Edwardian Candlelight Omnibus (7 page)

Her humiliation was about to be completed. The door behind her opened and Edward, Marquis of Wollerton, strode into the room.

His hooded eyes flicked from Peter, who was standing holding a string of sausages to the cheerful, smiling face of Mrs. Marsh.

Peter was grinning. “I have not yet been formally introduced to this lady,” he said, waving a white hand toward Mrs. Marsh.

Polly gathered her wits together and performed the introductions with grace.

“Your
mother
,” said Lord Peter maliciously. “I thought you said your parents were killed at sea.”

Mrs. Marsh’s shrewd eyes roamed from Polly’s distressed face to Lord Peter’s malicious one. “Oh, you’re thinking of Uncle Albert,” she said cheerfully, “’im that was a stoker. Got washed overboard at Liverpool. That’s who yer mean, isn’t it ducks?”

Polly nodded gratefully but Lord Peter gleefully tried to bait her. “But you said—” he began.

The marquis felt it was time to intercede. “That’s enough, Peter,” he said quietly. “I was told you would be here and wish to discuss a matter of business with you but it can wait. Are you and Miss Marsh going anywhere?”

“Yes,” said Peter sulkily. “I was going to take Miss Marsh for a drive.”

“Then don’t let us keep you,” said the marquis languidly. “Mrs. Marsh looks as if she could do with a strong cup of tea. Would you be my guest, Mrs. Marsh?”

“That would be luverly,” said Mrs. Marsh, lumbering to her feet and gratefully surrendering her heavy shopping bags into the marquis’s hands. “Take care of yerself, Pol. ’Ere! Wait a minute.”

Mrs. Marsh took in the full glory of her daughter’s appearance. Polly was wearing Lady Jellings’s rose silk gown. It was striped with inserts of rose velvet and she wore a shady rose velvet hat topped with large silk roses.

“That’s about two hundred guineas you’ve got on yer back,” said Mrs. Marsh slowly, “and I’d like to know where it came from.”

Polly blushed the color of her gown. “Lord Peter’s friend, Miss Carruthers, left me her wardrobe.”

“Hoh! That’s all right, me girl. You had me worried for a bit,” said Mrs. Marsh with a hard look at Lord Peter.

“Come along,” said the marquis gently, taking Mrs. Marsh by the arm, “and we’ll leave these young things to enjoy their outing.”

“Ta, ever so, me lord,” said Mrs. Marsh. “Goodbye, Pol. Be good.” She gave her daughter a quick hug and a kiss and departed with the marquis. He helped her up into his carriage and then leaned forward. “The Ritz, John, if you please.” Mrs. Marsh leaned back and heaved a sigh of pure pleasure.

To Polly’s disappointment they did not go to Hyde Park but to St. James’s. Hyde Park would be such a vulgar crush, said Peter, and Polly gloomily assented. All the fashionable world would be parading along the Row but she still felt too faint after her recent humiliations to protest. They left the carriage in Birdcage Walk and promenaded along beside the lake.

Polly stared unseeingly at the sunny water. She must say something.

“I’m sorry—very sorry about this afternoon,” she said with a rush. “I lied about my parents.”

“That’s all right,” said Peter. “We all tell lies like that some time or another.”

Not if your father’s a duke, you don’t
, thought Polly.

They halted at the railings to watch a family of ducks. Polly looked down and realized that Peter had covered her gloved hand with his own and was pressing it warmly. “Nothing you say or do could upset me, Polly,” he said in a low, intense voice. “And I want you to call me Peter.”

“Peter,” said Polly shyly, glancing up at his handsome profile. This must be love… this heady feeling. She fought down the niggling voice at the back of her brain that was telling her that the thrill was caused by calling a young lord by his christian name.

He took her arm and they walked slowly on. “I’ve got a bit of bad news, Polly,” said Peter. “Father called at my diggings just before I left to meet you. I’m joining Westerman’s—”

“But that’s tremendous, Peter,” interrupted Polly. “I shall see you every day.”

“Westerman’s offices in Bengal,” he said gloomily. “I won’t be back home until Christmas.”

“Oh,” said Polly faintly.

“Buck up! It won’t be all that long,” said Peter. He stopped and took a quick look around. They were under the shade of a stand of willows and nobody was near except an amorous guardsman chatting to a pretty nursemaid. Peter circled Polly’s tiny waist and pulled her gently against him.

“We shall make the arrangements for our future at Christmas, Polly,” he said in a low voice. “You know what I mean.”

“Yes. Oh, yes!” whispered Polly, envisaging a large wedding at St. George’s, Hanover Square.

He bent his head and kissed her fleetingly and gently on the lips.
What a Christmas present
, he thought.
This lovely body in a little love nest in St. John’s Wood!

They smiled mistily at each other and walked on… unaware that their plans for the future were miles apart.

“So that’s the way of it, me lord,” said Mrs. Marsh, putting down her teacup. “Our Pol’s done very well, coming from a place like Stone Lane. You can’t blame the girl for a bit of snobbery. ’S’easy not to be snobbish if yer doesn’t ’
ave
ter be.”

“True,” said the marquis, leaning back in his chair and eyeing Mrs. Marsh thoughtfully. “Do you think Polly hopes to marry my brother?”

“Course!” said Mrs. Marsh. “Stands to reason. Young ’andsome lord like ’im. Nuff to turn any young gel’s ’ead.”

The marquis sighed. He had enjoyed Mrs. Marsh’s company and her gossip about Stone Lane Market immensely and did not want to spoil the afternoon. But he felt it was his duty.

“My brother,” he said, “is a thoughtless young bounder. I feel he doesn’t plan to get married for a long time, if you take my meaning.” Gold eyes met blue for a long moment.

“Well, Pol won’t settle for anything less than marriage, me lord,” said Mrs. Marsh. “I wouldn’t let her marry ’im anyways. No good comes of marrying out of yer class.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t go as far as that,” said the marquis pleasantly. “But certainly where Peter is concerned. He is going away, you know. To India. That should put a stop to his philandering.”

“Well, then,” said Mrs. Marsh brightening up. “Wot’s the two of us a-sittin’ a-worryin’ for. My Polly’ll come to ’er senses soon enough. Thank you fer the tea, me lord. Oh, lord! ’S’all right, not you. I clean forgit to give Polly them sausages and things.”

“Peter will see that she is fed this afternoon, anyway,” said the marquis soothingly. “I’ll send you home in my carriage. I’m going to walk to my club.”

And so it was Mrs. Marsh and not Polly who dazzled Stone Lane by arriving in a carriage with a ducal crest on its side and two stunning footmen perched up on the back.

The marquis did not go to his club after all, but to his young brother’s flat in Jermyn Street. He found Peter in great spirits, lying in a hot bath and drinking champagne.

“What’s the celebration?” asked the marquis, perching himself on the edge of the tub. “The loss of Miss Polly’s virginity?”

“Not yet,” said Peter cynically. “Pass the soap, there’s a good chap. Yes, Polly. What on earth were you doing squiring old Mrs. Marsh?”

“I like her,” said the marquis simply. “I don’t want you to have an affair with young Polly, Peter. First of all, the girl’s family is respectable—”

“Shoreditch! Respectable? Pooh!” said Peter rudely.

“I said respectable. Secondly, she works at Westerman’s.”

“Well, she’ll have left Westerman’s by the time I’ve got her to say ‘yes’ to my evil designs,” said Peter cheerfully. “What are you talking about and why are you worried about the girl’s good name? She’s working class and she’s a rotten little snob—lied to me. Told me that”—here he mimicked Polly’s voice—“‘Papa and Mama were drowned in the Indian Ocean. Typhoon, you know!’ She’s a stunning looker but take it from your baby brother, she’s a common little tart with the soul of a slut and that’s the way little Peter likes ’em.”

“I hope
you
get drowned in the Indian Ocean,” retorted the marquis. “If I weren’t sure that you would forget this nonsense by Christmas, I’d see to it that you were kept out there for longer.”

“I’m not a child,” said Peter sulkily. “Go chase after your own love life.”

The marquis shrugged his elegant shoulders and left. He resolved not to trouble himself any more over Polly Marsh. The girl was obviously pretty hard-boiled and knew what she was doing. And Peter would definitely have cooled off before Christmas.

Lord Peter sailed away to India. At first Polly received a few hurriedly scrawled picture postcards that she faithfully pasted into her album next to the Zena Dare pictures. Then even the postcards ceased to arrive.

Polly was not dismayed. It was not in the nature of young men to write. Why, she herself found it difficult to find the time to pay as many visits to Stone Lane as she should. For Polly was busy studying the aristocracy.

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.