Chapter Eighteen #2
She had not known precisely what she had expected.
Perhaps some tangled mystery that would surface near the end.
She had certainly not expected the prince to be murdered by a giant helmet dropping out of the sky in the first pages.
And then so quickly afterward, a village boy to be imprisoned under the hat for being a necromancer.
And then the king to so reject his daughter, who he seemed to positively dislike though by all accounts she was dutiful.
And then the king to discard his wife and try to wed the young princess who had been promised to the now-dead prince despite the feathers atop the murderous helmet waving against it.
How was it possible that all these things happened so rapid fire?
“Lydia, what is a necromancer?” she asked softly.
Lydia shrugged. “I’m not sure, I think it has something to do with the dead.”
Beatrix shivered and closed the book. “Perhaps that is enough of a start. We can read a bit further when we retire for the night.”
“You can wake me if you have a nightmare over it. Meggy has nightmares all the time and wakes me up. She always dreams she’s on a ship that’s going down with no land in sight. We don’t know why, as she’s never been anywhere near the sea in her life.”
Meggy was one of the housemaids and Beatrix had noticed she always looked a bit rattled.
“She says it’s on account of that painting in your father’s library. The one with the ship in rough seas. She thinks the painting is cursed.”
“Gracious, Meggy could write her own gothic novel.”
“She can’t read or write though,” Lydia very sensibly pointed out. “By the by, all the household staff and the rest of us staying here ran above stairs to watch the archery out of the attic’s windows. Everybody says that Lord Harrelston was absolutely smashing.”
“He really was,” Beatrix said dreamily.
“Are you going to wed him? Everybody thinks so.”
“He has not asked, Lydia. I can think of nothing until I’m asked a question.”
“That sounds like Miss Sprite’s advice.”
“It is.”
“He’ll ask,” Lydia said confidently. “He is like butter to your bread, stickin’ to you like he does.”
Beatrix collapsed in giggles. And, aside from being compared to bread and butter, she was very pleased to hear it. He would ask, would he not? It really did seem as if he would. If he did, she knew what she would say.
“Lydia,” she said, “the countess and I are to dine with the queen and the other ladies this evening. I ought to choose what I will wear.”
Lydia tapped her chin. “We’ve brought the pale yellow silk. It is very innocent looking, I imagine the queen will like it. In any case, there is nothing that can be criticized about it. Then the gold cross, she will like that too.”
Beatrix nodded. It was as good a reasoning as any, as she really did not know what the queen liked.
Two hours later, she was on her way downstairs with the earl and countess.
The earl parted ways with them and made his way to the library, while they were led to the dining room.
Beatrix longed to ask her father to talk to Lord Harrelston, she did not even know what about, just anything.
She did not, though, as she thought it might come off as too forward, as if she were chasing the gentleman.
It was one of the age-old problems of being a woman. Miss Sprite said men were doers and women were waiters. Beatrix did not think she was wrong, but she did think it should be wrong. Why should ladies have to always wait?
If they did not, she might have kissed Lord Harrelston’s cheek when he won the archery. She would never dream of it, of course, but in a different world where women were not waiters, it might be possible.
They were shown to their chairs and everybody was seated when Lady Dudmore led in the queen. They all rose and curtsied. The queen was seated and waved them all back into their seats.
The footman poured out the wine and the queen said, “Here we all are, sans the men. Well, sometimes gentlemen need to be taken down a peg, they cannot always have their own way and be given precedence in everything.”
“The queen and I had that very conversation when we conceived of this house party of ours.”
“So we did, all those years ago,” the queen said. “We thought, it is a man’s world, but perhaps for a few days a year it is not. We’ve been torturing gentlemen ever since.”
Beatrix suddenly saw the purpose of all of this. She had thought it was just a bit of eccentricity, but it was to balance the scales for a few days.
“Shall we let the ladies in on the little surprise at the nighttime regatta?”
The queen nodded. “The eggs the gentlemen are to collect all contain trinkets.”
“Rather nice trinkets, too,” Lady Dudmore said.
“We worked on this for months,” the queen said. “One of the palace cooks finally concluded that the only way to do it was to soft boil the egg, tap off the top of the shell just as any of us might do for breakfast, remove the egg, add a pretty stone, and glue the shell back on.”
Lady Dudmore laughed. “Remember all the experiments with the glue? We thought we should go mad.”
“Ah, but we did finally find a type that would hold up in the lake. Now, you might wonder why we went to all this trouble.”
Beatrix certainly did wonder. It seemed they’d gone to a deal of trouble.
“At the ball, all the gentlemen are to hand out the eggs they’ve managed to collect. You see? It will be most amusing to see where the gentlemen dispense their favors.”
“It will add an extra something to the ball, we think,” Lady Dudmore said. “Though, you are all sworn to secrecy about it. Nobody is to breathe a word of it. Not to your husbands or lady’s maids. Nobody is to know.”
“I will be most displeased if the secret gets out,” the queen said.
Beatrix did not know what the queen’s displeasure would entail, but she would be terrified to find it out.
“As to the ball, most of you already know it is a forest ball, and we all dress in costume,” Lady Dudmore said.
“I have heaps of choices, which you can sort through in the morning. Afterward, we will go to the village, there is a very interesting haberdasher there and you might choose anything you like to augment your costume.”
And so the queen and Lady Dudmore went on, recounting the house parties of other years and all the planning and difficulties they had successfully surmounted.
Beatrix began to get the idea that the purpose of this dinner was not to become better acquainted with the ladies, but rather for the queen and Lady Dudmore to take a stroll down memory lane.
Beatrix did not mind it at all. She was rapt when they recounted the time the gentlemen were tasked with dancing round a maypole.
Apparently, two young viscounts who could not stand the sight of one another ended up tying each other in knots and had to be rescued by Lady Dudmore’s cook coming out with a sharp knife to cut them out of their self-imposed bindings.
Then some of the matrons round the table brought up other incidents.
Beatrix and the other ladies her own age sat rather wide-eyed at the things that had gone on.
As there was to be a billiards contest this very night, Beatrix was particularly attentive to a tale of billiards gone wrong many years ago.
It seemed an earl and a marquess had been in competition for the favor of a certain lady who would forever remain unnamed.
She was the diamond of the season and so unerringly courteous that nobody could figure out who she actually favored.
Both of the gentlemen had felt very encouraged, just because she smiled at them equally.
That particular billiards game was to be done blindfolded.
As the two competitors could hear each other’s voices and approximate locations, the match quickly devolved into throwing blows via cue sticks.
Both gentlemen ended very battered and one still carried a scar on his chin.
The lady causing all this left and promptly married a viscount she had favored all along.
“So that is why,” the queen said, “we no longer do blindfolded billiards.”
Lady Dudmore nodded gravely. “Live and learn.”