The Duchess’ Lice | 19 February 2023

The Duchess slumped back into her chair in exasperation as she watched her maid’s dog dash through the door and bound across the lawn towards the rose garden with her merkin in its mouth.  “What a disastrous way to start the day,” she muttered to herself.

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Winifred, the maid, entered the room with her breakfast tray and placed it on the table at the Duchess’ side, then brushed her arms in response to a breeze blowing through the open French Doors.  “Would you like me to close the doors, Your Grace?”  Winifred inquired.

“Not until you bring that infernal creature back inside,” the Duchess spoke through the hand over her face.

“Crea- creature?”  Winifred worriedly scuttled to the doorway and gazed into the vast garden, her eyes searching for the animal or being her mistress was referring to.

“D- do you mean Master Hart, Your Grace?”  Winifred asked, referring to the Duchess’ son whose heirs in 100 years would later carry the title of Marquess of Winchester.  “He’s playing amongst the topiaries?”

“No, Winifred.”  The Duchess did not clarify her demand.

“Uh…erm…”  Winifred’s eyes further surveyed the ground of her mistress’ country estate.  “Oh…uh, did you mean Sir Neville, Your Grace?”  Winifred bowed her head, quietly referring to the Earl of Warwick.  She wasn’t sure whether it was safe to betray that she was intimately aware of her mistress’ extra-marital intimacies.

Without batting an eye, the Duchess flatly replied, “I didn’t, although I certainly have a bone to pick with him as well.”  The Duchess conspicuously scratched her crotch.

Suddenly spotting her dog, Henry, seemingly at odds with some kind of fowl or feral animal, thrashing it violently to and fro next to the wishing fountain, Winifred gasped and darted out to the lawn to retrieve him.  Having scooped the pooch up into her apron, she briefly tried to wrest his obsession away from his jaws before capitulating and simply bringing him indoors.

Philippa, the Duchess, had since roused herself and was now seated in her dressing room, door ajar, where she was dabbing talc under her arms and on her vulva before reaching for her eau de parfum.  Tobias, her husband, had remained behind in the city to attend to business affairs, allowing her to spend the summer unfettered in their country home.

Only after Winifred had fully wrestled her mistress’ merkin from her dog’s mouth when she realized it wasn’t a rodent.  In shock, she immediately ushered the canine outside and shut the French Doors so she could tend to the hair piece without interruption.  She couldn’t believe she had been summoned form the city out to the country house for such matters.  Why couldn’t one of the countless other ladies’ maids or one of the valets have helped Her Grace and deal with these indiscretions?

Through the partially closed door leading to Her Grace’s dressing salon, Winifred could hear fevered conversation.  By the sounds of it, Sir Neville had indeed found his way inside her mistress’ bed chamber. 

“You must tell me at once, Richard!  What is your explanation for this?!”  The Duchess gesticulated wildly toward her groin.  “Have you been visiting the brothels again?”

In response, Winifred could only hear the hushed tones of apology from the side of the accused.

The Duchess was growing increasingly desperate.  “You swore to me those days were over once we fell in love.  And I know these little buggers didn’t arrive because of my husband,” she said, picking a louse from her Venus Mound, “as I haven’t lain with him in months!”

Just then, the Duchess spotted Winifred and her now-clean merkin through the crack in the door and motioned for her to join her by her vanity to restore it.  Winifred quietly entered the salon, noting that the Earl’s back was turned, his hung head facing the mantle.  The Duchess, unmoved, believing the help to be of no higher stature in a household than a mutt, silently waved for Winifred to restore the merkin to its intended position.  She parted her legs even as tears streamed her powdered cheeks.

“You know I wouldn’t be able to survive if I knew you’d been with anyone else,” Philippa continued, her voice thin.  “I can’t think of what I might do,” she picked up a rat tail comb from her dressing table, clutching it in her hand as one does a knife.  “Perhaps I’d do a desperate outrage to myself…” she raised the point of the comb and further erupted into tears, “or to you!”

Richard brought his hands up to his face in a violent gesture, still unable to turn to face Philippa nor level his eyes at her.

“There may have been one distraction,” he began.

“Who?!  Lady Anne?”

(beat)

“Lady Bess.”

(beat)

“Lord Spencer?”

“It’s no use, Philippa, I’ll never tell,” Richard said, slowly lowering his hands to his sides.

“WINIFRED!”  The Duchess howled at a pin prick leveled by her maid’s poor merkin adhesion.

Richard swiveled, at once raising his gaze to meet his mistress’ while exposing the truth with one word: “Winifred?!”