Edwardian Candlelight Omnibus (33 page)

Billy shook his head. “He’s got another chap, and I ain’t exactly popular around here.”

Mrs. Pomfret wrestled furiously with her conscience. The vicar had said in church only last Sunday that one should truly forgive and help the repentant sinner.

“I have a little room upstairs,” she said slowly. “But I do not know if I could take in a
man
lodger. What would the people in the town say?”

“They wouldn’t say nuffink if we was married,” said Billy suddenly.

Mrs. Pomfret raised her thin freckled hands to her suddenly hot cheeks. “The whole idea is ridiculous. I’m at least thirty years older than you! Now drink your tea and we’ll pretend that you never said…er…what you did say.”

She searched her mind feverishly for some change of subject. “Do you still read Westerns?” she asked.

“Haven’t read one in weeks,” said Billy. “Couldn’t afford to buy ’em.”

“There is a new one in by Art Rudge,” said Mrs. Pomfret. “It’s called
Shootin’ Irons
.” She passed the book over to Billy. “Who taught you to read?”

“Went to school till I was eleven,” said Billy proudly. “’Course, that was before me Da…”Again his large hands parodied the hanging.

“Quite, quite,” said Mrs. Pomfret hurriedly, but Billy had opened the book and plunged in, his lips soundlessly forming the words.

Mrs. Pomfret watched him, realizing with a little shock that it was nice to have company, even the silent company of her ex-blackmailer.

At one point Billy raised his head in the slow manner of a large pig looking up from its trough and said, “If we was married, you’d have my pay same as your own,” and went back to reading.

The whole idea is so ridiculous
, thought Mrs. Pomfret.
Marry Billy, indeed! “But you
would be
married, really married
,” whispered a little imp in her ear.”
You’ve only been a
mistress
before
.”

Mrs. Pomfret resolutely banished the imp and rose and went to the stove to make a fresh pot of tea.

Molly looked in surprise at Bobby and Jim Wheelan. The twins had called at the Holdens to present their usual bouquet of flowers, culled from the neighboring gardens along the way.

“A
man
’” said Molly. “A
man
at the post office? Are you
sure
?”

The twins nodded their heads energetically.

“Sure as sure,” said Bobby. “Ma told me to go to the back door of the post office to see if Mrs. Pomfret would sell me some envelopes, even though the shop was closed.

“I knocked at the kitchen window and she came to the door, Mrs. Pomfret, I mean. And sitting at the table was this big chap a-reading a book.”

“What did he look like?” asked Molly.

Bobby frowned. “He was old…looked like him,” he said, pointing out of the window at one of the undergardeners.

Molly followed the direction of his grubby finger and her heart sank. For the particular undergardener that Bobby had singled out looked exactly like Billy Barnstable.

She came to a sudden decision. She had discovered that the villa boasted a gun room. She would find Lord Toby and turn the conversation around to guns. She would find out where he kept the key to the gun room and then, suitably armed, would descend on the post office after dark.

The thought of taking some action, however dangerous, was positively healing to the hurt she had suffered since her visit to Cuthbert’s. She had gone out of her way to avoid Lord David. She had prayed and hoped to learn that his engagement had been broken but, although Cynthia had returned to London, things in that direction seemed to be the same as ever. The sad result was that Mary had refused to see Roddy, condemning both Roddy and Lord David as a pair of heartless philanderers.

Accordingly, as soon as the twins had left, Molly ventured out into the garden to find Lord Toby. He was standing, berating his head gardener over the “depressing bally formality” of the whole place, and the Scottish gardener was grunting and refusing to take any notice.

Molly waited until Lord Toby retired, defeated.

To her dismay, Lord Toby refused to let her inspect the gun room. Ladies, he said firmly, knew nothing about guns and furthermore, he, Lord Toby, had such a beastly cold that he was going to be down since Scottish gardeners were an invention of the devil and nobody cared whether he lived or died. So there!

Molly thought quickly. She had a plan. She knew it was wrong but Mrs. Pomfret’s reputation must be saved at all costs. Sending up a small prayer for forgiveness, she told Lord Toby in warm, sympathetic, and cooing notes that she had just the thing to make him feel better. And she disappeared to her rooms for a few minutes and returned bearing a bottle of Maguires’ Leprechaun Dew.

“Dear me,” said Lord Toby, looking at the leprechaun. “What an evil-looking gnome.”

“But it
works
,” said Molly earnestly. “We wouldn’t have made our fortune otherwise. It’s not for children, you know. It’s only sold to strong
healthy
people… I mean, healthy people with colds.”

“I feel so bad I’ll try anything,” said his lordship. “Fancy me getting a cold in the middle of a heat wave. How much do I take?”

“Oh… a generous amount,” said Molly, crossing her fingers behind her back.

“Then I won’t need a spoon. Bottoms up!” said his lordship, tilting the contents down his throat.

Molly watched him anxiously. “Dear me!” said Lord Toby.” How very comforting! I feel quite well. I could dance.”

He executed a few nimble steps across the lawn and was brought up short in front of a shell-bordered flower bed.

Lord Toby stared at it thoughtfully as if he had never seen it before. He slowly bent down and plucked out a shell and threw it over his shoulder. Then another. And then another. “It’s beautifully simple,” he murmured. “Never thought of it before. Don’t like ’em? Throw ’em away.”

He then began running madly from flower bed to flower bed, until the air was full of a sort of shell snowstorm. A posse of desperate Scottish gardeners tried to restrain him but Lord Toby seemed to have developed the strength of ten men. “Hollyhocks.
Hate
hollyhocks!” he roared, plucking the offending flowers out by the bushel. One clump was particularly stubborn and he wrestled with it manfully until it came away all at once, catapulting him across the lawn. His keys flew from his pocket and fell on the grass. Molly picked them up quietly and headed for the gun room.

Lord David sat slumped in an armchair beside his study window, staring unseeingly out the open French windows at the garden. The heat was suffocating and with an impatient hand he wrestled with his necktie and threw it across the room. Then he unfastened his collar stud and the collar followed the necktie.

Was it some mad liberated American custom, he fretted, to allow a man to caress one intimately and then look at him the next day as if he had crawled out of a bit of old cheese? It was humiliating. It was dreadful. He was a fool to linger on here. Roddy also blamed him for Mary’s coldness and spent his days at the top of the house quite blatantly spying on the sisters next door. He came clattering into the room with grating cheerfulness, shouting, “You’ll never believe what’s happening next door. Old Toby’s gone off his rocker at last. Shouting and dancing and wrecking the garden. Lady Fanny comes out and tries to restrain him and he calls her a superannuated scout master!” Lord David looked at his friend with a dull eye.

“Don’t care, eh?” said Roddy cheerfully.

“Well, listen to the next bit of news. Molly picks up Toby’s keys, which he dropped when he was cavorting around, and sneaks off to the gun room, which is on our side of the house. She takes down a whopping great rifle, cleans and loads it like an expert, and disappears out of the room with it. Next thing, she’s skulking out of the house with a cloak on… a cloak in this weather, mind you, and heads for the town.”

“What on earth is she up to?” said Lord David, jumping to his feet. “I’d better go after her. If I can’t find her, I’ll ask Mrs. Pomfret.”

Molly hurried down toward the harbor. The heat was suffocating and humid. It was like walking through hot soup. Not a leaf stirred or a bird sang. The water lay in the harbor like black glass. Molly cursed herself for not having visited Mrs. Pomfret sooner. She had kept to the house like a wounded animal, nursing her hurt.

With a fast-beating heart, she crept along the side of the post office and looked in the kitchen window. Mrs. Pomfret was sitting in a rocking chair, sewing at some printed material that lay in her lap. Billy Barnstable was sitting at the kitchen table with his great head bent over a book.

Molly opened the kitchen door very, very quietly and leveled the gun at Billy’s head.

Lookee here, pardner. I’m takin’ all the gold mine for myself, and this here gun says there won’t be no arguments
, read Billy. This was a smashing book, reflected Billy. He could almost swear he had heard the sound of a rifle being cocked. Then he realized he had. He looked slowly around and found himself staring down the barrel of Molly’s gun.

“It’s all right,” said Molly. “Stand well clear, Mrs. Pomfret. I’ll handle this.”

Mrs. Pomfret jumped to her feet with a shriek and to Molly’s surprise she ran and stood between the gun and Billy. “Do not touch him!” she cried, quite in the manner of her heroines.

Molly put down the gun and looked at the postmistress, with her mouth open. There was a silence in the little kitchen. Far away the thunder growled and rumbled.

She found her voice at last. “Have you gone quite mad, Mrs. Pomfret?” she demanded. “This—this—man is a blackmailer and a murderer. What is the meaning of it?”

“He has repented,” said Mrs. Pomfret. “And we are to be married. That’s right, Billy, love, isn’t it?”

Billy smiled sheepishly by way of answer and tugged his forelock.

“Married!” Molly’s face was a mask of disgust. “
You
and—and—
that
—”

“Billy is a good boy,” said Mrs. Pomfret with quaint dignity. “He has given me his word that he
will
be good. You’ve got to trust people, you know.”

Molly was trembling with shock. There was a tremendous flash of lightning and then a terrific crash of thunder overhead and the rain began to thud down on the roof.

“Mrs. Pomfret!” said Molly in a voice like ice. “You are nothing but a dirty old woman.”

Two spots of color burned on the postmistress’s pale cheeks.

“And you are a silly and cruel little girl, Miss Maguire. The next time I see you I hope to receive your apology. Please leave.” Mrs. Pomfret held open the kitchen door. Molly stumbled out into the storm, which was lashing ferociously at the deserted streets.

Tears ran down her cheeks and mingled with the rain. She felt very young and very alone. She thought longingly of Brooklyn and cursed the day she and Mary had ever concocted Maguires’ Leprechaun Dew. Had it not been for that dreadful cough mixture, then she and Mary would be snug in Fulton Street.

She missed the life of Brooklyn, the hotchpotch of races, the feeling of being part of one of the youngest and most exciting cities in the world.
It would surely be easier to deal with the Chinese
, thought Molly furiously,
than these wretched English, with their rigid code of modes and manners
.

She was so engrossed in her misery that she bumped straight into Lord David, who was standing directly in her path.

He held out his hand. “The gun, Miss Maguire,” he demanded.

“Take your hands off it, or I’ll bean you with it,” said Miss Maguire savagely, making the long mental return from Brooklyn.

He held a large silk umbrella over her head. She did not look at all beautiful with her face twisted up with rage and her hat a wreck but he loved her. So he took her by the arm and tried to lead her gently up the road. The noise of the storm was immense. Great peals of thunder rent the heavens and shook the earth. The sea boiled on the shore and jagged lightning lit up the hellishly moving restless scene of swaying trees and surging water.

They walked silently side by side about six feet apart. He had tried to shelter Molly with the umbrella but every time he approached her she looked as if she would jump into the sea.

As they approached his villa, which was just before the Holdens’, he decided that he would have to kidnap Miss Molly Maguire. He could not possibly let her go home on her own in this state of wet and misery.

Luck was with him at the gates of his villa. A carriage came clattering along the road and Molly was forced to move onto the narrow pavement close beside him. Before she realized his intent he had tossed his umbrella into the bushes, swept her up in his arms, and started running with her to the house, seemingly oblivious to the hard punches she was delivering to his face.

Roddy was standing in the hall, staring in amazement. David dismissed him with a jerk of his head and carried the still struggling Molly into the drawing room. He put her down gently and then dodged as she swung another punch at his face. “I hate you…hate you
all
,” she was gasping.

“You will sit down—wet as you are—and you will not leave this house until you have told me what is the matter. I find you walking along in the pouring rain, clutching a game rifle, and looking like death.” His voice became very gentle. “I love you, Molly. Trust me.”

“Why should I trust anyone, particularly you?” said Molly, trying to wring the water out of her dress. “You left my arms and went straight to Cynthia’s bedroom.”

“I went to Cynthia’s
private sitting room
to tell her I had discovered the trick she had played on you and to tell her—”

He bit his lip. He had promised Cynthia faithfully that he would tell no one of their broken engagement until the fortnight was up. He had promised himself that he would tell Molly then. His promise would end on the night of an end-of-the-summer ball to be given for the girls by Lady Fanny. “You must trust me,” he finished lamely.

Molly looked at him in contempt. “You English!” she spat out. “Saying one thing and meaning the other.” She found herself telling him the whole story of Mrs. Pomfret, only leaving out the fact that Mrs. Pomfret had not been married.