Edwardian Candlelight Omnibus (29 page)

“Well, after the Norman soldiers land, they are led by Baron Guy de Boissy. The queen rides toward him and says, ‘Forsooth, sirrah, begone from this noble city.’

“‘
Merde
to that,’ he roars… that’s French, you know.”

“I know,” said Cynthia sweetly. “Do you know what it means?”

“Something French anyway,” said Mrs. Pomfret bravely.

Cynthia told her what it meant.

Mrs. Pomfret’s mouth fell open in dismay but she rallied quickly. “Then he shall say ‘zounds’ or something. Then he is struck by Winifred’s beauty. ‘If you come to France with me, fair maiden,’ he says, ‘I wilt not attack thy town.’

“‘I wilt,’ says the queen. They set sail after the townspeople have cheered Winifred to the echo, throwing roses under the hoofs of her white palfrey.”

Cynthia narrowed her eyes. It was all silly, childish nonsense, she knew. But she could see herself on a white horse with the cheering crowds around her. She could imagine David looking at her with admiration and the Maguire sisters being forced to play the part of Saxon peasants. She would insist that they darkened their skins with burnt cork.

“Now, Mrs. Pomfret,” she said, bestowing a glittering smile on the postmistress. “Only consider. A Saxon queen should be fair. Molly is dark. But I will save the day for you. Now, I know I am going to amaze you, but
I
shall play the part of Queen Winifred. Now, not another word. I do not want to be embarrassed by gratitude. Lord David will play the Norman king, of course… or leader.”

Mrs. Pomfret summoned up her small stock of courage. “But I-I h-had set my h-heart on Miss Maguire,” she stammered.

“You are ungrateful,” said Cynthia with a steely note in her voice. “Molly is American, and you cannot have an American as a Saxon queen.”

Mrs. Pomfret shook her head dumbly. Her courage had fled. She only hoped Molly would understand.

Molly was very sympathetic. She sat in the dark kitchen of the post office later that day with Mary and Mrs. Pomfret. The girls’ bicycles were propped around the back of the shop to escape the eagle eyes of Giles. Molly had found that young man’s attentions unwelcome and boring. It was bad enough to have him always present at the house, without having him spoiling their cycling tours.

“Let Cynthia take the part,” said Molly. “She
is
very beautiful. Mary and I will watch from the sidelines. I must say I am surprised Lord David is going to take part. I thought he would be too grand for the town pageant.”

“Oh, he
is
,” said Mrs. Pomfret. “He told me he wanted to have nothing to do with it, so the main male part is to be taken by the mayor, Mister Henderson, as usual.”

“Cynthia won’t like that,” said Molly thoughtfully. Mr. Henderson was pompous, fat, and florid. The idea of him bearing Cynthia off to France suddenly made her giggle.

“When is this all to take place?” she asked.

“Next week—on Saturday,” said Mrs. Pomfret, putting a plate of hot buttered crumpets on the table. “We never have much rehearsal because it is always a little bit the same. You know, an invasion and so on. Last year it was Queen Elizabeth and the Spanish invasion.”

“And who took the part of Queen Elizabeth?

“I did,” said Mrs. Pomfret, flushing slightly. “It was the most marvelous moment of my life. But you see I couldn’t this year because I wrote about a
young
queen and I did so want it to be you.”

“Don’t worry,” said Molly gently, “I couldn’t have taken the part. I can’t ride a horse, and you couldn’t have Queen Winifred riding down to the waterfront on a bicycle.”

“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Pomfret, made stubborn by disappointment. She did not like Lady Cynthia. “A few years ago Mister Henderson insisted on using his new motorcar in the pageant. It was all about Druids—”

“Invading England?”

“Dear me, no! Welcoming the arrival of Christian missionaries in their coracles. Well, we couldn’t have a motorcar in that. So modern. But the Boy Scouts covered it with painted canvas and turned the motor into a sacrificial chariot, which really looked splendid, although it did take its victims to the altar rather
fast
. Now then. I hear someone in the shop.”

Molly’s sharp ears picked up the sound of Lord David’s voice. “Let me hear what he’s saying,” she said, getting to her feet. “Probably planning his funeral.”

She crept to the door and opened it a crack. Lord David’s strong voice sailed into the room. “I don’t think this idea of yours is going to work,” they heard him say. “We came a cropper on
The Highland Heart
. This time ask Mrs. Pomfret what Molly reads—what she has chosen
herself
.”

“Right-ho!” replied Roddy, giving the bell on the counter a smart ring.

Mrs. Pomfret looked at the girls with bewildered eyes. “I don’t understand. Why should they want to know what you read, Molly?”

“Anyway, it can’t do any harm to find out what the man of her dreams is like,” said Roddy with fatal clarity.

“It’s a good thing you didn’t go in for any of that strong, silent crushing in
The Highland Heart
,” he went on. “I tell you, find out what she reads and you’ll find out the kind of man she likes.”

Molly’s lips folded into a thin line. She looked around the kitchen. A newly opened parcel of books for the library lay on the kitchen table. On the top was one with a brightly colored jacket portraying a Regency buck surveying a simpering miss through his quizzing glass. It was entitled
The Marquess of Maidstone’s Downfall
.

“Give this to Lord David,” whispered Molly urgently. “Tell him this is my favorite book and I wish I could meet a man like the Marquess of Maidstone.”

Mrs. Pomfret looked at Molly in bewilderment but she had done exactly what Molly had wanted before and had thereby rid herself of a blackmailer. With simple trust, the postmistress picked up the book. She was a strictly honest woman but for Molly Maguire she would have lied to the Archangel Gabriel himself. She hurried off into the outer shop.

Molly looked thoughtfully at her sister. “It’s a long time since we’ve been to confession, Mary,” she said.

“How can we?” said Mary with a mouthful of cake. “The nearest chapel is miles from here.”

“We’ve got our bicycles.”

“So we have,” said Mary, brightening. “But we’ll be late home for dinner and Lady Fanny will say we are so
undisciplined
.”

“We’ve been very good up till now,” said Molly, laughing.

“Man of my dreams, indeed! I wonder why he bothers? Probably he and Cynthia are planning to play some terrible practical joke on me. It’s just the sort of thing they would do!”

* * *

Lord David and the marquess climbed to the top of an old ruined tower at the end of the harbor wall and sat down to peruse
The Marquess of Maidstone’s Downfall
.

“Are you sure you want to be bothered with this?” said Roddy. “What was all that stuff the night of the ball about the Maguire sisters just being like any other girls?”

“I changed my mind,” said Lord David briefly. “Read.”

“Oh, very well,” said Robby gloomily. “But it looks like the most awful sludge.”

He bent his head over the book. Lord David propped his back against the crumbling wall of the tower and surveyed the scenery.

The sun was low in the sky, casting a crimson path across the still water and bathing the old buildings around the harbor in a rosy glow.

Swallows darted and skimmed over dark-blue water. People were walking about lazily or talking in groups. One by one the fishing boats were coming home. There was a faint smell of woodsmoke and fish and strong tea mixed with the piny smells of the woods behind the town. It all seemed very peaceful. For the first time he was aware of a feeling of holiday. He thought briefly of Cynthia. How on earth had he ever managed to let himself get embroiled? All he could do was to keep postponing the wedding date until she became tired of him. He had a longing to cycle slowly along the country lanes with Molly Maguire.

Far away along the curve of the beach, the sturdy horses were still pulling the brightly colored bathing machines into the sea, the women screaming with mock fear as they teetered down the wooden steps into the water. He wondered if Molly went bathing and was stirred by the age-old aphrodisiac of the sea, and the thought of Miss Maguire in a bathing dress.

Roddy’s voice broke into his thoughts. “This should be easy,” said the marquess. “Now this type of hero doesn’t go in for any strong, silent clutching. He actually presses her hand fervently at Almack’s on page one hundred and two.”

“You mean in the gambling club?”

“No, silly. Almack’s assembly rooms. Marriage market of Regency days.”

“According to my old rip of a grandfather, they got up to a lot more than holding hands, even at Almack’s,” said Lord David testily, “and what
is
this Marquess of Maidstone’s downfall?”

“His downfall,” said Roddy, reading quickly, “is a shy country girl who is fresh and natural and not like those other painted hussies. Her name is Belinda and she blushes and faints a lot.”

“Forget it,” said Lord David. “Molly is not going to faint and blush.”

“Don’t interrupt,” said Roddy. “The marquess is described as having an indolent manner, with indolent eyelids that seem to be closed half the time. Occasionally his eyes glint with mocking laughter as he flicks a speck of dust from the high gloss of his Hessians.”

“Sounds like a twit,” said Lord David. “How does the fair Belinda react to this half-awake lord?”

“‘He smiled down at her from under heavy drooping lids and she trembled with an awakened passion,’” read Roddy. “I’ll tell you why the girls like this sort of book and why maybe they don’t like us—particularly with them being Americans. We don’t behave like aristocrats. That’s what! Where is our languid indifference? One minute you’re swearing at Molly, the next you’re trying to play on her sympathies. As for me, I’m down on my knees in the wet grass asking Mary to marry me. We must be standoffish. Born to command and all that rot.”

“But how does this marquess eventually get to first base?—as the Maguires would no doubt say.

“He clasps her firmly and tenderly in his strong arms and kisses her passionately on the mouth. She trembles at his touch and faints from an excess of emotion. That’s on the last page.”

“She sounds like a bore in bed,” said Lord David.

“Tut, tut. They don’t get as far as that! Oh,
I
see. He rescues her from a highwayman.”

“Well, that’s out for a start,” said Lord David moodily. “Come along. We’re invited to the Holdens for dinner. At least that way we’ll get to look at them.”

But there was no sign of the Maguire sisters at the dinner table. Cynthia looked particularly glowing and beautiful. Giles was moody and silent—Molly Maguire had paid him no attention at all at the ball and had laughed at all his very best compliments. Lord Toby was staring moodily down at his dish of
Coquilles St. Jacques
, already seeing in his mind’s eye the scallop shells being scrubbed and cleaned in the kitchen so that the soulless Scottish gnome gardeners could regiment another flower bed. Roddy was plainly disappointed and showed it. Lady Fanny fretted over the lack of discipline in the young in general and in two American misses in particular, and it was left to Lord David and Cynthia to keep the conversational ball rolling.

Cynthia had been to a dress rehearsal of the pageant and was being very witty and amusing at the expense of the local yokels. She was indeed very funny and Lord David found to his irritation that he was becoming defensive about the townspeople. He thought the pageant was a splendid idea, and Cynthia should be flattered that she had been chosen to play the leading part.

“But she wasn’t,” said Giles with happy malice. “Mrs. Pomfret wanted Molly to play the part and Cynthia insisted that she play it herself.”

There was a frigid, well-bred silence and then everyone began to talk rapidly about something else.

Course followed course and still the Maguires had not returned. Lord David reflected that under normal circumstances he would have been quite worried about their nonappearance but thought cynically that the girls had heard that he and Roddy were to be dinner guests and had decided to stay away.

Lady Fanny continued to worry. “I really think I must send the servants out to look for them. It is not like the girls to be late, is it Wembley?”

“No, indeed, my lady,” said the butler, who had warmed to the Maguire sisters considerably since Lady Cynthia’s arrival. “The Misses Maguire, if I may say so, my lady, would
never
be late for dinner. They are too considerate of the servants.” Lady Cynthia seemed to have doubled the work of the household with her perpetual inconsiderate demands.

Lord David felt the beginning of a small stab of panic.

“Come along, Roddy,” he said with forced cheerfulness, “let’s go Maguire hunting.” He added under his breath after they had left the dining room, “If they are making fools of us, I’ll wring their necks.”

The girls were indeed late. They had found a small Roman Catholic chapel several miles from Hadsea. By some strange coincidence, the priest, Father McGarry, was American-Irish. The girls attended the service and stayed to talk to their countryman while the light faded outside and a chill wind corrugated the gray sea.

Molly finally became aware of the time. Both hurriedly made their good-byes, leapt onto their bicycles, and pedaled off furiously along the narrow country lanes. “When we get to the top of this steep hill,” said Molly, panting, “we can really race down the other side.” Despite her bitterness over the trick he had played on her, she had an urgent longing to see Lord David again. She was also worried about her sister. It was always hard to tell what Mary was thinking. She had been very quiet and withdrawn since the night of the ball. They reached the top of the hill, and the long, narrow chalky road stretched all the way downward. The countryside was deserted apart from the thick-set figure of a man standing in one of the fields.

Molly took a deep breath. “Here we go, Mary!” she called. And pedaling as fast as she could, she took off down the hill, skirts flying, hat tugging against the restraint of the hat guard, sailor collar streaming out behind her, racing down through the dimming evening light. Mary drew along beside her and neck and neck the sisters raced down, faster and faster. They did not see the glittering wire stretched breast-high across the road.