Poetry and Peregrinations now live

 

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Madhouse Bride 1

 

 

Chapter 1

 

Julian Ravenscar was not drunk. Not even bosky. Maybe a little mellow, or well to live. Therefore, when driving towards his country house after a ball he had escaped from shortly after midnight, he was certain that he was not dreaming to see a slender figure descending from an upper storey of a house on the outskirts of the city.  A figure which he was not too drunk to guess was female, even if it was in male garb.

The house was a messuage, surrounded by a stone wall, but one side of the wall was partly taken by the side of the house, a blank, windowless wall save for a tiny window in the gable up under the roof.

The rope was not long enough.

Julian drew his gig to a halt, and got out.

“I don’t think you’re a burglar, young lady, and if you are eloping, your swain has deserted you. But if you would care to drop, I will catch you, and then, you will owe me a story whilst I drive you to wherever you want to go.”

There was a soft gasp, and then the figure dropped. Julian caught her securely and set her down. She was trembling violently.

“I hate heights,” she said.

“Then I salute your bravery, if not your common sense,” he said. “Have you luggage?”

“There should be a bag I dropped; it’s not much but it’s all I could muster.” Her speech was educated, well-modulated; she was plainly  reared as a lady. Julian saw the shadow of the bag and picked it up, and slung it under the seat. He climbed back into his gig, to extend a helping hand. She climbed up behind him, and he clicked his tongue to the horses to walk on.

“I’m not mad,” she said, defensively. “At least, I don’t think so; not now the laudanum and the red mushrooms have worn off.”

“Well, that’s an intriguing opening,” said Julian. “My name’s Ravenscar; Julian, Viscount Ravenscar. And as you gasp, I see you know the name.”

“You have a certain reputation, my lord,” she said. “But somehow, I expected you to be dark and brooding, maybe with a duelling scar, not to look as if you walked out of a depiction of a Botticelli angel.”

He laughed.

“Oh, now I have to take that as an honest assessment, though I assure you, I’m anything but angelic. I do have a duelling scar, but I never show it on first acquaintance. You see, it’s underneath me when I am seated. Not romantic at all.”

“But probably very painful.”

“Oh, it was. I was a stupid young chub and hot-headed and my opponent was kind enough to merely chastise me at, as he said, the seat of my idiocy. It was a stupid duel for a stupid reason, and I lived to thank him for his forebearance. I don’t usually tell people that, though, but a confidence for a big confidence. What is your name?”

“Anne Bonnet,” she said, defiantly.

He lifted an eyebrow.

“You don’t seem very piratical.”

“Not Bonnie; Bonnet, with a French pronunciation. My father’s father got out from the Revolution before it got too bad and managed to transfer a good part of his fortune as well, to use as a startup stake in his new land. He invested in industry. I’m an heiress, which is why all this came about. When my parents died in a coaching accident, I was at school, and I found myself withdrawn at the end of the term to live with my mother’s brother and his wife. Uncle Thomas and Aunt Amelia.  And at first, I was pampered, which was not what I was used to, not allowed to lift a hand, a stifling sort of life, but I did not complain, I thought it was their way of displaying grief, and it would have seemed ungrateful. Then, one night, my hot chocolate was a little bitter, and I woke, cold, in a garret with an old dress my only thing bar a thin nightgown, being chivvied into working to scrub the floor and stop my foolish delusions that I was someone.  Well, I worked hard, trying to make sense of what was happening; and this… alternated. And some days, I had strange waking dreams, which my aunt later admitted was applications of that red toadstool with white spots.  And apparently, I started undressing in front of the vicar and other upright citizens, and so I was committed. The house I left was a private lunatic asylum for troubled girls; and some of them are, but I think there are others like me who have been put away for their inheritance.”

“The devil!” said Julian. “I believe you; it was desperation driving you to escape.”

“I’m afraid that if I spend too much time with other mad people, I will also go insane,” said Anne.

“Yes, quite,” said Julian. “Would you like to be my mistress?”

“I don’t know,” said Anne. “I don’t know you well enough to consider whether it would be worthwhile throwing up my reputation for you; though I suppose my reputation is in tatters already because of my supposed madness.”

“Which proves you more level headed than most of the population,” said Julian. “And most young women would have said ‘yes’ without thinking.  I am going to do what I can to help you, because I’m impressed by your bravery and dignity about the whole affair. but I am not sure where to start, and moreover, I am not entirely sober. How did you escape?”

“I made myself be passive, and just sit, until they stopped watching me,” said Anne. “I shared a room with another girl, in a huge four-poster bed. She’s an arsonist, which was nervous, so a lot of my passivity was dozing, so I could be awake at night to watch her.  We are… were… kept on a low dose of laudanum, but I managed to switch out the contents in the bottle for our room with water, and I gave Jenny a heavy dose whilst I had none on some nights, so I could investigate the room. The window is over the garden, but I climbed on top of the tester canopy, and the roof was beams and plaster.  And I spent time cutting away the plaster with the edge of the coal shovel, which I sharpened on the fire surround. When I had a hole big enough to crawl through, I found it went into the attic, and there are trunks and trunks, belonging to years and years of girls and women. And the window overlooked the street. So, I constructed a rope from what old linens I found in the attic, working at night. Fortunately, Jenny is also stupid. She noticed nothing. And the ceiling is dirty enough not to show a hole near the wall.”

“You’re enterprising. I take it you found your rather old fashioned male attire up there?”

“Yes, it was what gave me the idea. I did not think I could climb a rope in a gown. I stuffed a few into my bag, and underlinen, but I don’t have much.”

“Where were you planning to go?”

“Well, to be honest, I had not got that far,” admitted Anne. “I found a pipe – for playing, not smoking – in one trunk, and I thought that I might go into the city and beg, with music, and raise enough to eat. It’s not very satisfactory as plans go, is it?”

“It’s a start, if nothing else, and you would be free, which is better than otherwise,” said Julian. “However, for now, you are coming to my house, where you can recover your sangfroid, and we can plot.”

“Why are you helping me?”

“I’m intrigued by your story, outraged at the unfairness, and impressed by your resourcefulness. And I’m bored. Which is probably the main reason; and I’m drunk enough to be honest about it.”

“Well, thank you for your honesty.  If they find you have me, they will make you send me back, you know; I am a minor.”

“I’m sure we can get over that; but we will plan tomorrow.”

 

 

The moon shone down on the gracious house they approached up a drive. It had the characteristic ‘E’ shape of an Elizabethan mansion, with fantastical twisted chimneys, and tiles under a portico around the roof with gothic lettering on the glazed tiles.

“They are a lovely bright turquoise with gilded lettering, in daylight,” said Julian, seeing her trying to puzzle it out. “It says ‘Numquam tangas corvum quiescentum,’ which means ‘Never touch a resting raven.’  It’s a more whimsical version of the old ‘Nemo me impune lacessit,’ or ‘Nobody offends me with impunity.’”

“Or, in other words, you are harmless until offended.”

“Precisely. And your relatives offend me.”

“I… I should be your mistress in gratitude.”

“No, Anne Bonnet, you may be no pirate but I think I’m going to loot you.  I will need you to rehearse me on every detail about your family because I’m going to open by asking to see my bride, because your father arranged our marriage. That ought to put the cat among the pigeons.”

“I can copy his handwriting,” said Anne. “Would that help?”

“Undoubtedly! I am going to marry you, because I have to marry sometime, and I don’t think you will ever bore me.”

“You had better sleep on that thought; you might change your mind when you are sober.”

“I don’t think so, but you are wise to suggest it. Right, hop out and take your bag; I’ll be back in a moment. My groom is waiting to see to my horse, but we’ll introduce you to as few people as possible at first.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Julian. I want you to call me ‘Julian.’”

“Yes, Julian,” said Anne.

Julian drove his gig round to the stableyard, where the dozing groom who was waiting for him took over. “Sorry to leave it to you, I have things to do,” said Julian, surprising the man. Not so much for the apology; the viscount might have a reputation for rudeness to others of his kind, but he was unfailingly polite to his servants, and often left Robbie, the groom, sleeping in his bunk to see to his own horse and put his vehicle in the coach house. The grooms had quarters in a block between the stables and the coach house, but the viscount had standing orders that one of them was on duty at all times in the stable itself. He could sleep in a bunk there, pegged into the wall against the tack-room, but since horse thieves had got in and managed to set the stables on fire when Julian was a small boy, his father and he had wanted a man in the stables at all time to raise the alarm, a bell above the bunk, against any trouble. Robbie Hobson claimed the privilege when his lordship was out, being the same age as Julian, and having fought the fire beside his master’s son, to get to the horses, and lead out such as they might. Robbie had privileges beyond the normal grooms for his work that day, having mounted the old viscount’s favourite bay to ride the animal through flames, getting burned himself in doing so, whilst Julian led the frightened beast.  Both had been burned, but Robbie had a scar on his face and neck, from a burning beam. The bay had survived the experience to the delight of the boys, but many of the horses had not. Robbie knew that Julian also heard the screams of the dying horses in his head at times. Robbie woke at the slightest sound, but often his master would tell him to go back to sleep.  Usually when the idiot aristos – Robbie’s idiom – had irritated the viscount, who found currying his horses soothing before going into the house.

Robbie wondered what had happened; his lordship was in a brown study over something, and the gathering of what the staff referred to as ‘Stormcrow’ about his face. Robbie shuddered. When irritation moved into Stormcrow, someone was going to be very unhappy indeed.

 

Unaware of his childhood crony’s ruminations, Julian collected Anne from the front steps, and led her to the front door.  He tapped lightly rather than wake the house with the great door bell, and the door swiftly opened, a greeting dying on the lips of the young man who opened it.

“Jem,” said Julian, “I need your help. I’ll probably need Robbie’s as well, but for now I need secrecy.”

“Yes, my lord,” said Jem Watkins, his eyes wide. His master was usually punctilious in calling him ‘Watkins,’ and only used his first name when he had trouble.

“This young lady, who is a lady, a maiden, and quite unimpeachable, is all in from her exertions in escaping from… well, from being mistreated. I want you to wake up that parlourmaid you’re courting – Meggie, ain’t she? – and tell her to be quick and quiet, and shift her things to be Miss Bonnet’s maid, in the nursery, and to be quick about seeing that there’s decent bedlinen. You can light a fire; warm for the time of year it may be, but the child is half in shock,  and there’s nothing like a cheerful fire. Meggie is to wait on her, and prepare her food. You can tell your mother about it in the morning so she can connive to make sure that Miss Bonnet is not compromised. I’m going to marry her, but I don’t want a thread of scandal. You can tell anyone who asks that I have a witness to a crime in protective custody, which is true enough. And you make sure Meggie doesn’t look at her askance for being clad so; it was the only way she could escape. She has gowns with her. And bring something for her to eat; hot milk or chocolate and something she can eat easily, I doubt she’s been fed properly.”

“Gruel or scrag end stew with beans,” said Anne. “Thank you, Mr Jem, and please apologise for me to Meggie in case I fall asleep before I can make my appreciation known.”

“I’m Watkins, miss, and I’m sure Meggie will be glad to see to your needs,” said Jem Watkins, who knew a lady when he saw one, and so he would make clear to Meggie, and to his mother, Mrs Watkins, the housekeeper. “Oh, my lord, what have you got yourself into now?”

“Someone poked a drowsy raven,” said Julian, with a whimsical smile. “I’ll sort myself out for bed, but I’ll sort out a meal for the lady first for you to take up; then you can truthfully say it was me messing in M. D’Aubert’s domain.”

Watkins grinned.

The French cook could wax irritable if his kitchen was disrupted, but could hardly complain about the master doing so.

 

poetry and perfection 1

 

 

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.”