Molly

by M C Beaton

  Everyone plunged into conversation to cover the embarrassment engendered by the young lord’s eccentricity and only Mary, standing in the shadows, heard the soft whisper, “Will you, Mary?”

  She gave a funny, jerky little bob of her head. He rose slowly from the table and laid his napkin carefully beside his plate. He was unaware of the faces of the guests turned upward to him. He moved around the table and crossed the room to where Mary was standing.

  He looked down at her, noticing the taut lines of strain on her face and the shadows of weariness under her large eyes.

  “Will you?” he said again very softly, watching the warmth and love suddenly transforming her face. He gently unfastened the little lacy cap from her head. He put his arms around her and held her very close.

  “This is madness!” spluttered Mrs. Carter III.

  Unheeding, the couple were moving dreamily to the door. Hatless and coatless, they wandered out into the snowy streets of Brooklyn Heights.

  The guests were bunched on the doorstep, staring after them openmouthed. Mary was laughing at something the marquess was saying and little feathers of snow sparkled in her hair.

  Then the marquess bent his head and kissed her while Mrs. Carter trembled with cold, rage, and astonishment on her front doorstep.

  One by one the guests began to leave.

  They had never liked Bessie Carter anyway.

  Miss Molly Maguire bent her head over her account books and sighed, and the wind whipping along Fulton Street sighed in answer. The shop was doing well. She had already been able to engage two assistants and soon she would be able to pay Bernie back. She kept one set of accounts for Bernie and another for her father. Joseph Maguire haunted the stock exchange, dreaming of making a killing. “I shall invest your money for you, Molly,” he had promised, and Molly had promptly worked on a false set of books to show that Maguire Modes was running at a perpetual loss.

  Only that afternoon, Molly had tried for the hundredth time to persuade Mary to give up her job and move in. But Mary had remained adamant. Furthermore, she refused to discuss Hadsea, and Molly was suffering too much pain of her own to insist as heartily as she normally did that her sister was throwing her young life away, for Molly had received a letter from Jennifer Strange.

  Dear Miss Maguire, she had written. So Lord David is to be married to Lady Cynthia after all! And after having paid court to both of us. I swear I was never more deceived…

  The rest of the letter went over and over the same subject. Molly was shrewd enough to realize that the writer was motivated by spite but she also thought Jennifer had written out of rage and disappointment. So Lord David was a cad after all!

  Angry tears began to form in Molly’s eyes. Mary’s ever knew how much her stronger sister clung to the dream of returning to England in triumph. Molly had worked and slaved day and night at her business with that one end in mind. Once again she would be rich and expensively dressed. She would have her Season in London and Lord David would turn and stare as she floated into the ballroom. Now her dream was spoiled by the vision of Lord David turning and staring with Lady Cynthia hanging possessively on his arm.

  For the very first time she felt worn out. She climbed down from her high desk and straightened her spine and walked wearily to the shop door. She snapped up the blind and stared out into the darkness of Fulton Street. A train roared over the elevated overhead, sending small flurries of snow falling onto the street and setting the dresses swaying on their hangers.

  Lady Fanny had written a kind letter, offering both girls a home in England, but both were too proud to accept charity. The only good thing out of all this mess, reflected Molly, was that Mrs. Maguire had at least returned to her normal self, putting on some much needed weight and helping busily about the shop. She stared unseeingly out of the door into the dancing snow, picturing Hadsea, wondering if Mrs. Pomfret was still at the post office and whether she had married Billy, wondering if Lord David had sold his villa. Why, I can almost see him standing on the other side of Fulton Street, Molly thought. The snow must be playing tricks on my eyes.

  Another train rattled overhead, and in the flickering lights of the passing train, which cast their brief illumination down into the snowy street, she did see Lord David Manley.

  “He’s probably on his honeymoon,” said Molly to herself, bitterly. The tall figure walked across the street and stood looking at her through the glass, his face very remote and stern. At last he said, “Aren’t you going to let me in, Miss Maguire?”

  She drew back the bolts and opened the door. He removed his tall silk hat and placed it on a small table and then sat down in a chair, crossing his legs and smiling at her pleasantly. “Well, this is quite like old times,” said the infuriating man.

  “There is a difference now, buster,” said Molly. “I’ve gotta work for a living, see. So why don’t you—”

  “Make a noise like a hoop and roll away,” he finished. “No I will not. I’ve had a damned uncomfortable journey and a damned hideous evening trying to find you.”

  “Why?” said Molly coldly. “Cynthia want some frocks wholesale?”

  “Don’t be cheeky,” he said pleasantly. “I haven’t seen Cynthia since that cursed ball. I really don’t know why I bother with you, Molly. It’s very damaging to the ego to keep laying one’s heart at a girl’s feet just for her to trample over.”

  “She rejected you,” said Molly. “Well, if that doesn’t beat the band!”

  “Oh, don’t be so dashed stupid. Trust a woman to pick up the wrong thing. If you aren’t the most irritating, infuriating girl I ever came across…”

  “Then why don’t you just leave,” screamed Molly. “Go on, vamoose, beat it, scram.”

  “Then I will. I damned well will just do that very thing. You are a stupid, stubborn, thoughtless girl. Good day to you!”

  The shop door slammed behind him and the little bell above the door tinkled and swayed wildly on its wire.

  Gone.

  Silence.

  “Oh,” whispered Molly to herself, “he meant he was laying his heart at my feet. Oh…!”

  She flew to the shop door and crashed it open. She flew down Fulton Street under the stark black shadows cast by the King’s County Elevated Railroad to where a thinner, blacker shadow was moving off into the night.

  “David!” she cried, but another passing train drowned the sound of her voice.

  Thank God he had stopped walking. He was standing quite still under a lamplight, staring at the snow swirling around his feet.

  He turned around abruptly and started to run back when he collided full into Molly Maguire. They both slipped and fell onto the sidewalk, hanging on to each other, Molly stammering incoherent apologies and Lord David trying to kiss her mouth and shut her up. He kissed her shoulder, then her ear, then her nose, and then his mouth found its target as the elegant lord lay flat in the middle of a Fulton Street sidewalk, kissing Molly Maguire until she was breathless and then kissing her again as soon as she got her breath back.

  “Whassis?” demanded the deep voice of Officer Brady, the very hairs of his gray wool uniform seeming to stand on end with shock.

  “You will marry me as soon as possible,” his lordship was saying.

  “Oh, yes,” sighed Miss Maguire.

  Lord David took her face in his long fingers and bent his head to kiss her, oblivious of the fact that Officer Brady was prodding him in the back with his nightstick.

  “Dat’s Miss Maguire,” exclaimed the outraged officer of the law. “Dere’s no need t’ take t’ the streets, girl!” A taxicab came bumping over the snowy ruts, illuminating the shameless couple. Lord David got to his feet and hailed the cab and then became aware that the strong arm of the law was trying to pull him back.

  Lord David stuck his hand in his pocket and withdrew several notes. “Here, Officer, drink to our health. We are to be married,” he said.

  “Ho, that’s different,” said Officer Brady, clutching the pile of not
es, but the couple had already climbed into the taxicab, which had driven off. He looked down at the notes in his hand and then examined them under the street-lamp. The unmistakable features of King Edward stared up at him from the notes.

  “British money,” said Officer Brady in disgust. Then the cheering thought that he could change the filthy English money at the bank in the morning occurred to him. It further struck him that someone on his beat had once mentioned that the English pound was worth five good American dollars. Tonight, however, he would drink to Molly Maguire’s health—and put it on the slate.