My Lady Caprice | Page 3

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My Lady Caprice
by Jeffrey Farnol

I TREASURE TROVE
I sat fishing. I had not caught anything, of course - I rarely do, nor am I
fond of fishing in the very smallest degree, but I fished assiduously all
the same, because circumstances demanded it.
It had all come about through Lady Warburton, Lisbeth's maternal aunt.
Who Lisbeth is you will learn if you trouble to read these veracious
narratives - suffice it for the present that she has been an orphan from
her youth up, with no living relative save her married sister Julia and
her Aunt (with a capital A) - the Lady Warburton aforesaid.
Lady Warburton is small and somewhat bony, with a sharp chin and a
sharper nose, and invariably uses lorgnette; also, she is possessed of
much worldly goods.
Precisely a week ago Lady Warburton had requested me to call upon
her - had regarded me with a curious exactitude through her lorgnette,
and gently though firmly (Lady Warburton is always firm) had
suggested that Elizabeth, though a dear child, was young and inclined
to be a little self-willed. That she (Lady Warburton) was of opinion that
Elizabeth had mistaken the friendship which had existed between us so
long for something stronger. That although she (Lady Warburton) quite
appreciated the fact that one who wrote books, and occasionally a play,
was not necessarily immoral - Still I was, of course, a terrible
Bohemian, and the air of Bohemia was not calculated to conduce to
that degree of matrimonial harmony which she (Lady Warburton) as
Elizabeth's Aunt, standing to her in place of a mother, could wish for.
That, therefore, under these circumstances my attentions were - etc.,
etc.
Here I would say in justice to myself that despite the torrent of her
eloquence I had at first made some attempt at resistance; but who could
hope to contend successfully against a woman possessed of such an
indomitable nose and chin, and one, moreover, who could level a pair
of lorgnette with such deadly precision? Still, had Lisbeth been beside
me things might have been different even then; but she had gone away
into the country - so Lady Warburton had informed me. Thus alone and

at her mercy, she had succeeded in wringing from me a half promise
that I would cease my attentions for the space of six months, "just to
give dear Elizabeth time to learn her own heart in regard to the matter."
This was last Monday. On the Wednesday following, as I wandered
aimlessly along Piccadilly, at odds with Fortune and myself, but
especially with myself, my eye encountered the Duchess of Chelsea.
The Duchess is familiarly known as the "Conversational Brook" from
the fact that when once she begins she goes on forever. Hence, being in
my then frame of mind, it was with a feeling of rebellion that