The Women of Nell Gwynne's (7 page)

"Mamma, the kind man has put out his arm for you," said Maude. Mrs. Corvey pretended to grope, located the coachman's arm and allowed herself to be helped down from the coach.

"So very kind!" she murmured, and stood there feeling about in her purse while the other ladies were assisted into Basmond High Street, and their trunks lifted down. Temporarily anonymous and respectable, they stood all together outside the Basmond Arms, regarded with mild interest by passers-by. At length the publican ventured out and inquired whether he might be of service.

"Thank you, good man, but his lordship is sending a carriage to meet us," said Mrs. Corvey, just as Jane pointed and cried, "Oooh, look at the lovely barouche!" The publican, having by this time noticed their paint and the general style of their attire, narrowed his eyes and stepped back.

"Party for the Hall?" inquired the grinning driver. He pulled up before the public house. "Scramble up, girls!"

Muttering, the publican turned and went back indoors as the ladies approached the carriage. The driver jumped down, loaded on their trunks and sprang back into his seat. "How about the redhead sits beside me?" said the driver, with a leer.

"How about you give us a hand up like a gentleman, duckie?" retorted Maude.

"Say no more." The driver obliged by giving them each rather more than a hand up, after which Maude obligingly settled beside him and submitted herself to a kiss, a series of pinches and a brief covert exploration of her ankle. Lady Beatrice, observing this, fingered her pistol-locket thoughtfully, but Maude seemed equal to defending herself.

"Naughty boy!" said Maude, giving the driver an openly intimate fondle in return. The driver blushed and sat straight. He shook the reins and the carriage moved off along the high street, running a gauntlet of disgusted looks from such townsfolk as happened to be lounging on their front steps or leaning over their garden walls.

"My gracious, they ain't quite a friendly lot here, are they?" Maude inquired pertly, in rather coarser accents than was her wont. "Doesn't his lordship have working girls to call very often?"

"You're the first," said the driver, who had recovered a little of his composure. Looking over his shoulder to be certain they had passed the last of the houses, he slipped his arm around Maude's waist.

"The first! And here we thought he was a right sporting buck, didn't we, girls? What's your name, by-the-bye?"

"Ralph, miss—I mean—my dear."

"Well, you're a handsome chap, Ralph, and I'm sure we'll get on." Maude leaned into his arm. "So his lordship ain't a bit of an exquisite, I hope? Seems a bit funny him hiring us on if he is."

Ralph guffawed. "Not from what I heard. He ain't no sporting buck, but he did get a girl with child when he was at Cambridge. Sent her back here to wait it out, but the little thing died in any case."

"What, the girl?"

"No! The baby. It wasn't right. His lordship's been more careful since, I reckon."

"Well, what's he want with us, then?" Maude reached up and stroked Ralph's cheek, tracing a line with her fingertip down to his collar. "A big stout man like you, I know
you
know what to do with a girl. His lordship don't fancy funny games?"

"I reckon you're for his party," said Ralph, shivering. "For the guests."

"Oooh! We likes parties, girls, don't we?" Maude looked over her shoulder. As she looked back Ralph grabbed her chin and gave her a violent kiss of some length, until Jane was obliged to tell him rather sharply to mind the horse.

"It's all right," said Maude, surfacing for air with a gasp. "Look here, girls, I've taken such a fancy to our dear friend Ralph, would you ever mind very much if we pulled up a moment?"

"Please yourself," said Mrs. Corvey. The carriage happened to be proceeding down a long private drive along an aisle of trees at that moment, and Ralph steered the carriage to one side before taking Maude's hand and leaping down. They disappeared into the shrubbery. Lady Beatrice looked at Mrs. Corvey and raised an eyebrow in inquiry. Mrs. Corvey shrugged. "Helps to have friends and allies, doesn't it?" she said.

"Is that Basmond Hall?" Dora stood and peered up the aisle at a gray bulk of masonry just visible on a low hill beyond rhododendrons. Mrs. Corvey glanced once toward the shrubbery and, removing her goggles a moment, extended her optics for a closer look at the building.

"That would be it," she said, replacing her goggles. "Historic place. Dates back to the Normans and such."

"An old family, then," said Lady Beatrice.

"And his lordship the last of them," said Mrs. Corvey. "Interesting, isn't it? I do wonder what sort of fellow he is."

In due course Maude and Ralph emerged from the bushes, rather breathless. Ralph swept Maude up on the seat with markedly more gallantry than before, jumping up beside her bright-eyed.

"Had a nice rattle, did you?" inquired Mrs. Corvey. Ralph ducked his head sheepishly, but Maude patted his arm in a proprietary way.

"He's a jolly big chap, dear Ralph is. But we shan't mention our little tumble to his lordship, shall we? Wouldn't want you to lose your place, Ralph dear."

"No, ma'am," said Ralph. "Very kind of you, I'm sure."

They proceeded up the drive and beheld Basmond Hall in all its gloomy splendor. If Lord Basmond had given home improvement as his reason for borrowing money, it was certainly a plausible excuse; for the Hall was an ancient motte and bailey of flints, half-buried under a thick growth of ivy. No Tudor-era Rawdons had enlarged it with half-timbering and windows; no Georgian Rawdons had given it any Palladian grace or statues. Nor did it seem now that the Rawdon of the present age had any intention of making the place over into respectable Gothic Revival; there was no sign that so much as a few pounds had been spent to repoint the masonry.

Ralph drove the carriage up the slope, over the crumbling causeway that had replaced the drawbridge, and so under the portcullis into the courtyard.

"How positively medieval," observed Dora.

"And a bit awkward to get out of, if one had to," murmured Mrs. Corvey under her breath. "Caution is called for, ladies."

Lady Beatrice nodded. It all looked like an illustration from one of her schoolbooks, or perhaps
Ivanhoe;
the courtyard scattered with straw, the stables under the lowering wall, the covered well, the Hall with its steep-pitched roof and the squat castle behind it. All it wanted was a churl polishing armor on a bench.

Instead, a black-suited butler emerged from the great-front door and gestured frantically at Ralph. "Take them to the trade entrance!"

Ralph shrugged and drove the wagon around to a small door at the rear of the Hall. Here he stopped and helped the ladies down as grandly as any knight-errant, while the butler popped out of the trade door and stood there wringing his hands in detestation.

"Here you go, Pilkins," said Ralph. "Fresh-delivered roses!"

Pilkins shooed them inside and they found themselves in the back-entryway to the kitchens, amid crates of wines and delicacies ordered from some of the finest shops in London. Some two or three parlormaids were peering around a door frame at them, only to be ordered away in a hoarse bawl by the cook, who came and stared.

"I never thought I'd see the day," she said, shaking her head grimly. "Common whores in Lord Basmond's very house!"

"I beg your pardon," said Mrs. Corvey, tapping her cane sharply on the flagstones. "Very high-priced
and
quality whores, ordered special, and my girls would be obliged to you for a nice cup of tea after such a long journey, I'm sure."

"Fetch them something, Mrs. Duncan," said Pilkins. Pursing his mouth, he turned to Mri.Corvey. "I assume you are their...proprietress, madam?"

"That's right," said Mrs. Corvey. "And am in charge of their finances as well. We was promised a goodly sum for this occasion, and I'm sure his lordship won't be so mean as to renege."

"His lordship will, in fact, be here presently to see whether your—your girls—are satisfactory," said Pilkins, his elocution a little hampered by the difficulty he had unpursing his lips.

"Of course they're satisfactory! Girls, drop your cloaks," said Mrs. Corvey.

They obeyed her. The plain gray traveling gear fell away to reveal the ladies in all their finery. Lady Beatrice wore her customary scarlet, and the Devere sisters had affected jewel tones: Maude in emerald green, Jane in royal blue, and Dora in golden yellow satin. The effect of such voluptuous color in such a drab chamber was breathtaking and a little barbaric. Pilkins, for one, found himself recalling certain verses of Scripture. To his horror, he became aware that his manhood was asserting itself.

"If that ain't what his lordship ordered, I'm sure I don't know what is," said Mrs. Corvey. Pilkins was unable to reply, for several reasons that need not be given here, and in the poignant silence that followed they heard footsteps hurrying down the stairs and along the corridor.

"Are those the whores?" cried an impatient voice. Arthur Rawdon, Lord Basmond, entered the room.

"None other," said Mrs. Corvey. Lord Basmond halted involuntarily, with a gasp of astonishment upon seeing them.

"By God! I'm getting my money's worth, at least!"

"I should hope so. My girls are very much in demand, you know," said Mrs. Corvey. "And they don't do the commoner sort of customer."

"Ah." Lord Basmond gawked at her. "Blind. And you would be their..."

"Procuress, my lord."

"Yes." Lord Basmond rubbed his hands together as he walked slowly round the ladies, who obligingly struck attitudes of refined invitation. "Yes, well. They're not poxed, I hope?"

"If you was at all familiar with my establishment, sir, you would know how baseless any allegations of the sort must be," said Mrs. Corvey. "Only look, my lord! Bloom of youth, pink of health, and not so much as a crablouse between the four of 'em."

"We'd be happy to give his lordship a closer look at the goods," said Dora, fingering her buttons suggestively. "What about a nice roll between the sheets before tea, dear, eh?" But Lord Basmond backed away from her.

"No! No thank you. Y-you must be fresh for my guests. Have they been told about the banquet?"

"Not yet, my lord," said Pilkins, blotting sweat from his face with a handkerchief.

"Well, tell them! Get them into their costumes and rehearse them! The business must proceed perfectly, do you understand?"

"Yes, my lord."

"And where are my girls to lodge, your lordship?" Mrs. Corvey inquired. Lord Basmond, who had turned as though to depart, halted with an air of astonishment.

"Lodge? Er—I assume they will lie with the guests."

"I ain't, however," said Mrs. Corvey. "And do require a decent place to sleep and wash, you know."

"I suppose so," said Lord Basmond. "Well then. Hem. We'll just have a bed made up for you in...erm..." He turned his back on the ladies and gestured wildly at Pilkins, mouthing in silence
The closet behind the stables,
and pointed across the yard to be sure Pilkins got the point. "A nice little room below the coachman's, quite cozy."

"How very kind," said Mrs. Corvey.

But the window looks out on the
—mouthed Pilkins, with an alarmed gesture. Lord Basmond grimaced and, with his index finger, drew Xs in the air before his eyes.

She won't see anything, you idiot,
he mouthed. Pilkins looked affronted, but subsided.

"Certainly, my lord. I'll have Daisy see to it at once," he replied.

"See that you do." Lord Basmond turned and strode from the room.

EIGHT:

In which Proper Historical Costuming is discussed

T
HEY WERE GRUDGINGLY served tea in the pantry, and then ushered into another low dark room wherein were a great number of florist's boxes and a neatly folded stack of bedsheets.

"Those are your costumes," said Pilkins, with a sniff.

"Rather too modest, aren't they?" remarked Lady Beatrice. "Or not modest enough. What are we intended to do with them?"

Pilkins studied the floor. "His lordship wishes you to fashion them into, er, togas. The entertainment planned is to resemble, as closely as possible, a—hem—bacchanal of the ancient Romans. And he wishes you to resemble, ah, nymphs dressed in togas."