Chapter 13 #2
Across from them, Benedict Tolliver – who had spent the better part of the first course scowling over his soup and had already torn his bread roll in half with unnecessary violence – shoved his chair back with such violence that the furniture groaned in protest. “You cannot be serious, Mother.”
“I am always serious,” said Lady Tolliver.
“The scandal has reached a fever pitch. I have it on excellent authority that even the fishmonger in Hanover Square has taken to offering knowing bows. When the purveyors of haddock are in possession of your secrets, I should say it is time for swift and decisive action. Do you wish your sister’s offspring to arrive beneath a fog of whispered speculation and disgrace? ”
“I am not with child!” Hetty exclaimed, nearly overturning her glass.
“Not yet,” her mother returned crisply, “but one must prepare for these eventualities. The Tolliver name is not so robust that it can survive prolonged scandal and unsanctioned public affection. ”
Aunt Celeste Fairfax – who was identical in appearance to Aunt Belinda, though she insisted she was the elder by three minutes and infinitely superior in all other respects – lowered her spoon with exquisite precision and turned a smile of glacial sweetness upon her younger sister and hostess.
“My dear,” she began in tones dripping with judgement, “this does seem rather precipitous. A wedding arranged within the week? With a special licence, no less? One might almost suspect haste borne of desperation.”
“Nonsense,” Lady Tolliver replied. “They are betrothed, are they not? They are besotted, and they kissed in a hedge for all the world to see. I daresay vows are the only reasonable next step.”
“It was not in a hedge,” Hetty muttered.
“The hedge was merely adjacent, if the gossip columns are to be believed,” Georgie offered helpfully.
“Yes, well, I ought to have perished in that hedge,” Hetty retorted.
“Must we persist in hedge-based commentary?” Theo said lightly. “Had I known one errant kiss would result in a special licence, I should have taken my chances in the rose garden – or the scullery.”
At this, Aunt Belinda gave a tipsy giggle, while Aunt Celeste tsked and raised a brow.
“This is absurd,” Hetty said suddenly, rising from her seat. “Mama, Lady Langley, I must speak plainly. There is no engagement. There has never been an engagement.I merely wished for a touch of scandal – sufficient to remove myself from the marriage mart’s tiresome parade.”
There was a delicate clatter as someone set down a spoon.
“You are not engaged?” Aunt Belinda inquired faintly .
“You mean to say,” said Cousin Edwina, adjusting her turban with tragic solemnity, “that this entire household has been living beneath an illusion?”
Lady Tolliver straightened as though bracing against cannon fire. “There most certainly is an engagement.”
“I suppose there was an engagement, Mama,” Hetty said with a sigh, resuming her seat.
“But it was a temporary understanding only – a contrivance, agreed upon by Lord Langley and myself, and never intended to reach the altar. We had planned to dissolve the matter quietly before the end of the Season.”
Lady Tolliver’s hand went, somewhat theatrically, to her throat. “You might have warned me,” she whispered, as though Hetty had snatched the pearls from her very neck.
Uncle Alfred, who had thus far been enjoying his pudding in oblivious silence, looked up in vague alarm. “What’s this? No engagement?”
Theo offered a shrug. “Well, no. But I daresay it has been rather a lively few weeks. Good entertainment all round.”
Lottie stifled a laugh behind her napkin.
Benedict’s knife halted mid-cut. Slowly, deliberately, he placed it down and turned to face Theo. “So you kissed her beside the hedges,” he said, “with no intention of marrying her?”
“Good heavens, no,” Theo replied calmly. “It was under the wisteria, leaning against a column, if you must know. And truly, if I were expected to marry every woman I’ve kissed, I should be saddled with a rather alarming number of wives by now, and most of them quite cross with one another. ”
Benedict leant across the table. “You find this amusing, do you, Langley?”
“I find, sir,” Theo said coolly, lifting his glass once more, “that your sister is more than equal to the task of conducting her own affairs – particularly those which exist solely in the imagination of our assembled company.”
Lady Langley, who had hitherto remained composed behind her crystal goblet, lowered it slowly and addressed the assembly in a tone that required no elevation to command attention.
“Regardless of the original nature of this arrangement, there has been a public declaration. There has been a kiss – most indiscreet, in full view of hedges, wisteria, columns, and, more pertinently, half of Mayfair. Society has formed its conclusions. It shall not be persuaded otherwise by belated protests or girlish theatrics. The engagement, whether born of affection or artifice, now bears the stamp of expectation. And Society,” she added, her voice dropping with weighty precision, “has no greater abhorrence than a promise unfulfilled.” She placed her glass upon the tablecloth with quiet finality.
“The matter is settled. The wedding shall proceed. You shall marry my son on Thursday morning, Miss Tolliver, whether you should like it or not.”
There was a long silence, and Lady Tolliver, apparently mistaking the pause for assent, gave a radiant nod and lifted her glass as though to toast the match.
Hetty rose, and slowly drew herself to her full height, lifting her chin with all the hauteur of a duchess addressing her inferiors.
She looked to Lady Langley with unflinching resolve.
“With all due respect, my lady, I should not care to wed any gentleman. And certainly not one whom I would sooner run through with my sister’s pistol than take as my lawful husband. ”
There was a stunned beat of silence as Lady Langley blinked in shocked outrage, before Nell cried out, “My duck has feet!” and hoisting her napkin creature aloft.
It promptly caught fire from the nearest candelabrum and transformed into a blazing comet arching through the air towards the tureen of peas.
What followed was not so much disorder as a magnificent unravelling of civility.
Lady Tolliver gave a most impressive shriek.
In an effort to rise, she missed her footing and stumbled backwards, directly into the sideboard where the trifle had been arranged.
She collapsed amidst the syllabus and sponge, her emerald gown, jewels and all now covered in raspberry cream.
Georgie, with all the grace of a startled fawn, likewise sprang to her feet, sending the tureen of minted peas flying across the table.
They struck Mortimer squarely in the face, which appeared to complete whatever spell Georgie had cast. He gave a sound not unlike a strangled heifer and, clutching at his face, flung himself beneath the tablecloth, wailing incoherently.
Lottie seized the nearest water jug and hurled its contents at the flaming napkin, missing it entirely. The water arced through the air and landed with a tremendous splash upon the centrepiece, extinguishing the candles, drowning the lilies and baptising Aunt Belinda’s coiffure.
“Not again!” wailed Aunt Belinda, rising from her seat and clutching at her wig, which, now sodden and askew, bore a distinct resemblance to a startled ferret .
The flaming napkin, having completed its brief but illustrious career atop the table, tumbled to the floor.
Theo attempted to stamp it out with one booted foot, though he very nearly set fire to the hem of his coat in the process.
Uncle John, in a display of rare initiative, flung his wine upon the blaze, but succeeded only in baptising the curtains, which darkened but, blessedly, did not ignite.
Cousin Edwina, seated beneath the drenched drapery, erupted into a violent fit of coughing just as her turban began to unwind, the layers of silk unspooling like a snake disturbed in its sleep.
Hetty, frozen at the epicentre of the disaster, could do naught but watch as her family dissolved into a tableau of flailing limbs, shrieks of alarm and ill-timed heroics.
Her youngest sister was now aloft upon a dining chair, flapping her arms and yelling, “Quack! Quack! The duck is free! The duck is flying!”
The napkin, very much not flying, was now a charred pile of linen ashes beneath Theo’s boots and smouldering trousers. Through it all, Lord Tolliver had remained seated, watching in good cheer as though entirely satisfied with the fruits of his household’s peculiar brand of hospitality.
Lady Langley rose with stately composure and turned to a wide-eyed, hovering footman, “Kindly have the carriage brought round. And the brandy tray.” She paused, then added with an imperious lift of one brow, “At once.”
Aunt Celeste with her gown pristine but her expression positively volcanic, was fanning herself. “This is what comes,” she declared to no one in particular, “of allowing dinner guests to dabble in napkin origami. ”
At the lower end of the table, a mound of crushed trifle heaved softly.
Lady Tolliver, still swathed in raspberry preserves, pushed herself upright with a custard-slicked hand.
“Henrietta Anne Tolliver. You will remove yourself from this dining room at once. Do not address me. Do not meet my eye. And Heaven preserve us both, do not utter a single syllable, lest I forget my breeding and take aim with the soup tureen.” With a glance so glacial it might have silenced a riot, she turned to the nearest footman.
“A cloth, if you please. And spirits… brandy, laudanum, or holy water, I care not which. And if another soul in this house sets so much as a serviette alight, I shall summon a priest and have the lot of you exorcised!”
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