Chapter 15 - Wild Tansy in the Wind

As this is a Regency story, there is bound to be some AU-ness and OOC-ness. Please bear with me. Emphases are in italics and titles of books &ca are underlined. This story places great stress on the significance and meanings of flowers.

Language of Flowers

Chapter 15 – Wild Tansy in the Wind

After storming out into the night from his mother's disastrous rout party, Lord Villiers called for his carriage to be brought to the door and ordered his tiger to take him to Hades. Though he was sprawled very much at his ease, with his hands dug deep into the capacious pockets of his greatcoat, he was still sulking over the events of the evening. It was evident that he had been acting below his mother's expectations and it pained him to upset her. However, he could not condone her selfishness in desiring an advantageous match for him where the prospect of amassing more wealth and influence were high. Sinking further into the shadows of his carriage, he wondered why his mother could not see the political influence wielded by the Duke of Offaly in the House of Lords. His face darkened as he pondered as to the possible prejudices that prevented her from seeing Lady Ginevra Weasley's gentle merits. The evil pace at which his team drove soon brought him to the most established and luxurious of the gaming hells, Hades.

Hades was a discreet looking establishment near Westminster. The orderly man who greeted his lordship received a black scowl, as did the porter who admitted him. After leaving his wand with the wand porter as the hell's rules dictated, Villiers cast black looks at any one of his acquaintance who dared to cross his path on his way up the stairs to the dicing and card rooms of faro and deep basset. Passing through the general rooms, he continued on to an archway into a smaller apartment where the rattling sound of the dice resounded. There was one large table occupying the centre of room and as such, was surrounded by a fair number of onlookers. Quickly throwing himself into an empty chair in the corner, Villiers called for several bottles of Firewhisky. Upon finishing two and a half bottles and watching a green young fellow lose a small fortune at dice, Villiers found himself in the company of his former associates, Messrs Nott, Goyle and Crabbe. Pointedly ignoring them, he waved to his friend, the recently ennobled Lord Macnair.

"What brings you back here, Villiers?" asked Goyle blithely, "Petticoat trouble?"

The company around him laughed.

"Hang all the women!" hissed the Marquess. "Hang them all!"

"Who's the bird of paradise this time? Another opera dancer?" quizzed Crabbe.

"Or is it an opera singer?" laughed Goyle.

"Ooh!" the circle around Villiers guffawed in mirth.

Downing his third bottle of Firewhisky, he smirked contemptuously at them.

"Either the Granger creature or the Weasley piece," announced Goyle knowingly to the rest of his companions.

Villiers flashed him an evil look and rose from his chair. Providentially for Goyle, Lord Macnair intervened. "Pay a round with us. It will be like old times. You'll be the bank again and no one would dare play against you."

The Marquess laughed and patted Macnair's back before loosening his cravat and unbuttoning two of his flowered waistcoat's buttons. The casual observer would perceive that my Lord Villiers looked almost as pale as his godfather by candlelight and rather like his former dissipated self. Sitting down at the game table, he glanced at his companions and betrayed no hint of his private unhappiness.

Two hours passed in this agreeable manner until the doors brought forth Lord Percy Weasley. "Why Lord Villiers! I did not expect to see you here tonight," he said.

"He has trouble with a wench, I wager?" laughed Goyle, shaking hands with the newcomer.

"I apprehend that most of Lord Villiers quarrels owe their existence to a female," said Lord Percy dryly.

"Shall you try to take the bank, Lord Percy?" quizzed Villiers, tossing off what remained in his glass. "I'll throw you for it."

"I'll advise against it," Mcnair said mincingly. "Villiers has had the devil's luck all night."

"I thank your lordship's counsel but I would prefer to throw against the bank and Lord Villiers," replied Lord Percy as he seated himself beside Crabbe.

"Raise you to a hundred, gentlemen," Villiers said, narrowing his scornful eyes at his intended's brother while laying back in his chair and feeling in his capacious coat pocket for his snuff box. He pulled it out and opened it and took a pinch, glancing quickly around the table. Crabbe complained that fifty was deep and steep enough. One of the spectators surrounding the game table commented that the game was definitively going too deep, but was overruled.

"Standing out, Lord Percy?" mocked Villiers.

"Good Lord! I'm not then! You've too many of my notes under your hand, Villiers. Keep it at fifty," Macnair said, sensing the unease tension around the table.

"Raising you to a hundred," repeated the Marquess, coldly looking at Lord Percy.

Nott took the dice. "A hundred it is then, and those afraid of it stand out," he said in as genial manner as possible. He called a main of sixes and threw twos. "Damn you, Villiers!" he said good-humouredly and scribbled his name on a slip of paper and pushed it across the table.

The inebriated Goyle loudly declared, "It was a one-sided game. Another man ought to hold the bank! A reliable person like Lord Percy! It takes a person in Dun territory to have some sympathy for those of us opposed to you as the bank."

The spectators all saw the dangerous devil-may-care glint in Villiers' eyes and nudged each other warningly. Only Macnair had the sense to comment that luck rarely ran evenly. Despite that placatory remark, it was widely evident that the blond Marquess was already three parts drunk. It could only spell trouble brewing in the vicinity. While Villiers might very well be drunk, his speech and faculties appeared to be unimpaired. He leaned carelessly in his chair, one hand in his breeches pocket, the other with its fingers loosely around the whisky glass. He glared a challenge at Goyle and Lord Percy's looks of self-righteous dissatisfaction. "Had enough, gentlemen?"

The insulting tone affected the two men as could be expected. "I'll call eight," said Lord Percy, who threw the dice and lost.

"Curse it, I've called them for the last hour and the bloody dice turns up twos and aces,"

Goyle chose that moment to add with bitter vindictiveness "Let someone else hold the bank!" He looked around the table as to determine whether he had enlisted any support for his proposal but was met with no response.

Villiers eyed Goyle derisively. "There is the matter of some four thousand pounds in the bank. Throw you for it."

"Come, that's fair enough!" declared Lord Percy gruffly.

Goyle angrily responded, "Not against you, Villiers!"

"Damn! Do we sit here all night arguing?" Macnair exclaimed. "Let us be done with this!" He then picked up the dice box called a main and threw. Villiers pushed a pile of guineas towards him and the game continued.

Money passed backward and forward easily enough, but the bank remained the victor at the end of another few hours. Goyle's temper and Lord Percy's mask of affability deepened as the hours flew by; and by two in the morning, most of the party at the table were more or less inebriated.

"Gentlemen, I raise you to another hundred," announced Villiers recklessly, signifying to those closest to him that he was dangerously drunk.

"I'm out," said Mcnair with resignation. "Much too deep for me."

Villiers smirked coldly at his friend. "Bank can't win forever," he said in a singsong mocking voice. "Stay the course, Crabbe? Night is still young."

Mcnair stared hard at a clock on a nearby wall and squinted slightly to improve his alcohol addled vision. "It is three."

"It's still devilishly young," answered Lord Percy, sitting perfectly upright.

"I am going to sit it out," growled Goyle to Lord Percy. "We'll break Villiers yet. I'll bet my diamond stick pin that I'll break the bank before five."

"Make it an hour earlier and I'll take you up on your offer," the Marquess slurred slightly, narrowing his eyes in distrust.

"Will you resign in an hour?" asked Lord Percy.

"I have business at home," Villiers reasoned. "Mother may need to insult me further!"

"You cannot transact business anywhere! You're drunk!" Nott stressed.

"I'm at my best when I am intoxicated," snarled Villiers. Goyle's bet was duly entered in the betting book. "Well, Lord Percy," drawled his lordship. "Play or pay?"

"Play!" cried Lord Percy promptly, licking his lips in cupidity. "I'll have you yet. Playing two hundred."

"Two hundred it is," agreed Villiers coolly, taking a pinch of snuff as he watched the throw of the dice.

Goyle tapped his foot impatiently and bellowed, "This is a farce, Lord Villiers cannot lose."

Villiers smirked in an ugly manner. "You think so?" He laughed bitterly, chilling the spectators. "I have already lost. Oh yes, I have already lost at the important gambles."

"Stand out, Mr Goyle, if you can't stay the course!" shouted Lord Percy irritably.

Goyle's gall rose at that remark and he adopted a quarrelsome tone, "I'll stay in the game, but the luck runs with Villiers too much for my taste." Sensing the swift ill wind threatening to engulf Hades, Macnair sought to pacify the ice players.

"Shut that trap, Macnair!" barked Goyle, glaring at his companion through bloodshot eyes. "I'll play if another man takes the bank from Villiers."

"Is that a challenge?" murmured Villiers plaintively with an ugly smirk. "I sympathise, as do Crabbe and Macnair."

"Hold your peace!" whispered Nott, restraining both Lord Percy and Goyle. "Withdraw if luck runs shy of you. Cease this bickering."

Goyle broke free of Nott's grasp. "I don't like the way this game has gone," he raved, banging the table with his heavy fists, "if you won't give up the bank, let us have some fresh dice!"

Nott and Macnair exchanged glances in the uneasy silence that followed. "You've made too many indentures, Goyle. Even if you're miffed, you are in no condition for a mill," opined Macnair.

"I think not," replied Lord Percy, looking fiercely at Villiers.

The Marquess leaned forward and drank the rest of his Firewhisky. "Don't like the dice, gentlemen?" he mocked, serenely pouring himself another drink.

"Devil take you! I don't like the dice!" screeched Goyle.

"I don't like your manners at this table! You've been winning ever since you've held the bank!" bellowed Lord Percy. "I'll be damned if I sit by and..."

His homily was cut short by Villiers' swift emptying of the contents of his glass in Lord Percy's face. His cold eyes alighted on the rapidly colouring visage of his beloved's disreputable brother. "You were saying?"

However, Lord Percy and Goyle were not prepared to leave the Marquess be. They both made for his throat in a desperate lunge and would have succeeded if they were not held back by the propitious intervention of Nott and Macnair.

"Lord Percy, you're drunk," hissed Macnair, noticing for a first time, a pink handprint on his lordship's left cheek. "Take it back!"

"You too, Goyle," cautioned Nott, Crabbe though extremely inebriated was jerked into sobriety by the near brawl. "Control yourself, Villiers, the poor fool is drunk."

"As am I," answered Villiers with an unpleasant smirk. "But I am not so drunk to ignore a man who calls me a cheat, especially from a man who is a real cheat. Even his brother holds him to be a greek!" He then signalled for one of the one of the proprietors of the establishment and whispered something to him.

Nott frowned at Goyle. "Take it back, my man, you are not yourself."

Macnair sought to imbue Lord Percy with the same wisdom. The aggrieved gentlemen, however, did not partake of the popular opinion and wrenched themselves free from the grips of their companions.

"You'll meet me for this, my Lord Villiers!" warned Lord Percy, his eyes inflamed with drink and desperate rage.

"Then me!" hollered Goyle.

He eyed them belligerently and recalled Lord Percy's behaviour at his mother's party as well as Goyle's previous treachery in reporting his meetings with Lady Ginevra to his mother. "Aye, I'll fence or shoot you, rogues!" laughed Villiers carelessly. "Shall we settle it here? Or would it better for you if I took down one of you here and the other at dusk?"

Nott took the dice in his hand and played with them briefly, wondering how to avert the potential tragedy of three drunk pugnacious men itching for a fight. Then he recalled something that he had once read in a book. "We shall break the dice!" he announced to all present. "You," he called out to one of the spectators, "Get either Zabini or Avery to bring a hammer. Damn them! Where are the proud owners of this establishment anyhow, Zabini was talking to Villiers only a moment ago! Where are the rogues who administer this place when you need them!"

"Wouldn't it be an affront to his lordship if this was done?" asked one of the members of the crowd.

"I think his lordship is properly shot in the neck," whispered another spectator to his friend.

"Blast you! If we break them and there's nothing in them, Goyle and Lord Percy apologise," reasoned Macnair, rubbing his eyes in exhaustion.

"Aye," agreed Villiers, "Malfoys do not play crooked."

Zabini, with whom Villiers had conversed earlier returned at this point with a moderately sized leather case. As he handed it to Villiers, Lord Percy insisted on having the satisfaction of duelling with the Marquess.

"At dusk then," said Nott in the most soothing voice he could muster for the moment. "Villiers is in no condition to duel and neither are you!"

Villiers laughed heartily at hearing his own name and carefully opened the leather case. Macnair' face fell when he saw its contents. "You don't mean to do it now with your own pistols?"

"They were in my carriage for such an emergency," laughed Villiers hollowly with his head thrown back in defiance.

"Name your friends, Villiers!" demanded Lord Percy, picking up one of the Marquess's pistols and inspecting it drunkenly.

"What about me?" complained Goyle petulantly.

"After I'm done with him, you'll have to content yourself with his body!" boasted Lord Percy in a slur as he struggling to remain on his feet. "Crabbe and Goyle can act for me now."

"I'll have Nott and Macnair then," laughed Villiers.

"Get a grip on yourself, Villiers," interceded Macnair. "Both men should put their heads in buckets of water."

Goyle looked on Villiers and all present with an evil eye, "Villiers deserves to have a hole in him. I think he does not deserve to have the honourable way out."

"Peace, friend Goyle," drawled Villiers with a faint slur in his voice. "I'll see you at dusk at Barn Elms. Rapiers are your weapons, I believe?" Goyle bowed. "Excellent. I've not run anyone through in the longest time. I will send my Seconds to you later in the morning."

"If you live through this bout with me," cried Lord Percy, as he pushed the table back.

"I will live," murmured Villiers as he held his pistol in a carelessly slack hold. "Whether you will is another matter of conjecture."

Unable to bear the taunt, Lord Percy lurched at him and Villiers' pistol hand jerked up to respond to the attack with a loud report. The result of which culminated with Lord Percy Weasley crumpling flat on his face. Villiers tossed his pistol to Macnair as he rose steadily. "Tell my man to clean it and return it to its proper place in the carriage," he said, taking a pinch of snuff.

"You've killed him, Villiers," whispered Nott to the hushed room.

"No, I haven't. He may live," his lordship demurred callously, stepping over the body, "Then again, he may die. Keep me informed." He caught sight of Macnair giving the pistol and the leather case to his tiger at the doorway. "I must leave you now. Good day, gentlemen." He then turned on his heels and made for the door. Once there, he paused and turned to address an ashen Goyle, "Consider yourself fortunate, Mr Goyle. I am more proficient at pistols and wands than blades. I have yet to thank you for so informing my mother as to my tête-à-têtes with my affianced. See you at dusk, rogue!" Waving cheerily at the company, Lord Villiers went out of the room.

Within fifteen minutes of my Lord Villiers departure, the silence of Hades was broken by sudden appearance of two gentlemen into the private dicing room. It was clear to the assembled company that these two were not patrons of this fine establishment

The first strode swiftly into the room and curled his lips scornfully at the sight of the gaping men. "Unusually early for a duel, isn't it, Lupin?" he coolly asked his companion.

"Quite right, Severus," replied his old schoolfellow and friend as he mopped his brow with a handkerchief. "A good thing we stayed up at Harry's playing commerce." Catching sight of Lord Percy's blood pooling on the carpet underneath him, he grimaced. "Remind me to thank Lady Minerva for alerting us to Sybill's prediction. If only we had arrived sooner!"

"So, this is Hades," sneered Lord Sterne in a deliberately lazy fashion, scowling at a few of his acquaintances in the room. "I had no idea my godson honoured such a bourgeois place with his patronage."

Lupin bent to examine Lord Percy with a startled look and assisted Nott in attempting to stave the flow of blood from the young man's chest. "Severus, we need a surgeon."

"Avery's already gone for one." Sterne pointed to Lord Percy. "Villiers' latest victim, no doubt? No harm done."

"No harm done!" bellowed Goyle. "I'll kill him later today."

Lord Lupin groaned, "Not you too!"

"Unity in numbers, my dear Lupin, good fortune always comes in pairs. Well, Mr Goyle, when do you meet him, dawn or dusk?"

"Dusk," he replied, clenching his fists.

"Ah, at Barn Elms, I perceive. Come Lupin, the surgeon is here with Avery, we must be off now," said Sterne quietly, tracing his lips with his long fingers.

The rest of Hades' patrons were too lost for words and could only watch the departure of the two gentlemen with dread.

Footnotes:

Readers, you will notice that the title of the chapter contains the name of flowers/plants. This is significant to understanding the plot. While some of you may be familiar with the language of flowers, I beg you to allow for differences in interpretation. Some flowers/plants have one meaning during the time of the Regency and another during the Victorian era. My guess is that those of you familiar with this language are acquainted with the Victorian interpretation rather than the Regency one.

** Those wondering where's the evidence that Percy is a cheat is, please refer to Ron and Harry's conversation in Ch 6. Ron explicitly states, "Not satisfied with disappointing the family, he's even turned to gaming. It is common knowledge that he's living with his current slip of muslin and visits all the fashionable gaming hells. He's such a greek in his methods that he's even managed to part a Malfoy from his money!"" This demonstrates that Draco has played with Percy in the past and was cheated. Ron's statement also hints that Draco is a good player of these games of chance, and to be cheated by Percy is something that annoys his Malfoy pride.

Naturally, there is also a deeper meaning beyond that of the flowers. What it is – I leave it to you to uncover.

(1) Giving someone Wild Tansy means that you are saying, "I declare war against you."

This plant is also called silver weed and has very cute flowers. View it here http://www.blupete.com/Nature/PictureFlowers/Tansy.jpg. The attractive name 'tansy' is a contraction of the flower's medieval name, 'tanazeta'. In England, young children often called it 'buttons' because it has small, yellow round flat flower heads. It was very popular as a strewing herb, valued for its strong camphor-like fragrance that was believed in the High Middle Ages to act as a fly repellent. At one point, it was even rubbed on meat to keep flies away. In Catholic countries during the Middle Ages, tansy was a must. During Easter, the leaves were mixed into a tansy cake, which was awarded to the winning team of a ballgame between the priests and the men of the congregation. This is because the tansy was thought to purify the body after Lenten fasting.

(2) The term "tiger" in regency times referred to the chap who accompanied you and helped managed your horses when you were out driving or riding. He is also your trusted carriage/curricle (fill in vehicle of choice) driver on those rare days when you are not driving. If you watch period dramas, these are the fellows behind your curricle, carriage or whatever it is. A tiger is very different from a footman.

(3) In this chapter, you would have noticed that Draco took snuff. It is incidentally a habit that he shares with his father Snuff is a preparation of finely pulverized tobacco that can be drawn up into the nostrils by inhaling. It was also called smokeless tobacco. The quantity of this tobacco that is inhaled at a single time is no more than a pinch – literally. However, not all snuff-takers used it for fashion (it was then seen as a fashionable activity). Some people with nose trouble (blocked and/or running noses) used a special kind of 'snuff' which was a powdery substance, such as a medicine, taken by inhaling.

Taking snuff was a popular, widespread pastime among the upper class and middle class English of the 18th century. Snuff boxes were made by silver smiths who specialised in tightly closing boxes. Most English snuff boxes were made in Birmingham.

(4) Hell is the abbreviated name for "gaming hell". A gaming hell is a gambling establishment. It's kind of like a casino without all the neon lights and loud music. A young "pigeon" was more likely to fall victim to a dishonourable "shark" at a hell than at an elite gentleman's club.

(5) To be in "Dun territory" in Regency gentry cant is to be in debt. It is insinuated that Goyle and Percy are very much in debt.

(6) To be "miffed" is to Regency upper class slang for being in an increasingly bad mood

(7) "Mill" in Regency gentlemen's slang was to "brawl" or "fight".

(8) "Making indentures" is Regency slang for "heavy drinking of alcohol".

(9) "Properly shot in the neck" is Regency gentlemen's slang for being utterly drunk.

(10) "Bird of paradise" is Regency slang for a gentleman's illicit mistress.

(11) Duelling Laws were passed in the reign of Louis XIV, to punish duellists with loss of rank, office, and estate, or with banishment; but pardons were constantly granted. In England, on the Restoration of Charles I, sword-duelling became more fashionable than ever; and every reader is acquainted with the killing of the Earl of Shrewsbury by the Duke of Buckingham, at Barn Elms, the Duke's second, Sir J. Jenkins, being at the same time killed by the Earl's second, while Lady Shrewsbury, the adulteress, held Buckingham's horse standing by. "O tempora! O mores!" The sanguinary blackguard Lord Mohun also is likely to be remembered; he, who shared in the murder of Montford the actor, and who afterwards, in 1712, fought a savage duel with the Duke of Hamilton in Hyde Park, where both were killed, each receiving three or four horrible wounds. Swords were still preferred to pistols in England, being usually worn by gentlemen, until after the middle of the last century; but the dagger had been rejected since the time of Charles I. Duellists sometimes came with swords and pistols; after exchanging shots they would use cold steel. It was not unfrequent, however, that two gentlemen who had got angry with each other at a tavern or in a private house, would at once draw their swords and fight, without any seconds or witnesses or formal arrangements. Lord Byron, great-uncle of the poet, in 1765 killed Mr. Chaworth, at a house in London in an impromptu sword-fight. Examples of this kind, in the memoirs and anecdotes, or in the comedies and old novelists' works of the eighteenth century, prove that "The world went very well then," as Mr. Walter Besant ironically says. Comparing the England of George II with the England of Charles L, it looks rather like a relapse into barbarism, owing to the decay of religion and morality and domestic life. In the method of duelling, we observe that pistolling found favour in Ireland as a gentlemanly pastime; indeed, it seems to have been the main pursuit of reckless men in the upper classes of society until after the Union. The pistol-duels in England, during the reigns of the last two Georges, of William IV., and at the beginning of Victoria's reign were often very serious; and some persons of considerable eminence, noblemen, statesmen, and distinguished military officers, 'were engaged in them. The present writer, among the personal recollections of his boyhood in a provincial town, has that of the lamented death of a benevolent medical man, the Mayor of the city, who was shot by a certain Baronet in a silly quarrel about dancing with a young lady at a ball the night before. The sword-duel has been maintained, in France especially, since 1830, as an accessory to political Ambition. part of the stock-in-trade of adventurers in Journalism, professional orators, and Parliamentary debaters. It is, at the same time, almost a compulsory obligation, in certain cases, among military men in France, in Austria, and in Germany. French public men too commonly think it a needful accessory to their pretensions; it has cost several valuable lives, and has degraded the tone of political contention.

(12) Barn Elms is an oddly named park in Barnes in England, situated by Hammersmith Bridge to the West and the Wetlands Centre to the East. It hosts much amateur sport, such as football and hockey. Over a hundred years ago it hosted the Fulham Football Club home games. It is a famous duelling ground.

(13) We are told in an earlier chapter that Goyle has been spying on Villiers and reporting to the Duchess of Mallefille in chapters 6 and 11.