Men had a much easier time, she reflected. They didn’t have to wear any of this rubbish.
The Marquess with his high hard collar torturing his neck and his long hard cuffs torturing his wrists would have thought her mad if he could have read her thoughts. And what on earth had possessed him to put on a tweed Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers in this heat?
“Let’s go for a walk,” said Marjorie abruptly.
“Is that all you can think about?” he asked. “We are left alone for the first time and you want to go for a walk.”
“What else is there to do?” countered Marjorie, staring at the pattern in the Wilton carpet.
“Oh, if you can’t think of anything else, I’m not going to tell you.” He threw down his newspaper. He had been about to suggest that he go and change into a blazer and flannels but he perversely decided to stay in his tweeds and suffer.
Marjorie pinned a large shady straw hat on her head with two large hatpins. It was decorated with a whole cornucopia of wax fruit.
In grim silence they walked down toward the promenade about three feet apart. The air was like hot soup and Marjorie was suffering from an incipient headache. Her underwear clung to her constricted body and she felt the beginnings of a heat rash beginning to spread over her skin.
Great black clouds were boiling up over the horizon, towering up into the blue sky, great black-and-purple citadels.
Anyone with any sense had gone indoors and the promenade appeared deserted, except for a workman who was removing the coins in the slot machines.
The Marquess stopped and leaned his elbows on the rail of the promenade and stared gloomily at the black sea.
“You should have brought that poor beast, Mackintosh, out for a walk,” he said.
“He prefers the butler,” said Marjorie in a cold little voice.
“Sensible animal.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The Marquess turned and leaned his back against the rail. “It means,” he said, “that I can understand him going to where he gets more warmth and affection than he does from you.”
“Perhaps you would like to do the same?” said Marjorie. How she hated him! How could she have been silly enough to ever think she loved him. He was cold and pompous.
“Perhaps.” The Marquess stared back at her with equal dislike. Silly little girl with all her stupid sulky posturing. He must have been mad.
“Ho, there folks!” Charlie-the-coachman reined in beside them. Charlie-the-horse was pulling the old growler, which had been revarnished to a high shine. “Likes to take the old wagon out for a bit,” he said. “Congratulations on your engagement, miss, my lord.”
“Thank you,” said Marjorie bleakly, although she gave Charlie a warm smile. Charlie was always a dependable character. Bluff and cheery, the salt of the earth.
The Marquess said nothing.
Charlie looked in a worried way from one stony face to the other. He picked up the reins and stared straight between his horse’s ears. “If you’ll take the advice of an old man, me lord,” he said, “you’ll go in for a bit o’ slap and tickle. Ain’t nothing like it. Me and my missus—may she rest in peace—when we was engaged, it wor a bit o’ a strain what with ’er Ma always on the watch. Started quarreling we did. But a bit o’ slap and tickle put it right.” He touched his hat and the growler moved off.
Marjorie felt her face flaming. Such impertinence! And from Charlie too! She felt just as if Santa Claus had pinched her bottom.
The Marquess looked at her in a speculative kind of way.
He opened his mouth to say something when there came an almighty crash of thunder and the heavens opened. He seized her hand and began to run. By the time they reached the villa they were soaked to the skin. The telephone in the hall was ringing away. The Marquess answered it and then turned to Marjorie.
“That was Mrs. Wilton,” he said. “It seems they will not be home in time for dinner owing to the weather.”
Marjorie stood awkwardly in the hall, her hat a wreck and water pouring down her face.
“Go upstairs, girl,” he said, giving her a push. “We’ll need to get out of these wet things.”
He was just giving himself a brisk rub-down with a towel in his own room when he heard a muffled wail from Marjorie’s. He quickly donned a dressing gown and walked along the corridor to her room. He opened the door without knocking.
Marjorie stood in the middle of the room, tears running down her face. She was fighting with the tapes of her corset, which had worked themselves into a Gordian knot. She was too miserable to care whether he saw her in her underwear or not.
“Turn around!” he ordered.
His long fingers seized the tapes of the corset and broke them and unlaced the rest of the tape. The heavy garment fell to the floor with an enormous clatter. He looked at it with awe and at the pile of horsehair pads attached to Marjorie. He went along to the bathroom and came back with an armful of towels and in a deft impersonal way stripped off the rest of her undergarments, deaf to her faint shrieks of protest. He rubbed her briskly with the towel, his mind registering how well he was behaving.
He flung back the covers of the bed. “In you go,” he ordered, “and I’ll bring you some hot tea.”
He walked smartly to the door and then stopped dead, his hand on the handle.
“Robert!” came a faint voice from the bed. “I’m sorry I was such a grouch.”
He slowly turned round. She was smiling at him weakly, her damp hair spread around her shoulders, the blankets up to her chin.
And then he didn’t really know what had happened. Somehow he was in bed with Marjorie, he was on top of Marjorie and he was making love to her as he had never made love before while the villa rocked to the force of the storm and drowned the noises from the storm of passion taking place in Miss Montmorency-James’s bed.
“You win,” muttered Lady Bywater to Mrs. Wilton. Both old ladies were seated at a small table in the drawing room much later that day playing backgammon. The Marquess and Marjorie were seated side by side on a sofa in front of the fire.
“What do you mean ‘win’?” demanded Mrs. Wilton. “We’ve hardly started playing.”
“I mean you win the bet about the small wedding. They’ll have to be married quickly and quietly.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Look at their faces. They’ve been and gone and done it!”
And they had!
My Lords, Ladies and Marjorie Page 15