A Most Lamentable Comedy (21 page)

‘I shall be away for much of the time,’ my future protector says, ‘so I trust you will keep yourself pleasantly occupied. And there are some very pretty walks around here also.’

‘Thank you.’ He really is trying quite hard to be congenial, but the knowledge that after a few days I shall be thanking him on my back (or on my knees or whatever his grace prefers) makes me less than grateful.

‘Well!’ He puts his teacup on to the table. ‘I don’t want to keep the horses standing for too long. I’ll send word when you may expect me. Please send for Beck – the Tysons know how to reach him – should there be anything you require.’

He fidgets, produces a handkerchief and blows his nose with a peculiar squeaking sound. That, and the hand-rubbing, could drive me mad in a matter of a few hours.

I curtsy, he bows, and then he leaves, reminding me that the next day is Sunday and I should make sure to attend worship (another obligation I was hoping to evade. Is there truly no peace for the wicked?). It is dreadfully polite and awkward. I must be his first mistress, that must be it – and he still has to prove to his friends, or with whomever he has placed his bet, that he has made a conquest. How exactly will he do so? Invite a gaggle of languid dandies to take tea and inspect the bedsheets?

I am not sure I believe his explanation, anyway. For some reason the Duke of Thirlwell is determined to take a mistress he does not really want, and I am compelled to take a protector I do not really want.

What a sorry state of affairs.

Letter from the Duchess of Thirlwell
to the Duke of Thirwell

My dearest and best Woolly Ram,

I am quite desolated without you but hope your Particular Business in town progresses well. How I long to see your sketches of fine antiquities that amuse me so greatly. I particularly like the male ones, although they are not nearly as
Masculine
as you.

Congrevance arrived yesterday, much weary after his long journey by the mail coach – shame upon you that you could not provide him with a superior form of transport. I was much surprised at his Foreign Polish – oh dear, that sounds like furniture – and I took the liberty of inviting him and Mr Pickering and the Revd and Mrs Fellwinkle to dine; also my Aunt Brillstone was there, so I was very well chaperoned. He (Congrevance) looks a little like you, but I think you are more handsome. The tenants are very excited, by the way, that Congrevance has returned, and I think it a most romantic story.

We had a pretty good dinner – mutton and trout and a stuffed marrow and a salad, and then cheese and nuts and a peach ice, sadly with the last of the ice; I am sorry, my dear, for I know how much you like such things. We asked Congrevance to tell us stories of foreign parts, and he was vastly entertaining, but I see a melancholy in him. Aunt Brillstone was in fine spirits; she told me she would have her skirts up for him in a heartbeat and I confess I blushed, this being almost in the gentleman’s hearing.

But Lady Caroline Elmhurst! I am much shocked. Is she as beautiful and reckless as everyone says? I hope she is not too charming.

Congrevance has the spare bed at Pickering’s while he works on his house, which is in a sorry state, and he and the men have been hard at work repairing your dry-stone walls. I gave him some salve for his blisters and, by the way, he repaired the wobble in the dining-room table, that the butler said could not be done. For a gentleman – I suppose that is what he is – he is remarkably good with his hands.

I met him only a couple of times when we were all children; I remember how people were shocked that the old Earl should bring his bastard into his house, and they whispered that his mother was French and nearly got her head cut off. My dear, you never told me we had her portrait – he showed it to me; it is the one of a lady as a nymph or some such that hangs in the drawing room next to the one of the ugly dogs. She was very pretty in a foreign sort of way. I am glad that you and Congrevance are once again the greatest of friends.

And now my candle is almost burned down and it remains only to tell you that your Little Lambkin misses her Great Ram most sorely and longs once more to bury her hands in his fleece and caress his great curved horn
[at this point the letter becomes very personal and of no consequence]

Letter from Mr Nicholas Congrevance to his
half-brother the Duke of Thirlwell

Brother,

Your dry-stone walls are a disgrace, for Pickering has been too rheumatic to climb the lls, but slowly we make progress.

The Duchess is an angel you do not deserve; I do not think I have met a sweeter woman, although her Aunt Brillstone seems most peculiar. When I dined at the house, the lady insisted on showing us after dinner how the minuet was danced at the assembly rooms in her youth, fell on to the sofa and broke wind like a monstrous female trumpet before falling asleep. The astonishing thing is that she drank only water at dinner. Your Duchess only smiled and rearranged her aunt’s skirts so we did not have to view her garters or more.

You need more ice. I shall look into obtaining some, but meanwhile the ice house needs a thorough draining and cleansing.

Yes, I keep busy.

Tell me how Caroline does and remember what happens to you and your line if you take advantage of the situation.

I remain, sir, your most loving brother, etc.

Nicholas Congrevance

Letter from the Duke of Thirwell to his
half-brother Mr Nicholas Congrevance

My dear brother,

The Duchess writes that she finds you handsome and charming, and I should be obliged if you do not become overly familiar with her. My affairs in London progress well; I am happy to report that Lady Elmhurst is currently indisposed in a Female Way (I am sure you know of what I speak; it is an extraordinary messy business indeed, quite unlike ewes) and so I have had no reason to visit her. I daresay I shall have to put in an appearance soon, for I am afraid a woman of her reputation and tastes may get into trouble – by which I mean gambling and low company and so on. I am happy to report that she still yearns and sighs heavily for you and drank herself into a stupor on our journey.

I was somewhat alarmed to discover that although I suspect her education is sadly lacking (she stared at the books in the house as though they were vermin), she is not without some native intelligence. From the first, she voiced her suspicions that my motivation for taking a mistress was not what it might seem; I had to invent, or rather, she did, a preposterous story about a wager.

Pray put a roof on your house soon.

Your loving brother,

Thirlwell

Lady Caroline Elmhurst

T
he day has come, or rather the night has come, and with it comes Thirlwell, to take his ducal delight.

Beck arrived this morning to tell me that his grace will dine with me tonight, the fifth day as the Duke’s official mistress, and I can put the moment off no longer. I must do my duty, repay my debt, and it is with a heavy heart that I descend to the kitchen to talk to Mrs Tyson about dinner.

I interrupt the lady taking her ease at the kitchen table, a cup of tea by her side, feet up, shoes off and deep in perusal of a fashion magazine.

‘Oh, milady. I beg your pardon.’ She stands up, attempting to push her feet into her shoes and hide the magazine behind some bowls on the table.

‘What were you reading?’

‘
La Belle Assemblee
, ma’am.’

I gaze at the magazine, as a starving woman might at food. I have tried to read some of the books upstairs; there is one, however, by a female author, entitled
Prejudice and Pride
or some such, that is quite good.

‘May I borrow it, Mrs Tyson? When you are finished with it, that is.’

‘Why, of course, milady. It’s several months old, though.’

‘No matter. Thank you. Now, the Duke dines here tonight and we should talk about the menu.’ I am relieved that oysters and asparagus are not in season; it is odd that although some foods are as extolled as aphrodisiacs, very few are recommended for quenching desire.

We talk of food for a while in the pleasant atmosphere of the kitchen, with its well-scrubbed flagstone floor, the scent of smoke and food, and copper pans and blue and white china arranged on a dresser. A cat and her kittens lie before the fire – and that reminds me, how shall I avoid pregnancy? It is a pity indeed that there is no instruction book for courtesans, in the same style as the book Mrs Tyson produces, which has recipes and information on cleaning things and other aspects of household management.

We decide on roast duck and a beef pie and vegetables for the first remove, and a gooseberry fool and Aylesbury cakes for the second, foods the Duke enjoys, according to Mrs Tyson. Mr Tyson will choose the wines, also knowing his grace’s tastes. I am all too aware that I shall be the delicacy that concludes the feast.

‘And Mrs Tyson, if you will be so kind, please put fresh sheets on my bed.’ There. I’ve said it. I shall do my duty.

‘Oh. I don’t think that will be necessary— Why, of course, milady. Yes indeed, milady, right away.’ She looks as embarrassed as I feel.

‘Have you been in the Duke’s employment long?’ I wish to know, of course, if the Duke has ever had a mistress before, and this seems a good introductory question.

‘Why, I was the old Duke’s housekeeper, milady. When Mr Tyson and I married, the young Duke sent us to look after this house, for we wanted our own establishment, and he wanted a place near London.’

‘To keep his mistresses?’

Now that sounds absurd, as though he has a house bursting with women of ill repute, as others may keep rabbits, although I am sure a lot of gentlemen would find the idea attractive.

‘Oh no, milady. No, his grace is more interested in his old statues and his livestock.’

As I suspected.

‘Not like the old Duke, his father,’ she says with a knowing look.

I make an encouraging sound, for I still have a taste for unseemly gossip, even if I am now a subject for it myself.

‘Now the old Duke, he kept a mistress, a French lady, not some ten miles from his house, and when she died, he brought their son into the household. A sweet child he was, and the old Countess was pleased to have a companion for her son, for the two were only a year apart in age. ’Twas a pity indeed that— What is it, George?’

The servant, a child who reminds me of Will Gibbons, for he is only a little older, bows. ‘Please, milady, Mrs Tyson, there’s a grand lady to see milady and she said she’d wait in the garden. And may I show the boy who came with her the kittens?’

I can’t think who could possibly be calling on me, with my new reputation as a courtesan – indeed, no one knows where I am. It can only be someone to whom I owe money, but curiosity, as well as manners, compels me to receive my guest.

To my astonishment, it’s Mrs Riley. A heap of weeds lies at her feet as she examines a rose bush with a fierce expression on her face. When I appear, she straightens and pushes her grandson Will forward to make his bow. He runs to me and throws his arms around me, much to my surprise, and I bend to kiss him.

‘Lady Caro, I am so glad to see you. I am in London visiting my grandmama and we have been to the Tower to see the wild animals and all manner of wonderful things. I wish you had been with us.’

‘I’m glad to see you too, Will.’

‘Will you come with me and George – he is my new friend – to see the kittens?’

I am amused to see that once again Will has decided that a complete stranger should be his friend, just as he did with me.

‘No, Will,’ his grandmama says. ‘Lady Elmhurst and I wish to talk.’ She beckons to George. ‘Fetch me a bucket of water with soap and a good handful of red pepper in it; that will take care of these greenflies, hideous things, and Lady Elmhurst and I will take tea in the garden.’