Polly (19 page)

“Amy! What are you doing here?” gasped Mr. Baines.

“I live here,” smiled Amy. “I married Bob Friend. He got the office manager’s job after you left.”

“Good heavens!” said Mr. Baines. “I was walking across the Heath and I decided to have a look at my old home.”

“Please come in,” said Amy, stepping aside. “You do look fit.”

Bertie Baines looked fit indeed. He was lean and tanned and wearing a very expensive white raw-silk suit. Amy rang the bell for the tea tray and then bit her lip as she realized that no one would answer the bell.

Bertie quickly assessed the situation. Fancy little Amy Feathers having servants—even though she obviously did not know how to cope with them.

“Perhaps you would care to take a stroll with me, Mrs. Friend,” he said. “It’s a beautiful morning. Now wouldn’t it be nice to get out of the house?”

“Oh, yes!” cried Amy, jumping to her feet. She ran lightly up the stairs to fetch her very best hat. She felt sure Mr. Baines would appreciate it.

They walked along by the Heath under the heavy summer trees in companionable silence. Amy felt that she could almost behave like herself and Bertie did not feel obliged to say anything witty or clever.

They found a small tearoom near the High Street, with little tables on the pavement outside, and Bertie Baines drew out Amy’s chair for her and then sat down with a sigh of satisfaction.

“I must say it does my heart good to see you, Mrs. Friend. I’m going back into the business world, you know. Got a job as office manager with Westerman’s rivals—Heatherington’s, you know—they’re on the other side of the Bank.”

“But I thought you were…” Amy began and then bit her lip.

“You thought I was living in the South of France with a certain lady,” said Bertie Baines. “Well, I was. But somehow I couldn’t fit in. All the nobs there treated me as if I were a very funny joke on the part of Lady—on the part of my lady friend. Some of them mistook me for the butler.”

Amy’s tortured and refined accents fled before a wave of pure sympathy. “Oh, I know what it’s like, Mister Baines—trying day in and day out to be something you’re not. ’Course, it’s easy for some. Take my Bob. He never seems to notice the change. You’d think he’d had servants all his life.”

“Anyway,” said Mr. Baines, taking a swallow of strong tea and helping himself to a large slice of Congress cake, “it’s going to be good to get back into harness.”

“You wouldn’t be needing a telephone girl?” asked Amy, and then added hurriedly, “Just joking, to be sure.”

Bertie looked at her speculatively. She was really a pretty little thing. A bit on the heavy side, but then…

“We
are
looking for a girl,” he said slowly. “It’s better to work, Amy, than to sit at home all day living on someone else’s money.”

Amy suddenly thought of a day filled with office activity. A day when perhaps this office manager would take her to lunch the way he had once entertained Polly Marsh. She took a deep breath. “I’d love to work again, Mister Baines.”

“Good!” cried Mr. Baines. “Why don’t you call me Bertie… when we’re not at work of course.”

“Bertie,” said Amy shyly.

She turned and looked around her. Funny how she had never noticed what a pretty place Hampstead was before!

She began to giggle. “I don’t know what Bob will say when he hears my news.”

Mr. Baines frowned. He had already forgotten about Amy’s husband. It was such a luxury to relax with someone who looked at you as if you were really important and did not treat you like some type of hilarious joke.

He came to a decision. “Amy,” he said, “we have the whole day before we start work tomorrow. Let’s go to the zoo!”

“Zoo!” said Amy, clapping her hands. “You and me?”

“You and me,” repeated Mr. Baines, with a smile.

He helped her out of her seat and paid the bill.

He tilted his hat rakishly to one side of his head.

He felt like no end of a dog.

Bob Friend popped his curly head around the door of his secretary’s little room. Miss Jenkins was typing ferociously with myopic concentration.

“I say, Miss Jenkins!”

“Ooh! Mister Friend. You gave me ever such a fright!”

“Would you care to share the old feed bag with me at lunchtime?”

“Ooooh! Mister Friend. Should I
really?
”

“’Course you should,” said Bob stoutly. “Not every day a knight on a white charger comes galumphing along.” He got down on one knee, clasped one hand to his heart, and waved the other in the direction of the enraptured Miss Jenkins. “I will slay dragons for you. If,” he added, getting to his feet, “they have any dragons at Spielmann’s.”

“Oooh! Mister Friend, you are a one, you are. Ever such a wag.”

“You’ll come for lunch then?”

“Much obliged, I’m sure,” said Miss Jenkins, her eyes like stars, “and ta, ever so, Mister Friend.”

Bob went off along the corridor, whistling cheerfully.

He, too, felt like no end of a dog.

Lady Blenkinsop lay in bed and watched the sun through the lace curtains blazing down on the Mediterranean. It was going to be another perfect day. She reread Bertie Baines’s letter for the third time. So he had found a job. And he was prepared to support her if she would return to London and live in some poky hovel in the suburbs.

Why couldn’t he have settled down here? It had all been such bliss until he had started to complain that her friends treated him like a gigolo. She had tried to avoid going out into society, but one had to admit that after the first fine, careless rapture had proved that it never could be recaptured, it became rather tedious to be cooped up in a villa in the South of France with the same old dismal face.

She must be philosophical and try to forget about Bertie. But it was a bore that he had been one of those types simply bristling with scruples and morals. Perhaps a gigolo might be a good idea!

She half closed her eyes as a footman came in carrying the wicker breakfast table and began to arrange it on the balcony.

She watched him under her lashes. He had only been in her employment for a week and he really was a splendid figure of a man.

“What is your name?” she asked, and then her face took on the weary, tense look of the well-bred English lady about to plunge into French. “
Comment vous appellez-vous?
”

“Marcel, madame. I spik Engleesh.”

“You do?” Lady Blenkinsop patted the bed. “Come and sit next to me here, Marcel, and tell me how you learned your English.”

Marcel looked at her speculatively from under his long, curling lashes and then sat down with athletic grace on the edge of the bed.

“Perhaps madame would not like the nature of my education?”

“I am not a snob, Marcel.”

“Oh, no, madame! It is just that my learning of the English was not…
convenable
.”

“Ah, Marcel,” she teased. “Some lady has been teaching you the language
entre les draps
.”

“How did madame guess?” asked the footman, leaning forward languorously.

Lady Blenkinsop looked thoughtfully into his large brown eyes.

“Perhaps, Marcel, it would be a good idea if you locked the door and closed the shutters.”

“Certainly, madame.” He got to his feet and then half turned in the middle of the room. “Madame will find that I endeavor to give the best service at all times.”

“Splendid!” said Lady Blenkinsop. “What an intelligent young man you are!”

The marquis was thinking about the marchioness as he rode up the long drive toward his home, Granbeigh. Granbeigh was tiny compared to Bevington Chase, but he considered its mellow Tudor brick and rambling lines more pleasing to the eye. His father-in-law had admittedly damned it as a bleeding great pub, but nonetheless he felt it was a perfect setting for his beautiful wife.

He could not help reflecting that Polly’s Stone Lane upbringing had turned out to be a marvelous asset when dealing with the tenants. She was genuinely concerned about their welfare, their births, marriages, and deaths. A debutante of his own class, trained in finishing schools and London salons, could hardly have achieved Polly’s sympathetic touch.

They had had countless rows, of course, both of them being extremely quick-tempered, but the first year of marriage had gone by rather splendidly.

The Marsh family had returned to Stone Lane after a brief sojourn in the dower house. Unlike Polly, they had found country life far too quiet and had considered the members of the local county uncomfortable and strange animals.

The marquis walked into the drawing room by way of the terrace. There was no sign of his wife. He ambled through the rooms and then finally rang the bell. The butler informed him that his lady had departed very hurriedly after receiving a telephone call from a Mr. Friend.

All the marquis’s feelings of contentment and well-being fled. Bob Friend was that good-looking chap who had been made manager of Westerman’s. He had always seemed to be a bit too fond of Polly. The marquis began to pace the room. Perhaps Polly—like her parents—secretly found the life of the country dull. Perhaps she found him dull!

By the time another hour had crept past and the birds had begun to chirp sleepily in the ivy, the marquis was convinced that Polly had left him. He remembered all their rows and forgot about their happiness until his marriage seemed a mockery. In his mind’s eye he was just shooting Bob Friend dead in the middle of Westerman’s when he heard the sound of the carriage wheels on the drive outside.

He crossed to the window, and with a heartfelt feeling of relief, watched his wife descending from the carriage.

Polly trailed miserably into the drawing room. She saw the tall figure of her husband standing by the window and threw herself into his arms. “Oh, Edward,” she cried. “I’ve had such a
beastly
day!”

“Well, it’s all your own fault,” said her husband waspishly, “trailing off to London to consort with office chappies.”

Polly stiffened with anger and wrenched herself out of his arms. “If you don’t want to listen to me, I shan’t tell you,” she said sobbing, and ran from the room.

Cursing himself for a jealous fool, the marquis followed her upstairs and found her lying across her bed crying her eyes out. He sat down on the bed and gathered her gently into his arms. “I’m sorry,” he whispered against her hair. “I was jealous.”

Polly dried her eyes and looked at him in amazement. “Jealous! Of Bob Friend? Oh, Edward! Just wait till I tell you.”

The marquis gathered that Polly had gone straight to Westerman’s at Bob Friend’s urgent request. Amy had run away with Mr. Baines and was living with him in Highgate. Heatherington’s, the firm Mr. Baines was with, had been celebrating their founders’ day and had given the staff a day off. Bob planned to go to Highgate and confront them but felt that the presence of the marchioness would do much to bring his guilty wife to her senses.

She had gone to Highgate with Bob and sure enough the guilty pair were at home. Amy had become very thin and painted—and she flounced. She had been wearing a frock with a great many flounces, and it had seemed designed for the excellent purpose of flouncing out of the room when anyone tried to talk to her.

And poor, dear Mr. Baines! What a terrible,
terrible
change. He had been wearing a dreadful double-breasted waistcoat with
lapels
. “Cad!” murmured the marquis sympathetically. He had been smoking a cheroot right there in the living room, and he had laughed at poor Bob and said that if he didn’t know how to appreciate his wife, there were some that did.

There had been nothing to do but leave and she had been heartbroken for poor Bob, who had been silent all the way back to the City.

Westerman’s had just been closing and this little office girl with enormous specs had rushed up to the carriage and flung herself into Bob Friend’s arms, saying, “My poor, pwecious Bobsie. Was it terrible?” And Bob had said “yes,” and he had got down from the carriage and, as he had left with
his arm round the girls’ waist
, he had turned and winked at Polly and said, “Amy ain’t the only pebble on the beach.”

“People are so… so…
fickle
,” wailed Polly. “How shall I ever forget this horrible afternoon?”

“Like this,” said the marquis.

“Oh, Edward,” said Polly. “Before dinner?”

“When else?” said the marquis, unfastening the top button of her dress. “Consider it part of the hors d’oeuvres.”

“What will the servants think?”

The marquis told the fortunately absent servants to perform an impossible feat with parts of their anatomy and concentrated on the fastenings of his wife’s dress.

Polly smiled up at him. “It was never any use saying ‘no’ to you, my dear marquis.”

“Not the slightest use at all,” he said cheerfully, and that was the last coherent thing the Marquis of Wollerton said for some time.