Summer Escapade Read online

  SUMMER ESCAPADE

  Charlotte Louise Dolan

  July 1816

  Marigold Kinderley sat in the window of her room at Mrs. Wychombe’s Select Seminary for Young Ladies in Bath and tried very hard to hold back her tears. It would not at all do for her best friend, Lady Sybil Dunmire, to see her behaving in such an infantile way merely because her heart was breaking.

  “Algernon is nineteen, and Bartholomew is sixteen, and Cedric is thirteen, and they are the ‘bigs,’” Clara Perkins recited, “and the ‘littles’ are Desmond, who is nine, and ... and ... oh, blast, I can never remember what the cousin’s name is that starts with ‘E’.” She thought for a long moment. “Eugene?”

  “Eustace,” Marigold said automatically, wishing with every fiber of her being that some miracle would occur that would allow her—instead of Clara—to spend the first month of the summer holidays visiting with Sybil’s family near Bath.

  “Oh, yes, Eustace. He is seven, and after him comes Ferdinand, who is five, and Giles, who is three, and Horatio, who is the baby. I must say, Sybil, you are indeed fortunate that your father’s cousin named his sons by the alphabet. Otherwise, there would be no way to keep them properly sorted out.”

  “It is not all that difficult once you meet them. Even though they are all towheads, they do not otherwise resemble each other closely,” Sybil replied.

  Marigold had heard so many stories about the adventures of the ‘bigs’ and the ‘littles,’ as Sybil called them, that she felt she could have picked them each out of a crowd without ever having met them in person.

  “I can scarcely wait,” Clara said with a sigh. “I vow, I shall not be able to sleep a wink tonight.”

  Marigold sat up a little straighter on the window seat and strained to see down the street. Was it? Yes, it was. “Mickey is back with the post,” she said.

  Without even a by-your-leave, Clara shot out of the room to intercept him. At sixteen, a full two years older than Marigold and Sybil, Clara already had a beau: Wilcox Ratherton, age twenty, currently studying at Oxford.

  Neither Mrs. Wychombe nor Clara’s parents had any idea, of course, that she was carrying on a clandestine correspondence with a young man of only marginal expectations, and Clara fully intended them to remain in ignorance as long as possible. She had therefore bribed Mickey O’Banion, the young lad who assisted Mr. Peabody with the heavier work around the school, to deliver her mail to her personally before Mrs. Wychombe ever saw it.

  Marigold did not envy Clara her beau, rather she was jealous of the fact that Clara could dash down the stairs without anyone reprimanding her. She, on the other hand, was so sickly, her uncle had given strict orders, which Mrs. Wychombe carried out to the letter, about the activities she was to be allowed to participate in—nothing which could not be done sitting down—and the foods she was and was not to eat. She was even excused from the first hour of lessons after lunch so that she could lie down and rest.

  It was all terribly embarrassing, and Marigold knew the other girls in the school had assorted nicknames for her, which she always pretended not to hear. Only Sybil was kind to her and had made the other girls stop their more obvious teasing.

  “I am sorry you cannot come home with me also,” Sybil said, coming over and sitting down beside Marigold. “Do you not think your uncle would allow you to visit for a few days at least?”

  “Anything is possible, as Miss Medleycote would say,” Marigold said, “although in this case it is unlikely since he has never so far allowed me to visit anyone. And I am afraid before he would consent to such a scheme—if indeed he could be persuaded—he would more than likely insist upon visiting your mother first and personally checking the dower house for drafts, and he would make her promise not to let me out of her sight or let any animal come near me or let me go out if the weather is the least bit inclement or be exposed to the sun long enough to get sunstroke.” She sighed. “Before she even laid eyes on me, I am sure that your mother would be quite put off, and your cook would likewise be disgruntled with the extra work involved in preparing separate meals for me, for really it would be a great deal of bother for her.”

  “Do you never get tired of eating porridge for breakfast? And a coddled egg for lunch? And milk toast for supper? Do you never wish you could have a cup of hot chocolate or a bowl of peaches and cream or—”

  Marigold could no longer hold back her tears, and in an instant Sybil was hugging her and patting her on the back.

  “Of course I get tired of the same old thing every day,” Marigold said passionately. “Everything else smells so much better—the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and the fresh scones with honey and ... and all of the things you get to eat. Sometimes I feel getting sick would be worth it, just to know what some of those things taste like.”

  Sybil pulled away and looked at her in astonishment. “You’ve never even tasted them?”

  Marigold shook her head.

  “But then, how do you know they will make you sick?”

  Marigold thought it over. “Actually, I cannot remember ever being sick, but more than likely that is because Uncle Terence has taken such good care of me. I have been told that my mother became extremely ill whenever she ate something that did not agree with her, and since I take after her in looks, it is quite logical to assume that I take after her in other things, is it not? My uncle has consulted with a great many doctors, including a London physician of great renown, and they have all been in agreement on that.”

  “But my question is, have you ever eaten them and gotten sick?” Sybil repeated insistently.

  “I cannot remember ever being allowed to eat anything except my special diet.”

  Sybil stood up and began striding energetically back and forth. “Well, Algernon would say that this is all rubbish. He is not at all impressed with what even the most learned authorities claim is true. After all, at one time everyone was convinced the earth was flat. No, Algernon is a proponent of the scientific method. ‘We cannot know something is true until we test it,’ is his motto. Sometimes what everybody thinks is true does turn out to be true. For example, last summer we experimented and found out that eating too many green apples really does give you a horrible stomachache.” Sybil clutched her stomach and staggered around the room, the most hideous expression of agony on her face.

  “But on the other hand,” she continued, her features once again composed, “sometimes what everyone accepts as true is nothing but pure nonsense. Among the things Algernon has disproved is the supposed fact that touching toads gives a person warts. Last year he caught two fat beauties in the woods, and we kept them in the summer house, and all of us ‘bigs’ played with them every day, and not a one of us got a single wart. We named them Jump and Hop, by the way, and I was quite sorry that we had to turn them loose, but no matter how I pleaded with him, Algernon would not let me bring them back to school with me.”

  Marigold suppressed a shudder at the thought of sharing her room with two toads, much less touching them.

  “So no matter what anyone says, it seems quite obvious to me that if you have not eaten a particular food, you really don’t know if it will make you sick or not. Therefore, I think you should try experimenting and see. And as Algernon would say, what is the worst thing that could happen if you ate something that was forbidden? True, you might get sick, but on the other hand, it is doubtful that you would actually die from eating a French pastry or a muffin.”

  “No, you are wrong,” Marigold pointed out glumly. “The worst thing that could happen is that Uncle Terence would discover what I had done, and he would instantly remove me from this school. And then he would hire a governess for me instead, and I would spend the rest of my days shut up at Kinderwood Man
or.”

  “And years from now,” Sybil said, making her voice low and spooky, “the villagers will see a ghostly apparition wandering through the moonlit gardens, and they would know it was the ghost of Marigold Kinderley, who died from eating a spoonful of ...” She paused, and looked furtively around the room, as if expecting someone to be lurking in the shadows. Then, with her eyes darting frantically from side to side, she crept forward and whispered the fatal words, “of currant jelly.”

  Marigold dissolved into giggles, and Sybil collapsed laughing beside her. “Someday,” she said, “I am going to be a famous actress and appear on stage at Covent Garden. Algernon says that after we are married, I may—”

  They were interrupted by Clara’s return. Although she was clutching two letters in her hand, one look at her face was enough to inform Marigold that neither of the missives was from Wilcox. “He has forgotten me,” Clara wailed, throwing herself down on Marigold’s bed. “He has thrown me over for another woman, undoubtedly some scarlet hussy who lurks around the University, hoping to ensnare some innocent young man and trap him into marriage.”

  “You received a letter only last week,” Sybil pointed out most prosaically, “and doubtless tomorrow you will get one for this week.”

  “Tomorrow is too late—we shall be gone to Dunmire Abbey.”

  “Then console yourself that you did get two letters, even if they are not from your precious Wilcox,” Sybil pointed out.

  “They are both from my mother,” Clara said crossly, “and one of them is not even for me. It is for Mrs. Wychombe. I do not know why Mickey gave it to me in the first place. Now I shall have to sneak it back into the pile of mail and hope no one notices me.”

  Listlessly she broke the seal on one of the letters and unfolded it. Scanning the lines, her face turned an alarming shade of red. “Well, of all the nerve! Ooooh, it is just like Aunt Maude! I vow, she delights in spoiling every bit of pleasure I might have.”

  “What has she done?”

  “She has quite ruined my holidays, that is what she has done. With only the flimsiest of excuses she has foisted my repellent cousin Drucilla off onto us for the entire summer. As a result, my mother has withdrawn her permission for me to visit you. Of course, Aunt Maude waited until the last minute and then just deposited my cousin so that my mother had no time to think up a good excuse to put her off.”

  Standing up, Clara picked up the letter for Mrs. Wychombe and started for the door, but Sybil darted in front of her and blocked her path. “No, wait! I have just thought of the most clever plan!”

  Clara’s face brightened. “You know how I can permanently dispose of Drucilla? She is the most revolting slug, you know, and I doubt even Aunt Maude would miss her if she were gone forever.”

  “No, of course I am not going to do such a thing. But what I think is that it would be an absolutely marvelous idea if Marigold could come to Dunmire Abbey in your place.”

  At her friend’s words, Marigold’s heart began to race. She knew how ingenious Sybil could be—what absolutely fantastic ideas Sybil could come up with. Usually her plans were quite impractical and impossible to implement, but they were still enormously delightful to contemplate.

  “In my place? You would take her instead of me?” Clara shot Marigold a look of disgust, and Marigold shrank back on her window seat. “Well, you can just forget about it. I would not lift a finger to help that pathetic malingerer.”

  “Fine,” Sybil said, opening the door and standing aside. “And you need have no worry about Mrs. Wychombe catching you in the act of slipping the letter from your mother in with the rest of the mail.” Folding her hands together under her chin, Sybil gazed piously up at the ceiling. “I fear my conscience is troubling me so greatly, I must unburden myself to Mrs. Wychombe. She will be most distressed to hear that you have been carrying on a clandestine correspondence with a most unsuitable young man.”

  Scowling, Clara pushed the door shut again. “Very well, I shall listen to your plan, but I cannot believe that you actually wish to have that—that wretched little pudding-heart spend the summer with you.”

  “Oh,” Sybil said with a wink for Marigold, “we have been rubbing along tolerably well this term.”

  The plan was simplicity in itself. Marigold would simply pretend to be Clara, who thought of very many objections to the plan. “But I am blonde, and Marigold has black hair, and someone is bound to notice her entering your cousin’s coach.”

  But for every objection, Sybil was able to propose a way to deal with the problem. “You shall loan her your blue cloak, and she can pull the hood over her head, and no one will be able to see either her face or the color of her hair.”

  “My blue cloak? But it is new! I don’t wish to let—”

  Rolling her eyes, Sybil turned and marched resolutely toward the door, but Clara caught up with her and blocked her way. “All right, she may borrow my cloak. But there is still the problem of her luggage.” She pointed to Marigold’s trunk, which was packed and ready for her departure the next day. “How are you going to persuade Peabody to put Marigold’s trunk in your cousin’s coach instead of in her uncle’s coach? Hmmm? Answer me that!”

  “I still have a half crown left over from Christmas. For that much money, Mickey will contrive to get the right trunk into the wrong coach with no one the wiser.”

  Finally, after several more objections, Clara acknowledged that the plan might possibly succeed, and by the time she retired to her own room to change for the farewell dinner, she was almost persuaded that she had been wholeheartedly in favor of the scheme from the beginning.

  “Are you sure you want me to come with you?” Marigold asked once she and Sybil were alone. “Will it not spoil your fun to have to limit your activities to what I am allowed to do? And your cousins may be upset to have me there, also.”

  Casting her a challenging look, Sybil said, “Who says we are going to pay any attention to that silly list of things you may and may not do? As for Algernon—and he is the only one of my cousins whose opinion matters—he will most likely thank me for providing him with a subject for his scientific experimentation.”

  For a moment Marigold was tempted to refuse to participate in Sybil’s scheme. Being experimented upon did not sound at all appealing. But remembering how Sybil had been her champion and defender all term, Marigold mentally vowed to cooperate with Algernon, no matter what the cost to herself.

  “You are still looking worried,” Sybil said, eyeing her skeptically. “Please, do not feel you have to put yourself out on my account. I thought you wanted to visit my family, but if you prefer to return to Kent and stay with your uncle all summer, that is entirely up to you.”

  “The problem is my uncle,” Marigold said. “It has just occurred to me that he will be terribly worried when he gets here and does not find me waiting for him.”

  “Oh, pooh,” Sybil replied, “do not let that stop you from coming with me. From all that you have told me, he worries constantly even when you are under his own roof. So if he is going to worry about you if you go with me, and worry about you if you do not go with me, then you might as well do what is most enjoyable for you.”

  Sybil’s logic was unassailable.

  * * * *

  Peering out the window the next morning, Marigold saw their marvelous plan coming all unraveled. “Oh, we are undone! My uncle has arrived before your cousin’s coachman.”

  Hurrying over to join her, Sybil remained undaunted. “No, all is not yet lost. Already I can see my cousin’s coach coming down the street. We must be very brave and also pray for a miracle. As Algernon would say, what is the worst that could happen? We could get caught, that is what, and then we would each get a thundering scold. On the other hand, if we do win free, we shall have a grand summer. Are you game?”

  “Yes,” Marigold said, trying to display as much resolution as Sybil, “I am ready. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

  “That is precisely what Algernon would say,
” Sybil said approvingly.

  * * * *

  Terence Kinderley alighted from his coach in front of Mrs. Wychombe’s Select Seminary, wishing that on such a beautiful day he could be driving his phaeton. But his niece could never tolerate the long journey back to Kent in an open carriage. As it was, her indifferent health required them to travel at such a moderate pace, it would take them four days to accomplish what would normally have been a two-day affair.

  Standing aside for a boy who emerged from the school carrying a heavy trunk on his back, Terence was surprised to be hailed from a passing phaeton.

  He turned to see Captain Darius St. John—no, he corrected himself, no longer captain, his friend was now the Duke of Colthurst. Walking over to the carriage, he reached up and shook the proffered hand. “Colthurst, well met.”

  “Kinderley, why did you not let me know you were coming to Bath? Are you staying long? Do you have time to make us a visit while you are in the area? Elizabeth will be more than pleased to see you. We are expecting an addition to our family in about three weeks, and consequently Elizabeth is finding life intolerably tedious. She has sent me into town to exchange books for her, and she is feeling most frustrated that she cannot simply come and choose them for herself.”

  “That is indeed good news, and I congratulate you most sincerely. I would be delighted to pay you a visit,” Terence said, feeling an honest regret, “but unfortunately, I am here to pick up my niece—my brother’s child—and we shall need to start for home directly.”

  “Could you not delay your trip even for one night? It has been so long since we have seen each other, and even longer since we had an opportunity of any real conversation. And you need not worry that your niece would be bored, for Elizabeth would be most happy to have her company.”

  It all sounded so pleasant—and exactly like the kind of informal visit Terence preferred over a large house party—but it was totally out of the question. “I am sorry, and I hope you can convey my deepest apologies to your lovely wife, but my niece is a very sickly child, and I have had to make advance arrangements for lodging and special meals for the trip home. I am afraid at this late date it would be impossible to change all the preparations.”