A Heart Too Proud

by Laura London

  “Talebearer! Snitch!” I yelled wrathfully at Lord Dearborne, who ignored me completely. He told Mrs. Goodbody that he would have a doctor summoned, and left. He was no sooner out the door than I received a snappy lecture from Mrs. Goodbody on the evils of disobedience and ingratitude. Score one for Lord Dearborne. From now on there wasn’t a bat’s chance in the daytime that I would be able to leave the estate grounds without an escort.

  And further, the more Mrs. Goodbody lectured me on the gratitude I owed to Lord Dearborne, the less gratitude I felt. The man could probably have housed and shod a thousand orphans without feeling the slightest pinch. Besides, it was in the will, wasn’t it? He had to support us by law. There was no point in arguing with Mrs. Goodbody on this head as His Lordship had already flummoxed her finely. In the time since Lord Dearborne’s arrival she had gone from thinking of him as a desperate libertine to regarding him as a paragon among men. I could have disillusioned her by mentioning what he had been about under the honeysuckle bush, had I not been much, much too embarrassed to reveal that to anyone. I shuddered to think of my own response. “You’d be such an easy mark,” he had said. I felt my cheeks burn with shame and promised myself to be wary of him and his rakish trickery in the future. There was no desire in Miss Elizabeth Cordell to join the ranks of Dearborne’s discarded conquests.

  When Dr. Brent arrived, he took a cursory glance at the lump on my head, congratulated Mrs. Goodbody on her excellent good sense in applying cold compresses, advised her to keep me in bed for a day, and predicted I would do very well. (This just shows you what an unsympathetic clodpole of a doctor he was.) The reactions of Christopher and my sisters were more to my taste. They declared me a heroine, and my attacker a villain of the first water.

  Christopher, as usual, couldn’t be brought to share my reaction to Lord Dearborne’s unfair restriction on my personal freedom.

  “It stands to reason that I’m not in danger, Kit,” I argued. “Why, the fellow would have killed me as I lay there if he had intended to do away with me. He just didn’t want to be interfered with at that moment”

  “ ’Lizbeth, I swear you make my flesh creep, prosing on about your own murder like that,” groaned Christopher. “Of course Uncle Nicky has to protect you. Dash it all, it’s his duty as a gentleman. Tell you what it is, Princess, you’re just not used to male authority—didn’t have a brother, lost your father when you were a child, and I’ll wager the admiral never gave you more than a half hour of attention in all his years as your guardian. And as for that vicar you place so much faith in… oh, well, don’t flare up at me, I shan’t say another word.”

  That was all that could be had from Christopher on the subject.

  The next few days passed slowly, domestic tinkering relieved by visits from the curious. Even the squire came to inquire how I did and to ask the marquis what action to take to capture the villain. Lord Dearborne had told him (as I heard from Mrs. Goodbody, who was present at the time) that there was no need to trouble himself with the matter—the proper authorities had already been contacted. I wondered who the marquis considered the “proper authorities.”

  Even spending time at home can get you in trouble. One afternoon I had company that I would rather have missed.

  I had thought that the squire’s ball would be merely a memory and that would be that. It didn’t occur to me that anyone would try to further their acquaintance with me. That is why you could have knocked me over with a quill pen when Cecilia Macready paid a call on me, accompanied by a veritable entourage of other people I had no wish to see.

  As you have gathered, I was raised to be a country girl, and like any other country girl, I can spin, weave, plate straw, and make black pudding. I don’t know if you have had experience with black pudding. To me it is a disgusting concoction, but Mrs. Goodbody is very partial to it. It is a goat’s belly stuffed with blood and fat. When preparing this dish, I have no doubt that my face assumes, of its own volition, a harassed and disgusted look. Such a look is what I was clad in, along with a greasy striped calico apron which had been cheerily starched before I began my labors. My hair had become an annoyance to me, so I had bunched it up and put it under a linen mobcap, where it lurked in miserable captivity, to sneak out occasionally and exercise itself in ticklish fashion on the back of my neck until I could find time to recapture it and put it back in its prison. My clothes were sticking to me in the heat from the stove, and I was just about to step out and take some air when there came a knock on the door. I set down my ladle, walked to the door, and opened it.

  “Pardon me, girl…,” said a vaguely familiar voice. “Oh, Elizabeth, it’s you! Such a charming little cottage you have here!”

  Cecilia Macready hadn’t recognized me out of my ball gown, and feeling like Cinderella at midnight, I cast out for my pumpkin coach, or at any rate, some way to salvage some dignity from the situation. With her were Christopher, Jeffrey, the marquis, a boy I recognized from the ball, and Lady Catherine Doran, of all people, looking like a vision from heaven. What was I to do? The boy from the ball spoke, in his peculiar braying tone:

  “Well, being a republican myself, and somewhat of a free thinker, I believe it is laudable for a person of Elizabeth’s aristocratic station to live in a hovel like a common peasant.”

  “Sneck up, Godfrey, you bellow like a cow. You are a common peasant.” This from Christopher, the friendly face in the crowd. “Elizabeth, you remember Godfrey Woodman from the ball. He thinks he is Oliver Cromwell, don’t you, Godfrey.”

  “Oh dear,” said Lady Catherine. “I feel faint.” She was holding a delicate lace handkerchief to her pretty nose as the steam from the pudding wafted past her on its way out.

  “Elizabeth,” said Christopher. “Pay no attention to my companions. Seeing anyone exert themselves upsets them; they feel it is bad form. Why don’t you run and put on your riding dress and we shall go riding.”

  “I really can’t leave my cooking right now,” I stammered. But then something began to right itself, and I was on my feet again. “I am making black pudding. It is made from goat’s blood and fat. It is really quite wholesome.” I scooped up some with the ladle and waved it around airily. “Godfrey, you’ll surely have a taste, won’t you? This is good republican food.”

  Godfrey turned pale, shaking his head in a vigorous negative jerk. This set the marquis and Christopher to unashamed laughter. When the marquis composed himself, he asked:

  “Cat, why don’t you try some? You are looking a mite faint. It might be just the thing to perk you up.”

  Lady Catherine gave the marquis a look meant to be meaningful.

  “What I do need,” she said languidly, “is just a brief recline upon a bed…”

  The insinuation was so strong that its intent was obvious even to me. I felt a warm blush creeping unbidden to my face. Christopher, who had been regarding me closely, hastily intervened: “I can see that we’ve come pushing in on you at a most inconvenient moment. Cecilia and company just rode over from Macready to pay their respects, but we’ll be off now.”

  And they were off. I went back to my pudding chores, and after what seemed an eternity, I was through. I was sitting in the doorway cooling off, when Christopher rode up again, dismounted, and sat down by me on the step. He was wearing an apologetic air which fitted him stiffly, like a new suit of clothes.

  “I’m sorry for bringing that whole crew in on you like that. You weren’t really prepared for company and I feel as though I played bad cricket. Cecilia insisted on coming over to pay her respects to you, and Godfrey, bless his meager brain, seems to have developed a tendresse for you, but I really think the whole scene was engineered by Lady Catherine. She’ll miss no opportunity to get close to the marquis.”

  “Christopher, you don’t have to apologize. How were you to know I was making black pudding? How did the rest of the visit go?”

  “Godfrey is learning how to chew tobacco, and he was making everyone sick. He spat, by accident, on the hem o
f Lady Catherine’s gown and that pretty much finished off the afternoon. Imagine a clod like that thinking you would have any time for the likes of him,” muttered Christopher.

  “Actually, I would rather talk to Godfrey than make blood pudding.”

  “I would rather make blood pudding than talk to Godfrey,” he said.

  “That is what you think,” I said. And he was off. Christopher is a good friend, I thought to myself as he rode away.

  It was getting very close to the time our play was to be presented, and I ceased worrying for a time about smugglers, bodyguards, and other such exciting things. As the time drew near, I wouldn’t have noticed if the Corsican Bandit and the entire French army marched right through our cottage and out by way of the chimney, hobnails and all. In fact, I wished that would happen because I could have used them as extras in the play. That’s the single-mindedness of an enthusiast for you!

  As I surveyed the finished stage on the afternoon before the play, I felt a glow of pride at the results of our labors. We had erected scaffolding that served as the foundation for our sets on the gentle slope of common land next to Mudbury hamlet. The playgoers would bring their own coverlets or stools for seating and the parish ladies had set up a stand that would be stocked with plum cakes and brown ale. Shade for the spectators was generously provided by a holm oak and several pear trees, now in full flower. The huge piece of lumber that the blacksmith had given us had made a most successful transformation into a man-o’-war, circa 1066. My sisters had gotten Jane’s brother, who was good at such things, to carve it and then they’d all painted the frame with loving care, right down to the mermaid figurehead who modestly clutched a spray of nodding daisies over her bosom. Caro was just now adding the finishing stitches to the sails, which were made from the same canvas on which we had painted the backdrops.

  The pièce de résistance, however, was behind the stage foundation. It had been Christopher’s inspiration to build a small firework that he would ignite just before the scene in which William was crowned in London, when the Norman army was celebrating. We were enthralled with the idea. Surely the most jaded audience could not help being thrilled by so dramatic a stunt. Christopher assured us that he had made firecrackers like this many times before and that it could be done with perfect safety. The only thing left for me to worry about was whether or not the noble Norman knight, Sir Hugh of Montfort, the wheelwright’s son, could bring himself to the sticking point and plunge his javelin into King Harold. Today, during our final rehearsal, he had broken down at the crucial moment when I, as King Harold, was to die on the battlefield. The ferocious Sir Hugh had flung himself off the stage and cried:

  “I can’t do it! I just can’t stab Elizabeth!”

  “You have to stab me. It is very important to the plot that you stab me, or else the Saxons would have won the battle and the Norman conquest would never have been! William the Conqueror would be just plain Bill!”

  Sir Hugh evidently had no respect for history. He opened his mouth and wailed, “But I can’t stab Elizabeth. She is too sweet!”

  It took the efforts of our entire cast, alternately cajoling and threatening, to convince our savage Norman to trod the boards again. Christopher finally won the day by taking the poor boy aside and explaining, “Tomorrow, in the real play, Elizabeth will look like a soldier instead of a girl. She will be dressed in soldier’s clothes and will be wearing a fake beard. She will be much more killable.” Mrs. Coleman had finished our costumes but she wouldn’t let us wear them in rehearsal, as it had been such a task constructing them.

  I walked to the back of the scaffolding, to see Christopher standing, hands on hips, regarding his newly finished rocket with great satisfaction. Thomas, the new groom who had been drafted as Kit’s assistant on the project, stood nearby with a slightly disloyal look of doubt on his face.

  “I don’t know,” muttered Thomas in pessimistic accents. “You say it’ll work but I don’t know.”

  Christopher threw a converting grin his way. “Are you doubting, Thomas? ’Course it will work—just a matter of getting the proper ratio of gunpowder.”

  “Well, ratios of gunpowder sound very scientific to me,” I said, coming up to the two inventors. I handed each a mug of ale, informing them that Mrs. Blakslee had sent down a tray for all the able workers. Kit bore me off to keep him company in the shade while he drank his ale, saying as he did:

  “No question of it, ’Lizabeth. We’re going to have a hit on our hands tomorrow. Church committee’ll erect a plaque in your honor when they count the vast sums brought into the church coffers by the Norman Conquest.”

  “Right,” I said, entering into the spirit of this. “And the plaque will read: ‘God makes the bees and the bees make honey; the congregation does all the work but the church makes all the money.’ Ah, go ahead and laugh, I hope that we don’t both end up in hell for sacrilege.”

  “Never! Nothing but a rowboat across the River Styx will do for a little heathen like you.” Christopher’s voice was still unsteady with laughter. “Oh, Lord, what an adorable girl you are. If you could see the look on your face now! You make me want to…” He stopped suddenly and flushed. “Oh, dear, you poor little thing. You can hardly help being so beautiful, can you?”

  Deeply embarrassed, I begged him to hush again. We sat quietly on the grass for a while then, Kit taking long pulls of ale and I letting a faint rustle of breeze fan the heat from my cheeks. Presently I turned back to my friend.

  “Kit, I know you don’t like me to bring this up but I can’t help worrying that someone somewhere isn’t going to like you appearing in a public theatrical. Lord Dearborne may be so angry he won’t let us be friends anymore. Mrs. Goodbody told me that the aristocracy considers actors to be, well, disreputable or something like that.”

  “Don’t tease yourself about it, m’dear. Being in one parish play doesn’t rank one as a professional actor. It’s all for a good cause, right? And, for your information, Uncle Nicky is well aware of the fact that I’m going to be in the play and hasn’t made any objection, so you see he’s not as top-lofty as you thought. Besides, why should he want to interfere with our friendship?”

  “I daresay he thinks you should have grander friends. Ones that he likes.”

  “He likes you, Elizabeth,” Christopher said with a reminiscent grin. “Just the other day he said you have a certain whimsical charm so I shouldn’t let myself get carried away and dishonor you, because you were a lady. There, that shows he likes you, doesn’t it?”

  “No!”

  “You don’t have to shout at me, I’m not deaf, y’know. Maybe that’s not the same as saying he likes you, but compared to Uncle Nicky’s usual opinion of women that’s pretty high praise, I can tell you. You should hear the things he says about Lady Cat; not but what they are true.” Christopher took a long pull from his tankard. “ ’Sides he didn’t ask you to dance at the Macreadys’ party. That shows you, doesn’t it?”

  I grabbed up a handful of convenient grass and tossed it at Christopher. He put a hand hastily over his brew.

  “Since when is it customary to express one’s liking for another by not dancing with them? I may not know much about the beau monde but that is doing it a bit brown.”

  “It’s true for all that.” He was brushing the grass out of his soft brown hair. “Young girl, living on his estate, under his protection, as it were; if he started paying attention to you in public it’s bound to start the tabbies talking. Lord, all he has to do is look at a woman to get the gossip mills grinding—for you, it would be fatal, believe me. I daresay that he would have liked to dance with you, too, stands to reason. I mean, a dashed beautiful girl and light as a feather in the bargain. See?”

  “No, I don’t see,” I said crossly. “You know what you are, Kit? You are an apologist!”

  “No!” said Christopher, revolted.

  “Yes,” I returned ruthlessly. “And what’s more, it won’t work. I’ll wager that Lord Dearborne has no more
liking for me than—than… for that wild-looking horse he rides.”

  “Very fond of his horses, Uncle Nicky is,” said Christopher, feeble yet pursuing.

  * * *

  The next morning, the twins had me out of bed before the sun was up. They were shivering with excitement and I made every effort to calm them for fear they would forget their lines in their agitated state. I had little success. They were still chattering nervously when we were backstage donning our costumes, shortly before curtain time. I let my own hair hang down, in the old Saxon way, and put on a false beard. The Saxon women wore pastel gunnas with their hair braided with bits of colored glass. The Norman soldiers were clean-shaven (no false beards), and clip-headed, and wore white tunics with wide sleeves and embroidered edging. Kit made a stunning William the Conqueror. He looked as if he could conquer the whole world, let alone Saxon England.

  Caro peeped through the curtain and drew back in openmouthed astonishment.

  “There’s millions of people out there,” she whispered. It was time for the play to begin.

  It is impossible to describe the whole play because it lasted over two hours, but I would like to mention some of my favorite highlights.

  Christopher exceeded all his rehearsals when he gave his long speech to his army urging them to join him on his voyage of conquest. Then came the voyage of the Norman invasion fleet across the English Channel. This is where the man-o’-war came in. Handles had been attached to the stage side of the “boat” and the feet showing underneath were not too obvious as the “sailors” carried it against an aquatic-blue background. Adding to the illusion was a cutout in the approximate shape of a seagull which was lowered from above the canvas and wiggled back and forth to suggest the illusion of flight. The boat came to a jarring halt at center stage and a ladder was brought up, which the soldiers mounted and then climbed down, thereby disembarking and landing on English soil. A chorus of satisfying boos rose from the audience at this point. This was a tricky maneuver because the soldiers had to climb over the side of the ship by climbing first on the backs of the sailors, who crouched down behind the ship facade out of sight of the audience.