Edwardian Candlelight Omnibus (34 page)

“You are very young,” said Lord David gently and then went on hurriedly for fear he might have sounded patronizing. “One doesn’t give up longing for love and companionship simply because one is no longer young. You talk like a fool, Molly. If sex is not a dreadful and dirty thing for the young, why should it be disgusting in the old? You owe Mrs. Pomfret an apology. Billy may be crude and vulgar, but I should think Mrs. Pomfret enjoys having someone to mother. She must be lonely and she could not, of course, live with him under any different terms. Love has many faces, Molly. If you do not understand love, how on earth can you understand my love for you? I hardly understood it myself. I had not really been in love before.”

She remained silent, staring down at the floor, the rainwater from her hat trickling down her face like tears.

“I have something planned for the night of your ball, Molly,” he went on gently. “Will you trust me until then? Is it so much to ask? I have given someone my promise and I am bound by it up till then. Now, come along and I will take you home. But trust me…just a little.”

Molly looked shyly up into his face. He looked very serious and there was an almost pleading look in his eyes.

Slowly she put out her hand. “I will try one more time,” she said in a low voice. “I will trust you till then.”

Miss Molly Maguire stepped into her long French corset with the frivolous little eau de nil roses on the garters and turned around so that Goodge could tie the laces.

The long hot summer had finally ended and already a chill wind was blowing banks of dirty gray clouds across the sky and sending the first dead leaves fluttering to the ground.

Fires had been lit in all the rooms and the villa smelled pleasantly of beeswax and wood-smoke. In the ballroom at the back of the house the musicians were already tuning up. Somewhere along the corridor her parents and Bernie Abrahams were also getting ready for the ball. Molly felt a twinge of unease. Her father’s “English” accent seemed even more peculiar now that she was able to compare him with the real thing.

Bernie was refreshingly the same as ever: loud, noisy, cocky, and perfectly prepared to compete with his English rivals for Molly’s affections. Mrs. Maguire was now thin to the point of emaciation and very overwhelmed at the honor of living in a “real titled lady’s home.” She overtipped the servants and kept apologizing for her very existence and rejoiced the heart of the housekeeper, Mrs. Barkins, who had at last found someone to bully, realizing shrewdly that the more she bullied Mrs. Maguire, the more Mrs. Maguire tipped.

Mary came running in, looking radiant. She had been a changed girl since Molly had told her of the odd conversation with Lord David. “He
is
right!” Mary had cried. “We must trust them—David and Roddy, I mean.” But she was just as shocked as Molly over the news of Mrs. Pomfret.

Mary was wearing her black hair dressed low on her forehead in the current fashion, but Molly had hers swept severely back from her brow and pinned in a top knot of curls which cascaded down the back of her head to her shoulders.

Mary was dressed in white chiffon trimmed with blue forget-me-nots. It was cut low to show her bosom to advantage and had masses of swirling chiffon skirts over taffeta petticoats.

Molly had chosen a severe gown in dull-red silk, falling from a low neckline to the floor in straight medieval lines. The sleeves were tight and long, ending in pointed cuffs. Lady Fanny had lent her a heavy ruby necklace set in antique gold. She had never looked more magnificent.

Lady Cynthia thought so as she watched the entrance of the Maguire sisters. This was her last chance for revenge and a weapon had unexpectedly been put into her hands by the arrival of the Maguire parents.

She endured the sight of Molly floating in the arms of Lord David, biding her time, and counting the minutes until the bell would be rung for supper.

Supper was in the form of a buffet in a large room adjoining the ballroom. Bernie was already there, holding forth to a large party of giggling debutantes, when Molly arrived on the arm of Lord David. The young people had obviously been drinking too much. The Maguire sisters were no longer a novelty, but Bernie and the Maguire parents were, and Molly saw at a glance that the bored socialites were hell-bent on mischief.

Thankfully Bernie was impervious to insult. He told corny jokes, he stuck his thumbs in his waistcoat, he roared and laughed. He told the company at large that he hoped to be married to Molly. Molly was irritated because Lord David obviously did not believe a word of it. Young people began throwing pellets of bread at each other and shouting from table to table.

Mrs. Maguire was shocked and distressed. This was not the way she expected English society to behave and said so to her husband, trying to shout above the noise. Unfortunately there was one of those deadly hushes in the conversation and Mrs. Maguire’s voice rang across the supper room with dreadful clarity.

Cynthia’s high drawl dropped into the silence following Mrs. Maguire’s remark like acid.

“It’s a good thing we’ve all been drinking champers and not that filth—what is it?—Maguire’s Leprechaun Dew.”

“Do you know,” Cynthia went on, “I had a bottle of that cough syrup analyzed and it’s one-hundred-and-forty proof alcohol! What a terrible country America must be. Why, you could kill little children with a cough syrup like that!”

“That’s one of the
old
bottles,” said Bernie hotly. “Stuff’s as safe as mother’s milk, now. We withdrew all the strong stuff from the market. Anyway, who are you to talk, sweetheart? The way you’ve been sinking the stuff you’d think you’d gotta hose in your left evening shoe.”

“Really,” gasped Cynthia. “Know your place, my good man.”

“You can’t put me in my place,” grinned Bernie, “cos I ain’t got one to be put into.”

“Have you tried Sing Sing?” asked Cuthbert in a conversational voice. “Damned racketeers all you bally American chappies. Thank God for old England, that’s what I say.”

There was a murmur of agreement. Quite a lot of the young men had been rejected by the Maguire sisters and quite a lot of the young ladies were jealous.

But the whole thing would have passed over had not Mr. Joseph Maguire decided to make a speech. As snazzily dressed as a New Orleans riverboat gambler, complete with frilled shirt and a plethora of rings, Mr. Joseph Maguire addressed the startled guests.

In what he fondly imagined to be the very best of English accents, he began: “Folks. Youse have all got it wrong. Me and my lady wife are as English as the next man. Why, just listen to my voice. What-ho! Toodle-pip and all that.” He gave a fat laugh. Nobody joined in but Bernie, who was leaning back in his chair, his little eyes twinkling with glee. “Attaboy, Joe,” he cheered.

“Now it seems that my lovely daughters what I brung up good are to marry into the arrerstocracy. Not that one young man has asked me permission yet but I knows the love light in a chap’s eyes when I sees it.” He gave Lord David a broad wink. Molly was dying by inches in her chair and did not see Lord David wink back.

“Sit down,” pleaded Mrs. Maguire. “Everyone’s laughing at you.” She held a wisp of handkerchief to her brow in what she fondly hoped was a genteel way.

“Sit down,” Cynthia suddenly mimicked, ruthlessly copying Mrs. Maguire’s gestures. “Everyone’s laughing at you.”

The company roared with delight as Mr. Maguire looked stupidly around like a large bull at the sound of two wives.

That did it. The young things had found a new sport. It was open season on Americans.

Catcalls, jeers, bread-throwing surrounded the bewildered Mr. Maguire. He looked slowly down at his wife, who was in tears, and then at Cuthbert Postlethwaite, who was laughing the hardest. He walked slowly toward Cuthbert and stood behind that young man’s chair. He gently picked up the huge Cuthbert as if he were no more than a rag doll, and with one massive sweep of his great arms, threw Cuthbert through the French windows and into the garden. Fortunately for Cuthbert the windows were open, but unfortunately the gardeners had been re-edging the flower beds and he landed on a border of razor-clam shells like a ton of bricks.

Molly sat in a daze of pain and hurt. Lord David was laughing at her father, great tears of mirth rolling down his face. He recovered and was about to turn to Molly and say, “Your father is absolutely splendid, Molly, I’m going over there to shake him by the hand,” when Molly walked away—over to where a large jelly stood quivering on a sideboard. She picked it up very carefully, walked over to Cynthia, and placed the bowl of ice-cold jelly upside-down tenderly on top of Cynthia’s immaculate coiffure.

The guests came out of their state of shock and joined battle. Lady Fanny screamed and wept as ice cream, lobster patties, cream cakes, and the rest of what had been a sumptuous buffet went flying around the room.

It was a long time before the guests realized they were fighting each other.

The Maguire family—and Bernie—had gone.

A thin, watery sunlight broke through the clouds as the good ship
Titania
eased its way out from Southampton docks.

“Good-bye, England!” said Molly viciously.

“I hope I never set foot in this cursed country again.”

A thin drizzle was still falling. Mrs. Maguire had gone to lie down in her cabin and was watched over anxiously by her husband.

Bernie, having ascertained that Molly would not consider marrying him, had cheerfully turned his attention to the prettiest girls on board.

The ship moved farther away.

“Look!” cried Mary. “Oh, look!”

The town band of Hadsea had rapidly debouched from a charabanc and were plunging into the resounding strains of “Rule Britannia.” It seemed to be the only tune they knew. Two little boys, recognizable even in the widening distance as Bobby and Jim Wheelan, were hoisting a banner in front of the crowd of townspeople. “What does it say, Molly?” gasped Mary.” I can’t read. I’m crying.”

Molly read slowly, “It says,
GOOD LUCK TO THE MAGUIRES. COME BACK HOME SOON
.”

Molly felt her own eyes fill with tears. The townspeople cheered and waved and she suddenly found herself cheering and waving back.

“There’s Mrs. Pomfret…and Billy, I do declare,” said Mary, wiping her streaming eyes.

The girls waved and waved until they could no longer see the figures on the dock.

“Well, I
never
,” said Molly Maguire, wiping her own eyes. “It just goes to show. I don’t think we ever really knew them.”

“It was so lovely,” said Mary. “The whole town must have been there.”

The whole town, except two certain gentlemen
, thought Molly, with a wrenching wave of sadness. “They’ve probably forgotten we exist,” she said. Mary nodded her head sadly. She did not even have to ask who Molly meant by “they.”

“Well, that’s that,” said Roddy, turning away.” I still think we should have gone down to the front of the dock and waved or something.”

“Why?” asked Lord David moodily. “Take it from me, dear boy, our romances were never meant to blossom. Of all the dashed self-sufficient girls…. Not an ounce of understanding for other people in her whole makeup. And she was downright cruel about poor Mrs. Pomfret. Look at the old Dowager Marchioness of Blexley. She married a young chap only this year.”

Roddy looked at his friend uneasily. “It’s not quite the same, you know,” he ventured.” That sort of thing always went on in our set. It’s different for people like Mrs. Pomfret. I mean, it’s scandalous somehow.”

“Snob!”

“Well, it is… different, I mean,” said Roddy stubbornly. “That old postmistress will come to grief. The townspeople don’t like it one bit. She’ll lose her job.”

Both men had remained at the back of the crowd of townspeople as the boat bearing the sisters back to America had sailed away. Both felt obscurely that they should have done something more dramatic.

“It wouldn’t have worked,” said Lord David gloomily. “Too much difference in race and culture.”

“What? Mrs. Pomfret and Billy?”

“No, you ass! Us and the Maguires.”

“It’s that difference that’s so intriguing,” said Roddy. “There’s a freshness, a charm, a—”

“Shut up. There’s nothing we can do about it now. Anyway, think of all the times you’ve been in love. You’ll fall for someone by next week. You usually do.”

Roddy eyed his tall friend out of the corner of his eye. There were times when Lord David made him feel as if he, Roddy, were back at school, tagging along at David’s heels and hanging on the older boy’s every word. He felt a little spark of rebellion. He no longer knew whether he was in love with Mary or not. All he knew was he had never felt so miserable or lost in his life.

Lord David swung himself into his new toy—a Lanchester automobile. He had fondly imagined bowling along the country roads with Molly Maguire, watching the sun on her hair and listening to the fascinating twang of her American accent. But the Maguires had gone and taken the summer with them.

“Never mind,’ he said to Roddy. “Think how super London will look after Hadseal’”

But somehow the wretched Maguires seemed to have tainted London as well. The prettiest of debutantes seemed insipid, the wittiest of remarks, mere social posturing.

His flat in town looked dark and gloomy and overly masculine, with its heavy mahogany furniture and framed hunting prints. Every morning he flicked hurriedly through his mail, looking for an American postmark and feeling weary and dejected when there was none.

After two months had passed since the Maguire sisters’ departure, he noticed with an almost clinical interest that the pain had not lessened. He had not seen Roddy for some time and began to wonder if his friend were avoiding him.

One of the least pleasant reminders of the summer, he reflected, was that Jennifer Strange girl, who seemed to have an uncanny knack of popping up like a rabbit every time he set a foot outside his door. Girls like Jennifer, thought Lord David sourly, positively seemed to relish being trodden on. The worse the snub or set-down, the more devoted she seemed to become.