by M. C. Beaton
“Perhaps you would care to take a stroll with me, Mrs. Friend,” he said. “It’s a beautiful morning. Now wouldn’t it be nice to get out of the house?”
“Oh, yes!” cried Amy, jumping to her feet. She ran lightly up the stairs to fetch her very best hat. She felt sure Mr. Baines would appreciate it.
They walked along by the Heath under the heavy summer trees in companionable silence. Amy felt that she could almost behave like herself and Bertie did not feel obliged to say anything witty or clever.
They found a small tearoom near the High Street, with little tables on the pavement outside, and Bertie Baines drew out Amy’s chair for her and then sat down with a sigh of satisfaction.
“I must say it does my heart good to see you, Mrs. Friend. I’m going back into the business world, you know. Got a job as office manager with Westerman’s rivals—Heatherington’s, you know—they’re on the other side of the Bank.”
“But I thought you were…” Amy began and then bit her lip.
“You thought I was living in the South of France with a certain lady,” said Bertie Baines. “Well, I was. But somehow I couldn’t fit in. All the nobs there treated me as if I were a very funny joke on the part of Lady—on the part of my lady friend. Some of them mistook me for the butler.”
Amy’s tortured and refined accents fled before a wave of pure sympathy. “Oh, I know what it’s like, Mister Baines—trying day in and day out to be something you’re not. ’Course, it’s easy for some. Take my Bob. He never seems to notice the change. You’d think he’d had servants all his life.”
“Anyway,” said Mr. Baines, taking a swallow of strong tea and helping himself to a large slice of Congress cake, “it’s going to be good to get back into harness.”
“You wouldn’t be needing a telephone girl?” asked Amy, and then added hurriedly, “Just joking, to be sure.”
Bertie looked at her speculatively. She was really a pretty little thing. A bit on the heavy side, but then…
“We are looking for a girl,” he said slowly. “It’s better to work, Amy, than to sit at home all day living on someone else’s money.”
Amy suddenly thought of a day filled with office activity. A day when perhaps this office manager would take her to lunch the way he had once entertained Polly Marsh. She took a deep breath. “I’d love to work again, Mister Baines.”
“Good!” cried Mr. Baines. “Why don’t you call me Bertie… when we’re not at work of course.”
“Bertie,” said Amy shyly.
She turned and looked around her. Funny how she had never noticed what a pretty place Hampstead was before!
She began to giggle. “I don’t know what Bob will say when he hears my news.”
Mr. Baines frowned. He had already forgotten about Amy’s husband. It was such a luxury to relax with someone who looked at you as if you were really important and did not treat you like some type of hilarious joke.
He came to a decision. “Amy,” he said, “we have the whole day before we start work tomorrow. Let’s go to the zoo!”
“Zoo!” said Amy, clapping her hands. “You and me?”
“You and me,” repeated Mr. Baines, with a smile.
He helped her out of her seat and paid the bill.
He tilted his hat rakishly to one side of his head.
He felt like no end of a dog.
Bob Friend popped his curly head around the door of his secretary’s little room. Miss Jenkins was typing ferociously with myopic concentration.
“I say, Miss Jenkins!”
“Ooh! Mister Friend. You gave me ever such a fright!”
“Would you care to share the old feed bag with me at lunchtime?”
“Ooooh! Mister Friend. Should I really?”
“’Course you should,” said Bob stoutly. “Not every day a knight on a white charger comes galumphing along.” He got down on one knee, clasped one hand to his heart, and waved the other in the direction of the enraptured Miss Jenkins. “I will slay dragons for you. If,” he added, getting to his feet, “they have any dragons at Spielmann’s.”
“Oooh! Mister Friend, you are a one, you are. Ever such a wag.”
“You’ll come for lunch then?”
“Much obliged, I’m sure,” said Miss Jenkins, her eyes like stars, “and ta, ever so, Mister Friend.”
Bob went off along the corridor, whistling cheerfully.
He, too, felt like no end of a dog.
Lady Blenkinsop lay in bed and watched the sun through the lace curtains blazing down on the Mediterranean. It was going to be another perfect day. She reread Bertie Baines’s letter for the third time. So he had found a job. And he was prepared to support her if she would return to London and live in some poky hovel in the suburbs.
Why couldn’t he have settled down here? It had all been such bliss until he had started to complain that her friends treated him like a gigolo. She had tried to avoid going out into society, but one had to admit that after the first fine, careless rapture had proved that it never could be recaptured, it became rather tedious to be cooped up in a villa in the South of France with the same old dismal face.
She must be philosophical and try to forget about Bertie. But it was a bore that he had been one of those types simply bristling with scruples and morals. Perhaps a gigolo might be a good idea!
She half closed her eyes as a footman came in carrying the wicker breakfast table and began to arrange it on the balcony.
She watched him under her lashes. He had only been in her employment for a week and he really was a splendid figure of a man.
“What is your name?” she asked, and then her face took on the weary, tense look of the well-bred English lady about to plunge into French. “Comment vous appellez-vous?”
“Marcel, madame. I spik Engleesh.”
“You do?” Lady Blenkinsop patted the bed. “Come and sit next to me here, Marcel, and tell me how you learned your English.”
Marcel looked at her speculatively from under his long, curling lashes and then sat down with athletic grace on the edge of the bed.
“Perhaps madame would not like the nature of my education?”
“I am not a snob, Marcel.”
“Oh, no, madame! It is just that my learning of the English was not… convenable.”
“Ah, Marcel,” she teased. “Some lady has been teaching you the language entre les draps.”
“How did madame guess?” asked the footman, leaning forward languorously.
Lady Blenkinsop looked thoughtfully into his large brown eyes.
“Perhaps, Marcel, it would be a good idea if you locked the door and closed the shutters.”
“Certainly, madame.” He got to his feet and then half turned in the middle of the room. “Madame will find that I endeavor to give the best service at all times.”
“Splendid!” said Lady Blenkinsop. “What an intelligent young man you are!”
The marquis was thinking about the marchioness as he rode up the long drive toward his home, Granbeigh. Granbeigh was tiny compared to Bevington Chase, but he considered its mellow Tudor brick and rambling lines more pleasing to the eye. His father-in-law had admittedly damned it as a bleeding great pub, but nonetheless he felt it was a perfect setting for his beautiful wife.
He could not help reflecting that Polly’s Stone Lane upbringing had turned out to be a marvelous asset when dealing with the tenants. She was genuinely concerned about their welfare, their births, marriages, and deaths. A debutante of his own class, trained in finishing schools and London salons, could hardly have achieved Polly’s sympathetic touch.
They had had countless rows, of course, both of them being extremely quick-tempered, but the first year of marriage had gone by rather splendidly.
The Marsh family had returned to Stone Lane after a brief sojourn in the dower house. Unlike Polly, they had found country life far too quiet and had considered the members of the local county uncomfortable and strange animals.
The marquis walked
into the drawing room by way of the terrace. There was no sign of his wife. He ambled through the rooms and then finally rang the bell. The butler informed him that his lady had departed very hurriedly after receiving a telephone call from a Mr. Friend.
All the marquis’s feelings of contentment and well-being fled. Bob Friend was that good-looking chap who had been made manager of Westerman’s. He had always seemed to be a bit too fond of Polly. The marquis began to pace the room. Perhaps Polly—like her parents—secretly found the life of the country dull. Perhaps she found him dull!
By the time another hour had crept past and the birds had begun to chirp sleepily in the ivy, the marquis was convinced that Polly had left him. He remembered all their rows and forgot about their happiness until his marriage seemed a mockery. In his mind’s eye he was just shooting Bob Friend dead in the middle of Westerman’s when he heard the sound of the carriage wheels on the drive outside.
He crossed to the window, and with a heartfelt feeling of relief, watched his wife descending from the carriage.
Polly trailed miserably into the drawing room. She saw the tall figure of her husband standing by the window and threw herself into his arms. “Oh, Edward,” she cried. “I’ve had such a beastly day!”
“Well, it’s all your own fault,” said her husband waspishly, “trailing off to London to consort with office chappies.”
Polly stiffened with anger and wrenched herself out of his arms. “If you don’t want to listen to me, I shan’t tell you,” she said sobbing, and ran from the room.
Cursing himself for a jealous fool, the marquis followed her upstairs and found her lying across her bed crying her eyes out. He sat down on the bed and gathered her gently into his arms. “I’m sorry,” he whispered against her hair. “I was jealous.”
Polly dried her eyes and looked at him in amazement. “Jealous! Of Bob Friend? Oh, Edward! Just wait till I tell you.”
The marquis gathered that Polly had gone straight to Westerman’s at Bob Friend’s urgent request. Amy had run away with Mr. Baines and was living with him in Highgate. Heatherington’s, the firm Mr. Baines was with, had been celebrating their founders’ day and had given the staff a day off. Bob planned to go to Highgate and confront them but felt that the presence of the marchioness would do much to bring his guilty wife to her senses.
She had gone to Highgate with Bob and sure enough the guilty pair were at home. Amy had become very thin and painted—and she flounced. She had been wearing a frock with a great many flounces, and it had seemed designed for the excellent purpose of flouncing out of the room when anyone tried to talk to her.
And poor, dear Mr. Baines! What a terrible, terrible change. He had been wearing a dreadful double-breasted waistcoat with lapels. “Cad!” murmured the marquis sympathetically. He had been smoking a cheroot right there in the living room, and he had laughed at poor Bob and said that if he didn’t know how to appreciate his wife, there were some that did.
There had been nothing to do but leave and she had been heartbroken for poor Bob, who had been silent all the way back to the City.
Westerman’s had just been closing and this little office girl with enormous specs had rushed up to the carriage and flung herself into Bob Friend’s arms, saying, “My poor, pwecious Bobsie. Was it terrible?” And Bob had said “yes,” and he had got down from the carriage and, as he had left with his arm round the girls’ waist, he had turned and winked at Polly and said, “Amy ain’t the only pebble on the beach.”
“People are so… so… fickle,” wailed Polly. “How shall I ever forget this horrible afternoon?”
“Like this,” said the marquis.
“Oh, Edward,” said Polly. “Before dinner?”
“When else?” said the marquis, unfastening the top button of her dress. “Consider it part of the hors d’oeuvres.”
“What will the servants think?”
The marquis told the fortunately absent servants to perform an impossible feat with parts of their anatomy and concentrated on the fastenings of his wife’s dress.
Polly smiled up at him. “It was never any use saying ‘no’ to you, my dear marquis.”
“Not the slightest use at all,” he said cheerfully, and that was the last coherent thing the Marquis of Wollerton said for some time.
Part II
Ginny
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
For Joe and Ann Carroll
Chapter 1
The long drawing room at Courtney was silent except for the sound of muffled sobbing from the two ladies present and yawns and groans from the two gentlemen.
Miss Barbara Briggs, called the Perpetual Debutante by her friends and enemies alike, raised the wisp of a handkerchief to one faded-blue eye.
“Poor, poor Uncle Giles. On his deathbed at last. Well, everyone knows how I’ve taken care of him and always remembered his birthdays and Christmases. I am sure he shall call for me soon.” Her bandeau, which was slipping over her pepper-and-salt hair, gave her faded features a slightly drunken look, and the other female present looked at her in derision.
Miss Tansy Bloomington was the epitome of the modern Edwardian woman. She wore a sulphur-yellow tea gown embellished with designs of angry-looking little blue Chinese. Her twelve-inch cigarette holder was firmly clenched in one strong tanned muscular hand and her bright-red hair was screwed up on top of her head. Her prominent nose and heavy-lidded eyes gave her the appearance of a bird of prey. Like her cousin, Miss Briggs, Miss Bloomington had discovered a hitherto hidden affection for her dying uncle and was closing in on his bedside with the intention of persuading Mr. Frayne that a modern woman like herself would be the safest one to inherit his great fortune. Like Miss Briggs, she was in her thirties and unwed.
Mr. Frayne’s two nephews made up the other members of the party: Jeffrey Beardington-Smythe, square and choleric and middle-aged; and Cyril Booth, willowy and handsome and twenty.
Mr. Frayne was a noted miser, although he did spend money on the upkeep of Courtney, his stately home. It was what was known as a desirable residence, having everything that an English country house should have, from its stately Georgian rooms and long windows to a handsome stone terrace decorated with peacocks and urns and a formal garden originally laid out by Capability Brown, now maintained by a large outdoor staff. He was a nasty old man and had lived in seclusion for most of his life. Now that he was dying, he was, however, not in the least surprised to find that he had so many affectionate relatives. He was only surprised that they were stupid enough to demonstrate their affections at the last minute.
If he had shown any sign of being at all fond of anyone, it was his rich neighbor, Lord Gerald de Fremney, and since Lord Gerald had everything—good looks, wealth, and a splendid home of his own—the hopeful relatives were sure he would not figure in Mr. Frayne’s will and were consequently relieved to see Lord Gerald when he strode into the room.
Their looks of welcome faded at his opening words.
“I see the vultures are already gathered,” drawled Lord Gerald.
Jeffrey Beardington-Smythe began to bluster. “I say, talk like a gentleman,” he snapped. “I was always fond of the old boy.”
“It seems to me,” said Lord Gerald with irritating good nature, “that you’ve taken a long time to show it.”
The four of Mr. Frayne’s relatives now looked at Lord Gerald de Fremney with dislike. He was a very tall young man with thick fair hair and black eyes; an exotic combination of color that had made more than one feminine heart flutter. He was impeccably dressed in a biscuit-colored suit with a pale-gold waistcoat embroidered with yellow freesias (That shows the fellow’s a cad, thought Jeffrey
), and had rather studied languid movements—a hangover from his Oxford days—that belied his muscular athletic figure. He spoke in a light, pleasant, rather mocking voice that was usually held to be charming but which struck the ears of his present audience as downright irritating.
Miss Briggs began to sob noisily. “How can you, Lord Gerald, when you should know I have always loved Uncle dearly?”
“Rubbish,” said Tansy Bloomington nastily. “I’m the one Uncle has most in common with. We talk man to man.”
“Dear me,” said Lord Gerald, and Tansy rammed another cigarette into her holder as if she dearly wished she were shoving it somewhere else.
“He—he’s quite right, you know,” said Cyril Booth from his position by the fireplace. “I’m only after the old b-boy’s m-money. I h-hate deceit, you know. So shuddery. So frightfully, terribly ugh.”
“Ugh? Ugh? What kind of language is that, you poor clown?” snapped Tansy.
Cyril gave her a weary look from a pair of limpid blue eyes and refrained from answering.
“What I really came to tell you,” said Lord Gerald, “is that Mr. Frayne wishes to see you. All of you.”
“Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” howled Jeffrey Beardington-Smythe, heaving his great bulk out of a delicate Chippendale chair.
In a hurried, undignified scramble, the four scrambled for the stairs, each one eager to reach the bedroom door first. Lord Gerald followed at a more leisurely pace.
Mr. Giles Frayne was lying back against the lace pillows of his four-poster bed. His eyes were lusterless and his face was like wax. Cancer had been eating away at him for the past year and he looked as weary of this life as he actually was. His thin cadaverous face looked like a skull and his sparse gray hair was neatly combed across his yellow scalp.