My Lords, Ladies and Marjorie

by Beaton, M. C.

  Charlie, the coachman, drove back to Belgravia in a thoughtful mood. Who would have thought such a nice young lady would do a thing like that? But four quid was four quid and he could almost taste that steak and kidney pie. Life was hard and he was damned if he would turn the best fare he had ever had in his life over to the police.

  Marjorie descended from the four-wheeler and fastidiously brushed the straw from her skirt. Charlie breathed a sigh of relief when she handed over the four pounds. “I would like to engage you tomorrow,” said Marjorie. “I wish you to drive me to the Albert Memorial, wait for me, and drive me back here. I will meet you at two-thirty. You will be paid well for your silence.” Marjorie savored that bit about Charlie being paid well for his silence. It was just like something out of a book. She felt very proud of herself. She had neatly shied the brick straight through the bow window of White’s without leaving the carriage. She had vaguely made out two men seated at the window but they were sitting opposite each other and well apart. She was sure she had not hurt anyone. She felt tremendously brave.

  Charlie, the coachman, touched his hat. “Be glad to be of service to you anyhow, my lady,” he said, elevating Marjorie to the ranks of the peerage. Marjorie nodded and pulled her coat collar up around her face and, with an absolutely unnecessarily furtive look around, glided off into the shadows.

  It is amazing what good food will do for a man and his horse. Next day Charlie-the-coachman was wearing a large nosegay in his buttonhole and had washed his face and hands. Charlie-the-horse was almost frisky and stepped out smartly on the road to Kensington Gardens as if remembering better days. The sun was shining and the gardens were a pretty oasis of green. The Albert Memorial, looking for all the world like a bit of a church that had become bored and wandered off on its own, pointed up to a pale blue sky. Marjorie was feeling tense and nervous and hanging onto her role for all she was worth. The papers had been full of the incident and Scotland Yard was quoted as saying it had put its best men on the job.

  The names of the two men in the bow window had been withheld.

  Tony was waiting eagerly for Marjorie. He too had washed to celebrate the occasion and looked twice as hairy. Marjorie led him round the far side of the memorial away from the watching eyes of Charlie, parked on the road.

  “You have passed the test,” said Tony, looking as pompous as a shabby young man with a lot of hair can manage to look. “Our new headquarters are in Burnham Road, Gospel Oak, number fourteen. Don’t write it down! Should you be arrested, you must swear never to reveal our names.”

  “I swear,” said Marjorie, feeling rather silly.

  How mad it all seemed! The sun blazed down on the pretty dresses of the ladies strolling in the gardens, on the gold and red of the guardsmen’s uniforms, on the frilly starched caps of the nursemaids. She no longer felt frightened. How could anyone take this comic opera group of anarchists seriously?

  “Our next meeting is tomorrow at three o’clock,” Tony was saying. “Then we’ll let you know about our master plan.”

  “How nice,” said Marjorie vaguely. She was to go to Jessie Wuthers’s ball that evening. Perhaps Philip would be there.

  “Here comes a copper,” hissed Tony suddenly. “Try to act natural.”

  “I am acting naturally,” said Marjorie with some asperity. “It’s you who look shifty.”

  Really, thought Marjorie, this must be some sort of a game for Philip. He probably doesn’t take it seriously either.

  Both waited in silence until the policeman had passed. Then Marjorie said, poking nervously at the turf with the ivory point of her parasol, “If you will recall, I mentioned that I understood a certain member of the aristocracy to be part of your … our … group. Will he be at this meeting?”

  Not for the world was Tony going to tell her that they did not boast such a distinguished member. “Not him,” he said. “He works in the background, he does.”

  Marjorie frowned. “I happen to know the gentleman you mean,” she said. “He sometimes calls on my mistress. Should I indicate to him that I too am a member?”

  “No!” screamed Tony in alarm, and then in a lower voice, “No. He says no one must ever know ’cept me. You’d never guess he was one of us. He don’t talk like us. But he’s loyal just the same. See here, if you go blabbing your mouth, we’ll be in trouble.”

  Marjorie felt strangely disappointed in Philip. But perhaps he belonged to a higher echelon of the society.

  “Where did you get those togs?” asked Tony suddenly. Marjorie was wearing a gown of mauve mousseline de soie. A wide organza hat held a whole garden of violets and her white kid gloves were smoothed over her arms like a second skin.

  “Borrowed them from the missus,” said Marjorie. “Oh, look! That policeman is coming back and he seems to be looking at you so strangely.”

  That was enough for Tony. He turned and ran.

  Marjorie made her way back to the clarence deep in thought. She had no other part to play but the present one and she did not want to return to being plain Marjorie, a character she did not think much of at the moment.

  She handed Charlie a five-pound note and walked away from the cab rank, still deep in thought. Charlie stared at the small fortune in his hands. “Hey, my lady!” he called after her. “Was you needin’ me again?”

  “What? Oh, yes, tomorrow … at two,” replied Marjorie vaguely and turned and continued to walk away.

  Charlie sat for a long time, clutching the note. Oh, those Bank of England five-pound notes! Was there ever anything like them? Crisp and white and large, etched with a delicate scrollwork of black lines.

  Charlie stretched his old arms up to the sky. He would … he would … By George! … he would take the rest of the day off. There was a pub he knew of, just a ways out on the Chiswick Road. Next to the pub was a meadow with long lush grass for the horse. Inside was a pretty barmaid behind the bar and pigeon pies on the bar. God bless the poor mad thing, he thought. I hopes my lady can afford it.

  Marjorie indeed could, Mrs. Wilton having supplied her with a ridiculously large amount of pin money. She went through that day in a kind of bewildered daze. There was no Mackintosh to confide in, the little Scottie having transferred his affections to the butler. Marjorie had gone down to the butler’s pantry to look for him and had found Mackintosh sleeping off a large meal with his square black head pillowed on the butler’s feet.

  She still had a vague and dreamy look on her face as she entered the Wuthers ballroom. Her eyes looked black and enormous in her pale face. She wore a very low-cut gown of white silk, held on the shoulders by bows like wings. She looked very young and vulnerable. Philip with characteristic single-mindedness forgot completely about his discussion with Hermione, he forgot that Marjorie had ever irritated or embarrassed him, he even forgot that only the other night some anarchist had shied a brick at him. He headed straight across the ballroom floor and claimed Marjorie for the first waltz. He was very aware of his own hand pressed at her waist, aware of her scent, aware of her strange seductive appeal.

  To his surprise, Marjorie said abruptly, “I want to talk to you. In private.”

  “Of course,” said Philip smoothly. “There will be no one in the garden just now. We shall go there.” He had not given any other man time to sign Marjorie’s card and there was no other partner waiting for her.

  They walked down a curving iron stair that led from the first floor to the sooty garden below. It was not a very romantic setting. A full moon, looking like someone with a bad case of smallpox, glared down. There was a sooty, scrubby patch of lawn, bordered by sooty marble figures firing arrows and holding urns and throwing discus—all sooty. There were a few sooty laurels and a few sooty pollarded trees. In fact, the whole garden smelled rather like the inside of a chimney.

  “We daren’t sit down,” said Lord Philip, “or our clothes will be ruined. What do you want to talk to me about?”

  “England,” said Marjorie.

  “England? You me
an, this happy breed of men, this little world-type England? This precious stone set in the silver sea-type England?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, Marjorie,” said Lord Philip in a husky voice. “Who are you trying to be now? You look so beautiful and you behave like such a ninny!”

  Marjorie opened her mouth to protest and quite abruptly, he jerked her roughly into his arms and closed her mouth with his own. He forgot time and space and sooty gardens. Marjorie forgot the anarchists and the future of England. The world was narrowed down to this moment of heady passion as they kissed and kissed again until both were trembling.

  He removed his white gloves and ran his long fingers caressingly over her neck. A cloud moved across the moon, plunging the garden into darkness. With a little groan, he slid his fingers into her hair and kissed her on the mouth again, slowly and lingeringly, teasing and caressing her mouth with his own.

  “I love you, Marjorie,” he said huskily, meaning, “I want you, Marjorie.”

  “I love you too, Philip,” said Marjorie shyly. “Oh, Lady Bywater and grannie will be so pleased! They have always admired you and of course Lady Bywater is an old friend of your mother.”

  “So pleased about what?” he asked cautiously.

  “About us!”

  “About us!” Lord Philip heard the rattling of the cage door. What a fool he had been! He would find himself married if he did not extricate himself quickly. Making love to Marjorie was one thing, marrying her was another!

  “You must not shock your grandmother by telling her of your amorous flirtations,” he admonished. “She would be horrified. I did not behave like a gentleman, Marjorie, and for that I am truly sorry. What a scandalous pair we are! Let us go back to the ballroom quickly just as if nothing had happened.”

  The garden was still in darkness and so he could not see the look of extreme hurt in Marjorie’s eyes.

  “Come along now,” he said, taking her arm in his. “Goodness, how dark it is! Watch your step. This staircase is quite treacherous. Up you go!”

  The light from the ballroom shone full on Marjorie’s face. She faced Lord Philip with a pathetic, hurt dignity. “Thank you for an interesting experience, Lord Philip,” she said in a low voice. “We shall not speak of it again.”

  With a chilly nod of her head and a sort of half bow, she turned on her heel and left him standing.

  At first he experienced a feeling of relief at having escaped so lightly. Then he saw her dancing some time later in the arms of Toby Anstruther. Toby was holding her much too closely and they went in to supper together.

  And then Lord Philip discovered that of the two of them, it was perhaps Marjorie who had come off the lightest. He did not like himself at all. He felt like a cad. Actually he was a cad but it was a new and salutory experience for him to recognize the fact. He took Hermione in to supper and hardly heard a word she said.

  Hermione made no reference to Marjorie and the anarchists. Marjorie had not mentioned anything about them to Hermione and Hermione assumed that Marjorie had not been mad enough to join them. Also Marjorie was looking at Lord Philip as if he were a species of slug so that was all right. She felt tremendously happy and completely untouched by Philip’s moodiness. She was used to it after all and to tolerate it made her feel quite wifely.

  Marjorie flirted with various young men who all seemed alike, patent leather hair, glossy faces and “ripping” this and “ripping” that. She wanted revenge. If she could find some definite proof that Philip was a member of the anarchists, then she would send it to the police. And … and … she would give herself up too and they would go to prison together. Oh, why was she so silly! She would be in the women’s prison picking oakum, whatever that was. She hated him, she loved him and she wanted to go home.

  “Another headache!” exclaimed Lady Bywater. “I declare us old things are running you off your feet, Marjorie. But I, for one, will be glad of an early night”—it was one in the morning—“and so will your grandmother.”

  Mrs. Wilton seemed disappointed at leaving the festivities so early. She had actually danced herself, and with such a charming gentleman called General Hammer.

  Of the party that set out for Gospel Oak the next day, Marjorie was the only one who was out of spirits. Charlie-the-coachman had a new coat and so did Charlie-the-horse. Both seemed overjoyed to see her. Marjorie felt miserable. She slumped in the corner of the growler and stared out with unseeing eyes as they jolted and rattled and rumbled.

  The sad fact was that Marjorie was still deeply in love with Lord Philip with all her emotions although her brain screamed at her that she was being silly.

  He did not care for her at all. Worse than that, he must think her fast. The terrible tyranny of the class barrier reared itself in Marjorie’s head. Perhaps to him it had been like philandering with a servant girl. And she had thought he had meant to marry her! And, horrors, he knew it! He had backed away from her like a shying horse.

  Number 14 Burnham Road, Gospel Oak, was little better than Peter Street. It lay in that section of north London near the bottom end of Hampstead Heath. The anarchists’ flat proved to be in the basement this time. Phyllis had seen her arriving and popped her greasy head up the area steps to hail her. Phyllis did not seemed thrilled to see Marjorie but led the way into a damp room whose walls had inexpertly been painted a flaming red.

  There was a certain tension in the air and the anarchists did not seem as harmless as they had before.

  There were even chairs to sit on.

  Tony pulled forward one of these and motioned Marjorie to sit down.

  He turned to face the room. “Brothers and sisters,” he said in a loud voice, “Rosie has proved she is worthy of belonging to our fellowship.” With the exception of Phyllis, the others nodded. Phyllis thought sourly that Marjorie was much too finely dressed for a parlormaid. Her skirt and blouse were very plain but they were of expensive material and her jaunty little felt hat was a miracle of the milliner’s art.

  There was a rickety gate-legged table in the middle of the room, covered with a shabby velvet cloth. Tony walked solemnly toward it. “Rose, before we tell you our plans, we will show you our prize.”

  With the air of a painter unveiling his masterpiece, he whipped back the cloth.

  Marjorie stared.

  At first sight it looked like a cheap metal cashbox with the lid open. Marjorie rose to her feet and walked to the table and looked down. She had never seen a bomb before but somehow she knew exactly what it was.

  Packed as neatly as a Fortnum and Mason picnic hamper were a cheap alarm clock, a pistol, several detonators. Cakes of dynamite were neatly arranged round the sides.

  Hoping against hope that she might be wrong, she asked, “What is it?”

  “A bomb, you eeejit,” sneered Phyllis.

  “Joseph made it,” said Tony proudly. “Did his training in Ireland, he did.”

  Everyone except Marjorie began to clap and Joseph stood up and made them a bow.

  “So you have a bomb,” said Marjorie, trying to speak calmly. “What are you going to blow up?”

  “Buckingham Palace,” said Tony. “That’s what!”

  Marjorie suppressed a gulp. She was suddenly very frightened. These madmen were in earnest. She was suddenly sure that Hermione had tricked her. Now that she loved Lord Philip with all his faults and did not think of him as some sort of god, her brain seemed to clear, thoughts tumbling one over the other. Hermione telling her about the poetry reading and the air of suppressed excitement and mirth when they had given her the presentation. The coolness of her suitors, including Lord Philip, after that. Hermione!

  Hermione had told her about these anarchists. Hermione was trying to make her look foolish.

  The least she, Marjorie, could do was to learn as much as she possibly could. All this flashed through her brain in the space of a minute. Then she said:

  “I don’t see how you are going to get into the palace yard in the first place and it wil
l not do much good to leave it outside.”

  “We’re not going in,” said Tony smugly. “It is.”

  He jerked his head and Phyllis went out of the room and shortly came back, carrying a familiar dress box. Marjorie recognized it. She patronized the establishment herself. It was one of the House of Frederic’s dress boxes. Phyllis even had the ribbons and wrapping to go with it.

  “Where did you get that?” asked Marjorie.

  “Dustbin up the West End,” said Tony laconically. “Phyllis was passing just as the maid was putting it out.”

  “The House of Frederic are Queen Alexandra’s dressmakers,” said Marjorie.

  “Exactly. And that’s where you come in, Rose. You’re the only one of us who can play the part. Joseph will help you down to the House of Frederic in Lower Grosvenor Street. You’ll wear some of them fancy clothes you’ve got and Joseph will leave you on the pavement just a little way away from this Frederic place. You’re to hail a hansom and tell him to take it to the palace.”

  “It’ll never work,” said Marjorie. “It’ll be much too heavy.”

  “They’ll never think to look inside till it’s too late,” said Tony. “They’ll think it’s heavy but the label will put them off. Some of them court dresses weigh a ton. Jewels and all.”

  Marjorie bit her lip. It was brilliant in its mad, childlike way. Of course, she would simply not turn up. But what if they washed and scrubbed Phyllis to look the part?

  Phyllis was looking at her suspiciously. “How come you get so much time off?” she asked.

  “My mistress is in Deauville—in France,” said Marjorie. “There’s nothing for us servants to do.”

  Phyllis was not well versed enough in the ways of high society to question why a lady would not take her servants to France with her. She relapsed into a sulky silence, biting her fingernails and looking jealously at Marjorie’s clothes from out of the corner of her eye.

  “I haven’t got all that much time,” added Marjorie desperately. “The butler’s very strict. It will rouse his suspicions if I stay out much longer.”