The Peculiar Pink Toes of Lady Flora Page 12

  As for this Lady Flora, she certainly had no intention of acquiring another husband to curb her independence again. She'd done her part for this family. Now Francis was in charge, no longer the little boy afraid of his own shadow; Great Aunt Bridget was dead, and all was well with the world.

  With a hearty sigh, she exclaimed, "I have spent the last decade, brother, doing very little of importance, just trying to keep you from getting too big-headed and obnoxious, and having a great deal of shameful, naughty fun whenever I can."

  Francis regarded her in silent skepticism.

  "Probably more fun than a widow is meant to have," she continued, attempting a deeper tone of apology that merely caused another crease in his forehead. "But now I mean to work hard. I shall put my idle ways aside and become a productive member of society."

  "There is only one way a respectable woman can be productive," he muttered. "I'm sure you could find another husband if you tended seriously to the matter. You were considered quite a beauty in your youth—"

  "I was? What a pity I was not in possession of that information at the time."

  "And I have been told, on more than one occasion, that your looks improve even more so with maturity. Only last week George Tarleton, in quite a fever, called you an earthly Aphrodite."

  "Yes, well, certain fellows will say anything when they desire a woman's favor. It is one third nonsense, one third libido and one third port fumes. I'm afraid Georgie Tarleton owes me money from a card game and thinks flattery will help me forget. Nothing brings on a gentleman's fever, quite so much as an excess of port and a loss to his pockets." She sighed again. "Besides, I truly cannot put on that silly, empty face any longer. I've been purely ornamental long enough. Oh, thanks to Great Aunt Bridget's training, I can still hoist everything together into a corset for a few hours, apply powder and perfume, and flirt for England if necessary, but it's far more exhausting now than it used to be. Genuine pleasures, for an old lady like me, are few and far between, much harder won, briefer lasting and desperately soon forgotten. I am, therefore, far less inclined to sacrifice my precious time entertaining other folk."

  "Hmm." Her brother was skeptical. "I hear about your exhausting antics regularly. For an old lady, you still manage to enjoy yourself."

  Clutching one hand to her bosom, she exclaimed, "And how it takes the ballast out of me!" She lowered her voice and looked back over her shoulder, as if she thought the horses might eavesdrop as they followed slowly along. "Certain...parts, brother, have begun to wilt and whither. As I observed to Persey recently, if I do not now find a way to make use of myself and prove I have some actual worth, I might as well throw myself bodily into the Thames." Another quick sigh preceded a meek, upward glance at her frowning brother. "'Tis a pity that you must be the one to identify my remains. I hope you shall not be too moved by the sorrowful task. Not too far driven into depression by the regret of not helping your devoted elder sister when you could."

  "I shouldn't imagine there would be much of you left to identify." He yawned. "Not after the bloating of gases in the corpse and the pecking of scavenging kites at tide's edge."

  Having envisaged a much less gruesome, more romantic scene for her final drama— one that involved an abundance of lilies floating around her Ophelia-like form— Flora was obliged to amend the ending. "Well, then...I might go abroad... and join a nunnery."

  "God help them. I think you'll find the doors barred as soon as they hear you coming."

  Unable to stay somber for long, and catching a gentle softening in her brother's features as he prepared to relent, she laughed and then turned her face up toward the sun. "Yes, I shall be happy here. I knew it at once when I drove by the place. I shouldn't be surprised if Great Aunt Bridget wanted me to find it. She always did work her machinations in... mysterious ways." She gave a grim smile, knowing full well why the old curmudgeon had left her that jewelry. In practical terms it was a fee owed, earned with great suffering and long overdue for payment. For just this once the old lady had decided she'd better pay a bill before her final reckoning. Unlikely as it may seem, she must have felt a thorn of guilt as she prepared to meet her maker. There was also the fact that she would probably not want her beloved jewels put into Sir Roderick's hands. For all her faults, she was a woman who appreciated pretty things and she knew that her great niece was the same. Unlike Sir Roderick, Flora would not immediately turn around and sell those treasures to pay a gambling debt.

  But Francis, who had no idea of his family's dark, scandalous secret and the imposter in their midst, could not understand why the old lady remembered Flora in her will. Neither could her children, who were quite put out, all having hoped that something more might be scraped out of the old lady's barrel at the last minute, only to find those dregs dropped into the cup of the "least deserving" Flora. Before Francis could begin speculating on that subject again, she quickly steered him back to her reason for showing him this place.

  "I need a purpose, brother," she said firmly. "I have been your guest at Wyndham for ten years, since Sir Benjamin died. It's time you were free of me." She gave his arm such a tight squeeze that he winced. "One day soon you will want to marry and then I shall simply be in the way in that house. Like an old, unsightly and cumbersome piece of furniture that has been handed down for many generations, and nobody with a clear conscience can bring themselves to throw it upon the bonfire, merely because it was once poor, unlucky, spinster Cousin Fanny's favorite. Do not let me become an inconvenient piece of family furniture, Francis. A musty heirloom that nobody really wants, hanging about the place. I was useful to you once— I saw you through your most trying years— but now we are so much older and you should have a wife to look after you. Do not force me to become Cousin Fanny's Old Trunk."

  "What? Who? We do not know a Cousin Fanny, do we?"

  "There is usually one such sad soul in every family." She gave a glum shrug. "I suppose in this family it's me."

  Francis was no longer listening. He gazed at the house as if it gave him indigestion. "You cannot live here. I shall worry about you. The place isn't habitable."

  "A few trusty workmen can soon make it secure against the elements. With my widow's jointure I can pay for repairs as needed and then, perhaps, apply to the owner for reimbursement. In time."

  "Repairs." He shook his head. "Might as well knock the place to the ground."

  "They have the summer and autumn before the weather turns inclement. The left wing, for instance— the newer building— still has glass of a sort in most windows."

  "It has no roof, sister."

  "Roof? Of course it has a roof. Look, there." She pointed a defiant finger at the end of a very straight, very determined arm, but before he could say anything, she had swiveled him around to admire the view across the fields again. "Can you not imagine those grapevines, brother, growing lushly? Everything brought back to life?"

  "No," he replied flatly. "Those shriveled sticks are dead, my dear sister. They look rotten and blighted. Like this entire idea of yours."

  "And what do you know about grapevines?"

  "As much as you, to be sure. Flora—" he gravely patted her arm, "— drinking a vast deal of the stuff at every opportunity does not make you an expert on wine."

  She put her nose in the air. "For your information, I once knew a very dear, kind old lady who made many different kinds of wine from flowers, fruits and herbs. I watched how it was done and assisted on occasion. There was a wonderful sense of tranquility, patience and achievement about the entire process. Oh, to see those bottles lined neatly on the shelf with their pretty labels."

  "What old lady was this? When? In Scotland?"

  Flora ignored the question. "And since then, I have studied the matter in thorough detail. Please note, young Francis, that in recent years, Londoners have become the biggest consumers of claret in the entire world. I read about it. I see that expression, sir! Yes, I do read books and newspapers. Just because you were the only one allowed to attend uni
versity, do not imagine I am incapable of study and the retention of facts." With an airy gesture that almost knocked his hat off, she added, "Ever since Samuel Pepys wrote of appreciating Chateau Haut Brion, it has become a drink for more than bishops to enjoy. So, I ask you, young sir, why should this country not produce more of the wine it's people consume?"

  Francis screwed up his face. "Is it not something to do with climate and soil and all that dreadfully tiresome Mother Nature business?"

  But Flora was not one to be vanquished easily. Whenever she had an idea in her head she was determined to make it work. Another family trait, perhaps. If circumstances got in her way, she went around them and over them. No reported fact, law or rule was ever blindly accepted— unless, of course, she wanted to blindly accept it. This same stubbornness led to a considerable disregard for regulations and authority of any sort, as well as a great inquisitiveness which generally got her into trouble eventually.

  But it had also given her the gumption to step into another girl's shoes when she was needed.

  * * * *

  After her rejection of Malgrave's proposal, Lady Flora was confined to her room and fed only pottage for three days. She was finally let out again when her guardians realized that their little "last hope" bird wouldn't sing to attract a mate if she grew thin and ill from lack of food and sunlight.

  Beatings, of course, could still be administered, but only so as not to damage the parts of her that had to be shown off at balls and parties. Her great aunt soon ran out of room for the marks of her cane.

  Finally, at the age of one and twenty, and barely three heart palpitations away from rotting on the shelf— according to Great Aunt Bridget— Flora had been slapped and cornered into a "suitable" marriage. She saw that there was nothing else for it and she had better get it over with. At first she thought Sir Benjamin Hartnell a handsome, lively, mostly amusing fellow. A tendency to buffoonery, but on the whole harmless. He put on a good show during their brief courtship and promised to help her brother restore the crumbling estate of Wyndham.

  Further inducement to marry came in the shape of Francis, who, about to turn seventeen back then, would soon have become a target for the ruthless matrimonial schemes of Lady Manderby and Sir Roderick. She heard them discussing the benefits of an alliance with various "eligible" brides— always putting their own needs and wants before anybody's. Particularly before the happiness of Francis. Flora could not bear to see her shy, nervous little brother bullied into marriage, for he did not have her strength to withstand the blows. By sacrificing herself she could help protect him for a while longer at least. Why else was she still there if not to guard Francis? She could have run away back to Goody Applegate years ago, if not for her fondness of him.

  Hopefully, if she married Sir Benjamin, the family would consider her obligations paid and leave her, and Francis, in peace.

  But soon after the wedding she learned of her husband's true character. The mask came off once he need no longer make an effort. It was drink, she saw now, that made him merry, and there was always a point beyond which the laughter turned to grotesque sneers, slurred accusations and screaming fits of temper. Before they were married she had never been long enough in his company to witness what happened when he imbibed one— or several— too many. As he did most evenings.

  By then Flora was old for a first-time bride, but Sir Benjamin was no spring lamb himself and on his third marriage. He needed a son and heir for he had no children at all and his estate would be lost once he was gone. It was the one thing that bothered him most— his failure to sire issue— yet he blamed his wives and would not allow a soul to suggest that it might be any fault of his. Beneath the laughing, even-tempered, fun-loving surface he showed to society, he proved to be a stupid, greedy, spoiled, self-absorbed man. Flora very soon had cause to know his cruelty too. She suspected that his sudden, violent rages may have cut short the lives of the previous two Lady Hartnells, but this time he made the mistake of choosing a woman too physically vital, too resilient and mentally defiant for his aging grip to handle. The strength of her common stock was a great advantage against his inbred aristocratic feebleness.

  When he discovered that she had managed to arrange for all his tradesmen to be paid in full, organized a wedding for his head chambermaid, and paid for a physician to attend his gardener's sick baby son— all with coin from his tight purse, he was furious.

  "What else was I to do?" she had said, facing him calmly as he slowly imploded. "You give me no money of my own and these people are our responsibility. As are the bills."

  "You do not interfere in the running of my estate," he bellowed, drunkenly throwing a glass at her.

  "I thought that was my purpose here, sir."

  "Your purpose is to have a child, and you won't even do that simple task."

  "If you ever came to my bed sober, functioning, and in any way appealing to my senses, I could have given you one."

  "Why, you little whore!" He had grabbed her by the throat, readying his other fist for her face.

  "By the by," she wheezed, "in two hundred years or less nobody will even know you existed. This estate will be broken up and sold off, passed into the hands of other families and wealthy folk from foreign lands. It will be dug up and built over. There will be nothing left of your name, because you have done nothing for those people worse off than yourself, given no thought to charity and never had a single generous, selfless thought. Kept to yourself, your money will not help you. It is, like breath, meant to be spent in order to live a good life. You will be forgotten. As if you never lived at all. As if you never breathed." How she knew all this she could not say. Perhaps she made it up in that angry spur of the moment and sought some way to cause him as much pain as he caused others.

  He froze, eyes popping, face like a cherry soaked in brandy. Flaming brandy. His hand shook, he loosened his grip on her windpipe and then fell, choking, to the floor beside her bare feet and the shattered glass fragments.

  "It was him or me," she'd whispered to her brother as they stood, a week later, overlooking Sir Benjamin Hartnell's coffin in the ballroom, where he lay in grand, black-shrouded state before his funeral.

  Although she did like to shock Francis from time to time, she knew that he was never completely sure whether she teased. On that occasion, neither was she.

  But it couldn't be all her fault that Sir Benjamin collapsed in a red-faced conniption and never recovered, could it? Considering the way he pickled his liver in drink, this incident was inevitable and overdue, in her opinion.

  Widowhood at the age of twenty-six had opened the door on another new world for Flora. She discovered that many restrictions under which she'd lived as an unmarried maid and then as a married woman, were no longer pertinent to her. Enjoying a certain degree of freedom with her new status, Flora was not only determined to make the most of it, but to ensure that it lasted. Great Aunt Bridget's attempts to marry her off again, after a proper period of "mourning" never bore fruit.

  "I married to please you last time," Flora had declared firmly. "I'm not a girl anymore, but a woman. I shall make my own decisions from now on. And if you lay a finger on me, or Francis now, madam, be sure you'll get more than one back. Remember, I know where the skeletons are buried."

  The old lady argued, "Don't be ridiculous. Everything I have ever done is for your own benefit. Where would you be now if not for us? Following your mother into her trade? A woman like that has no respectability and her status is ever tenuous, her value lasting only as long as her looks. To be well settled in life, you need a husband and issue from a decent marriage! A husband is the only obstacle to sin!"

  "Then I shall avoid another at all costs, for his sake as well as mine."

  "But what else can you do without a husband?"

  "Take to the high seas, if I must, for a life of piracy." She had raised her defiant fist to the plaster cherubs that puffed down at her from the corners of Wyndham's grand, but tired drawing room. "Here I come, to
sin, debauchery and plunder! Splice the main brace!"

  "You are a despicable wretch. There is no hope for you. In a moment of desperation I once took you in, thinking to give you a better life—"

  "And an even better one for yourself."

  "But you've been naught but trouble ever since. You've grown bold and impudent."

  "Yes, once I feared I might be blamed for the deception and I was awed by my grand surroundings. But now I am wiser and I know that you are both just as complicit in the matter, just as liable. I was merely your naive pawn."

  "A disappointment, that's what you were and are."

  "Have you forgot, madam, how my marriage relieved you and your son of debt?"

  "Oh, he promised plenty and gave little. Had you accepted your first offer we could all be a great deal richer. Malgrave would not have been so tight with his purse."

  "Wouldn't you rather be happy, free and poor, than rich, trapped and miserable, madam?"

  "Certainly not. Do you know a poor person who is happy?"

  "Yes. I—"

  "Such simple folk know only an illusion of happiness, because they do not know what it is to be truly rich. A person who has once known the comforts of wealth would never want to be poor again."

  Married twice herself, Great Aunt Bridget had nine surviving offspring, none of whom Flora could tolerate for more than two minutes in the same room. Sir Roderick remained a soul in whom she could discover nothing to admire. Even in later years, when his health declined, she found it difficult to muster much sympathy. He railed viciously at his servants and his mother for any tiny dissatisfaction. But at least, once he became confined to a wicker bath-chair, one need only push him out through a door and close it in order to be rid of him and his criticisms. He claimed not to have the strength to turn a handle and so would sit there cursing and whining until a footman came to let him back in. He always retained the capability, however, to lift a glass of port. As long as it was the very best kind and served in good crystal.