The Frost Fair (26 page)

One of the things that their hours of enforced solitude accomplished was to give Meg the opportunity to work out in her mind the details of the scheme she'd concocted to bring Trixie to her senses. Ever since the night at Lady Habish's party, it had been obvious to Meg that Mortimer Lazenby's heart was not so occupied with love for Trixie that he wouldn't be extremely susceptible to the charms of other females. He'd made it plain that he didn't consider himself so closely bound (either by affection or honor) to Trixie that he wouldn't, with an encouraging word from Meg, forget his earlier obligation “like that!” Therefore, Meg would
offer
him that encouragement. Then, when she'd managed to get him in a compromising position (preferably in an embrace), arrange to have Trixie discover them. Trixie couldn't fail to find the fellow a revolting specimen after coming upon such a scene.

By the evening of the third day of Trixie's stay, it began to seem as if they would be marooned forever in the sea of mist. But on the morning of the fourth, they drew aside the draperies to find that they could see the houses across the street. The fog had lifted! And although the day was grey and dreary, their moods brightened at the prospect of rejoining the rest of the world. The rejoining was not long in coming; before eleven in the morning the door knocker sounded and Arthur and Mortimer both presented themselves to the ladies, their faces beaming with eager good spirits. All four agreed that they'd been shut up indoors too long and that, despite the cold, a drive through the streets was the proper sort of activity for the day.

Bundled up warmly (the gentlemen with caped greatcoats and long mufflers wound several times round their necks and the ladies in heavy cloaks and huge fur muffs), they climbed into Arthur's carriage and set off for St. James Park. They were amazed to see the numbers of people thronging the streets. Disregarding the cold, the citizenry of London seemed all to have emerged at once. Trixie, her nose pressed against the window, kept exclaiming with surprise at the crowds, the colors, the noise and the infinite, seemingly patternless movement.

After circling the park and traversing the Mall, Arthur directed his coachman to proceed up the Strand. By that time, Meg had had enough of listening to Mortimer disparage the sights in irritating counterpoint to Trixie's effusions, and she suggested that they turn back. “Oh, no!” Trixie begged. “I could drive all day! May we not go on?”

“Why don't we drive across Blackfriar's Bridge and see the doings on the river?” Arthur suggested. “Then we can take Great Surry Street south of the river to Westminster and home.”

The plan was accepted with varying degrees of enthusiasm, the coachman was so instructed, and they rode on. The ride through the City, with its crowded buildings and teeming streets was a sight completely new to Trixie who, although she'd lived in London during her earlier years, had never been brought to its business heart. Her eyes were wide with awe. “I didn't know there were so many people and so many edifices in the
world
!” she said breathlessly.

But the view from the bridge brought her most intense reaction. “My Lord! It's frozen over! The river's frozen over!”

The others were equally fascinated. “Good heavens,” Meg exclaimed, “what are they doing out there?”

Stretching below them, all the way out to London Bridge, people and carts were traversing the river right on the ice. They seemed to have established a passageway—an actual road—right down the middle of the river. Here and there along the route enterprising persons were setting up little booths made, tentlike, with nothing more than ropes and blankets, as if they were about to establish residence on the river and move right in.

“They can't mean to
live
out there, can they?” Mortimer asked.

“No, only to sell things, I expect,” Arthur answered. “If the cold weather holds, I suspect there'll be a fair.”

“A fair!” Trixie clapped her hands in excitement.

“Oh, yes,” Arthur elaborated. “It's been done before, you know.”

“A fair on the
Thames?
You're cutting a wheedle,” Mortimer said.

“Not at all. My father told me about attending one back in eighty-nine. The frost lasted seven weeks, I'm told. Papa wanted to take me, but I was only an infant and Mama wouldn't permit it. But Papa told me later that the place was as good as Bartholomew's, with games and entertainments and all sorts of food and drink right on the ice. They made a fire, too, and roasted an ox whole.”

“A fire on the ice?” Trixie didn't know whether to take him as his word or laugh the tale away.

“Oh, there were several fires. The ice was so thick, you see, that the heat from the fires made very little difference.”

“Do you think,” Trixie asked, her eyes shining, “that there will actually be a fair
this
year?”

“It certainly looks as if there will. There are the beginnings right before your eyes.”

“Oh, Lady Meg, do you think we might come back and actually go out on the ice to see the fair for ourselves?”

Meg threw Arthur a troubled look. “I don't think it will be a place for delicately reared young ladies. Fairs, whether on the ice or on dry land, are certain to attract all sorts of ruffians, rowdies and rag-tag louts, you know.”

Arthur looked at her with surprise. “I don't know what's come over you, my girl. You were always prime for a lark before you went up to—”

“Never mind!” Meg cut in sharply. “It's quite different when a young lady is in my charge. Besides, I see no reason to debate the subject now. A thaw may set in
tonight
, and the entire argument will have been to no purpose.”

“Oh, I
wish
there'll be no thaw,” Trixie sighed, pressing her nose against the window again to take her last glimpse as the carriage rolled off the bridge. “I would so love to see a fair on the ice!”

“That's a very selfish wish, Trix,” Meg said rather sanctimoniously, “for a prolonged freeze is very hard on all the poor and those not fortunate enough to afford the increased cost of wood and coal. There's more to these extremes of weather than fun and fairs.”

“Hmmph!” was Arthur's only comment.

Trixie made a face. “Well, then, I shan't
pray
for continued frost. But if it
should
continue—through no fault of mine—I intend to find a way to enjoy it!”

Meg's mood didn't lighten during the drive home. She found herself extremely annoyed by the conversation and her own part in it. She'd sounded strangely surly, more like a sour-faced old governess than a confident young woman. And Arthur had been quick to point it out to her. But she was irritated with
him
, too. Why did he persist in making the Frost Fair sound inviting to Trixie when Meg was plainly trying to tell him that it would not be appropriate for the girl to go? While Trixie lived in her house, Meg had responsibility for her safety. If she permitted the girl to go and do as she pleased, and an accident occurred, how could Meg forgive herself? She was being placed in the position of maiden aunt, and she didn't like the role.

If I don't settle this elopement business soon
, she told herself,
I
shall turn into a sour-faced fidget
! The sooner she put her plan into execution, the sooner Trixie would run weeping home to Yorkshire, and the sooner Meg would be able to return to the peace and quiet of her life. Perhaps, if she played her cards well, she could pull the deed off this very afternoon.

With that in mind, she began her machinations as soon as they returned to the house on Dover Street. “Arthur,” she said in her most liltingly appealing voice, “don't take your things off yet. Be a dear and execute a little commission for me. Run down to Gunther's—in Berkeley Square, you know—and bring us a box of pastries for our tea. Cook told me this morning that the fog has brought the supplies in the larder embarrassingly low, and I don't suppose they've yet had time to replenish them.”

If Arthur felt any annoyance at being asked to run a servant's errand, he was too gentlemanly to show it. With a bow of acquiescence he turned to the door. “Be back in a trice,” he said good-naturedly over his shoulder.

“Oh, but you must be certain that you ask that the pastries be made up while you wait. Apricot tarts and sugar plums, I think. It wouldn't do at all to have them palm off a parcel of pastries that have been standing about on the shelves. They must make them up
freshly
. At the exhorbitant prices Mr. Gunther dares to charge, that is the
least
we should expect.”

Meg watched him go with a mischievous feeling of satisfaction. If he followed her instructions he would be out of the way for the better part of an hour. Then, instructing Mortimer to go into the sitting room and warm himself at the fire, she turned to Trixie, who had removed her cloak and was primping before the mirror near the door. “What have you done to your hair, Trixie?” she asked, her voice carrying the slightest suggestion of disapproval.

Trixie turned. “Don't you like it? I suppose it
is
a bit hastily done. I was so eager to dress this morning that I didn't let Brynne take the usual pains.”

“Well, there's plenty of time for it now. Arthur will be gone for a while, and we shan't have tea until he returns. Why don't you run upstairs and refresh yourself? I shall find Brynne and send her up to you. Oh, and while you're upstairs, ask my Nora to take out the lavender lustring for you to try. You haven't brought nearly enough gowns with you, you know, and if the lavender suits you, you may wear it
today
, if you like.”

“Oh, Meg,” the unsuspecting girl sighed with pleasure, “you're so good to me!” She planted a quick kiss on Meg's cheek and ran up the stairs.

Meg, rubbing her cheek with a twinge of remorse, went to find Trixie's maid. She instructed Brynne to give Trixie's hair a thorough combing. “It will not take you more than … let's say twenty minutes … will it?” she asked.

“No, ma'am, I don't think so,” the abigail said.

“Good. It's now twenty minutes before three. When the large clock in the hall strikes three, I want you to send Miss Beatrix downstairs. You can hear the clock from her bedroom quite easily. This is very important, Brynne. You are to say nothing to her about this, for I have a surprise for her, but you must see to it that
at the stroke of three
she comes right downstairs. Can you do it?”

“Oh, yes, ma'am, I think I can. Sounds so funny, though. Like Cinderella on the stroke o' midnight.”

“Yes,” sighed Meg, toning to the sitting room, her heart full of nervous misgivings, “just like Cinderella.”

Mortimer was sitting near the fire, his feet in their tasseled Hessians stretched out on the hearth. “I'm happy to see that you're making yourself at home,” Meg said cheerfully.

He scrambled to his feet. “Yes, your ladyship,” he said, suddenly ill-at-ease. “Very … er … comfortable room, this.”

“Thank you. Do sit down, Mr. Lazenby. There's no need to stand on points with me. And why don't you call me Meg?”

“Didn't seem to want me to when we … that is, when I met you at Lady Habish's—”

“Nonsense, of course I wanted you to. And I'll call you Mortimer. Won't that make things easier between us?”

He smiled tentatively. “Should think so, yes. Been thinking, you know, that you don't like me much. Can't think why. Great favorite with ladies in Yorkshire, you know.”

“Yes, so I've been told. But I can't think why you believe I don't like you.”

He shrugged. “Just a way you have … a sort of look. Can't put my finger on it.”

“Come now, Mortimer, you mustn't be overly sensitive.” She gave him a wide smile and sat down on the sofa. “Do sit down, please.” She patted the seat beside her. “I shan't be comfortable with you hulking over me that way.”

With a flip of his coattails, he took the indicated seat. “Been hoping for an opportunity to talk to you.”

“Have you?” she asked, looking up at him coyly.

“Yes. Never managed to find you alone. Wanted to explain about Trixie.”

“What about Trixie?”

“The elopement, you know. All
her
idea. Wanted you to know that.”

“You wanted
me
to know that? Why?”

“So that you'd understand that I meant what I said to you that night.”

She blinked. “What you said to me—?”

“Yes. About being smitten with you. Still am, you know. Only ran off with Trixie because she was in a desperate case. Didn't think
you
liked me, anyway.”

She felt her fingers curl angrily. Was the fellow merely callow, or was he a complete opportunist? Whichever the case, he made her itch to box his ears. “But I … I
do
like you, Mortimer,” she forced herself to say.

He hitched closer to her, his stiff shirt-points making his movements ludicrously awkward. “You do? Even though Trixie and I are … are …”

“Promised? Betrothed? About to be wed? Is that what you find so difficult to say?” She couldn't help herself—the sarcastic response popped out before she could stop her tongue.

Completely oblivious to the acerbity in her tone, he nodded glumly. “Got myself hobbled pretty neatly this time. I'd have to anger her into breaking it off.”

Meg clenched her hands, compelling herself to gaze limpidly up at him. “Would you …
consider
such a course, Mortimer?” she asked in a soft murmur. “For me?”

“Told you I would. Smitten, you know.” He reached for her hand. “From the first.”

There was a sound in the hall. Meg winced. Brynne had sent Trixie down too
early
. The clock hadn't yet struck three. This mere grasp that Mortimer had on her hand would not be enough to shock Trixie into drastic action. Mortimer could quickly drop the hand and the whole scene would look quite innocent. In hasty desperation, Meg threw her free hand round his neck. “Oh,
Mortimer
!” she sighed and lifted her face to his.