Poetry and Perfection 4

 

Chapter 4

 

Kitty found herself at an evening of games for young people which did actually include a few younger siblings. Parlour games like ‘steal the white loaf,’ ‘Move-all,’ and ‘Musical Magic’ broke the ice very well, and Hugo deliberately sat out of ‘Move-all,’ not wanting the older young ladies to try to collide with him supposedly by accident, on romantic encounter bent.

It was when the hostess, one Mrs. Weston, mother of Jenny, declared that they should play charades, there was a babble of dismay.

“Oh, Mama! I can’t write charades, and nor can most of my friends!” declared Jenny. “And I can’t guess them, either.”

“Mrs. Weston, if you have a game that will take half an hour, I am sure I can write a dozen or so charades, and if people find them hard, why, I believe there is a new fashion to act the parts of the word, which could be done as well as giving the poem,” said Kitty.

“Bravo, Miss Worthington; I will lend you my aid. I’m too old for this gathering, but I’m here for Elvira,” said Hugo Bottringham.

“Oh, Miss Worthington, Mr. Bottringham, if you will do so, I will be so grateful,” said Mrs. Weston. “Come, everyone, we will play ‘Turn the trencher,’ and anyone coming up with improper forfeits will stand in the corner of the room whilst the rest play.”

 “What does she mean?” asked Kitty.

“Some young men can be rather forward, and ask for kisses as forfeits,” said Hugo. “And it spoils it for everyone, though the very shy have trouble with things like ‘cry in one corner, laugh in another, sing in the third, and dance in the fourth.’”

“Yes, I cannot say that I would enjoy it,” said Kitty. “Being on display is not pleasant.”

“I’ll remember that you don’t like it,” said Hugo. “Why don’t we each write half a dozen charades, and then see how we do with each other’s thoughts?”

“I think that will be fun,” said Kitty. “More so than having long drawn out guessing from people who don’t understand half the time.”

“Oh, dear, you feel that way too? Well, we might be the only two to enjoy this game.”

They sat down, writing assiduously.

“Ready to share a couple?” asked Hugo.

“I think so,” said Kitty. “Shall I go first?”

“Please.”

“My first is a stick like a perch or a rod

My second a big plant furnished by God;

My whole may be found insignificant yet,

With changed spelling, they run scratching for what they may get.”

“The first is obviously pole, as in a rod, pole, or perch measurement,” said Hugo. “A really big plant is a tree… oh! A pun, paltry, insignificant, and poultry, chickens.”

“Your turn,” said Kitty.

“My first, a simple ewer, such as comes with matching basin

My second is a clearing throat which speaks of hesitation,

My third is but a nothing, the sign of zero is its part

And my whole a Hindu god on an inexorable cart”

Kitty frowned.

“A jug… the sound ‘er,’ I think, and… well, it’s an ‘o’ sort of… nought? But I can’t make sense of that.”

“Yet you have it perfectly; Juggernaut.”

“There is such a word? I do not know it.”

“It’s the word used for the big carts used in procession in India, which, once moving, are very difficult to stop,” said Hugo. “Oh, dear, is it too hard?”

“Well, the clues are not,” said Kitty. “But it’s nice to learn new words.”

“Oh, I agree,” said Hugo. “Mrs. Weston can always discard it. Next?”

“My first is an untruth, to hide the truths that my whole spawns;

My second, a wild rose, deprived of ego, not its thorns.

My last may be a first as a prefix to repeat,

And my whole is full of knowledge of some stories as a treat.”

“Lie,” said Hugo. “And then you have me… a wild rose is a briar. Without ego? Oh! Without the ‘I’. And prefix… re- but as a suffix. Lie-brar-re, Library.”

“You are good,” said Kitty, admiringly. “Your next?”

“Short and a little trite,” said Hugo.

“My first, to grab, to hold by force, or conquer, like my whole

My second a woman with dropped head, perhaps a slave in role

Render unto my whole what may to him belong

And render me an answer of the ancient subject of my song.”

“Now that was a clue in the ‘render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s; it’s Caesar. Seize and her without the h,” said Kitty.

“I did say it was trite. Your turn.”

“My first might go upon a neck, which would be seen as risible

Since where my whole is to be found is somewhere more invisible

My second is a gerund, an end for present doing

And my whole is a fine garment for a lady with a shoe in.”

“My goodness!” said Hugo. “A man could have far too much fun with that with forays into metaphysical poetry with regard to a lady’s stocking. Stock, of course, from the stock at one’s neck, and -ing, but nicely put together.”

“Miss Emmet would not tell me about metaphysical poetry; she said it is smutty. Well, not in as many words, but that was the impression she gave. Why were the Greeks dreadful?”

“Oh, dear,” said Hugo. “It’s not my place to speak of such things.  Perhaps your brother might, or your father, or, when you marry, your husband.”

Kitty sighed.

“Stephen won’t. I doubt Papa will. So, I shall have to wait until I am old to find out.”

“I’m afraid so. And my next one,” he said, moving firmly on.

“My first a simple pan to cook food to some heat

My second the past tense of what is done with what’s to eat

These two in combination an accompanying drink

Before my third which makes the whole quite different, I think.

My third it is a sound of surprise, perhaps delight at something filling

Which is my whole, and I believe devoured by all quite willing.”

“Pan… Pot?” asked Kitty. “Oh! I have it, Potato; Pot-ate, which makes ‘Potate’ or to drink; and ‘o’ as the sound of surprise.”

Kitty giggled her way through a few more simple and commonplace sorts of two syllable words,  and Hugo gave the odd chuckle; a tacit agreement to make some easy ones, and turned them over to Mrs. Weston.

“Goodness me, such erudition!” she cried. “I am not sure… well, perhaps if I put the young people in fours they can manage some of them. You are too clever for me!”

“I did not know ‘Juggernaut,’ until Mr. Bottringham explained it,” said Kitty. “At least he does not write them in Latin.”

“Latin! I should think not!” cried Mrs. Weston.

“Do you think Stephen would enjoy it?” asked Hugo.

“No, but it would do him good to have to work before going back to university,” said Kitty, heartlessly.

She listened to the attempts made to solve their simpler charades, only Elvira and Stephen doing at all well.

“I was right that your brother and I had more fun writing the charades than anyone had in solving them,” she said to Elvira, as they walked home together, Stephen and Hugo following as guards, since Elvira preferred to walk to any entertainment if at all possible, and Kitty was happy to indulge her.

“Oh, that does not surprise me,” said Elvira. “Kitty, would you come to tea with me?”

“Oh, that will be nice, without all the background of people seething around,” said Kitty. “Unless it’s a big tea party?”

“No, just you, and… and I want you to meet my sister.”

“I had no idea you had a sister,” said Kitty.

Elvira winced.

“Most people don’t,” she said. “You know my parents were killed in a coaching accident a few years ago?”

“I knew they had died suddenly,” said Kitty.

“Well, it was in a coaching accident, and it’s why I am terrified of going in coaches, and prefer to ride or go in a small open vehicle,” said Elvira. “We were trapped in the coach, in a river, and Papa and Mama were killed trying to cushion Sophie and me. And Sophie broke her back, I kept her afloat, but that and being heaved out unceremoniously by the people who rescued us meant she is paralysed, and she almost died of pneumonia as well.”

“Oh! How sad!” said Kitty. “Does she have many girl friends?”

“None,” said Elvira. “She is afraid of society, but I have persuaded her that you will not be unkind to her or taunt her or anything.”

“Goodness, why would anyone do anything like that?” asked Kitty, perplexed.

“Emma Evrington, Caroline Spenlove, Elizabeth Braithewaite, Susanna Akenfield,” said Elvira, dryly, naming three other young maidens on the town, who were often at such occasions to which Kitty had been recently invited. “You know how they giggle at you, and call you ‘the country cousin,’ though Hugo has put a stop to that since the Spenlove girl was so nasty.”

“I take no notice of them. They make me think of chickens, terribly silly creatures and inclined to peck anyone they think is different. Oh, yes, I see. They are idiots and I hope they get the husbands they deserve.”

“Well, there you have it, and Sophie is hoping to make a real friend. But if you don’t want to, then I’d rather let her down now.”

“Oh, I’d love to be her friend,” said Kitty. “And, I say, Elvira, I could keep her company while you are out dancing!”

“Oh, you are such a good friend!” cried Elvira. “That’s more than I might have hoped, or asked. But she does get so bored, and Hugo will not let me cry off the season, because he says I should have the opportunity to marry.”

“Well, when I don’t ‘take’ next year, as I expect I shan’t, he can employ me after you get married, to be Sophie’s companion,” said Kitty, cheerfully.

Elvira embraced her.

“How sweet you are!” she said. “Of course you will ‘take;’ it is only that people have no idea that you are not Hugo’s pensioner that they do not already ask you to dance and so on. Being red, they assume we must be distant relatives, but you don’t seem to mind being ignored.”

“It suits me very well, actually,” said Kitty. “I’ve been dreading coming out, but I can listen to gossip and know who everyone is, so next year I won’t feel I am cast upon a sea of troubles without a boat, so to speak.”

“Hamlet, but mangled,” said Elvira.

“Yes, but anyone in their right mind would want to mangle Hamlet,” said Kitty. “He’s unkind to poor Ophelia, and Miss Emmet gets flustered when reading the bits where he taunts her, which means it’s something very robustly Elizabethan and played for cheap laughs, but she won’t explain it at all, and he goes on and on about his woes, until one wants to chop off one of his legs and beat him over the head with it. Anyone else in those days would just pay someone to kill his uncle.”

“I think he wanted his mother to have her eyes opened,” said Elvira.  “But this is just the sort of conversation Sophie would love, too.”

“Oh, good!” said Kitty. “I expect, once he was dead, his perfidy would emerge because there’d be paperwork and a money trail showing what he’d been up to.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Elvira.

“Well, it’s why your brother snubs Lord Haselbraid,” said Kitty.

“It is?  Hugo refuses to discuss him with me, but he actually interrupted a dance I was dancing with Lord Haselbraid, and dragged me home early.  Anyone would think I had been encouraging him, instead of which, it was the first dance and I was late and everyone else was engaged to dance.  I was late because Sophie had needed help… she knows when she needs to… to relieve herself but has to excuse herself for her maid to help her,” she added.  “It’s another reason she doesn’t want to be in society. Polly is a good woman, but brusque, and it’s embarrassing for Sophie cannot… hold things.”

“Oh, that would be hard,” said Kitty. “I shall not, of course, regard it in the least.”

“I am glad,” said Elvira. “Go on, tell me what you found out about Lord Haselbraid!”

“Oh, he’s a gazetted fortune hunter,” said Kitty.  “I managed to overhear how your brother foiled an attempt to abduct an heiress, and fought him with pugilism, which is why Haselbraid’s nose is crooked. He’s supposed to be an accomplished seducer, though goodness knows why, he’s the wrong side of forty, and what young girl would look twice at him?  I’ve no idea why he is described as ‘charming.’ I’ve met more attractive maggots when baiting a line for Stephen.”

Both girls giggled over that.

“Did you draw that idea?” asked Elvira.

“No, but come to my room now we are at our house, and I’ll get out my commonplace book and draw it, with your brother on the line,” said Kitty. “It’s still fairly early, and Stephan and your brother can drink brandy and have a hand or two of cards or play chess.” This plan being approved by both young men,  Elvira accompanied her, and sniggered as Kitty surely and swiftly produced a maggot with Haselbraid’s features, being leaped at by a rather foolish looking salmon in a ballgown, as Hugo Buttringham on the shore, but easily recognisable, made the cast.

“Sophie would love your commonplace book,” said Elvira. “At least, if that’s a fair sample of what goes in there.”

“Oh, it is,” said Kitty. “And some of my little verses. I guard it jealously, it could damn me in the eyes of society forevermore if anyone saw it.”

“Your secret is safe,” said Elvira. “Hugo would love it too, and I am sure he’d be discreet.”

Kitty flushed.

“There are a few of him,” she said.  “Much like this one, because his profile is such fun to draw in his forbidding mien. He saw this one of him as a thistle, and was amused.”

“And his mien scares people a lot, but he isn’t really scary,” said Elvira.

“No; but he’s had to be father and mother as well as brother to two younger sisters for several years, knowing that Sophie will never be likely to marry, and that he is going to be taking care of her all her life,” said Kitty.  “I doubt most of the women who make sheeps’ eyes at him would be willing to be her friend and sister and take care of her.”

“No,” said Elvira. “He told one of the women he thought he had a tendre for about Sophie, and the woman suggested having her put in an institution, or farmed out with people ready to care for her. He broke up with her, and that’s why he’s now cynical and goes out of his way to hurt the women who make determined plays for him.”

“I don’t blame him,” said Kitty. She scribbled under her picture.

“Oh, sweet Miss Salmon,  if you could but swallow

The unctuous praise of you which is but hollow,

My love for you is for the golden gleam’s amount

Which shows how much is in your bank account.”

“You did write your brother’s poetry,” said Elvira, severely.

“But the sentiments were his,” said Kitty. “And I but went along with them.”

“Oh, I acquit him then,” said Elvira. “He is a pleasant companion, and has conversation, which is more than most of them have.”

They exchanged looks, and laughed at the more tongue-tied of Elvira’s suitors.