Justine Elyot (9 page)

‘Charles?’

The throaty tones of Lady Deverell were unmistakable.

‘I say, Charles, are you there? Did you get the gun? The fellows are all impatient to move on.’

Her footsteps echoed across the tiles and Charles dropped Edie’s wrists. She darted straightaway up the back stairs.

At the first landing, she heard Lady Deverell’s voice again, a purr now.

‘Charlie. Whatever
are
you doing?’

She didn’t want to stay to find out.

* * *

Oh, it was horrible, she thought furiously, throwing her uniform on to the bed and buttoning herself into the plain white blouse and blue hobble skirt she had worn on her journey. Sir Charles and Lady Deverell would not leave each other alone and they would be found out and the most terrific furore would ensue. If people spoke in hushed tones of the Susie Leonard affair, what on earth would they make of this? It would be in all the papers.

She put on her straw hat just in case the vague threat of sunshine proved more than idle, threw a light shawl over her shoulders, picked up her handbag and made her way to the garage to meet Ted.

‘Only a little bit late,’ he said, dapper in a striped blazer and highly polished boots, looking almost foreign out of his uniform.

‘Oh, look at us. We are like two regular people,’ said Edie.

‘Well, I should hope that’s what we are.’

‘You know what I mean. Uniforms rather take away one’s sense of identity, don’t they?’

‘I don’t know. Sounds like you’ve thought more about that than I have.’

He offered his arm, rather formally, and Edie wondered if she had offended him.

‘I didn’t mean that I
don’t
see you as a regular person,’ she said timidly as they set off towards the Kingsreach road. ‘Of course I do.’

‘That’s all right then.’

They turned the corner of the house. On the front steps, Sir Charles stood with Lady Deverell. Edie kept her gaze severely before her, focusing only on the point where the path away from Deverell Hall disappeared into wooded darkness.

Why did he have to see her with Ted? What if she had now made trouble for the chauffeur? She had the oddest fear that Charles was standing behind them, levelling his gun at their backs. Her neck prickled and she started to walk much faster.

‘Steady on, girl,’ laughed Ted. ‘We’ve three hours yet till the matinee showing.’

‘Oh, I know, I’m just a little hungry. Looking forward to taking lunch somewhere. What’s it like in Kingsreach? Any nice places?’

‘I like the Cross Keys in the market square. They do a decent lunch and a good pint too.’

‘Oh, a public house,’ said Edie, who had never been to such an establishment.

Ted laughed. ‘You make it sound like I’m taking you to Timbuktu. Last time I checked, they did have pubs in London.’

‘Of course. I preferred the Lyons Corner House in Coventry Street, though. Did you ever go there? It’s frightfully jolly.’

Edie felt a pang of regret at being so far from the buzz and excitement of the London streets and cafés.

‘I can’t say as I did. Perhaps you can take me there one day.’

She felt heat rise to her cheeks as he squeezed her forearm. Ted seemed to indicate that he had romance in mind. It was most awfully inconvenient. Why couldn’t a chap be content with friendship?

‘I don’t know when I shall be in London again,’ she said vaguely.

‘Do you miss it?’

‘Oh, I’ve hardly been away long enough. It’s odd not to be able to just go out and get whatever one wants, whenever one wants it. Everything is such a long way from here.’

‘Left any broken hearts behind you?’

Edie sensed flirtatious danger in the question, which she tried to laugh off.

‘Gosh, no. Well … no.’

Ted drew in a breath and tried to draw more from her with his steady gaze.

‘All right, there was a young man, a friend of the family, but he was considerably more interested in me than I was in him, I’m afraid.’

‘You’re running away from him?’

‘No, no, I’m not. That’s not why I’m here at all. In fact, he helped me to find this position.’

Stop, you’ve said too much already.

‘Man sounds like a fool, sending a girl like you away from him. What’s his game then?’

‘He doesn’t have a game, he just respects my wish not to be … embroiled in … that kind of thing … with him.’ Edie picked little darts from her skirt, trying to edge away from the hedgerow.

‘What’s his name?’

‘Pat. Patrick. We’re friends, that’s all. It’s perfectly possible for a man and a woman to be friends without the complication of romance.’

‘You believe that, do you?’ Ted’s expression made her cheeks burn.

‘If you don’t, then you should turn around and take me back to the house.’

Ted sighed and they walked on for a while in silence that was broken by the distant pop of gunfire.

‘Do you like the pictures?’ asked Ted, once they were close to the estate’s edge.

‘I’ve never been, I’m afraid.’

‘You’ve never been? And you a London girl and all.’

‘I’m more a theatre-lover … what’s that?’

They turned to look behind them for the source of the approaching racket.

‘Sounds like Charlie’s motor,’ said Ted and, sure enough, the cream-coloured car appeared around a bend, shattering the peace of the green-canopied road.

‘I thought he was with the shoot,’ said Edie, horribly apprehensive, more so when the vehicle showed signs of slowing down to a halt as it drew nearer.

‘Kempe,’ said Sir Charles, lolling behind his steering wheel and staring insolently at the holidaying servants. ‘You’re wanted at the Hall.’

‘I can’t be, Lord Deverell said –’

‘Are you calling me a liar?’

‘Of course not, sir, but –’

‘Let go of the girl and get back to work then.’

Ted stood for a moment, poised on the brink of argument, then his shoulders dropped and he exhaled noisily.

‘Right,’ he muttered. ‘Edie, can you forgive me? I’m sorry to let you down this time, but I swear I’ll make it up to you.’

‘It’s all right, it can’t be helped. I’ll walk back with you.’

She shot an unnerved glance at Sir Charles, who shook his head.

‘Don’t be silly, Edie,’ he said. ‘You’ve got the day off. Use it. Where were you going? Kingsreach? I’ll give you a lift. Hop in.’

Ted looked horrified, but he couldn’t say anything.

‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ said Edie, caught in a tight spot.

‘Nonsense, I won’t take no for an answer.’

He opened the passenger door.

Ted whispered something that sounded like ‘He’s right about that.’

‘Are you still here, Kempe? Run along, there’s a good man.’

Ted turned and stalked furiously off.

Edie looked after him, undecided whether to run and catch him up or stay here with her devilish tempter.

‘You’ve no business pursuing me like this,’ she said in a low voice, in case her words should drift on the wind to Ted’s ears.

‘You’ve a short memory, Edie. I believe it was you who had an interesting offer to make in my bedroom the other night.’ He paused just long enough for Edie to start wondering if her legs were about to give way. ‘Where was he taking you? Some tawdry dive, I suppose?’

‘The picture palace. And he mentioned a public house … I forget its name.’

‘Tut tut. I think we can do better than that. Why are you still standing there?’

He patted the seat beside him.

‘I can’t be seen in Kingsreach with you, for heaven’s sake! Imagine the gossip.’

‘Who said anything about Kingsreach? Come
on
, Edie.’

‘I don’t think it’s safe …’

‘Worried for your virtue, are you? The same virtue you offered me on a plate not two days ago. Come on, we haven’t finished our little discussion on that subject, have we?’

‘Oh. Haven’t we?’

‘No. Look, I’m considering your offer. I just need to give it a little more thought.’

He patted the seat again and this time she climbed in beside him.

‘Good girl.’

His approval needled her and she shut the door sharply, her knees pressed tight together.

‘Why aren’t you at the shoot?’

‘Why do you think? I’m not having you running around Kingsreach with chauffeurs. Cigarette?’

‘Oh … no, thanks.’

He lit one for himself and started the engine again. The car jolted off, almost jerking her out of the seat, but once it settled the ride was surprisingly smooth and fast, cutting a swathe through the damp green lanes. Such a thing did not belong here, Edie thought. A noisy, smelly man-made monster amongst nature’s abundance – it did not fit in.

It was important to fit in.

‘Where are we going?’

‘You’ll see.’

‘I feel rather as if I’m being kidnapped.’

‘You are.’

‘Gosh.’

She swallowed and looked at Charles’s hands in their driving gloves, so sure and confident on the wheel. Perhaps she ought to learn to drive. It did seem rather marvellous, to be whisking along like this with the wind trying to get at her hair under her straw hat. It was just as well she’d tied the ribbon so firmly.

‘You don’t have a chauffeur of your own?’

‘I neither need nor want one. I like to decide my own course. That way, if I want to make a diversion, I can.’ He made a sharp right turn into a narrower, bumpier lane.

Edie screamed, not having expected this manoeuvre, finding herself thrown against him. He kept one hand on the wheel and put the other about her waist, holding her close.

‘Exciting, isn’t it?’ he drawled.

He drove on a half mile or so, Edie trying to prise his fingers from her waist all the while, before leaving the road where the verge was broken, presenting an ideal little parking space beneath a grove of trees.

‘Oh, why have we stopped?’ cried Edie, feeling a great affinity with damsels in distress down the ages.

‘I wanted to take in the view.’

Since that view was of unbroken fields of corn, Edie rather doubted this.

‘If you think you can use force to seduce me –’ Edie kicked his ankle hard. He dug his fingers into her waist before removing them to rub at the injury.

‘You little beast,’ he hissed, eyes flashing with something not entirely of anger. ‘You needn’t suppose you can get away with that.’

Edie shuffled to the far edge of her seat, her fingers trembling on the door handle.

‘I’m entitled to defend myself,’ she said. ‘You should have let go of me.’

He reached across so quickly that she hardly saw him take her hands and wrench them away from the door.

‘Sit still,’ he said, ‘and stop behaving like a melodrama heroine. I’m not a rapist. I only meant to talk to you. I suppose that’s allowed, is it?’

‘If you’re telling the truth.’

‘Hm, well, telling the truth hasn’t always been my strong point but in this case I’ll endeavour to do my best. But you must do the same. I have questions I want answering and I won’t accept any subterfuge from you.’

He dropped her hands and watched while she folded them in her lap.

She was still shaking and she needed a moment to let the shivers subside before speaking. She stared ahead at the empty road and tried to forget that she was completely alone in the middle of nowhere with a dangerously seductive man.

‘You know that word, don’t you?’ he continued softly. ‘Subterfuge.’

She nodded.

‘You have an unusually broad vocabulary for a parlourmaid.’

‘I went to school, like everyone else.’

‘Like everyone else,’ he echoed thoughtfully. ‘You aren’t like everyone else, though, Edie. You’re a very different kettle of fish from the little sweethearts one usually encounters wielding the feather duster.’

‘Am I?’

‘You know you are. Tell me about yourself.’

‘There’s very little to say. I’m an only child. I grew up in Bloomsbury, if you know it.’

‘Yes, I know it. The British Museum and so forth. Quite an affluent quarter, isn’t it?’

‘In parts. Not all of it.’

‘You grew up in some basement hovel then, did you?’ He pulled off one of his driving gloves and held it by one finger, inspecting it idly.

‘We weren’t the poorest but we weren’t the richest either,’ said Edie briskly. She was trying very hard not to tell any outright lies, but it involved the full engagement of all her wits and she was already starting to tire.

‘What does your father do?’

‘He, ah, he’s …’

‘Don’t lie, Edie,’ warned Charles, fixing an intent gaze on her in which she felt imprisoned.

‘He is a teacher,’ she said, in a kind of desperately apologetic tone, knowing that this information could be the start of her undoing.

‘A teacher? With a daughter in service?’

‘He taught me very well,’ she said. ‘He is a strong believer in social justice and, as such, he thinks one should experience life on all levels and amongst all classes.’

This much was true.

Charles stared for a moment then laughed, throwing his head back on the car seat.

‘You’re scrubbing grates on your knees at six o’clock in the morning to make yourself a better person?’ he exclaimed. ‘You don’t even need to do it – you could teach yourself, surely? Teach poor children – there are plenty of ’em in London, I hear. Why service? It doesn’t add up, Edie. But perhaps your arithmetical skills are less well-developed than your social curiosity. Explain. I need to understand you.’

‘Well, you see,’ said Edie carefully, coming up with a faintly plausible explanation second by second, ‘teaching poor children in London would of course expose me to the lives of the least fortunate. That much is clear. But how does one come to mix with the very highest stratum in our society – the aristocracy? How does one do that without being titled oneself?’

‘Oh, that’s a very fair point,’ said Charles, nodding. ‘Of course, dukes and dairymaids mix much more freely now than they ever did, and perhaps that tendency will only increase. One need only look at our fair Ladyship to see an example of the kind.’

Edie made fists in her lap, bunching them tight in the serge of her skirt.

‘She is a woman who has made the most of herself, through talent and personality,’ said Edie, her voice a little hoarse. ‘For that, I believe she is to be admired.’