The Runaway McBride (27 page)

Mr. Burnett shook his head vigorously. “Not my cup of tea. No, I’m sure my presence isn’t necessary.” As though to cut off further debate, he got up. “Will you look at the time? I’ve arranged to meet Major Howie and a few friends at my club. It’s his sixtieth birthday, you know, and we are laying on a splendid celebration for him.” To his wife, he said, “Don’t wait up for me, my dear. I shall be home very late.”

“Pity,” said Aunt Mariah in a cheerful voice. “What about tomorrow night? Will you be engaged then as well? ”

Mr. Burnett looked nonplussed, but only for moment. He snapped his fingers. “I’d almost forgotten. Card party. Sorry. I can’t get out of it.”

“No matter,” replied his sister in the same cheerful voice. “But you’ll miss a treat I have in store for all of you.” She looked from one person to another. “Before I left for Henley, I reserved a box at the Savoy Theatre. Yes, Gilbert and Sullivan are putting on a performance of
The Mikado
. They say it’s brilliant.” She chuckled. “You’ll love it, James. The place is completely lit by electricity.”

She gave them a moment or two to grasp her words, then excusing herself, she left the table.

 

 

As the others filed out of the garden room, James reached for the silver cigarette case on the table. When he opened it, he found it empty. “Can you spare one of yours? ” he asked his brother.

Roderick eyed him curiously. “I don’t smoke. The weed gives me asthma.”

That was something James had forgotten. Torn between embarrassment and guilt, he said, “We haven’t exactly been the best of brothers, have we? My fault, I know, but I do worry about you.”

Roderick’s reply was the skeptical lift of one eyebrow.

James plowed on. “What I should have said was that I have your best interests at heart.”

“Well, that’s a first. I’m nineteen years old, and you’ve never regarded me as more than a pesky gadfly. No. I exaggerate. You gave the impression that you weren’t aware of my existence. Oh, don’t get your tongue in knots trying to explain your indifference. I understand. You had your railways to build, and I’m only your half brother.”

“You’re nineteen? I thought you were eighteen.”

Roderick rolled his eyes.

James’s remorse began to waver. “Look here,” he said, “if you’ve been racking up gambling debts or losing money on horses, I want to know about it.”

Roderick folded his arms across his chest and grinned. “Don’t say you’ll bail me out? Why, Jamie, I’m touched.”

James inwardly allowed that his concern for his brother’s welfare had been thin at the best of times, but that was because the boy had a father.
Their
father was Roddy’s guardian and trustee. He had no real authority here. Even as the thought occurred to him, he felt a ripple of annoyance. He controlled the purse strings, more or less, and that gave him some say in how things were run. His father was useless, worse than useless. Without his intervention, Colin Burnett would spend every spare penny on keeping up a castle that soaked up money like a sponge did water.

James knew what Faith would say, that his brother needed a masculine mentor to confide in and look up to, but James did not feel comfortable stepping into that role, and he was damn sure that Roderick wouldn’t let him. They were practically strangers. He hadn’t deliberately neglected the boy. They hardly saw one another and had simply drifted apart.

He looked at Roderick and saw something of himself at the same age. They’d both been packed off to school at eight, had infrequent visits from their parents, with only servants and occasionally Granny McEcheran and Aunt Mariah to look after them in the holidays. No wonder they’d become resentful and difficult. The difference between them was that he had stopped rebelling when he’d developed a passion for trains. He wondered whether Roddy had any interests besides the obvious ones. He agreed with his aunt up to a point. A boy should be allowed a few follies. What he feared was that his brother might be getting in over his head.

He tried again. “Look, Roddy—!”

“No, you look, big brother!” Roderick abruptly stood and brushed the sleeve of his jacket as though brushing off a restraining hand. “I don’t want your charity, and I don’t want you telling me what to do. Frankly, you’ve left it too late to play the role of the elder brother. So, if I want to gamble, wench, or drink myself silly—keep out of my way.”

James snapped back his chair and got up. He was simmering. No. He was boiling, and the germ of truth in his brother’s words only exacerbated his tempter. But, damn it all, he was the mainstay of this family, and though he didn’t expect to be loved for it, he did demand a little respect.

Through his teeth, he got out, “I’d advise you to mind your tongue, or I’ll teach you a lesson you’ll not soon forget.”

Roderick let out a hoot of laughter. “I should warn you, brother dear, that I was the champion wrestler of my year before I was expelled.”

James sneered. “Wrestling little boys is one thing. You’re not man enough to take me on.”

The amusement was wiped from Roderick’s face, but it was not replaced by caution, far from it. His chin jutted, his nostrils flared, and his eyes flashed with grim determination. The resemblance between James and his younger sibling had never been more obvious.

In one deft move, Roderick shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it aside. James did the same. In a gesture that was meant to provoke, Roderick curled his index finger and beckoned to James.

“Thigibh an so, bodach!”
he said.
Come here, old man.

“Lord preserve us! The boy knows a little Gaelic.” James crouched down in a wrestler’s stance.
“Eisol, bhalaich.”
He’d exhausted the little Gaelic he knew but went on regardless.
“Nach ist thu.”

A frown puckered Roderick’s brow. “What does that mean? ”

“Come and get me, little boy.”

The words were hardly out of James’s mouth when Roderick charged, and they went tumbling to the carpeted floor in a tangle of arms and legs. The delicate porcelain crockery on the table rattled alarmingly, but neither paid any heed to that. They grunted, they heaved, as each strove to get a lock that would disable the other.

They broke apart, jumped to their feet, and came at each other again. This time, not only did they bring down the delicate crockery, but they also crashed into a chair, which cracked then crumpled like a broken matchstick. James had the advantage of weight, but Roderick was proving to be as slippery as an eel. James couldn’t hold him in a lock, so he grabbed a fistful of hair and dragged his brother’s head back to expose his throat. What he was going to do next, he had no idea. In a real fight, he would have chopped Roderick’s throat, but he didn’t want to injure his brother, merely teach him a lesson.

Roderick did not labor under such scruples. With tremendous force, he swung his elbow back, right into the soft part of James’s belly. James gasped, he choked, but he didn’t let go. Through a red mist of pain and rage, he pounded Roderick’s face into a cushion that had fallen on the floor. He was going to smother the bastard.

The door to the garden room suddenly crashed open, and Aunt Mariah, followed closely by Faith and Margaret, charged into the room. Margaret had had the foresight to bring a broom. She didn’t wait for the two adversaries to catch their breath. Like an enraged Fury, she went at them, beating them both about the head with her broom, screeching oaths that would later make her blush when she recalled them. Meantime, Faith had grabbed James by the shirttails and was pulling with all her might. Aunt Mariah had Roderick by the collar.

What shamed the brothers into giving up the fight was not the brute force of the ladies but the tears of a child. Harriet came fearfully into the room, saw the chaos, and immediately burst into tears.

The men got sheepishly to their feet.

“It was a game,” said Roderick. “Only a game.”

Harriet ran into his arms and glared up at James.

“Tell her, James,” said Roderick.

He obliged. “It was a wrestling match. Roderick was giving me a few pointers. You didn’t think we were in earnest, did you?”

Aunt Mariah looked at the broken shards of her prize crockery and the smashed Hepplewhite chair, and she snorted in the manner of an English Thoroughbred.

“A game? ” said Harriet dubiously.

Roderick smiled down at her. “Silly chit! Don’t you know that James and I are the best of friends? ” He looked at James and held out his hand. “We’re the best of friends. See, Harriet?”

James clasped the proffered hand and shook it. “The best of friends,” he said.

Harriet relaxed. Her tears dried, and she said in a coaxing voice, “May I go to the theater with you, Mama? Do say yes. I love Gilbert and Sullivan. Please?
Please?
”

They left the room as if nothing untoward had occurred, though the ladies’ smiles were a little stiff. No one wanted to shatter the illusions of a child.

 

 

Going to the theater so soon after a young man was mur
dered did not seem right to Faith. On the other hand, she needed something to distract her from constantly reliving that moment in the boathouse when she’d tripped over Danvers’s body. Then there was James to think about, and how they’d come together like a sudden electrical storm. So much was weighing on her mind that she was sure she would not enjoy the performance.

She was wrong. The Savoy Theatre on the Strand was beyond anything Faith could have imagined. The building was only four years old, palatial, with a stage that could have rivaled the amphitheaters of ancient Rome. Lights blazed from every level, but surpassing everything by far was the performance itself. Gilbert and Sullivan certainly knew how to please the crowd. She found her toes tapping in time to the music. She laughed, she clapped, she even hummed along with the rollicking choruses. When finally the lights went up, and it was time to go, she felt light-headed, as though she had tossed off a bottle of champagne.

The foyer was crowded with patrons who were now eager to be first in line to get to their carriages, with James and Roderick leading the pack. There was a good deal of pushing and elbowing. Someone trod on the hem of Faith’s gown, one of the new gowns she’d ordered from Madame Digby. She felt it tear, and though it cost her to appear unaffected, she managed to pin a smile on her face as she turned to look at the person who had committed the crime.

It was Mr. Hughes of the Egyptology Society. Far from apologizing, he looked right through her as though he did not recognize her and was unaware of the damage he had done. Faith opened her mouth, but before she could say his name, Aunt Mariah gripped her arm and pulled her away.

“Not now, Faith!” she said in a forceful undertone. “You cannot recognize a gentleman when he is with his fancy piece.”

Faith’s jaw dropped. “His fancy piece? You mean his mistress?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.” Aunt Mariah shook her head. “It’s his wife I feel sorry for. This is bound to get back to her. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of her friends are here tonight and will lose no time in apprising her of what her faithless husband is up to. As though poor Sophie needs to be told!”

Faith said, “Why doesn’t she leave him or throw him out? I mean, this is the eighteen eighties. A man doesn’t control a woman’s property like he once did. And Mrs. Hughes was left well off, wasn’t she?”

“The wisdom of youth is so refreshing,” observed Aunt Mariah with a faint smile. “Because, I suppose, she loves him. Yes, I know, it’s pitiful, but some women are slaves to love. Sophie Hughes is one of them. But there is more to it than that. She would pay a price, too. Separated or divorced women are still social pariahs. Sophie would lose her friends, and she wouldn’t be invited anywhere.”

Margaret and Harriet came level with them at that moment, so the conversation was dropped. Harriet’s face was shining with the thrill of the performance, and her words tripped over each other in her excitement.

“Wasn’t that the most marvelous operetta you’ve ever heard? It was so funny! When I grow up, I want to go on the stage and . . .”

Faith listened with half an ear. Her eyes were trailing the couple who were making for the exit, Mr. Hughes and his fancy piece. Though Hughes was a handsome man, he looked old enough to be the lady’s father. And she
did
look like a lady—not a quiet, well-bred lady but an animated fashion plate with a flirtatious smile.

Faith was affronted on behalf of the betrayed wife. Mrs. Hughes had been kindness itself when Faith waited her turn to be interviewed by the police after she’d found Danvers’s body. She’d offered her a fresh set of clothes. She’d sat with her and held her hand. Her soothing presence had gone a long way to prevent Faith from going to pieces. She deserved better than this from her faithless husband.

Something else occurred to Faith: the depressing picture of a woman past her prime dressing in the style of a debutante. Mutton dressed as lamb. Was Sophie Hughes trying to look younger to compete with the lady her husband had taken up with? Did she love her husband? Aunt Mariah could well be right about that, but she was wrong about Mrs. Hughes’s friends. They did not conform to society’s rules. Her mother’s memoirs could attest to that. They would not turn their backs on a friend just because she had divorced her husband. They wouldn’t care one way or another.

By the time they got home, the pleasant buzz in Faith’s head had evaporated. All the same, as they climbed the stairs to their beds, she kept up her end discussing that night’s performance. Harriet was in her element. Both her brothers were laughing and joking together, and both insisted on escorting their little sister to her room.

Faith wondered how long this new civility between James and Roderick would last.