The Bodice Ripper Chapter 8

The Bodice Ripper

Chapter 8

'Who, may I ask, is the poor girl or girls under consideration?' demanded the Countess of Bough, taking from her voluminous skirts a lacy fan and fanning herself vigorously. 'I collect this cannot be a love match.'

'Why, my dear,' said the Earl, 'I think you will be pleased. Really, a most eligible connection if you discount the politics. It is Lady Prudence Pewsey, the only daughter of--.'

'Lady Prudence Pewsey!' shrieked the countess, flapping shut her fan. 'But she's the merest child!'

She bounced up from the settee and began to pace back and forth. 'Oh, it's inhuman! It's infamous! It's a crime! Hewbert, you must be mad. You'd crush her tender spirits. But she'd never have you, so I should be easy.'

'On the contrary,' said Hewbert coldly. 'I have it on the best authority that she is quite fond of me.'

'Best authority? Whose?'

Hewbert coughed.

'Her father's.'

'Oh!' said the countess, sitting down again. 'That means nothing. Fathers believe what they want to believe. What does her mother say, that's what I want to know.'

Hewbert thought back to the night before.

'I do not think she would be opposed to my suit,' he concluded. 'She said we looked very well together.'

'Merciful heavens, what an unnatural parent,' exclaimed the Countess. 'I have always thought well of Hermione, but this goes beyond the pale.'

'Oh, come now,' said her husband, secretly glad the person being abused was Hewbert, not himself. 'Hewbert's not so bad. He has a very good name in the community, especially among the Piskies. Look at all the good he does for the poor. Think of all the indigent slappers who would starve if not for him. He is a man of good family, means, good sense, a spanking new house in Charlotte Square and ... and... a fine singing voice. What more could a girl want, I ask you?'

'A heart,' said Lady Laetitia, fishing in her skirts for a handkerchief. She held it to her dark eyes. 'Hewbert has no heart.'

'I have a heart,' said Hewbert, stung.

'Hewbert has a heart,' said his brother. 'What about those indigent slappers then?'

'Oh, them,' said the Countess with loathing. 'He despises them.'

'Well, I jolly well hope so,' said her husband. 'It would be a deuce of a scandal if he didn't.'

'You know what I mean, Henry. Anyway, have you forgotten the lesson of Clementine?'

There was a sensation.

'What about Clementine?' demanded both men at once.

'Don't look at me like that. You know to what I allude.'

'No, we don't,' lied Henry.

'Fine,' sighed the Countess, getting up. 'Have it your way. Let me know how Hewbert's suit transpires, for if the poor girl is made to accept him, I will have to pay a betrothal call to her mama. For my part I have nothing against the family nor the little girl, but I do believe that if you have any decency, Hewbert, you will look for a mate among the girls already on the shelf, not in the Grunstane schoolroom.'

And with that she swept out the door. Her husband pulled the bell-pull. Mr Adam appeared at once.

'Brandy,' said the Earl. 'A bottle. No, two bottles.'

'Yes, your Lordship.'

Henry mopped his brow and collapsed onto a settee.

'You're a good man, Hewbert. I was never so terrified in all my days. I can't understand how you,who  generally flee like the wind from women, always stand up to Laetitia.'

'Well,' said Hewbert, shrugging. 'She's family. I'm used to her. And speaking of family, it was most particularly of Clementine that I wished to speak to you.'

'Good gad,' said the Earl. 'Don't tell me she's coming home.'

'Heavens, no. It's just that she was just sixteen when she married poor Paisley, and he was ---.'

'Forty-five,' interrupted the Earl. 'I see what you're driving at Hewbert, and I agree it is a consideration. I may not be the most pious of chaps, but dash it all, one does not want to see one's brother poisoned by some chit of a girl. Still, Hewbert, although everybody knows poison is a woman's weapon, I've heard these things run in families, so theoretically it is just as likely that you would poison Lady Prudence as she would poison you.'

'Good heavens,' cried Hewbert. 'Do you think so ill of me as that?

'I said theoretically, man, keep your wig on. But in some ways you are very like Clementine, Hewbert--both of you with your red hair. I'm more of a passive chap myself. Oh, I know I can be gruff, but it's all bluster. Laetitia wouldn't rule the roost if it weren't. I wanted a woman with spirit and by gad I got one--for better and for worse, and usually for worse. As I said, you could do worse than to marry a chit--a chit as unlike Clementine as possible, of course--out of the schoolroom. You can still bend her to your will, and knowing you, you probably will.' 

'It amazes me to discover what my family thinks of my character,' said Hewbert but fell silent as Mr Adam came into the room with two wineglasses and two bottles of brandy on a salver. He did not speak again until Mr Adam had withdrawn. 'I will have to take more trouble over my nightly examination of conscience,' he sighed, taking up a glass. 'Of course, if I were to marry--which frankly I have never considered before, given the obvious evils of such a step--I hope I would conduct myself as a firm guardian of morals and the head of the house as is the natural order of things. But I do not see myself as either a tyrant or a mad poisoner. Anyway, I am not worried about that, I am worried about contracting an alliance with an unwilling woman. Such women have a way of taking revenge, poison or no. I've seen this too many times in my ministry.'

The Earl of Bough took a sip of brandy and wrinkled his brow in thought.

'I'll tell you what, Hewbert,' he said. 'Since Grunstane has already spoken to you about it, I see nothing wrong with you talking to Lady Prudence herself. A girl likes to think she has some say in these matters. So why not drive over now and see what she has to say?'

Hewbert choked on his brandy.

'Me!?'

'Yes, of course, you. Good gad, Hewbert, don't look like that. It staggers me how you can give Laetitia what-for and then, when I suggest you talk to some tadpole of a schoolroom miss, you look like a rabbit.'

'But I wouldn't know what to say.'

'So much for your fancy Oxford education,' said the Earl drily.

'What did you say to Laetitia?'

'Oh,' said the Earl. 'Let's see. I was a bit bosky at the time. I think I said "How about it?" and she said, "How about what?", and I said, "You and me, spliced for life", and she said, "You must be mad" but giggled, so I poked her, and she slapped me, and I grabbed her, and Bob's your uncle.'

'Good heavens,' said Hewbert revolted. 'You don't expect me to go over there and poke Lady Prudence?'

'No, of course not,' said the Earl. 'This was at the current Duke of Paisley's ball. You can't poke a girl in her own sitting-room. You have to consider the context.'

'Oh dear,' said his brother sadly. 'I am afraid I will muff this up. Maybe it would be better if Charles asked her on my behalf.'

'Good gad,' cried the Earl. 'That any blood of mine should be so lily-livered! Imagine if she were Laetitia  with me, driven to bankruptcy and dead, and her a widow with only marriage to you to keep her and the boys from the poorhouse. Now what would you say?'

'What a terrible thought, Henry. It goes against law, religion and decency, and besides I'd rather die.

'I know that. Use your imagination, man. Come on.'

Hewbert knit his fiery brows and frowned.

'Well, I suppose I would say, "Madam, there is no help for it. It was the sovereign wish of my late brother, your late husband, that I offer you my hand and heart and the protection of my name. Bearing as I do an undying and dutiful fraternal love for my poor brother, I can do nothing less than ask you to do me the signal honour of becoming my wife".'

'Not bad,' said the Earl. 'Masterful. Sub in Grunstane for me, and say something about her looks. Young girls like that.'

'Ehm,' said Hewbert tentatively. 'What about this? "Madam, it is the sovereign wish of my dear friend, your father, that I offer you my hand and heart and the protection of my name. Bearing as I do the greatest esteem for your noble family and confident that you are the most beautiful woman of my acquaintance, I can do nothing less than ask you to do me the signal honor of becoming my wife".'

There was a pause.

'You know,' said Henry, 'for some reason that one falls rather flat.'

Hewbert sighed.

'The "most beautiful woman" part is good though,' said the Earl hurriedly. 'I'm sure you will do fine.'

'I will think about it in my carriage,' said Hewbert, putting down his glass. 'I will go right away befre I lose my nerve.'

'Good man,' said his brother, getting up. 'I'm sure you will carry the field. After all, perhaps the girl really is fond of you and--after all--how many other men does she know, eh?'

The sun shone boldly down upon Scotland, drying the grass as the Honourable and Reverend Mr Robinson's fine carriage trundled southward from Leith to Grunstane House. Its occupant went over his speech again and again all while trying to suppress the butterflies that had seemingly colonized his stomach.

This colony all tried to escape his clerical rib-cage at once when the carriage had gone up the hill and through the woods and the green fields surrounding Grunstane House burst into view. Looking out the window, Hewbert saw a flash as orange as his eyebrows, and then another chasing it: two fine Irish setters playing on the grass. And suddenly behind them came running the most beautiful vision Hewbert had ever beheld: a slim young lady clad in a blue day dress, her long chestnut hair billowing behind her in the breeze as she ran as swiftly and merrily as the Grunstane burn. It was Lady Prudence, and her blue eyes sparkled with glee.