Chapter 9 #2
The girl grimaced. “I could tell last evening that Mr Wright did not think so. I hardly even notice my aunt and uncle’s scars any longer, but that man certainly did. I cannot abide him. Like a snake, he makes my flesh crawl.”
“Last evening, in an attempt to prove him inferior to you, I fear you may have further piqued Mr Wright’s interest. He probably thinks you are a noble.”
Miss Hughes groaned and covered her face with her palms while Elizabeth rubbed her back.
“Tell me, my friend, have you had a chance to speak to the man’s eldest daughter? For some reason, I seem to have excited Miss Wright’s annoyance or resentment. I cannot imagine how or why.”
“Can you not?” Folding her hands together in her lap, Miss Hughes looked slyly sideways.
Although pleased to see the return of the girl’s dimple, Elizabeth was wary of the smirk upon her lips. “No, I honestly cannot.”
“Two words. The first begins with an ‘M’, the second with ‘D’.”
“My disposition? No? Mere dyspepsia?”
Miss Hughes threw her head back and laughed. “How would I know if Miss Wright suffers from indigestion? You really are a dull elf sometimes, so I shall give you a hint. The ‘M’ is for Mister.”
“Mister ‘D’. Whose name starts with— Oh no. No, no, no.” Gaining her feet, Elizabeth brushed sand from the backside of her gown. “This conversation is over. Come along, my dear Miss Hughes Baker. You promised me a game of backgammon, and I am determined to best you.”
At least Miss Hughes is in better humour now.
“You let me win.” Pouting, Miss Hughes crossed her arms.
“I am not as charitable as you seem to believe. You decidedly won, fair and square.”
“Girls!” cried Miss Baker as she walked through the sitting room doorway with a well-worn book tucked beneath an arm.
“Put away that backgammon and your petty squabble. I have something to show you.” Once the games table was cleared, she set the book upon it.
By Elizabeth’s conjecture, it contained fifty or more sheets of laid paper inside a marbled, card-paper binding.
“Do you remember my telling you about our having many friends in Bath? Well, this is my album amicorum from those years.”
“That sounds like Latin.” Miss Hughes’s demeanour changed from a miff to curiosity as she uncrossed her arms and leant forwards. “What does it mean?”
Miss Baker shrugged. “I simply called it my friendship book, but the album amicorum originated in Germany during the mid-sixteenth century, particularly amongst students moving from one university to another. Such books served as lasting memories of the owner’s friends.
Even looking at mine now brings back pleasant recollections.
” She turned pages, her chubby, jewelled fingers stopping at an illustration in graphite.
“This drawing of The Crescent was done by a frightfully forthright neighbour whose name, coincidentally, was Frank Wagner.
Here is what he wrote to accompany his sketch:
Within its grand and uniform facade,
Lies disparity ’twixt master and maid.
Him above; her below.
’Neath his mask, he’s corrupt and cold.
’Neath her poxed face, a heart of gold.
The author had signed his name, and the entry included the date and location, being Bath.
“Aunt, did you know the corrupt master mentioned in that verse?”
“No, dear. Neither the Wagners nor we Bakers lived anywhere near The Crescent. I assume the master and maid were merely Mr Wagner’s inventions. Now, have a look through the rest while I go and fetch something.”
While she was gone, Elizabeth and Miss Hughes admired the book’s illustrations and laughed at comical ones. In addition to drawings, the collection included dedications, quotations, sentiments, advice, and the like.
“Mary has a commonplace-book for her extracts. But what a grand idea to ask one’s friends to fill a page with whatever they may choose.”
“If you purchase one, I must warn you that my artistic skills are rubbish. I would be mortified to draw in your book, but I should like to have an album amicorum of my own.”
Miss Baker strode in. “I am delighted to hear that, Niece.” She placed upon the table two pocket-sized books with floral covers. “There. One for each of you and both completely blank.”
Enthusiastic in their thanks, Elizabeth and Miss Hughes then spent an hour concocting what to write in one another’s friendship book and then doing so while Miss Baker busily stitched more handkerchiefs.
At Elizabeth’s insistence, they each sketched the pair of them sitting together on the rickety steps to the beach.
“Faces are too difficult, so picture us from the rear, my best side,” she joked.
To her eventual dismay, her friend’s drawing far surpassed her own, but that was not saying much for either of them, and they laughed at their efforts.
Upon entering the sitting room, Mr Baker asked that they share with him whatever jest had just excited such hilarity.
Proudly, they showed him the pages. “Well done, ladies. Although I received no inconsiderable pleasure from your illustrations, what may I ask is the significance of a pair of bonnet-wearing seagulls perched upon a pier?”
The artists protested, and Miss Baker invited her brother to do better, which he did by painting Cliff House facing a colourful sunset over the Bristol Channel, once for his niece’s book and again for her friend’s.
The man certainly had a hidden talent, and Elizabeth was pleased with the first two entries in her album amicorum.
But what might the Darcys and Wrights add to her book, if asked?
She was particularly interested in the possibility of an entry from the master of Strandsmere Park.
What might he be capable of writing or sketching?
Did Mr Darcy even know anything of drawing?
More likely, he would choose to write a paragraph that would be handed down to posterity with all the éclat of a proverb.
Miss Hughes gave her a slight push with her elbow and asked why she was grinning.