Chapter Seventeen
The next morning Tansy found herself alone at the breakfast table, the Duke having left the house at an unfashionably early hour without breaking his fast, and the rest of the ladies either hiding (Lady Emily) or recuperating (the dowager and Aunt Lucinda) in their chambers.
It wasn’t until she returned from a fruitless expedition to Bond Street, in an attempt to secure ribbon to match a gown of a particularly odd shade of yellow, with a red-eyed and still-sniffling Pansy in tow, that voices coming from the first floor sitting room (which the dowager had commandeered as her own) alerted Tansy that at least two of the ladies were up and about.
She quickly shed her bonnet and pelisse, shushed the curious maid, and tiptoed to the slightly-ajar door to shamelessly eavesdrop on a conversation she had an idea would prove most entertaining. She was not disappointed.
The first words Tansy heard were from Aunt Lucinda, who groaned piteously, “‘I pray thee let me and my fellow have a haire of the dog that bit us last night.” Heywood.”
“Stuff and nonsense, Lucinda, you bird-witted creature,” the dowager’s voice returned, a bit feebly. “Such a cure is only for seasoned drinkers, which by our joint performance last night is a title we cannot and certainly should not covet. Farnley is bringing us some camphorated spirits of lavender that he swore on his hopes of Heaven will ease our discomfort, for I must own to feeling as miserable as you do physically. Which is not to mention suffering from emotional agonies of remorse and humiliation that have so overset my nerves.”
“‘It is a consolation to the wretched to have companions in misery.’ Syrus,” Aunt Lucinda admitted with a sigh.
At this the dowager gave a snort of bitter amusement. “Just do not make the mistake of counting Horatio as one of our company. The only reason I dragged myself from my bed was to render aid and comfort to what I thought was a poor innocent puppy fallen afoul of our debauchery. And what did I find? A hound prostrate on the floor too enfeebled to lift his little head? I did not! The dratted mutt was down in the kitchens gulping down some horrid slop of meat and gravy and looking to be in fine high fettle. I tell you, Lucinda,” she confessed crossly, “if I weren’t so fond of that scrap of fur I would have choked him on the spot. You would have thought he was weaned on brandy,” she trailed off in wonder.
While Tansy hastily stuffed a glove in her mouth to keep from giggling aloud. Aunt Lucinda observed, ‘“Perhaps some day it will be pleasant to remember these things.’ Virgil.”
There was a pregnant pause before the dowager could find voice enough to answer this ridiculousness. “Lucinda,” she finally returned most cordially, “if I were to be marooned on a desert island for the remainder of my days and must needs choose between your company and that of an organ-grinder’s flea-bitten monkey, I should not hesitate a moment before opting for the latter. If I could not be assured of intelligent conversation, at least I would not be subjected to your aping recitations that ceaselessly roam between the boundaries of the Land of Idiots and the Kingdom of Twits. Besides,” she added glibly, “if pressed, at least I could eat the monkey.”
Tansy stumbled away from the room, her face a flaming red and her eyes streaming with the effort to keep a leash on an inevitable explosion of hilarity that thankfully held off until she was out of earshot.
She was supporting herself against the newel post when Emily descended the stairs, cautiously looking about for any person or persons liable to feel bound to deliver her a lecture on her latest lapse from propriety. Just as her slippered foot reached the landing, Aunt Lucinda erupted from the sitting room like a gale in full force, her draperies clutched convulsively about her pudgy frame and looking to be in a raging temper.
As she swept past the two girls she charged in an injured tone, ‘“I would not have borne this in my flaming youth when Plancus was consul.’ Horace.”
Emily was bewildered. “Plancus? Not her late husband’s name, I don’t think. Is this Plancus another relative, do you suppose? I do hope not, for it is such an odd name, to be sure,” she concluded, a puzzled frown marring her marble brow as she directed her query to Tansy.
Lady Emily was destined not to be answered, however, as Tansy had given up all pretext of ladylike behavior, plopping herself on the bottom stair to rock back and forth, howling with unalloyed glee.
Time has a way of dulling the edges of anger and fading unpleasant memories, as was the case with this latest upheaval to hit Avanoll House. Two weeks went by and the grateful dowager’s gift to Tansy for her help in protecting her grandchildren from scandal arrived on a splendidly fine day, to the delight of everyone—except, perhaps, the Duke, who manfully withheld the majority of his objections.
“I do not wish to question your judgment, and I certainly am not dull-witted enough to doubt your skill with the ribbons, but if my grandmother wished to present you with your own transportation for the Promenade I am convinced a conventional ladies equipage would have been more, er, fitting,” he did say, this slight censure having been impossible to suppress.
His cousin, who had been staring at her high-perch phaeton and superb pair of Welsh-bred bays and had only been listening to her cousin’s attempt at tactful criticism with half an ear, replied to this homily vaguely and then repeated her thanks to Avanoll for his kind gesture of personally selecting her horses for her at Tattersall’s.
This diverted the Duke into reiterating the features of the horses. “They are a prime bang-up pair of blood and bone at that,” he preened, “with grand hocks and their forelegs well before them. Your choice of tan and black for the phaeton makes for a natty turnout to astound the populace privileged to see it this afternoon in the Park. But I still say a perch phaeton is too dangerous for a —”
He was cut off by Aunt Lucinda’s cheerful cry of, “‘Steep thyself in a bowl of summertime.’ Virgil,” as she stepped onto the flagway and with twinkling eyes implored the Duke to hand her up into the phaeton.
Tansy hastily preceded her, unaided, and as the older lady ooh-ed and rolled her eyes in fright at the great elevation of her seat, Emily scrambled up to make a completed, if somewhat overcrowded, party.
“You are too many for this vehicle,” Avanoll pointed out. “Why crowd yourselves like that when you can take the carriage?”
“‘An agreeable companion on a journey is as good as a carriage.’ Syrus,” his aunt told him with a childlike grin. Ever since her disastrous descent into drunkenness. Aunt Lucinda had taken on a devil-may-care air that confounded and astonished her family, who were at a loss to explain this change in personality. When questioned, she merely smiled and cooed, ‘“When the sunne shineth, make hay.’ Heywood.”
And so the Duke had to console himself with the knowledge that his own groom was standing up behind the ladies on the perch provided for a tiger, and could only warn, “Leo, take care of the ladies,” in a tone that hinted of dire consequences should one hair of their heads be put out of place.
Avanoll had decided Tansy would consider it an insult to her ability if he were to shadow her around the park, so he moved off down the flagway to meet some friends at Brook’s. As he turned for one last peep, Tansy snaked out her whip, handily caught up the thong, and moved out into traffic with admirable finesse.
The Park being quite well attended on this pleasant day, Tansy and her party were much looked at and commented upon, while she was hard pressed to move more than a few feet without someone hailing them to talk.
Emily was almost purring, such was her delight in her popularity, when she spied a lone horseman fast approaching them. “Oh, Lud,” Emily hissed none too softly, “It’s that gawky infant, Digby Eagleton. Can’t you get past him, Tansy? He’ll embarrass me by staring at me like a love-sick puppy, his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and behaving for all the world like a turnip-headed bumpkin,” she complained nastily. “If he were the least bit presentable I would be flattered, but there is no consequence in being the object of adoration if the adorer
is a piddling nobody like Digby.”
Aunt Lucinda, glimpsing from underneath her drooping bonnet the crestfallen expression on Mr. Eagleton’s face and knowing he had heard at least a part of Emily’s nasty tirade, rounded on her and said, “‘I only wish I may see your head stroked down with a slipper.’ Terence.”
Tansy only had time to warn from between clenched teeth, “I am heartily sick of your behavior, missy,” before pinning a bright smile on her face and endeavoring to put Mr. Eagleton at his ease with some inane reference to the fine weather. She succeeded to some small extent, but Emily—wretched child that she was—refused to do more than bestow a frigid nod in her erstwhile swain’s general direction before waving excitedly to a gloriously uniformed Hussar who raced at once to her side.
“Isn’t Lady Emily in high good looks today, Miss Tamerlane?” Mr. Eagleton asked in a choked voice before lapsing into a muddled clarification of his statement, hoping it not to be thought that the estimable young lady was not always sure to appear as a diamond of the first water.
Aunt Lucinda sniffed. “‘She looked as if butter would not melt in her mouth.’ Heywood,” she offered facetiously.
Tansy was at last able to grasp a moment—when Emily was deep in conversation with the small multitude of bucks, dandies, and military gentlemen now surrounding the phaeton—to crook her finger at Mr. Eagleton and draw him down to hear her conspiratorial whisper. “If you were to call in Grosvenor Square tomorrow at half past the hour of ten, Lady Emily will be out of the house and we can discuss one or two matters of mutual interest in private.”
Mr. Eagleton looked slightly taken aback, but a concurring nod from Aunt Lucinda convinced him he could be no worse off than he now was and had nothing to lose by listening to whatever Miss Tamerlane had to say.
The next morning, just after Emily left for a day-long picnic outside London, Mr. Eagleton was ushered into the second withdrawing room and settled into a comfortable chair facing the two ladies who had desired his attendance.
In the silence that fell while Tansy poured tea and Aunt Lucinda meticulously arranged her ruffled skirts, Digby ran a trembling index finger around the inside of his neck cloth and cleared his dry throat half-a-dozen times. When Tansy held out a brimming teacup, he clutched at it gratefully and took a huge gulp of the liquid without regarding its temperature before sputtering as the tea scalded his tongue.
A sprinkling of tea-colored spots quickly appeared on his disheveled neckcloth, prompting Tansy to exclaim, “Mr. Eagleton, it would simplify matters if I could address you as Digby. You may call me Tansy. Whatever are we going to do with you?”
“I—I beg your pardon, ma’am, er, I mean Tansy?” Digby questioned while scrubbing at his stains with the napkin Aunt Lucinda had helpfully supplied.
Tansy took a deep breath and, as was her nature, baldly laid her cards on the table. “I am assured that you genuinely care for my loose-screw cousin Emily, though I cannot for the life of me see why, and as the dowager agrees that you are a very well set up young man, we—Aunt Lucinda and I—have decided to help you to press your suit if we can.”
Digby first blushed, then grinned, and at last stammered his thanks. “But I fear it is a hopeless cause, dear ladies, as Lady Emily is completely out of charity with me, not that I can blame her. I am nothing out of the ordinary way and do not command either her respect or admiration, but inspire in her only cold indifference and at times, her rather heated condemnation.”
Delivering himself of this self-deprecating speech, Digby lapsed into silence.
Tansy would not be satisfied that Digby was as nondescript as he painted himself, and proceeded in the next minutes to turn him inside out like a sack with questions about his home, family, upbringing, interests, talents, and prospects for the future. These were all found to be quite unexceptional, indeed. The only real stumbling block in his make-up appeared to be his inherent shyness and, as Tansy rather indelicately put it, his “wishy-washiness.”
“But, ma’am, I mean Tansy, I was never so—as you say—wishy-washy before. It is only in the presence of exalted persons such as I have met since coming to Town, and when within sight and sound of dear Lady Emily, that my wits seem to desert me,” Digby said as he tried to justify himself. “Then all at once my brains seem entirely to let and my foolish mouth spouts only the most mundane, silly, and mawkish platitudes, until I make a complete cake of myself.”
Aunt Lucinda deposited her teacup on its saucer with a slight rattle. “‘There is no greater bane to friendship than adulation, fawning, and flattery.’ Cicero.”
Digby was momentarily diverted by this pronouncement. “Does she always speak in that way?” he asked Tansy innocently. “It sounds real educated-like, if a bit hard to follow sometimes.”
Tansy, her eyes twinkling, informed him that, yes, famous—and not so famous—quotes were Aunt Lucinda’s solitary method of communication.
“Well, to each his own, I say,” Digby allowed generously. “We had a great uncle who nurtured a wish to trod the stage, and he always ran on and on like Kean or somebody performing in Drury Lane, talking from somewhere deep in his stomach and shaking the chandeliers with his boomings. I remember he rumbled off words like rather and really like they was shot from a cannon.”
He paused a moment and then could not resist asking, “Ain’t never opened her mouth just to talk, huh? I mean, to say ‘good morning’ or ‘shut up’ or ‘I’m hungry’?”
Tansy shook her head. “Perish the thought,” she intoned with mock effrontery.
The young gentleman was amazed. “I say!” he said, casting a look of great awe at Aunt Lucinda. “If that don’t beat the Dutch, and m’uncle, for that matter.”
Oh, my, thought Tansy, this boy is still so painfully young. No wonder Emily cannot see him for dust. “Digby,” she queried cautiously, prizing his attention from the preening Aunt Lucinda, “are you at all at home in Society, or do you think you still need some town bronzing before Emily finds you up to snuff?”
Digby thought for a minute, chewing on his bottom lip to aid his concentration, then supplied, “Can’t say as I am that comfortable in town as yet, except with my own fellows. Once away from them it seems I’m forever landing in the basket because I’m still rather green. Just last week,” he went on in explanation, “my Club, a dandy place, was closed down for repairs. One of our parties had got a bit out of hand, and what with the broken windows in the dining room and the smoke and dirt from the fire one of the fellows decided to light in the middle of the card room floor—he had complained of a chill, you see—the rooms had to be vacated for a space. Anyway, as I understand is the custom, we were invited to use the facilities at another Club farther along on St. James’s. Now you must understand, ladies, at my Club it is all very informal. If someone wishes to gain another’s attention he has only to aim a bit of roll or something at his head.”
He paused a moment to allow Tansy to chuckle a bit, then went on with his story.
“Well let me tell you, this other establishment was as far from my Club as chalk from cheese. None of the members could have been less than three score and ten, and a duller set of dogs you’ll never find. One old boy propped up in a wing chair near the fire appeared dead, but I didn’t venture close enough to find out. Instead I sat in a rather uncomfortable chair near the door—or at least I did until a member of the Club advised me that it was reserved for another member and I was trespassing, so to speak. As nicely as I could I told the man I would be more than pleased to remove myself when the man in question wished to seat himself. That’s when, stiff and seemingly highly insulted, the member told me that the reserved chair was for a member who had been dead and put to bed with a shovel some five years past. Well, I sprung up quickly then, you can be sure, and bolted from the Club as fast as might be, promising myself to never go there again, no matter what the inducement.”
“Now that was a highly amusing tale, Digby,” Tansy informed him. “If you could but relate the t
hing half so amusingly to Emily, she would be forced to realize you have the makings of a tolerable wit. As for feeling uncomfortable with the elder, more staid of our Society, you are not alone in your feelings. No, I would say our main concern is to somehow show yourself to a better advantage where Emily is concerned. The question remains, though, as to how.”
Silence reigned for a while, and then Aunt Lucinda’s voice started out low, only to gain volume and confidence as it went on. “‘I know the disposition of women: when you will, they won’t, when you won’t, they set their hearts upon you of their own inclination.’ Terence.”
“Aunt!” Tansy said, a look of astonishment and dawning knowledge on her face. “Are you suggesting we deliberately set out to trick Emily into seeing Digby in a different light?”
With a grin that could only be termed malicious, Aunt Lucinda replied almost defiantly, “‘I know, indeed, the evil of that I purpose; but my inclination gets the better of my judgment.’ Euripides.”
Digby was totally at sea and admitted it, so Tansy explained patiently, “What my aunt has so cleverly suggested is that you drop your pursuit of Emily, turning to her a cold shoulder even, and instead pursue some other female. If Emily harbors any feelings for you at all, she will become mightily chagrined and discover where her heart truly stands in the matter.”
“Isn’t that a bit underhanded?” the upright young gentleman asked in a quavering voice.
‘“Crime is honest for a good cause.’ Syrus,” Aunt Lucinda shot back incontrovertibly.
Tansy pooh-poohed any further objections and turned to her aunt. “That leaves us with but one problem,” she pointed out.
Her aunt nodded sagely. “‘Who is to bell the cat? It is easy to propose impossible remedies.’ Aesop!”
“Huh?” Digby mumbled.
“Yes, most assuredly, Aunt,’ Tansy agreed. “Who? Who can we enlist to play the recipient of swain Digby’s romantic overtures?”
At last the light dawned on Digby and he understood the ladies’ scheme. “Oh, I really don’t believe such a plan possible...” he began timidly, only to be cut off by Aunt Lucinda’s sharp, “‘Though a man be wise it is no shame for him to live and learn.’ Sophocles.”
“I agree with my aunt, Digby. After all, we have nothing to lose by such an experiment, do we? And I, I have decided, am the best person to be the new object of your affections. Living in the same house, cheek-by-jowl so to speak with Emily, has its advantages—added to the elimination of the sad complication of any young miss chosen at random being heartbroken when you withdraw your attentions.”
After a few more feeble protests from Digby, the matter was considered settled. Tansy’s new suitor was given a detailed list of the duties required of him, and sent off in a slightly bewildered state to ponder the bizarre direction his life had taken.
Aunt Lucinda retired to her rooms, highly satisfied with the morning’s events. After all, she had suffered much from Emily’s selfishness in the past and could be excused if she was hoping to get back a little of her own.
If Tansy had any second thoughts or misgivings about her role of love interest to an immature, naïve swain, she kept them to herself. And if there were apt to be any undesirable repercussions, these too she chose to disregard as risks necessary to the success of the plan. After all, she had already decided to let the dowager in on the scheme, and Emily—the object of the whole charade—could only benefit from a bit of comeuppance.
But Tansy neglected to consider the possible incorrect conclusions that could be arrived at by another member of the household, the usually astute Duke, and the fine muddle these conclusions could create.