“Out to make trouble between us,” suggested Jeffrey.
There was a stunned silence while everyone digested the implications of the remark. “She couldn’t,” said Barbara at last. “No one could have guessed, and least of all Ginny. Are you sure you didn’t say anything, Jeffrey?”
“I swear by my king and my country.”
There was silence again while Tansy fed another cigarette into her holder and Barbara meditatively rubbed one swollen ankle that bulged above its overtight shoe.
“You see, we must stick together,” said Barbara, breaking the silence. “It’s not as if Tansy and I have you gentlemen’s advantages. We can’t offer to marry her.”
“True,” said Tansy, puffing away and thinking furiously. “But Jeffrey or Cyril could… and we could all share the profits.”
The others looked at her in admiration. There was a lot to be said for the modern woman after all.
“Cyril is our best bet,” continued Tansy. “He’s young and handsome—that is, if you like the willowy sort.”
“Oh, I-I s-say,” protested Cyril.
“We must get rid of the house guests,” said Tansy. “Too much competition there by half. And what about Lord Gerald? Better make sure Alicia stays on.”
The others nodded.
“Well,” said Tansy briskly, “that’s that. Go to it, Cyril. We are supposed to be looking after her, you know. Take her for walks, buy her flowers, sweep her off her feet.” She looked at him doubtfully. “You do know what I’m talking about, don’t you, Cyril dear.”
“Of course,” he said huffily. “I usually have great success with the ladies.”
“What about me?” queried Jeffrey. “An older man, you know, attractive to young gels, eh what?”
“We’ll keep you in reserve,” said Tansy.
Miss Ginny Bloggs was staring at Lord Gerald de Fremney with utter amazement.
“But it was kindly meant,” she said in surprised accents.
“You upset my housekeeper to no end,” said Lord Gerald. “The idea of it… sending a laundrymaid over to wash my clothes! My housekeeper and laundry staff took the whole thing as a personal slight.”
“But you said you did your own washing,” said Ginny patiently.
“Anyone with half a brain would have realized I did not mean it,” he snapped.
Ginny looked at him in a puzzled way. “Are you in the habit of saying things you don’t mean?”
“There is a certain type of wit called sarcasm,” said Lord Gerald loftily.
Ginny’s brow cleared. “Oh, now I understand,” she said. “You were just being nasty.”
“No, I—” Lord Gerald broke off and looked at Ginny in exasperation.
They were sitting on the terrace, drinking coffee. She had insisted that he have some coffee before he spoke. Her demure little dress made her look very cool and elegant. Her hair, as fair as his own, shone with health, and her blue eyes were as flat and empty as a millpond under a summer sky. He decided to change the subject.
“That is a charming gown you are wearing,” he said. “I am sure your clothes were not made in Bolton.”
“Now, I wonder what makes you think a thing like that?” said Ginny, pouring more coffee. “Of course they were made in Bolton. I made them myself.”
“Oh, come now!” exclaimed Lord Gerald in surprise. “They look as if they had come straight from Paris.”
“Well, they did in a way,” said Ginny, smiling. “I simply look at the society photographs and fashion magazines and if I see a dress I like, I make it. Of course,” she added, “sometimes I make alterations of my own.”
Lord Gerald moved his chair closer. “But this is marvelous,” he said. “You have a real talent. Why, you could be a famous dress designer. You could have an international salon. You could do so many things. After all, a woman should have a career.”
“Why?” asked Ginny politely.
“This is the new age,” he cried with enthusiasm. “Women no longer need to be confined to the house. The whole world has been opened up for them. They can now have careers just the same as men. They—”
Ginny interrupted him with, “But I don’t want a career. I want to get married and have lots of babies.”
Lord Gerald looked at her in horror. “You are out of the Dark Ages,” he cried. “You do not need to get married.”
“Oh, yes I do,” said Ginny reasonably. “Surely you do not wish me to have affairs. I’m surprised at you.”
“I did not mean that,” he said angrily. “Stop twisting my words. You talk as if men and women must naturally have physical relationships. These primitive urges are common to us all and can easily be suppressed.”
He had not seen her move her chair, but suddenly she seemed to be sitting very close to him. There was a faint but heady scent coming from her hair. He began to feel quite warm.
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about,” said Ginny. She placed a confiding hand on the back of his own and he nearly leapt three feet in the air. “What is Miss Benson’s career?” he realized she was asking.
“Well, she paints a little and… er… writes poetry.”
“Does she make any money?”
“Well, no. I believe she has an income from her father.”
“How fortunate for her,” murmured Ginny, sipping her coffee and noticing how Lord Gerald’s eyes seemed to get darker the more embarrassed he became.
“And what is your career, Lord Gerald?” pursued Ginny.
“My career?” he laughed. “Dear girl, the work on the estate, the running of my farms, the upkeep of the tenants’ houses, making sure my crops show a profit each year… that is my career.”
“Oh,” said Ginny. “Then it is the same as mine.”
“Nonsense!” he replied, feeling on safe ground. “A woman run an estate of this size? Don’t be ridiculous. You will hire a steward, of course.”
“Now, let me see…” said Ginny, raising one dimpled hand and beginning to tick the items off one by one. “A woman should suppress her natural instincts and have a career, such as doing a little painting and writing poetry—provided she has a private income. She must be sure that her career is something genteel, just like in Queen Victoria’s time, where women painted and wrote poetry and played the piano or the harp, except that these things were called ‘ladylike accomplishments.’ But she is still not considered fit to run an estate. That is a man’s job.” Ginny sighed prettily. “It seems to me as if the modern woman has a harder time than ever before.”
“That is not what I meant,” snapped Gerald.
Ginny looked at him with patent bewilderment. “Then what did you mean?”
It was as well for Gerald that Cyril Booth chose that moment to appear and begin his courtship.
“I-I wonder—would you care to take a walk around the grounds, Miss Bloggs?” he said, gazing intensely into her eyes.
Ginny shook out her crested napkin and stood up.
“What a simply lovely idea,” she said, taking Cyril’s arm. “Good-bye, Lord Gerald. Thank you for a most interesting conversation. Where shall we go first, Mr. Booth? The rose garden is simply beautiful, is it not, Lord Gerald?”
“Very,” said Gerald, his face flushing slightly as he remembered the events of the previous night.
Cyril and Ginny wandered off arm in arm while Lord Gerald watched them go, his brain in a turmoil. He felt the most complete and utter fool. His amour propre had been cut to the quick. He would go in search of Alicia. She never made him feel like an idiot.
And then he wondered if he really was as clever as he had thought, or if all his friends were equally as stupid. Were people telling him the whole time that he was clever and witty simply because he had a title and was very rich?
He simply must have a word with Alicia.
Ginny gazed around the rose garden and smiled reminiscently. Encouraged by the smile, Cyril decided to go “all out,” as he put it to himself. He reminded himself t
hat the lady poet had thought highly enough of his charms to give him diamonds.
“I s-say, Miss Bloggs… or may I call you Ginny?”
“You may call me Ginny.”
“Ginny, then,” he said, seizing her hand.
“I—”
“No,” said Ginny, admiring the sunlight sparkling on the dew-laden roses.
“No, what?” said Cyril crossly.
“No, I won’t marry you,” said Ginny.
“I wasn’t going to ask you!” said Cyril, too angry to stutter.
“Oh, in that case we can be comfortable,” said Ginny, giving him a brilliant smile. “You know you should get angry more often, Mr. Booth. You don’t stammer at all when you’re angry.”
Seething rage and the sudden thought of all his debts and the creditors waiting on his doorstep in London brought out a thin film of sweat on Cyril’s forehead. He forced a laugh. “What an unusual girl you are, Ginny,” he said, catching hold of her hand and swinging it playfully. “D-do you th-think my stammer is affected?”
But Ginny did not seem to have heard. Her eyes were once again expressionless, and it seemed as if the rose garden held no more charm for her.
The sound of Lord Gerald’s horses’ hooves could be heard in the distance, clattering down the driveway. Ginny bent her head to one side—two sets of horses’ hooves. Alicia had probably gone with him.
“We had better go back,” said Ginny, gently withdrawing her hand from Cyril’s. “Your relatives will be waiting for you. I gather that Miss Briggs, Miss Bloomington, Mr. Beardington-Smythe, and yourself are to help bring me out—until I am married.”
“Yes,” said Cyril. “Look here, Ginny. You were r-right, you know. I d-do most awfully want to marry you.”
“I don’t think you love me,” said Ginny.
Cyril gave a gay mocking laugh and tossed his hair back from his forehead—a gesture that had fired the passions of the lady poet. “I’m wild about you, darling,” he cried. He seized her in his arms. “Kissums for Cyril,” he said.
Ginny did not struggle. She simply stood still in his embrace and looked over his shoulder. “It’s funny,” she said. “You really should look. That must be—let me see—the study window, which overlooks this garden. The blind is pulled down, but if you look carefully, you will see three pairs of eyes peering under the blind. Fascinating! They look like a row of pebbles lying on the windowsill.”
Cyril released her and turned slowly around.
“Oh, what a pity. They’ve gone,” said Ginny. “Yes, I really think we should go back.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Three days had gone by since the failure of Cyril’s proposal of marriage. The house guests had been sent on their road, with the exception of Alicia, in the good old-fashioned English way—that is, each guest found a railway timetable placed in his or her room with the fastest and soonest train out neatly underlined in red ink.
Ginny had seemed impervious to every snub or social setdown. Cyril had been enraged to find on climbing into bed on the night after the rose garden episode when he stretched his feet down under the cool sheets that they were sinking into something hideously sticky and cold and wet. He had flung back the sheets to find that someone had poured a whole can of Tate & Lyle’s Golden Syrup over the foot of his bed. He had cursed and accused everyone in sight in the morning and had ended up gulping when Ginny had confessed to being the culprit. Tansy had told her she must learn to be a good sport when it came to practical jokes, she had explained sweetly.
The four conspirators now had the house to themselves to plot in. Alicia had gone out riding with Gerald, and Ginny had gone back to Bolton for two days. She had surprisingly announced at breakfast that she must see that the coal business was running smoothly.
Barbara had been horrified. The very idea. Ginny was ruining her social career by associating herself with trade. But Ginny had merely looked puzzled and had pointed out that it was a very successful coal business that had been left to her by her father.
This news had made the four wilder than ever. The thought that Ginny should have inherited a thriving business as well as Mr. Frayne’s fortune was almost too much to bear.
“If she won’t have you, Cyril,” said Tansy, “then we must compromise her.”
“Compromise?” said Barbara faintly, her massive lace-covered bosom heaving. “That’s going too far. Anyway, females don’t seem to worry about that sort of thing these days, and it isn’t as if she has parents to worry about.”
“Lord Gerald would worry about it,” said Tansy. “He’s supposed to look after her and,” she added shrewdly, “he’s a very old-fashioned type underneath all that modern nonsense.”
“D-do I have to?” moaned Cyril. “I can’t b-bear the thought of t-touching her again.”
“No, not you,” said Tansy. “Jeffrey’s the one. Think your blood pressure will be up to it, Jeffrey?”
Jeffrey looked at them and a slow smile spread across his fat features. “I wouldn’t mind touching her,” he said slowly. “I wouldn’t mind doing a lot more than that.”
Tansy averted her eyes. “You don’t need to do anything, Jeffrey. We just want her locked away somewhere with you so that it looks as if something has happened.”
“Badger’s cottage over by the five acre is empty,” said Barbara suddenly. “She wouldn’t know anything about old Badger dying.”
“She’s been locked up in the estate office for the last two days,” said Tansy.
“Pooh!” said Jeffrey. “That’s all for show. She can’t tell one end of the books from the other. Do you know, I don’t think Miss Bloggs can read. I looked in the window to see what she was doing and she was drawing little stick men on the blotting paper.”
“Well, that’s that!” said Tansy briskly. “Badger’s cottage it is. The evening after she comes back, you go down to The Green Man in the village, Cyril, and telephone and say Mr. Badger’s been taken ill. Then we will tell her that as the lady of the manor, she’s expected to call on him.”
“What if she calls for a doctor first?” asked Barbara.
“Cyril will tell her that that has already been done,” said Tansy. “I will offer to take her over in the governess cart, and I’ll pretend to have to look at the horse’s hoof for stones or something so that she will go in alone. You will already be there, Jeffrey, lying in bed, to make sure she gets right inside the door. Then I will slam the door and drive off and leave you to it.”
“And I,” said Jeffrey triumphantly, “will play the Big Bad Wolf and pull Little Red Riding Hood into bed with me.” He gave a singularly dirty laugh and the other three looked at him in disgust.
“I told you, Jeffrey,” snapped Tansy, “that you don’t have to do anything. Just keep her there for a few days.”
“Are you sure Gerald’s going to swallow all this?” asked Barbara anxiously.
“We’ll drop dear Gerald a few hints to the effect that Ginny’s sweet character is a bit misleading,” smiled Tansy. “Imply she’s a bit of a girl, and all that.”
“Make sure the cottage is stocked up with plenty of provisions,” said Jeffrey, rubbing his hands. “I’m all set for a long, long stay.”
“It must be nice for you to be home and among familiar surroundings,” said Mrs. Betsy Pearsall in a comforting voice.
Mrs. Pearsall was the wife of Ginny’s Bolton business manager and also considered herself Ginny’s substitute mother. “It sounds so grand,” Mrs. Pearsall went on, “what with the big house and all the guests. But now that you’ve seen it all, dear, don’t you think you would be better back here with folk of your own class?”
“No,” said Ginny.
“Oh, well,” said Mrs. Pearsall, sighing. “There’s no use me trying to tell you you’re wrong. Sometimes I wonder what goes on in that head of yours. I hope all that money you paid to that Miss Chatterton for elocution and etiquette lessons was worth the money.”
“Every penny, I assure you,” said Ginny.
The rain was falling steadily outside and pattering on the leaves of the sooty laurels in the garden. Inside, the fire crackled cheerfully in the polished grate and the lamplight glowed on the vast clutter of carefully polished objects that covered every flat surface—photographs in silver frames, shell boxes, music boxes, wax fruit, and albums of photographs. The heavy, red rep curtains and the plush red upholstered, overstuffed furniture seemed oppressive to Ginny.
She had a sudden picture of Courtney with its light, spindly furniture and long airy rooms, and of a tall young man with thick fair hair and black, black eyes looking down at her with a puzzled expression.
Mrs. Pearsall was wearing a black leghorn straw that she had ornamented with two stuffed blackbirds that swooped on either side of the crown and glared at Ginny with their bright glass eyes. Her stout figure was encased in black satin, and her bosom heaved with the strain of repressed curiosity. She was just about to burst, judged Ginny, and got to her feet.
“Where are you going?” exclaimed Mrs. Pearsall.
“Back,” said Ginny. “Back home.”
Mrs. Pearsall shook her head in dismay. “There you are thinking of that great place as home. It won’t do, Ginny. God gives us our stations in life when we are born and we must stay in them. It’s flying in the face of Providence to step outside of your class. Oh, some fine young gentleman will marry you for your money but he’ll let you know he remembers your origins as soon as he’s got you safely married.”
“But what if he has a lot of money of his own?”
“Then he won’t want you, Ginny Bloggs. He might want a bit o’ slap and tickle, but that’s all.”
“What about all the members of the aristocracy who’re marrying showgirls?” asked Ginny.
“That’s different,” said Mrs. Pearsall darkly. “They always has been a few wild ’uns who’ve married actresses and always will be. Now, you aren’t any actress! There, now! Whatever have I said to make you smile?”
“Nothing,” said Ginny vaguely. “I really must catch my train.”
“If you must go, you must,” sighed Mrs. Pearsall. “Everything’s ticking over here nicely and Mr. Pearsall’s opening up a route at that new housing development outside of the town. I’m glad you’re taking that uppity maid of yours away, all the same. My Martha says the very sight of her face do give a body a turn.”
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