Perdita (12 page)

“He need not have been. He is not at all . . . not that I mean to disparage him, you know, it is only that . . ."

“Yes, I understand.” He did not appear very different from John, only fairer of complexion. What magical element was it that caused the strange attraction we call love? And why did it forever go on eluding
me?

Miss Grifford pointed out the conveniences of the room, expressed her pleasure at seeing us, and concern at our having missed our aunt at Brighton.

“Such a stupid mistake really,” I said. “But we shan’t billet ourselves on you for long. We can return to London tomorrow.” Actually I was not sure John would take us, nor that the Griffords would be happy to lose him so soon, either.

"I hope you will stay longer than that!” she said, quite warmly, then she fled back downstairs to find John.

I was coming to see that we must notify someone of our whereabouts. I was consulting with myself on the advisability of writing home to Sir Wilfrid versus writing to Aunt Maude. I preferred the latter, but knew not where to post a letter. I should have left word at Brighton of our new destination.

As soon as she saw Millie pass by the door, Perdita came in to join me. “Is she not an ugly squab?” she asked.

“About the same size as yourself—perhaps a few inches taller.”

“I cannot fancy John ever offering for her.”

“She seems very nice. How do you think I should let Aunt Maude know we are here, Perdita?”

"Write and tell her,” she answered simply.

“Yes my dear, but write
where?”

“You will know what it is best to do” she said airily. Her present interest was to devise a coiffure that would cast the ladies belowstairs into the shade. While she discussed this with herself, I sat down to dash a quick note off to Mrs. Cosgrove, at all the possible places she could be. Bath, Swindon and Brighton must each have a message awaiting her. She would surely turn up at one or the other of them before long. I was still at this chore when our pitiful bit of baggage was brought up. One small case held our one decent evening dress each, and the nightgown and linens borrowed from Mrs. Alton, along with Perdita’s foolish purchases from the Pantheon Bazaar.

Perdita hung up our gowns, while I finished the letters. Then I indulged her in the wish for a new hairstyle, one seen on the streets of London, but that did not suit her in the least. Her hair had not been up in papers the night before, and lacked a curl. This being the case, it looked better pinned up, though the older style was not the optimum one for her face. It made her look a little like a child aping her elders. Neither was the hastily ordered gown ideal for a
young
lady. The bows were too numerous and too dazzling a shade of pink, close to red. I was not entirely pleased with my own gown, either, though it was attractive enough. Normally I would have worn a scarf around the neck, or at least a piece of lace tucked in at the front, for Miss McGavin had really cut it a good inch lower than I liked.

With so few accessories on hand, I was obliged to go belowstairs as I was, and maintain a rigidly erect posture, for propriety’s sake, assuring myself a small country party was not crucial for us. The guests were arriving in two’s and three’s when we descended to the hallway. They were of the very primmest. The vicar’s son and daughter came in, the girl wearing a gown cut up to her clavicle. She was amazed to see bare arms on the two of us. She actually bit her lower lip in astonishment, and turned a startled countenance on her brother.

She was followed by a squire’s brood, two girls and two young men. Perdita alone exposed more flesh then the two girls together. “You had better run up and get that shawl you bought at the Bazaar,” I said to her. It was, unfortunately, a shade of robin’s egg blue that would clash hideously with either her outfit or my own, but jarring colors were coming to seem preferable to flesh tones.

John came sauntering out to the hall as we prepared to make our grand entrance. “Well, Perdie, don’t you look fine as ninepence,” he congratulated, ogling her shoulders. “You don’t wear that sort of a getup when you are at home, by the living jingo. Very nice. You will make Mil—the other ladies sit up and take notice. You don’t look as dowdy as usual either, Moira. Must be the provincial company throws the two of you into a fashionable light. A rum do,” he cautioned. He was being cosmopolitan, to repay Millicent for scaring him. Now that he knew she still cared for him, he would mete out his revenge. But really he was as merry as a grig, beneath his condescension. “Two of the girls squint like a barrel of nails, and t’other is a squealer for looks. Of course they scraped the bottom of the bucket to find the ugliest ones they could, to make Millie look well. Better lookers might show up later. They are just beginning to come in. Tony says they are threatening a game of all fours, but Mrs. Grifford has promised some dancing later on. He says they have been in a pelter all day looking out for my carriage. Can’t imagine why.”

He latched his arm through ours as he spoke, to lead us in to meet the much maligned company. There was another knock at the door as we turned to leave. He looked over his shoulder to appraise whatever female entered. There was a muffled wheeze deep in his throat, followed by a crippling pressure on our arms. Before I could see what had come in, he tore into the saloon.

“What is it, John?” I asked. Oh, but I knew! I knew before I finished the question who had come in. Who else but our old nemesis could have affected him so deeply?

“I’m done for. It’s Stornaway!”

Perdita coo’d in pleasure, unlatched her fingers from John’s arm, and turned to leave us. I tightened my hold, and expect John did the same, as she emitted a little scream.

Chapter Ten

Stornaway was detained a few moments in the hallway with the hostess, presumably making some explanation for his precipitate entrance at her party, uninvited. “He
can’t
be here! He wouldn’t know Millicent from Adam,” John protested futilely. “I made sure I was safe once I got inside . . . He cannot be
staying.
He has come to the door asking for directions, just to get a peek and see if we are here. Some of my friends must have tipped him the clue I was coming. That flap-jawed Huxley is out causing mischief again. Never gets anything straight.”

“He got this straight at least,” Perdita said happily. Despite John’s harried protests of impossibility, it was soon known in the saloon that Lord Stornaway was here, and was to remain, at least overnight. Our informant was Miss Grifford, her face white with astonishment. “Lord Stornaway has come,” she said. “His carriage has lost a wheel just in front of our place, and he came to ask if he might stable it, and cadge a drive to the nearest inn, so Mama invited him to remain overnight. She is acquainted with his mama, you see, and once he learned
you
are here, John, he accepted an offer to join our party tonight. I did not know he was a friend of yours.”

“We rattle around town together a bit,” he informed her, not slow to claim friendship when it was clear as a candle Millicent was vastly impressed.

“Is he just staying tonight?” I asked, hope rising. We could stave him off for one evening.

"He only mentioned tonight, but Mama hopes she might induce him to remain longer.”

One could almost hear the mama’s mental gears ground round. Get Stornaway to stay and divert Perdita’s interest, so that John might be free to fall in love with Millicent. I acquit her of planning to nab Stornaway for her own daughter. She was too sensible a dame to harbor that scheme. It was impossible to discuss our maneuvers in front of Millicent. The whole had to be arranged by thought transfer, by reading between the lines, and by minute raisings of the brow or lip. My own notion was that there was safety in numbers. If we ensconced ourselves in the midst of a large group, he would not be likely to stalk forward and accuse us publicly of our crimes. Even a Stornaway must have
some
circumspection.

With this end in view, I hinted Millicent into presenting her party to us. There was no difficulty in getting the provincial beaux to clump around Perdita. By a judicious sprinkling of comments and compliments, I installed myself in the midst of the vicar's and squire’s daughters.

That is how Stornaway found us, when he entered the saloon some quarter of an hour later. With a truly single-minded purpose, he advanced to Perdita, who turned to greet him, her eyes dancing with laughter.

“Lord Stornaway, what a pleasant surprise!” she said, with a bold smile.

“Hallo, April,” he answered. “I did not think you would be surprised to see me. I warned Mr. Alton of my intentions. Come and tell what you have been up to these few days since I have seen you.” He held out his hand; she took it, and arose. That easily, he cut her apart from her safe numbers of admirers.

As he led her to a private sofa, he cast one scathing, triumphant, menacing glare at me. “How is business, Molly?” he asked.

“Good evening, Lord Stornaway. Nice to see you again. Did you enjoy Newmarket?” I asked.

"I did not go to Newmarket, ma’am. I felt the more interesting race was being run from London. At least the filly I am interested in ran from London.”

“I don’t think you are wise to pursue that one."

“Your advice comes too late. I have already bought her.” On this meaningful phrase, he proceeded towards the sofa in the corner. I could not like to see him alone with Perdita, but as long as they remained in the crowded saloon, and did not make any public exhibition, I would tolerate it, though every fiber of my being longed to dash over and pull her away by main force. I would have had to do just that to extricate her, for the silly, bold chit was flirting a mile a minute with him.

The good country folks present were not accustomed to such a brazen display of coquetry. She tossed her head, rolled her eyes, made mouths, primped her hair and smoothed her skirts in an endless display of bad manners. Every trick she had picked up from the forward actresses was put into execution, while Stornaway sat back, inciting her to ever greater lengths of vulgarity by his approval. As her laughter rose to immoderate heights, and as Mrs. Grifford began to look more frequently to the corner, I could stand it no longer. I arose and joined them.

“Try and remember where you are, and what you are, Perdita, and act like a lady,” I said angrily.

“Now you have just been telling me that is your special line, April,
acting
like a lady. Do as your mentor tells you. Let me see whether I can pass you off as a polite mistress, or must consign you to your apartment,” said Stornaway.

I had chosen my words ill, to have mentioned acting. His reply revealed that Perdita was making a game of the occasion, going along with his misconception. She was not really a bad girl, only young, innocent and ignorant as a lamb of such a character as Stornaway. In her mind, I knew she saw herself as the leading character in some romantic comedy. Every gesture was recognized from the mirror academy.

“I should think out of respect for your hostess you would choose some other time and place for this display of bad manners, milord,” I was goaded into retorting.

"Well acted, Molly. You have worked in some lady’s household in your salad days, if I am not mistaken. That sharp ear of yours has picked up the intonations of gentility very well. You must try if you cannot pass them along to your charge. Would you care to suggest another time and place for our meeting? Say your room, around midnight?”

Perdita lifted her fingers to her mouth and snickered into them, while I scolded her severely. Mrs. Grifford came forward and told us there was some dancing about to begin in another room. I did not know whether to welcome the news or not, but when Perdita bounced up immediately, ready to abandon Stornaway, I quickly decided it was good. He turned to follow her, but I detained him by a fast hand on the arm. He raised an imperious brow, ready to physically shake me off. I longed to slap that lean, arrogant, aristocratic face.

"I would like this opportunity to speak to you in private a moment,” I said, very firmly. With Mrs. Grifford looking on, her eyes as big as apples, he did not argue, but sat down impatiently.

“Well, well,” he said, leaning back to make himself comfortable. “Fancy meeting you here, Molly. I made sure Alton’s first move would be to consign you to Jericho. It will be mine. What’s a girl like you doing in a nice place like this, if I may rearrange an old cliché? Is this in the nature of a dress rehearsal for April’s debut at the Garden, or do you plan to present her as St. James’s instead? She made some comical sounds about being a real lady, when first I joined her.”

"That are you doing here?”

“I asked you first, and am still awaiting an answer. Well?”

“We are visiting friends.”

“Friends who never heard of you, till Alton had the impertinence to drag you in, uninvited.”

“Why did you come?”

"I am visiting friends. But mostly I have come to collect my filly.”

"I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Our three-cornered deal with Daugherty. He was to give you your cut, fifty-fifty, right down the middle. I went back and beat my five hundred out of him, for letting her bolt.”

"Five hundred! He told me fifty!”

“Ah, the subject
did
arise, did it? How fallible a thing is woman’s memory. A little more assistance and you might remember which stocking top you have your share tucked into. I mean to have April, or my money back.”

“I didn’t take a single sou from him. I had no idea what he was up to.”

"Tch, tch. What a lying rogue it is! You’re a sly one, Molly, and a better actress than April will ever be, but you are no match for me. If you are wise, you will stand aside and let me through. I am not about to be bested by a female of your ilk. I cut my teeth several years ago, where bawds are concerned.”

“I don’t have the money, I tell you.”

“I don’t want the money. I want April. What did you do with so much blunt? I see April is decked in new silk and too many yards of gaudy ribbon. A new costume yourself as well, if I am not mistaken?” he added, subjecting my body to a bold scrutiny.