The Girls Enter the Chat
By the time they reached Hampstead Heath, which Archie deemed a suitable landmark for the official opening of Earls Trip 1821, he had recovered himself. On the way out of Town on an Earls Trip, he generally looked for a marker to signify that they were well and truly out of London, with its too-close buildings and too-close people. He liked to observe a ceremonial passing from Town to country, from responsibility to respite, and this year the marking of such felt particularly hard-won.
He cleared his throat. “If I may have your attention?”
“Oh, I’m meant to be the one doing this, aren’t I?” Effie said as he lowered his diary. It was true that they traded hosting duties among them, and that this was Effie’s year. In practice that meant that Effie had chosen the castle in Cumbria awaiting them on the other end of their journey and thought no further about anything.
“It’s quite all right,” Archie said. He enjoyed this part. The jesting formality of “the rules” always amused him, but this year in particular it was a welcome ritual, and he was glad to be the one performing it. He needed to feel useful. He uncorked a bottle of brandy, passed out glasses, and carefully splashed a bit of the ruby liquid into each, which was as much as he dared given the lumbering of the coach.
When he lifted his glass, the others followed suit.
“Gentlemen. Welcome to Earls Trip. Allow me to remind you of the rules. Perhaps this year you numbskulls will actually get them through your heads. Number one: every time Marsden says the word ‘Parliament,’ he must down a dram of whisky. Number two: Featherfinch is strictly prohibited from writing poems, unless they are naughty ones. And should you be harboring any concerns that I fancy myself above the law, we come round to number three: Harcourt is not permitted to shoot anything. Alas.”
Harcourt is not permitted to shoot anything that you know about, he amended silently, thinking fondly of the fowling piece he had hidden in his trunk.
“The rules established,” he continued, “I’m so very glad to—”
A surge of sentiment rose through Archie’s chest and lodged in his windpipe, preventing him from finishing his sentence. It ought to have been mortifying, but no one seemed to notice. Effie merely said, “I am, too,” and Simon said, “Likewise.”
They knew Archie’s true feelings without him needing to put them to words. He cleared his throat and in so doing dissolved the lump caught there. He raised his brandy. “And, finally, the most important rule of Earls Trip—”
The coach lurched to a stop, and though Archie had taken care not to overfill their glasses, all were upended. Effie cursed the sight of the ruby stain sullying his cravat, which was a snow-white beacon against his otherwise black attire, whereas Simon merely blotted a spot that was invisible against his dark brown coat.
Simon peered out the window. “What is it, I wonder?”
“Do you think it’s highwaymen?” Effie asked with entirely too much excitement in his tone, his cravat forgotten.
“’Tis a rider, my lord,” their driver called. “He’s hailing us.”
“Dear Lord,isit a highwayman?” Simon asked.
“I don’t believe highwaymen generally warn their marks ahead of time,” Archie said, opening the door and alighting. Sure enough, a rider approached. Archie had the sense he knew the man but couldn’t place him.
“My lord.” The man bowed his head. “I bear a message from Sir Albert Morgan.”
Ah, yes. Archie recognized the liveried messenger as a servant from the household of Sir Albert. The Morgans had a house in Chiddington near Mollybrook, Archie’s family’s estate in western Kent. These days the Morgans spent most of their time in London, so Archie, who spent most ofhistime at Mollybrook, never saw them anymore. But Sir Albert and Archie’s late father, the former earl, had been fast friends, and for many years when Archie was young, the two families had moved in the same circles in local society. Well,mostof the Morgans had moved in those society circles. One of them had been too . . . untamed for that. He quirked a grin, remembering his old friend.
In fact, curiosity about her—in addition to embarrassment over the piss-poor job he’d done keeping up with what had once been his father’s closest friendship—had prompted Archie to call on Sir Albert that very morning, but the man had been out. To Archie’s discredit, he had not seen the Morgans in any meaningful fashion for years, and he had recently learned that Sir Albert was quite ill with the gout. Archie himself had never been particularly close to Sir Albert, or, to be honest, particularly fond of him, but that didn’t excuse his having let so much time go by without calling on him. They were geographically mismatched these days, but that was no excuse. Could he have not have called on them once when he was in town for a crucial vote in Lords?
“Is everything all right?” he asked, unable to imagine why Sir Albert would send a rider after him.
The rider handed him a letter. “Sir Albert bade me try to overtake you.”
With a rising tide of unease in his belly, Archie broke Sir Albert’s green wax seal.
My dear boy,
You can’t imagine the relief—the hope—that seized me when I returned home to find your note. That you should be not only in Town, but Cumbria-bound! It seemed positively providential.
I shall get straight to the point, for I know I can trust you to be discreet. Olive has run off with a man named Theodore Bull. Mr. Bull was recently betrothed to Clementine, and all of us, including Clementine, were shaken to our cores this morning to discover a note from Olive proclaiming that she and Mr. Bull were Scotland-bound.
Dear God. Archie had to look away from the parchment for a moment to gather himself, to give his stomach time to reintegrate into the rest of his corporeal form. Olive Morgan was like a sister to him. Clementine Morgan was . . . Clementine. He felt anew the chagrin of having let his connection with the family grow stale.
“What is it?” Effie asked urgently. He and Simon had disembarked the coach.
Archie waved a hand dismissively and returned to his letter.
Mr. Bull is a writer, a philosopher with what might charitably be called modern views. To put it less charitably, and more plainly, he is odious. Smug and self-impressed and in possession of extreme views he is determined to foist upon everyone else. After an initial vogue for the man among certain members of the Upper Ten Thousand, today he is hardly received. Clementine was entranced by his work and professed not to care when he fell out of fashion. When he asked for her hand, I swallowed my distaste and gave my assent. You will perhaps recall how despite one’s best attempts, Clementine will do what Clementine will do.
