by M C Beaton
Molly sat down at the dressing table and looked at herself in the glass. With a little moue of irritation she turned around and saw the objects scattered on the floor and bent to retrieve them. With almost uncanny speed the “ghost” slipped out the mirror, replaced it with plain glass, and took up his position behind it. Molly returned to the dressing table and sat down. She looked long and hard at her “reflection.” Then she leaned forward and took the “ghost’s” nose firmly between finger and thumb and tweaked hard. There was an agonized yell. Lord David sprang from behind the curtains but the magician was quicker than both of them. He was out of the door and down the corridor before either of them had time to draw breath.
Molly made a move to run after him but David held her back. “Let him go,” he said, trying to control his laughter. “What a splendid girl you are, you should have seen his face.”
Molly burst out laughing as well and they clung together, bawling with mirth. Lord David suddenly became very conscious that he was holding Molly in his arms. She stopped laughing and looked up at him.
The hell with good form, thought Lord David savagely. He tilted up her chin and bent his mouth to hers.
For one startled moment Molly thought of pushing him away. Then her senses took over and her lips clung to his, and a tide of passion swept them both and left them shaking. Lord David was immersed in the feel of Molly, the scent of Molly, and the passion of Molly. In the dim light of the room he could see the beautiful curve of her breast above her gown. One tiny logical bit of his mind stared down at himself, muttering endearments as his mouth moved slowly down to that delectable bosom, and the rest of him didn’t give a damn. His expert hands moved around to the fastenings at the back of her gown. She murmured a faint protest, but so faint he did not pay the slightest attention.
“David!”
The scandalized voice calling his name was not that of Molly but of Lady Cynthia, who was standing in the doorway and looking as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. She had decided to visit Molly’s room to gauge the amount of nervous damage done by the magician. She had expected to see a Molly Maguire trembling with fear but hardly a Molly Maguire trembling with passion.
Molly stood proudly beside Lord David, waiting for him to tell Cynthia that the engagement was at an end and that he and Molly were to be married. But all Lord David did was to say in a perfectly normal voice, “Oh, hello, Cynthia.” He walked to the door, turned, and remarked gently, “Good night, Molly,” and then, taking Cynthia by the arm, led her off down the corridor.
Miss Molly Maguire threw herself down on the bed and cried and cried. She cried because she was a foreigner, lost and at sea in a strange land where people drove each other mad for the fun of it and handsome lords could make love and walk away as casually as if they were leaving the breakfast table.
“Let’s go into your sitting room, where we can talk in private,” said Lord David.
“I have nothing more to say to you,” snapped Cynthia.
“But I have a lot to say to you, dear Cynthia,” he said, pushing open the door that led to her rooms and all but dragging her inside.
At the other end of the corridor Mary watched them with shock and dismay. She felt sure that her sister was falling in love with the handsome lord. She could have sworn Lord David loved Molly. It seemed as if it were all a sham. And she would have to tell her sister. Better that Molly should hurt now than suffer much more later.
“Of course I want you to release me from the engagement,” Lord David was saying acidly. “I am not in the habit of making love to virgins unless my intentions are strictly honorable. I mean to marry Molly Maguire, and nothing you can say or do can stop me. You can hire as many magicians as you like, and I will still marry her.”
“That was Cuthbert’s doing,” said Cynthia, turning an ugly color.
“I happen to know it was as much your doing as his,” said Lord David.
Cynthia saw that the game was up but her mind was working feverishly. She needed just a little time.
“Well, it looks as if I have lost you,” she said with a lightness she did not feel. “But it is all very humiliating. My parents will be most disappointed. I shall return to town tomorrow. But mother is not well at the moment, David, and this news would upset her terribly. Can you at least wait a fortnight and I’ll tell her then? It will give me time to prepare her for the news. Please, David.”
She looked very beautiful and appealing. And Lord David felt great relief that he was getting off so easily. He gladly agreed to her terms and then went off to search for Cuthbert’s bedroom so that he might give that young gentleman the punch in the nose he so richly deserved.
CHAPTER TEN
Mrs. Pomfret returned slowly from her evening walk around the harbor. All did not seem to be going well with her heroine. Molly was looking tired and cross and changed the subject every time that nice Lord David’s name was mentioned.
Her own life seemed to be looking up. One by one she had begun to buy the necessary essentials for her home, a thing she had never been able to do when she was paying blackmail money to Billy Barnstable. In another week she would have enough saved to buy a new dress. The week after that, new gloves. And the week after that, new boots, bright, shiny boots, with elastic sides and little high heels.
Her thoughts were still mostly on Molly, however, as she put the kettle on the stove to boil and took down a tin of biscuits from the shelf. Molly had left Cuthbert’s, the morning following Mrs. Pomfret’s warning, but she and Mary were no longer to be seen around on their bicycles and had not even called at the post office. Perhaps Lord David was a philanderer, just like one of those dreadful characters in Mrs. Henry Wood’s books. Mrs. Pomfret was so engrossed with this new idea that she did not see the shadow falling across the kitchen window or hear the door being gently opened.
A low cough made her turn around, dropping the tin of biscuits in her fright.
Billy Barnstable was leaning against the doorjamb, a sheepish smile on his face.
“Here, now,” he said, as the postmistress made terrified, choking noises in her throat. “I ain’t going to hurt you. I’ve come to ask you a favor.”
Mrs. Pomfret eyed the rifle propped against the kitchen wall and prayed for Molly Maguire’s courage.
“What do you want?” she said faintly, while her heart was already mourning the loss of the dress, the gloves, the boots.
“I want peace and quiet and my old job back,” said Billy, sitting down at the kitchen table. “I can’t get work anywhere. Times are hard and I’m starving. I’ve been eating out of fields, whatever I could get. Blimey! I’m hungry, I am.”
He picked up the tin of biscuits and looked at it longingly.
“They’ll have me back at my old job,” he said. “If I promise to behave meself, will you tell that Maguire female to leave me alone?”
“But you tried to kill her,” screamed the postmistress, who had heard of the wire across the road.
“Naw!” said Billy.” Wanted to give her a tumble, that was all. Then she starts calling me names like you’ve never heard and I was mad and starving and went for her with the cudgel. For gawd’s sake, believe me. You don’t know what hunger does to a man.”
“How can I believe you?” whispered Mrs. Pomfret. “Why should I? You sat there, week after week, watching me crying and taking my money, and you never had any pity.”
Billy shifted awkwardly in his seat. “It seemed like a game to me,” he said. “Easy pickings, you know. That’s the way me Da brought me up. See your chance and take it, he allus said.”
“Is your father alive?” asked Mrs. Pomfret.
Billy shook his head and soundlessly parodied a head being jerked in a noose.
“Well, there you are,” said Mrs. Pomfret, regaining her courage. Dress, shoes, and gloves began to appear on a rosy horizon in her mind.
She opened the tin of biscuits and Billy stared at their brightly colored icing tops as if hypnotized and then tears began to
run down his cheeks, cutting clean furrows on his dirty face.
“Go and wash your face and hands, Billy,” said Mrs. Pomfret. “I have a piece of game pie in the larder and some bread and butter and you shall have it directly. Much better for an empty stomach than sugar biscuits.”
While Billy washed at the kitchen sink, she put the wedge of pie and thick slices of bread and butter on the kitchen table. Billy fell on them, desperately trying to eat slowly, but ending up by cramming the food into his mouth with both hands.
When he had finally finished every last crumb, he looked at Mrs. Pomfret with shamefaced gratitude.
“I’d like for to say how I’m truly sorry,” he mumbled.
“I shall trust you,” said Mrs. Pomfret, her sensitive soul realizing the great effort it had cost the uncouth and rough Billy to choke out this apology. “Will you be able to get your room back at Mister Wothers’s?”
Billy shook his head. “He’s got another chap, and I ain’t exactly popular around here.”
Mrs. Pomfret wrestled furiously with her conscience. The vicar had said in church only last Sunday that one should truly forgive and help the repentant sinner.
“I have a little room upstairs,” she said slowly. “But I do not know if I could take in a man lodger. What would the people in the town say?”
“They wouldn’t say nuffink if we was married,” said Billy suddenly.
Mrs. Pomfret raised her thin freckled hands to her suddenly hot cheeks. “The whole idea is ridiculous. I’m at least thirty years older than you! Now drink your tea and we’ll pretend that you never said…er…what you did say.”
She searched her mind feverishly for some change of subject. “Do you still read Westerns?” she asked.
“Haven’t read one in weeks,” said Billy. “Couldn’t afford to buy ’em.”
“There is a new one in by Art Rudge,” said Mrs. Pomfret. “It’s called Shootin’ Irons.” She passed the book over to Billy. “Who taught you to read?”
“Went to school till I was eleven,” said Billy proudly. “’Course, that was before me Da…” Again his large hands parodied the hanging.
“Quite, quite,” said Mrs. Pomfret hurriedly, but Billy had opened the book and plunged in, his lips soundlessly forming the words.
Mrs. Pomfret watched him, realizing with a little shock that it was nice to have company, even the silent company of her ex-blackmailer.
At one point Billy raised his head in the slow manner of a large pig looking up from its trough and said, “If we was married, you’d have my pay same as your own,” and went back to reading.
The whole idea is so ridiculous, thought Mrs. Pomfret. Marry Billy, indeed! “But you would be married, really married,” whispered a little imp in her ear.” You’ve only been a mistress before.”
Mrs. Pomfret resolutely banished the imp and rose and went to the stove to make a fresh pot of tea.
Molly looked in surprise at Bobby and Jim Wheelan. The twins had called at the Holdens to present their usual bouquet of flowers, culled from the neighboring gardens along the way.
“A man’” said Molly. “A man at the post office? Are you sure?”
The twins nodded their heads energetically.
“Sure as sure,” said Bobby. “Ma told me to go to the back door of the post office to see if Mrs. Pomfret would sell me some envelopes, even though the shop was closed.
“I knocked at the kitchen window and she came to the door, Mrs. Pomfret, I mean. And sitting at the table was this big chap a-reading a book.”
“What did he look like?” asked Molly.
Bobby frowned. “He was old…looked like him,” he said, pointing out of the window at one of the undergardeners.
Molly followed the direction of his grubby finger and her heart sank. For the particular undergardener that Bobby had singled out looked exactly like Billy Barnstable.
She came to a sudden decision. She had discovered that the villa boasted a gun room. She would find Lord Toby and turn the conversation around to guns. She would find out where he kept the key to the gun room and then, suitably armed, would descend on the post office after dark.
The thought of taking some action, however dangerous, was positively healing to the hurt she had suffered since her visit to Cuthbert’s. She had gone out of her way to avoid Lord David. She had prayed and hoped to learn that his engagement had been broken but, although Cynthia had returned to London, things in that direction seemed to be the same as ever. The sad result was that Mary had refused to see Roddy, condemning both Roddy and Lord David as a pair of heartless philanderers.
Accordingly, as soon as the twins had left, Molly ventured out into the garden to find Lord Toby. He was standing, berating his head gardener over the “depressing bally formality” of the whole place, and the Scottish gardener was grunting and refusing to take any notice.
Molly waited until Lord Toby retired, defeated.
To her dismay, Lord Toby refused to let her inspect the gun room. Ladies, he said firmly, knew nothing about guns and furthermore, he, Lord Toby, had such a beastly cold that he was going to be down since Scottish gardeners were an invention of the devil and nobody cared whether he lived or died. So there!
Molly thought quickly. She had a plan. She knew it was wrong but Mrs. Pomfret’s reputation must be saved at all costs. Sending up a small prayer for forgiveness, she told Lord Toby in warm, sympathetic, and cooing notes that she had just the thing to make him feel better. And she disappeared to her rooms for a few minutes and returned bearing a bottle of Maguires’ Leprechaun Dew.
“Dear me,” said Lord Toby, looking at the leprechaun. “What an evil-looking gnome.”
“But it works,” said Molly earnestly. “We wouldn’t have made our fortune otherwise. It’s not for children, you know. It’s only sold to strong healthy people… I mean, healthy people with colds.”
“I feel so bad I’ll try anything,” said his lordship. “Fancy me getting a cold in the middle of a heat wave. How much do I take?”
“Oh… a generous amount,” said Molly, crossing her fingers behind her back.
“Then I won’t need a spoon. Bottoms up!” said his lordship, tilting the contents down his throat.
Molly watched him anxiously. “Dear me!” said Lord Toby.” How very comforting! I feel quite well. I could dance.”
He executed a few nimble steps across the lawn and was brought up short in front of a shell-bordered flower bed.
Lord Toby stared at it thoughtfully as if he had never seen it before. He slowly bent down and plucked out a shell and threw it over his shoulder. Then another. And then another. “It’s beautifully simple,” he murmured. “Never thought of it before. Don’t like ’em? Throw ’em away.”
He then began running madly from flower bed to flower bed, until the air was full of a sort of shell snowstorm. A posse of desperate Scottish gardeners tried to restrain him but Lord Toby seemed to have developed the strength of ten men. “Hollyhocks. Hate hollyhocks!” he roared, plucking the offending flowers out by the bushel. One clump was particularly stubborn and he wrestled with it manfully until it came away all at once, catapulting him across the lawn. His keys flew from his pocket and fell on the grass. Molly picked them up quietly and headed for the gun room.
Lord David sat slumped in an armchair beside his study window, staring unseeingly out the open French windows at the garden. The heat was suffocating and with an impatient hand he wrestled with his necktie and threw it across the room. Then he unfastened his collar stud and the collar followed the necktie.
Was it some mad liberated American custom, he fretted, to allow a man to caress one intimately and then look at him the next day as if he had crawled out of a bit of old cheese? It was humiliating. It was dreadful. He was a fool to linger on here. Roddy also blamed him for Mary’s coldness and spent his days at the top of the house quite blatantly spying on the sisters next door. He came clattering into the room with grating cheerfulness, shouting, “You’ll never believ
e what’s happening next door. Old Toby’s gone off his rocker at last. Shouting and dancing and wrecking the garden. Lady Fanny comes out and tries to restrain him and he calls her a superannuated scout master!” Lord David looked at his friend with a dull eye.
“Don’t care, eh?” said Roddy cheerfully.
“Well, listen to the next bit of news. Molly picks up Toby’s keys, which he dropped when he was cavorting around, and sneaks off to the gun room, which is on our side of the house. She takes down a whopping great rifle, cleans and loads it like an expert, and disappears out of the room with it. Next thing, she’s skulking out of the house with a cloak on… a cloak in this weather, mind you, and heads for the town.”
“What on earth is she up to?” said Lord David, jumping to his feet. “I’d better go after her. If I can’t find her, I’ll ask Mrs. Pomfret.”
Molly hurried down toward the harbor. The heat was suffocating and humid. It was like walking through hot soup. Not a leaf stirred or a bird sang. The water lay in the harbor like black glass. Molly cursed herself for not having visited Mrs. Pomfret sooner. She had kept to the house like a wounded animal, nursing her hurt.
With a fast-beating heart, she crept along the side of the post office and looked in the kitchen window. Mrs. Pomfret was sitting in a rocking chair, sewing at some printed material that lay in her lap. Billy Barnstable was sitting at the kitchen table with his great head bent over a book.
Molly opened the kitchen door very, very quietly and leveled the gun at Billy’s head.
Lookee here, pardner. I’m takin’ all the gold mine for myself, and this here gun says there won’t be no arguments, read Billy. This was a smashing book, reflected Billy. He could almost swear he had heard the sound of a rifle being cocked. Then he realized he had. He looked slowly around and found himself staring down the barrel of Molly’s gun.
“It’s all right,” said Molly. “Stand well clear, Mrs. Pomfret. I’ll handle this.”