Beautiful Thoughts Part II: Pollyanna’s Peril
July 12, 2007The still of a white-wrapped winter midnight had long since descended upon the stately house of Dame Agatha Rooth, bastion of B_____ society and aunt to young Annabelle. The dowager lay soundly sleeping, secure in her great name and her nightcap of true Valenciennes lace, certain that her four lovely protegées were secure as well in the fortress of the Rooth ancestral home.
But hark! a stealthy footstep, a rustle as of lace and velvet: something moved in the darkness, something soft and sly, tiptoeing on slippered feet toward the grand staircase. Who had penetrated the fiercely-guarded realm of Dame Agatha? Who dared cross the chilly vastness of the foyer? Whose cunning and desperation could have prompted such an incursion? Softly, softly, each step a whisper on cold marble…
“Aha!” squeaked Annabelle, popping out from behind the balustrade with a most unladylike suddenness. “I thought it was you! Where have you been?”
“Annabelle!” hissed the pale and stricken Pollyanna, for indeed our intruder was she. “What on earth – hush! Put out that light! Go back to bed!” and poor Polly attempted to rush up the stairs to the safe haven of her room. Annabelle blocked her neatly in a flurry of beribbon’d silk dressing gown.
“Annabelle, let me by!” pleaded Polly in a harried whisper.
“Shan’t,” countered the insouciant miss, and flung herself down at full length across a stair. “Not ’til you tell me where you’ve been.”
“I’ll step straight on you!”
“I’ll scream and wake the house!”
Pollyanna gasped in fear. “You wouldn’t dare! Aunt Rooth would have our heads if she found us here at this hour!”
Crossing her ankles and addressing herself to the ceiling far above, Annabelle replied,”Would she? Our heads? Who, may I ask, is wearing a perfectly appropriate and quite becoming dressing gown and who is wearing a rather rumpled ballgown and a cloak covered in snow?”
“And WHO can’t find a moment of peace in this wretched house?” demanded Eustacia, flinging open the library door, still brandishing a fireplace poker in one hand and holding a book in the other.
Polly and Anna shrieked simultaneously and simultaneously shushed each other.
“Stacia! What are you doing up at this hour?” asked Polly.
“I came down to get a book…” began Eustacia, limned in the dying firelight like a lovely avenging angel.
“And in only your nightdress!” exclaimed Annabelle. “What if somebody saw you?”
“Frankly, Anna, I wasn’t expecting a crowd in the foyer…”
“What if John had awakened and come to investigate the noise? What would you have done then? Really, Stacia, it’s only common decency!” continued Annabelle without a pause for breath.
“John?”
“The footman!”
“Ah, John!” laughed Eustacia. “You mean the taller, good-looking footman? I imagine it wouldn’t be the first nightdress John’s seen in his time. And you needn’t bother to put on such a shocked expression, Anna.”
“Oh!” huffed Annabelle, thoroughly out of countenance. “Just because some girls go to picnics without stays and receive compliments from thoroughly disreputable gentlemen who aren’t in the least bit interesting to well-brought-up young ladies anyway doesn’t make it right or decent to prance half-naked through the house…”
“Girls, please!” interrupted Pollyanna, with tears of vexation streaming down her lily cheeks. “Please, let me get to my room and change out of this gown! In the sacred name of friendship, I beg it of you both!”
Eustacia dropped the poker to embrace her; Anna, shame-faced, rushed forward as well.
“Come, Polly,” murmured the wise and tender-hearted Stacia. “Anna and I will be quiet and peaceable as little doves and whisk you away to our nest in safety.”
And as the two fair penitents turned to support their weeping friend up the stairs, a gentle voice from the landing said,”It truly is too cold to stay in this chilly foyer any longer.”
Polly shrieked again, Stacia dropped her book, and Annabelle tripped most ungracefully down a stair. As Lorelei stood silently gazing down at her friends, amaz’d at this violent reaction, a door somewhere in the vast house creaked in protest at its abrupt opening, and a familiar and terrifying voice was heard to call -
“Jackson? Jackson, who is it? Are there burglars? Jackson, get the police!”
Four minds with but a single thought sped four dainty pairs of feet swiftly up the stairs and out of harm’s way.
Seriously, you are going to tell us where Polly was and with whom, right? Because the suspense is killing me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But I must say for a Pollyanna that girl really does get around. I am very proud of her.
…and I think that our author is far too kind, since anyone with knowledge of her youthful activities is aware that Lorelai sneak’d out of the house at indecent hours (and on indecent errands) far more often than dear Polly.
Oh, you’ll all get yours.
And I think that Lorelei was clearly way too busy on her own midnight errands to notice how often Polly went missing. Polly probably would have been far safer if she’d at least let a friend or two know where she was going asked them to wait up for us. Or if any of them had ever had the good sense to venture out together, as there is sometimes safety in numbers and it is quite certain that misery always loves company. Pity that Victorian society was just far too hypocritically prudish to allow even the best of friends to have that kind of openness. Then again, it would have made for much less exciting novels.
Although if they’d had the good sense to just stay home and, ahem, fully enjoy one another’s company, that would make for the kind of novel that the boys in the audience might decidedly prefer and are undoubtedly really hoping this is going to turn into.
I would note that despite Dame Agatha’s extremely prudish appearance and manner, she really was both a very sound sleeper and a lousy chaperone. And I suspect she might have had a few adventures in her own youth and been secretly winking at those of her young charges, don’t you think? I submit as evidence her response to learning of Polly and Eustacia’s visit to a rather risque theatrical performance, “Well, that might not have been MY choice, but I’m glad you enjoyed yourselves.” I would note that P & E’s night of decadence occurred, as did so many wonderful adventures, when they were visiting the Great City at the height of the season, chaperoned only by their delightfully amusing uncle Lord Eugenio, who was always by 3 p.m. far too deeply into his cups to have a thought for his young charges, although in the mornings he would make up for it by insisting that they all attend some very educational lectures and exhibitions.
Ah, I do miss those lovely representatives of the elder generation–you shall have to give them some more appearances. And do start showing us some of these young scoundrels and rapscallions who tempt our young heroines. John the footman sounds like quite a charmer.
Once an editor, always an editor.
And a very pushy and demanding one.
Can I please, please, please, have a torrid affair with the footman? Pretty please?
I still firmly believe that having an affair with a footman would be much more fun.