CHAPTER SEVEN
Elizabeth did not encounter Mr Escott for the better part of a week, although whether through good fortune or some indisposition on his part she did not know.
However, she returned from an afternoon with Amelia at the Royal Academy exhibition to find Lady Farncombe paying a morning call upon her aunt.
Lady Farncombe had been regaling Lady Chalford with a litany of her ills, which all fell just short of preventing her attending all the most interesting social functions.
Lady Chalford greeted her daughter and niece as if they were a relief force.
‘Amelia dearest, and Elizabeth too. What did you think to the exhibition? Lady Farncombe has been telling me that her son Gregory has been three times already, because there he thinks that one of the paintings will inspire him.’
‘Oh, which one, ma’am?’ Amelia enquired innocently.
‘Yes, well, I am sure we all appreciate the arts,’ Lady Chalford declared bracingly, and cast Elizabeth a very swift but warning glance.
‘Poor Gregory has put himself into solitude this week, because he said he needed to prepare himself. I am not entirely sure what he is preparing himself for, but I assume it is some great epic piece. Only this morning he emerged, and declared that he would come with me to Lady Chesham’s ball, so it must be going well.
’ Lady Farncombe sighed with maternal relief and pride.
Elizabeth said not a word, but her heart sank. She had a horrible feeling that she knew exactly why Mr Escott was ‘preparing himself’. It was not something she could reveal even to Amelia.
She dressed for the ball with a distracted air that had Ditcham accuse her of wool-gathering, being uncharacteristically indecisive over her choice of gown and jewels.
Her plan was actually quite simple. She would not dance at Lady Chesham’s ball, upon the pretext of a strained foot.
This would enable her to keep out of the way, and if Mr Escott was determined to press his suit upon her, he might do so away from the dance floor and public gaze.
She would let him say his piece, or as much as made his intentions clear, and then she would crush him, once and for all.
She had no compunction about doing so, since he had not considered her or her feelings for one second, and 91was self-obsessed.
Nor had she any fear of failure, though she admitted his carapace of self-delusion was thick.
By the time she had derided his verse and his character, she thought he might be guaranteed to loathe her, and this torment would be at an end.
In this determined, if not warlike, frame of mind, she prepared for the evening.
Lady Chesham’s ball was clearly going to go down as a veritable squeeze, and be accounted a great success, though the evening was warm, and the ladies’ fans were practical rather than merely decorative.
Helen Godmanchester had qualms about attending at all, but feared that crying off entirely would have her husband determined to whisk her back to Northamptonshire immediately, when she would, at the very least, dearly like to remain in London for a few more weeks.
She thought it prudent to advise him that she wished to make little more than an appearance, and perhaps speak to a few friends, and would then slip home, freeing him, she said with a smile, to go to his club without any feeling of guilt.
He had to acknowledge that since she had announced her condition, he had been in close attendance, like a watchful guard dog.
She found it touching rather than constricting, but regretted that he was giving up his own pleasures.
They arrived just after the Chalford party, and so she had no difficulty in finding her friend.
‘You will not mind if I drag you from the dancing for just a few minutes, Elizabeth? The night is too sultry, and I have told Godmanchester that I will retire very early. This heat saps my energy.’
92‘Indeed it must. It is so oppressive I might hope for a thunderstorm, though it will inevitably mean a sleepless night.’
‘You dislike them so much?’
‘I do not enjoy them particularly, but Amelia is terrified by them, and will most certainly be in my bedchamber and seeking refuge beneath my counterpane with the first distant rumble.’ She shook her head in mock sorrow. ‘Amelia would make a poor gun dog. I think she would be gun-shy.’
They laughed and went to sit in an alcove where an open window gave a whisper of fresher air. Elizabeth exhibited a slight limp as she did so.
‘Oh Elizabeth, what have you done?’
‘Shh, Helen, nothing of import. If asked about, it is merely a slight strain. In fact, it is nothing at all, but I wish to keep out of the way this evening, and the dance floor would be dangerously public.’
She explained the situation to her friend, who entered into her sympathies far more than Elizabeth had expected.
‘Foolish boy. He is living in some bubble of his own invention, and you are quite right, he would have no compunction about making a declaration somewhere totally inappropriate.’
‘Any declaration would be inappropriate.’
‘Yes, but you know what I mean. How vexatious! And you would, I am sure, have enjoyed dancing. Why is it that young men remain so juvenile for so long? I declare Mr Escott has no more awareness of others than my darling George, but he, sweet lamb, has the excuse of being not yet three.’
93‘I think,’ said Elizabeth, with a look of mock seriousness, ‘I would prefer an offer from George.’
Helen Godmanchester giggled, and whispered, ‘Yes, but he would be offering you the chance to build him a tower of blocks.’
‘Even more reason to accept, then.’
The two ladies enjoyed a very light-hearted conversation before Lady Godmanchester was discovered by a lady with whom she had been at school, and Elizabeth moved away, rather more at ease than when she had arrived.
This even extended to her walking less stiffly.
Sir Lucius Radstock, talking to Lady Cowper, caught sight of her, and his eyes narrowed for a second.
Mr Escott arrived quite late, having been assailed by the opening lines of a sonnet whilst engaged in tying his neckcloth, and then being rendered incapable of mere physical activity until the first iambic pentameters had evolved to his satisfaction.
He was polite but vague to his hostess, but since that was his normal manner, she was in no way offended.
In seeking out Miss Ashling he was more than usually focused, though she thought she might have led him a merry dance through the salons had she so wished.
Instead, she stood her ground and waited.
He approached with a fervent crease to his pale brow, and one lock of sandy gold hair ‘fallen’, after much coaxing, in just the correct manner to look tidy yet disturbed by poetic agitation.
He made her a brief bow, already speaking as he did so.
‘You received my Offering, and you await me in 94Anticipation. Behold your Slave, who yet demands your Attention.’
Elizabeth schooled her features into calm disdain, though she already felt the urge to slap him.
‘I have never been in favour of slavery, Mr Escott, and I am not one to accede to “demands”. However, if you have private matters to discuss with me, it would be preferable that we speak in less public surroundings. I believe Lady Chesham has left doors open onto the rear terrace, with it being so warm.’
‘Then let me lead you, as Orpheus did Eurydice from the Depths, to the terrace forthwith.’
‘That analogy, Mr Escott, is neither complimentary to Lady Chesham’s ball, nor likely to inspire me with confidence, since Eurydice did not escape Hades.’
He offered her his arm, and she took it, though she tensed, seeing Lady Rendlesham gazing at them with a far from pleasant smile upon her lips.
As they passed her she nodded, graciously, and murmured, ‘Mr Escott, Miss Ashling. What a delightful couple you make, a contrast of light and dark. I do declare even I might be tempted to write lines upon such a vision.’ She gave a tittering laugh and turned away.
Elizabeth had no doubt that anything that occurred to Aurelia Rendlesham would be waspish.
The terrace was cooler, and the lanterns hung about it did not bathe it in so much light that a couple might not find somewhere in at least slight shadow.
Elizabeth hoped most sincerely that none had seen her departure and assumed it a tryst of her choosing.
Thankfully, it was also not so late as to have attracted any other couples.
She steered her escort to the alcove to the right of the doorway, thinking 95most would look to the terrace end for an assignation.
‘Mr Escott, your letter, and the information contained—’
‘You understand. It is Pointless for me to repress my Feelings. A Poet is Feelings, and above All things I am a Poet. You must See how much I need your Inspiring Presence at my Side to fuel my Verses. I Need you as a Fish needs water.’
Elizabeth had a mental image of him flapping about like a landed fish. ‘Sir, your interest in me is, I assure you, transitory, and nothing could be less likely to bring either of us happiness than … Mr Escott, get up, sir!’
He had gone down on one knee, and was looking up at her in a manner reminiscent of the Honourable James Ashling’s favourite spaniel. ‘My Muse, my Goddess, you will not fail me.’
‘You are living in a bubble of your own devising.’ Elizabeth unconsciously echoed her friend’s words. ‘There is absolutely no reason why I should be even tempted to accept an offer from you, assuming that is what you are about to waste your breath upon, and …’
He looked, for a moment, stunned, then confused, and then simply disbelieving. She could not be trying to refuse him. That was an impossibility. He grabbed her hand.
‘Miss Ashling … Elizabeth … You cannot mean …’ He attempted to press kisses upon her wrist as she drew her hand back, sharply.