The Savage Miss Saxon (31 page)

“What did he say?” Cuffy asked Alix, leaning across Helene and Nicholas to ask his question.

“He said,” she replied tongue in cheek, “that it is the drink that is bad, not the man. As an excuse, it’s as good as any I’ve heard my grandfather spout. At least Harold doesn’t try to justify his tippling by saying it’s to ease his lumbago!”

Once the real, serious drinking had begun—the huge pitchers of nappy ale that had been consumed by all and sundry throughout the long meal not really counting—the noise and merriment in the huge chamber rose to near astonishing heights.

The actors in the pantomime put on a lively show that ended to loud applause when Billy tripped over his pointy slippers and nearly somersaulted into the fire, and they moved rapidly on to the presentation of some conundrums for their guests to puzzle out.

“If a single burner be taken from a chandelier, why should it then be brighter?” Cuffy asked the company.

“Because it’s
lighter
by a lamp!” Mrs. Anselm trilled, clapping her hands at her own intelligence. Billy had been busy throughout the dinner refilling Mrs. Anselm’s cup each time she took a sip, laboring under the idea that a tipsy Mrs. Anselm would be that much easier to deceive. From the way her headdress of ostrich feathers was hanging over her left eye, and taking in her slouched posture and asinine grin, it appeared that the dear lady was indeed rather mellow.

“Why is a wife like a joint of pork?” Jeremy queried when it was his turn.

Now it was Sir Alexander’s turn to shout out an answer, which he did with some delight. “Because she’s a spare rib!” he bellowed, and then he burped.

“Very good, oh Lord of Misrule,” Alix teased, dropping her grandfather a curtsy. “But here is a real puzzler: Why, good sir, is an unbound book like a young maiden in bed?”

There was quiet in the hall for some moments as everyone tried to figure out Alix’s conundrum. Then all at once someone in the crowd shouted out: “Because she’s
done up in sheets!
” Everyone looked to see who had been the author of this wisdom, and all were astonished to see the red face of the local minister, as he stood beside one of the benches, his hands gripping the table top, looking like a sailor trying to maintain his balance on a storm-tossed ship. “Oh my,” he whispered, aghast at himself. “Oh, my goodness!” Then, clapping one hand to his mouth as his rosy face took on a greenish cast, he turned and bolted from the room, the laughter of the rest of the company sending him on his way.

“My word, Alix,” Nicholas whispered in her ear when she resumed her seat, “do you think the reverend is setting himself up as a wit?”

Alix could only giggle. “Oh, that poor,
poor
man. Nicholas, did you see his face? How will he ever be able to preach morality or temperance again!”

The organized portion of the festivities completed, the guests were now left to their own devices. They stepped admirably into the breach, singing, dancing to the badly played tunes the harper strummed on his ancient instrument, and telling ghost stories, each tale more chilling and more farfetched than the last.

Alix sat with her own little group, snickering and scoffing as Cuffy tried to frighten the women with one particularly outlandish tale. “Oh, Cuffy, what a hum!” She motioned to them all to draw nearer to her. “Now if it’s a story you want—let me tell you a
real
tale.”

They all cried out for her to tell her story, crowding about her while she smiled and rubbed her hands together in preparation of setting them all back on their heels. She told them about a fierce battle between two warring Indian tribes, graphically describing the punishments meted out to captured warriors and sundry methods of execution meant to make the hair on the backs of their heads stand up in dread. “Then,” she went on in a low voice, “they got together—after so many brave men had died, you know—and decided to forge a peace.”

“That’s it? It was all over just like that?” Jeremy asked, his voice full of disappointment.

“Not exactly, Jeremy, you bloodthirsty thing. You see, not too long after the peace was established, two braves from one of the tribes broke the treaty and were captured by the other tribe.”

“Bet they burned them at the stake, huh?” Jeremy broke in again, his eyes aglow at the thought.

Alix shook her head. “So commonplace a punishment? Really, Jeremy, have you no imagination? The tribe did no such thing; they were far too civilized for that. No,” she smiled, before dropping her bombshell. “They merely cut off all the warriors’ fingers and thumbs before sending the two men back to their own tribe.”

Hastily hiding his own fingers under his armpits, Billy breathed, “Whyever did they lop off their fambles?”

“It is simple really, Billy,” she replied reasonably. “After the punishment was meted out, the two warriors were told,” and here her voice became most mysterious, “ ‘We have agreed to hold the chain of peace and friendship with both hands. We have done so but you have not. Therefore, it seems you have no use for your fingers and we have rid you of these useless parts.’ ”

“I say,” Cuffy exclaimed, seeming to be well pleased with the Indians’ solution. “I’ll bet that put an end to it!”

“Not really, Cuffy. The other tribe took umbrage at the punishment and a long war followed. But at least
my
story is true, which is more than I can say for that rapper you told about your Great-uncle Richard coming back as a malacca cane and going about your family home lifting up ladies’ skirts.”

Everybody laughed at Cuffy’s expense and the small party split up, each after other amusement elsewhere in the chamber. Now was the time for Alix to seek out Helene and tell her that at last the time was at hand—that
this
definitely would be the night of her elopement. She couldn’t have taken the chance of confirming this earlier, as the nervous Helene would have given the game away for sure, but as the clock was moving steadily toward twelve and the appearance of Reginald, the moment had come to make the first move.

Once she had pried Helene away from her mama—she had been serving as a supporting prop for that lady who was now more than a little in her altitudes—she shoved the girl into the solar, where they could have a private chat.

“What is it, Alix?” Helene questioned in a shaky voice. “I know you said Reginald would be here tonight and I know you told me that you would arrange it so that we could be married, but I still cannot make myself believe any of that is true. Mama has been at me so about Nicholas all week, you know. She says it is now only a matter of time before an announcement of our engagement goes off to London, and try as I might to explain that I don’t
love
Nicholas—that I shall never love Nicholas—she persists in assuring me that she holds the answer to all our problems right in the palm of her hand. Oh, Alix,” the girl ended in a thin wail, “where is my Reginald? I vow I cannot exist without him much longer!”

Thinking to herself that for a shy, retiring sort of girl, the chit really could run on, Alix shushed Helene with a wave of her hand and pushed her down on the seat in the window embrasure. “It’s true all right, you widgeon. Now shut up and listen,” she ordered, showing scant regard for Helene’s sensibilities. “Drat it all, I haven’t gone through all this planning just for you to go all chicken-hearted on me. Your Reginald is safely tucked away upstairs... ”

“He’s
here!
” Helene shrieked. “My Reginald is
really here!
Oh, Alix, forgive me for doubting you. I’ve been trying and trying to believe what you told me last week, but it was all too wonderful to be real.” She hopped to her feet and started for the door. “Where is he? I must fly to him at once!”

Alix grabbed the girl by the elbow and shoved her back down on the window seat. “Oh no, you don’t. Now look here, Helene. We’ve got this thing planned down to the last detail—the boys and I. I won’t have you go running through the place now calling for your Reggie at the top of your lungs and tipping our scheme. All I want to know from you is if you are truly game for an elopement to Gretna Green. If you haven’t the backbone to go through with it, we’ll call it a day right now and you can move yourself straight back under your mama’s thumb.”

Then a strange thing happened. Helene sat up straight, her back in a defiant arch. Her rounded chin came up and a heretofore nonexistent gleam of determination glinted in her normally vague-looking blue eyes. “I would walk barefoot over hot coals to get to my Reginald!” she declared in a steely voice. “Just tell me what I am to do.”

Alix stepped back and put her hands on her hips. “Well, I’ll be switched! So there’s a little of your mama in you after all.” Then she sat down beside Helene and whispered confidentially. “Now this is what we intend to do...”

The Great Hall now resembled nothing less than the banqueting hall of Henry VIII after an especially rousing feast. Chewed joints of meat littered the ale-soaked rushes on the stone floor; bodies sprawled inelegantly on benches or propped up the walls; the tables were littered with overturned goblets and bits of gnawed fruit; and bursts of raucous song and ribald laughter issued by those of the guests still left standing mixed with the smoky atmosphere and floated away. It was midnight, and if the quality of the evening could be counted in the number of hangovers that would be nursed on the morrow, the party had to have been termed a rousing success.

When Alix and Helene reentered the chamber it took them some moments to search out the three boys—just then engaging in a valiant attempt to corner some local maidens under the kissing bunch of mistletoe.

“Well, aren’t you fellows in high gig?” Alix teased as she stopped in front of the trio.

“Never say that, Alix,” Jeremy grinned tipsily. “We ain’t drunk, you know. Only tryin’ to keep the party going, ain’t we, fellas?”

“Quite right,” Cuffy agreed, nodding his head vigorously and putting himself in danger of toppling over onto his face. “Now be a good girl, Fanny, and give us a kiss.” He began walking toward her, his lips puckered.

Nicholas, who had been sitting on the dais beside Sir Alexander and wondering if Bedlam looked anything like the Great Hall, saw Cuffy and made to rise—he’d been itching to plant that cub a facer ever since that day in the woods anyway. But then a beefy hand clapped him on the shoulder and the Lord of Misrule was addressing him. “Now, Mannering? Should I make the announcement now? Soon won’t be anybody left awake to hear me, you know. Harold here is already noddin’ off.”

It was while Nicholas was thus detained—for it would be no easy task to disengage himself from Sir Alexander’s strong grasp without that woozy gentleman crashing to the floor once the support of Linton’s shoulder was withdrawn—that a newcomer to the party descended the stairs from the upper floor and entered the hall.

Sir Alexander saw the woman first, peering intently at her through his liquor-blurred eyes. “Now who in Hades is that?” he asked, pointing in the woman’s general direction. “Jars a memory, by Jupiter.” He leaned farther front, causing Nicholas to brace his legs against one of the benches in order to keep them both upright. “Ugly bit of goods, ain’t she? Still,” he mused, shaking his great head, “those eyebrows sure look familiar.” Then Sir Alexander’s attention wandered and he poked his head in Nicholas’s face—his breath hitting the Earl with enough power to fell an ox. “Now, Linton? Now?”

The woman Sir Alexander had seen had taken only a few timid steps into the chamber when she was quickly surrounded by the three boys. “Lady Lovewell!” Cuffy was the first to exclaim to the tall, angular-looking lady dressed in an ancient paniered gown, a concealing ribbed calash tied about her head. “It is a pity you missed the pantomime, for your ensemble is most ravishing.”

“Wh-where is she?” Lady Lovewell stammered in a remarkably deep baritone. “Where’s my Helene?”

“Stow the gab, cove,” Billy admonished, sidling up to the tall figure. “Yer’ll tip our lay else. The mort’s here, all’s bob.”

“Huh?” was all Reginald Goodfellow (alias Lady Lovewell) could say before his elbows were taken and he was briskly frog-marched across the chamber to the antechamber, where Alix and Helene awaited them.

“Helene! My love! My darling girl!” Reginald exclaimed when he spied her out.

“Reginald! My dearest one! You really are here!” Helene returned breathlessly, and they launched themselves into each other’s arms.

Alix stood back a bit and watched the two embrace. “Kind of makes you feel good inside, doesn’t it?” she asked of no one in particular.

Cuffy looked at the odd sight before him—rather like watching Beauty with the Beast (in skirts). He folded his arms, lifted one hand to his chin, stepped back a pace, and commented meanly, “I don’t know, Alix. Actually, it kind of makes me sick to my stomach. Don’t know who we’re serving the worst turn with this business—Mrs. Anselm, Helene, or Reggie.”

Alix glowered at Cuffy’s unromantic remark while Jeremy and Billy supported each other as they were overcome with a fit of the giggles and Helene and Reginald billed and cooed like a pair of out-of-tune turtledoves.