A Most Lamentable Comedy Read online

  Guildford, Surrey

  Lady Caroline Elmhurst

  ‘And did you have a comfortable journey, milady?’ Mary asks. She has just alighted from the roof of the coach from London, showing, in my opinion, an unnecessary amount of ankle and petticoat. Now we both stand in the courtyard of the King’s Head, the nearest stop to Elmhurst’s house, surrounded by our luggage, while around us fellow travellers arrive and depart.

  ‘Quite delightful and refreshing,’ I reply. ‘And you?’

  She has the look of a cat that has been in the cream. ‘The gentlemen on the roof were most attentive, and, lord, I ate like a pig. Pie, cake, bread and ham – why, it was a regular feast.’ From the pink spots on her cheeks, she has also consumed a fair amount of gin. She turns to smile at her admirers who have plied her so willingly with food and drink.

  Since the rain let up an hour from London, she is dried out, whereas my clothes are quite creased asoggy still. I had but one meagre cup of tea along the way (for I could not afford more), and I was crammed in between a fat woman who ate seven hard-boiled eggs and two raw onions (how they stank!) and a man with a runny nose who sniffed regularly – I timed him – once to a count of ten. The gentleman – I use the term loosely – who sat opposite me gazed at my bosom and tried to press my knee between his for almost the entire journey.

  I suppose I should only be grateful that I was not forced into the even more vulgar company of those who travelled outside, but as I reflect upon this small comfort, my stomach gives a low, menacing growl.

  Another coach pulls into the courtyard, the horses sweating and their hoofs striking sparks from the cobbles. Servants rush forward to change the horses and greet the passengers.

  ‘Oh.’ Mary now stares at a gentleman who steps down from the coach, hatless and pulling on a pair of gloves. ‘Now that’s what I call a man.’

  Oh, indeed. Tall and lithe, long muscles I can imagine only too well beneath that tailoring (not up to London standards, and cut a little loose for the highest of fashion, but who cares), tawny gold hair, an aristocratic slash of long nose beneath straight, dark brows – and that mouth. Good God. The sort of lips that make a woman—

  ‘That’s enough. Mind your place,’ I snap at Mary, afraid that I too am standing there with my mouth hanging open. The gentleman – do I know him? I don’t believe so – disappears to the other side of the coach, doubtless to direct his servant.

  At my side, a man wearing a linen apron bows obsequiously, to my relief. A canny innkeeper must know the presumed value of his customers, and if I have passed his test, I may yet preserve my reputation as a wealthy and respectable widow at Otterwell’s.

  ‘Would you care for some refreshments, milady?’

  ‘I think not, sir. I should like to hire a trap to take me to Lord Otterwell’s.’

  ‘A gentleman has just hired it, milady, and is about to leave, though the driver should be back in an hour or so. If you’d care to step inside . . .’

  Oh, certainly. Caught like a fly in some squalid private parlour where I shall be charged an inordinate amount of money for some weak tea and other refreshment. ‘You have no other means of conveyance, sir?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, milady.’

  The innkeeper bows again, and opens a door, inviting me and my dwindling funds inside. A gust of cooking smells, roasting meat, fresh bread, assails me – oh heavens, I am so hungry I think I shall die. I wonder at what hour Otterwell dines.

  Beside me, Mary, the greedy thing, smacks her lips. ‘A cup of tea would be just the thing. Wouldn’t it, milady?’

  My hunger is followed by ae of nausea. Oh, good heavens, I fear I am about to swoon. And not the swoon I have perfected (have not all ladies? A graceful sinking at the knee with a heartfelt sigh on to the closest piece of comfortable furniture, certain to inspire the nearest gentleman to besotted acts of gallantry). No, this is the real thing – a helpless and sickening plunge into darkness (and the filthy cobbles of the courtyard).

  Mr Nicholas Congrevance

  I’ve forgotten how lovely Englishwomen can be, and she’s entrancing, this stranded beauty surrounded by the flotsam and jetsam of her belongings – surely that can’t be a porcelain candlestick peeping out from the large basket? Maybe this is how English ladies travel. Her maid, a cheeky, pretty piece, has already given me the eye and now flutters her lashes at Barton, so she is not able to see her mistress stagger and sway, but I do, and cross the courtyard in a few swift strides. She slumps into my arms, somewhat damp – she must have been caught in the rain – and her bonnet falls from her head and rolls on to the cobbles.

  She is entirely without colour, her eyes and mouth half open, and I hoist her into my arms.

  ‘Why, she don’t usually faint like that, sir,’ her maid offers, swinging her mistress’ hat by the ribbons, and brushing a fleck of horse dung from it.

  ‘She’s ill? Should we send for a doctor?’ I peer into the woman’s face, a perfect oval, long dark lashes on her pale skin, and a mouth a little wide for fashion. A curl of dusky hair, dark brown, tumbles on to my arm.

  ‘No, sir, she’ll be right as rain. I think the journey has been too much for her, poor lady.’

  The obsequious innkeeper bows, holding the door open, and I carry my fragrant armful – moist with a hint of lavender – into a private parlour.

  ‘We’d best loosen her clothing,’ the maid says with great cheerfulness, and unfastens the lady’s spencer and plucks a muslin fichu from her bosom as I deposit her on to a settle.

  Good God.

  Barton, behind me, gives an appreciative grunt.

  ‘Out!’ I push him and the innkeeper out of the door, and order tea and toast for the lady.

  ‘That’s a prime piece, sir,’ Barton says with a chuckle, when I join him outside. ‘A good big arse on her, too.’

  ‘Mind your place,’ I snap at him.

  ‘The maid, sir.’

  ‘Indeed.’ I couldn’t help but notice that myself.

  After a discreet interval of some ten minutes or so, I enter the parlour, where my rescued lady sits, still a trifle pale, before a plate of crumbs and with a teacup in her hand, in an inteesting altercation with her maid.

  ‘Did you have to tell them in London I was covered with stinking sores, milady?’ the servant demands, elbow deep in grubby linen. She folds the items and smacks them on top of the candlestick. Her arse seems much reduced, and I suspect she has removed some half-dozen petticoats. Barton will be disappointed.

  ‘Don’t be a fool. It worked— Why, sir, I am much obliged for your kindness.’ Her voice is warm and throaty. ‘May I have the honour of knowing who my rescuer is?’

  ‘Congrevance, madam. Nicholas Congrevance. I trust you’re recovered?’

  ‘I am Lady Caroline Elmhurst.’ She pauses and looks for a reaction. Obviously her name should mean something to me. ‘Have we met in London, sir?’

  Her maid mutters something, curtsies and leaves the room, banging the door behind her.

  I take Lady Elmhurst’s outstretched hand, her fingers warm and supple in mine. ‘No, madam, I’m but lately come back to England.’

  ‘You have been on the Continent, then, Mr Congrevance?’

  ‘Yes, I have. Do you travel alone, madam?’

  She lowers those long eyelashes and sighs. ‘I am a widow. And you, sir?’

  Well, well. She wears no mourning jewellery that I can see, so this cannot be a recent bereavement.

  ‘I travel only with my man, Barton. I am a bachelor, madam.’

  She nods and gives me a discreet, appraising glance as she offers a chair and tea. I accept for the pleasure of seeing the grace of her arms and bosom as she wields the teapot, lashes still modestly lowered.

  ‘I’m bound for Otterwell’s place, as I believe you to be,’ I tell her. ‘Might I offer you and your maid a place in the trap, Lady Elmhurst?’

  ‘You are too kind, sir.’ She raises her eyes to mine – large, blue-grey and enchanting. An extrao
rdinary sensation comes over me; I fall into their depths as surely as I was lost when I sank into the canal.

  Lady Caroline Elmhurst

  I am tempted to lick the crumbs from my plate, but I really feel I do not know Congrevance sufficiently to do so before him. In the interests of propriety, or its appearance, I suggest we leave for Otterwell’s house. I am not so much of a fool, or a hypocrite, to deny the carnal interest that hums between me and Congrevance. He has done nothing but sum up my various parts since we met, and I must admit I have given him every opportunity to do so. My lawn scarf is too creased to wear at my neckline, and I cannot help if my skirt pulls up a little as I enter the trap. I study him with equal interest. I was not entirely unconscious when arried me inside the inn; I heard the pleasing thud of a man’s heartbeat close to mine, and had the opportunity to examine the cloth of his coat (a very fine wool). An excellent sign, as is his absence from London, for chances are he has had little opportunity to squander his money there, or to know the most sordid details of my fall from grace.

  Being pressed against his warm, hard person (his chest, that is) almost made up for the distressing weakness and sickness that assailed me, but happily that was dispelled shortly after by toast and tea (paid for by Congrevance), and now I feel quite restored to health.

  He travels simply, but the quality of his clothes, his air, speak of breeding and undoubted fortune. He is accompanied by a manservant whose ugly face and squat build I find repulsive, but with whom Mary, the shameless slut, flirts and giggles as the trap bowls along the country lanes.

  ‘I have missed this,’ Congrevance says, gesturing in a foreign sort of way.

  ‘Cows, sir?’

  ‘No.’ He shakes his head, smiling. ‘The countryside. It is so very green and soft.’

  ‘You are a great traveller, then?’

  ‘I was most recently in Italy.’

  He doesn’t seem inclined to chat, which is as well – for gentlemen, I find, gnaw upon topics that are of no interest whatsoever, like a dog upon a bone: politics (Bludge), horseflesh (Elmhurst), cricket, surely the worst of the lot (Linsley) and military manoeuvres, a close second (Rotherhithe). So I am quite content to watch Congrevance, and a beautiful creature he is, with his long elegance of bone and his dark grey eyes – a surprise, for I should have thought he would have blue eyes. However, I do not wish to appear a mindless ninny who cannot carry on a conversation, and I like to watch his mouth when he speaks.

  ‘Do you know which part is yours in Otterwell’s play, Mr Congrevance?’

  ‘His play?’

  ‘Yes. Has he not invited you to be an actor in his, or rather Shakespeare’s, A Midsummer Night’s Dream?’

  ‘Ah. He did not mention anything of the sort to me when we met in Italy earlier this year, although one cannot help but notice how much he admires Shakespeare. And you, Lady Elmhurst? What part is yours?’

  ‘I am to play Hermia.’ Hermia, in my opinion, is something of a tediously virtuous ninny, but she fits quite well into the impression I intend to make on Congrevance – that of a respectable and modest widow. How very fortunate that he has been abroad, and how relieved I am to find that my reputation has not crossed the Channel. If he had been in London, it would be an entirely different story. Indeed, it is a miraculous stroke of luck that he is a blank slate upon which I can rewrite myself, provided he does not listen to vulgar gossip from his fellow guests.

  ‘You enjoy the theatre, Lady Elmhurst?’

  ‘Oh, I adore it.’ I clasp my hands to my bosom (he watches) and sigh deeply (he blinks). ‘It is tremendously diverting. It is one of the great pleasures of town.’ I do not mention that cards and flirting and activities well beyond flirting behind closed doors are what I really prefer. ‘And of course I enjoy music; I play a little upon the pianoforte – my friends say I am not totally devoid of taste – and I have a very small skill with watercolours.’

  ‘Otterwell has some very pleasing prospects on his estate. I expect you will wish to sketch them. Perhaps I might be permitted to accompany you, Lady Elmhurst.’

  ‘That would be delightful, Mr Congrevance.’

  The question, of course, is whether I should take him as protector or husband. As enamoured as he seems to be of the countryside, there is a good chance he will want to settle on some tedious estate and commune with his cows. He might expect a wife to slop around there with straw in her hair and breed! But I am sure that if Congrevance wished to amuse himself in town, he could keep me in the manner to which I am accustomed (or, to be honest, unaccustomed of late). Mary, whose knee is now pressed firmly against that of that ruffian of a manservant, can find out the extent of Congrevance’s fortune well enough.

  However, there is no great rush to entrap him. I should wait and see who else Otterwell has invited; for although I cannot deny the attraction I feel to Congrevance, it would not do to sell myself short. How would I feel if, for instance, I missed a duke?

  Mr Nicholas Congrevance

  Now I am not the sort of fellow to ponder much on philosophies or languish around thinking poetic thoughts of love, life and death – in my life, I have had to deal with more practical issues. But I cannot help but reflect that I emerged from that canal a changed man, and a stranger to myself.

  Would the Nicholas Congrevance of only a few weeks ago be content to look at trees and meadows and hardly bother to respond when a pretty and undoubtedly available widow tries to engage him in conversation? Barton, of course, will find out the extent of her wealth from that saucy maid, with whom he is getting on famously. And I – well, glib reports of my doings abroad, adventures and the hint of a love affair gone sour (a broken heart in a man rouses a competitive spirit in a woman, I find) – these should have flowed from me as naturally as water. But my wits are quite softened, and while this is not unpleasing – for Lady Caroline Elmhurst is certainly good to look at (particularly around the bosom), and her husky voice most attractive – I must rally myself for my meeting with Lord and Lady Otterwell.

  The trap turns off the road; a boy runs from the gatehouse to open finely wrought-iron gates and the wheels and the horse’s hoofs crunch on gravel. The drive curves to an open vista with an avenue of lime trees leading to Otterwell’s house, a handsome structure of honey-coloured stone. It is precisely the sort of house that I am denied by both birth and fortune; the sort of house that I might, with luck, lease for a quarter or so, before I leave to seek my riches again.

  The trap draws up at the front of the house, where two symmetrical sweeps of stairs lead to an imposing front door. I take Lady Elmhurst’s hand and assist her down from the trap; it is a pity indeed that we are both decently gloved.

  The trap leaves to go to the servants’ entrance, and the crunch of feet on gravel announces the approach of Lady Otterwell, carrying a basket of flowers. Less pink in the face than in Rome, she is still pretty in a plump, petulant sort of way. She sees me, drops the flowers, and sinks into a curtsy so deep I wonder if she will be able to get up again without assistance.

  ‘Monsieur le Vicomte!’ she cries. She wobbles and regains her vertical state as the front door opens and Otterwell emerges from the house, bald head gleaming, wearing one of his colourful waistcoats. ‘Oh, Otterwell, my dear, look who is here! It is St Germain-d’Aubussy! Oh, the honour. I am quite overcome . . .’

  Otterwell sweeps a courtly bow and I wonder for a moment if he will topple down his marble stairs, before he makes the journey safely and grips my hand. ‘Why, sir, this is an unexpected and delightful surprise. It is, let me see, but six months since we met in Rome, and I am delighted you should condescend to visit. I—’

  ‘I beg of you, Lord Otterwell, not a word more. It is not safe.’ I glance around as though foreign conspirators lurk in the neatly trimmed bushes. ‘A nom de guerre – or of peace, rather. I regret I had to deceive you, but when king and country . . .’ I shrug. ‘I am Nicholas Congrevance.’

  ‘You . . . Good lord. Well, of course you are welcome, Con
grevance.’ He wrings my hand with the greatest of affability, while clearly believing he has a (possibly French) aristocrat spy in disguise under his roof. ‘We must call the gentleman Mr Congrevance, my dear.’

  ‘Oh, how . . . how romantic,’ Lady Otterwell sighs. ‘I always said, did I not, Otterwell, that the dear Vicomte had hidden depths. I assure you, Mr Congrevance, you shall be safe under our roof. I wish . . . although of course you probably cannot . . . but it would be so exciting if you could tell us . . .’

  A loud sneeze interrupts us as Lady Elmhurst simultaneously stuffs the gathered flowers back into their basket and curtsies to her host and hostess.

  Otterwell bows and looks into her bosom. I can hardly blame him.

  ‘How charming that you should be able to join us, Lady Elmhurst,’ Lady Otterwell says with deep loathing. ‘Do come and meet the other guests.’

  ‘I am delighted that you were kind enough to invite me,’ Lady Elmhurst replies with equal insincerity as she takes her hostess’ arm. ‘You are looking very well, Lady Otterwell.’

  ‘I see you have made the acquaintance of Lady Elmhurst,’ Otterwell says, winking heavily at me.

  ont size="3">‘But recently, sir. We met in Guildford, and shared the trap.’ I wonder about the relationship of these three; clearly there is no love lost between Lady Otterwell and Lady Elmhurst, in whose person Lord Otterwell takes a far too obvious interest. I suspect it was he who invited her, possibly with ungentlemanly intentions, a thought that makes me uncomfortable, although I am not sure why.

  Lady Otterwell hands her dishevelled basket of flowers to a servant, and then the four of us proceed around the side of the house. Beneath the spreading branches of a cedar tree ladies take tea, while on the lawn in the sunlight some gentlemen and a small boy play cricket. I notice that at Lady Elmhurst’s approach most of the women busy themselves with their conversation, turning their shoulders away from her. It is done quite deliberately to snub her, and I wonder why she is so very unpopular.

  She, however, extricates herself from Otterwell’s arm with a puff of annoyance, looks longingly at the cakes – I wonder whether she fainted from hunger at the inn – and wanders towards the game. As she does so, the batsman hits the ball vigorously and it flies high in the air towards her – a good hit for a little fellow, for he can only be about six years of age.