Escapade (14 page)

“She is strangely indomitable for a girl who doesn't do anything."

“Hurry!"

Sara hustled off for a bonnet and pelisse, but in spite of her haste, Honor was down before her, pulling on her blue kid gloves in silence. “Are you coming?” she asked Lady Sara.

“Clare has asked me along. Do you mind?"

“No,” Lady Honor replied. Her gloves smoothed to her satisfaction, she said, “Come along, Clare,” as though she were already his bride—or his mother.

Insulated from gossip by the presence of Lady Sara, Clare's morning passed with no great discomfort. He even had someone to talk to. Back at the palace, there was considerable bustle and merriment and hurrying around of footmen and maids to obtain old sheets, chains, and a few skulls that Bippy knew to be hiding in a little-used study.

“There, I think we have made it pretty horrid,” Miss Prentiss said. “What do you think, Miss Fairmont?” Belle was by degrees insinuating herself onto a closer footing with Miss Fairmont to see what she could discover of the girl.

“If only a storm will be so obliging as to come up, it will be an excellent, scary party."

Belle took the notion that armor, axes, and halberds would add to the gloom, and these were lugged in from the armaments room. Harley tried in vain to detach spider webs from the barn and rehang them, but his efforts were in vain, so he brought in any spiders he could find instead, and ordered them to get busy. Miss Sheridan squashed as many of them as she could without his seeing her, but still there remained more than she cared to contemplate. When Clare, Sara, and Honor returned from the calls around 1:00, the room was ready for inspection.

“How do you like it?” Belle asked Clare. “I have had these weapons brought in from the armaments room, you see. Wasn't that a clever idea?"

He glanced around, but the effect was not marvelous by daylight, and it took a good deal of praising her own efforts to encourage him to believe it looked anything but messy and dirty.

“It is fine,” Lady Honor said, looking at the chandeliers, then the floor.

“It will be great, you'll see,” Belle told them all. “Have we time to go to the attic for costumes before lunch?"

“It will be dusty up there. I'll have lunch served early so that we may get on with it."

Lunch was served almost immediately, and the sole subject of conversation was the ball. After lunch, everyone tramped up to the attics. Lady Sara looked in vain for a pink dress with panniers in the Queen Anne style, but found nothing remotely like it. Watching her discard gown after gown, Clare said, “If your great secret is to set up as Crazy Nellie, you'll find Mama has the entire ensemble downstairs. Somebody always wears it to our costume balls."

Sara glared at him. “You certainly know how to take the wind out of a person's sails."

“But I know how to put it back again too. You will look quite ravishing, Sara.” He smiled that disturbing smile, and she forgave him all. “She also has the red wig—pity to cover your own hair—and Mulch will give you some red roses."

“I see this original idea of mine is down to a fine routine."

“Just so. How is your niece going?"

Sara laughed. “I shan't spoil her surprise, just because you've spoiled mine. And I bet no one has ever had her idea before."

He looked across the room at Ella in a speculative manner. “Now what idea has she got in that strange little noggin of hers?” There was a tender undertone in his words.

“You'll see. What about Lady Honor? Someone ought to get her a costume, I expect. I see she didn't come abovestairs."

“She walks, but she don't climb. We'll toss a sheet over her and pretend she is a sofa done up for safekeeping. No one will know the difference."

“They will if they try to sit on her."

“Sara, my dear, I don't hold that sort of party at Clare."

“Where do you hold that sort?” she asked pertly.

“Where proper society matrons are unlikely to attend. Hush! Here comes your niece."

Sara's eyes widened at this spontaneous warning. She could not remember Clare ever having cared a hoot who heard what he said before, except for his Mama. But here was he, turning his most charming smile on Ella. “Mystery lady,” he was saying. “You are going to take the shine out of us all, I hear."

“Sara, you didn't tell him!"

“Of course I didn't, but he knew who I plan to be."

“I expect Crazy Nellie has attended many parties here over the years."

“She never misses a ball, according to Clare."

“I have already atoned for my foray into veracity by saying you will be the most exquisite Nellie ever,” he reminded Sara, then turned to Ella. “Now won't you tell me how you mean to go, Miss Fairmont? I'll see if I can't find a costume to match. I'm devilish tired of being my ancestor, the third duke, with that uncomfortable ruff cutting into my neck and chin. After the portrait in the long gallery,” he explained. “It, like Crazy Nellie, is one of our standard guests at the balls, since we have the outfit and it's so dramatic."

“No, I won't tell you,” Ella replied nonchalantly.

Sara thought to see some show of resentment or ire, but no, Clare accepted it in quite good nature. In fact, the unfathomable creature was smiling. It had just occurred to him that what he liked so much about Miss Fairmont was that she didn't care two straws for him. Had he so much as hinted to Sherry how he meant to go, or Miss Prentiss, they would immediately have set about matching his costume, uninvited.

Miss Prentiss, observing that Clare was once again with Ella, came running over. “What do you think of this green shot silk as a gown for Anne Boleyn, Clare?"

“Very nice,” he said, hardly looking at it.

Sara, noticing that the style was not more than ten years old, said that it would require alterations, though there seemed to be plenty of material.

“Come and see what I have found for you, Clare,” Miss Prentiss continued. “There is a velvet top and white silk stockings—it looks quite like the rigout Henry VIII wears in the pictures one always sees. A little three-cornered hat and some chin whiskers and you might pass very well."

“I wouldn't be caught dead in that outfit,” he said firmly. “In the first place, it is as hot as a quilt with the buckram and wadding under the velvet top, and in the second, I don't like the long silk hose."

“What are you wearing then?” she persisted, wondering if she might yet regulate her costume to his.

“I don't know. I'll find something."

“You won't if you don't start looking,” Ella warned him. “There is Bippy in the Henry VIII tunic, and Harley getting into the cavalier's suit. That would have suited you."

“I am flattered,” he said.

“Fit you is what I meant,” she corrected.

“Thank you again,” he said humbly.

“She's right,” Sara told him. “You'd better pick up something fast, for the rest of us are about ready to leave."

“Let's go then,” Clare said.

“Going to go as a match to Lady Honor, are you?” Sara teased.

Belle's ears perked up, but no explanation was offered to this private joke. “Miss Fairmont has no costume,” she said.

“Mine isn't up here,” Ella replied mysteriously. She had secreted a likely dress behind a trunk and meant to come back for it later.

They all trooped downstairs and separated to attend to the pressing and renovations of their costumes. Ella was busy all afternoon. She had to find a papier-mâché hat stand, paint its face, get a wig for it, and put red paint on the neck to stimulate blood; then she had to arrange the wadding that was to hold her gown up over her own head, and also to get Bickles to put eye holes in it without utterly ruining the gown. Sara and Stepson helped too, as Crazy Nellie's costume was ready to put on. Stepson even found a crimping iron in the basement and made her up a ruff.

The hoped-for storm did not come up that evening, but a pleasantly eerie wind was blowing outside, and echoes of its soughing came in at chimney flues and loose windows. With less than half the usual quantity of candles lit, and the ghostlike sheets and Bippy's skulls decorating the room, it was felt to be a fair representation of a haunted house. Harley complained that he had never seen such a stubborn set of spiders, who refused to spin a single web after all his trouble in bringing them into a nice warm house. It was the Dowager's addition to atmosphere to blow out the tapers in the entrance hall, and send the butler to the door with one single candle held high. More civilized accommodations prevailed in the ladies’ dressing room and the dining room, but the house was a fine mess, just the way it was when her husband had first brought her there, the Duchess declared.

The guests began arriving, and Clare and his Mama were well pleased with the ghosts, goblins, and sprites who had come to their party. Many of those invited had the same inspiration, or lack of it, that had got Honor into her sheet. With so many ghosts present, Clare accidentally stood up for the first dance with a neighbor's daughter who chanced to be standing beside him when the music struck up, but no one knew it but themselves and Lady Honor. He remedied this, or rather she did, by appearing at his elbow for the next dance. He felt she had never been so appropriately dressed before. When the ghost said not a word, he had a pretty fair inkling who it was, and when it reached out and clamped his arm, he knew for sure. Lady Honor had no difficulty recognizing Clare, since he had come as Admiral Nelson in an old admiral's uniform of his uncle's, and his disguise consisted of a patch over one eye. He also had one arm supported in a sling, but he removed this impediment for the dancing.

Nelson was busily scanning the room for a mystery lady by the end of the second dance. He could not find her, but Crazy Nellie was spotted flirting with two country gentlemen, and he went to inquire of her regarding Ella. He met his Mama on the way, and she walked along with him.

“She ran into unexpected difficulties with her head, but should be here presently,” Sara told them, laughing gaily and refusing to explain.

At the moment they heard a shriek from Miss Sheridan, who, finding nothing half so beguiling in Clare's attic as her own mauve ball gown, had worn it with an egret half-mask.

“Good God!” Clare exclaimed, looking at the ghastly spectacle which had just entered. Around the room a series of squeals and shouts went up, as one after another of his guests looked towards the door.

“It's Matilda to the life!” the Dowager shrieked.

“To the death,” Clare corrected.

“Who the devil can it be?” his Mama asked. “It must be a gentleman—look at the height of it."

“You forget there's a head under those shoulders,” he pointed out, “as well as under the arm. A head—why it's Miss Fairmont!” He hurried towards her, fighting his way through a crowd that had gathered to admire her ghoulish ingenuity.

He separated her from the group. “Come, Lady Matilda. We are a fine pair of derelicts, for I have lost an eye and an arm, and you have lost your head."

“I very nearly did,” she said. “I thought Miss Prentiss would pull it right out of my hands. Isn't it real looking?"

He reached out and took the dummy head from her. “Charming, but I think I prefer the one you usually wear. Where shall we stick your spare while we dance?"

“Do you know,” a serious little voice emanated from the bodice of the gown, “I don't see how I can dance. I can hardly even breathe in here. It is excessively hot. And the costume would look very odd if I put down the head."

“My dear, it looks excessively odd in any case."

“Yes, isn't it horrid? Do you like it?"

“Original, as I have come to expect of Miss Fairmont."

“Oh, you knew it was I! How could you tell?"

“By your voice. Besides, I couldn't find you anywhere when I was looking for you."

A thrill ran through Ella's whole body. “Were you looking for me?” she asked. Clare had been introduced to her three times in London, without once remembering her name. It was very strange and exhilarating indeed to learn he had been looking for her in a room full of girls.

“Yes, I wanted to make you waltz with me again."

“I'm through with warning you. You know I've two left feet. And in this outfit..."

“Serves you right. You might have come as Lady Hamilton if you'd bothered to ask me what I was wearing, and then you'd have been perfectly comfortable."

“But I wouldn't have looked anything like her."

“Dash it, Miss Fairmont, I wish you'd take off that dress—I mean lower it over your face or something. You've no idea how foolish I feel, talking to your collar."

A muffled snort came from the bodice. “I'll ruin my costume, and not everyone has seen it yet."

“We'll tour the room, bowing and nodding to everyone like royalty, and then you will make some arrangement to get your head up out of there. Come along. Shall I carry the head?"

He lodged it in the crook of his left arm, gave Ella his right arm and together they toured the room, with Clare holding out the head and introducing it to everyone, in mock solemn tones.

“By Jove, you are up to all sorts of rigs, Miss Fairmont,” Peters congratulated warmly.

“Be sure to save me a dance, Miss Fairmont,” from Harley.

“I thought of going as Matilda, but didn't want to put anyone to the bother of making up the outfit,” Belle said.

The rounds completed, Clare placed the head on a pedestal in front of a bust of Homer and said to it, “Be good, Matilda, and if you don't cast any spells while we're gone, we'll give you back your body tomorrow. Now for you,” he turned to Ella.

“Not here. I'm stuffed with cotton wool. Is there somewhere I can go and get it out?"

“Come along.” He took her hand and led her to a small parlor, and they both began pulling bits of wool from the neck of her dress.

“You must be baked alive in there,” he said.

“I am melted,” she said, as her head popped free at last.

“Lord, what a mess you look, Ella—Miss Fairmont."

“My name is Ella. If we are on an insult basis, I suppose you may use it. I have a comb here in my reticule somewhere. I should really go upstairs..."

“Since we are to be on an insult-and-first-name basis of cordiality, I shan't hesitate to tell you I am mighty tired of waiting for you. There is a mirror.” He pointed to the far wall. “See if you can't make yourself presentable, and let's go and dance."