Maggie MacKeever (14 page)

Past booksellers the ladies strolled, dealers in toys and knickknacks, rare china and tea. Briefly, Delilah was distracted by a bird-stuffer’s shop which displayed parrots, birds of paradise, hummingbirds with gorgeous plumage. With difficulty, Miss Baskerville persuaded her that the duke would not appreciate the introduction of a stuffed bird into his drawing room. And then they embarked upon a whirlwind tour of the shops that specialized in lace and ribbons and similar folderols and furbelows so dear to the feminine heart.

Muslin and cambric and bombazine they inspected, jaconet and sarcenet and crepe. Silk turbans received their attention, bonnets trimmed with flowers, ruchings, lace. The advantages of a silken Norwich shawl with a Kashmir pattern were discussed, as opposed to a large Indian shawl that wrapped around the figure. The ladies were unanimously in favor of tippets with long hanging ends, made of lawn or lace or swansdown, for day or evening wear; and opposed to the Apollo, a sort of underdress or corset worn to make the waist look slender, which Delilah compared unflatteringly to a coat of chain mail. She approved wholeheartedly, however, the daring French fashion of pantalets of flesh-colored satin, made to be worn in place of a petticoat. And she dissolved in helpless giggles at the sight of an artificial bosom made of wax.

“Cotton, I think, might be more practical,” she said, as they exited to the shopkeeper’s relief. The young lady had been outspoken, and the modiste had not appreciated comments on shoddy workmanship and inferior goods. “Binnie, do look! That man is trying to steal Caliban!”

Miss Baskerville obeyed, not out of concern for the hound they’d left in the care of the footman, but in hope that the would-be dognapper might succeed. No desperate ruffian confronted her, but an all-too-familiar figure in excellently cut morning garb. “Mark!” she said faintly.

Delilah was rather surprised that Binnie should number among her acquaintance a dog-thief; she took a closer look. Aha! It was not the gentleman who had hold of the dog but vice versa: Caliban had rendered the gentleman immobile by clamping his teeth around a once-immaculate sleeve. “Caliban, release the poor man instantly!”

Caliban knew that tone, and it boded him no good. A hard row to hoe was a dog’s life. He groveled dejected in the street.

“Mark, has he hurt you?” Binnie hurried forward, her embarrassment forgotten in concern.

So this was Mark, whom the duke had accused Binnie of treating badly? Delilah regarded him.

Mark, recipient of that freckled stare, returned the compliment, and decided that he saw nothing at all to admire in such a brazen chit. Made aware of this staring-match, Binnie hastily performed introductions. “No, I’m not hurt,” Mark said belatedly. “I recognized your footman and thought I’d wait for you, and this beastly hound made sure of it.”

“You must have tried to pet him,” Delilah said disapprovingly. This high-minded gentleman was dancing attendance on Miss Baskerville? Fortunate then that Binnie’s affections had not become fixed. “Caliban doesn’t permit strangers to pet him. He probably thought you were trying to steal him, in which case he acted very properly!” She bent to pat the dog. “And in that case, he certainly didn’t deserve a scold.”

That anyone should wish to steal such an ugly and ill-tempered beast was beyond Mark’s imagining. Diplomatically, he kept that viewpoint to himself. “My dear, I’ve the strangest feeling that you’ve been avoiding me.”

Though this remark was murmured, and intended only for Binnie’s ears, Delilah could not fail to overhear. Nor did she fail to note that her benefactress was looking very uncomfortable. “Oh, you must blame me!” she said brightly. “I am a selfish creature, and I’ve been taking up all of Binnie’s time. It is no easy thing, sir, this preparation of a young lady to be launched into society!”

Again Mark refrained from comment, this time to the effect that the preparation of the irrepressible Miss Mannering for her debut would be little short of a Herculean feat. Instead, he asked if the ladies had further errands to execute, and offered his escort. “You will be beyond bored,” Binnie protested.

“Fiddle!” interjected Delilah. “If we find it amusing, why should he not? He may even learn something.”

In this prediction, Miss Mannering was correct. What Mark learned—as the ladies inspected gloves of York tan and Limerick, evening gloves of white kid, French gloves trimmed with niching around the top—was that he had a distinct and most ungentlemanly aversion to Miss Mannering. It was not only her monopolization of Binnie that prompted this dislike; Mark was put off by the freakish and the bizarre. Delilah was bold as a brass-faced monkey, he decided, as the ladies pondered the relative merits of reticules, lozenge-shaped and circular, on silver or gilt frames, knitted with beads, embroidery, appliquéd, painted. Her conduct was altogether displeasing to him.

Binnie was aware of Mark’s opinion of her protégée, nor could she blame him for it; the usually amiable Delilah was going on in a thoroughly abominable way. In fact, she was acting like the rawest country miss, without the least notion of acceptable behavior. Binnie cast her charge a reproachful glance.

Delilah was truly sorry that she had put her mentor to the blush, but there was no help for it. She would make it up to Binnie later.
Much
later, she might even explain. At the moment she was wholly concerned with making the so-proper Mr. Dennison think her the kind of chit who took all sorts of encroaching fancies.

In that endeavor, Delilah met with very great success. Mr. Dennison was on the verge of soundly depressing her pretensions when fate, in the guise of Miss Choice-Pickerell, intervened.

“Good morning!” said that lady, who was in an excellent frame of mind. Neal’s sister, in front of such an audience, would not dare cut her cold. “How fortuitous is this meeting! I have been wishing to speak with you, dear Miss Baskerville.”

Binnie had no choice but to perform further introductions, though it seemed to Mark’s suddenly critical eye that she did so with scant grace. Cressida’s gray glance fixed immediately on Delilah. “So this is our little heiress!” she said, with a fine condescension that set Binnie’s teeth on edge. “Well, she’s not a beauty, but with such a fortune she still may take. That was what I wished to speak to you about, Miss Baskerville. I meant to offer you my assistance—since I am soon to be one of the family.”

This speech, delivered with all the lack of consideration for the feelings of lesser mortals of a
très grande dame,
inspired Binnie with a strong wish to throttle her cousin the duke, who had permitted Neal to embark upon a piece of folly that could only make his life miserable. As well as her own, Binnie added silently. Unless she severed connections with her brother, she could not avoid his wife.

Further disturbed by the hostile silence maintained by the charmer of his heart and soul, Mark stepped into the breach. It was very thoughtful of Miss Choice-Pickerell, he averred, to so concern herself. Cressida, put on her mettle by her future sister-in-law’s glaring lack of gratitude, confessed that since she was so conversant with the laws of conduct ruling polite society, she would consider it very remiss in herself to fail and offer assistance in what could only be a wearing task.

Apparently Cressida did not believe that Binnie’s knowledge of those laws was on a par with her own. Binnie could not fault Miss Choice-Pickerell for that conclusion; Binnie was acting as rag-mannered as Delilah herself. It occurred to her that Delilah was very meekly accepting Cressida’s unflattering comments. The reason for that forbearance soon became apparent: Delilah was gone.

Binnie looked anxiously around, an act that inspired Cressida with burning curiosity. “Miss Baskerville, whatever is wrong? You are gone quite white! And where is Miss Mannering?” And then Cressida glimpsed the heiress, on the opposite side of the street, engaged in conversation with a gaudy raggle-taggle creature with countless tawdry chains around her neck and arms and untidy dark hair. “This passes belief!” Cressida gasped. “A young lady of breeding—imprudent—unmaidenly!”

“You refine too much on it,” Binnie retorted, though without conviction. “I’m sure there’s some explanation.”

If Miss Baskerville saw no harm in her charge’s public conversation with such a slovenly female, thought Cressida, then she shared the Baskerville disregard of what was proper with her brother Neal. Never had Cressida known such a wrong-thinking pair. This was an opinion unwittingly shared with Mr. Dennison who, though he was not thinking of Neal, was very definitely thinking that Binnie displayed a startling want of conduct. First she cut an unexceptionable young lady like Miss Choice-Pickerell dead in the streets, and now she came to the defense of a chit to whom Mark took very strong exception indeed. Surely Binnie could not be blind to Delilah’s faults? In Mark’s opinion, the chit should have been left in the tinkers’ camp. Clearly it was a way of life to which she had been perfectly suited. With deep disapproval he watched her dart back across the street.

Delilah was frowning as she rejoined the group. Becoming aware of their combined censure, she looked innocent and blushed. “Have I behaved badly? I do hope not! But I saw a—a gypsy, and wished to have my fortune told. Just fancy, I shall take a journey, and meet a handsome gentleman, and have a brood of children! She swore it to me, lest her eyes fall from her head. And I have already taken the journey, have I not? So now I may look forward to the handsome gentleman and our offspring!”

Association with Miss Mannering was having an adverse effect on her benefactress; faced with Delilah’s patent but cheerful wrong-headedness, Binnie was less censorious than amused. “One hopes,” she said, with mock severity, “that somewhere between those two events you will take time out to be wed.”

“Oh, I shall!” Delilah grinned. “You needn’t fret yourself on
that
head!”

Cressida, stricken dumb by the heiress’s outrageous antics, regained her powers of speech. As would be quickly demonstrated, Cressida had no patience whatsoever with wrong-headedness. “Gracious! I am surprised at you, Miss Baskerville! Surely you must be concerned that Miss Mannering has sullied her reputation by engaging in the most undesirable behavior.”

“I have?” Delilah looked intrigued.

“You have.” Cressida’s regal bearing indicated a consciousness of her superior standing: she looked down her patrician nose. “This willingness to converse with persons of low station can only bring you under the gravest censure, Miss Mannering.”

“You have,” said Delilah, with the air of one making an important discovery, “a strong sense of propriety.”

“Naturally.” Cressida looked stern. “I trust you will not take it adversely, dear Sybil, when I say that Miss Mannering is likely to sink herself quite below reproach if you do not intervene. But perhaps,” and she cast Mark an arch look, “you would prefer to otherwise pass your time. In which case, I will be happy, as
I have said previously, to lend a hand.”

Never had Cressida expected her magnanimous offer to be turned down. She was very much surprised when the object of her benevolence uttered an emphatic negative.

“No,” repeated Delilah, in the tone of one who will brook no argument. “You are a great deal too nice in your notions, ma’am, and I do not like to be pinched at or patronized or moralized over. Beside, I already have Binnie to look after me, and
we
rub along together very well.”

Nor had Cressida ever received so sharp a setdown. She gasped. “I dislike your manner, miss!”

Binnie regarded her prospective sister-in-law’s indignant countenance, and her protégée’s stubborn one, and leapt into the fray. “And I think very poorly of
your
manners, Miss Choice-Pickerell! Whatever your aspirations, you are not yet a member of the family. In attempting to meddle where you have no place, you are as guilty of presumption as Delilah is of impulsiveness.”

“Well!” ejaculated Cressida. “Of all the unjust things to say!”

“Unpalatable, perhaps,” retorted Binnie, with immense satisfaction, “but not at all unjust. And now, Miss Mannering and I must bid you good-day!”

Cressida stared after them, pale with outrage. It was a few moments before she realized that Mr. Dennison had not escorted the ladies, but had stayed with her. She blinked at him.

Every bit the gentleman, and also feeling that Miss Choice-Pickerell had been grievously abused, Mark set out to soothe her. He couldn’t imagine why Binnie had flown into the boughs. Miss Choice-Pickerell might have phrased her observations a trifle more tactfully, perhaps, but she had spoken only the truth. There was no sense to be made of Binnie’s rudeness. Perhaps the duke had not been guilty of gross exaggeration when he nicknamed his cousin Miss Prunes and Prisms.

Meanwhile, Miss Prunes and Prisms and her protégée had taken refuge in a shop. Delilah, poking through a pile of flesh-colored knitted vests, gave it as her opinion that her benefactress had dealt the odious Miss Choice-Pickerell a crushing blow.

“Would that I had! That tiresome creature! But I’m afraid she’s uncrushable.”

It was clear to Delilah, from the gloomy manner in which Binnie was contemplating an extremely light and transparent chemise, that Miss Baskerville was already repenting her hasty words. “Make yourself easy!” she said kindly. “Miss Choice-Pickerell isn’t likely to tell your brother you sent her off with a flea in her ear; it shows her in too bad a light! I’ll admit it has me quite in a puzzle why he should be hankering after her.”

Binnie struggled with her conscience—for in no wise should she have been discussing her brother’s fiancée with Miss Mannering—and lost. “To own the truth, I feel the same way! I cannot think them at all suited, and I fear Neal will be miserably unhappy.”

Delilah ruminated. “I’ll tell you what it is!” she said, after a moment. “Perhaps he was  a little bosky at the time. I’ll wager he’s already regretting asking her to marry him, but doesn’t know how to cry off. We must
help
him
,
Binnie!”

Miss Baskerville eyed her protégée with something very close to awe. “But how?” she asked. “I have been wracking my brain, but to no avail. The only solution I can think of is to
murder
her
.”
Delilah looked contemplative. “Don’t even think it! I was only funning, child.”