Maggie MacKeever (3 page)

Had
Dr. Kilpatrick put forth an opinion at that moment, it would not have concerned Elizabeth Fry. Harley Street linked London with Marylebone. Within the brick houses adorned by large flat facades, tall sash windows and wrought-iron balconies, dwelt wealthy aristocratic folk, scholars and leading government figures and diplomats. How they must dislike to have the diabolical forces of reform, in the energetic person of Miss Phyfe, thrust into their ranks. Phyfe House loomed before them. Without ceremony Morgan mounted the steps and opened the front door.

As always when he entered Phyfe House, Dr. Kilpatrick was awestruck. As avid a student of architecture as of human nature, he was most appreciative of such details as the classical plasterwork, and positively covetous of the fine examples of woodcarving by Grinling Gibbons, projecting sprays of leaves and flowers and fruit worked almost in the round. Enviously he eyed the delicate vase-turned baluster and finely molded handrail of the wooden staircase. With less admiration he gazed upon the source of the irritated tones which smote his ear.

She was an elderly female in the garb of an upper servant, and there was a heavy Scottish burr to her irate speech. “I’m thinkin’ it’s mickle clansmen the master must ha’—and naebody has heard of the half of them, forayed! But we canna turn away a one of them, och noo! I wadna wonder at it if we were all found murdered in our beds one morn!” she uttered, arms akimbo, fists planted on her hips.

From this outburst, Miss Phyfe deduced that yet another claim had been placed on her absent cousin’s legendary hospitality. Morgan could not fairly bewail the earl’s openhandedness when by it she was provided a roof over her own head, and a pillow on which to lay that head, as well as several excellent meals a day. “ How could you leave them to kick their heels in the drawing room, Hannah? The poor things must be exhausted. Have some refreshments brought immediately, and chambers prepared. Alister, I am sorry for this uproar. You
will
stay to tea.”

 Dr. Kilpatrick glanced at the Scottish housekeeper. Here was no servant for whom a lowly place had been preordained. Hannah’s privileged position was a result of the fact that she had once served as the current earl’s nursemaid, during which service she had somehow inspired him with an uncritical fondness. Currently, the Scotswoman was glowering at the doctor in a manner strongly indicative of a wish that he would remove himself elsewhere. Alister made it no point to be so obliging. “I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

“Excellent!” retorted Miss Phyfe. “The family is so large and Charles’s generosity so well known that I am always a trifle apprehensive when strangers appear. Hannah is so unreasonable when she takes one of her dislikes! She did not even inquire the names of these new arrivals, poor souls—and to call a guest in this house a ‘flibbertigibbet,’ Hannah, is not at all the thing. Now, pray go and do as I have instructed you.”

Hannah was not so easily cowed. “Hech!” she ejaculated. “I’m thinkin’ we’ll ha’ more than a few trinkets stolen if ye go on in this way. ‘Twasn’t that ye should be welcomin’ the riffraff of London into his home that the master set ye up here, which he wadna ha’ done had he heeded
me!
Och noo, he must take in the puir lassie! Aye, and look what’s come of it! A parcel of beggars and cutpurses eternally straivaiguin’ aboot the hoose and helpin’ themselves to whatever isna fastened doon!”

“Hannah!” interrupted Morgan, bright of eye. “You are impertinent. I have asked you to fetch our tea.”

“Whist!” The Scotswoman dropped a curtsy as unlovely as it was insincere. “Impertinent is it? Dinna fash yerself, milady; I willna soon again forget my place.” On that cryptic and distinctly ominous utterance she turned on her heel

Chapter Three

The drawing room of Phyfe house was a large chamber done up with the utmost elegance. Doors, windows and chimneypiece were flanked by classical columns, moldings were carved with classical ornaments. Window curtains and wall hangings were fashioned of gold-fringed satin damask, a design of serpentine ribands and large flower sprays in white on a rose-colored ground. Pier glasses stood between the tall windows. The carpet boasted a heterogeneous collection of motifs in the Pompeian style, a large central medallion and narrow rectangular panels at each end. Yet in comparison with the lady stretched out so gracefully on the settee, all grandeur must pale into insignificance. Gloomily regarding the prostrate goddess, a second young lady sat in an oval-backed chair.

“Zounds!” uttered Morgan, advancing purposefully into the drawing room. “I am prodigious sorry that you have been kept waiting here so long. Unfortunately, there was an occasion when an alleged clansman decamped with a large number of portable items, including a pair of silver candlesticks awarded an ancestor who distinguished himself in the service of Charles II—
how,
I would rather not say! But you must be weary from your journey. Rooms will be ready for you shortly, and in the interim we shall have our tea.” Having so concisely summed up the situation, Morgan paused, expecting that explanations would be put forth.

Explanations were not. The dark-haired young lady continued silent, her gaze fixed on the carpet; the blond goddess did not stir. Could the creature be ill? Morgan might zealously thrust her nursing services upon the governors of Saint Bart’s, but she was not anxious to be tied by such duties to Phyfe House. She eyed Alister.

The doctor was deep in contemplation, not of the visitors, but of the marvels of Phyfe House. So total was his admiration that when Morgan’s elbow recalled him sharply to the present, he started violently.

Unapologetic, Morgan pointed. Obediently, Dr. Kilpatrick observed the settee. A fine piece of furniture it was; he particularly admired the three silken oval panels painted with classical figure subjects inserted in its back. Moreover, the lady stretched out thereupon might have herself served as an excellent subject for a figure study, so still did she lie.

Lady? What the devil was a lady doing stretched out like a corpse on Miss Phyfe’s settee? “Is she dead?” he inquired critically.

That possibility Morgan had not included among her various speculations upon why an alleged member of her family should assume so undignified a position. Frowning, she strode across the room and dropped down on her knees. Cautiously, she leaned closer to the prostrate form. The lady still breathed. Morgan touched her shoulder gingerly. The lady shifted position, uttering a delicate snore.

Exquisite features and golden curls were thereby revealed. Morgan knew that incomparable face, though she had not glimpsed it for several years. “Perdition!” uttered Morgan, and rocked back on her heels. “Sidoney!”

Trained, even in her sleep, to respond to her name—and very proud she was of the accomplishment—Lady Barbour blinked her huge blue eyes and immediately sat up. “Morgan, my dear, I am so glad to see you again. But what are you doing down there on the floor? It is not at all a ladylike posture. I shouldn’t have to tell you that! I had thought you should be the one to take Callie in hand—you do know the
crème de la crème,
even if they sometimes wish you didn’t, which is entirely your own fault, because you will not guard your tongue—but now I wonder if perhaps someone shouldn’t take
you
in hand! You’ve allowed the servants to get a great deal above themselves. We were treated as if we’d come to steal the family plate!”

That another alleged member of the family had already done so, Morgan did not again explain. Silently, she moved aside so that Alister could satisfy himself as to the existence of Lady Barbour’s pulse, a process during which Lady Barbour’s big blue eyes remained fixed soulfully on his homely face. Miss Phyfe recalled gloomily that before her cousin’s demure retirement into matrimony with first one and then the other elderly spouse, she had been an arrant flirt.

Dr. Kilpatrick was not susceptible to lovely ninnyhammers, having in the practice of his profession become inured to beauty, albeit of a very different class. “Right as a trivet!” he announced to the room at large, then abandoned Lady Barbour in favor of a close inspection of the room’s monumental chimneypiece.

Lady Barbour narrowed her fine blue eyes. She was not accustomed to such cavalier treatment. Never before had any gentleman successfully wrenched himself away from her languishing gaze, and certainly for nothing so mundane as a chimneypiece. It
was
a very nice chimneypiece, she granted; nonetheless Lady Barbour disliked to play second fiddle, especially to a cold hunk of stone. She immediately conceived an intense dislike for the gentleman who had forced her into so ignominious a position.

Meantime, Miss Phyfe pondered Lady Barbour’s sinister allusions to the
crème de la crème.
It was true that Morgan was, in one capacity or another, acquainted with those excessively well-born individuals who made up London society. Indeed, by birth Morgan herself was entitled to move within those select circles. Fortunately, from Morgan’s standpoint, her lack of fortune spared her such frivolity.

Frivolity! The word, nay, the whole notion of bedecking herself in laces and silks and jewels, and casting every serious consideration to the winds left her thoroughly appalled. And what had Sidoney said about taking someone in hand? Morgan studied the drably dressed, plain-faced damsel who sat staring so steadfastly at her feet. “This must be Callie.”

As always Lady Barbour was impressed by the swiftness with which her clever cousin Morgan put two and two together and arrived at the sum of four. “Whateley’s girl!” she responded. “I’ve brought her to town to make her debut. Oh, Morgan, what a time we’ve had—unaired linen and mutton hanging in the hall! Then we arrived here, only to be treated as if we were tradesmen come about an unpaid bill. Well! It is partly my fault, I know, for I forgot to send you word. But surely I can be forgiven for overlooking one little detail!”

Upon this assertion, Miss Whateley raised her eyes from the floor to her stepmama’s face, on her own plain features an expression of faint derision. She almost issued warning, but shyness tied her tongue.

That brief moment of rebellion went largely unremarked. Lady Barbour’s attention was wholly focused on her clever cousin Morgan, her own brain being such as could encompass only one concept at a time. “You are looking just a
teeny
bit out of sorts, Morgan!” she observed. “You must not let the misconduct of the earl’s servants put you to the blush! It’s not
your
fault if they’ve no notion of their place! Poor Morgan! I had not previously realized how dreary and dull you have grown.”

Naturally a lovely pea-brain would not appreciate the virtue of an existence devoted to good deeds. “You refer to my change of fortune, I conjecture,” Morgan retorted. “Don’t make a piece of work of it. I assure you I am used to managing very well.”

“I make no doubt of that!” Sidoney made a very roguish face. “It is
just
my point! Because though you may be used to manage,
I
am not! But I see now that my notion to bring Callie to London was even
nackier
than I had hitherto realized! You will be too busy overseeing Callie’s come-out to be dull and dreary! Goodness! Perhaps cleverness is something that
grows
on one!”

To this absurd assumption no adverse rejoinder was made outright, although varying degrees of skepticism illuminated the faces of Lady Barbour’s audience. Even Dr. Kilpatrick interrupted his inspection of the large embroideries which enlivened the wall panels. In the exquisite person of Lady Barbour was one of the greatest curiosities that Alister had been privileged to observe. With only a brief pang of regret he left off his study of the athletic amours of the Titans and moved closer to the settee.

Morgan had thus far said nothing, though her cheeks had gone quite pink, and Sidoney concluded that her cousin was too overcome with gratitude to speak. Good-hearted despite her countless shortcomings, Sidoney proceeded to generously elaborate upon the upcoming Season’s treats, balls and routs and soirees, formal dinners and appearances at Court . . . but Morgan was looking almost grim.

“Oh!” cried Lady Barbour, aghast at her own lack of tact. “Naturally I shall stand the expense! Although I think it is very shabby of Charles—his name is Charles?—not to make you an allowance. After all, he expects you to act as his agent.”

That she was made a very generous allowance by the eccentric head of the family, currently blithely wending his way through the more remote outposts of civilization, Morgan did not feel obliged to explain. Even less was she tempted to explain that her allowance went largely to support her work. “Let us talk without roundaboutation, Sidoney! As a member of the family you are of course welcome to the hospitality of Phyfe House. You may treat it as your home while you are in London. You may fill it to the rafters with coxcombs and court cards if you wish, and I shan’t protest.”

Here Lady Barbour felt obliged to interrupt. “Oh no, Morgan! Not coxcombs and court cards! You will do better than that for poor Callie, even if she does have no conversation! I depend on it!”

To convince Sidoney of something she did not wish to know was almost as difficult as to convince pleasure-loving peers of the necessity of Parliamentary reform. Remarkably frustrated was the lady who sought to do both. Miss Phyfe regarded the kingwood cabinet by which she stood—a handsome piece decorated with parquetry of walnut oyster shells, its doors lined with silk panels painted with designs of urns and flowers— and contemplated applying the toe of one mismatched slipper to the chest of drawers upon which the cabinet stood. “Don’t depend on me!” she retorted bluntly. “I have far more serious matters with which to contend than playing the wet nurse. Miss Whateley will forgive my plain speaking, I trust.”

“Miss Whateley may,” retorted Lady Barbour, herself bright of eye, “but I don’t know that
I
shall! You were always one to go off into odd humors, but this is the outside of enough.”

The advent of the tea tray interrupted this somewhat tense scene. In silence the participants watched the repast laid out. Of them, only Lady Barbour gave evidence of good appetite, exactly as if she foresaw her every whim gratified. Exasperated, Miss Phyfe eyed the tea urn stand. It was a light and attractive specimen, with cluster column legs, crossed stretchers and a fretted back. Morgan’s almost overpowering impulse was to hurl it into the fireplace.