Chapter 1
Stephen Worthington sighed.
“What’s up, feeling liverish?” asked his sister, Kitty, provocatively.
“Brat,” said Stephen, without rancour. “I can’t think of a fourth line to this stanza of poetry, and I want to present it to the most beautiful woman in the world.”
“Who is that this week?” asked Kitty.
“You have no soul,” said Stephen. “Elvira Buttringham.”
“What, sister to Mr. Hugo Buttringham, the famous Corinthian you’ve been mooing about forever?”
“The very same! And I don’t ‘moo’ about him; I might have mentioned him once or twice.”
“Or ten or a dozen times. A day.”
“Mr. Buttringham was kind enough to compliment my cornering last week, and invited me to a dinner to meet a few of his friends,” Stephen said, flushing with pleasure at such an encomium, and, thought Kitty, more admiring of Mr. Buttringham than he was in love with that gentleman’s fair sister. Kitty only knew Elvira Buttringham to bow to in public, having seen her at the theatre when Stephen raised his hat to her and to her brother. Kitty thought she looked a pleasant girl, and would have liked to have known her better as a person, but it seemed she needed to know her better to see if her brother needed rescuing from himself again. He needed to get over poetising first, however. Kitty sighed.
“Read what you have,” she said.
Stephen grimaced, knowing his sister was a stern critic, but read out loud the sum of his poetry to date.
“You take my heart; it was a capture,
Which filled me with such joyous rapture,
Surrendered to this willing fate…”
“… I raised the banns at Billingsgate,” suggested Kitty.
“Kitty!” Stephen sounded injured.
“Well, how could I resist?” said Kitty. “I mean, you could say, ‘Surrendered to this willing gaol, I give my heart without a fail,’ but I’m not sure it works. It’s a little trite and the rest wasn’t bad.”
“Oh, thanks,” said Stephen, who took this lukewarm comment as real praise. “What rhymes with fate?”
“Bait?” said Kitty. “Caught like a fish on beauty’s bait?”
“Hardly, that makes one think of maggots on a hook, not the sort of thought to be presented to a beautiful and delicate lady,” said Stephen.
“My heart’s desire will never sate,” said Kitty.
“That’ll do,” said Stephen. “Even if only as a place-keeper in case I think of anything better.”
“So, you’re going on, ‘Ensnared in love’s sweet binding toils, And unprepared to slip its coils, I am prostrated at your feet, A supplicant to bondage sweet?’” suggested Kitty.
“Hold on, let me write that down, it’s not half bad,” said Stephen.
“Honestly, Stephen! ‘Love sonnet to a fair beauty by the supplicant’s sister’ is not appropriate.”
“You write better poetry than I do, and at least it’s within the range of my own vision,” said Stephen, unabashed. “I can always reword it. Another quatrain and then a couplet will do it.”
“You need to make the couplet something about sweet contradiction, and ‘though confined I be,’ rhymed with ‘yet my heart was ne’er so free’ or something and for goodness’ sake, be careful to make it a pair of Alexandrines so she realises you were educated once upon a time, even if you are at Oxford now, devoting the time you spend neglecting your studies to the adornment of your person,” said Kitty. “And of course, it ought to be iambic pentameter, not octameter. It sounds like you’re writing cut-price poetry for a second-rate love for failing a full line length.”
Her brother threw a cushion at her.
Kitty was fond of her twin brother, but she was fondly cynical about his violent infatuations. He was kind enough to a schoolroom miss, whose parents had deemed that she should not come out for another year, whilst permitting her to attend any gatherings they gave, and those to which she was invited under the aegis of close family friends. It had meant that she had briefly met Elvira Buttringham, a young lady a year or so older than Kitty, and definitely auburn of locks, where Kitty was more ginger. She seemed a pleasant enough girl, but somehow, Kitty doubted that she would look twice at a youth whose hair was somewhere between ‘straw’ and ‘conflagration’ like Stephen. Two redheads, with, doubtless, the hot temperaments to match, did not augur well! Why, it would be as foolish as Kitty forming a tendre for ‘Beau’ Buttringham, whose own auburn locks somehow managed a degree of order to the careful disorder of the Brutus cut.
Kitty was of the opinion that she would know when Stephen was truly in love, in wanting to show a young lady the haunts he loved to frequent, rather than wanting to write poetry to her.
At least Stephen wanted to have his sister’s approval over his poetry.
He sought her out when he had finished.
“Here it is,” he said.
“You took my heart; it was a capture,
Which filled me with such joyous rapture,
Surrendered to this willing fate
My heart’s desire will never sate.
Ensnared in love’s sweet binding toils,
And unprepared to slip its coils,
I am prostrated at your feet,
A supplicant to bondage sweet.
My heart beats in its prison cell
With sweet devotion doth it swell;
And thus confined in durance sweet
Is at your mercy with each beat.
And thus in contradiction, though confin’d I be
My heart has never been so full, nor yet so free.”
“You stuck with the octameter, I see,” said Kitty.
“I feel pretentious with pentameter,” said Stephen.
“Hmm, well, if you feel pretentious, you’d probably write pretentiously,” agreed Kitty. “Better a poem from the heart than a load of twaddle which happens to satisfy the usual rules. But you regurgitated some of my lines and used ‘sweet’ twice. Your lines are better and fit that quatrain, so you need to replace lines seven and eight.”
“Prostrated at your feet, I swear
A supplicant to bondage fair,” suggested Stephen.
“Much better,” said Kitty.
She promptly dismissed her brother’s current infatuation from her mind, since it would doubtless run its course. Or else the fair Elvira would be presented with the honour of baiting lines for Stephen, and if she did not run squealing might even prove a suitable mate for him.
oOoOo
When Kitty ran into Elvira Buttringham, out shopping, under the aegis of her fashionable brother, she regarded her thoughtfully, wondering if the attractive red-head was amenable to scrambling about muddy streams, baiting fish, and cleaning and gutting them.
“Ma’am, your servant, Miss Worthington,” said Mr. Bottringham, raising a hat to Kitty and her governess.
“Mr. Bottringham, Miss Bottringham,” said Kitty, dropping a bob of a curtsey.
“Hello!” said Elvira. “Your brother wrote me a very pretty poem, you know.”
“Are you sure it was Stephen?” asked Kitty. “I wouldn’t describe most of his tripe as ‘pretty.’”
“It had some pretty sentiments,” said Elvira. “He’s not in love with me though; he’s more in love with his rounded couplets.”
“Oh, I am glad you realise that,” said Kitty. “Stephen is currently in love with being in love. He’ll grow out of it when he meets a girl currently in the schoolroom, and finds that she’s a good sort for not being too tender to consider baiting lines with maggots, rather than being on a pedestal.”
Elvira gave a gurgle of mirth.
“I’ve done as much for Hugo,” she said.
“And me for Stephen,” said Kitty. “Though anyone who wants to marry a man who fishes should make him scrape and gut them himself before she cooks them. One should not permit less salubrious side of fishing to go one way, or one is merely putting one’s neck beneath his heel.”
“Hugo and I used to take turns, one gutting, one scraping,” said Kitty. “Though we haven’t gone fishing in an age… we can’t really, any more,” she added wistfully. “But I am not a precious piece who cannot help out,” she added, firmly.
Kitty beamed.
“How nice to meet you properly and discover that you are not a goddess on a pedestal. I shouldn’t mind if he does fall in love with you, but if your temper is red, like ours, it would be a tumultuous relationship.”
“Actually, I’m disappointingly phlegmatic,” said Elvira. “But I can fake a red-haired tantrum if I have to. Hugo approves of your brother, apparently, he has light hands.”
“He can do almost anything with horses,” said Kitty. “Though Papa whipped him for encouraging me to ride standing on the back of a horse after we’d been to see Astley’s Amphitheatre. I don’t know why, Bayard was enthusiastic enough, and I never fell off.”
“Oh, fathers can be like that,” said Elvira. “Hugo is almost as bad since Papa died and he became head of the family.”
“I’d be irritated at you boring the horses,” said Beau Buttringham. “So, you ride and drive as well, do you, Miss Worthington?”
“Yes, I like horses better than most people,” said Kitty. “Though I’ve never seen any reason for Stephen to ape the costume of the Corinthian; it’s quite as silly in its own excesses as any fribble’s padded shoulders or wasp waist.”
The great man’s quizzing glass was levelled at Kitty, who had nothing to reproach herself with in her own appearance, which was charming in white dimity trimmed with salmon pink and sage green ribbons, the green matching her eyes.
“And do you think me silly?” he asked, quellingly.
Kitty regarded him frankly.
“Oh, dear, now I am caught at point non plus.Should I murmur a polite disclaimer, or do you really want to know?” she asked. “I shall be in trouble when Miss Emmet reports me to my mother, but I don’t think people should be allowed to make quizzes of themselves without a kindly hint. It seems unfair to leave someone to be a laughing stock for the want of a tactful word. Not that I am very good at tactful.”
“Do your worst, Miss Worthington,” said Hugo.
Kitty took a deep breath.
“Do you really want to know?” she asked.
“I would not have invited your comments if I did not wish to know how my appearance is viewed by young ladies,” said Mr. Bottringham. He was wondering what he was letting himself in for, but he was committed now; and to be thought a quiz of all things by a girl who must be around his sister’s age.
Kitty gulped.
“I cannot like a shirt with points so high that the neck looks as if it spent ten minutes on the gallows to stretch it to fit, and a neckcloth which hides a man’s chin, and makes one wonder if he hides a chinless face on purpose. And I don’t think you have a receding chin but it’s hard to see. And one cannot find a receding chin in any way attractive. Of course, if it is receding, you would want to conceal that ”
“Good G-d!” said Hugo.
“I said you wore your neckcloth too high,” said Elvira.
“Miss Worthington, I thank you for the hint,” said Hugo, with a stiff bow, spots of colour on his cheekbones. “Perhaps you are a better friend than those who merely flatter.”
“I do not wish my brother’s friends to be objects of derision, and nor do I wish him to pracise a style which would not suit him in the least, as he also has a fine jaw line,” said Kitty.
“Oh, Mr. Bottringham, I am so sorry that this naughty girl has been so outspoken, and must have caused you offence!” said Miss Emmet, Kitty’s governess.
Hugo Bottringham bowed.
“On the contrary; I consider her to have done me a signal service in preventing me from perpetrating a sartorial solecism, in pursuing the fashion trends too far to be seemly,” he said. “Your servant, Miss Worthington, Miss, er…” he nodded to both.
Kitty’s governess hustled her away.
“Oh, Kitty, you are too outspoken!” Miss Emmet wailed. “What will your mother say?”
“Nothing, if you don’t mention it,” said Kitty. “Oh, come now, Emmy! He asked me for my opinion not a polite disclaimer.”
“You did not give him room to do anything else, my love,” said Miss Emmet.
“He could have stared down his nose haughtily in that way he has and said that the opinion of a schoolroom miss did not interest him. It’s not as if he isn’t quite capable of being arrogant and giving such a set-down,” said Kitty. “And he thanked me for not flattering him, so he was glad to be told as it is.”
“It is the height of impropriety to comment on the looks of others!”
“So, next time you have your skirt tucked in the top of your drawers when leaving the necessary house, I should not tell you, and let you present the full moon to Papa?” said Kitty.
Miss Emmet flushed.
“That is not the same at all!” she said.
“But it is, if not in the same degree,” said Kitty. “You would have been mortified, but I rather think that Mr. Buttringham would be embarrassed if he ignored my words, and found out people laughed behind their hands at him being chinless. Which he is not,” she added. “He has a fine chin, and should not hide it. Now do not tell me you would not read Stephen a lecture if he appeared with a stretched neck and hidden chin for copying Beau Buttringham.”
“Oh, dear!” said Miss Emmet. “Not that it is my place to comment on Mr. Worthington’s appearance, but I would fee myself in the wrong not to drop a hint if he went to such excess.”
“So, you agree with me,” said Kitty.
“Well, yes, my dear, but telling a man one scarcely knows… it is not proper,” said Miss Emmet. “But I must say, he was all that was gentlemanly about it.”
