Love & Folly (22 page)

"'...and for bonnie Annie Laurie,'" Owen warbled, "'I would lay-hay me doon and dee.'"

Indeed.

"...oil of cloves," Mrs. Wharton was saying earnestly. "It is your only remedy for sore
gums."

"Er, yes," Johnny murmured.

At that point Willoughby Conway-Gore mutinied. Though he was not so boorish as to say so
directly, he made it clear he had had enough of Scottish warbling. He meant to indulge in a rubber or two
of whist, if Elizabeth did not object, and where the deuce were the playing cards?

It was that kind of evening. Johnny played whist with an inattentive mind and he and his partner,
the charming Mrs Conway-Gore, were soundly trounced. The Whartons departed. The ladies retired. Mr.
Conway-Gore bullied the earl into a game of piquet for chicken stakes.

That was enough for Johnny. He excused himself and went up to his bedchamber, convinced that
he should have stayed in London.

He rose early with a plan of action. It had come to him in the night, as good things often do. Still
in his nightshirt, he pawed through his travelling secretary, and found pen, paper, sealing wax and the
not-bad sonnet. He began to write.

* * * *

Possibly because she had spent the better part of two weeks lolling about in a darkened
bedchamber, Maggie also woke early. Her eyes opened and would not shut. It was her eighteenth birthday,
the sun shone, and Johnny Dyott lay beneath the same roof, even if he did despise her. She stared solemnly
at the canopy. Jean was sound asleep.

It was even too early for the servants to be stirring. Maggie clenched her eyes shut and willed
herself back to sleep. Silently she recited five verses of "Marmion." She turned on her side and put a pillow
over her head, but it was no use and her flailing about was beginning to disturb Jean.

Resigned, she slipped from the bed. Jean said "Mmmn?" and settled in like a hare in its form, but
she did not wake and Maggie tiptoed into the dressing room.

As she brushed her short curls she caught a glimpse of white near the bottom edge of the door. A
letter. Probably Owen plotting a tryst with Jean. Maggie rose and retrieved the envelope. It was sealed
with a plain wafer. She turned it over. "Lady Margaret," it said in Johnny's neat script.

Maggie's pulse thrummed. She broke the seal hastily and a slip of lighter paper fell to the carpet.
She picked it up and ran to the dressing table, both papers clasped to her bosom.

"My dear Maggie," it began.

Maggie, not Lady Margaret! She smoothed the creamy sheet, scarcely daring to believe her eyes.
Her fingers trembled.

Do daisies unclose betimes on their birthdays? If I were any kind of poet, and the
enclosed sonnet will show you plainly I am not, perhaps I could put into words how very
much I wish you well on this bright morning. I know you have been ill and dare not hope
that you may join me in the formal garden before breakfast, but, when you do read this,
know that I saw the day's eye open and thought of you. The best of happy birthdays, sweet
marguerite.

Your friend and devoted servant, J. Dyott.

"Oh, my word!" Maggie whispered.

The sonnet. She had forgot the sonnet. She picked up the other sheet. The poem was called "The
Pearl," another play on her name. It said pleasant, flattering things in neat iambic lines that even rhymed.
Maggie had never heard of anything half so romantical--and it was addressed to her, not to Jean.

She let the sonnet flutter to the surface of the table and stared at her flushed face in the mirror.
Her grey eyes shone and her mouth formed a rosy O. And she was still in her night rail and robe!

Leaping to her feet, she dashed to the window, flung it up, and craned out, but she could see only
a tiny corner of the garden. Would he wait? He had to wait.

As she scrambled into her green walking dress it occurred to Maggie that she had never in her life
dressed alone. Before they had Lisette's services to themselves, she and Jean had always buttoned one
another's buttons and hooked one another's hooks. Probably she was putting herself together all sidewise.
She swallowed a giggle.

She fastened her stockings and slid into a pair of stout shoes, smoothed her hair, and blew a kiss at
her excited reflection in the glass.

She was halfway out the door when she remembered the papers lying on the dressing table. She
retrieved them and slipped them into the pocket of her skirt. For once
she
was going to have a
secret. Jean would have to pry it from her.

She danced down the marble stair, tiptoed through the dim salon, unlatched the glassed doors,
and stepped onto the wide terrace that led down to the formal garden.

Dew still whitened the neat squares of grass and trembled on the stiff new leaves of the
rosebushes. She hadn't thought of the dew when she chose the heavy walking shoes--they had merely been
the first pair to hand--but she was glad of them. Her jean half-boots would have been soaked before she
reached the garden. She did not see Johnny.

As she approached the still fountain, however, she found him sitting on the stone bench by the
high wall, facing the sun. Perhaps she made a noise. He looked round and rose.

Maggie ran to him. "Oh, Johnny, I missed you!"

He took her hand, smiling. "Did you?"

"And I loved the sonnet. It was beautiful and...and very flattering."

He raised her hand to his lips. "Not flattering. Truthful."

She knew she was blushing, and looked away, unable to think what to say next.

Perhaps Johnny sensed her confusion. "Shall we go for a walk?" he asked, letting her hand fall
gently.

"Oh, yes," she said. "Yes, please. A long one."

* * * *

Jean thought the birthday had gone very well. Lying abed that night beside her sister, she turned
the day's events over in her mind like the pages of a book of hours. Owen had discovered a gothick book of
hours, writ and illuminated by a medieval hand, among the heaps of unpublished manuscripts in the library.
He had saved it to show her on her birthday morning, and though the writing was in Latin the pictures were
certainly very pretty. He had also writ her an ode comparing her to Jeanne d'Arc. He slipped it to her with
a very significant look. The poem moved her more than the illuminated manuscript, though Owen's
excitement over the gothick find interested her.

Unfortunately, Clanross had been in the book room with them all morning and the two men soon
went off into a discussion of how best to preserve the manuscript. Jean supposed it must be rare.

Whilst the men talked, she slipped Owen's ode between the pages of an unexceptionable novel
and read the poem through at her leisure.

She kept the book by her. She had meant to show Maggie the ode and did remember to carry the
book to their room, but the excitement of the afternoon and evening pushed it from her mind.

She and Maggie, Tom, and Elizabeth had taken tea with their three young sisters at the Dower
House. It was satisfying to read awe in the little girls' wide blue eyes as she and Maggie talked of London
shops. They had agreed with Elizabeth that it was better to say nothing of the riot.

Just before Jean and Maggie retired to dress for dinner, Elizabeth took them to her suite to show
them their mother's jewels.

The elder Lady Clanross had died when the twins were thirteen. Jean remembered her mother
well and did not need Elizabeth's reminiscences to remind her that her mother had been a very high stickler
indeed. Elizabeth spoke in terms of her own gratitude and affection, but Jean read the underlying criticism.
Their mother would not have approved the Greek Street adventure.

That sounded a sour note for Jean, though Maggie seemed not to notice. As she and her twin
pored over the trays of costly baubles, however, Jean's delight overtook her resentment. She chose a
diamond hair-clip and Maggie a strand of baroque pearls, and both girls were given diamond earbobs. None
of the jewelry was pinchbeck. It was the real thing, and Elizabeth gave them handsome leather cases to keep
their selections in when they travelled. They wore the earbobs to dinner.

After dinner, whilst the carpet was rolled and Miss Bluestone warmed up at the pianoforte,
Clanross took them to his study and presented his gifts. He had caused Rundle and Bridge to create
brooches for them, each to an individual design, each quite beautiful. Maggie's centered on a perfect black
pearl and Jean's on a cluster of fire opals. Both girls were struck dumb, at least for the moment, and Jean
half remembered the sensations she had felt when she fancied herself in love with her tall brother-in-law.
He was a very kind man. When her tongue unlocked she contrived to thank him. Maggie gave him a
kiss.

Fortunately, Maggie seemed to have pulled out of the dismals. She had even gone for a walk
before breakfast. She laughed and joked over a game of Fish with the little girls in the afternoon, and
partnered Johnny and Owen and Willoughby at the dancing after dinner, quite as if nothing were
wrong.

Jean's conscience still pricked her when she remembered Maggie's tears, but she was glad Maggie
hadn't got the headache on their birthday.

Emily set Lady Clanross's letter aside and watched as her husband concluded Tommy's reading
lesson.

Richard sat opposite the little boy at the battered schoolroom table that had served Emily and her
brothers. When Tommy stumbled, he looked up at his father's mouth and Richard said the troublesome
word in a low, unemphatic voice. Tommy gave a quick nod, like a robin dipping for water, repeated the
word with approximately the right intonation, and went on with the story. The same process happened five
times with no diminution of Richard's patience. He even contrived to look interested.

Tommy had had a holiday from reading whilst his father was in London. Though Emily felt mild
guilt for neglecting the chore in the confusion of the move, she thought Tommy had needed a break from
his routine. She was relieved to know that the little boy had not forgot his lessons entirely. He was also
speaking more often and more easily than he had been, though he was still hard to follow when he spoke
fast.

Tommy made his way to the moral of the tale--Mrs. More's tales always ended in an improving
message. Emily had long ago decided she did not like Hannah More and would cross the street to avoid
meeting that worthy philanthropist, but simple stories for children were rare as hen's teeth, so Tommy,
perforce, read Mrs. More's tales. Emily watched as her stepson was kissed and scampered off in search of
the other children.

Richard extricated himself from the low table and stretched, yawning.

"You ought to write stories for children--like the ones you writ for Amy when you were in the
Peninsula.
Your
stories would not make one feel faintly ill."

He cocked an eyebrow. "I think you disapprove of moral allegory. What should I title my efforts,
Unimproving Tales
?"

"
The Phantastical Adventures of Thomas Falk
, of course." Emily brooded. "You could call
yourself Charity Goodenough."

Richard laughed. "Or Robin Goodfellow. Have you had another letter from your
sister-in-law?"

"From Lady Clanross. She has sent me an invitation to Brecon. I discern Tom's devious Italian
hand." She handed him the sheet of fine, hot-pressed paper. It smelt faintly of otto of roses. Emily favoured
lavender herself.

Richard scanned the letter. "Handsomely put. Shall you go?"

"I want to know what you did to earn her ladyship's undying gratitude."

"Eh? Oh, the girls."

"What did you rescue them from, pirates?"

He explained the episode of the riot in comic detail. "Good heavens," Emily murmured,
fascinated and a trifle shocked. "They must be mettlesome young women."

"Spirited, certainly."

"Why did you not tell me before?"

"It wasn't my secret to share. Besides," he confessed, "it slipped my mind."

"Hmmm. And Johnny is in love with Lady Margaret."

"It would seem so."

"I can imagine Johnny in love with a demure miss with dimples, but a hoyden..." She shook her
head. She liked Johnny, but he was a very proper young man. That was what came of growing up in the
close of a cathedral.

"I fancy the hoyden is Lady Jean," Richard said. "In any case, Cupid definitely hit the mark.
Johnny spoke of marriage."

"But Lady Margaret is not yet eighteen!"

"Younger than she are happy mothers made," Richard said wryly, "though I think the twins have
turned eighteen. Johnny hared off to Brecon for the birthday fete. Lady Clanross will present the girls at the
June levee."

Emily rose from her chair and began to tidy the books on the schoolroom table. "Have you
decided what you mean to do about McGrath?"

When Richard had returned from London the previous week he had taken McGrath off for a long
walk, through the Hampshire countryside. McGrath had since conducted himself soberly in Sir Henry's
kitchen.

"I shall send him to Ireland."

Emily took a moment to digest that. "Oh, no! Peggy--"

Richard sighed. "Pegeen is McGrath's wife. If she chooses to go with him we can't stop
her."

"It's not fair!"

He was still standing by her chair with Lady Clanross's letter in his hand. He took a step toward
her. "Do you suppose these past years have been fair to McGrath?"

"I have made every allowance for his lapses," Emily said indignantly.

"Jerry is not used to being tied to a house. He spent fifteen years on campaign, thirteen of them in
my service. He was always a man I could rely on."

"I know that..."

"Then you know I cannot repay him by penning him belowstairs as a sort of drunken
house-dog."

Emily bit her lip.

"He's not suited to domestic service."

"God knows," she shot back, defiant.

"Jerry knows it, too. Why do you fancy he's been numbing his brain with gin?" Richard drew a
breath. "When I hadn't the means to set him up in a trade that suited him, I had to stand by and watch him
destroying himself. Now I can act. He wants to deal in horses and I think he can succeed at that. I mean to
send him to Cork with a letter of credit on a bank there."