Maggie MacKeever (12 page)

Drusilla roused. She had been feeling Lambchop’s absence from table very keenly and consequently had not paid her papa attention until Ermyntrude spoke. Sir Geoffrey looked even more miserable than when Lady Grey had broken off their betrothal. And he said nothing was wrong? “What a clanker!” Drusilla protested. “You’re hardly setting us a good example, Pa! I recall your saying how telling taradiddles ain’t the thing.”

“Did I?” Sir Geoffrey murmured vaguely. His daughters’ upbringing was the least of his worries now. They’d rub on well enough without him, once he’d turned up his toes. Tabby could be counted on to keep them in line. He reminded himself to amend his will so that she received a comfortable behest.

Drusilla had no patience with her papa’s blue devils. “Pa!” she said again, and whacked her spoon against the table with such force that Sir Geoffrey winced. “I demand that you tell us what is plaguing you.”

Sir Geoffrey saw nothing untoward in his younger daughter’s making demands of him; in his experience, making demands was what children did best of all. But he had no answers to give. “I can’t explain, puss! That is, I could—I would!—but you’re too young.”

“There!” Ermyntrude could not deny herself a moment’s triumph. “I’m sure I’ve said the same myself any number of times! You consider yourself quite grown-up, Dru, but the truth is that you’re still a child.”

“A child, am I?” Drusilla’s eyes flashed. “You ain’t so much older yourself. Yes, and though I may be younger, I ain’t such a ninny as to make a wager I can’t help but lose!”

This prediction rankled. “Never you mind my wager,” Ermyntrude snapped. “You just wish that I shall lose it, and I am determined I shall not. You’ll see! I shan’t dwindle into a fubsy-faced old maid. And you had best remember that it is never wise to bet against a dark horse because I have made up my mind to take the field!”

Sir Geoffrey was intrigued by this conversation. For one thing, it staggered the imagination to think that Ermyntrude might become an ape-leader. For another— “What wager?” he asked. “Gus was right; I’m a shockingly lax parent if I’ve failed to tell you that for young women to go about making wagers is
not
a proper thing!”

There was a brief silence at the dining table. None of Sir Geoffrey’s companions wished to explain to him what the wager in question was about. “It was nothing so very bad!” Tabby said weakly. “A game—a jest!”

“Which ain’t the point, anyway!” added Drusilla, before Ermyntrude could protest. “We was talking about you, Pa, and why you’re in the dumps! And for you to say I’m too young to hear about it is the outside of enough. If I’m old enough to know that you’ve had lightskirts in your keeping, it ain’t right to deprive me of the rest!”

Sir Geoffrey eyed his younger daughter in consternation. “Lightskirts?”

Drusilla shrugged impatiently. “What else would you call this Mrs. Quarles?”

Sir Geoffrey frowned, “She’s not a lightskirt, puss. Merely a lady who’s come down in the world. A true light-skin is a female who”—he realized guiltily what Lady Grey would say if she could overhear him explaining the various categories of the frail but fair to his youngest child—“who was never a lady at all! It is not kind of you to speak so of Mrs. Quarles.”

Ermyntrude was flushed with excitement. She had never before realized that her papa was such a profligate. “What’s it like?” she asked. “To be a woman of that sort?”

Tabby was horrified by the question. “Ermyntrude!” she gasped.

Sir Geoffrey was no less dismayed and even more embarrassed. “That’s a queer thing to ask,” he muttered to his wineglass.

Ermyntrude didn’t think her question at all strange. There were certain things she wished to know, and where better to seek an answer than from the mouth of the horse itself? “Why is it so queer? You should know what it’s like to be a demirep since you’re on such easy terms with them.”

Sir Geoffrey made haste to disabuse his daughter of this startling notion. “I’m nothing of the sort! Neither is Mrs. Quarles. We’ll speak no more of this, miss!”

Ermyntrude did not care for this rebuke. “You’re mighty generous to the female who’s landed you in the suds.”

Sir Geoffrey looked uncomfortable. “I was, er, fond of her once,” he allowed. “Moreover, I’m not so sure I wouldn’t have landed in the suds even without her help. The thing is, I think Gus must be mad!”

This remark caused Tabby to look up from the plate that she had been studying—a pretty thing with a lilac-pink border and gold edging, painted in the center with a poppy spray. A presentiment struck her. “Mad?” she asked.

“Mad!” repeated Sir Geoffrey emphatically. “Touched in the upper works. Windmills in her head! There can be no other explanation of the note she sent me, accusing me of—well!”

Sir Geoffrey’s audience was on the edges of their seats. “Well?” echoed Drusilla. “Pa, that ain’t fair!”

Sir Geoffrey supposed it was not. His daughters had demonstrated themselves sufficiently worldly to hear anything he might say. “Apparently Mrs. Quarles had the temerity to call on Lady Grey, and I’m being held to blame.”

“You are being blamed?” Drusilla echoed. “Now that
is
unfair.”

Sir Geoffrey agreed. “Not for the visit,” he explained, “but for her age. Lady Grey has taken the notion that Mrs. Quarles is barely out of the schoolroom.
I
can only think that Gus must need spectacles, because Mrs. Quarles is forty if she’s a day!” A well-preserved forty, he recalled somewhat wistfully; but for Gus to accuse him of debauching innocents was hideously unjust. Mrs. Quarles might have been innocent in her cradle, but Sir Geoffrey would not swear even to that. “Or perhaps Gus had been unhinged by grief!” he speculated. “Which may also be laid at my door!”

Drusilla and Ermyntrude exchanged glances, wondering if perhaps it was their papa who had become unhinged, which was certainly one explanation of his queer talk. Tabby, who knew better, returned her attention to her plate. She was stricken with guilt and cowardice and could not bring herself to confess that Lady Grey’s current misapprehension was largely her fault. “And if Gus’s angry now,” Sir Geoffrey added, “I can’t think what she’ll say when she finds out that Mrs. Quarles is still living in my house!”

Living in the house? That settled it. “Pa,” said Drusilla gently, “mayhap you should have a nice lie-down. When you wake up, you’ll feel much better and realize there ain’t no doxies—er, fallen ladies—living here with us.”

Sir Geoffrey did not appreciate his daughter’s solicitude. “Not here!” he snapped. “In North Street.”

Ermyntrude was fascinated by these disclosures. “Pa!” she marveled. “You are in love with two females at the same time!”

Sir Geoffrey looked indignant. “I am no such thing!”

“No?” squealed Ermyntrude. “You don’t love this Mrs. Quarles? Good gracious, Pa! If you put your mind to it, you could be quite a rake!”

Did Ermyntrude sound as though she would relish a rake for a papa? Surely not! “It was as a favor that I allowed Mrs. Quarles to borrow my house,” Sir Geoffrey said. “My other house, that is. She was having financial difficulties. And then I kept expecting she would move out. One hesitated to ask, you know! But now I have had to take steps.”

Drusilla couldn’t imagine why Tabby was staring with such fascination at her pretty plate. Drusilla herself was much more fascinated by her papa. “I didn’t know you had another house,” she said.

Was Sir Geoffrey being called to account by his younger daughter? He knew he should not stand for such a thing. “Oh, I have more than one secret left!” he retorted, with a miserable attempt at jocularity. “As for the North Street house—you wouldn’t like it, puss! A street steep and thick with coaching offices, abustle with traffic from dawn to dusk. It’s not much of a house, anyway—which is why I never thought to mention it to you girls.”

Sir Geoffrey’s girls—and Tabby—didn’t believe this explanation for a moment. All three envisioned a succession of dazzling high-flyers passing through Sir Geoffrey’s little love nest. “I am very disappointed in Mrs. Quarles,” he added. “Taking advantage of my generosity like that. If Gus’s angry now, when she finds out about the love letters, she’ll be fit to skin a cat!”

Tabby broke the shocked silence. “Love letters?” she echoed.

“Love letters,” Sir Geoffrey repeated grimly. “There’s scant hope Gus
won’t
learn about them since she and Mrs. Quarles are on the way to being bosom-bows.”

“Love letters!” cried Ermyntrude. “Oh, Pa, how could you have been such a—a paper-skull? If this woman makes those letters public, we shall never live it down. And I shall never bring St. Erth to the altar, because he has a very high opinion of himself and would never stoop to associate himself with a figure of fun!”

Sir Geoffrey was uncertain how St. Erth had become involved in the conversation. Perhaps it was an indication that he had further neglected his fatherly duties. “What’s this? Has St. Erth thrown the handkerchief in your direction, Ermy? If so, I suppose you may have him, though he should have asked my permission first. It’s not proper that your pa be kept in perfect ignorance of what’s going on, minx!”

“He hasn’t popped the question yet,” Ermyntrude was chagrined to admit. She shot a glance a Drusilla. “But he will!”

Tabby experienced a pang of pity for Ermyntrude. Certainly the girl was a tremendous flirt, and the incurable selfishness of her disposition was to be deplored. As for this determination of hers to bring St. Erth up to scratch-well, it was patently absurd. But Tabby had her own air-dreams, and could sympathize. Tabby’s memories of her own mama’s disgrace were scanty, but she retained an impression of acute embarrassment and anger on her papa’s part, and a distinct notion that their lives had changed dramatically from that point. Ermyntrude would not like being shunned by all her friends as result of her papa’s imprudence.

But Sir Geoffrey was not the only imprudent member of the family, and Ermyntrude had made a wager that she would not wish to lose. “You might try to remember St. Erth’s notion of himself,” Tabby suggested. “He will want to feel similarly about the woman to whom he gives his heart.”

Ermyntrude dismissed this sensible advice with a gesture. “Pooh!” said she. “That just shows all you know. St. Erth won’t mind anything I do, so long as I do not make it public knowledge, so that it may be bandied about on every tongue. It is the way of the world. Not that we must blame Pa for this Quarles woman! He merely allowed his heart to rule his head, and has been shockingly taken advantage of, poor lamb!”

Sir Geoffrey appreciated this sympathy. Not that it changed anything. “Mrs. Quarles would tell you that the shoe is on the other foot. And so she may have told Gus, for all I know! One thing is certain: the cat’s been set among the pigeons and is like to have a feast before it can be put back out.’’

Ermyntrude frowned. Her sympathy only extended so far. “I don’t know how you can speak so lightly about it! Mrs. Quarles has letters of a compromising character in her possession, and she’s in the process of striking up an intimate acquaintance with Lady Grey. Next thing we know, our dirty laundry will be hung out for all the world to see.”

Sir Geoffrey found it very depressing to hear his love letters spoken of as dirty laundry. He took another sip of wine. Drusilla glared at her sister. “If you think St. Erth would cut up in such an event, consider Lady Grey!”

Ermyntrude did so. “Oh, poor Pa!” she cried. “I did not perfectly realize—which is not wonderful, considering all that I have on my mind—but the case is truly desperate, is it not?”

“You might say that.” Sir Geoffrey slumped even more dreadfully in his chair.

Tabby roused from her own guilty reflections. “Is there nothing that may be done?”

Ermyntrude turned to her. “Of course! There generally
is
something that may be done; we need only to discover what it is.” She pushed back her chair and perambulated about the dining room, the better to facilitate her processes of thought. As she passed by the doorway, she heard Lambchop whine. Ermyntrude was not a cruel girl, for all her self-absorption. She opened the door and admitted the dog. Lambchop immediately ran under the table and flopped down across Drusilla’s feet.

Tabby had not the heart to protest. Why should she care, truly, if Lambchop was present in the dining room? Oh, how could Lady Grey have mistaken her for Mrs. Quarles? If the mistake were not so disastrous, it would have been absurd.

“I have it!” announced Ermyntrude. “We must visit Mrs. Quarles And try to buy her off!”

Chapter Fourteen

And so, once more Tabby mingled with the summer visitors to Brighton: merchants and Cyprians, sportsmen and adventurers, vacationing cits and persons of quality. She passed through streets that had known the footsteps of Burke and Fox and Sheridan; the Prince of Wales and Mrs. Fitzherbert; “Gentleman” Jackson; pale, clubfooted young Lord Byron and the slight young figure dressed in pantaloons whom he called “brother,” yet who spoke in a feminine voice. Not that Tabby was especially appreciative of her surroundings as she hastened along the narrow lanes and winding streets. She was beginning to wish she had never heard the name Elphinstone and hoped this errand might be more successful than her last.

North Street was indeed a busy address, as Sir Geoffrey had said, steep and abustle with coaching inns. Tabby looked again at the address in her hand. Then she glanced up to see a carriage bearing down on her. It was a very fine cabriolet, a light conveyance with only two wheels, drawn by one horse. The passenger sat in the open and acted as his own coachman. Tabby recognized the driver. She ducked her head and stepped back a pace.

Too late. He had seen her and drew the cabriolet to a stop. “Get in,” he said.

How stern his voice was. “I cannot.” Tabby protested. “There is some business I must attend to.”

“I’ll warrant!” retorted Mr. Sanders in tones that were sterner yet. “I warn you, I will not take no for an answer. Either you enter my carriage of your own volition or I will resort to force.”

Tabby blinked. The man sounded serious. He looked serious as well. Was Tabby never to meet Mrs. Quarles? Once more fate, in the person of Vivien, had intervened.