Prelude with Anne and Ellery
“I am not going to invite the
Landrys,” said Anne, firmly.
“No, quite right! And nobody would expect you to do so, either,
after the way John Landry behaved,” her husband agreed. “Enough came out, from what Beatrice said
about her sister, to convince me that Aurelia Landry is quite selfish, though
she is to be pitied for being married to Landry.”
“She chose him for his wealth,”
said Anne. “And she has been extremely
lucky that he has been enough in awe of her gentle birth to leave her
untouched, and takes his lusts elsewhere.
And she is also lucky that her maid is prepared to have the child the
wretched man sired on her reared as if it were Aurelia’s child. I have hardly known where to look when Mrs. Mayhew asked me if I knew how far
on Mrs. Landry was, and if she had said anything to me at the Sanderville’s
Christmas house party about whether she was already enceinte then. It’s
exceedingly difficult to lie to a vicar’s wife, Ellery, you are laughing at
me.”
“Just a little, my love. I fancy
you find it hard to lie to anyone, and I know you are doing it to protect the
maid, what’s her name, Porridge or something.”
“Gorringe, and it’s a good
Yorkshire name, Wroth!”
“Oh, I am in trouble when you are
using my title not my name.”
“Entirely,” said Anne. “And you are right, I wouldn’t protect
Aurelia Landry as I despise her. I know I
married a wealthy man, but it was at least by accident, as I perceived you to
be full of most excellent qualities when I thought you to be poor, and Luke’s
pensioner.”
Ellery, Earl Wroth, pulled his
wife onto his lap.
“Come and tell me more about my
excellent qualities as a husband, whilst I detail your most excellent qualities
as a wife,” he said.
Anne giggled, and very little
more was sad about the projected house party for some considerable while.
“We are going to be heavy on
men,” said Anne, looking up from the list she was compiling. Ellery looked over her shoulder.
“Lord Bradley won’t mind being a
spare, if he even wishes to come; he might just like to have the house to
himself whilst his son and daughter attend.”
“I hope the Honourable Thomas lives
up to his title and is a bit less silly these days,” said Anne.”
“A couple of months without any
allowance and a father’s pointed perspective on his undesirable friends has, I
believe, worked wonders,” said Ellery.
“We don’t have to have Tobias Smith; he won’t be offended to be left
out, being a yeoman farmer’s son.”
“I know, but he’s a nice lad,”
said Anne. “I’d have said at Christmas
that I would have asked Daisy from Swanley Court, but since then she’s
discovered that her parents left her a Croesus, and she’s planning on having a
Season or some such. And why not!”
“Oh, well, why don’t I find out
if there are any ladies’ academies in Harrogate with girls expecting to be
governesses, and offer a treat to a couple of them, a week’s house party they
can remember all their lives?” suggested Ellery.
His wife gave a most unladylike
squeal of delight.
“Oh, what a good idea! I remember, my father’s agent said there was
such a school, but he chose Swanley Court because it sounded better, and
because he thought Cousin Hortensia might take delight in visiting to
gloat. I don’t think he realised how
wanting the poor girl is.”
“Indeed, and I am glad I have
homed her in the hostel for the women my repellent Cousin Larry passed on his
diseases to,” said Ellery. “I think she would have been miserable being sent
south to Swanley Court, however kindly your mistresses.”
“Yes, she told me she likes me
visiting. She has had the baby, and
waxed long –winded on how much it hurt.
She is most confused that intimacy should lead to babies, and it is as
well that she should be in a pleasant, but secure place where no men are
allowed at all, for I fear she will not remember that it was sleeping with her
groom which caused her to have a baby in the first place. I’d suggest finding her a nice, kind husband
who understands how to, er, bring down the courses, after she gives him an
heir, but she’s not fit to be in charge of a household, or to bring up
children. I dislike the custom of farming children out, but I cannot rear her child,
it would be a reminder of what happened.”
“I don’t think I would much like
a reminder of being beaten on the head to get me to marry the pesky female,
either,” said Ellery. “I think it better if she is kept away from all men, and
looked after kindly but firmly for the rest of her life.”
“It’s very sad, but I can’t think
of anything better, not at the moment, anyway,” said Anne. “And I will not have her in my household
attempting to get into bed with you. She
has been placed in the habit by her father of considering herself entitled, and
considering me worthless, and I have to say that fortnightly visits to her are
all I can bear.”
“I think the other girls
appreciate it too,” said Ellery.
“Yes, but I don’t have a problem
with them,” said Anne. “Larry the lecher
used them to try to cure himself, in the belief that lying with a virgin would
be the charm, and you would have thought he might have got the idea when it did
not work.”
“My cousin is better off dead,”
said Ellery. “I will go and make enquiries into this ladies’ academy.”
Ellery rode into Harrogate and
returned the next day after having spent the night in an inn.
“I found the academy, Miss
Chorley’s establishment,” he said. “Most
of the girls are the daughters of well-off tradesmen, but there are a couple of
girls who are essentially orphans, who have been paid for to complete their
education, and with the expectation of becoming governesses.”
“You look very grim; is it a
harsh place, like the school in Oxford Daisy wrote to me about, which the
Macfarlanes, in Daisy’s idiom, stole a little bit?”
“No, not as bad as the details
you were reading out,” said Ellery.
“It’s a fairly cheerless place, though, for those who are not parlour
boarders, and precious little fun and games or the small pleasures you have
told me about at Swanley. I fancy you
would have pined away and died, for not being permitted music lessons, as they
cost extra.”
Anne shuddered.
“Unless these girls are
objectionable, is there any way we can keep them?” she said.
“I hoped my generous love would
suggest that,” said Ellery. “They are already expected to teach the younger
ones as part of their keep; and even if you had not suggested it first, one of
them is my responsibility, and we may well send her to Swanley Court for a year
if she wishes it”
“Y... your responsibility?” asked
Anne. Her heart thumped. No, Ellery was
too young to have a daughter old enough to be expected to help with the
teaching; perhaps she was his half sister!.
“Tell me about her,” she said, firmly.
“She’s Larry’s get,” said
Ellery. “I did not know he had been so
precocious!”
“Good grief, was he not much the
same age as you? And has a daughter of
marriageable age?” Anne was
shocked. The late Lord Wroth had been
depraved, but this was most unexpected.
“He’s a few years older than I
am, but yes, he was still at school, must have been almost thirteen. Apparently Uncle Charles paid for the girl to
be cared for and educated, and her mother given a stipend to disappear. Personally,” he added, disapprovingly, “I’d
have brought the child at least home to be cared for by my wife, since she’s
between Miranda and Lucenda in age. And depending on what the mother was like,
have allowed her to visit.”
“I doubt she, poor girl, wanted
the ties of being an unwed mother, if the child was going to have a good life,”
said Anne. “As for your uncle, perhaps
he was too afraid of Aunt Claudia to introduce another child into the nursery
of the Gerundives.”
Larry Hyde’s predecessor as earl had been
Ellery’s uncle, Charles, had been a scholar.
His daughters were Amanda, she who must be loved, Miranda, she who must
be admired, and Lucenda, never to be known as Lucinda, she who must be
illuminated.
“It wouldn’t surprise me; and I’d
stand up for my own flesh and blood. And
I stopped off to tell Aunt Claudia about this lass, Drusilla, her name is, so
she may acquaint the gerundives with their cousin’s existence so they can come
to terms with it. And Aunt Claudia was
most put out that Uncle Charles had not consulted her on the matter, so I fancy
she would have taken the poor child more readily than you might think.”
Anne giggled.
“What would her name have been,
Receptanda? She who must be welcomed?”
“Good grief, even Uncle Charles
would not have .... Lucenda is strained enough .... I don’t even want to think
about it,” said Ellery. “I think the next best ones are Vivenda, she who must
live, and Laudanda, she who must be praised.
But the girl is Drusilla, and must live with it. Drusilla
Haversedge. I haven’t met her yet, I hoped you’d go with me into Harrogate to meet
and collect them both.”
“Yes, they must have me as a
chaperone, though I’m hardly any older than they are. And the other?”
“The other is the daughter of a
dancer who left enough for her daughter’s education. I felt sorry for her; I got the impression
that the Chorley woman and her staff tend to punish the girl for the sins of
her mother. She has no pretensions to gentle birth at all, my dear.”
“And if it is a school for young
ladies, I am sure that her lack of
gentle birth will not be apparent, for it will have imbued the sense of what it
is to be a lady, even if it is rather grim,” said Anne.
“And they certainly wanted the
child of someone as exotic as a dancer to conform,” said Ellery. “I was told that she has letters from her
mother, who knew she was dying, and one has to credit Mrs. Chorley with not
taking them and burning them, as she might have done. She has read them,
though, and a bit of human emotion escaped her for a moment, when she said that
they throw into relief how hard a dancer’s life must be. The child’s mother had
to contend with the crippled feet and knees, and wrote of having to keep dancing
and smiling as well if she wanted to eat.
Opera dancers are paid, apparently, by the show, not on contract, so if
they miss an opera through illness, they are not paid that night. No wonder the woman urged her daughter not to
dance. Mrs. Chorley says she is a good,
dutiful girl with some odd kicks in her gallop, and the last made me rejoice
that she might not be totally cowed. I
may have intimated that now I was married I planned to adopt my cousin’s base
born daughter and would consider this Selena Johnson as her companion.”
“Well, to be honest, that was
more or less what you had in mind, wasn’t it?” said Anne. “And at least you are
married, so she isn’t envisioning you throwing wild parties to debauch any of
her charges who are without protectors.”
“I think she worried about it at
first,” said Ellery. “And I pulled Lord
Wroth out of my face, so to speak, and asked her who she felt better fitted to
care for my cousin, Drusilla, than I. Then I demanded to know why she had not informed me
that I had a cousin under her care, but had left her discovery to the chance of
my wife wanting more females about her. She apologised, but said she supposed
that I would be aware of it. I disabused
her of that notion. I’d have had the
girl in Aunt Claudia’s household as soon as I knew, if I had known, as I
pointed out. It appears that Uncle
Charles was concerned in case Larry was diseased even at that age, or that the
girl’s mother was the source of it, and that she might not live long, which
I’ve only just remembered, sorry, it wasn’t just concern over what Aunt Claudia
might say. However, there have been no
suggestions that she was born syphilitic.”
“Well, that’s a relief. Poor girl, I wager they peered at her,
waiting for signs,” said Anne.
“Yes, and doubtless without
telling her why. Well, it evens up the numbers, those two with the gerundives,
Miss Clement, who I am sure you do not resent for being the Landry woman’s
sister, Miss Mayhew, if you can persuade her, and Amelia Bradley, eight. And for the men, you are risking inviting
Fulkard?”
“He has been perfectly civil when
visiting now you are teaching him music,” said Anne. “And it means Lord Robert can come if he
wishes, and Tobias Smith, as well as Mr. Morville, Mr. Thorngate, Mr. Mayhew,
his brother, Michael, and Thomas Bradley, and of course, Sir Henry and Lady
Sophia Bradley, to loan a note of sobriety.
I wish we might have Ophelia and Mr. Sanderville, but I’m not sure I can
manage to run a house party and cope with four lively small people.”
“It wouldn’t be so bad if
Philemon was not so unexpected,” said Ellery.
“Seb has sobered up no end, doing a man’s work, and Eglamour and Lucy
are mostly harmless.”
Anne laughed.
“And at that, whatever they get
themselves involved in, it is harmless mischief. What would you rather a boy of twelve like
Philemon should do, get in a fight with tinker brats over the way they treat
their dogs, or sire a child, like Larry?”
“Good G-d, it had not actually
impinged on me that Phil is much of an age Larry must have been when Drusilla
was conceived. You’re right, my love,
having a courtesy-nephew turn up on my doorstep, bloodied but unbowed, with a
cur of indescribable background in his arms demanding help is the sort of
relative I want to have.”
“Absolutely,” agreed Anne.
I love your end of chapter paragraphs.
ReplyDeleteThey humanize and ground the story so well.
Thank you! End paragraphs can be almost as important as opening paras
DeleteI just wrote a most evil cliffhanger on Francine ....
Sarah, I am just lost with the current story, and I think it's because I read the first one on your blog only. Was this story that precedes the current 'Moorwick' ever published?
ReplyDeleteThis is the dramatis personae, I'm sure.
yes, this is the one which precedes the Moorwick Chronicles currently being posted; Fantasia on a House Party is the title. I took down all but the first chapter in compliance with Kindle's rules when it was published. It had a dramatis personae as well which I need to update. .
DeleteThanks! I found it and will reread. FYI it is not being collected by Amazon into the series for Charity School, I couldn't say why that is. Last week whilst traveling I reread all 10 of the Charity School books, so I was really surprised to find characters here I knew but also some I'd forgotten in the last 5 years.
DeleteGlad you found it - I went and looked and KDP alleges that it is in the Charity School series as related content, so I don't know what they are doing not showing it. I hate technology. Sorry, I don't know what else to do.
Delete