The Daring Debutantes Bundle

by M C Beaton

  Fortunately for Sally, she was not present at the dinner. Her father had never believed in saving a penny, and after his mess bills were paid, there was enough left to pay for orphan Sally’s passage home, leaving only two hundred pounds sterling to set her up in life.

  Sally had hoped that some handsome young man would be traveling on the same P & O ship and would promptly propose marriage. But although there were plenty of young officers going home on leave, none seemed to want even to flirt with the small girl with her hair scraped back into two braids.

  Emily had welcomed Sally into her home in Churchwold, in Sussex, appointed her unpaid nursery maid, and seemed to expect her to be content with that lot until the children should grow up. Sally was small and slight with a wistful little face and huge gray eyes. She had masses of light-brown hair, which, so far, no one had ever suggested she wear up. It flowed down her back in a rather Burne-Jones manner, and on Sundays it was sedately confined at the nape of her neck with a large satin bow.

  Emily was the model of the Edwardian matron, heavy in the bust, placid in the face, and empty in the upperworks. She was a ferociously dedicated mother. Her whole life was devoted to turning out model children, and as a result they were all quite horribly miserable and spoiled. Peter, the eldest of the brood, was ten; Paul, eight; Mary, seven; Joseph, five; and then there was baby Marmaduke, aged two. The children had no hope of any discipline from their father, since George Bessamy left early in the morning for his offices in Lewes, not returning until seven in the evening, by which time the little monsters were all in bed. On Sundays, after he had been to church, George retired to his study and locked the door, not emerging until the evening, rather slurred of speech and baggy of eye.

  Sally tried hard to like the children and pay for her keep by attending to their wants, but as she was not allowed to raise her voice to them or smack them or reproach them in any way, they tormented her mercilessly.

  Had she had any friends or social life, her lot might have been easier, but Churchwold was a small village with a population of retired gentle-people living mostly on small pensions. Their entertainments consisted of gossiping maliciously over pots of weak tea and dry salmon sandwiches. There were several other young spinsters of the parish, but to Sally’s amazement they seemed, unlike herself, to have become reconciled to their lot and rattled their cups and gossiped as heartily as their elders.

  It was a very damp village, one of those English villages that look so beautiful on calendars but are so unpleasant to live in. The pretty Tudor houses with their thatch and beams and wattle smelled of dry rot, and the sanitation had not changed much since the time of The Virgin Queen. The vicar was constantly trying to raise funds to restore the roof of the church, but no one showed any interest, not even when one of the carved angels on the hammer beam ceiling fell down one day and brained poor Mrs. Anstruther, striking her dead.

  Mrs. Anstruther had been ninety and had lived long enough, the congregation had pointed out, turning neglect into some sort of divine euthanasia.

  There were two greengrocers in the village, one at one end, mostly patronized by the inbred poor, and one at the other end for the gentry. Both sold exactly the same goods at the same prices, and no one could say for sure why the one got the posh trade and the other the peasant. The posh grocers also housed the village post office, which was open at mysterious hours and always seemed to be closed when one wanted to mail a particularly heavy parcel. There was a public house, which exuded a strong aroma of stale meat pies and strong beer.

  Sally had tried hard to accustom herself to her lot. But now the full horror of the summer holidays was brought home to her. The children would be in and around her all day. Not only that, but the Bessamys would be making their annual pilgrimage to Brighton for two weeks, and to Sally that meant two weeks of running up and down the beach after her charges and trying not to hope that a tidal wave might drown them all.

  It was not the children’s tempers that frayed Sally’s nerves but their constant whining. They were great whiners right down to Baby Marmaduke, who had a particularly grating call.

  It began to dawn on Sally that apart from housemaids and parlormaids and such like, there was a new breed of women who were beginning to take jobs and earn their own livings.

  On the day she made up her mind—or rather the day Baby Marmaduke made it up for her—Sally was seated at the breakfast table on a particularly blazing-hot August morning, trying to read the Daily Bugle to shut out the chorus of complaint that was going on around her.

  Emily sat drinking tea contentedly, deaf to the whining of her children, as only a rather stupid and devoted mother could be.

  Peter was picking at his spots, Paul was exploring the inside of his rather large nose with one finger, Mary was crying dismally because she could not have a new lace dress, and Joseph had caught a bluebottle and was drowning it in the honey pot. Only Marmaduke had not given tongue, since he had thrown his kippers to the cat and was watching that animal chewing them up under his high chair with wide-eyed interest.

  Suddenly all sound vanished for Sally as she stared at the paper. On the front page was a political report from the Lobby Correspondent, Mrs. Mary Service. Sally’s eyes widened. A woman—a Lobby Correspondent! A woman stalking through that masculine preserve of the House of Commons, taking notes!

  I could work, she thought suddenly. I could earn my own money. I could be free. Sally thought feverishly. She knew she could write, for in Bombay, hadn’t she been chosen out of all the girls to edit the school magazine?

  She could see it now: the Annual Magazine of the Misses Lelongs’ Seminary for the Daughters of Officers and Gentlemen—Editor, Miss Sally Blane.

  And then Baby Marmaduke was sick. Right over the newspaper. Right down the front page.

  Sally put down the wreck of the newspaper and stared at Emily, who was looking out the window into the garden with large, calflike eyes.

  “Emily,” she said, “have I any money?”

  “What, dear?” said her sister vaguely above the whines of her offspring. “Money? Well, two hundred pounds, darling. That was all that was left. George banked it for you.”

  “That will do,” said Sally, getting to her feet. “Oh, shut up!” she yelled at the assorted brood. “I, Emily, am going to London, and I am going to get a job—with a newspaper.”

  “Oh, really, darling!” said Emily. “How nice. Oh, Marmaduke, what a mess you have made.”

  “I want my two hundred today!” yelled Sally, turning pink with excitement.

  “Well, dear… oh, Mary, Mummy shall get you the dress if it means so much… you will find the bankbook in George’s desk… Peter! Stop pinching Paul…”

  Sally almost ran from the room to George’s study. After some scrabbling she found a bankbook made out in her name from the Sussex and South Down Bank, Lewes. Sally felt feverish. She could not wait. Not one more day. She had to leave. Escape. Now.

  She ran to her room and began to pack a suitcase, cramming as many things into it as she could. It was still only nine o’clock in the morning. Plenty of time to start a new life before dark. She crammed a sailor hat on her head and, seizing her suitcase, ran down the stairs, straight out the front door, and down the crunchy gravel of the drive as fast as she could, in case Emily should stop her.

  Past the name board of the house, Mon Repos; past the dusty laurel hedge; down the hot, dusty road to the village; past the blind eyes of the Victorian villas, like Emily’s; past the squat crouch of the thatched cottages; and past the poor grocers and along the village street to the rich grocers to try to catch someone, anyone, to give her a lift into Lewes. There was Squire Roberts in his dogcart. Splendid! The fat and florid squire looked somewhat surprised at her peremptory demand to be taken to Lewes but nonetheless told Sally to hop up.

  Caution came to Sally’s fevered brain just in time. In answer to the squire’s questions, she told him she was taking a suitcase of old clothes into her brother-in-law George’
s office, since he wanted the clothes for some charity or other.

  Heat shimmered over the fields, burning away the cool breath of morning. The sky arched above, hot and cloudless, and dust rose in little eddies from the road. Soon the squat majesty of Lewes Castle loomed ahead, and Sally fretted while the squire negotiated the cobble-stoned streets, insisting on setting her down at the door of George’s office.

  She hid in the doorway until the squire had clattered off, and then went out in search of the bank.

  Blow! Dash it!—and all other horrible epithets. The bank manager would not release the money without a signed letter from George!

  Sally went back out into the street and stood scowling horribly. George was not vague like Emily. George would be pompous and stupid and obstructive simply because he was pompous, stupid, and obstructive about everything.

  She made her way back to George’s office and mounted the dusty steps. There were two clerks in the outer office, who stood up as she entered the room, dragging her suitcase behind her.

  Mr. Bessamy, they said, was with a client. But if Miss Blane would take a seat for a few moments? Miss Blane would.

  Sally sat down at a small desk in the corner and poked about idly. Then she saw a sheaf of headed business paper, a pen, and ink.

  Taking out a piece of stationery, Sally dipped the steel pen in the inkwell and began to write.

  Some ten minutes later George ushered out his client and then frowned in surprise to see Sally waiting for him.

  “What are you doing here, Miss Blane?” He never called her Sally.

  “Emily wants you to sign this letter. It’s a list of things for some charity.”

  George fumbled in his top pocket for his pince-nez. “Don’t worry about reading it,” said Sally anxiously. “Just sign.”

  “I never sign anything that I have not read,” said George stiffly. Sally saw her hopes of a career crashing about her ears.

  “Give it to me,” said George, holding out a well-manicured hand.

  “I do not know what Emily is thinking about,” he went on crossly as he took the letter and adjusted his pince-nez. “A young girl like yourself should not be here alone. Gladys should have been sent with you.” Gladys was the parlormaid.

  Please, prayed Sally wildly. Please… please… oh, please…

  The door opened and a majestic woman sailed in, followed by her maid.

  “I,” she announced, “am Lady Farringer. Mr. Bessamy, I presume?”

  George moved forward, his thin body bent in an obsequious curve.

  “Yes, I have that honor, Lady Farringer.”

  “Good! Good!” exclaimed that lady, wheezing like a pug. “You have been highly recommended to me by the Cartwrights. Let’s not waste time! To business! To business!”

  “Indeed, my lady, right away,” said George.

  “My letter,” said Sally.

  George glared at her. “Oh, very well,” he said, dipping a pen quickly into the inkwell on one of his clerk’s desks and scrawling his signature on the bottom. “Wait for me here, Miss Blane, and we will go over this together later. Ah, Lady Farringer! Step this way!”

  They vanished into his office, and Sally seized the precious letter, which, of course, was one authorizing her to draw two hundred pounds, and fled.

  Ten-thirty already! And what an age they took at the bank. She stuffed the notes haphazardly into her reticule, causing the teller to shake his head mournfully, and then ran all the way to the railway station, her suitcase bumping against her legs.

  She was just in time for the 11:15 train to London, Victoria.

  She sank wearily into a third-class compartment just as the train began to chug its way out of the station. It was only then that she realized the compartment was shared by a tired, jaded mother and her three children who were returning home after their annual holiday. The compartment seemed to be bulging with buckets and spades, seaweed and shells, parasols, and jammy, sticky fingers.

  “I don’t like you,” said the imp opposite Sally with an ingratiating leer.

  “Now, Freddie,” said its mother with an indulgent smile, “don’t be so forward.”

  Sally simply closed her eyes and pretended to go to sleep. The children, after trying shouting in her ear pulling her hair, and kicking her shins eventually gave up and left her in peace so that at last, overcome by the stuffy heat, she actually did fall asleep, not awakening until the train was running in over the houses of London. Over the river it roared with a long, wailing whistle and plunged headlong into the sooty depths of Victoria Station, like a great iron animal returning to its burrow.

  Sally felt quite shaky and groggy. The noise and bustle of the great station made her feel very small. Surely it would be better to go back, back to Emily, back to Sussex. Already distance was lending her sister’s home enchantment. But her companions of the journey surged past her, whining and moaning and kicking and reminding her vividly of what she had left behind, so Sally stiffened her small spine, picked up her suitcase, and marched to the cab rank.

  “The Daily Bugle,” she said, climbing into one and settling herself with a sigh of relief in the musty interior of the hansom.

  Fleet Street was, and is, the home of British newspapers. A narrow, crowded street crammed with newspaper and magazine offices, it runs from the Law Courts at the Temple down to Ludgate Circus. Of course, some newspapers may have their headquarters outside this magic canyon, but for a budding newspaperwoman there is nothing like the Street itself.

  On this hot day as Sally paid off the hansom and picked up her suitcase, it seemed to be full of people bustling to and fro importantly.

  There was an exotic smell of hot paper, and the pavement beneath her feet trembled slightly to the thud of the great printing presses. Sally looked up at the great gilt clock over the ornate offices of the Daily Bugle. One o’clock. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her it was lunchtime. The editor would surely be out for lunch. Drat! And Sally wanted only the editor. No one else would do.

  She took herself off across the road to a cafeteria and sat for two miserable hours in its hot, flyblown interior over two cups of tea and a currant bun. George once said that business executives always took two hours for lunch.

  At precisely three o’clock Sally pushed her damp hair out of her eyes, pressed her now crumpled sailor hat firmly on her head, and made her way through the press of horse traffic to the offices of the Daily Bugle.

  But the uniformed man in the front hall quickly disabused her of any idea of marching up the marble stairs and into the lift and on to the editor’s office. “You ’as to ’ave an appointment, miss,” he said, sneering, and then returned to his crossword, obviously dismissing her from his mind.

  Sally gazed at the oiled top of his bent head in a baffled way. And then she said quietly, “He will be disappointed if he does not see me… Uncle will. I mean.”

  “Uncle!” The man’s head jerked up. “You mean ter say as how Mr. Wingles is yer uncle?”

  “Yes,” said Sally firmly. “I have just arrived from India. When he last wrote to me, he told me to come straight to the office.”

  “Oh, well, harrumph. In that case, miss, you’d better go right up. ’Ere, Joey!” he said to a small, pert office boy. “This ’ere is Mr. Wingles’s niece. Take ’er up.”

  Still clutching her suitcase, her heart beating swiftly, Sally followed Joey into the small lift. Joey slammed the gates shut with a clang. She had crossed the Rubicon. No going back now.

  In the editor’s outer office a grim female was typing furiously. She unbent on hearing that Sally was the editor’s niece and said she would inform Mr. Wingles of Sally’s arrival. She did not ask Sally’s name. The fact that the girl was the editor’s niece was enough.

  In no time at all Sally found herself in the man’s presence.

  Mr. Wingles was a tall, muscular Scot with ferocious eyebrows.

  He took one look at the trembling Sally, with her crumpled sailor hat, her battered suitcase,
and her girlish hair flowing down the back of her tailored suit.

  “Another of ’em,” he snorted with disgust. “No jobs for you, lassie. Get back to your ma.”

  He rang the bell, and the grim secretary leapt in with the alacrity of a jack-in-the-box. “Miss Fleming,” said the editor awfully. “Take this wee lassie away and send her packing. It’s a new trick. This is not my niece.”

  “Wait!” cried Sally desperately. “I can write. I have had work published!”

  “Indeed! And where may I ask have you had your writing published?”

  Sally took a deep breath. “In the Annual Magazine of the Misses Lelong Seminary for the Daughters of Officers and Gentlemen… in Bombay. I was the editor.”

  Mr. Wingles leaned back in his chair. “In the—” He began to laugh and laugh. “In the—in the—”

  Miss Fleming ushered Sally out grimly, leaving the editor gasping for words.

  “Now, look here, young woman,” said Miss Fleming. “Tricks like the one you just played could cost me my job. How dare you!”

  Sally’s courage fled. She felt young and silly and alone and frightened. Large unchecked tears began to roll down her cheeks.

  “Oh, goodness!” said Miss Fleming impatiently. “Here, have a handkerchief and sit down.” She waited while Sally gulped and sobbed herself into silence.

  “Now,” said Miss Fleming, adjusting her cardboard wrist protectors, “you’d better tell me about it. You are too young to be running about London on your own.”

  And so Sally told her all about it. About Emily and the children and about seeing the name of the Lobby Correspondent on the front page.

  “Mrs. Service, our Lobby Correspondent,” said Miss Fleming in a dry voice, “is by way of being a relative of the newspaper owner, Lord Picken—if you take my meaning. Now be a good girl and go back home. For all you may think, it’s a man’s world. Where would a young thing like you stay on her own? Do you have relatives in London?”