Better Than Byron

A Visit From an Old Friend, and An Invitation to Dinner

V

Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life.

-Lord Byron

Margaret was busy writing a letter to her younger sister in Kent when Maria announced a visitor – it was Lady Beatrice Gray. She looked up with wonder, slowly repeating the name she had heard.

"Yes, ma'am," Maria mumbled with a short curtsy. "She's come to see Master Thurlow. But you see he has been out almost a whole hour – gone to the city, I think – and I known's what to do wi' her." Margaret smiled at her forgivingly.

"Very well, Maria. You may show her into the parlour. Tell her I shall be with her in another minute." After putting away her writing-things, Margaret hastily glimpsed herself in the mirror and then hastened downstairs into the parlour. Lady Beatrice was standing near the fireplace and when she came in, she looked at her with disdain, for all Margaret was a few inches taller than her. "Good morning your ladyship," the headmistress of the school said, curtsying with brevity.

"Good morning," she returned shortly, sizing her up with a flash of annoyance in her eyes, for she saw that Miss Vickers was not quite so plain as she remembered her to be. "I am here to see Mr. Thurlow. Is he not at home?"

"No, your ladyship," she replied with a fleeting smile. "He is gone into Town – I thought that Maria had informed you of that."

"Maria?" she snapped. "Maria? The half-witted person who showed me into this undersized room a moment ago?"

"I believe so, but I hardly know her by the puzzling description you have given me of her," she said, not to spite her, but to lighten the tone of their strained intercourse.

"Well!" she sneered, crumpling her leather gloves with suppressed resentment. She could but glare at her and be distantly civil. "If that is the case, then I have no reason to stay. Good morrow, Miss Vickers. It has been a pleasure."

"I very much doubt that," Margaret said as she and Maria – who had crept back into the parlour – observed her luxurious equipage from the window.

*

Edgar was in one of his brown studies when Maria knocked on his door, asking to be let in. He gave her his leave to, "do as she pleased," after which she slid in, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bent timidly to the floor.

"Well, Maria?" Edgar sighed, looking up at her from his escritoire. "What brings you to my kingdom? Have you a letter, perchance? Or is it a message? I have already been informed of her ladyship's call. I daresay she did not treat you and Miss Vickers with respect."

"Please, sir," Maria shook her head, finally mustering enough courage to speak forwardly. "There is a man down in th' parlour waiting for you. He says he must and will see you tonight or... be damned. He has a coarse tongue, sir. I do not think you ought to be entertaining such rag-mannered people in Miss Vickers's respectable establishment."

"Humph," he scowled, glancing out of the window facing his escritoire. "Tell him he is to send me his name and his business. If he fails to comply, then you may inform him of my reluctance to be waited on at present."

"Very good, sir," she curtsied, sliding back into the dark corridor and softly shutting the door behind her. Edgar had only just relapsed into his previous state of gloomy meditation when Maria returned, this time with a name and something of an explanation to accompany it.