by M C Beaton
She studied the grand ladies as they alighted from their carriages at the theater or in Bond Street, carefully noting their dress and accents and listening to their small talk. The world of the aristocracy as portrayed in books and in the theater showed her a world of witty, literate people forever peppering their conversation with quotations.
Polly plunged into an orgy of reading until the world between the covers of a book became more real to her than anything outside. She would have liked a friend to discuss her hopes and ambitions with, but she snobbishly did not want to encourage friendships with girls of the lower class and the upper strata was forbidden to her because of lack of money.
Religiously, she patronized the gallery of the opera or ballet, squeezing into her threepenny or fourpenny seat, avoiding the noisier vaudeville shows with their songs of lost, wonderful mothers, faithless sweethearts, and “The Boys of the Old Brigade” that were secretly more to her taste.
There were eight other businesswomen in the small hostel. Polly only saw them at breakfast. The lady she shared a table with was as terrifyingly grand as a duchess and turned out to be none other than the silk buyer for Belham’s. Polly had tried to strike up a conversation with the buyer who was called Miss Smythe and Miss Smythe had simply looked down her long thin nose and said, “Beg poddon,” in such repressive tones that Polly had given up trying to be sociable.
Once, on one of her weekend visits to Stone Lane, she had passed a group of her former school-friends who were giggling and laughing and talking about boys. Polly had experienced a sudden pang of envy—a sudden longing to give up her ambitions, return to Stone Lane and merge with her background.
Her father, Alf, never ceased to voice his voluble disapproval—and as for Gran, she was quite convinced that Polly’s smart clothes were being supplied to her by a series of lovers. Polly would have been horrified to learn that that illustrious director, Sir Edward Blenkinsop, was of the same opinion.
The Blenkinsops had rented a villa in Dinard for the month of August—not that the change of scene made any difference to Lady Blenkinsop, who had tottered from the vedette and, as soon as possible, established herself on a daybed in the sitting room, surrounded by her patent medicines and smelling salts and exuding an almost palpable atmosphere of boredom.
One morning, Sir Edward was standing at the sitting room window with his hands clasped behind his back. Even his hands looked angry, reflected his wife wearily, all chubby and red with great blue veins standing out on them.
“Tchah,” said Sir Edward, surveying the sunny scene. “You should see what young gels are wearing in the way of bathing dresses these days. Shocking!”
“Would you like to borrow my telescope, dear?” asked his wife with faint malice.
“’Course not. What’s come over you? These modern women. Take that Marsh girl at the office… dressed like a duchess. She had a silk dress on before I left—silk!—and I’ll swear it cost over two hundred guineas. Tart! Some masher’s paying for her wardrobe, mark my words!”
“Perhaps she has some rich relatives,” said his wife.
“Not her! Family’s pure cockney.”
“Still want to get rid of her?” queried his wife with the faint animation she only showed when the dreadful Miss Marsh’s name was mentioned.
“Can’t,” said her husband. “Amy Feathers, the switchboard girl, told Mrs. Battersby, who does the cleaning, that Polly had received a postcard from Lord Peter. Mrs. Battersby told the message boy who told one of the clerks who told my secretary who told me.”
“Really, dear, what an old gossip you are!”
“Harrumph! Nonsense! Got to know the enemy. Spy chappies come in damned handy where there’s a war.”
A thin smile of amusement curled Lady Blenkinsop’s pale lips. “And is there war at Westerman’s?”
“Of course there is! Can’t have office girls stepping out of their class. That’s Bolshevism!” He laid one finger along his nose and leered at her awfully. “Old Blenkinsop has his ear to the ground.”
“And his eye to the keyhole,” said his wife, abruptly losing interest.
“But mark my words,” went on Sir Edward, “nothing will come of her ambitions. Lord Peter is an impressionable young man but his elder brother will soon put a stop to any shenanigans.”
The elder brother had, in fact, dismissed the matter of Polly from his mind. He had just received a letter from Peter, who seemed to be head over heels in love with the Honorable Miss Jane Bryant-Pettigrew, daughter of Colonel, Sir Percy Bryant-Pettigrew, at present stationed in India. The duchess was ecstatic. A respectable marriage was just what Peter needed to settle him down and the manager of the Bengal office had reported that Peter was working, actually working, which all went to show what the influence of a good woman could do.
The marquis was strolling through Shepherd’s Market on his way to his club one fine Saturday in autumn. There was an exhilarating tinge of cold in the sunny air. Huge bunches of chrysanthemums stood in tubs outside the florists and a faint smell of roast chestnuts scented the sooty air.
An organ-grinder was churning out “Tales from the Vienna Woods” with relish while his little red-capped monkey nipped nimbly in and out of the crowd, rattling its cup with all the verve of a professional beggar.
The marquis stopped with the crowd to watch the little animal’s antics. Then out of the corner of his eyes he noticed a group of rough-looking youths over by the chestnut-seller.
They had heated a penny until it was red hot and with one deft motion of the tongs, one of them threw it toward the monkey. Everything seemed to happen in a flash. There was a groan of dismay from the crowd as the monkey nipped forward eagerly to catch the burning-hot penny. Then, as the coin was in midair, a very beautiful girl leaped from the crowd and caught the coin in her gloved hand and, seizing her umbrella, ran to the group of youths and began beating them soundly about their heads.
The monkey’s rescuer was none other than Miss Polly Marsh.
The youths had recovered from their shock and showed every sign of fighting back. The crowd was cheering Polly noisily.
The marquis stepped forward and put his arms around the enraged Polly and dragged her away from the youths. She twisted angrily in his arms and looked up only to see the lazy mocking eyes of the Marquis of Wollerton looking down into her own.
“Please be calm, Miss Marsh,” he begged, releasing her. “They will not try that trick again… at least not today.”
“Wretches!” said Polly.
He noticed that one gloved hand was clenched into a fist and gently opened the fingers. The red-hot coin had burned a hole in her glove and a blister was already beginning to form on her palm.
“You must have that attended to, Miss Marsh,” he said gently. “We are only a step from Brown’s Hotel. They serve an excellent tea there and I can find someone to attend to your hand. Would you care to join me?”
Would she care to join her future brother-in-law? “Of course,” said Polly with a radiant smile. He hailed a passing four-wheeler and ushered Polly in. The enthusiastic crowd gave the monkey-rescuer three hearty cheers as the carriage pulled away, and Polly grinned and waved.
The marquis looked at her thoughtfully. When she wasn’t trying to be a correct young lady, there was something very young, vulnerable, and endearing about Miss Marsh. Then he noticed her frock and his thin black brows snapped together. Polly was wearing a smart walking dress of scarlet velvet, cut with the hand of an expert. Now where, mused the marquis, had Miss Marsh managed to afford to buy a frock like that?
Brown’s Hotel in Albemarle Street was quickly reached and while Polly was having her hand bandaged, he ordered afternoon tea and looked forward to solving the mystery of Miss Marsh.
Polly soon entered cheerfully to join him. Brown’s Hotel was not nearly as terrifying as she had expected, more the way she fancied a pleasant country house would be with its charming little rooms, wood-paneled walls, and cheerful fires crackling away t
o dispel the autumn chill.
She busied herself with the teacups with all the professional ease of a West End hostess and then settled back and looked inquiringly at her escort. “Have you heard from Peter?” she asked shyly and then blushed in case the marquis would think the use of his brother’s christian name too familiar.
“I heard only the other day,” he said. “Peter seems to be working hard, which is unusual.”
“I had several postcards from him,” said Polly brightly, helping herself to a watercress sandwich.
The marquis, who did not know that Polly had not received a postcard for some time, silently cursed his brother.
To change the subject, he questioned her about her work at Westerman’s, and then baldly asked her how much she earned.
“I now earn fifteen shillings a week,” said Polly proudly. “Mister Baines gave me a raise.”
The temptation was too much. “How then,” said the marquis, “can you afford that very charming dress you are wearing?”
Polly’s face hardened. “If you will cast your mind back, my lord, perhaps you will remember that I informed my mother that I had inherited Miss Carruthers’s wardrobe. Even in Shoreditch your questions about my salary and my clothes would be considered impertinent!”
“You must forgive me,” said the marquis, smiling into her eyes in a way that suddenly made her feel breathless. “My friends will tell you that I am terribly rude.”
Polly looked at him cautiously. He did not seem nearly so terrifying when he smiled like that. She said, laughing, “Don’t do it again or I might hit you with my umbrella. And it would never do to strike my future brother-in-law, you know. Oh, look! They have madeleines on the second tier. I love madeleines.”
“Very fattening,” he said lightly, while his brain recovered from the shock.
Polly laughed again. “Not nearly so fattening as those éclairs on the top. I’ve never seen such huge—why are you looking at me like that?”
The marquis sighed. “Your announcement—that is your remark that I was to be your brother-in-law—startled me. Did Peter actually propose marriage?”
“Yes,” said Polly, and then hesitated. “Well… that is… he said almost the same thing. He said that he would return at Christmas and that we would make plans for our future together. What else does that mean, if not marriage?”
“My dear,” said the marquis slowly, “in Peter’s language, it probably means a maisonette in Saint John’s Wood.”
“Oh,” said Polly, relieved. “But you must not worry. Saint John’s Wood is a very pretty suburb, and although a maisonette may not seem very grand to you—”
“My dear girl,” snapped the marquis, “by Saint John’s Wood, I mean that Peter is suggesting setting you up in a love nest as his mistress.”
He watched the painful blush spreading over Polly’s face and cursed himself. Why, the girl was innocent! Contrary to what was portrayed in current romances, the modern young lady seemed to have forgotten how to blush.
“How cruel you are,” said Polly in a whisper. “How cruel and snobbish. You are just like your awful mother. Duchess, indeed! She behaved exactly like these stuck-up shopgirls I meet at the hostel and you, my lord, are no better. Peter loves me. He… he kissed me.”
The marquis groaned. “Miss Marsh. You are indeed a very kissable girl. But Peter is practically engaged to some girl out in Bengal.”
Polly looked at him in dismay. Then her vanity came to her rescue. She had never met any girl or any woman who was as beautiful as herself.
“Tommyrot!” she said roundly, gathering up her gloves and reticule. “You’re ashamed of me, that’s all!”
He politely got to his feet. “I am not in the least ashamed of you, Miss Marsh,” he said in chilly accents. “I think you are ashamed of yourself. Furthermore, I don’t believe you love my brother one little bit.”
“Oh!” gasped Polly, outraged. “You pompous old windbag. Just because you were disappointed in love…”
She raised her hand to her mouth realizing she had indeed gone too far. The marquis’s face was a mask of distaste.
“Allow me to find you a cab, Miss Marsh. I am sorry to cut short our engagement but I have an appointment at my club.”
“You didn’t cut it short. I did,” snapped the irrepressible Polly and swept out, leaving him standing over Brown’s best afternoon tea, feeling like an utter fool.
Had the marquis been less annoyed he might have realized the folly of confiding in his mother. He was very fond of his mother, although most of the time he did not like her one bit.
On the Sunday, he strode into his mother’s boudoir unannounced, wishing for the hundredth time that the duchess would say good-bye to the 1880s, although he had to admit grudgingly that her boudoir was the only room in the Chase where the twentieth century was not allowed to intrude. The sunny day was shielded from the room by crimson-and-green rep curtains inside and the tendrils of ivy outside, which created a sort of tropical underwater effect in which swam large round tables surrounded by massive books and wax flowers under glass.
His mama was dealing with her correspondence, dressed in a dirty lace tea gown that was cut low at the back to show an acreage of mottled and unwashed neck.
“Edward,” she cried, turning and kissing the air about a yard from his face. “You look very grim. What’s the matter?”
“Miss Marsh,” said the marquis heavily and immediately wished he had not opened his mouth.
“Oh, no!” cried the duchess. “Not you, Edward. I’m so delighted that Peter is showing such sense.”
Wearily, the marquis told her of his afternoon tea with Polly and of Peter’s dishonorable intentions.
“Well!” said the duchess, breathing a sigh of relief and then looking rather shifty. “After all, what a lot of fuss about nothing. How Victorian you are being, Edward. After all, one knows that simply scads and scads of people these days have mistresses. I mean, you yourself—”
“I do not seduce virgins or innocent girls,” said her son coldly, “and I believe Miss Marsh to be both. Furthermore,” he added, holding up his hand, as his mother would have spoken, “she comes from a very respectable family. I have had tea with her mother.”
“Really,” said his mother, outraged. “There are a lot of times, Edward, when we do not see eye to eye, but until now I have never known you to have a penchant for fraternizing with the lower orders.”
The marquis felt himself becoming very angry indeed. “You’re a snob, Mama,” he said curtly. “Unfortunately what Polly Marsh said about you seems to be true. You are exactly like a snobbish shopgirl!”
“She dared to say that!” screamed the duchess. “Then if you didn’t slap her face for her cheek, I am going up to town tomorrow, going straight into Westerman’s, and I am going to do it myself!”
The marquis regarded her thoughtfully. “Do, by all means, Mama, but everyone will think, first, that you’re frightfully common and, second, that Peter means to marry Miss Marsh and that you are jealous.”
The duchess breathed heavily. “Then I shall see that she’s fired.”
“Equally common,” said her son, who by now had his temper well in check. “Anyway, if you do, I shall make a very funny story about it and tell it round the clubs.”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
“Try me… as our American cousins would say.”
“I shall speak to your father.”
“Do. But it won’t do any good, you know. He prefers to go on as if Westerman’s doesn’t exist. He hated that picnic, you know. It was all Blundell’s idea.” Blundell was the duke’s secretary.
The duchess gave her elegant son a withering look but could think of nothing to say, and so she began to cry. Her ability to burst into tears on any occasion had pierced the hearts of her admirers when she was a pretty debutante. She could never understand why it now made strong men run for cover but it was her favorite weapon and she still exercised it on all occasions.
When she finally dried her eyes, it was to see, with intense irritation, that her son had fled.
She racked her brains for a weapon to use against the impertinent Miss Marsh. A bottle of smelling salts on her table winked at her in the greenish gloom. She had it! Edward Blenkinsop’s wife! She would call on her without delay and enlist her help.
Lady Blenkinsop looked at her butler with utter dismay. “The Duchess of Westerman? Are you sure?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Oh, very well, I suppose I had better see her. Bring us some tea, Wilkins, and some of those little choux pastry things of cook’s.”
Lady Blenkinsop raised herself from the chaise longue and then sank back again. Illness was sometimes a very good defense.
The duchess sailed into the room bringing with her the strong smell of gardenia talcum powder, acrid sweat, and the added smell of something which Lady Blenkinsop’s maiden aunt would have designated as “much worse.”
“My dear Lady Blenkinsop. Please do not get up. I myself know what it is to be frail and exhausted.” As indeed the duchess, who was prey to monumental hangovers, certainly did. “I am sorry to arrive so unexpectedly but I really must have your help. It’s about the Marsh girl.”
“Indeed!” Lady Blenkinsop found the energy to sit up. “You must tell me all about it, Duchess,” she crooned sympathetically.
Wilkins entered at that moment with a tea trolley laden with the pastry cook’s art. The tea was vulgarly strong and Indian. The duchess began to think that Lady Blenkinsop was really a very, very sympathetic and intelligent woman.
She poured out her story the minute Wilkins had left, ending up with Polly’s infernal cheek, calling her a shopgirl, indeed, and how it looked as if Edward were smitten.
A faint flush of color rose to Lady Blenkinsop’s pallid cheeks and she tried not to smile. Whatever else Polly Marsh might be, she was certainly no toady.
But she murmured sympathetically, “My poor Duchess. What can one do? Sir Edward informs me that Mrs. Baines has left Mister Baines because he refuses to dismiss Polly, and the wicked Mister Baines is so delighted with his bachelor life that he has given the girl a raise. In fact, he lives in terror of her leaving in case his wife comes back to him!”
