by M C Beaton
Sally sat on in the long gallery, trying to still the turmoil of her soul. But she was not to be left in peace for long.
The door opened, and Miss Wyndham drifted into the room, a vision in a white lace tea gown threaded with rose silk ribbons. She was carrying a red hothouse rose in her hand.
“Isn’t it pretty?” said Miss Wyndham with a dreamy smile on her beautiful face. “Paul gave it to me.”
Oh, burning acid of jealousy! Sally felt cast adrift on a bright green sea of churning emotion.
“I wish to speak to you,” went on Miss Wyndham, sinking into the chair recently vacated by him.
Bad etiquette, thought Sally sourly, feeling more like a bitter old spinster by the minute. A lady is not supposed to sit in any seat warm from a gentleman’s bottom.
“I believe you are very sympathetic. I feel you have a clear and kind soul.” Miss Wyndham smiled beatifically into Sally’s hate-filled eyes.
“How can I be of assistance?” asked Sally in a crotchety voice.
“I am in love,” said Miss Wyndham simply, twisting the stem of the rose in her long white fingers.
“You would be!”
“I beg your pardon?” Miss Wyndham raised slightly startled eyes.
“I said, I thought you were,” lied Sally, sternly, and with stupendous effort banishing jealousy into the far corner of her heart.
“Oh, does it show?” She blushed prettily. “The trouble is that I don’t think he even notices me. Do you think he is shy?”
Sally thought longingly of the marquess. “No,” she said. “I would not have thought that at all.”
Miss Wyndham looked sad. “You must be right, because you are so wise. Then it must be that he does not care for me. I only accepted the invitation so as to be near him. Do you think I have any hope?”
Sally looked at the beautiful girl opposite. “Perhaps,” she said slowly. “Why don’t you wait until the ball? It will be a romantic atmosphere. Perhaps then you could summon up enough courage to give him a little encouragement.” Just give me time to think, cried Sally’s treacherous inner voice. “There are other young men who must find you very attractive.” she added hopefully.
“I am not interested in any other young men,” said Miss Wyndham, with infuriating simplicity. “Perhaps,” she said, looking eagerly at Sally, “you yourself could mention some little thing.”
“I’ll try,” replied Sally, wrestling with her conscience.
“You’re a dear,” said Miss Wyndham, getting to her feet and kissing Sally impulsively on the cheek. She looked rather startled as her lips came into contact with the cold rubber wrinkles on Sally’s face.
When she had left, Sally sat chiding herself for her own jealousy and misery. How could she compete with a girl like Miss Wyndham, even supposing she were not disguised as Aunt Mabel? But I would like to try, screamed her rebellious inner voice. If only I could go to that ball as myself.
“You, there…er…Aunt Mabel, or whatever your name is,” said an acid voice in her ear.
Sally stared upward into the cold eyes of Mrs. Annabelle Stuart. She struggled politely to her feet and found herself thrust back down into the chair with a strong hand.
“Sit down,” commanded Mrs. Stuart. “You need all the rest you can get at your age.”
She plumped herself down opposite and glared at Sally.
“Can I be of assistance?” asked Sally politely.
“I didn’t come here to ask for help from some grubby little magazine’s letters editor,” barked Mrs. Stuart, and then relapsed into smoldering silence.
Sally raised her false eyebrows and did not deign to reply. At last she got to her feet and tried to make her escape.
“And where do you think you’re going?” demanded Mrs. Stuart.
“To change for dinner.”
“Time enough for that,” snapped Mrs. Stuart, and relapsed into a sort of brooding silence that was somehow familiar to Sally.
Then Sally realized Mrs. Stuart was sulking. “I am not a servant, Mrs. Stuart,” said Sally at last with a faint edge to her voice. “My time is my own to spend as I see fit. So…” She got to her feet.
“Oh, if you must know, I do want your help,” grumped Mrs. Stuart, playing with a hideous string of hand-thrown pottery beads that, in Sally’s opinion, someone had not thrown far enough. They were those multicolored lumps in shades of sulphur-yellow and purple strung on black cord.
Sally gave a little sigh of resignation. “Please, go on,” she said, adopting her Aunt Mabel expression of patient wisdom.
“I want to kill my husband, Freddie,” said Mrs. Stuart.
“Why?” asked Sally in amazement.
“You really are rather a stupid old woman,” said Mrs. Stuart nastily. “Anyone with half a brain would want to kill Freddie. He’s a dead bore. He picks his teeth. He leaves the top off the tooth powder. He smokes cheroots in bed. He pinches housemaid’s bottoms. Do you need anything else?”
“But you must have loved him,” protested Sally.
“No. Who told you that?”
“Well, I mean, you married him.”
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake. You are naive. I married him for his money, like any other sensible girl of my generation. I don’t want a divorce. Too messy. Detectives and Brighton hotels. Ugh! So I’ve decided to kill him. That’s where you come in. You can tell me how to do it.”
Sally sat in stunned silence. Purple shadows crept across the room. Somewhere outside, a rising wind began to moan in the trees, crying out the end of a long Indian summer and heralding the first bite of winter.
“Come on. Think, woman!” said Mrs. Stuart while those awful beads went clunk, clunk, clunk. “I’m asking you cos I’ve got to discuss it with someone, and you’re honor bound not to mention it to a soul—just like a priest.”
If I thought you were serious, you horrible frump, thought Sally, then I would call the local police station. But I happen to have guessed that this is some kind of spiteful joke. But I’ll play your little game.
“Give me time,” said Sally aloud, “to concentrate.”
Mrs. Stuart waited with ill-concealed impatience while Sally furrowed her rubber wrinkles and thought hard. Now, Sally was a great fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories and had also read a great number of penny dreadful mysteries when she was at school.
“What is Her Grace’s doctor like?” asked Sally at last. “I mean the one who would be called in if anything happened?”
“Oh, old Barchester. He’s senile. I don’t know why Mary and Hugh will insist on having him.” With difficulty, Sally identified Mary as the duchess and Hugh as the duke.
“You mean he could be tricked?”
Mrs. Stuart looked at Sally with a gleam of comprehension beginning to dawn in her pale eyes. “Old Barchester doesn’t know his arse from his elbow,” she said with simple venom.
Sally reflected briefly on the foul language of the ladies of the county who could be heard baying obscenities that would make a sailor blush on the hunting field.
“Then that is your answer,” said Sally coldly, since she thought this joke in very poor taste. “You simply put it about that your husband has a dickey heart and put some rat poison in his tea, or whatever, and there you are. Doctor Barchester will simply take your word for it.”
“By George!” breathed Mrs. Stuart. “You’re everything you’re cracked up to be. I’ll start this evening.”
With that she strode from the room, crashing the door behind her. Silly old cow, thought Sally. Someone should put rat poison in her tea. Let me get out of here before someone else—Oh, Lor’.
The door opened, and His Grace, the Duke of Dartware, sidled in.
“Well, well, well, well,” he said breezily, rubbing his hands. “All in the dark, what? Better light the lamps, eh, what?”
He lit a heavy brass oil lamp that was standing on the inlaid top of a handsome loo table next to Sally.
Sally shivered slightly, for the room had become v
ery cold. Surely the duke didn’t want her advice. Surely…
“I need your help, old girl,” said His Grace, putting a red and wrinkled hand on Sally’s knee. He was a gray-haired, fresh-faced man in his sixties, with bushy gray eyebrows and a toothbrush mustache and a button of a nose. He bared his teeth in a nicotine-and-Old-Gold-coated smile.
Sally gave him her most charming smile. With just a bit of luck he would soon be her father-in-law. “How can I be of assistance?” she asked.
“Well, you see, as a matter of fact, dash it all, well it’s like this. Oh, don’t you know, to tell the truth…I’m in love!”
With that the duke released Sally’s knee from a surprisingly powerful clutch and sat back, looking at her as apprehensively as a schoolboy with his hand caught in the biscuit barrel.
“Oh, dear,” said Sally sedately. She was, she had felt, inured to shock by now. But who was the duke in love with? Mrs. Stuart? Lady Veronica Chelmsford?
“Who is this lady?” she asked.
“Rose Higgins,” breathed the duke, his eyes bulging slightly.
Sally frowned. “She is not one of your guests?”
“No,” said the duke. “Rose is the barmaid down at the Feathers in the village. You should see her drawing a pint of beer. There’s a light just above the tap, and it shines on the muscles of her forearms in such a way, don’t you know, makes a chap feel quite weak.”
“Perhaps it’s just a passing fancy,” suggested Sally hopefully. “How long have you known Miss Higgins?”
“Two years,” said the duke gloomily.
“And she is aware of your feelings?”
The duke looked scandalized. “Of course not! I’m a gentleman. Wouldn’t make approaches to a lady like that unless I were in a position to marry her.”
“Marry!… Oh, dear. You cannot possibly marry her.”
“Don’t see why not,” said the duke sulkily. “Divorce is a bit more common these days. Nobody minds. Won’t let you into the Royal Enclosure at Ascot, but apart from that, nobody cares.”
Sally took a deep breath. Her loyalty was to the duchess. The marquess, furthermore, would surely be distressed if his parents divorced.
“My dear duke,” she said firmly. “I cannot approve…”
“Thought you would say that…”
“Cannot approve. Think of your son!”
“Paul!” exclaimed the duke huffily. “He’s a masher of the first water. Fillies all over the place. At least my intentions are honorable! Look here, Aunt Mabel. There’s a lovely little garden at the back of the Feathers. I know it’s a bit cold this time of year, but perhaps you could drive there with me tomorrow, just to meet Rose. Now you’d do that, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Sally, more because she wanted to end this embarrassing conversation than to oblige her host.
“Splendid! Two o’clock, shall we say? Good!” And with that he left.
Dinner was a most embarrassing affair for poor Sally, who felt quite weighed down with all the dark secrets reposing in her jet-covered bosom. It was not as if she had to make any effort to converse with anyone at the table, because each and every one seemed to be speaking about exactly what was troubling them at the moment without any regard to their fellows.
“Freddie has got a dickey heart. Did you know?” Mrs. Stuart.
“I don’t know where they get their cook from. Food’s filth.” The Honorable Freddie Stuart.
“I say, Miss Wyndham’s in full bloom tonight, eh, what, haw? Makes the old ticker beat faster, what, haw!” Peter Firkin.
“A rose by any other name…Ah, Rose, Rose…” The duke.
“… hope it will not be too much work for the servants. Perhaps I should get that chappie Marjie Effingham had to do her ballroom. Chinese, it was. Lengths of brocade and chrysanthemums in pots. So pretty…” The duchess.
“Servants are not trained properly these days and so uppity. All this Bolshevism.” Lady Veronica Chelmsford.
“If only people knew what little me was thinking.” Miss Wyndham.
“I say, I’ll have second helpings, since you lot don’t seem to like your food. Disgraceful waste. If you chaps had been in the army like me…” Sir Sydney Chelmsford.
“For the fourth time, I’m driving into Bath tomorrow, if anyone wants to go.” The Marquess of Seudenham.
“Oh, I would love to go.” Sally.
Both turned slightly and looked at each other while the other voices rose and fell in their various monologues.
Then Sally’s face fell. “I can’t.” she said dismally, forgetting to use her Aunt Mabel voice. “The duke is taking me to the village pub.”
“Really?” said the marquess, looking amused. “Is that still going on?”
“What?” said Sally cautiously.
“That barmaid, whatsername?”
“Rose, Oh, you know !”
“Course I do. So does Mother. But what on earth is Father thinking of to trot a lady like you into barrooms?”
“We’re going to sit in the garden.”
“You’ll freeze. Furthermore, you can’t study the beauty of Rose’s forearms from the garden.”
“You are all quite mad,” said Sally repressively. “I took the duke’s confidence very seriously indeed. Particularly as he said he wanted to marry the girl.”
“Don’t worry your white hairs over it,” said the marquess lazily. “Father’s always been going to marry ’em over the years. Mother’s quite happy that this current one is safely tucked away in the Feathers and not housed in the servants’ hall, as is usually the case.”
“Then I am wasting my time,” said Sally sadly, for she wanted naturally to be free to go into Bath with the marquess.
He eyed her sympathetically. “It’s all a bit much for you, isn’t it?” he said kindly. “What time is Father taking you off?”
“Two o’clock.”
“Then I think it might be a good idea if I were to allow you ten minutes or so, and then arrive unexpectedly to pick you up.”
“Oh, thank you!” said Sally, her eyes like stars.
Then she felt her wig slipping a little and hurriedly adjusted it. The marquess caught the movement and felt a surge of pity. Poor old girl, he thought, having to work for a living at her age and having to wear that awful wig.
“Is anyone listening to me? I’m trying to tell you all not to excite Freddie. He’s got a dickey heart.”
Sally was about to confide her strange conversation with Mrs. Stuart to the marquess, but she had been told it all in confidence, and it was all so silly. The marquess would probably laugh at her and tell her that Mrs. Stuart made a habit of plotting her husband’s death.
“I’m bored,” the Honorable Freddie was telling a dish of currant fritters. “And just look at these.” He pushed the fritters pettishly with his fork. “Haven’t had those deuced fly cemeteries since I was at school. ’Strordinarily boring house party. The women who are old enough to be interesting just ain’t.”
His wife cast him such a look of venom that Sally shuddered. Then she reflected bleakly on the tons of etiquette books advising the aspiring classes as to how to behave in society. She wondered if any of them would ever credit the blunt gutter rudeness of some members of the aristocracy. As a schoolgirl, she had been meticulously coached by the Misses Lelongs of Bombay on how to behave and how to eat delicately. And now just look at the duchess picking up three currant fritters at once with her fingers and shoving them into her mouth, and continuing to lay forth on the ball through a spray of crumbs!
But then there was tomorrow to look forward to. If only she could go as Sally Blane and not as Aunt Mabel.
“Now, this is what I call a good brisk day,” said the duke cheerfully. Sally shivered miserably and longed for some furs.
They were seated in the garden of the Feathers. Great fleecy clouds were flying across the sky, casting their huge shadows over the frosty grass. A starling piped dismally on the lower branch of a bare apple tree. Engla
nd had been blessed with a long Indian summer, and then the weather had broken all at once, and it just had to break on the very day one was stuck in a pub garden with a duke who was in love with the barmaid.
“Here she comes!” whispered the duke, rubbing his hands together.
Out from the inn came a large fat girl carrying a tray and glasses. Sally tried to hide her surprise. Girl wasn’t exactly the word. For surely Rose was at least in her thirties. She was dressed in a low-cut gown of glaring green and yellow stripes, out of which her enormous bosom threatened to spill. Her face was red and raw and looked as if it had been sandpapered recently. Her large brown eyes were as vacant as a cow’s.
“Look at her arms,” hissed the duke, wriggling in excitement.
Well, apart from the fact that they were freckled and very powerful-looking, there was not much about them that Sally could see that would possibly explain the duke’s infatuation.
“Ah, Rose,” sighed the duke. “The last rose of summer.”
“Oh, go on, Yur Gryce,” said Rose, with a turnip smile. “You do go on. ’E does go on zumthin’ orful,” she added, nudging Aunt Mabel in the ribs. “This be yur ma?”
“No, my precious,” said the duke, leering. “This is Aunt Mabel. Helps gels in distress, don’t you know. Finds out all about their lovelives.”
Rose put the tray with the two glasses of warm gin—the Duke’s plebeian choice—on the table and stared at Sally like a ruminating cow.
“You ain’t from ’Ome Chats, then?” she asked slowly.
Sally nodded.
“Funny,” said Rose, balancing the tray on one large hip and staring off into the middle distance. “I wrote to you, mum. Ever such a lovely answer, you give ’un, that you do. ‘Marry ’im,’ that’s what you said. An’ that’s what I’m going to do.”
Sally looked at Rose wildly and then at the stricken duke. “You don’t mean to say…” she began.
“Yerse,” said Rose dreamily. “I was the pregnant ‘ousemaid,’ an’ I shall marry Jim Finch, ’im that works fer Farmer Andrews. Got a liddle bit o’ money put by ’as Jim. Marry ’im, thas what Aunt Mabel said.”