by M C Beaton
Because you come from the lower classes, screamed a voice inside Alicia’s brain but she left the thought unsaid because several of the men were beginning to look at her in a way she did not like and Alicia prided herself on being a good sport where men were concerned.
She tried to pass it off with a light laugh, especially since she noticed Gerald had joined the group. “Oh, we don’t talk the same language,” she said.
Ginny’s blue eyes clouded with concern. “I am sorry,” she said gently. “I did not realize you were a foreigner. How difficult for you! But let me tell you, I think you speak English remarkably well.”
Gerald let out an unmanly giggle as Alicia stood there, opening and shutting her mouth like a landed carp.
“Do you think I could have something to drink?” queried Ginny. The gentlemen wildly snatched glasses of champagne from the trays carried by the footmen until Ginny found she was being offered about a dozen glasses.
“Now, which one shall I pick?” she said with a delightfully roguish smile, and Lord Gerald gloomily watched the play of an enchanting little dimple on Ginny’s cheek and thought to himself, A flirt. I might have guessed.
“Mine, mine, mine,” the men were crying.
“I know,” said Ginny suddenly. “I’ll take a tiny little sip out of each and then we’ll all be happy.”
This was loudly applauded and Lord Gerald and Alicia walked to the other side of the room and stood looking out onto the terrace in silence.
Alicia was the first to break it. “Ginny Bloggs is the most insufferable common little girl I have ever met. And to think I was prepared to give her the benefit of my advice! I must have been mad.”
Now, Lord Gerald, who had been thinking some pretty hard thoughts about Ginny himself, found himself irrationally annoyed with Alicia.
“There was no need for you to be so patronizing. Miss Bloggs is really uncommonly stupid but seems a pleasant-natured girl, for all that.”
“How can you say that?” demanded Alicia. “Miss Bloggs is everything you despise in a woman—ogling and flirting.”
“Exactly,” he said coldly. “But I dislike snobbery just as much. Come, Alicia. It is not like us to quarrel.”
Dinner was a splendid affair. Exotic course followed exotic course and the guests murmured and exclaimed in surprise as each new delicacy was placed in front of them. Mr. Frayne, although he had spent a great deal of money on the upkeep of his house, had spent none on his table.
Goggling with food and flushed with wine, Jeffrey Beardington-Smythe decided it was time to assert himself; to show this distinguished company that he was the true master of Courtney.
“Harvey!” he called loudly to the butler. “This food is simply delicious. My compliments to the chef. I would never have believed the kitchens of this house could have produced such a banquet. ’Pon my soul, no, no, no, I wouldn’t.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Harvey gravely. “I confess to being surprised myself. We were inspired by the mistress, sir. It was her suggestion.”
Everyone looked at Ginny in amazement but Ginny was demolishing her ninth course with the same relish as her first and did not appear to have heard.
Lord Gerald looked narrowly at the beautiful top of Ginny’s head. How could a coal merchant’s daughter even have heard of all these exotic foreign dishes, let alone know how to order them. One could not, of course, question Harvey. But Harvey would undoubtedly know the answer.
And Harvey did. He was remembering his strange interview with the mistress that had taken place earlier in the evening.
Harvey and the cook and the housekeeper had had a hurried consultation downstairs. As the new mistress, said the cook, Mrs. Silver, Miss Bloggs should be allowed to see the evening’s menu and suggest any last-minute alterations. But “her, being what she was,” would probably only know about things like Lancashire hot pot and Irish stew. “I wouldn’t know how to deal with her, and that’s a fact,” said Mrs. Silver. “So you’d better go up there yourself, Mr. Harvey.”
A footman was sent, and the message came promptly back that Miss Bloggs would be pleased to see Harvey.
She was sitting in a chair, looking vacantly out of the window, when he entered. He coughed politely and said, “This is the menu for tonight, miss. Cook wondered if you would like to make any alterations.”
Ginny squinted slightly at the gilt-edged card. “Just what I used to have at home for Sunday dinner,” she had commented vaguely. And then she said in a slightly sharper tone, “Why is that?”
“The late Mr. Frayne,” said Harvey, “did not believe in wasting money on food. He despised French cooking and ‘all that foreign muck’ as he called it.”
“Perhaps Cook does not like or does not know how to cook foreign muck?” suggested Ginny gently.
“But she does, madam, miss… madam. She does. She’s always threatening to move to a new place where they’ll appreciate her.”
“Then why doesn’t she?” asked Ginny with the simple absorbed interest of a child.
“It’s her sister, madam, what is poorly. She lives in the village nearby and Mrs. Silver takes care of her.”
“Mrs. Silver being the cook.”
“Yes, madam.”
There was a long silence while Ginny picked up a silver pencil and began to rap it on her teeth in an irritating manner.
Her next question, as he said afterward, “shook him rigid.”
“When did any of you last receive an increase in salary?”
“We haven’t, madam. Our wages have stayed the same since we was employed.”
“And why did you not all find other positions?”
“There ain’t any,” said Harvey, forgetting himself. “The queues at the agencies are a mile long.”
Ginny yawned and stared out of the window again.
“Do I have a steward or a secretary, Harvey?”
“No, madam.”
“Oh, dear, I shall just have to get you to do it then, Harvey.”
“Do what, madam?” asked Harvey woodenly, wondering if his mistress was slightly off her nut.
The blue eyes surveyed him with complete astonishment. “Why, give all the staff that deserve it a raise.” Harvey’s mouth fell open. “More money,” explained Ginny patiently.
Harvey appeared to come to life. A large smile broke up his austere features. “Oh, thank you, madam,” he said. And then, remembering his duties, “The menus?”
“Yes,” said Ginny. “I’m sure Mr. Frayne was a great hoarder… of food, I mean.”
“Oh, yes, madam. He believed to the last that the Boers were going to invade Britain and he had special storage rooms built.”
“Open them then,” said Ginny with a vague smile, “and tell Mrs. Silver to allow her talents full play.” Her brow suddenly creased as if the effort of thought were too much for her. “And since it’s such short notice, you had better hire extra help from the village.”
And that had been that, thought Harvey with a reminiscent smile, thinking of his own splendid dinner, which would be waiting for him in the housekeeper’s parlor.
Tansy sat poised on the edge of her chair. She felt sure that Ginny would not know enough to usher the ladies from the table at the end of the meal and leave the gentlemen to their port. Then she, Tansy, would take over as hostess—as she should have been in the first place. Her thin bosom heaved and the jet embroidery glittered as she crouched to spring—so to speak—and put Miss Bloggs in her place.
She glanced imperiously around the table in the best manner and coughed gently to catch the eyes of the other ladies as a signal to leave, but she noticed, to her intense irritation, that Ginny had risen and that that idiot Barbara was simpering out of the door after her. There was nothing else for Tansy to do but follow meekly in their wake.
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-ew,” 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! H
e 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!