My Lords, Ladies and Marjorie

by Beaton, M. C.

  The guard waved his flag and the General’s friend thankfully escaped.

  The soldier, still miserable, shrank into the corner of a third-class compartment and mumbled, “You said I didn’t need to come, Phyllis.”

  The maid grinned at him. “Bit o’sea air’ll do you good,” she said. “Nothing like it!”

  Chapter Seven

  Sandypoint had managed to miss the vulgar boom in seaside holidays that had desecrated—in its staid opinion—so many other towns like Scarborough and Blackpool. It had its Royal Hotel complete with thé dansant and resident gigolo, it had its Pierrot show at the end of the pier and its donkeys on the beach. But it did not supply cheap accommodation or encourage day trippers or crowd its sedate promenade with fairground sideshows.

  Gentility was the keynote and its population of elderly ladies and gentlemen was determined to keep it that way.

  Mrs. Wilton had rented the same villa as she had always done. It was a large trim house with gabled windows set back from the cliff road behind a neat garden.

  One had only to walk a little way down the cliff road to come to the promenade with its row of shops on one side and the neat stretch of sand lined with bathing machines on the other. In fact that was Sandypoint. It was a very small town. Life revolved around the elderly inhabitants of the other villas that were situated at either end of the promenade. The whole town was built in a large cove with steep cliffs rising on either side.

  Mrs. Jenkins and Mrs. Bassett of Haddon Common were in residence. Mrs. Fyfe-Bartholomew had died comfortably of old age and Lady Bethons had gone to Scarborough.

  Mrs. Wilton found her circle of card-playing friends expanding. It was one thing to be plain Mrs. Wilton. It was another to be Mrs. Wilton with Lady Bywater in residence.

  Marjorie saw little of her grandmother and Lady Bywater. They were always out at some house or another. She was not sorry. Her grandmother looked at her so sadly and reproachfully and made Marjorie feel guilty. Marjorie knew her grandmother had put out a vast amount of money on that London Season but she, Marjorie, had failed to marry and had instead become notorious.

  Her life during the first week was very dull and she set herself to woo Mackintosh away from the butler so that she might have a companion on her walks.

  Mackintosh at first treated all her overtures with crusty Scottish reserve. But there was no Duke of Clarence to go to and he enjoyed running on the beach and terrifying the waves and so he gradually became used to going out with his mistress. Marjorie grew very fond of the Scottie but Mackintosh still reserved all his love and affection for the butler and would leave her immediately after one of these walks and head off to the butler’s pantry, barking joyfully.

  The weather continued gray and unseasonably cold and the beach was deserted, lapped by little chilly waves.

  Marjorie almost succeeded in blotting out the memory of her London Season. Her mind winced away from any thought of Lord Philip.

  She was sitting alone in the overstuffed drawing room of the villa, one quiet Sunday afternoon, when the Marquess of Herterford was announced.

  Marjorie had one panic-stricken moment when she wished to tell Jenkins to inform my lord that she was not at home. Then she remembered she had not thanked the Marquess for his defense of her in court and allowed him to be admitted.

  His slight family resemblance to his brother unnerved her but she masked her nervousness, ordered tea and sedately folded her hands in her lap.

  “Good day, my lord,” she said politely, “To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”

  The Marquess surveyed her for a few moments. When he had seen her aboard the Valiant, she had been a pretty girl. Now she was a beautiful woman. She was wearing a white organdy dress tied at the waist with a wide blue sash. Her small head was held proudly by a stiff boned collar and her eyes were as bleak as the sea outside.

  “May I sit down?”

  She gave a little bow so he pulled up a chair and sat down holding his hat and cane and gloves in one hand as good form dictated. One must never leave the things with the butler or that would mean one did not know when to finish a call.

  “I am concerned about you, Miss Montmorency-James,” he said, fixing her with those peculiarly arresting eyes. “There had been a report in the Morning Bugle stating your whereabouts. A certain ‘Society lady’ had telephoned the information …”

  “Hermione!” said” Marjorie flatly.

  “It’s possible. The reason I am here is to warn you that the anarchists may try to kill you in revenge. I shall wait to see Mrs. Wilton and then perhaps if she permits, I will alert the local constabulary …”

  “No,” said Marjorie firmly. “Enough, my lord. My grandmother has suffered enough over my stupidity. The anarchists will not dare to come here. They know that the whole of Britain is looking for them. If you persist in this matter, I must ask you to leave. If not … why, then … you may stay to tea.”

  “I will stay to tea,” he said with a sudden smile. It did not have the charm or sweetness of Philip’s smile but it was good-natured and natural and Marjorie thawed slightly toward him.

  With a great effort, he kept away from the subject of the anarchists because she had told him not to discuss them and because … and because … and because, dash it all, he wanted to see her smile.

  But try as he would, Marjorie listened to him with a social expression pinned on her face, her slim hands busy among the teacups.

  “Why did you refuse Philip?” he asked abruptly. Marjorie took a small sip of tea and then very carefully placed her cup on the table.

  “I wonder if we shall ever see the sun again, my lord. It really has been such dismal weather. Do have some plum cake. Our cook makes the best plum cake I have ever tasted.”

  He tried again. “Miss Montmorency-James. I am about to behave badly but I cannot bear to see you like this.”

  “Like what?” asked Marjorie, startled out of her icy calm.

  “So lifeless. Philip is a wretch. He does love you, you know. He told me so.”

  “He loves me now,” said the new mature Marjorie, “because I am something he cannot have. More tea, my lord? No? He is probably behaving like a thwarted child.”

  This accurate summing up of his brother’s feelings irked the Marquess.

  “What you say is true,” he said wryly, “but a very cynical observation for a girl of your years. I liked the Marjorie I met on the boat much better.”

  “She is gone,” said Marjorie. “I am not being anyone else at the moment, you see. Just myself. Since personal remarks seem to be the order of the day, my lord, may I ask if you are or have been married? When I was studying Burke’s Peerage in my besotted way, I read only the details on Lord Philip. Not on yourself.”

  “Yes, I will have more tea after all. And yes, I was married. She died some ten years ago. Diphtheria.”

  “How sad,” said Marjorie, pouring tea with a steady hand.

  “How long do you plan to stay here?”

  “For the rest of the summer, I suppose,” said Marjorie, studying an angel cake as if it were the most fascinating thing she had ever seen.

  He looked down at her bent head and despite himself found himself saying, “Your hair is very pretty, Miss Marjorie. There are little gold lights on it just where the sun is shining on it. By George! The sun!”

  Marjorie stood up and walked to the window and he followed her. They stood side by side, looking out at the sea.

  The gray clouds had parted and a shaft of sun was cutting down through the grayness and shining on the sea. Then, almost as they watched, a breeze sprang up, slowly stiffening into a brisk wind. Like a curtain, the clouds rolled back. The sea changed from black to gray, from gray to dull green, then from green to sparkling blue. The awnings on the bathing machines on the beach cracked in the wind and a long line of foam turned and sparkled on the golden sand.

  And Marjorie turned and leaned her forehead on the rough tweed of his shoulder and cried and cried as i
f the sun had melted the ice in her heart. She cried with shame for all her follies, she cried for the lost innocence and trust of her adolescent emotions, she cried for that little actress, Marjorie, who had played her last and nearly fatal role.

  He put his arms round her and drew her against his chest. Crying was the best thing she could do, he realized. After a long time the sobs ceased. Her lacy little handkerchief was a sodden ball. He produced a large one from his pocket and tilted up her chin and carefully dried her face.

  Well, he only meant to give her a light fatherly kiss on the lips. But her mouth trembled under his and she smelled faintly of lavender water and scented soap. He was not at all aware that he was kissing her for a very long time indeed.

  He was too excited and interested to discover he was experiencing a series of emotions he had never thought to experience again. Only when he tasted salt on his lips did he draw back.

  Marjorie was looking at him with angry wet eyes. “Now I suppose you will apologize for your behavior and tell me it will never happen again,” she said.

  He looked at her curiously, still holding her in his arms.

  “No,” he said slowly. “I would like it to happen again. Very much.”

  “And then you will go away and laugh about me,” sobbed Marjorie.

  “There are no Hermiones in my life,” he said in a husky voice. “I tell you this, Marjorie. I do not know why I did that since I do not know you very well but it was the most enchanting thing that has happened to me for a long time. The only thing I regret is the vast difference in our ages. I am thirty-seven, you know.”

  “That’s old!” said Marjorie amazed.

  “I suppose it is to you,” he said rather sadly and Marjorie would have given the world to take that exclamation back. All of a sudden she not care how old he was. She did not love him, of course. She only knew that she felt at home in the circle of his arms and felt a limp, drugged feeling pervading her body and thought she might fall if he let her go.

  “We shall walk, shall we?” he said softly. “In the sunshine. I must talk about these anarchists again, you know. You could be in very great danger.”

  Marjorie nodded dumbly and went to fetch her hat and coat. As they were walking through the hall, Mackintosh bounded through the green baize door leading from the servants’ quarters with his leash in his mouth and a mutinous “I don’t like you but you can take me for a walk anyway” look in his eye.

  “Is that yours?” asked the Marquess.

  “In a way,” said Marjorie. “Mackintosh prefers the butler.”

  “That’s the Scotch for you,” mocked the Marquess, picking up Mackintosh’s lease and fastening it to the dog’s tartan collar, “democratic to a fault.”

  He held out his arm and Marjorie shyly took it. The Marquess found his brain was racing. He wanted to get her alone away from the house and kiss her again. If he went through that same gamut of emotions, then he would ask her to marry him before some other gallant came along and snapped her up.

  Marjorie’s thoughts were also in a turmoil. He wouldn’t dare kiss her again. But then, what if he didn’t want to? I must be very fast, thought Marjorie in despair. Was every man who held her in his arms going to excite passion?

  She tried to remember what she had felt when Philip had kissed her and could not remember at all. She could not even remember what Philip looked like!

  She glanced shyly up at the Marquess from under the brim of her hat and he immediately looked down at her and smiled.

  He led her down the cliff road and along the promenade and up the cliff road at the far end until the villas petered out and the road narrowed to a path. When there was no sign of human habitation except a tiny cottage with an overstuffed front garden, he stopped and slowly drew her to him and bent his head.

  “Well, if it ain’t our miss,” cried a voice.

  The Marquess flushed and released Marjorie and both swung round. Beaming out from the roses in the cottage garden was Charlie-the-coachman. “Cor stone ’er crows,” he went on cheerfully. “’Ere’s the lady wot I owe me life to, guv. Come in, come in! Got a pot o’ char on the stove and you’ve got to see old Charlie.”

  “It’s an old friend of mine,” said Marjorie in answer to the Marquess’s questioning look. They followed Charlie around to the back of the cottage and into a tiny kitchen.

  “We’ve had tea,” said Marjorie. “But how did you come to arrive here?”

  So Charlie told the story over again about Marjorie’s generosity and his winnings at Ascot and reminded Marjorie she had recommended Sandypoint. A soft whicker interrupted him.

  “That’s Charlie-the-horse,” he said. “Come along o’ me. You’ve never seen the likes o’ this.”

  There was a small field at the back of the house and Charlie-the-horse stood leaning dreamily against the fence. He was extremely fat and glossy and had jaunty red ribbons tied in his mane. Mackintosh barked furiously but Charlie dreamed on.

  “Luverly sight, ain’t it,” said Charlie-the-coachman. “I reckernize your lordship from the court. Marvelous, you was.”

  Marjorie blushed prettily. “I didn’t thank either of you. I wouldn’t have been acquitted had it not been for both of you speaking up for me like that.”

  Then Charlie led them round to his front garden and pointed out every flower and plant while the Marquess listened with half an ear, wondering how soon they could get away.

  At last he interrupted the catalogue with, “We must go. Miss Montmorency-James’s grandmother will be wondering where she is.”

  “I’ll just get my stick,” said Charlie cheerfully, “and walk with you a little ways.”

  And so they were chaperoned by the elderly coachman down the path and onto the cliff road and down the cliff road and onto the promenade where he cheerfully took his leave. They were now surrounded with crowds of holidaymakers. All, it seemed, ancient with the exception of one.

  “’Ullo, ’ullo, ’ullo!” said Toby Anstruther cheerfully. “Look who’s here!”

  The Marquess looked at Toby’s fair and foolish face and felt like punching it. Marjorie appeared to be very glad to see this monstrosity and performed the introductions prettily.

  “Herterford,” said Toby cheerfully. “I know your brother, Philip. Friend of his as a matter of fact. What brings you here? Keeping a paternal eye on our Miss Marjorie?”

  “Merely visiting,” said the Marquess coldly. He felt the gulf between his thirty-seven years and Marjorie’s eighteen was growing wider and wider.

  “I say,” went on Toby, “I’m staying at the Royal. They’re having a fancy dress ball this Saturday. Are you going by any chance, Miss Marjorie?”

  “Yes,” said Marjorie. “Lady Bywater is one of the patronesses.”

  “What are you going as? I’m dashed if I know what to wear,” said Toby breezily.

  “Well, I don’t know either,” replied Marjorie. “We’re to be masked you know and Lady Bywater says a regular ball gown and mask would do but Mrs. Wilton, my grandmama, you know, has bought me a magnificent gypsy costume so I shall probably wear that.”

  “You going, Herterford?” queried Toby.

  “No,” said the Marquess shortly. “I am returning to town today.”

  “Better make it snappy then,” said Toby with hideous jollity. “Only one train and it leaves in fifteen minutes.”

  The Marquess resigned himself to his fate. He was too old to go hanging at the skirts of a young girl. Marjorie had not shown by word or glance that that kiss had meant anything to her at all.

  The Marquess politely raised his hat and made his farewells. Marjorie stared after him in a lost kind of way. So that kiss had meant nothing after all. She thought Toby painfully young and silly and wished she had not welcomed him so warmly.

  He chattered happily at her side all the way home until she had a splitting headache. The lonely wail of the train whistle sounded over the cliffs. Marjorie felt a real feeling of sadness well up inside her. Perhaps she
would have to settle for someone like Toby. Other girls seemed to. Perhaps people only fell in love and became married in books. Perhaps one was expected to look for tolerable manners and a good bank balance.

  Marjorie at last decided to write a formal letter to the Marquess, thanking him for his concern. She said she was sorry he would not be at the fancy dress ball but she did understand that Sandypoint was too unfashionable a place to hold his interest. She wanted to send her love but dared not. What was love anyway? She put her “warmest regards,” signed it, sealed it and stamped it and ran all the way to the postbox before she could change her mind.

  Hermione called at the Duchess of Dunster’s Park Lane mansion in the hopes of finding Philip at home. The butler ushered her into the drawing room and then returned a few minutes later to say that Lord Philip had gone to Benham’s Costumiers in Knights-bridge. Hermione, who had been standing by the writing desk, had noticed a letter lying open with “Sandypoint” written at the top. She told the butler she would just borrow some writing material to leave a note for Philip and then waited impatiently until he had left the room.

  She seized the letter. It was from Toby Anstruther. Toby had felt secure in his pursuit of Marjorie. He had heard on the society grapevine before he left London that Philip had been turned down by Marjorie. He did not, as far as he knew, plan to marry the girl but he did not want any competition around while he was having fun. He obviously considered Philip out of the running, otherwise he would not have written.

  “Dear Philip,” Hermione read. “Here I am in this stagnant seaside resort. It has its compensations, of course. Pretty Miss M-J. is here! We are attending a costume ball on Saturday. Miss M-J. is going as a gypsy and I plan to surprise her by turning up as the gypsy baron! See what wild antics we can get up to down here? Glad you’re NOT here if you know what I mean, Yours, Toby. P.S. We are to go masked. I hope there are no other gypsy girls there or I might land in trouble!”