Perdita (11 page)

“Are you taking her to Grifford’s?” he went on to ask.

“Lord no! Do you take me for a Johnnie Raw, to be taking an Incomparable to Bromley Hall, when the whole purpose of the party is to nab a
parti
for Millie? They’d have my eyes gouged out and fed to the hounds.”

“I hear Tony Hall has popped the question. Daresay the Griffords are sorry they went to the bother of tossing the do,” the young fellow announced, with a sly smile to John.

The effect this speech had on John was remarkable. He had described Millicent Grifford as a squinter and an ugly patch, which hardly indicated an interest in her. These descriptions went beyond faint praise to downright denigration. Why then was he white around the lips, and abusing Tony Hall for a lilylivered mawworm?

On this cheery note, we rolled back on the road. Speed was impossible with the number of carriages wheeling to and fro. It was quite alarming to see the congestion. One would think every cottager along the way had set up a carriage, and taken it out for a spin.

The afternoon was half gone by the time we reached Brighton. “Where does this Maude woman live?” John demanded, his temper frayed well beyond civility.

“The Steyne. Is it a decent neighborhood?” Perdita asked.

“Yes, by Jove, very decent,” he allowed, conferring its new meaning on the word, to judge by his accent. It was much better than decent, as we saw when we reached it. All the crack, with a view even of the Prince Regent’s Pavilion glowing in the distance, lending a fairy-tale enchantment to the scene. “She ain't hiring that place at less than thirty guineas a week,” he told us. “Must be rich as a nabob.”

“She is not hiring it at all. She owns it,” Perdita told him. “And when she dies, she is leaving it to
me.
She told Mama so."

In my own view, it was a great pity she was not leaving it to her more needy cousin, Miss Greenwood. Would it not be marvelous to own a house in Brighton? But that is always the way; those who have, keep getting and getting and getting. But Perdita was her niece, while I was a lesser relative.

“Is she, by Jove?” John asked. “Millie Grifford don’t own any fine home in Brighton. Much
I
care if she wants to throw herself away on Tony Hall, dashed rattlepate. Told me she didn’t care for him above half, and he called
her
an antidote, too. Well she is next door to an ape-leader, if you want the truth. I have half a mind not to go to Bromley Hall at all. What did Huxley say, anyway? Did he say the Griffords had accepted Hall’s offer?”

“No, they only said he had made one,” I informed him, hoping to improve his mood.

“He’s offered for every chit with a penny in her pocket. The Griffords won’t have him. Not that
I
care a groat. Serve him well if he got stuck with her. Only offered to spite me.”

“You would not want to marry a
squinter,
John,” Perdita pointed out.

“Squinter? Who are you calling a squinter? Millicent makes
you
look like a dashed—well, anyway she don’t squint,” he decided, after making a mental comparison of the two ladies. I concluded Millicent was a somewhat plain girl, whom John had managed to fall in love with. “And she don’t go screeching about on public stages, either. What are you worth in shillings and pence anyway, Perdie? She need not think I mean to cry willow for two seconds, for I don’t.”

“Plenty, and don’t think I would ever marry you, for I would not.”

“Your papa will manage to give your blunt to that curst commoner he married. Don’t know what he sees in her. Ain’t even pretty. Pity he hadn’t had the wits to die, before he went soft in the brain.”

“Papa is
not
soft in the head.”

“A hard heart and a soft head. Whole neighborhood says so. Well, trying to unload you on old Croft. Certainly soft in the head. I say, Perdie, did Croft ever try to make up to you?”

“Yes he is always telling me I am beautiful.”

“No, I mean get his arms around you, and kiss you?”

“Yes, and
that
is when I decided to make a run for it, and why Papa sent me to Aunt Agatha to change my mind, but I cannot believe that even Bath could be as bad as being kissed by Mr. Croft.”

John was frowning in a more intense way than usual. I wondered if he was considering offering for her, out of spite and pity; but when he spoke, his true strategy was revealed. “I’ll tell you who you would find a capital fellow is Tony Hall,” he said.

We dismounted and looked at Mrs. Cosgrove’s house. Since the Prince had brought Brighton into fashion, the place had been modernized by having a pair of bows thrown out in front, with a new pediment and columns added on to give it elegance. John stepped up and banged the brass doorknocker. After a suitable wait, he repeated the action. A few minutes later, the door was opened, not by the butler, but by a very junior footman.

“Mrs. Cosgrove ain’t home,” he told us, then closed the door.

John did not bother knocking this time. He opened the door and barged in. "These ladies are her cousins. They’ll wait till she comes. Just as well pleased she ain’t here,” he explained aside to me. “Means I won’t have to step in and do the pretty. I’m late at Grifford’s as it is.”

“She isn’t coming back,” the footman said.

“What do you mean, not coming back! Of course she is coming back, cretin,” John said angrily.

“Not for a week she ain’t. She’s gone off to Swindon to visit relatives.”

“Swindon! Moira, she has gone home!” Perdita exclaimed, then fell into an unlady-like fit of giggles at the perversity of Fate.

“Has she gone to Sir Wilfrid Brodie’s place?” I asked.

“That’s it. Are
you
the young lady . . ." he asked, turning to ogle Perdita in open admiration.

“What did she say, exactly?” I asked him.

He examined us in a suspicious manner, then plunged into his story, when Perdita smiled at him. “She got a letter from a Miss Greenwood that the old gaffer was forcing his gel into a match with a man-milliner, and lit out posthaste to rescue the young lady, and bring her here to us. A rare bad skin she was in, hooting and hollering all the morning long.”

“She
did
get your letter then, Moira. How nice!” Perdita said. “I knew dear Aunt Maude would not let me down.”

I examined the letters unopened on a hall table, and saw amongst them my last missive from the inn at Chippenham. She had been spared that useless stop at least. “When did she leave?” I asked.

“Five days ago.”

“I expect she has gone to Bath by now,” I said, thinking aloud. Brodie would not be tardy in getting rid of her. She would go to Bath, learn we were not there, go back to Swindon. The fat was in the fire now! There would be parties out scouring the roads for us.

“What should we do?” I asked John. “We could wait here for her. She will return eventually.”

“You can’t stay here unchaperoned, in case you-know-who manages to follow your trail. And I ain’t about to turn my rig around and go all the way back to London, either. You’ll have to come to Grifford’s with me for a day or two.”

“I cannot like to land in uninvited at a stranger’s house party.”

“They ain’t strangers; they’re the Griffords. Know ‘em very well. Come along. Dash it, we’ve wasted I don’t know how many hours with this foolishness. Tony Hall will convince em I ain’t coming. And if she’s accepted him, I will tell them I want them to meet my fiancée,” he added, with an angry scowl at Perdita.

“No, you must not!” I said hastily. “She doesn’t need a broken engagement on top of the rest.”

“I am hungry,” Perdita said.

“Have you got any food?” John asked the footman.

“Naught but a fitch of bacon and some cheese. I am alone here with my ma. The mistress gave the other servants a holiday to visit relatives. I can boil you a cuppa tea if you like.”

“You could cook for us, Moira,” Perdita suggested.

“Don’t be a sapskull!” John chided, still not believing I had cooked for the actors. “Damme, now she has got
me
hungry. It is always the same. The minute you set foot into a carriage, you get hungry. We’ll try an hotel. With the half of London jauntering here every day, there must be a good dining room.”

“It is too early for dinner. Let us have tea,” I suggested.

"We cannot end up at Grifford’s half an hour into dinner and expect to be fed. We’ll eat now. There’s no saying we’ll find a decent spot between here and Bromley Hall.”

We ate dinner at four o’clock, not very long after taking luncheon, then it was back on the road to Grifford’s, while John discussed aloud varied and improbable stories to account for taking two uninvited ladies along on what he hoped would be his engagement visit.

Chapter Nine

Bromley Hall lay halfway between Brighton and Eastbourne, on the south coast, just bordering the sea, though the water was not visible from the front of the house. Arriving as we did shortly after the sun had set, very little was visible but for several rectangles of light from the windows, where the lamps within threw some illumination on the ground. I was keenly aware of what a shabby stunt we played on the hostess, arriving with John. Mrs. Grifford was up to it. John’s boast that the girl favored him obviously had some truth in it, to judge by the extraordinary kindness we received. I think the family had about given up hope of seeing him.

The dame could not quite hide her surprised chagrin when Perdita first came into the full light, but her words were at least polite. John entered into a jumbled explanation. "I was taking the ladies to visit their aunt at Brighton, but Perdie is such a widgeon she got the dates mixed up. Next week she was supposed to go—her aunt ain’t even home. There was nothing for it but to bring them along. I hope you don’t mind, Mrs. Grifford.”

“I am very happy to have them. What was the name, again?”

“Miss Brodie and Miss Greenwood, her chaperone. Is Tony Hall here?”

“Yes, you will find him in the saloon with Millicent. Which is Miss Greenwood, did you say?”

"The old one.”

Mrs. Grifford looked her commiseration at me, at this plain speaking. She took our hands to make us welcome, while John craned his neck towards the saloon. “You are John’s cousin, did he say?” she asked Perdita.

"No just friends,” she answered, causing the poor woman to frown in sorrow.

“Neighbors,” I threw in, trying to add much more to the word, a suggestion of careless camaraderie that eliminated any romance.

“I don’t see Tony,” John said, looking back with a worried face.

“Did you want to see him in particular, John? I can send for him, if you like,” Mrs. Grifford offered.

“No, what would I want to see that caper merchant for!”

“Millie will want to know you are here. Call Millicent, Tobin,” the hostess said to her butler.

A young female came bustling to the hall. Her first welcome was for John. I think she would have been wiser to conceal some of her relief and joy at his arrival. But then, Miss Grifford was obviously not a scheming girl. Neither was she the least bit pretty, though she did not squint. In fact, her eyes were her most pleasing feature, being large and well-fringed. For the rest, she was plain. Plain brown hair, a plain face, a plain figure, a little on the dumpy side. Her best years, too, had passed her by. She was younger than myself, but not by much.

“I was so afraid you weren’t coming,” she told him frankly. “I thought you must have changed your mind.” When she got around to looking at Perdita, she said, "Oh, dear!” in downright harried tones. Her mother made the introductions. “John never mentioned you, Miss Brodie,” she said, crestfallen.

"‘Course I did. I have told you a dozen times about Perdita. Lives a stone’s throw from me, back home.”

"Are you Perdie?” she asked, blinking. I cannot imagine what John had told her, but certainly he had omitted the fact that the neighbor was outstandingly beautiful.

"He never mentioned you either,” was Miss Brodie’s ambiguous reply.

A gentleman peered his head around the archway into the hall, his eyes brightly curious. John glanced at him, and pokered up like a ramrod. “I neglected to offer my congratulations on your betrothal, Millicent,” he said, in a hearty way, as though it were a matter of infinite indifference to him in any personal way. “Hear you have accepted an offer from Hall. I’m sure I hope you’ll both be very happy.”

"Tony Hall?” she asked, blinking. “Oh, no! Where did you hear such a thing?”

“Why they are shouting it from the street corners in Brighton, and along the road. Huxley told me. When are the two of you to tie the knot?”

“I have not accepted any offer. I cannot imagine where Huxley beard it.”

“Did he
ask?”

“He—he
did
mention something to Papa, I believe, but—oh, I am not
engaged,
John!”

“Knew it was all a fudge. Huxley has never got a story straight in his life. Well, shall we step in and say how do you do to Tony and the others?”

“Why do you not take the girls up and show them a room first, Millicent?” her mother suggested. There was some meaningful look on the mother’s face, conveying, I suspect, a command to discover what she could of the relationship between the neighbors.

“We have neighbors coming in for a party, ladies,” she continued. “You will want to change, and make your preparations.”

“I’ll just toddle on and make myself at home. Ah, there is Hall, hiding behind the doorjamb like a monkey. I say, old chap . . .” He was off, beaming from ear to ear, to roast Tony Hall about the refused offer.

Millicent took us above, up a stately set of broad oaken stairs, to a wide hallway with two dozen doorways opening off it. We were shown into rooms standing side by side. She left Perdita off first, then took me on to my room.

“Miss Brodie is very pretty, is she not?” she asked. “I cannot think why John never mentioned it.”

“He does not realize it. You know how it is when people grow up next door to each other. They never think of appearance. Why, they are practically like brother and sister.”

"Brother and sister?” she asked hopefully.

“Yes, good friends, in a purely platonic way,” I assured her, making the statement freely, to save her the shame of drawing it out of me. I felt, too, our welcome would be warmer if this fact were established. “John was very worried about Tony Hall,” I added, to clinch our acceptance.