by M C Beaton
After an alfresco meal of considerable proportions, Cyril and Tansy found they had a job on their hands to keep Jeffrey awake. Unaware that Jeffrey had already drunk more than was good for him, they plied him with brandy in order to stimulate him. Jeffrey indeed drank it gratefully and seemed to come to life again. “Well, how goes the plot?” he said at last.
“There’s a h-hitch,” said Cyril. “I can’t get Ginny to walk with m-me. She’s always talking to someone else.”
“So,” said Tansy, “you, Jeffrey, must say you think there’s something up with one of your horses and ask her to come with you and investigate it. Or tell her you have a new carriage you’d like her to see. Or tell her one of the guests has fainted and is in your carriage. Cyril will drive. You’re stronger than he is, Jeffrey. Just get her inside that carriage and off you go. Think of something!”
“Right-ho,” said Jeffrey, feeling masterful and sure of himself. “Just let me have another slug of that brandy and off I’ll go. No, don’t stand there hovering. Leave it to me.”
Cyril and Tansy walked off to check that the carriage was parked behind a stand of trees some distance from the other carriages and motorcars. “Don’t want any curious chauffeurs or coachmen around,” said Tansy. “I hope Jeffrey manages it. If he doesn’t, I’ll go and try to get her over here myself.”
But Jeffrey, it seemed, was proceeding admirably. Certainly his legs appeared rather rubbery when he stood up but his brain, he felt, had never been clearer.
Annabelle was just emerging from a conversation with Ginny, feeling as if she had got the worst of it. She had warned Ginny that gentlemen did not like ladies who appeared too bold in their manner and she, Annabelle, had observed that Ginny had a distressingly forward manner with the gentlemen. Annabelle hoped Miss Bloggs would forgive her for pointing this out, but Miss Bloggs would find that these rarified circles of society did not have the same free and easy license as the society from which Miss Bloggs had sprung. To which Ginny had mildly replied that on the contrary, the middle classes were very strict, and a conversation such as this would be considered impertinent in the extreme. And when the furious Annabelle was just grasping the fact that she had been neatly put in her place, Ginny had noticed Jeffrey lumbering toward them and had said that Annabelle must forgive her, but the gentlemen could be very forward in their attentions.
“Take poor Jeffrey,” said Ginny. “He would marry me tomorrow if only I would have him.”
Annabelle’s pale-blue eyes narrowed. Jeffrey had been flirting with Annabelle over the picnic lunch, and Annabelle saw an excellent opportunity to score off Ginny.
Jeffrey tried to bring the two girls, who looked remarkably alike, into focus. The full effects of the amount of champagne he had drunk at luncheon followed by the brandy had hit him like a blow. He could only thank God that his brain seemed to be unnaturally clear, even though his eyes were blurred and his legs wobbled at the knees.
“Ginny,” he began, “one of the serving-maids has taken poorly and she has been put into my carriage to recover. I wonder if you could come with me and take a look at the poor girl.”
“Leave this to me, Miss Bloggs,” said Annabelle sweetly. “I am more accustomed to dealing with servants than you. She is probably malingering. Lead on, Mr. Beardington-Smythe.”
She marched a little way forward and turned impatiently, waiting for Jeffrey to catch up with her.
“I say,” said Jeffrey, looking from one to the other like a baffled bull and desperately trying to focus his eyes. “Ginny’s supposed to go with me.”
“She has,” said Ginny, giving him a push. “I’m Annabelle.”
“Eh, what? By Jove, thanks, Annabelle,” wheezed Jeffrey, and weaved off after Annabelle.
Cyril was sitting on the box of the closed carriage, a strung-up bundle of nerves. It was such a relief, it almost hurt when Tansy whispered, “Here she comes!” and he saw the flash of a white dress and a red-and white hat coming through the trees. “I’ll make myself scarce,” said Tansy, grinning. “You don’t need a chaperon for this. Good old Jeffrey. He hasn’t let us down.”
Cyril, who had changed into coachman’s livery, sunk his neck into his hot collar so that Ginny would not recognize him. As the couple came nearer he had a fleeting thought that Jeffrey must have pitched Ginny a very good story, for he had never heard Ginny’s voice so sharp and shrill before.
“In here,” he heard Jeffrey say. Then the carriage door slammed and Cyril sprang the horses, glad that he was not the one who had to cope with whatever was going on inside.
Jeffrey was having a blissfully quiet time. “Ginny” had tried to scream, and he had stuffed his pocket-handkerchief in her mouth, whereupon she had fallen into blessed silence. The carriage swayed and bumped and Jeffrey felt his own eyes beginning to droop. No harm in a little shuteye, he thought. He hoped that Cyril remembered that it was he, Cyril, who was supposed to compromise the girl.
The Bloomington estates lay quite close to the picnic area, and in no time at all, Cyril found himself clattering up the weedy drive. He took a small sketch plan out of his pocket and guided the carriage off up a long, winding side road that led to the gamekeeper’s cottage.
He drew up with a flourish and jumped down triumphantly. Then he paused and hammered on the carriage door. He somehow did not want to face Ginny until she was safely locked up inside.
Jeffrey’s sleepy, beefy face popped out of the window like a jack-inthe-box. “There you are, lad,” he cried. “Takes old Jeffrey to show you how to run a campaign, eh what?”
“How is she?” asked Cyril.
“Fainted,” grinned Jeffrey. “Came to a minute ago and looked at me and fainted again. Just as well.”
“Bung her inside,” said Cyril. “I’ll put the carriage round the back where it can’t be seen.”
“Here, now,” expostulated Jeffrey. “You can’t expect me to walk back in this heat, and we don’t want to raise any suspicions by all of us being absent. Tansy’s going to tell ’em Ginny’s gone home with a headache and is not to be disturbed. I’ll come back for you in the morning. Come along, man. I’ve done my part. The rest is up to you.” He gave a fat wink. “And you won’t be needing old Jeffrey’s help for that!”
“Oh, all r-right,” said Cyril sulkily. “Carry her indoors. I d-don’t want to l-look at her until I have to.”
Pulling and tugging, Jeffrey got the half-unconscious girl out of the carriage and carried her indoors. Then he emerged a few minutes later, grinning. “I’ve put her where you wanted her, laddie. Right on the bed.”
He swung himself up unsteadily into the box and Cyril looked at him nervously. “Are you sure you’re sober enough to drive?”
“Course,” said Jeffrey. “Jober as a sudge.” And with that he rattled off. A faint moan came from inside the cottage. Cyril took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and marched in. He locked the door firmly and turned to face the girl, who was sitting white-faced on the bed, staring at him.
“What the hell!” screamed Cyril. “Annabelle!”
Annabelle’s feelings on being confronted by the handsome Cyril instead of the boozy, beefy Jeffrey underwent an almost ludicrous change.
A faint blush bloomed on her white cheeks and she looked coyly at the floor. “Oh, Cyril, dear,” she murmured. “So wild! So impetuous! There was no need to go to these lengths. But how romantic!”
Cyril’s brain worked with the rapidity of a trapped rat. In a flash he saw that if he said he had meant to abduct Ginny and not her, the spurned Annabelle would go back to the party and let all sorts of cats out of the bag. His allowance for the “bringing out” of Ginny Bloggs would be taken away from him. Lord Gerald would see to that. He hated Ginny Bloggs as he had never hated her before. He felt sure that somehow she was behind this mistake. He wished Tansy had agreed to come along. He wished any number of things, but the fact remained, there was only one way to get out of it.
“Y-you must f-forgive me, Annabelle,” he s
aid. “I must have been mad. Let me take you back to the party.”
“Yes,” whispered Annabelle, looking at him from under her lashes. “Please, let’s. This is all so romantic, but it would be nice now that we know our feelings for each other to do things in the orthodox way. You—you may kiss me, Cyril.”
She shut her eyes and puckered up her lips and Cyril, trying to deposit a brief kiss on them, found himself held in a viselike grip as he was enfolded in an ardent if inexperienced embrace.
“Daddy will be so pleased,” murmured Annabelle, and Cyril heard a noise in his brain, exactly like the slamming of a prison door.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ginny seemed unaware of the uneasy atmosphere at Courtney following the picnic.
She had declared herself thrilled at Cyril’s surprise engagement announcement and had presented the happy couple with a handsome dining service.
Cyril had pinned all his hopes on the bishop. Surely Annabelle’s papa would not wish his only daughter to be married to a penniless manabout-town. But it appeared that the bishop was heartily glad at the idea of getting his spoiled and domineering daughter off his hands, and had counseled a speedy engagement. Cyril’s protest that he had no money to marry was met with an indulgent smile and the comment, “There’s lots of work around for chaps like you.”
The conspirators were each sulking in their corners. Tansy had decided that both Cyril and Jeffrey were useless, Cyril blamed his engagement on both of them, and Jeffrey was recovering from having overturned the carriage in a ditch on the road back from the Bloomington’s estate and having slept in that ditch in a drunken stupor until the moon came up. And the sight of Barbara fluttering around Ginny and helping her with arrangements for a grand ball made them all want to strangle her first and Ginny afterward.
Lord Gerald rode over one wet afternoon to find the large house strangely silent. Alicia had driven out with Peter Paster. Lord Gerald had protested at Alicia seeing so much of Peter, to which Alicia had replied, “Oh, you just don’t know what it’s like. Ginny’s really very sweet, but she keeps saying the most awful things to Peter and he gets so mad, I just have to get him away from the house to keep the peace.”
Gerald had demanded to know why Peter stayed on as a house guest if he disliked his hostess so much, and Alicia had blushed and stared at the floor. Alicia seemed to be doing a lot of blushing these days, he reflected grimly.
Harvey informed him that Madam was in the study and Gerald said he would announce himself.
He opened the study door and paused on the threshold in surprise. Ginny had been bent over an invitation list. An old-fashioned pair of steel spectacles held together with ginger-beer wire were propped on her small nose, and the startled gaze she turned toward Lord Gerald was sharp and intelligent. Ginny quickly removed her glasses and fastened the old vacant stare on him.
Why, she must be as blind as a bat! he thought with a strange feeling of tenderness. Then he remembered his mission and hardened his heart.
“Your men are building a summer house or sort of gazebo thing on Nepp’s Field,” he said.
“Yes, it’s going to be extremely pretty,” said Ginny. “It’s actually a sort of eighteenth-century rotunda—to be in keeping with the house, you know. And it’s to stand on that little knoll in the center. So pleasant for walks, and the field isn’t used for anything anyway. The workmen will soon be finished.”
“They are finished,” said Lord Gerald, standing over Ginny in a threatening manner. “I told them all to pack up and go home.”
Ginny put down her fountain pen and stared at him in amazement. “You shouldn’t have done that, you know,” she said quietly. “These are men from the village who are glad to have the work. You know, so much better for the morale than just giving it to them or taking them bowls of soup and jellies and things, which aren’t really sustaining—”
“That, dear girl, is my land,” broke in Lord Gerald wrathfully. “If you wish to keep the villagers employed, then I suggest you take some of your own land and hand it over.”
“It’s not your land,” said Ginny, opening her eyes wide in a truly infuriating way.
“It is!”
“Isn’t!”
“Is!”
“Oh, this is ridiculous,” said Ginny. “Come into the estate office and I shall show you the plans of the estate.”
“I know which is my land and which is not, dear girl,” said Lord Gerald, resisting an impulse to shake her. “That land has been in my family for centuries, but then I would not expect anyone of your background to know about the importance of land.”
“Now, why not, I wonder?” said Ginny mildly, getting up and walking around his wrathful figure. She led the way from the room, and with some hesitation he followed her through the back of the house and into a dark little office. Ginny lit the gas with a little sigh.
“Do you know,” she said, seemingly unaware of Lord Gerald’s bad temper, “that Mr. Frayne only had gas laid on just before he died? He should have kept to lamps and candles, which would have been much more romantic, or on the other hand had electricity installed. Gas is so… well, between things.”
“I have gas,” said Lord Gerald stiffly.
“Oh, I know, I’ve seen the smelly things,” said Ginny vaguely. “Gas chandeliers, I mean. Always hissing and popping and downright dangerous, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t,” said Gerald rudely.
“No more you did,” said Ginny with unruffled calm. “Ah, here we are. Nepp’s Field, did you say? There we are. You do own a foot or two on the far side but not the little knoll where the rotunda is being built. I shall now have to send down to the village to get the men back.”
“I am sorry,” said Lord Gerald, reluctantly turning the ancient map this way and that. “But do consider. That is good grazing land and I am certainly sure that my family used it for sheep grazing.”
“Really,” said Ginny politely. “Believe me, there has been nothing with four legs near it since the day I arrived. Oh, why must you always try to save face. Come and see my rotunda. Look! The rain’s stopped and the sun is beginning to shine.”
Lord Gerald obscurely felt that there was something very low class about building new things on an old estate, but he knew he had behaved badly. He should have checked his own maps first.
“Very well, then,” he said with a reluctant grin. “But don’t expect me to like it!”
Ginny went upstairs to take off her pinafore and put on a smart morning dress of pale-blue taffeta. It had a saucy line of bows running from neck to hem, with creamy lace edging the high collar and the narrow cuffs. She chose a wide-brimmed hat of the same material, ornamented with a whole garden of roses on the crown. White gloves and a white lace parasol completed the ensemble. The maid, Masters, had found another position, not being able to face the other servants after the unveiling of her lowly origins, and Ginny had not yet replaced her.
Lord Gerald watched her descending the staircase with an ironic twitch to his lips. She looked exactly like a doll, he thought. And then she smiled at him, and he was forced to admit to himself that she looked like a very beautiful doll indeed.
“Dear me, Ginny,” he said. “Do you intend to walk across the fields dressed like that?”
“Why not?” was all Ginny would say.
But it turned out that she was wearing a pair of sky-blue button boots, much more serviceable than they appeared, and the skirt of her dress only reached as far as her ankles, so there was no reason for her to have to hold up her skirts or worry about getting her feet wet.
Everything seemed very fresh and green after the rain and little wisps of gray cloud trailed off high in the sky above.
The sun was already hot and drying the grass. A blackbird sang with noisy gusto, rocking himself backward and forward on the slim branch of a larch and sending a shower of raindrops down onto Ginny’s hat, where they twinkled and sparkled among the silk roses like tiny diamonds.
Ginny looked as
cool and as fresh as a salad, and Lord Gerald found, to his irritation, that it was he who was unsuitably dressed for the day in an old hacking jacket and jodhpurs and a black polo sweater.
Ginny chattered amiably about the ball she was planning. Even Lady Rochester had accepted an invitation, she said. She wondered why that was, since Lady Rochester had not seemed to enjoy her last visit one bit, and, with effort, Lord Gerald refrained from pointing out that Lady Rochester was probably hell-bent on revenge.
Soon the rotunda appeared on its little knoll in the distance. “Is that someone walking away from it?” asked Ginny, screwing up her eyes. “Can you see who it is?”
“Too far away,” said Gerald. “Probably one of the workmen.”
His companion fell silent and, as the brim of her hat shaded her face, he had no clue as to what she was thinking.
Only the base of the rotunda had so far been built, explained Ginny, finding her voice again as they approached it. When the pillars were erected and a little golden cupola put on top—it would look charming.
They mounted the shallow steps and stood looking across the field.
Lord Gerald reluctantly admitted to himself that the choice of situation was a stroke of genius. From each side of the rotunda, on its little rise, was spread a pleasant idyllic view of trees and meadows. The pastoral scene sparkled in the hot sunshine as the rain-washed grass and trees slowly dried in the sun.
“Everything’s glittering,” said Ginny. “Why, even the—”
She looked down at the side of the rotunda and turned as white as a sheet.
“Run!” she screamed, “Run!”
She seized Lord Gerald’s arm and tugged frantically. Her fear was infectious and without pausing for thought, he took her hand and ran with her, some part of his mind registering surprise at Ginny’s agility as she fled across the field and took the stile in one bound, stumbling and nearly falling and then recovering herself and fleeing on.
