My Lords, Ladies and Marjorie

by Beaton, M. C.

  “Not that there’s much to do in this dump,” complained Phyllis.

  “You could try some sea-bathing,” snapped Mrs. Bassett, “although I gather you don’t like water.”

  “I suppose that young friend o’ yourn, Miss Montmorency-James goes swimmin’ every day,” sneered Phyllis.

  Mrs. Bassett backed away before the venom in her face. “Well, no,” she said. “Marjorie can’t swim although I believe she is going for a dip tomorrow.” Mrs. Bassett retreated hurriedly and closed the door.

  She really must find the courage to dismiss this horrible maid. Perhaps she had better let Lady Bywater do it for her.

  The Marquess held Marjorie very tightly in his arms. Mrs. Wilton had allowed them ten minutes alone to say goodnight.

  He gently kissed her eyelids, the tip of her nose and then her mouth. As last he reluctantly dragged his lips free. “I shall be back tomorrow evening,” he said caressingly. “Please be careful. Don’t let any anarchists harm you.”

  Marjorie shook her head and smiled mistily.

  Nothing could harm her now.

  Chapter Nine

  Next day dawned as hot and beautiful as the last. Charlie-the-coachman decided to take an early morning stroll along the promenade.

  The flags in front of the Royal Hotel cracked and snapped in a fresh warm breeze and the sun warmed his tired old bones. If it was like yesterday, he thought, looking at the sky, then the breeze would soon die down and the day would be too hot to do any work in the garden. He would go back and give Charlie-the-horse his oats and a few carrots and then he would join his newfound cronies in the cool dark of the Prince of Wales taproom.

  He turned to go back. A slatternly housemaid walked past him. Her face was working and she was muttering to herself.

  “Stark raving mad,” thought Charlie. “Some employers do ’ave ’em.”

  He strolled on up the cliff road and was nearing his garden gate when it hit him like a hammer blow. He had seen that face before!

  But where? Where? That face meant danger. Somewhere in his long life on the London streets, he had seen that face. He leaned against his garden gate and thought hard.

  Marjorie wondered what Robert would think if he could see her in her new bathing dress. Probably, a freak. She felt very strange and awkward. Her bathing costume consisted of a short serge dress with trousers that were tight fitting at the knees. It was made of navy serge with a white braid decoration, and felt very heavy and warm. As Charlie had predicted, the breeze had dropped and the sea was as calm as glass.

  Marjorie had decided to sit on some flat rocks at the end of the beach near the villa and splash her feet in the water. She had decided against hiring one of the bathing machines since it was nearly noon and unless one hired a bathing machine early in the morning, it could be rather an uncomfortable experience. It was ill-lit, ill-ventilated and the floor was usually covered with sand and water from the previous occupants. Also one had to change while the machine was set in motion, a most undignified process trying to don a bathing dress while the bathing machine shook and jolted its way down to the water.

  Accompanied by Mackintosh, she descended the cliff road, wearing only a long housedress over her costume. Feeling rather shy, although there was no one around, most of the holiday-makers being on the sandy beach some distance away below the promenade, she undressed and sat down on a smooth rock and let her feet slide into the cool water. She had no intention of getting her bathing suit wet. She could not swim and the water seemed very deep.

  She studied little silver fish darting in the clear depths and thought about Robert.

  Faint sounds of laughter came from the promenade. A Punch and Judy show was in progress and she could hear the shrill squeaks of Punch. Far out at sea, a yacht idled with limp sails, “as idle as a painted ship, upon a painted ocean.”

  Marjorie could hardly believe her luck. She was in love. She was loved and she would see him again that very evening.

  The sun was very hot on her head and she realized she had better open her parasol or her skin would be absolutely ruined.

  She drew her feet out of the water and stood up and walked a little way to pick up the large Japanese parasol she had brought with her. Mackintosh grabbed hold of the end of it in his teeth and tried to worry it, making happy little growling noises.

  “Leave it alone, do!” cried Marjorie. “Bad dog!” But Mackintosh still held on with the pertinacity of his race. Not only Miss Montmorency-James could weave fantasies. Small dogs enjoyed them as well. To Mackintosh, the end of the parasol was a mortal enemy and it was his duty to savage the beast.

  Both dog and mistress were so engrossed in their tug-of-war that they did not notice the housemaid who stood quite close to them. Marjorie did not notice until it was too late.

  Something made her look up.

  “Phyllis!” she gasped.

  Phyllis lunged and gave her an almighty shove and Marjorie catapulted dack into the water. “Sink, you bitch!” cried Phyllis jumping up and down in her rage. “Drown!”

  With a roar, Mackintosh dropped the parasol and rushed at Phyllis. He grabbed a handful of her skirt and tore. Phyllis seized the parasol and raised it to beat him off when she heard loud cries from the promenade.

  “Anarchist! Murderer! Where? Where?”

  Phyllis did not wait to see the end of Marjorie Montmorency-James. She started up the path, up the cliff road, and cried out in dismay. Three of the local constabulary were on their way down to the beach from Marjorie’s summer home. For Charlie-the-coachman had remembered. He had remembered seeing that face poking up from the area steps in Gospel Oak. He had saddled up old Charlie and ridden the fat old horse hell for leather to the police station, shouting at the top of his voice, “The anarchists are in town! The anarchists are in town!” like some modern-day Paul Revere.

  Phyllis turned and ran with two of the policemen at her heels. The third ran to rescue Marjorie. Mackintosh had forgotten about her, he had even forgotten about his drowning mistress as he happily lay in the sun and chivvied the piece of Phyllis’s skirt he had torn loose.

  Fortunately for Phyllis, the constabulary of Sandypoint were not given to much action and she might have escaped had it not been for the elderly holidaymakers of the resort.

  Charlie’s story had spread around the town like wildfire. A group of elderly residents had been holding a meeting on the promenade to protest the installation of slot machines that portrayed moving pictures and were little better than a peep show, in their opinion. One was actually called “The Romping Girls on the Swing” and portrayed a vastly indecent show of ankle and even calf. Horrors! They were hard at it when Charlie’s story hit them, and at the same time, they heard the police whistles and saw the fleeing figure of Phyllis heading toward them.

  Now Phyllis to them was the personification of every evil that had come to plague the dignity of their declining years, from motor cars to Bolshevists. They spread out, about twenty of them, across the promenade to block her way.

  Phyllis screamed and tore and battled and clawed her way through. It was like some elderly hell. Toothless gums mouthed at her, parasols with iron spokes that had seen Queen Victoria’s coronation came down on her head and back, withered hands clawed at her face, feeble old voices grown strong with hate cursed her in return.

  She escaped them and ran headlong toward the station. Far away over the cliff came the whistle of the arriving train.

  Undeterred, the rejuvenated elderly posse scampered after her. More elderly residents tottered from their houses to try to bar her way. The sun blazed down and she was bleeding and panting and nearly demented. She fled onto the station platform.

  And they followed her, mouthing and mumbling, clutching a terrifying assortment of weapons from walking canes to steel hatpins nearly a foot long.

  Phyllis backed to the edge of the platform.

  The police, who had been chasing quite the wrong lady after losing Phyllis among the melee of elderly
bodies on the promenade, had found the scent again and their whistles could be heard sounding nearer up the station rise and mingling with the wailing whistle of the approaching train.

  Phyllis’s tormenters moved closer, rheumy old eyes alight with hate, arthritic hands stretched out. Her mind, never stable, snapped.

  With one loud scream of horror, she fell backward under the wheels of the approaching train.

  Her pursuers turned in the blink of an eye back into elderly lavender-scented ladies with impeccable manners and elderly retired military gentlemen, respectable grandfathers to a man.

  With one accord, they turned their backs on the scene and began to make their trembling, stately way back to the promenade.

  It was up to the police to clean up the mess. They were not ghouls, after all.

  Apart from having thrown up a considerable amount of salt water, Marjorie had suffered no hurt. She was helped back to the villa by the sympathetic policeman. Mackintosh escaped to the kitchen to look for Jenkins the butler. His walk had not been very much fun after all. He found his mistress thoroughly disappointing and by a series of little growls and whines tried to tell Jenkins so. Lady Bywater bustled off into town to hire extra help to defend the villa against an invasion by the press.

  Marjorie was pronounced strong enough to make a statement to the local police and on the following day to Scotland Yard, whose representative had traveled down to find out if she possibly knew of the whereabouts of the remaining anarchists.

  The whole story was blazoned across the front page of every newspaper. Lord Philip Cavendish could stand no more. He left the country for an extended stay abroad and not even his fiancée knew his address.

  The Marquess moved his bags and baggage into the villa with the splendid excuse that Marjorie needed extra protection. After some days, the press were informed that the Marquess of Herterford and Miss Montmorency-James had left for Paris to be married by the British Consul and by the time they found that it was not true, they didn’t know where to look.

  The days continued, long and hot and becoming increasingly sultry. A purple haze lay at the base of the cliffs in the evening, old bones ached and bunions jumped. Rain was forecast. But it never came.

  The atmosphere between the Marquess and his love became increasingly strained. Arrangements for a wedding were postponed until the furor should die down. Anywhere they put up the bans would be sure to draw the press and the populace like flies.

  Mrs. Wilton and Lady Bywater held strictly to the view that men—even gentlemen like the Marquess—would slake their lusts at the first given opportunity if not properly chaperoned. The Marquess and Marjorie were always chaperoned on their walks and, in the villa, they were never alone, even for a minute.

  The villa was overstaffed to say the least. There was Stavely, Lady Bywater’s lady’s maid, the upstairs maid and the downstairs maid and the in-between-stairs maid. There was Rose, the parlormaid, the cook, the scullery maid, the brace of footmen, Jenkins the butler and the outside help in the form of an elderly gardener and a young odd-job man and the coachman.

  The Marquess felt too old to seize kisses on the stairs or behind doors. He put a tight rein on his emotions and told himself he was content to wait. Marjorie began to feel neglected. Sometimes she wondered what had happened to the rest of the anarchists. Sometimes she even found herself hoping for another attempt on her life—anything that would rouse Robert from his seeming apathy.

  Joseph, Bernie, Charlie and Jim had finally met up in Hamburg after many vicissitudes. Work was hard to come by—the sort of work they wanted, that is. Wages were low and hours were long. Joseph and Charlie were working as waiters in a biergarten owned by a Herr Hoffer where they rented a room that they shared with the other two.

  After Joseph and Charlie had worked long hours serving out mug after mug of beer to the jolly German bourgeoisie, they would sit in the room, far into the night, cursing the world that gave fat fools like Hoffer all the money and them, nothing at all. They never paused to consider that Herr Hoffer had worked for years to achieve his present prosperity, nor that they owed their lodgings to his kind heart in a city where there was a strange undercurrent of anti-British feeling. They wanted what he had and plotted how they could possibly get it.

  It so happened that Herr Hoffer closed down his biergarten every year for the month of August. He took his fat jolly wife and his two fat jolly daughters off to the Harz mountains for a vacation. This year, Joseph was to be left in charge as caretaker. It was too good an opportunity to miss. Herr Hoffer had a soft spot for Joseph and Charlie. Without their beards and shaggy hair, they seemed small and white and undernourished. They always seemed to treat him with deference and they did their work well. Herr Hoffer shrugged a fat shoulder when cronies warned him about the folly of leaving a foreigner in charge of his establishment. He had a trusting nature and did not see any reason to change this late in life.

  “Now, Joseph,” he said as he handed over the keys, “I trust you to look after my business. No one is to be allowed into my office for any reason. I have sacks of gold in that safe, sacks of gold.” Here he gave a fat chuckle and nudged Joseph in his bony ribs.

  Joseph nearly died of excitement. Sacks of gold! Innocent Herr Hoffer never thought for a moment that anyone could be so naïve as to believe he kept sacks of gold in his safe. It was merely a family joke that he thought Joseph shared. In fact he kept nothing but his account books and ledgers in there while he was on holiday, all money being lodged in the bank.

  Joseph and Charlie went out to the front of the biergarten to wave the Hoffer family goodbye. But no sooner had the cumbersome traveling coach turned the corner of the street than they raced indoors and upstairs to join the other two.

  Bernie and Jim listened wide-eyed to Joseph’s tale of gold. “And see,” said Joseph, waving a massive bunch of keys, “the old fool’s left me this!”

  Trembling with excitement, they headed straight for Herr Hoffer’s office.

  The keys were all neatly labeled. They unlocked the office and threw open the door. A large safe squatted in all its majesty in the corner. Joseph began to search diligently through the bunch of keys. There was nothing marked “safe” and the great tough steel monster had a combination dial on the front of it that seemed to wink at them in the sunlight.

  “I knew it was too good to be true,” groaned Charlie.

  “Look here,” said Joseph, “maybe we’re going the wrong way about things again. I mean ter say, we’ve got a good billet here and the police ain’t looking for us.” But he eyed the safe hungrily.

  “Phyllis was right,” sneered Jim. “You ain’t got no guts nohow. Thought you could blow things up. Can’t you get some dynamite or nitro? Thought you was a peter merchant.”

  “Well, I ain’t,” snapped Joseph. “I make bombs. That’s all.”

  “Sure you do,” mocked Jim, “with cakes o’ boot polish.”

  “We’ll get nowheres fighting,” said Charlie. “Let’s go out after dark someplace in the town where we’ll meet the right sort of person.”

  The right sort of person was a different “right sort” from the kind a Lady Bywater, say, would expect.

  Like the criminals they were, they gravitated instinctively to other criminals, moving after dark through the cellars and bars of the meaner part of town.

  At last they found what they were looking for and could hardly believe their luck. A large drunken Pole had the goods to sell, sixteen cakes of Atlas dynamite. Joseph forgot his fears and scruples. He had earlier that evening been given another reason to forget them. The Hamburger Zietung carried a description of Phyllis’s death on the inside pages and also a description of the four remaining anarchists.

  The deal being struck and the goods handed over, all Joseph had to do was construct a small kind of charge that would blow the safe. He was not quite sure how to do it but felt sure a big enough blast would do the trick.

  It was a tremendous blast. It was superb! It coul
d be heard all over Hamburg. It blew the four anarchists to kingdom come and half destroyed the biergarten.

  The safe was completely untouched.

  In a tin box in the four young men’s room, papers and newspaper cuttings were found that identified the four as the missing English anarchists.

  “Well, they’ve gone to join Phyllis wherever she might be,” said the Marquess putting down his newspaper a day later. A small sulky sigh was all that greeted this bit of news. He looked at his beloved with intense irritation. The servants had been allowed the day off to go to a fair in the town; Lady Bywater and Mrs. Wilton had been unable to withstand the lure of a bridge party. They were alone for the first time, it seemed, in weeks.

  The heat was suffocating and the rooms of the villa, claustrophobic. One lived in a perpetual twilight as the blinds were always drawn each morning against the glaring sun.

  It was, the Marquess thought, an ideal opportunity for some dalliance. But how could he dally when his beloved sat there looking for all the world like a sulky schoolgirl? She had managed in the past few days to make him feel like a stern parent. He did not know that Marjorie had unconsciously been trying to break down his reserve, even if it meant getting him angry. She had even gone so far as to flutter her eyelashes at the brace of footmen but all that got her was a cold, contemptuous look.

  The Marquess picked up his paper again and rattled it noisily. Marjorie thought he looked very handsome—and forbidding.

  He was dressed in a Norfolk jacket, breeches and gaiters. Those strange and exciting eyes of his, which should have been looking lovingly into her own, were bent on that dreary paper. Marjorie was wearing a clinging gown of lilac crêpe de chine. The Marquess rattled his newspaper again and envied her cool clothes. He had forgotten, despite his extensive experience, what went under such pretty gowns.

  Marjorie was wearing a straight-fronted corset that had long metal stays at the front. She was padded over the back, hips and chest to produce the effect of a seemingly miniscule waist. The corset was worn over a chemise, which was tucked into a pair of heavy silk drawers, which were lashed round the waist with tapes. Her chemise was pulled in extra tight to support her breasts. In all, the whole ensemble was about as cool as a straightjacket. Her skin prickled all over under the weight of clothes and she longed to pull the whole lot off and have a damn good scratch.