Edwardian Candlelight Omnibus

by Beaton, M. C.

  The ladies settled themselves in a circle in the drawing room and instinctively looked toward Lady George to take the lead—which she did.

  With a flicker of a wink in the direction of Tansy and Barbara, she launched into the new small talk.

  “Shall we have a little dancerino after dinnare?” she began. “Who shall be your partnerino, Miss Benson?”

  “Oh, Gerald, of course,” cried someone and Alicia cast down her eyes in quite an old-fashioned way.

  “I am no use at dancing, so I shall wind up the gramophonare, signorini,” boomed Lady George. “Poor Miss Bloggs. I’m sure you haven’t the faintest idea what we are talking about.”

  Ginny, the others noticed with surprise, had been carrying a workbag instead of a reticule. She had opened it during Lady George’s conversation and was stitching diligently at a tiny and exquisite piece of embroidery.

  “But I do,” said Ginny, looking from one to the other with her empty blue gaze. “You must not feel embarrassed. Such a dear little fat lady.”

  Lady George moved her bulk wrathfully. “Are you referring to me, miss?”

  “No, of course not,” said Ginny, placidly stitching away. “You remind me of Mrs. Roserino, who runs the fish-and-chip shop near us in Bolton. She speaks exactly like you. So quaint and charming and such a dear lady.

  “Now, now,” continued Ginny, putting down her embroidery and wagging an admonishing finger at Lady George, who looked ready to burst, “you really must not be ashamed, and there is no need for anyone to be… what is the word… oh, something about zinnias and telephones.”

  “Xenophobic,” said Alicia faintly.

  “Ah, yes, you would know,” said Ginny, turning to Alicia, her face alight with sympathy. “Miss Benson is a foreigner, too,” she told Lady George happily, “and if you persevere, you will soon speak English as well as she. In fact, when I am settled in here, perhaps I shall find some free time to give you lessons myself.”

  Before anyone could gather their wits enough to reply to this artless smack in the chops, the door opened and the gentlemen came in.

  Ginny put away her embroidery and informed them that they could not settle down to the card tables, which were already set up in the Blue Salon next door, because the ladies—and Lady George in particular—were just dying to dance. And Lady George, who had been looking forward all evening to making a killing at bridge, looked as if she would like to have wrung her hostess’s pretty neck.

  The servants rolled up the carpet and Lady George moodily cranked up the gramophone until a silly, tinny American voice suddenly erupted from the horn. “I’m dying for yew, ker-y-ing for yew, ly-ing for y-e-e-w,” wailed the singer’s voice in a jaunty two-step. Cyril, who had been watching Ginny thoughtfully for a few minutes, suddenly darted forward and claimed her hand for the dance.

  Alicia was rapidly telling Lord Gerald of Ginny’s infuriating stupidity. “Are you sure?” he asked. “No one could possibly be so stupid. You might find she is secretly laughing at the lot of us.”

  “Ginny! Nonsense!” said Alicia roundly. “She has no brain.”

  Alicia was claimed for the dance and Lord Gerald was free to lean his shoulders against the wall and watch Miss Ginny Bloggs. For some reason he was not surprised to discover that she was a beautiful dancer. He was surprised, however, to notice that Cyril had changed his tactics and was paying her a lot of attention.

  If he can’t inherit the money, he’ll marry it, thought Lord Gerald, unaware that three pairs of beady eyes had observed the same thing and were rapidly coming to the same conclusion.

  The music stopped, and the couples applauded. Lord Gerald moved forward and joined Cyril and Ginny. “May I have the next dance, Miss Bloggs?” he asked.

  “Gerald’s going to dance with her,” hissed Tansy in Lady George’s large, fat ear. “Do something! Think of poor Alicia. Put on something classical and then say it was a mistake.”

  Unfortunately for Tansy, Lady George had no knowledge of music. She saw a label with the name Johann Strauss on it and confused him in her mind with Richard Strauss. This will fix her, she thought, dropping the heavy disk on the turntable and beginning to crank the handle with enthusiasm.

  The beautiful strains of a Strauss waltz floated into the room. Lord Gerald took Ginny in his arms and Tansy was heard to groan.

  Lord Gerald usually only partnered tall, athletic women who showed a depressing tendency to lead. It was very pleasant, he reflected, to have a female who seemed to float in one’s arms, responsive to the slightest touch as though they were both floating in water. The top of her fair head only came up as far as his chin. He looked down at her to say something polite and meaningless and found he was caught and held by a wide blue stare. He looked down mesmerized. Were those eyes really as empty as two sapphires or was there something flickering in their depths? If he looked much closer, he could perhaps just discover…

  “See what you’ve done?” said Tansy to Lady George. “There’s poor Gerald absolutely hypnotized by her.” Tansy seized the crank of the gramophone and began to run it faster and faster and faster until the music was nothing but a high-pitched jangling. There was a sudden twoin… n… n… ng as something gave way in the machine and the music stopped.

  Tansy hurriedly slipped behind a potted palm and hoped that everyone would think it was Lady George who had wrecked the machine.

  “How large is my estate?” Ginny was asking Lord Gerald.

  “About the same as mine,” he said. “Several hundreds of acres.”

  “Now, that is what I would call a good-sized garden,” said Ginny without a trace of humor in her voice. “May I see it? I did not get a chance to look at it properly this afternoon.”

  Lord Gerald hesitated. But his own coterie of friends were intent on dissecting the attitudes of Mr. George Bernard Shaw, and the local county, who always seemed to carry their passion for hunting indoors, were suggesting a game of hunt the slipper.

  “Very well,” he said, leading her out through the long windows and onto the terrace. “There! There is your ‘garden.’”

  The smooth lawns stretched out before them, dotted with cedars and oaks. A heavy sweet scent came from the roses that were twined around the pillars of the terrace and a large moon hung over the lake to watch its silent reflection in the black waters.

  What was Ginny thinking? He looked down at her face but as usual her expression was unreadable.

  Then she said, “I would like to take a walk in the rose garden.”

  Good God, thought Gerald, she’ll be offering to show me her etchings next! Immediately he felt ashamed of the thought, for the eyes turned up to his were devoid of any guile.

  “You need not be afraid of me,” said Ginny softly. “I have been very well brought up.”

  “I am not afraid of you,” said Gerald sharply. “You must remember you have guests and also, we are not chaperoned.”

  “Dear me,” smiled Ginny. “What a very correct young man you are, to be sure. Have you no romance in your soul?”

  Lord Gerald felt on safe ground. He held strong views on the idiocy of romantic love and he began to tell her all about it, so lost in his monologue that it was a few minutes before he realized that he had been led into the rose garden without even knowing it. He also felt sure Ginny had not been listening to a word he said.

  But she said, “How intensely and intelligently you talk. And how interesting it must be for an intelligent woman to listen to you. But you must realize it is all very boring for me. I would dearly love to explore this romantic garden with an equally romantic man.”

  Lord Gerald’s thin face flushed and his mobile, rather sensuous mouth tightened into a thin line. For the first time in his life he had been called a bore and he did not like it one bit.

  “Miss Bloggs—” he began wrathfully and then stopped, for Ginny had turned up her face inquiringly to his.

  The moon was shining straight down, it seemed, into her eyes, which were like great, dark
depthless pools. But there! He was sure he saw a flicker of something again and he suddenly had an awful feeling that deep inside, Ginny Bloggs was laughing at him. At him! At the biggest marital prize of the London Season! He wanted to shake her and shake her and shake her… crush those translucent white shoulders until he left marks on the skin… feel her trembling with submission beneath him. He wanted…. He found to his horror that he had actually gripped her painfully by her naked shoulders and instead of wincing or shrinking back, she seemed to melt forward into his arms as if her body were boneless. And his lips came slowly down upon hers, pressing closer and closer, then savagely, then hurting, wanting her to cry out, wanting her to say…

  “Hell and damnation!” Gerald wrenched his face away and looked at Ginny, all his normal sophistication gone.

  “I am extremely sorry, Miss Bloggs,” he said stiffly. “My behavior was unpardonable. I must have had too much to dr—”

  “Shhhh!” interrupted Ginny. “Listen. Isn’t that a nightingale?” She listened intently with her head slightly to one side and then gave a little sigh. “Now it’s silent,” she said. “Unfortunately, I can’t stand here chattering all night, Lord Gerald. I must get back.”

  She prattled on happily as she led the way back to the house and Lord Gerald began to have a mad feeling that he had not kissed her or held her and that it had all been a dream.

  “… and we’re neighbors, of course,” Ginny was rambling on as she led the way up the steps of the terrace, “so we shall have—”

  “Cozy chats over the fence,” he finished acidly.

  “Did I say that?” Ginny paused at the door to the drawing room and then her face cleared. “Oh, how silly you must have thought me. It’s a wall that divides our gardens, is it not?”

  “Yes,” said Lord Gerald savagely. “We can no doubt chat over it while we hang out our washing.”

  Incredible as it seemed, Ginny’s beautiful face was immediately alive with sympathy. “Poor man,” she murmured. “But your shirt looks lovely and white.”

  “Is there any reason why it should not?” demanded his lordship.

  “Yes, indeed,” said Ginny simply. “I know a lot of women who could not have washed that shirt as well as you have done. There!” and she gave his hand a comforting squeeze before drifting off into the drawing room.

  Lord Gerald stared after her in deepest amazement. Blast the girl! She had taken him literally!

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Tansy, Barbara, and Jeffrey could feel the evening slipping away. Cyril was still dancing attendance on Miss Bloggs, who sat docilely in a corner, smiling up at him and looking as fresh as a daisy.

  “Do something about Cyril this minute,” said Tansy to Jeffrey. “He’s doing nothing to help, and if we don’t look out, he’ll be proposing marriage to that little nincompoop.”

  “Marriage?” said Jeffrey slowly. “Yeeess. That had crossed my mind.”

  “Well just let it cross over and move out the other side,” said Barbara sharply. “That is, if you were thinking of proposing yourself.”

  Jeffrey had thought of that idea but did not want to let his female conspirators know of it, so he made a great show of bustling over to Cyril and detaching him from Ginny.

  “Look here, Cyril,” said Tansy wrathfully. “Just what are you playing at?”

  “I’m l-luring h-her into a sense of f-false security.”

  “Bosh. Utter bosh,” said Jeffrey rudely. “Anyway, it’s about time you played one of your practical jokes.”

  “Which one?” asked Cyril eagerly. He was inordinately fond of practical jokes.

  “What about the ghost of Courtney Hall one. Instead of flirting with her, go back there and tell her stories of how the servants are awfully frightened by noises in the night. Remind her she’s sleeping in the bed that old Frayne died in. Scare her.”

  “Right-ho!” said Cyril amiably.

  Ginny listened vacantly and amiably to Cyril’s stories of sinister bumps in the night in the same manner as she listened to everything else. It was very hard to tell whether any of it was registering.

  At last the party broke up at two in the morning. Cyril had already left to bloodstain a white sheet and find some chains. He was looking forward to his haunting immensely, and often regretted that an actor’s métier was considered so déclassé.

  Miss Ginny Bloggs saw the visitors from outside off the premises. The footmen, supervised by Harvey, were bustling about fetching wraps and hats.

  When the last guests were gone Ginny turned to Harvey.

  “I have been hearing that Mr. Frayne’s spirit is haunting the house and scaring the servants,” she said.

  “Indeed, madam. This is the first I have heard of it,” said Harvey in surprise. “Who has been suggesting such a thing? If one of the servants…”

  “No, no, Harvey. It was not one of the servants. Let me see… I think it was Mr. Cyril Booth.”

  Now, there was an unwritten servants’ code that no servant should tip off any member of the household who was about to be the butt of a practical joke. But Harvey had a long list of wage increases ready for Miss Bloggs to approve—including his own. He looked at his young mistress thoughtfully and then came to a decision.

  “I think you will find, madam,” he said slowly, “that our Mr. Booth is a bit of a practical joker.”

  “What has that got to do with Mr. Frayne’s ghost?”

  “Well, no doubt, madam, Mr. Booth plans to play the part of Mr. Frayne’s ghost himself.”

  “I see,” said Ginny. “Thank you, Harvey.”

  She walked thoughtfully up the stairs and then sat meekly in her bedroom while the maid appointed to her took the pins from her hair and hung her evening dress away in a closet. Then she sat warming her toes at the fire and sipping her hot milk while the maid picked up her undergarments and put them in a silk laundry bag embroidered with the Frayne crest. The maid withdrew after turning down the bedclothes and folding the heavy silk coverlet.

  Ginny sat in silence. Then a familiar homely object by the washstand caught her eye and she smiled.

  Cyril crept along the corridor, his heart beating with excitement. He was draped in a red-smeared sheet, and was hung with several lengths of rusty chain that he had found in one of the outhouses. The other guests had been warned of his haunting so he did not expect any interruptions. He let out a few low moans to get himself “into the skin of the part.”

  A bedroom door next to him suddenly jerked open. Tansy screamed at the sight of Cyril, and Cyril screamed at the sight of Tansy, who had a greenish mudpack on her face and her red hair screwed up in steel curlers. It would be hard to say who looked the most horrible.

  Tansy recovered first. “You look ghastly, Cyril,” she exclaimed.

  “I-I’m supposed to look ghastly,” said Cyril huffily. “You’re not.”

  “Don’t be so rude,” said Tansy. “Good luck with your haunting.”

  Cyril clanked off, trying to get back into the “feel” of the part. Tansy should not have popped out and scared him like that, he thought pettishly. Of what use was a frightened ghost. He began to moan softly to himself again. Ah, that was better. He came to the door of Ginny’s bedroom and paused outside. And then, gathering all his Thespian resources, he let out a high unearthly screech and pushed open the door.

  Two hot-water cans made of polished copper hurtled down from the top of the door and poured their contents all over him.

  Booby-trapped!

  Cyril let out a scream of sheer fright, feminine in its high pitch, and at least three members of the household turned over in their beds and smiled with satisfaction. That would teach Miss Ginny Bloggs.

  The rest of the guests, warned earlier by Cyril, stayed where they were. The servants, warned by Harvey, turned over and went back to sleep.

  Shaking with cold and fright and fury, Cyril glared across the room. The curtains were open and the setting moon cast its pale radiance across the bed.

  Ginny w
as asleep. Asleep! And he could not wake her or complain about his wetting because he had no right to be there in the first place.

  He could have murdered her.

  “I-I m-must have r-revenge,” stammered Cyril, and then sneezed.

  “Someone must have told her…”

  “Infuriating…”

  “Trust Cyril to mess up the whole thing…”

  The four conspirators glared at each other. Then Barbara Briggs said soothingly, “We really mustn’t quarrel amongst ourselves. The thing is… what do we do now?”

  “See what the day brings,” said Jeffrey gloomily.

  Just then the door of the library, where the four angry relatives were huddled, opened gently and Miss Ginny Bloggs sailed in. She was wearing a smoky-gray silk morning dress with white Quaker collar and cuffs, the prim lines of the dress making her look very young and appealing except to four pairs of wrathful eyes.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you,” said Ginny, “but I was looking for Lord Gerald. He sent me a dear little note to say he would be riding over. I’m sorry you took such a wetting, Cyril. Had I known it was you, of course I wouldn’t have done such a thing.”

  Tansy cleared her throat nervously. “These little jokes are quite common at house parties, Miss Bloggs. You must cultivate a sense of humor.”

  “Must I? How odd,” said Ginny with a vacant stare.

  “Who t-told you it was going to be m-me?” said Cyril.

  Ginny looked at him blankly and then tried to remember. “Jeffrey—I mean, Mr. Beardington-Smythe,” she said at last.

  “What!”

  “’Pon my soul I didn’t,” howled Jeffrey. “What are you all staring at me like that for?” He turned to Ginny and said, “Tell them it’s not true.”

  “It isn’t?” said Ginny, looking pretty and puzzled. “Oh, well, then. If you say so.” And with that she left the room.

  “Sneak!”

  “Bounder!”

  “Cad!”

  “I never did,” roared Jeffrey. “She’s off her nut!”

  “Then why would she say such a thing?” queried Tansy in a more reasonable tone of voice.