by Fiona Hill
“My dear Miss Windle,” she brought out in a hoarse whisper, “I am sorry to have kept you waiting.”
“Not at all, my pet,” said the good woman, “but are you feeling—quite fit?”
“Fit?” she echoed, in the grating whisper. “Certainly, very fit. Save…save for a little headache,” she qualified, leaning heavily on Windle’s arm. “Shall we be off, then?”
“My dear, I am not at all sure you ought to go!”
“Not go? But I must! I confess, I have felt healthier in my day—but I could not think of depriving you of the evening.” With this she began feebly pulling Miss Windle towards the corridor.
Miss Windle, reflecting privately that Lord Romby could not stay at his club (his stated destination) forever, gladly disabused Lady Caro of this notion. “But of course you may deprive me of the evening,” said she lightly. “How should I enjoy it with you in such a state?”
Caroline groaned faintly. “May I be frank, dear ma’am?”
“Naturally! I should be shocked if you were otherwise.”
“Well then, it is not for your sake, nor for mine, that I beg you to attend the Opera tonight. It is for Amy Meredith’s sake,” she said solemnly.
“Miss Meredith?”
“Precisely. Do you know, Miss Windle, I have often pitied poor Amy? And do you know why?”
Breathless, Miss Windle posed the question, “Why?”
“Because, my dear friend, poor Amy has not so fine a chaperone as I.”
Miss Windle blushed and started to refuse the compliment.
“No, no; I do not speak to flatter, but simply to inform. You are the sort of chaperone a girl like Amy needs; you are the sort she ought to have. What is this Mrs. Henry after all? Is she meticulous? Is she trustworthy? Is she honourable? We do not know, Miss Windle! We do not—oh, pray,” she broke off suddenly, “I should like to sit down for a moment, if I may.”
With the utmost solicitude Miss Windle helped her to a chair.
“We do not know,” Lady Caroline resumed after a moment. “And yet, on occasion after occasion, Amy’s happiness and reputation are entrusted to her care; day after day, her whole future is risked at every moment. I cannot rest, indeed I cannot, when I think of it! And so, shall I, because of a paltry indisposition—” she paused to cough for forty-five seconds or so—“shall I refuse her the shield of my own Windle’s unassailable dignity? Her flawless judgement? Shall I selfishly sacrifice her happiness on the altar of my own convenience?”
Her dramatic pause formed a breach into which Miss Windle jumped with both neatly shod feet. “NO!” she cried fervently, continuing with a triumphant, “I shall go without you!”
After this there fell a hush in the snug sitting-room. “I could not permit it,” Caroline rasped at last. “It is too kind of you.”
“No, no, I see it is my duty. I see it perfectly,” exclaimed Cecelia Windle.
Caroline gazed at her as if she had been a certified martyr. “You are very good,” she said at last.
Miss Windle protested, but she rather agreed in secret. Tenderly, energetically, she bore the failing Caroline back to her bed. With many instructions she handed her into the care of the abigail, Mary. When all was done—Lady Caroline undressed and tucked in, and rhubarb and calomel sent for—then and only then did Miss Windle march bravely off to the Opera. The moment she was gone Lady Caro leapt from her bed.
“You must slip downstairs, Mary,” she said, “and see if anyone has arrived as yet. Then come back to me.”
Left alone, Lady Caroline rinsed her smarting eyes with water from her basin. The lavender drops had done their work well: she was sure Miss Windle had no idea whatever of her being in perfect health. The fine dusting of powder on her cheeks had succeeded too; but there was no need of it any longer. She washed it away and began, hurriedly, to take the pins out of her elaborate coiffure. By the time this was done Mary had returned.
“Mr. Hedgepeth says yes, a Lord Wolfus is arrived, your la’ship. Is that all ma’am?”
“Thank you, Mary. I need your assistance tonight, my dear. I hope you will give it to me.”
“Naturally, ma’am,” said the biddable Mary.
“Help me out of my gown, first of all,” she instructed. “There is a suit of man’s clothing in the wardrobe, just next to my redingote. Do you see it? A blue coat, and black pantaloons? Ah, exactly,” she cried, as Mary at last located the missing articles and brought them to her. She sat on the edge of the bed now, pulling on a pair of striped silk socks. “There is a waistcoat too, and a cravat in the drawer with my ribands.”
“Your la’ship!” Mary brought out breathlessly.
“Yes?” She looked up.
“Dear madam, you are never going to wear these clothes!”
“But of course I am. And you must help me and never breathe a word of it to anyone. Will you? Pray, say you will; it is for a very good cause.”
“Oh, laws!”
“Mary, please,” she begged. She had waited until now to secure Mary’s assistance on purpose, for it struck her that the abigail was more a girl to win over on impulse than to conspire and collude with. She was too honest to accept hush-money, and Caroline could not bear the thought of commanding her to do something she might consider a betrayal to her employer; and so she had left this last detail till now. “All you need do is to help me dress, then go downstairs and distract Hedgepeth while I slip into the Gilt Saloon. Then, later, lock the door to my bed-chamber, and when Miss Windle comes—well, I am afraid you must lie a little. You must tell her I complained of headache all evening, and at last fell asleep, leaving word I was not to be disturbed by anybody until eleven tomorrow morning. And that is all, except, to be secret about it. Will you do it? It means a very great deal to me.”
Mary, though perfectly aware that Lord Seabury, and not Lady Caroline, paid her wages, was yet far more eager to help the lady before her than the absent gentleman. After a moment’s hesitation she bobbed a curtsey and expressed her complete willingness to serve Lady Caroline. Jubilant, Caro told her where to find the leather pumps she had hidden among her boots and sandals. These donned, she sat in front of her mirror and attempted to tie her cravat.
“Dear Mary, have you any idea how to arrange a neckcloth?”
“How should I have learned such a thing, ma’am?” asked Mary, shocked to her toes.
“No, of course not,” Caroline said. “Well then…” She set to work with the unwieldy fabric herself, folding and pleating and half strangling herself before she had done, but at last emerged from the efforts with a result not entirely risible. There remained only her hair to be dealt with: most of it could be swept away behind her ears and concealed under her enormously high collar, but the crown—the crown looked very silly, and gave her away at once. “Oh Mary,” she exclaimed, in deep anxiety, lest Mockabee be made to wait overlong, “see if you cannot coax a few little curls on top, something like my Lord Seabury’s. Can you?”
The abigail’s clever fingers darted quickly through Caro’s dark hair; when she took them away the effect was striking.
“Good Heavens!” Caroline cried. “I look just like a boy.”
This was rather more unnerving than she had anticipated, but her eagerness to be off bore her up and away from the glass. “Run downstairs, my dear, and if you find no one between here and the Gilt Saloon, come back to me. If there is only a footman, tell him—tell him to fetch a cordial for me. If Hedgepeth is there…you had better return and let me know. I shall follow you in an instant. And remember, you are to lock my door from without, and be absolutely certain nobody enters until I come. Do you understand?”
Mary gave a quick recital of all her instructions, and slipped down the corridor. When she did not reappear, Lady Caroline went after her, leaving the door to her chambers shut. She found Mary at the head of the staircase, and being told that the only servant posted near there had been sent on the designated errand, Caroline ran down the passageway and into the Gilt Sa
loon. She discovered she was the last of the party to arrive: Deatherage, Wolfus and Mockabee, besides Romby of course, were all accounted for and eager to begin. Her first words—an apology for being late—produced a round of laughter.
“What a lovely, feminine boy!” said Mockabee. “Are you come to play at cards, or to sing to us?”
She scowled at him. “I thought it prudent to disguise myself thus, since if the servants recognize me, I am lost.”
“My dear, unless you have a man’s head to suit those man’s shoes, you are lost already,” Mockabee replied.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I say you may find yourself outwitted; this is not a ladies’ game of Speculation, you know.”
“There is nothing deficient in my wit,” said she, already seething with fury; “and if there were, I trust the problem could not be a consequence of my gender. Unless you would care to explain how you suppose it might be—?”
Mockabee declined this invitation and indicated instead his eagerness to proceed with the game. He was not above half pleased with the prospect of playing against a woman, and would have refused if Wolfus (whose lot it had been to ask him) had not made it a point of honour that he accept.
Lord Deatherage dealt first, staking £10 on his own hand. At £10 a fish this was a modest beginning, but the game soon grew more stimulating. Romby, who sat just to his old friend’s left, placed his cards face down on the table, folded his hands atop them, leaned forward, bragged, and staked £100 on the issue. “This is something!” Deatherage exclaimed, while Caroline thought the same thing.
“It is just like you, Romby,” Mockabee growled. “Staking the limit on the first hand is the sort of thing to intimidate beginners—perhaps our little friend here [indicating Caro]—but I know a bluff when I see one.”
“Do you now?” asked Romby coolly.
“Certainly,” he answered, and wagered £100 himself, even as Deatherage withdrew his cards and forfeited his stake.
“This is no round for me, gentlemen,” Wolfus said, returning his hand. “Lady Caroline?”
She, whose turn was last, followed the lead of Lord Wolfus. “This is richer than I care to go,” she murmured, and was about to restore her cards to Deatherage when the baron addressed her.
“Come come,” said he, “will you leave me to stand alone on the field of battle?”
“Lord Romby is with you, sir,” she reminded him.
“But he is the opposition.”
“So am I.”
“Not if you yield so easily!” he prodded. “Not if you do not oppose. Fine examples you are to her,” he scolded the others. “One windy bluffer and two jelly-fishes!”
Wolfus and Deatherage grumbled at the epithet, but Romby said nothing. Lady Caroline completed her unfinished action—which is to say, restored her cards to the dealer—saying, “I am afraid you two must lock horns with one another; and if I am a jelly-fish, so much the worse for me.”
It was time to show cards. Romby, with the utmost dignity, turned over a pair-royal of nines. Pleasant as the moment must have been to him, he did not even smile. Baron Mockabee, it appeared, had not the same ability of keeping his countenance. He let out an oath, scowled, and showed a pair of tens. Lord Romby drew in his twenty-one fish and shuffled the cards.
The game continued for six hours till three o’clock, during which time Lord Mockabee lost some five hundred pounds. None of the others came out remarkably ahead, which was precisely as Caroline had planned it. She was a little distressed when Mockabee, failing to be taken in by one of Deatherage’s bluffs, collected five counters from three of the other players; but this happened only once, and its effect was fleeting. Lord Deatherage, she reflected, must be told not to bluff so outrageously during the next game (he had gambled on nothing more than a three, a four, and a ten), which was to take place a fortnight later.
“Nonsense, gal,” Romby snapped, however, when she asked him to keep his old friend’s bluffs in check. The others had left some minutes before, in a body. “He was perfectly right to do what he did. Do you suppose Mockabee would never notice if we lost no money?”
“Losing money is one thing, but bluffing on a whim is another,” she objected.
“Phoo,” said he, eloquently. “You are the one who behaved most suspiciously of all, for you would not pretend to challenge him. We cannot always act on the knowledge we have of one another’s cards; now and again, someone must risk more than is wise, and the rest of us must take our chances with him.”
Caro continued dubious, but her companion chose to ignore her.
“Were you not pleased with this first step in your scheme?” he inquired. “I should imagine you would be, for it went off mighty well.”
“Do you think so?” she asked, with renewed interest. She yawned after she spoke, and began to loosen the knot of her cravat. “I had no idea these were so uncomfortable,” she added by way of an aside. “It will teach me not to mind stays so much.”
Romby smiled. “It was quite a triumph,” he observed, answering her first remark. “Mockabee cannot wait to return—to win his money back, as he supposes. That is just as it should be.”
“And you really think he suspects nothing?” she pursued, releasing her chestnut hair from the tight knot in which it had been constrained all night. She shook it loose and it streamed over her back and shoulders.
“Nothing at all,” he confirmed. “Besides, from his prattle to you I gather he deems you too missish and stupid to participate in such a business as this.”
Caro smiled sleepily. “That is exactly what makes it so satisfying to do so.”
“It is pretty pleasant to Wolfus too, I expect.”
“And you?”
“I am happy so long as there are cards in my hand and money on the table,” he said simply.
“I suppose your son wishes it were the other way round,” she mused; “that you would leave the cards on the table, and keep the money in your hand.”
The earl grunted.
“I was very much afraid he would look in on us when they returned from the Opera,” she continued. “I do not know how I should have kept my countenance if he had.”
“Seabury seldom meddles with me when I am closeted with my friends. He never cared for Deatherage much, anyhow; you may depend upon their avoiding one another when they can.”
Struggling against another yawn, Lady Caroline rose at last to declare her intention of retiring. It felt odd to wear pantaloons, and her shoes fit her ill. She would have liked to go to Hoby to have a better pair made, but she could not risk patronizing any fashionable bootmaker, since her purchasing gentlemen’s garb must be kept secret. Promising herself a good long sleep in her heavenly bed upstairs, she made her way wearily to the door, bowed her good-night to Romby, and ascended the oaken staircase. At the top she walked straight into Seabury.
Chapter V
Lady Caroline started, stepped back instinctively, and would certainly have tumbled down the long wooden stairs if Seabury had not caught her. Catch her he did, however, with two firm hands round her shoulders. He caught, inevitably, some of her thick hair as well, and its silken texture did not escape his notice even as he released it, and Caroline, safely on the landing. Caro had let out a small Oh! and a gasp, in rapid succession, upon seeing him; but now she did not know what to say. It was left, then, to his lordship to speak first.
“You are not hurt?” was his first inquiry.
“No my lord.” She hung her head somewhat, and in doing so became conscious again of her pantaloons. This had the effect of making her blush to her eyes: it was only the deeply entrenched habit of civility that prevented her from running away at once.
“I did not intend to startle you, Lady Caroline. In fact, I was under the impression you were abed with the headache,” said he.
“So I was,” she lied, “but I—I came downstairs.”
“So I see.” There was a very uncomfortable silence between them for some moments; then, “L
ady Caroline,” Seabury continued in a low, gentle voice, “I trust you are not engaged in any activity that may discredit my family, or yours. It is extremely disagreeable to me to be obliged to mention such a possibility,” he hurried to say, before she could interrupt him, “but after all, you are here under my protection. Any misfortune to befall you must be held to my account by the world—and moreover, I may add, by my own conscience.”
“My lord,” Caro said, dreadfully embarrassed and ashamed, “I beg you will be easy on that head. I am indeed sensible of the kindness you do in maintaining me at Rucke House, and should be most unhappy were any disgrace of mine to cast its shadow on your name.” Beyond this she could say nothing; she felt suddenly as if she must cry or burst.
“It is not, you understand, my intention to censure you, or to pass judgement upon you in any way,” Seabury continued, with a gradual return of his recent coldness to her. “You are entirely at liberty, of course, to conduct yourself as you see fit. I think only of Miss Meredith, whose prospects must suffer were anything to—” he hesitated, resuming, “were anything to happen amiss.”
This last sentence had the unlucky effect of pushing Caroline’s brimming sentiments over the edge. “I pray you will excuse me,” she choked out, turning her head away so that Seabury could not see her tears. “I am very tired.” On these words she did run away at last. Though she had kept her tears from his lordship’s view, she could not prevent them from creeping into her voice, and she left behind her a very puzzled young man. Ahead of her were Mary and bed, and she welcomed the comforts of each whole-heartedly. When she slept that night her dreaming head lay on a damp pillow.
