One Shot: Port Royal Tea Party
By Honorat
Rating: K
Disclaimer: Takin' what I can. Givin' nothin' back.
Summary: The ladies of Port Royal have a wonderful new topic for gossip. This started out as a drabble for the "Narrow Escapes" challenge at Black Pearl Sails, but it got way out of hand. Sequel to my "Marooned" ch. 7 "Survival is the Only Option" where Jack and Elizabeth sack Port Royal. Now we meet the ladies Elizabeth wanted to sack, as well as a few new ones. Over 1,000 words—this is one bloated drabble.
Thank you Geek mama for getting me ready to make way, I'd have had a hard time of it without your beta help.
Port Royal Tea Party
By Honorat
"Will you look at that? Utterly shameless, I call it!" Lady Eslington's soft soprano held an incongruous note of venom.
Of course everyone looked. The view was spectacular. The Stanhope manor was blessed with a lovely garden overlooking the Port Royal harbour, and on this ideal Caribbean afternoon the sea glittered in aquamarine perfection. Small white sails, like gull wings, spangled the bay, as tall ships set out to ports unknown.
However, none of that select company of fine British women was the least bit interested in the exquisite scenery. What had captured their attention was the flutter of skirts on the path just down the hill where the governor's daughter tripped along light-heartedly, picnic basket over her arm, towards a certain blacksmith's shop in the town below. Nary a maid nor a footman was in sight.
"I can't say that I'm surprised," sniffed Mrs. Fitzbrace-Pennythump as she re-settled her imposing bulk in her chair with a corseted creak. "Weatherby never could control that girl. Wild to a fault, she is and always has been. And so I've told him many a time." Adding three spoonfuls of sugar to her tea, she leaned forward confidentially. "Do you know," she nodded, "Felicity tells me, when Elizabeth was just a child, she used to run off with that Will Turner without her governess and go swimming? Didn't she, Felicity?" Mrs. Fitzbrace-Pennythump consulted her colourless daughter.
Felicity was Mrs. Harmon to everyone else, but she had never quite got over doing everything her mother told her to do. "Yes, Mama," she agreed insipidly.
Lady Stanhope raised an unobserved eyebrow at her guests. Really, it would be hard to find a more finely-feathered set of vultures. The dashing young widow was inclined to feel a certain amount of sympathy for the rash child who had fallen so disastrously in love—with a blacksmith of all things! One might do such things, of course. Indeed, that young man was devilishly handsome. But one did not publish one's indiscretion to the world, nor did one consider marriage so far beneath one's station. However, what could be expected from a girl who'd had no mother to guide her through these pitfalls?
"Did you ever hear the like?" Lady Eslington's voice quivered in horror, her teacup rattling nervously in her saucer. "My daughters would never dream of doing such a thing!"
Miss Belinda Eslington sat primly and smugly virtuous under her mother's encomium, mechanically delivering tiny bites of biscuit to her pinched mouth on her chinless face.
Certainly, with her looks and vicious personality, she'd likely never have the chance, Lady Stanhope reflected. Lady Eslington had been very wise to arrange a marriage for her into the peerage back in England without ever letting the man catch sight of his intended. But Miss Rosalind, her younger sister, wore just a trace of wistfulness about her. Both of the girls had inherited their mother's unfortunate plainness; however, Miss Rosalind had a little spirit that sparkled in her small eyes.
"My Jeremiah told me," began Mrs. Lynn, and the whole company let out an audible sigh. Mrs. Lynn always began her sentences this way. One would think the only person who had ever said anything profound in the history of the world was her Jeremiah, a midshipman in the Royal Navy. "My Jeremiah told me," Mrs. Lynn persisted, "they found her alone on an island, with that pirate they almost hanged last month, wearing nothing but her shift. Not even a corset."
The young girls pricked up their ears. "My Jeremiah" had never said anything so interesting before in his life. Now here was a scandalous tidbit of information! On an island! With a pirate! Alone! It was worse than the novels they hid from their mothers.
They weren't entirely clear on the exact nature of the terrible things that happened when a girl found herself alone with a man, but they did know that Ruin was the inevitable result. A girl had best simply die rather than find herself in such a disgraceful situation!
"She'd been gone for over a week with those pirates who raided the town, my dears," Mrs. Lynn continued, relishing being the bearer of welcome news for a change. "Imagine! And then she defended that same awful pirate, what was his name?"
"Jack Sparrow," Lady Stanhope supplied.
"Mark my words, there was more to that than met the eye!" Mrs. Fitzbrace-Pennythump gave a sharp and ominous nod that set all of her chins wobbling.
And if there was, who would blame the girl, Lady Stanhope reflected. She'd been to that interrupted hanging. Entertainment was a trifle scant in the colonies after all. That had been an extraordinary show in more ways than one.
"You'd think, after all that, she'd have the sensibility or at least the decorum to assume the appearance of virtue even if she has it not." Lady Eslington pursed her lips into the mournful frown of one who has expected better of her fellow human beings.
"Really, the girl is fortunate that even an honest tradesman would consider marrying her at this point," Mrs. Fitzbrace-Pennythump sniffed again.
Lady Stanhope wondered if the woman could speak without sniffing.
"And she could have had Commodore Norrington," sighed Miss Mary Lynn, a rather charming girl who spent her life being eclipsed by "My Jeremiah" in her mother's eyes.
"Believe me, one day Commodore Norrington will live to be grateful for the narrow escape he's had!" retorted Mrs. Fitzbrace-Pennythump. And there was that sniff.
Now that she was watching for it, Lady Stanhope decided it was getting on her nerves. James Norrington was not looking grateful yet, poor man. Really the little Swann had all the most attractive bachelors on her string. She'd have to invite her over for a cozy tête-à-tête someday.
"Poor little motherless lamb!" sighed the vicar's wife.
Normally, Lady Stanhope avoided the vicar's wife. Too much virtue made her itch. But at least the woman was exhibiting some of the only charity she'd seen here this afternoon.
"The way of the transgressor is supposed to be hard." Mrs. Fitzbrace-Pennythump looked righteously down her patrician nose. And sniffed.
"But she looks so happy," Miss Rosalind piped up for the first time, then retired blushing behind her hand.
The last twinkle of skirt disappeared behind the buildings at the edge of the town.
Yes, Lady Stanhope reflected, Miss Swann did look indecently happy. She was not concerning herself with the opinions of any of them. That was not a young woman who had lost a reputation; that was a young woman who had found her heart's desire.
End