by M C Beaton
“Give me time,” said Sally aloud, “to concentrate.”
Mrs. Stuart waited with ill-concealed impatience while Sally furrowed her rubber wrinkles and thought hard. Now, Sally was a great fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories and had also read a great number of penny dreadful mysteries when she was at school.
“What is Her Grace’s doctor like?” asked Sally at last. “I mean the one who would be called in if anything happened?”
“Oh, old Barchester. He’s senile. I don’t know why Mary and Hugh will insist on having him.” With difficulty, Sally identified Mary as the duchess and Hugh as the duke.
“You mean he could be tricked?”
Mrs. Stuart looked at Sally with a gleam of comprehension beginning to dawn in her pale eyes. “Old Barchester doesn’t know his arse from his elbow,” she said with simple venom.
Sally reflected briefly on the foul language of the ladies of the county who could be heard baying obscenities that would make a sailor blush on the hunting field.
“Then that is your answer,” said Sally coldly, since she thought this joke in very poor taste. “You simply put it about that your husband has a dickey heart and put some rat poison in his tea, or whatever, and there you are. Doctor Barchester will simply take your word for it.”
“By George!” breathed Mrs. Stuart. “You’re everything you’re cracked up to be. I’ll start this evening.”
With that she strode from the room, crashing the door behind her. Silly old cow, thought Sally. Someone should put rat poison in her tea. Let me get out of here before someone else—Oh, Lor’.
The door opened, and His Grace, the Duke of Dartware, sidled in.
“Well, well, well, well,” he said breezily, rubbing his hands. “All in the dark, what? Better light the lamps, eh, what?”
He lit a heavy brass oil lamp that was standing on the inlaid top of a handsome loo table next to Sally.
Sally shivered slightly, for the room had become very cold. Surely the duke didn’t want her advice. Surely…
“I need your help, old girl,” said His Grace, putting a red and wrinkled hand on Sally’s knee. He was a gray-haired, fresh-faced man in his sixties, with bushy gray eyebrows and a toothbrush mustache and a button of a nose. He bared his teeth in a nicotine-and-Old-Gold-coated smile.
Sally gave him her most charming smile. With just a bit of luck he would soon be her father-in-law. “How can I be of assistance?” she asked.
“Well, you see, as a matter of fact, dash it all, well it’s like this. Oh, don’t you know, to tell the truth…I’m in love!”
With that the duke released Sally’s knee from a surprisingly powerful clutch and sat back, looking at her as apprehensively as a schoolboy with his hand caught in the biscuit barrel.
“Oh, dear,” said Sally sedately. She was, she had felt, inured to shock by now. But who was the duke in love with? Mrs. Stuart? Lady Veronica Chelmsford?
“Who is this lady?” she asked.
“Rose Higgins,” breathed the duke, his eyes bulging slightly.
Sally frowned. “She is not one of your guests?”
“No,” said the duke. “Rose is the barmaid down at the Feathers in the village. You should see her drawing a pint of beer. There’s a light just above the tap, and it shines on the muscles of her forearms in such a way, don’t you know, makes a chap feel quite weak.”
“Perhaps it’s just a passing fancy,” suggested Sally hopefully. “How long have you known Miss Higgins?”
“Two years,” said the duke gloomily.
“And she is aware of your feelings?”
The duke looked scandalized. “Of course not! I’m a gentleman. Wouldn’t make approaches to a lady like that unless I were in a position to marry her.”
“Marry!… Oh, dear. You cannot possibly marry her.”
“Don’t see why not,” said the duke sulkily. “Divorce is a bit more common these days. Nobody minds. Won’t let you into the Royal Enclosure at Ascot, but apart from that, nobody cares.”
Sally took a deep breath. Her loyalty was to the duchess. The marquess, furthermore, would surely be distressed if his parents divorced.
“My dear duke,” she said firmly. “I cannot approve…”
“Thought you would say that…”
“Cannot approve. Think of your son!”
“Paul!” exclaimed the duke huffily. “He’s a masher of the first water. Fillies all over the place. At least my intentions are honorable! Look here, Aunt Mabel. There’s a lovely little garden at the back of the Feathers. I know it’s a bit cold this time of year, but perhaps you could drive there with me tomorrow, just to meet Rose. Now you’d do that, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Sally, more because she wanted to end this embarrassing conversation than to oblige her host.
“Splendid! Two o’clock, shall we say? Good!” And with that he left.
Dinner was a most embarrassing affair for poor Sally, who felt quite weighed down with all the dark secrets reposing in her jet-covered bosom. It was not as if she had to make any effort to converse with anyone at the table, because each and every one seemed to be speaking about exactly what was troubling them at the moment without any regard to their fellows.
“Freddie has got a dickey heart. Did you know?” Mrs. Stuart.
“I don’t know where they get their cook from. Food’s filth.” The Honorable Freddie Stuart.
“I say, Miss Wyndham’s in full bloom tonight, eh, what, haw? Makes the old ticker beat faster, what, haw!” Peter Firkin.
“A rose by any other name…Ah, Rose, Rose…” The duke.
“… hope it will not be too much work for the servants. Perhaps I should get that chappie Marjie Effingham had to do her ballroom. Chinese, it was. Lengths of brocade and chrysanthemums in pots. So pretty…” The duchess.
“Servants are not trained properly these days and so uppity. All this Bolshevism.” Lady Veronica Chelmsford.
“If only people knew what little me was thinking.” Miss Wyndham.
“I say, I’ll have second helpings, since you lot don’t seem to like your food. Disgraceful waste. If you chaps had been in the army like me…” Sir Sydney Chelmsford.
“For the fourth time, I’m driving into Bath tomorrow, if anyone wants to go.” The Marquess of Seudenham.
“Oh, I would love to go.” Sally.
Both turned slightly and looked at each other while the other voices rose and fell in their various monologues.
Then Sally’s face fell. “I can’t.” she said dismally, forgetting to use her Aunt Mabel voice. “The duke is taking me to the village pub.”
“Really?” said the marquess, looking amused. “Is that still going on?”
“What?” said Sally cautiously.
“That barmaid, whatsername?”
“Rose, Oh, you know !”
“Course I do. So does Mother. But what on earth is Father thinking of to trot a lady like you into barrooms?”
“We’re going to sit in the garden.”
“You’ll freeze. Furthermore, you can’t study the beauty of Rose’s forearms from the garden.”
“You are all quite mad,” said Sally repressively. “I took the duke’s confidence very seriously indeed. Particularly as he said he wanted to marry the girl.”
“Don’t worry your white hairs over it,” said the marquess lazily. “Father’s always been going to marry ’em over the years. Mother’s quite happy that this current one is safely tucked away in the Feathers and not housed in the servants’ hall, as is usually the case.”
“Then I am wasting my time,” said Sally sadly, for she wanted naturally to be free to go into Bath with the marquess.
He eyed her sympathetically. “It’s all a bit much for you, isn’t it?” he said kindly. “What time is Father taking you off?”
“Two o’clock.”
“Then I think it might be a good idea if I were to allow you ten minutes or so, and then arrive unexpectedly to pick you up.”
/> “Oh, thank you!” said Sally, her eyes like stars.
Then she felt her wig slipping a little and hurriedly adjusted it. The marquess caught the movement and felt a surge of pity. Poor old girl, he thought, having to work for a living at her age and having to wear that awful wig.
“Is anyone listening to me? I’m trying to tell you all not to excite Freddie. He’s got a dickey heart.”
Sally was about to confide her strange conversation with Mrs. Stuart to the marquess, but she had been told it all in confidence, and it was all so silly. The marquess would probably laugh at her and tell her that Mrs. Stuart made a habit of plotting her husband’s death.
“I’m bored,” the Honorable Freddie was telling a dish of currant fritters. “And just look at these.” He pushed the fritters pettishly with his fork. “Haven’t had those deuced fly cemeteries since I was at school. ’Strordinarily boring house party. The women who are old enough to be interesting just ain’t.”
His wife cast him such a look of venom that Sally shuddered. Then she reflected bleakly on the tons of etiquette books advising the aspiring classes as to how to behave in society. She wondered if any of them would ever credit the blunt gutter rudeness of some members of the aristocracy. As a schoolgirl, she had been meticulously coached by the Misses Lelongs of Bombay on how to behave and how to eat delicately. And now just look at the duchess picking up three currant fritters at once with her fingers and shoving them into her mouth, and continuing to lay forth on the ball through a spray of crumbs!
But then there was tomorrow to look forward to. If only she could go as Sally Blane and not as Aunt Mabel.
“Now, this is what I call a good brisk day,” said the duke cheerfully. Sally shivered miserably and longed for some furs.
They were seated in the garden of the Feathers. Great fleecy clouds were flying across the sky, casting their huge shadows over the frosty grass. A starling piped dismally on the lower branch of a bare apple tree. England had been blessed with a long Indian summer, and then the weather had broken all at once, and it just had to break on the very day one was stuck in a pub garden with a duke who was in love with the barmaid.
“Here she comes!” whispered the duke, rubbing his hands together.
Out from the inn came a large fat girl carrying a tray and glasses. Sally tried to hide her surprise. Girl wasn’t exactly the word. For surely Rose was at least in her thirties. She was dressed in a low-cut gown of glaring green and yellow stripes, out of which her enormous bosom threatened to spill. Her face was red and raw and looked as if it had been sandpapered recently. Her large brown eyes were as vacant as a cow’s.
“Look at her arms,” hissed the duke, wriggling in excitement.
Well, apart from the fact that they were freckled and very powerful-looking, there was not much about them that Sally could see that would possibly explain the duke’s infatuation.
“Ah, Rose,” sighed the duke. “The last rose of summer.”
“Oh, go on, Yur Gryce,” said Rose, with a turnip smile. “You do go on. ’E does go on zumthin’ orful,” she added, nudging Aunt Mabel in the ribs. “This be yur ma?”
“No, my precious,” said the duke, leering. “This is Aunt Mabel. Helps gels in distress, don’t you know. Finds out all about their lovelives.”
Rose put the tray with the two glasses of warm gin—the Duke’s plebeian choice—on the table and stared at Sally like a ruminating cow.
“You ain’t from ’Ome Chats, then?” she asked slowly.
Sally nodded.
“Funny,” said Rose, balancing the tray on one large hip and staring off into the middle distance. “I wrote to you, mum. Ever such a lovely answer, you give ’un, that you do. ‘Marry ’im,’ that’s what you said. An’ that’s what I’m going to do.”
Sally looked at Rose wildly and then at the stricken duke. “You don’t mean to say…” she began.
“Yerse,” said Rose dreamily. “I was the pregnant ‘ousemaid,’ an’ I shall marry Jim Finch, ’im that works fer Farmer Andrews. Got a liddle bit o’ money put by ’as Jim. Marry ’im, thas what Aunt Mabel said.”
The duke cast Sally a look of bewildered hurt. “I didn’t know Miss Higgins was a friend of yours when I replied to her letter,” said Sally desperately to the duke. “As a matter of fact, I’d never even heard of you!” That sounded rather rude, and Sally tried to put it in a gentler way. She laid a comforting hand on the duke’s arm, but the duke had already settled on his new role of rejected lover and was prepared to enjoy it to the hilt. But Sally was still too young to know this and watched in alarm as a tear slowly rolled down the duke’s cheek.
“Alas! Alas!” he cried to the freezing air.
“What do be the matter, then?” asked Rose, all bucolic concern. She turned to Sally. “Don’t ’e like ’is gin, then? Want me to warm it up, mum?”
“No… I mean, yes,” said Sally, anxious to get rid of Rose. “You must pull yourself together,” she told the duke sternly. “What would your tenants say if they could see you like this?”
“The same as they’ve said all the other times, I suppose,” said the Marquess of Seudenham, strolling into the garden and looking heartlessly at his father. “And what on earth are you thinking of, Father, to keep a lady like Aunt Mabel sitting around in this freezing cold? Come, Aunt Mabel.”
“But…” began Sally helplessly, getting to her feet and looking down at the stricken duke.
“He’s enjoying himself,” said the marquess, taking her elbow. “’Bye, Father.”
“Go!” cried the duke, striking an attitude, “and leave me to my death!”
“You won’t die of a broken heart,” said his son callously, “but chances are you’ll die of pneumonia if you sit around in this cold much longer.” And with that he firmly propelled Sally out of the garden and out of the inn.
Well, Sally had one glorious afternoon, drinking tea in the Pump Room in Bath, gazing into the marquess’s blue eyes, and forgetting completely about the lovesick Miss Wyndham who she was supposed to be helping.
He talked lightly and amusingly of plays and theaters and social gossip, and Sally drank it all in, watching his charming smile and mourning over his gallantry toward this old lady he believed to be in her eighties.
As they were driven back in a well-sprung carriage toward the palace, Sally began to feel a little sad. There must be some way she could manage to meet him without her disguise. But how?
Sally thanked the marquess warmly for her outing and went in search of the library before going to her rooms to change for dinner. She felt sure she would be too excited to sleep much that night, and therefore wanted to find a novel—in English—to pass away the hours.
A thin, colorless man rose to his feet as she entered the library and introduced himself as Mr. Worthing, the ducal secretary.
“And you are Aunt Mabel, of whom I’ve heard so much,” he said with a charming smile, which completely altered his plain features. “I am ready any time to help you with your letters.”
“You seem to be very busy,” commented Sally, looking at the piles of correspondence on his desk.
“I am sending out the invitations to the duchess’s ball,” he said.
“When is it?” asked Sally.
“On Friday the thirteenth.”
“But that’s only a week away!”
“Her Grace specializes in impromptu invitations,” said Mr. Worthing dryly. “But everyone usually accepts. I have nearly finished. Now, this one is a mistake. Lady Cecily Trevelyn.”
“Why a mistake?” asked Sally curiously.
“Because I happen to know that Lady Cecily has left South Africa and will not be arriving in London until two days after the ball.”
“Oh.” Sally sat down suddenly, her brain working feverishly.
“Is Lady Cecily a debutante?” asked Sally suddenly. “And who is she?”
“Lady Cecily is the ward of the Earl and Countess of Hammering, who were visiting their estates in South A
frica. Lady Cecily’s parents, the Duke and Duchess of Dervere, died when she was a baby.”
“How sad,” said Sally. “Is she my age?”
Mr. Worthing looked in surprise at the agitated old lady.
“You cannot mean Lady Cecily, since she is nineteen years old,” he said delicately. “I assume you are referring to Lady Hammering, who is about… er… forty.”
“Much younger than I,” said Sally, recovering from her blunder.
Her brain seemed to be working at an enormous rate. “I have it!” said Sally with a bland smile. “I remember hearing that the Earl and Countess of Hammering have, in fact, arrived in London. Yesterday, I believe.”
“Really!” said Mr. Worthing. “I am usually very well informed of the comings and goings of the duchess’s friends, but I take your word for it, of course.”
“In fact,” rushed on Sally, “they are by way of being personal friends of mine, and I have to travel to London… er… tomorrow, and I could take the invitation with me.”
“Well,” he said slowly, “that would be very kind of you.”
A dismal thought suddenly struck Sally.
“I suppose,” she said, looking down and twisting at a loose thread on her mittens, “that the duke and duchess are very well acquainted with Lady Cecily. Known her since childhood.”
“Oh, no,” said Mr. Worthing. “As far as I know they’ve never set eyes on her. She’s not come out yet, so to speak, so no one’s really seen her.”
Sally breathed an inward sigh of relief. Lady Cecily would go to the ball, represented by Sally Blane!
Sally thanked Mr. Worthing effusively for the invitation, whereupon he replied with mild surprise that the thanks were all on his side. She made her escape and went in search of the duchess, to explain that it was imperative that Aunt Mabel return to London to see her doctor, that Aunt Mabel would unfortunately not be attending the ball, but that Aunt Mabel would definitely return on the day after in case further counseling was needed.
CHAPTER FIVE
“I can’t possibly do it!” protested Miss Fleming, raising her hands in horror.
