married Courtland,” she explained. “It was a beautiful wedding at St. George’s. Anybody who was anybody was in attendance, even Prinny, who was sporting an infamous waistcoat that was several sizes too small. I remember remarking—”

  “Courtland reports to the Duke of Raeburn,” threw in Freddy, who thought that detail was more important than what the regent had worn to a party more than twenty years before.

  “I know who Courtland is as well as to whom he reports,” said Catherine, wondering just how long this would take. Her mother was
notorious for her digressions, especially on occasions like this one, when she was reluctant to get to the heart of the matter.

  “Yes, well, you see, Arabella and I are very close. We are bosom friends, you see, and we discuss everything. She knows all about our family life just as I know all about hers,” she said, somewhat anxiously as her three middle fingers tapped the cushion on which she sat, a nervous habit she adopted whenever presented with an unpleasant confession.

  Catherine could not imagine where all this information was leading. “And?”

  “Well, she is really a wonderful, caring person, full of sentiment and quite sympathetic to my suffering,” Lady Fellingham explained.

  Catherine looked around her at the opulent room, with its lavish designs, lush fabrics and extravagant details. “Suffering, Mama?”

  For a moment her ladyship looked embarrassed, then she straightened her spine and looked her oldest daughter in the eye. “Yes, my dear, suffering. And dearest Arabella came up with a wonderful scheme to end my, uh, suffering.”

  “I’m sorry, Mama, but you are going to have to elaborate. What do you mean by suffering?” Catherine asked.

  Liza blushed in earnest. “I’d hate to talk about it.”

  “Surely, Mama, you can tell me anything you can tell Lady Courtland,” she said reasonably.

  As much as she wanted to deny the logic of this statement, her ladyship could not, and she expelled a loud sigh before confessing, “Money problems. Your father—”

  “Damn me, m’dear,” interrupted Sir Vincent, “but this is your sin, not mine. Acquit me of any wrongdoing.”

  “How can I?” she cried. “Your wretched gambling has gotten us into this straitened circumstance in the first place.”

  “Your mother has been selling commissions in the king’s army for a price,” Sir Vincent declared, heedless of his wife’s feelings.