Sally (15 page)

“Tut-tut. Temper, temper. Look. I have to pull out these rows. It’s plain knitting. Very simple. Now, if you watch me…”

“I don’t want to watch you,” said Sally pettishly. “You look stupid. Men don’t knit.”

“Yes, they do. You should be grateful to me for enlarging your experience. And it’s no use glaring at me. I find this very therapeutic.”

He proceeded to knit away expertly, the steel knitting needles flying in his long fingers.

Sally gave a little gasp. The white, vacant face of the Honorable Freddie Stuart was staring in the door from the corridor. He screwed his monocle more firmly in his eye and opened the door.

The marquess looked up with irritation. He found to his surprise that he did not want to be interrupted. He wanted to be alone with Aunt Mabel. He was about to analyze this strange feeling when he became aware at the same time that Freddie was goggling at him.

“’Lo, Freddie,” said the marquess. “Still staying with us?”

“Yes,” said Freddie, glaring openly at the knitting. “Been to see my doctor. Got pains in the tum-tum.”

“Wife poisoning you again?” asked the marquess, deftly beginning another row.

“No. Your father’s cook. Food’s a disgrace.”

“Then, why don’t you take yourself off?” demanded the marquess crossly. “You’ve been with us for weeks and weeks.”

Now, Freddie and his wife had made an art of living on anyone they could. Mostly they were moved on after a couple of weeks, but the duke and duchess had shown no sign of giving them their marching orders, and Freddie was prepared to put up with the worst cooking in the world just so long as it was free.

“Never mind that,” said Freddie crossly. “What you knitting for?”

“Because I like it,” said the marquess placidly.

“It’s effeminate.”

“Rubbish. I’m helping the war effort.”

“What war?”

“What a lot of stupid questions you do ask. Haven’t you got a compartment of your own? There’s a terrible draft and it’s either coming from that door, which you so stupidly left open, or it’s coming from your mouth, which is hanging open. So why don’t you be a good chap and shut both.”

“It’s no use trying to insult me,” said Freddie.

The marquess stopped his knitting and smiled nicely. “Oh, I found that out long ago. I shall put it in simple English. Go away. I want to be alone with Aunt Mabel. I love her madly.”

Freddie turned his astonished gaze on Sally. “But she’s old enough to be your mother.”

“Age is no barrier,” said the marquess placidly. He began to knit again.

I have fallen in love with a madman
, thought Sally wildly.
He will turn out just like his father
.

Freddie backed out of the compartment. “Wait till I tell the fellows at the club,” he jeered.

“Tell them,” said the marquess, “and I’ll tell them about you and Flossie Jenkins on Boat Race night. The things you can get up to in a punt. Dear me!”

Freddie fled, slamming the compartment door.

“Thank goodness,” said the marquess. “It’s snowing again. I don’t mean ‘thank goodness it’s snowing again.’ I mean ‘thank goodness I got rid of that idiot’.”

“You were very rude,” said Sally severely. “What about my reputation?”

“My dear Aunt Mabel! A Bible-bashing lady like yourself is above the petty sneers of the common man.”

“Has it ever occurred to you that you are eccentric?” asked Sally curiously.

His fingers flew over the wool. “Eccentric? No. I’m a very ordinary chap. Oh, you mean the knitting? Well, it keeps my mind off that wretched girl I’m in love with, and I never really care what people think of me anyway.”

He blinked before Sally’s sudden dazzling smile.

As far as Sally was concerned, he could knit until doomsday. He had said he loved her.

“The train’s slowing,” she said, rubbing at the window with her hand. “Oh, dear!”

“Oh, dear what?”

“I can’t seem to see a thing.”

He put down his knitting and leaned across her to look out through the cleared space she had made in the condensation on the glass.

“It’s snowing a blizzard. What odd weather! It’s only the beginning of December. We don’t usually get weather like this until February. And this is one of the worst blizzards I can remember. Why don’t you join me in the dining car? It’s about time for lunch.”

Sally gladly agreed, for his proximity as he leaned over her was doing strange things to her senses.

They made their way along the corridor of the train, which was only creeping along through the roaring, blinding snowstorm.

Sally felt suddenly shy as she faced the marquess across the small table, with its snowy napkin and little lace-covered table lamp, in the dining compartment. “I thought you would have your own carriage and dining room,” she said.

“No. I don’t bother with that unless I’m taking a lot of guests down for the weekend. Now, we’re going to have a lot to drink and go back to the compartment and sleep like logs, because it’s going to take us absolutely hours to get to Bath.”

So he ordered sherries for them before the meal, a good bottle of hock with the fish, a surprisingly excellent Château Lafite with the braised filet of mutton, a bottle of sauterne with the Nesselrode pudding, and port with the Stilton and he entertained Sally throughout the meal by inventing mad letters from fictitious readers and demanding her replies.

The dining car gradually emptied, other passengers staring curiously at the giggling old lady and the handsome young man.

When they finally went back to their compartment, the train gave a great protesting lurch, a high dismal whistle, and came to a stop.

The marquess took out his handkerchief and rubbed the window. The train had stopped between the shelter of two high embankments.

“Wait here,” said the marquess, “and I’ll find out what has happened.”

After a short time he was back. “I’m afraid we can’t go any further. On the other side—out of the shelter of these embankments—the line’s completely blocked. There is no heating. We are stranded here until the storm stops and someone digs us out.”

“What shall we do?” asked Sally.

“Sleep,” he said curtly. He sat down beside her after lifting his heavy fur coat down from the rack. “We’ll put this over us and be snug as bugs.”

He suited the action to the words and slid an arm around Sally with easy familiarity, feeling the little old lady’s body begin to tremble slightly.

“You’re cold,” he said, rubbing her shoulders sympathetically while Sally bit back a moan. “There! Just lean back on my shoulder and you’ll soon be as warm as anything.”

It was fortunate for Sally that she had drunk so much at lunchtime. Despite all the tumultuous and disturbing emotions his proximity aroused in her, Sally soon fell into a heavy sleep.

The marquess held Aunt Mabel’s slim body against his own, feeling a surge of affection for this strange old lady who did not behave like an old lady at all, and who had an enchanting, infectious laugh, just like a young girl’s.

He awoke briefly as a railway official came in to light the oil lamp, and then drifted off to sleep again, lulled by the noise of the storm.

When he at last awoke completely it was to find that the storm had apparently ceased and that the train was slowly moving forward again.

Faint smells of food were drifting in from the nearby dining car, and the marquess found to his amazement that he was feeling hungry again. His mouth felt dry and sour after all he had drunk at luncheon. He gave Aunt Mabel a little shake, and she came awake immediately, looking up at him through her spectacles with those large, youthful gray eyes, which were so like the eyes of the mysterious girl who had gate-crashed his mother’s home and had stolen nothing valuable except his heart.

Dinner was a silent affair. The marquess’s senses seemed to be picking up a strange feeling of unease from Aunt Mabel, and he remembered that the old dear had had quite a crush on him on her visit and probably still had. Amazing! He wondered how old she was. She was so very, very wrinkled, and her skin had a dead and lifeless look. Only her eyes seemed young.

By silent consent they drank very little at dinner. Neither felt like talking, and it was a very subdued pair who eventually returned to the compartment.

The marquess resumed his knitting, and Sally asked him to lift down her suitcase for her, and, extracting a bundle of letters and a notebook, she proceeded to work on her correspondence.

The train did not lurch into Bath station until one in the morning. The roads to the palace were blocked, and the inns and hotels were full. In despair, the marquess at last found a room for them at the Pelican, an old coaching inn on the outskirts of town, and returned to the station, where he had left Aunt Mabel in front of the fire in the ladies’ waiting room, to tell her the good news.

“One room,” exclaimed Sally faintly.

“I had to say you were my mother,” explained the marquess. “For Heaven’s Sake, behave like a sensible woman. We must have somewhere to sleep. I am tired and stiff, and I am damned if I am spending the night in this station.”

“But surely they know your mother?”

“No. New management. Hurry up and stop staring at me. We’ve got to walk, and it’s quite a way. I’ll help you as much as I can.”

Sally meekly allowed herself to be helped through the snow-covered streets, reflecting that she would have needed his help even if she had been allowed to behave in a manner befitting her
real
age. The snow had frozen into high, powdery drifts, creating a frozen world, a white, mysterious world, through which they moved silently. The hems of Sally’s dress and mantle were becoming soaked despite the light, powdery snow, and her feet were absolutely frozen.

At last they reached the Pelican, which had been built around the seventeenth century and was full of stairs up and stairs down, Toby jugs, armor, and old-world objets d’art made in Birmingham in the hope of attracting some of those American tourists who were supposed to like that sort of thing. The Pelican was originally a coaching inn, but its trade had been taken away by the railway.

Sally was treated with all the deference given to a duchess, although the landlord, who had been about to offer Her Grace tea, was somewhat startled when the marquess said firmly that his mother would like a bottle of brandy sent up to her room.

The marquess had sent one of the inn servants back to the station to collect their suitcases and suggested they sit in front of the fire until their belongings arrived.

Sally was now feeling sleepy again and nervous at the same time.

The room was very small, shadowed, and cosy, lit by a pair of candles stuck in brass candlesticks on the high velvet-draped mantel. The bed was a four-poster and very small, either having been made in an age when the average Briton was stunted, or when they preferred to sleep bolt upright like the French aristocracy to prevent congestion of the lungs.

Sally slowly swirled the brandy around in her glass, reflecting that she had drunk enough since she left London to last a lifetime.

The brandy on top of all she had had before took immediate effect, and her sleepiness increased, while her nervousness began to ebb a little.

“Where will you sleep, my lord?” asked Sally, staring at the leaping flames of a small coal fire.

“Here, of course.”

“Here! Where? In the chair?”

“Don’t be silly. In bed.”

Well, he was paying for the room, after all. “Then I shall sleep in my chair,” said Sally.

“Aunt Mabel,” he said testily. “I know you are very young at heart, but at times you are ridiculous. I must remind you that you are old enough to be my grandmother, and my intentions toward you are strictly honorable. We shall both share the bed, just as I would do with my own mother, old as I am, if she should find herself in the same predicament.”

“Of course,” said Sally hurriedly. “I didn’t think—didn’t mean—”

“Oh, then what did you think and mean?”

“I don’t know,” said Sally stupidly. “I’m tired.”

The servant arriving with their luggage stopped conversation for a while. Then the marquess rose to his feet. “I shall leave you to change, Aunt Mabel. I shall go downstairs and wander about. Don’t be long.”

When he left the room Sally fairly scrambled out of her clothes and into a long flannel nightgown that buttoned high to the throat and had long tight sleeves.

The heat from the fire did not seem to reach as far as the bed, and the sheets felt icy-cold. Some thoughtful servant had put a stone hot water bottle at the foot of the bed, but it was as red-hot as the bed was icy, and Sally almost burned her feet. She lay staring up at the chintz bed canopy until the marquess returned. He entered the room quietly, without looking at the bed, and blew out the candles. She closed her eyes tightly, hearing the rustle as he undressed.

The bed creaked as he climbed in, and she moved as far to the edge as she could.

“Good night, Aunt Mabel,” came a soft, mocking voice out of the darkness.

“Good night, my lord,” replied Sally miserably. What would Aunt Mabel advise a girl to do in this situation? Sally closed her eyes wearily.
If anyone wrote to me about this
, she thought,
telling me that they had pretended to be an old woman and had, due to inescapable circumstances, ended up in bed with the Marquess of Seudenham, pretending to be his mother, I would simply think some poor girl was deranged and tear it up!

The clock on the mantel gave an asthmatic cough and chimed out four o’clock, and a coal fell on the hearth. But despite her turmoil of emotions, Sally fell asleep, determined to be the first to wake.

However it was the marquess who woke first. He climbed gently from the bed and, walking to the window, opened the curtains. Sun blazed down on a white world. It shone into the little room and onto the face of the sleeping Aunt Mabel.

The marquess looked down at her as she lay sleeping—and then looked closer, his eyes suddenly sharp and suspicious.

The glaring light was shining full on Aunt Mabel’s rubber wrinkles, shining
through
them, making them transparent, so that underneath them, like a sleeping beauty, lay the young face of Sally Blane.