Chapter Eighteen
It all began simply enough. Tansy and Aunt Lucinda let the dowager in on their little plan, gaining her full approval and not a few eminently helpful suggestions aimed at teaching “that tiresome chit” a well-deserved lesson.
Digby stopped by in the mornings to escort Tansy on her errands around town. More often than not he was then invited to luncheon at Avanoll House, and most afternoons either rode with Tansy in the Park or could be seen up beside her in the high-perch phaeton, a seat of honor envied by more than a few. In the evenings it was invariably Digby Eagleton who squired the Avanoll ladies to the amusement of their choice.
By the end of the first week, Digby’s near-constant presence in Grosvenor Square was beginning to grate mightily on Lady Emily’s nerves. Not only was the nodcock always underfoot like a scrap of tarred paper stuck to her dainty slipper, but he had consistently made the object of his presence in the house more than sufficiently clear.
At first she had assumed—quite naturally, considering Digby’s past track record of faithful adoration—that she was the target of his concerted assault. But slowly it dawned on her that Tansy, her long-in-the-tooth and penniless cousin, was the bait around which Digby was dangling.
A reasonable person would have been thankful her unwanted suitor had taken the hint and cried off, but Emily was never known for her reasonableness. Instead, she reacted in typical Emily fashion.
At first she treated the entire situation as one huge joke. “How too, too embarrassing for you, dear cousin, to have that die-away Digby Eagleton always about, haunting the house and harassing you with his love-sick stares,” she commiserated companionably. “It really is too bad of him, but then I did warn you he was a bit of a leech. You are kind to have become a martyr in my cause, diverting his schoolboy romantic attentions upon yourself, but I am so sorry he is so thick he does not take the hint and just go away.”
“My dear child,” Tansy replied, with—she hoped—an incredulous intake of breath, “whatever can you mean? Dear Digby only visits with my permission. I find him of all things agreeable, and a pleasant, intelligent, and quite amusing companion.”
This answer, so contrary to what she had expected, took Emily aback a moment, but she rallied by offering with a touch of hauteur. “To each his own, I imagine. Very well, cousin, I offered him to you once before and fair’s fair. You may have him.”
Tansy looked at Emily very levelly and answered with maddening calm, “Why, thank you, cousin, but I was not aware he was yours to give.”
With her smile frozen on her slightly white face, Emily stood like a vision chiseled in marble while Tansy swept past her and went off to inform her co-conspirators of the first bit of reaction to come from their “Digby Plan.”
“‘Pride, when puffed up, vainly, with many things unseasonable unfitting; mounts the wall, only to hurry to that fatal fall.’ Sophocles,” Aunt Lucinda quoted passionately.
“We have set the pigeon amongst the hawks for sure,” the dowager laughed in high good humor. “If there’s anything bound to nudge Emily into making a direct set at poor Digby, it is the idea that he and not she put an end to their little romance—one sided though it may have been.”
That same night Digby was to escort the ladies to a ball at Lady Sefton’s, and upon his arrival at Avanoll House he presented Tansy with a small bouquet of flowers in a gold filigree bouquetière and only vaguely inquired as to Lady Emily’s health before turning his attention back to Tansy, thereby rudely cutting off Emily’s flustered reply in mid-sentence.
The following afternoon Tansy and Digby were closeted in the small salon (with Aunt Lucinda’s softly snoring form ensconced in a far-away cushioned chair in order to observe the conventions), enjoying a lively discussion of Mrs. Godwin’s pamphlet, “Vindication of the Rights of Women,” that lasted through tea-time. Tansy was much relieved to find that Digby had a good mind and was more than just a pretty face.
Emily, however, was noticeably annoyed by this further impolite snubbing of her company; and the Duke, painfully aware of Digby’s constant presence under his roof and more than a little agitated at the conclusions he had drawn from it, was more than half willing to join forces with his sister that evening when the subject of a certain young man’s irritating invasion of their home was broached by her at the dinner table.
“Last night at Lady Sefton’s I was asked, quite maliciously I assure you, if I was aware of a Situation between my chaperon and Digby Eagleton,” Emily began baldly. “It quite set my teeth on edge, let me tell you, and when it was suggested Tansy had taken the inner track on a fine young man with nice expectations and how did I feel now that my cousin had stolen Digby from me, I knew for certain that this ridiculous circumstance could not be allowed to continue without my becoming a common laughingstock—not that my affections were ever engaged in the first place. It is simply the principle of the thing, you know,” she ended lamely.
“I never thought I should see the day when I was forced to agree with m’sister, but I concur. This Digby fellow constantly haunting the house has set some tongues to wagging in my ear also. And I don’t much care for the remarks I am forced to endure.”
The dowager tried lamely to pooh-pooh the gossip as the vulgar tattling of a bunch of mischief-making old tabbies, and too piddling to acknowledge, but her grandson was having none of it. He informed her that he had no stomach to face the gossips and their mindless conjectures on the goings-on in Grosvenor Square.
One acquaintance even had the audacity to ask, he told his assembled family (and Dunstan, so that it might be safely said the entire household knew the whole of it within the hour), whether Emily and Tansy had thrown dice with the winner getting all rights to Digby. Again, he warned, he refused to be so unjustly beleaguered by such nonsense.
Aunt Lucinda took advantage of a slight pause in the conversation caused by Dunstan’s faultlessly executed removal of the soup dishes to declare, “‘Guilty consciences always make people cowards.’ Pilpay,” a pronouncement that nearly caused Emily’s half-eaten consommé to be dumped down her exposed back by the astonished butler. Imagine the effrontery, all but calling the Duke a white-feather to his face!
Tansy stepped bravely into the breach before the vilified Duke could mouth a crushing set-down and disclaimed, “But this is all such a big to-do about nothing. Digby,” and she winced a bit at Avanoll’s piercing look when she spoke of the young Mr. Eagleton so familiarly, “is merely a very good friend. I find his company much to my liking, as I think he finds mine, but to say we are harboring some grand passion is ludicrous.”
The dowager, after giving Aunt Lucinda a meaningful look, suggested, “Perhaps young Digby is nursing a—as you said, my dear—grand passion for you, just as, if memory serves, he once believed himself in love with my silly granddaughter here. Emily’s protests earlier lead me to believe she is not wholly overjoyed by his defection, and perhaps your friendship with the young man should be discouraged so that two innocent people,” here she bestowed a rare indulgent smile on her granddaughter, “should not be harmed.”
Aunt Lucinda picked up her cue admirably and scolded Tansy by waving a fork—with which she had just speared a small boiled potato—at her and cited, “‘Never thrust your own sickle into another’s corn.’ Syrus.”
Things were not going along quite the way Emily had predicted. She did not want Digby back because Tansy had retired from the field, she wanted him to come begging forgiveness for his treasonable change of loyalty after he had dropped her usurping cousin flat. “I never said I wanted Digby back!” she cried hotly. “I just think it is wrong for Tansy to have him.”
Her brother’s snort told her she had just lost her lone ally with her impetuous outburst, but it was left to her aunt to put the resulting censure into words. “‘Would you both eat your cake and have your cake?’ Heywood.”
“Cake?” Emily babbled desperately. “Who is speaking of cake? I declare, I feel as if this entire room has b
een somehow lifted up and transported to Bedlam. First Digby, then cakes, and both subjects too sickeningly sweet to contemplate. I wish the entire subject dropped, if you please.”
“Oh, no, you don’t, young lady,” the dowager demanded in a rallying tone. “You are nothing but a dog in the manger, young lady. You do not want Digby for yourself, but you cannot stomach anyone else having him. Now it becomes clear. You wish to remove Tansy from the field, call Digby to heel like an obedient puppy, and then turn the tables and dismiss him as he has dismissed you. Well, perhaps your tame pet has slipped his lead and will acknowledge your summons only by showing you a clean pair of heels as he scampers off in the opposite direction.”
“But I don’t want him!” Emily shrieked. “Digby Eagleton’s attentions are the last thing I want!”
“‘Hence these tears.’ Terence,” Aunt Lucinda purred, rather maliciously.
“Oh!” Emily gasped. And again, “Oh!” before she jumped up from the table and, whirling about blindly, sent a large silver tray loaded with stuffed pigeon breasts Dunstan was just then carrying into the room crashing to the floor, where the pigeons exploded in an avalanche of rice and vegetables and the tray and silver plates spun round and round like tops—slowly clang-clanging to a stop long after Emily had made good her escape.
In the tense silence that seemed so ear-splittingly loud after the cymbal-like crashing of the plates, Avanoll carefully wiped his lips, refolded his napkin with meticulous care, reinserted it in his napkin ring, rose carefully, and bowed to the ladies.
“I will take my leave of you ladies now, secure in the knowledge that you have each contrived to accomplish whatever obscure objectives you set out to achieve this evening. No, no,” he said, and held up his hands to ward off their denials, “do not try to cozen me with proclamations of innocence. Something smoky is going on here, and I believe it necessary to my grip on sanity to remain in blissful ignorance of it all.” With a final bow he quit the room and the house, hoping against hope the atmosphere would be calmer upon his return.
The dowager, after calmly instructing Dunstan to have the footman dispose of the pigeon carcasses and bring on the next course (minus two servings), observed that if it had been anyone other than her confirmed bachelor grandson, she would swear he was overreacting to Digby’s attentions to Tansy because of simple human jealousy. “Perhaps there is a second, more personal benefit to be derived from our project, Tansy, my sweet?” she teased.
The following morning found Digby once more in attendance, regaling Tansy and the old ladies with a tale about the suicide of one Mr. Boothby, who had left behind a note saying he could “no longer endure the ennui of buttoning and unbuttoning.”
“Keeping up appearances in town can be very trying on any gentleman of taste, I suppose,” the dowager chuckled. “I have heard tales of you dandies, tulips, and Corinthians dressing and undressing from the skin out up to five times a day, and taking hours achieving just the proper crease to a neckcloth. A criminal waste of time if you ask me, and I do not blame your Mr. Boothby a bit for sticking his spoon in the wall.”
“Well, no,” Digby hurried to correct the dowager, “I believe he blew his brains out, actually,” a statement that sent Tansy into peals of laughter.
Emily chose that moment to enter the room and stood a moment just inside the door, assuming a pose that combined innocence and allure most effectively (just as she had practiced it in front of her mirror all the morning long), before advancing daintily upon Digby and holding out one soft, white hand to be kissed.
“Lawks, Digby, it is above all things delightful to see you again today. You have become such a fixture in our household that if you were to absent yourself for above a day I should surely pine horribly and go into a decline. I should miss your companionship that sorely.”
Tansy ground the pointed heel of her slipper warningly into Digby’s instep and manfully he refrained from falling to the floor to hug Emily tightly about the knees and swear his undying love. Merely did he clasp Emily’s hand in a friendly handshake and, though becoming quite white about the eyes and lips, he carelessly thanked Lady Emily for her condescension before dropping his hand from hers almost abruptly and directing his attention once more to the woman seated beside him on the love seat.
Emily’s rosy-red bottom lip trembled poignantly but she marshaled her pride sufficiently to remove herself to a nearby chair just as Avanoll strolled into the room with studied nonchalance and took up a position propping up the mantelpiece.
After a moment Digby searched in his coat pocket and brought out a fragile, hand-painted fan that he offered to Tansy to replace the one which had unfortunately come to grief recently in a carelessly-closed coach door. Neither Tansy nor Digby mentioned whose masculine hand had sent that door crashing down on the fan Tansy had treasured ever since the Duke had so off-handedly bestowed it upon her quite early in their acquaintance.
While Avanoll was eyeing with distaste the uncalled-for, lengthy hand-holding Digby employed as he begged Tansy to accept his small gift, Emily’s control was slipping rapidly until all at once it disappeared completely and she burst into noisy tears and ran from the room with her hand pressed to her mouth. Her brother followed close on her heels, disgusted with the lot of them.
Digby sprang at once to his feet, only to drop back down onto the love seat by means of Tansy’s violent tug on his coat-tails and her fiercely whispered, “Don’t bungle it all now by crumbling just when things are progressing so nicely. Show some touch of spunk, Digby, or she’ll lead you by the nose your whole life long.”
The dowager agreed with Tansy. “I am heartily sick of Emily’s floods and torrents of tears every time she is thwarted. You can’t knuckle under now, dear boy, or you’ll be expected to pander to her every whim at the drop of a tear.”
“‘Do not turn back when you are just at the goal.’ Syrus,” Aunt Lucinda added encouragingly.
“But she was reduced to tears by our underhanded plotting!” Digby challenged his cohorts. “She will condemn me as the greatest beast in Nature!”
Tansy rolled her expressive brown eyes, as if to say Digby had more in common with Emily than first met the eye—especially when it came to melodramatic exaggerations.
The dowager put an end to the whole affair by declaring repressively that Emily was being foolish beyond permission. If she wished to indulge in one of her hysterical takings she for one saw no reason to deny her the pleasure, and Emily could stay sulking in her room until she grew roots for all her grandmother would lift a finger to gainsay her.
“Just allow yourself to be guided by older and wiser heads and we’ll have the entire matter neatly tied up within a fortnight—and Emily content to ride in your hip pocket for life,” she promised Digby solemnly.
After Digby had taken his leave, still undecided as to the questionable honor of his part in the deception, and the older ladies had retired to their chambers to rest before their regular Wednesday evening sortie among the other dowagers at Almack’s, the Duke sought out Tansy—counting silver in the butler’s pantry—and demanded a moment of her time.
The fan Digby had given her was lying on the table beside her, and Avanoll directed a long dispassionate stare at it before boldly asking if it was really necessary for young Digby to be forever fondling her hand. “He’d try to take it home with him if you gave the twit half a chance,” he informed her tightly. But Tansy only laughed.
“You’re too old for him you know,” he returned, undeterred.
“We are much of an age, Ashley,” Tansy responded calmly.
“You haven’t been his age since you were in your pram,” the Duke countered with a sneer.
Tansy accepted this sharp dig with a smile and politely asked if there was anything else her cousin wished to discuss—or did he think he had spread enough good will to consider himself able to push off and find someone else to insult.
The Duke, with one last frigid glance at the offensive fan, stomped from the room
, turning at the door to announce almost belligerently that he was off to change for a dinner engagement—an invitation he had invented on the spot and foolishly blurted out a second before he realized his lie had condemned him to Wednesday night’s boiled poultry at Crockford’s and a thin company too insipid to be borne. Drat Almack’s and its depressing impact on Society for one day of every week of the Season.