Tuesday, December 30, 2008

The Domino Effect, Chapter Eleven

Master Ham sucked his teeth and was rewarded with a single, stout blow to the ear. "What'd you do that for?" he cried, patting the offended spot.

Bolger serenely tucked the enormous drawing pad beneath his arm. "Don't do that. You look like a peasant."

"I am a peasant!" Master Ham glared from his stained tattered smock to an imaginary cheval glass in the corner. (To be continued...)

The Domino Effect, Chapter Ten

Another twilight fell upon the garden. In the music room beside the terrace, somebody thrashed out a difficult passage of Bach on the pianoforte. Two floors above, bloodcurdling shrieks signaled children rebelling against their elders’ attempts to put them to bed.

Wallis Frederick tapped glowing ash from his cheroot onto the terrace stones. “Ahhh, the child sacrifice has begun,” he informed the grinning butler who had brought him a glass of port.

The remark--and Frederick’s friendly manner--prompted employer and employee into a fatherly discourse about the care and feeding of offspring.

Sensing that the gentlemen were not about to flee the delicious, deepening dusk for the comfort of civilized light indoors, Phyl skulked across the yard to the back of the stables. A path between the carriage house and the hothouse brought her to the midst of a fragrant stand of pines. From there she turned left upon the slim, oak-lined path that skirted the lawn and promised to bring her to the clearing where Philip waited with his phaeton. The sudden sound of a carriage rolling from the direction of the house made her bolt like a spooked horse deeper between the trees. But the light from the car’s lamps was too weak to penetrate the darkness, and she was too curious about the content of the note Philip had given her the night before:

“My lady, There comes a point where life ceases to be a continuous line of hope-fulfilling events and becomes, instead, a parable fit for examination, if not for understanding. If you would like to examine a portion of that parable, then please meet me after nightfall, once your duties are done for the day but while the house is in the tumult of preparing the children for bed, a quarter of a mile south of the spot where I will have encountered you this evening. Dress for travel.”

Accordingly, she wore the darkest and most comfortable of her daily governess dresses; walking shoes, cotton gloves, and a lightweight bonnet.

The light of the half-moon was enough to let her distinguish first the phaeton and then her chauffeur, waiting as promised in the clearing. Though haste and nerves at the possibility of not finding him in the darkness left her breathless, she managed to greet him with criticism as he handed her onto the car seat.

“Really, Philip, was it Eton or Oxford that taught you to perceive life in such arcane terms?”

“Which terms, my lady?”

“The parable.”

“The parable?”

She quoted his note as he sat beside her and took the reins.

“Ah!” he said, driving onto the road. “Neither school, actually. It’s common sense, don’t you think? Like exiting the building in the midst of hue and cry--as you just did. I figured that everybody would be too busy to notice your departure, and there would be too much noise to notice car wheels in the distance—just as you failed to notice your employer leaving the premises.”

Phyl regarded him in silent awe. She had no idea he could be so conspiratorial. “I did see a carriage. Was that Mr. Hartshorne? He must be miles from here by now."

“No. There.” Philip held both reins in his right hand and pointed with the whip. “Do you see those lights ahead? That's him en route to town.”

Phyllida squinted deeply, eventually spying the distant yellow pinpricks that denoted carriage lamps. “So you dare to follow him in an open car."

“I have no other.”

“But what if he should see us?”

“He won't. We're too far behind. And it's too dark. Besides, if he did somehow see us, he'd think we were just another pair of travelers. A man and wife, perhaps, engaged in urgent family business. Who will know? Who will care? We’re both dressed and conducting ourselves respectably.”

“But we are not man and wife!”

Philip slowed the horses. “Forgive me. Would you prefer not to see the truth about your precious Mr. Hartshorne?”

The distant yellow pinpricks winked. Phylidda clutched Philip’s arm in a panic. “What are you doing? We’re losing him!”

Philip urged the horses to walk faster, but no so fast that they outpaced the feeble yellow light from the car's lamps. The pinpricks re-appeared as the distance closed, but winked again as the Hartshorne car picked up speed.

“He’s outrunning his lights,” Phyl mused. “Lud! What must be so urgent for him to drive so recklessly?”

Several moments passed before Philip replied. “The place he visits.”

Phyl was fired by the reluctant tone. “And what kind of place would that be?”

“With all respect, my lady, I prefer that you see for yourself.”

“Why? Is it disreputable?”

“Put it this way: If he were my employer, and if I were a female living under his roof, I should find cause for concern.”

At once Phyl imagined Wallis alighting from the car and entering a building whose restrained brick façade concealed either a gaming hell or a brothel, if not both. A gaming hell she could understand. He was, after all, an American, and Americans were known to be careless with their money. But a brothel?

Phyl remembered the night in Lady Wilfer’s maze. What had Wallis really been doing there? Had he indeed run afoul of newfound friends, as he had told her? Or had he gone to Lady Wilfer’s ball seeking the kind of fun that had terrified her into escaping?

Not two days ago, Phyl had dared to believe that Wallis Hartshorne loved her. Now a childhood friend was daring her to see that she had been deluded.

“Don’t compel me to guess,” she said. “Tell me. Not to tell me would be to torture me all night long.”

Phyl sensed Philip look at her as he asked, “Would you believe my word alone?”

“Would it be any less than what I would see for myself?”

“It could be more.”

“Then tell me where he goes.”

“That’s the point, my lady. I’ve no idea how to describe the place. It could be a club, or a house for public balls or private assignations. It’s a large, brick building, with brightly lighted rooms where people dance, and with dimly lighted rooms where people dine, and with even darker rooms where people are not seen at all, but where the windows remain open to the evening air, giving off the sound of singing or sighing, sometimes to the accompaniment of a pianoforte.”

The distant teeny lights vanished. So did Phyl’s desire to follow. “Bring me back. Please.”

“To where?”

“Home.”

“London?”

The temptation to say yes was nearly as strong as the urge to say no. What a relief it would be, to turn her back on the Hartshornes and return to the uncomplicated life of the house on the outskirts of town! Phyl wished she had never met Wallis Hartshorne or gone to Lady Wilfer’s ball in the first place, vainly determined to uncover the identity of the scandalous Gentleman Dairyman. Yet to return to her family would mean she must stop writing about the Americans in the countryside. She would have no income. Once again her mother and brothers would know financial hardship. How could she sacrifice their comfort for hers?

She explained her decision to Philip, who did as she asked and brought her back to the park.

She alighted from the phaeton in the place where Philip had met her, pensively walked around the horses to where he sat and shook his hand. “Thank you.” She seemed not to notice that he held on to her hand long after shaking it. She heard in his voice the timidity that he struggled to conceal in his face.

“May I…may I call on you again? For a drive?”

“I’ll let you know when.” She let him kiss her hand, and trudged back to her false home.