“Be that Miss Bloggs?” asked a deep voice.
Ginny was enchanted. She stared in delight at the instrument until the voice repeated the question in an impatient tone.
“Yes, it is,” said Ginny breathlessly. “Isn’t it exciting? There are you there, and here am I here, and—”
“That’s as may be,” said the voice. “Badger over at five acre’s been took bad, mum. You’d best go immediately. Doctor’s on his w-way.”
There was a heavy click and silence. Ginny looked at the telephone in disappointment. Her first call had certainly been a short one. Badger over at five acre. Now, there was something about that name that rang a bell. Ginny stood staring stupidly at the telephone for quite a few minutes and then slowly picked it up and made a local call.
“What on earth can she be up to?” wailed Tansy.
Alicia looked at her in surprise. “Why are you so concerned about Ginny all of a sudden?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” said Tansy hurriedly. “I just hope she hasn’t received bad news, that’s all.”
But the door opened, and Ginny came in wearing a lacy wool shawl and carrying a large bottle.
“I’m sorry I must leave you,” she said, “but someone called Badger over at the five acre is ill and I must go to him.”
Tansy leapt to her feet. “I’ll take you over myself in the governess cart, Ginny,” she said. “I know the road. It’s only a little way away.”
“How very kind of you,” murmured Ginny. “Please go on with your dinner, the rest of you, I should not be very long.”
“I’ll get the cart round,” said Jeffrey, almost running from the room.
The sky was fading to pale-green outside, and the night air was very still and sweet. Jeffrey walked quickly around to the stables and ordered a groom to harness up the governess cart.
“Tell Miss Bloggs I’m riding down to the village to get extra help,” he cried as he clumsily heaved himself up on his powerful hunter, which he had previously ordered to be saddled and ready waiting for him.
He judged that if he rode hard by way of the fields, he would be at Badger’s cottage long before the governess cart arrived by the longer way of the road.
Tansy chattered on nervously, driving the cart as slowly as she could. Now that the great moment had finally arrived, the whole evening seemed to have taken on an air of unreality. Sweet smells of grass and flowers drifted by them from the dew-soaked fields. A clump of Canterbury bells stood motionless as sentinels among masses of meadowsweet in a deep ditch by the road. The world was very peaceful outside and very turbulent inside Tansy’s guilty heart. She found herself wishing that Ginny would come out with one of her stupid and inane remarks so that the whole miserable plot would seem right somehow. But Ginny sat silently beside her, clutching a large bottle of medicine that she had assured Tansy would cure anything.
The first thing Tansy noticed as they approached the cottage was that for some odd reason, Jeffrey had left his horse tethered outside. He was supposed to have given it a smack across the rear and sent it back to the stables. She could only hope that Ginny would not know enough to realize that a cottager could not possibly own such an expensive hunter.
“As I said, Ginny,” declared Tansy in what she hoped was a firm, confident tone, “I will leave you at the cottage and wait for you outside. It’s better that only one of us goes in.”
Ginny nodded amiably, and then hearing a gasp from her companion, asked solicitously what the matter was.
Tansy pointed a shaking finger. “Lord Gerald!” she exclaimed. “What’s he doing here?”
“Oh, good,” said Ginny. “I telephoned him before I left. Much better to have a man along, don’t you think?”
The carriage rolled to a halt, and Lord Gerald moved forward and helped Ginny down. “Tansy wants to wait outside,” said Ginny. “You had better let me go first, Lord Gerald.”
Tansy watched them go into the cottage and swore something very unladylike under her breath. She would need to go. She did not wish to be around when awkward explanations were demanded. No sooner had Ginny and Lord Gerald disappeared inside the cottage than she whipped up the horse and clattered hell for leather back along the road.
“Isn’t there a light in this place?” demanded Lord Gerald as Ginny felt her way toward the bulk lying on the bed in the corner.
Jeffrey felt the sweat beginning to trickle down his face. How on earth had Gerald got there? The game was up if they could find a light. He could only pray that they would not and hope he might be taken for the late Mr. Badger in the gloom.
“Don’t worry,” came Ginny’s gentle voice, very close by. “Perhaps the light will hurt his eyes. Is that so, Mr. Badger.”
“Yes, mum,” said Jeffrey, adopting a gruff voice.
“Please wait over there, Lord Gerald,” said Ginny in a sharper voice that neither of the two men had heard her use before. “We don’t want to frighten Mr. Badger.”
“No, mum,” gasped Jeffrey gratefully.
“I wonder why the doctor has not arrived?” said Ginny. “But never mind, Mr. Badger, I have brought you some nice medicine and you are going to drink it all up.”
“But you don’t know what’s up with me,” wailed the fake Mr. Badger in a voice remarkably like that of Jeffrey Beardington-Smythe. “I’ve got a pain in my stomach.”
“Then this is the very thing. No, don’t try to rise, Mr. Badger. I have brought this nice little funnel. Now open your mouth.”
“Don’t you think you had better wait for the doctor?” said Gerald from the doorway. “We need a bit of light in here anyway.”
“No, no!” shouted the fake Badger. “I’ll take it.”
One gentle hand searched across his face and found his mouth. He felt the cold stem of a metal funnel and then what seemed to be a gallon of liquid paraffin was poured into his mouth.
Jeffrey gagged and choked and desperately tried not to be sick. He must fight down the terrible queasy nausea and pretend to go to sleep.
“Sleepy… ver’ sleepy,” he managed to choke out. “Leave me. Ver’ kind.”
“Ginny!” exclaimed Lord Gerald, using her christian name in the heat of the moment. “What—”
“Now, now,” said Ginny coyly. “No raised voices in the sick room, my lord.”
A strangled snore came from the bed.
“There, you see. He’s sleeping like a lamb. We will just tippy-toe outside and leave him.”
Lord Gerald slammed the cottage door and looked down at Ginny in the pale moonlight.
“Miss Bloggs,” he said firmly. “You have almost been the victim of a practical joke and you know it. That was Jeffrey Beardington-Smythe in there, posing as old Badger, or I’m very much mistaken.”
Ginny’s eyes were round with surprise. Then she said, “I simply don’t believe you. I shall call in the morning and take that poor old man some nourishing food. I’m very glad, however, that you answered my call and came along on this errand of mercy. Now, where has Tansy gone with the cart?”
“Fled, I should imagine,” said Lord Gerald. “Look—I’m going back in there.”
“It is my tenant, my lord, and I want you to leave him to sleep,” said Ginny, sounding quite angry.
Lord Gerald looked down at her with irritation. “Very well, then,” he said. “I’ll play your game this time, but next time do not include me in your senseless practical jokes. Now, we may as well walk back. It is not far and I can lead my horse.”
He looped the reins of his horse over one arm and tried to take Ginny’s arm but she shrugged him aside and strode off down the road. He found he had to walk very quickly to catch up with her.
“Look here, Miss Bloggs…” he was beginning when a small sob escaped from Ginny. He stopped and swung her around to face him.
Large tears were rolling slowly down her cheeks as she gazed up at him reproachfully. Lord Gerald was not used to crying women and he found himself at a loss. Had she really believed that was
old Badger back there? No one could possibly be so naive. But looking at the beautiful, tear-drenched face he came to the reluctant conclusion that Ginny had really believed she had been ministering to the sick.
“Look, I’m sorry,” he said, giving her shoulder an awkward pat. “But I really do think it was Jeffrey back there. In fact, I think you’ll find old Badger died some time ago. I’m sure I heard something to that effect. Come now. Please don’t cry.”
“Oh, you’re hopeless,” sobbed Ginny, crying harder than ever.
“I have done my best to explain,” said Lord Gerald in great exasperation.
“But we are walking,” wailed Ginny.
Lord Gerald stared at her in amazement. “What on earth has that to do with it? Do your feet hurt?”
“N-no,” sobbed Ginny. “But you have your horse, and it would have been so romantic if you could have lifted me up into the saddle in front of you and then we could have ridden off through the night.” Her tears miraculously dried at the thought of this glorious picture and a faint smile curved her lips.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” snapped Gerald. “My horse is tired and we are very near home and I assure you, both you and the horse would have found it a very uncomfortable experience.”
“I am never in the right place with the right man,” said Ginny, walking on and shaking her head sadly.
“You have been reading too many novels,” said Lord Gerald severely. “A man and a woman should be quite capable of walking along an ordinary country road on a very ordinary night and carrying on a straightforward and sensible conversation.”
Silence.
“After all, dear girl,” he went on, “what on earth was supposed to happen if we had both climbed on my poor horse and ridden through the night?”
“You would have put your arms around me,” said Ginny dreamily, “and then when we reached Courtney, you would have dismounted first and held up your arms to help me down and I would have slid into them, and then you would have kissed me passionately.”
“Dear God!” said Gerald in high disdain. But an insidious little picture of holding Ginny in his arms and kissing her passionately seemed to be creeping into his brain.
He looked at her in irritation as she glided along. Yes, that was it… glided. He wished she had the reassuringly mannish steps of, say, Alicia. Also, that waist of hers was ridiculously small. Why, he could span it with both hands. But her hair did look jolly pretty in the moonlight, and her gray silk dress with its pattern of tiny white spots floated around her legs in the most becoming way. He was beginning to feel quite warm toward her when her next remark mark put an end to all that. She stopped and looked up at him.
“You know,” said Ginny, “I really truly don’t think you like modern women at all. I think you prefer the old-fashioned subservient sort in your heart of hearts.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Gerald wrathfully, wishing she would not stand so close to him. That light, seductive scent of hers ought to be banned, for a start.
In the moonlight, which was now very bright, he could see a little pulse beating at her neck. He felt quite breathless and suddenly very angry with her.
“Stop flirting with me, Ginny Bloggs,” he said.
“I’m not flirting in earnest,” said Ginny mildly. “I’m only using you for practice.”
“Then you are playing a very dangerous game,” he said slowly.
“Pooh!” said Ginny rudely. “Dangerous? You?”
“Yes, me,” he said, jerking her into his arms. “Perhaps we both need some practice.”
He began to kiss her quite furiously and then he felt as if his body were turning to liquid, and the night and countryside went far, far away, leaving him on an empty plain with Ginny burning in his arms.
“You’re holding me too tightly,” Ginny suddenly cried out. “Let me go!”
But the fact that he seemed to have struck a genuine response from her only excited him further. She was not wearing stays and her skin was like silk. He ran his long fingers over her bare shoulders as her shawl fell to the ground. Lost to the proprieties and conventions, he kissed her until her lips were swollen and bruised. He felt that if he did not consummate this overwhelming passion, he would die. Freeing his lips reluctantly from hers, he spied what appeared to be a grassy bank beside the road and, uttering a triumphant little sound in the back of his throat, he dragged the protesting girl down and down and down into—a deep bank of stinging nettles.
Both leapt to their feet with cries of pain.
“Now that is quite enough, Lord Gerald,” said Ginny, picking handfuls of docken leaves and squeezing the juice onto her stings. “You told me yourself that it is quite easy to sublimate these urges. I suggest you go straight home, sir, and sublimate immediately!”
“You led me on, Ginny Bloggs,” said Gerald, gritting his teeth. “I suggest you find someone else to practice on.”
“Oh, I will,” said Ginny calmly.
They were nearly at Courtney and with fury Lord Gerald realized that Ginny was going to go on as if absolutely nothing had happened.
“I think you have the soul of a tart,” he said, trying to hurt her.
“All women have,” said Ginny mildly. “But fortunately for us there are still a great deal of gentlemen about.”
“Meaning I’m not a gentleman?”
“Not in the moonlight you aren’t,” said Ginny, grinning.
They had come to the door of the great house, Lord Gerald’s horse still plodding behind them.
The great door opened and the light from the hall streamed out toward them. Alicia came running forward.
“Gerald and Ginny,” she cried. “What has happened? Tansy came back a long time ago and locked herself in her room and everyone else seems to have disappeared. Why, Ginny! You’re covered in awful blotches. My dear girl, they look like nettle stings! What on earth have you been doing?”
“I fell into some nettles, Alicia,” said Ginny. “Good night, Lord Gerald. Thank you for your help.” And with that, Ginny tripped off into the house.
Lord Gerald had said nothing and Alicia looked at him in surprise. His black eyes were burning in his white face and his lips formed a thin line.
“What’s the matter, Gerald?” asked Alicia. “Don’t you like Ginny?”
“I hate her guts,” said his lordship in a calm, even voice. “See you in the morning, Alicia.” He gave her a brief kiss on the cheek and swung himself up onto his horse and cantered off.
Alicia stood for a long time looking after him, with her hand to her cheek. She had known Gerald for quite some time and had never seen him other than calm and sophisticated, an urbane man of the world. He had changed all in one day and she didn’t think she liked it one bit.
The conspirators were reduced to three. Tansy and Cyril sat on the edge of Jeffrey’s bed the next morning and looked at him sympathetically. It had been extremely difficult to explain to the doctor how he had come to drink an overdose of liquid paraffin, but the quick-witted Tansy had stepped in to explain that someone had played a terrible practical joke on Jeffrey by putting the cleverly colored horrible contents in the wine decanter. And shaking his head over the juvenile pranks of the aristocracy, the doctor had prescribed kaolin powder and rest.
“She knew,” hissed Jeffrey. “No one but an idiot would do that to a sick man.”
“G-Ginny is an idiot,” pointed out Cyril.
“She’s a dangerous lunatic,” moaned Jeffrey. “Does she now know that Badger is dead?”
“Yes,” said Tansy. “And do you know what she said? She said, ‘Lord Gerald was right then when he said it was a practical joke. But why should anyone want to lie in bed and drink medicine for a practical joke? I believe there is often insanity caused by inbreeding in some of these old county families.’”
“I’ll kill her,” said Jeffrey bleakly.
“We’ll have one more try,” said Tansy. “Cyril this time.”
“Oh, h-here, I s-say,” stamm
ered Cyril.
“Yes, you, Cyril. What do you think of this? We’ll organize a picnic and invite a lot of guests as a sort of smoke screen. You lead her away for a walk, Cyril, and we’ll have a carriage waiting for you… a closed carriage. Jeffrey can be coachman and that will save trusting servants. My mother’s on holiday at the moment, so I’ll ride over and get the servants to take the day off. There’s a gamekeeper’s cottage on my mother’s estate. I’ll get it ready for you.”
“What about the gamekeeper?” asked Jeffrey.
“We haven’t been able to afford a gamekeeper, let alone any game, in years,” said Tansy bitterly. Her father was dead and her mother had devoted her whole life to keeping up appearances on a small annual income. This meant the Bloomingtons had plenty of indoor servants and very little else.
“I-I’ll do it,” said Cyril suddenly. “We deserve to have Courtney. And the girl’s nothing b-but a b-blasted commoner anyway.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Gerald had decided to drop over to Courtney—to see Alicia, he persuaded himself—on the morning of the picnic.
Riding up to the front entrance, he was surprised to see his friend, Peter Paster, sitting at the wheel of a brand-new Wolseley, complete with antidazzle lamps, cursing fluently. What was the point, Peter started raging, in all these great scientific breakthroughs if one had to be at the mercy of a set of mutton-headed bureaucrats. He had, it appeared, been caught in a speed trap between Windsor and Maidenhead for exceeding the twenty-mile-an-hour limit.
“But what are you doing here?” demanded Gerald when he could get a word in edge-ways.
Peter opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment Ginny and Alicia appeared on the steps and exclaimed in wonder at the gleaming red motorcar with the white leather upholstery.
Ginny was looking very frail, feminine, and pretty in white organza with pale-green spots. Alicia, as a contrast, was dressed in a serviceable navy linen skirt with a white shirt and a hard, uncomfortable-looking collar. Peter had a pleasant ugly-handsome face, eyes that crinkled attractively, and a nose that had been broken twice. His eyes were resting appreciatively on Ginny.
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