Beautiful Thoughts: A Revelation and a Relative

(for the first four episodes, click on Fiction – Or Is It? above)

For two weary days Annabelle had been confined to her bed, concealing ‘neath a damask coverlet the blanched visage and scarlet-rimmed eyes of a feverish chill. Her fair friends had been as attentive as Lady Agatha would allow; fear of contagion being one of the few earthly terrors the doughty dame would permit residence in her noble bosom. Polly sent Mrs. Betteredge’s latest novel, The Hermit of the Heights, ready-marked in all the most terrifying places; and if she privately thought that young ladies who lurked in chilly foyers in order to pounce on their errant friends were perhaps inviting illness, the remark never escaped her crimson lips. Stacia hovered at Cook’s elbow, attempting to persuade the half-deaf beldame to produce the dainty trifles sure to tempt an invalid appetite. After all efforts had proven fruitless, she hustled the old lady from her fiefdom, donned an apron, and turned to with amazing skill and great success. From the sitting room, Lorelei played all of Annabelle’s favorite Scotch melodies to lift her spirits during the long afternoons, then sacrificed her own rest to lull the sufferer to sleep with the Brahms they both loved.

On the morning of the third day, Lady Agatha herself pronounced her niece sufficiently recovered to be escorted downstairs and established in the warmest corner of the library. Jackson, who considered it far too early for the young lady to be moved, toiled up and down the back stairs with shawls, pillows, and a veritable chemist’s shop of remedies, uttering below her breath a continuous stream of dire prophecies about the inevitable outcome of these foolhardy modern ideas. Annabelle, still wanting her usual spirits, submitted meekly to being buried under a growing mountain of wool and linen. At last the faithful servant surveyed her handiwork and considered it well-done, and with a final warning not to move from the sofa until permitted, she retired from the room.

Stacia entered briskly, striding straight to the opposite door and flinging it wide; then crossing back to the divan, she swiftly and efficiently divested Annabelle of at least half her plentiful wrappings.

“Stacia!” Annabelle feebly remonstrated. “Jackson has just now finished arranging me.”

“So I gather,” replied her cousin. “And I have just finished rearranging you. Tell the truth – are you not more comfortable now, and is not your breathing easier?”

“Yes,” admitted Anna. “Thank you, Stacia – oh, Polly! How did you know?”

“I thought you might be longing for your silks and needle,” laughed Polly, placing a delicate box of gilt and ivory inlay at the side of the divan. “I knew Lady Agatha had forbidden you to work in your bed, and I could not but imagine how dreadfully dull you must have been without your favorite toys.”

“Is that your new collar?” inquired Stacia, as the delighted girl began to sort colors and stabbed a gleaming lancet through an emery bag with returning strength.

“Mmm-hmm,” was the only reply audible, and then, “Polly, where is your point de gaze cap? I saw a dreadful tear when last you wore it; I could not stop thinking of it all through the next two waltzes, and there was simply no getting to you to hide it through that mad crush at the D_____’s fete.”

“It is utterly astonishing to me that you can espy an inch-long rent in a half-covered piece of lace across a crowded ballroom,” observed Eustacia as Polly went to fetch the offending cap. “Your ocular faculty has been terrible since you were a child; I distinctly recall your pitching headfirst off the veranda at the H____ deV_____’s garden party because you were too vain to wear eyeglasses before strangers.”

“It was growing dark,” protested Annabelle. “In any case, I can certainly see what I need to… and sometimes what no one else does.” With a mysterious smile on her still faint lips, she bent over her embroidery.

Eustacia, normally a young woman of remarkable self-command, started visibly. “What do you mean?” she demanded with unexpected warmth, just as the lovely Pollyanna made her graceful way back into the room.

“What does who mean?” she asked.

“I mean,” returned Annabelle with a rather sly smile, “that my limited ocular faculties have seen something which both of you would find very, very interesting.”

“Oh what could it be?” cried Polly, wide-eyed. The third fair maiden was silent.

With a glance at the library door and a studied pause for greater effect, Anna leaned forward and in thrilling tones announced, “I have seen the name of Lorelei’s unknown suitor!”

“Who, Anna? Who is it?” asked Pollyanna in a breathless hush, while Stacia sank back into her chair and added, “And how did you happen to discover it?”

“Did you see those lovely white roses that Jackson brought up on the second day I was ill?” demanded the rapidly recovering invalid. “She was in error; they were not intended for me at all! The note attached was quite plainly addressed to Lorelei; unfortunately, Jackson realized her mistake just as I…” and here she stopped, in sudden and uncharacteristic confusion.

“Opened the note,” finished Stacia. “Annabelle, even for you…”

“Oh, bother!” snapped Polly, quite startling her companions. “What did you see? Who is it?”

“His name is… his name is… something something Bart!” crowed Annabelle. “Do either of you know him?”

Her charming confidantes regarded each other in utter bafflement.

“Mr. Bart? Are you sure you saw it clearly? It’s a terribly odd name,” puzzled Polly.

“It was in my hand; I saw it perfectly well. It is an odd name; it was spelled oddly, too. Perhaps he is a foreigner,” Anna ventured.

“Spelled oddly how, Anna?” asked Stacia, a faint light of understanding and amusement dawning in her luminous eyes.

“He put a full stop at the end,” she answered. “Is that French?”

Polly tried to stifle the bubbling mirth within her charitable breast; Stacia, however, fell back against the cushions again, laughing long and heartily.

“What?” demanded Annabelle, sensing an affront. “What is so amusing? Is it German? You know I never paid attention at Miss P_____’s Academy. What is it? Tell me this minute!”

“Oh, Annabelle!” Eustacia said. “Do you never read any of Polly’s novels? Bart. is an abbreviated form of ‘baronet;’ it’s the man’s title, not his name!”

“Oh…” began the embarrassed girl, then:

“OH!” gasped all three of the friends as one, and Pollyanna added, “Lorelei is being courted by a baronet! She’ll have a title! She’ll be in DeBrett! She’ll be…”

“She’s coming!” hissed Anna, as the young lady, her shell-like ears surely burning, came hurrying into the room.

“Girls!” cried Lorelei in her bell-like tones, “the most marvelous surprise! Count Eugenio is here, now – and he has with him the single most beautiful young man I have ever seen!”

Annabelle, that fragile creature, leapt from her couch of pain, scattering shawls and needles to the wind; and it must be recorded, in the interest of sacred Truth, that her three dearest companions kept hard at her heels as she raced to the grand foyer.