Page 48 of The Undaunted
She felt rather faint. Such a thing had never befallen her before. Never in her life had Clara Godwin, Countess of Easton, been censured.
Oh, she had watched it happen to other people of course. Occasionally, she’d been forced to do the censuring. But to her! How could it be?
She leaned back on the sofa and fanned herself. “Bramley,” she called, “bring the vinaigrette. And laudanum for my tea.”
“You do not look well, Clara,” Lady Redfield said, she herself leaned back and feet still up.
“Almost everybody has called off from the dinner, Cecilia. How on earth should I look?”
“Almost everybody? Oh dear. But not absolutely everybody, so that’s something.”
Mr. Bramley hurried in with the vinaigrette and waved it vigorously under his mistress’ nose until she waved her hand to make him stop. He placed a small brown glass bottle next to her teacup.
“Do dose my tea, Bramley,” Lady Easton murmured. “And make it a strong dose. I am quite in despair.”
Mr. Bramley appeared shocked to his shoes to hear of Lady Easton in despair. He carefully poured out the drops and stirred them in.
“Perhaps, my lady,” Mr. Bramley said cautiously, “when you feel recovered, we might discuss the final arrangements for dinner this evening.”
“The dinner!” Lady Easton wailed.
Mr. Bramley looked further shaken by this reply. He put the cap on the bottle of laudanum and fled the room.
*
Bramley paced thefront hall. He did not know what he should do. Lady Easton was drinking laudanum in the drawing room and claimed she was in despair. Lady Redfield was lying back with her feet up like Joan of Arc having returned from battle, though she had only been out walking the town. Some dire communication had arrived in the post and the two ladies appeared overcome by it.
What had happened? Had somebody died? Or was about to die? Was the dinner to be called off on account of it?
What was he to do?
Lady Easton was wailing in a most unseemly fashion, but for all she cried out he could not fathom what had happened. It all ran along the lines of:How could this happen to me? What are we to do?
It could not be either of the boys in danger. The bad news, whatever it was, had come by local post. Certainly, if something dreadful had happened to Lord Easton, somebody would have turned up in person to deliver the blow.
Though he did not know what to do to help the situation, he very much doubted Lady Redfield did any more good than he. All she’d managed to say, repeatedly, was:Now, dear Clara, it cannot be so very bad.
Whatever it was, it certainly could be so very bad!
Bemmy, that nosy and uncouth lady’s maid, snuck up behind him and tapped him on the arm, nearly sending him into a dead faint. Where had she come from? Why must she sneak up on a person like a pickpocket!
“What’s the ruckus, Mr. Bramley?” she asked, hooking her thumb toward the drawing room doors.
“We do not have what you would call aruckusin this house,” he said sternly.
“All right then,” the saucy girl said, “what’s the commotion, uproar, hubbub, or clamor?”
Naturally, Bramley would like to appear as if he knew, but would not deign to explain to this cheeky maid.
“Never you mind, Bemmy. Get on with your work.”
She marched off as if she were somehow affronted. He paced the hall and it was not a minute before the girl was back again. She’d taken a pair of Miss Upton’s shoes downstairs. Certainly she did not polish them in so short a time.
She held them up as she sailed past him. “Wrong pair,” she said, walking very slowly up the stairs.
The cries from the drawing room continued, though they did no more to shed light on the situation than they had done.What am I to do? This is Easton’s fault.
He might have thought that the mention of his lord being at fault was a clue, but he had been in the house long enough to know that if something went amiss, it generallywaslaid at the lord’s door. My God, could he actually be dead? Lady Easton certainly would blame him for it if he was.
