Lady Margery's Intrigues (15 page)

Toby was the first to find his voice. “Marry!” he said. “You! Marry Lady Amelia. You must be mad. She's old enough to be your mother!”

“He's right,” said Viscount Swanley. “Not the thing at all, Freddie. They'll say you've got the same weird tastes as Prinny. He likes his game well hung.”

Freddie wished he had not spoken. How could he explain the attractions of a placid smile, a beautiful pair of shoulders, a warm feeling of having come home at last?

“Don't like the company she keeps, either,” said Lord Archie suddenly. “Lady Margery ain't all she should be.”

“Steady on!” cried Perry.

“Well, she ain't,” said Archie stubbornly. “Led you all a fine dance, didn't she? I'm told, moreover, that Amelia Carroll ain't got a feather to fly with. Stands to reason she'd snap up a rich young man.”

“There will be no more discussion on the subject,” said Freddie firmly. “But as far as Margery is concerned, I don't think her marriage is very happy, and she is simply using us to escort her to balls and functions because her husband will not.”

Freddie got to his feet and gave his friends a quaint little dignified bow. “Furthermore, I'm going to avoid your company until you learn to speak of my lady friends with a bit more respect.”

He marched away, leaving the three to look after him. “It's the wine,” said Toby after a long silence. “Finally addled his wits.”

“He ain't been drinking at all,” drawled Perry. “I wrote a poem about it. It goes like this:

“'Oh, Serpent in the goblet cup—'”

“How can it be a ‘goblet cup'?” sneered Archie. “It's either one or t'other.”

“It's known as poetic license,” said Perry stiffly.

The pair of them began to squabble in a halfhearted way, leaving Toby to his jumbled thoughts. Earlier in the evening, Archie had again been hinting that Margery could be his for the asking. “Of course, she'll play all coy,” Archie had said. “Girls like that like a show of force. Saves face, as the Chinamen say. Bet if you swept her away to some cozy little nest, she'd cry and struggle just for show and then she'd just melt in your arms.”

No lady had ever melted in Toby's arms, and the thought awakened a lot of old dormant feudal fevers. Vague ideas for an abduction began to form in his mind, aided by the old French brandy in front of him and by the unreality engendered by the thick bands of yellow fog which were floating across the clubroom.

Thoughts raced and chased each other through his head with all the rapidity of Lord Alvanley running the mile in under six minutes along the Edgware Road. The dandy set were deep in games of macao, losing and gaining fortunes with well-bred ease. Brummell had brought elegance and cleanliness to these young men, many of whom had served in the army with great gallantry. They were witty, amusing, and urbane, and Toby envied them from the bottom of his country heart. He affected the dandy style of dress himself but fell short of Brummell's maxim that a true dandy should be inconspicuous in his dress. Toby's squat, burly figure was not made for fashionable lean lines, and it had taken the efforts of three footmen to get him into his coat. He was wearing his cravat in the
mathematical
, a style with three creases in it,
couleur de la cuisse d'une nymphe émue
. He had felt all the crack when he had surveyed himself in the long glass before leaving his lodgings, but now the image that peered back at him from one of the large mirrors on the other side of the room showed him a depressing picture of a bucolic squire lately come to town. He sighed heavily and his Cumberland corset let out a protesting squeak. How could he be expected to seduce anyone? His coat was so tight that he could hardly raise his arms.

He felt absolutely dreadful. Mrs. Harrison had performed her part well, and with each heave and sigh and groan he had tried to blot out the memory of other lips against his own, fresh and generous. He lay among the relics of his dead passion and felt miserable. His partner turned sleepily in the large bed and the acrid aroma of stale sweat and heavy musk assailed his nostrils. He had meant somehow to revenge himself on Margery, but he was left the sufferer.

The candle flame grew brighter, illuminating the frowsty, cluttered room. A great wind heaved and racked the buildings and streets of London, stealing icy fingers of cold into the bedroom and sending weird shadows dancing on the walls.

The heavy silk of the bed hangings moved gently and he found himself staring straight at a large cockroach. It clung to the silken hangings, glittering, fat, and obscene, and the marquess shivered suddenly with a mixture of repulsion, distaste, and cold.

He had frequented many bedrooms such as this, but never before had he endured such self-disgust. He climbed slowly from the bed so as not to disturb the figure sleeping beside him.

How triumphantly he had lain here a few hours before, waiting for her to undress. She had posed seductively, striking various attitudes in the manner of her kind as her maid had removed her outer garments. He had felt virile, amused, in command of the situation. Then the maid had been dismissed, after loosening her mistress's stays.

The heavy stays had fallen to the floor and the marquess had closed his eyes in sudden pain. It seemed as if great mounds of white flesh had been released from their prison. The vision of his wife's slim, high-breasted body had flashed before his eyes to taunt him. That was what had made him go through with it, he decided.

The wind outside tore furiously at the shutters, bringing with it a picture of clean, wild country and pure air. He made up his mind. He would call on his father and stay with him. He would then travel abroad and stay away from England until the hurt caused by the humiliation of his marriage had healed.

He dressed quietly and quickly and let himself softly out of the bedroom.

The wind roared along Half Moon Street and there was an almighty crash as a chimney stack was blown clear from its mooring and came crashing down onto the cobbles. A small moon racing high above, between ragged clouds, emphasized his sudden feeling of loneliness. He would go to Watier's and drink and talk and perhaps play macao until the pain lessened, and then he would ride to his father's estate.

Some remnants of fog still clung in the corners of the cardroom. He sat down heavily beside Toby Sanderson and called for brandy. Toby was still in conversation with Perry and Archie, and all betrayed by their cautious speech and movements that they had been drinking heavily.

“Been amusing yourself, Charles?” queried Archie with a leer.

The marquess gave him a cold look, drank off a bumper of brandy in one gulp, and turned to Toby.

“I thought you might be with my wife this evening, Toby,” he remarked lightly. He drained another bumper of brandy.

Toby looked at the marquess nervously. “Not me,” he said hurriedly.

“That makes a change,” said the marquess in the same deceptively light voice. His three friends watched as another liberal glass of brandy followed the first two down the marquess's throat.

The marquess became aware of a smell of bad drainage from somewhere behind him. “Hallo, Ellington,” he remarked without bothering to turn his head.

“Glad to see you're fit and well,” said Lord Ellington while they all hurriedly buried their faces in their scented handkerchiefs. Dear God, thought Perry, Ellington gets riper by the minute. “I was walking along Half Moon Street,” continued Lord Ellington, as usual blissfully unaware of the effect of his aroma, “and I saw you nearly getting hit by a dashed great chimney pot. Ah, well, the devil looks after his own, and talkin’ about devils, wasn't that the fair Harrison's house you was coming out of?”

“So?” said the marquess, helping himself generously from the decanter.

Lord Ellington slapped him on the back with one grimy hand. “'
So
,’ he says. What a dog you are, Charles! Newly wed and all and still sampling the delights of the night.”

“You see, my wife understands me completely,” said the marquess simply. He felt he had just said something wrong, for Perry was looking at him strangely, but the brandy was affecting his brain very quickly and he had a sudden desire to make bad worse.

“A toast to my beautiful wife,” said the marquess, getting to his feet. “A toast to the modern woman. I allow my wife the same liberty as I allow myself. Come, gentlemen! You are not drinking.”

“See!
See!
” whispered Archie, nudging Toby so violently that he spilled some of his drink on the table.

A black servant deftly mopped it up and then stood close by to be on hand. In his experience, a table such as this would soon put more brandy on the floor than in their mouths. Ah, well, only a few more years and he would be able to open his public house in the East End.

Ellington laughed noisily and strolled away, leaving the members of the table to put down their handkerchiefs and sigh with relief.

“Weird weather,” commented Perry conversationally. “First demned fog, then demned storm. It reminds me of—”

“The modern woman,” said the marquess, paying no attention. “They want their freedom? Then let ‘em have it. God knows, there are enough female rakes in this society of ours.”

Archie leaned forward with his protruding eyes gleaming. “You should not talk so of your wife in public,” he said, carefully adding another brand to the marquess's fire. “Respectable lady, your wife.”

“Pah!” said the marquess with a hectic glint in his eye. “That one is any man's for the taking.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he would have given anything to take them back. He looked wildly round at his friends and wondered if he were going mad. Mumbling some incoherent good-evenings, he all but ran from the club.

“Pay no attention,” said Perry. “Charles is drunk.”

“
In vino veritas,
heh, Toby?” said Archie slyly.

“Oh, tol rol,” said Toby, waving his fat fingers in the air in a sort of dismissive way. But already his brain was busy. Hadn't Charles practically given him
leave
to seduce Margery? It looked as if his, Toby's, earlier ideas of women were right. They were minxes all. Sighing and simpering and protesting gentility while all the while they were no better than that Mrs. Harrison. He thought of clasping a yielding Margery in his arms—in a looser coat, of course —and felt no end of a buck.

He came to a sudden decision. “Heh, Archie, ‘member what you was suggesting? Well, I have a plan. Sorry, Perry, not for your ears.”

He moved closer to Archie and bent his great head and began to whisper. Perry drank idly until snatches of their conversation began to reach his ears: “...gamekeeper's cottage ... deserted ... grounds of Tuttering ... Lady Margery...”

Perry stiffened. They wouldn't, they couldn't! He suddenly decided to call on Charles in the morning and warn him that his ill-advised remarks may have put wrong ideas in the fat heads of a certain pair of country gentlemen.

“Hullo, father,” said the marquess, dismounting from his horse.

The duke's aged, weatherbeaten face peered up at him curiously for a few seconds and then his blue eyes, very like his son's, cleared in recognition.

“Charles, my boy,” said the duke, with a marked lack of paternal enthusiasm. “Have you finally brought Margery to see me?”

“No, father. My wife is occupied in town.”

“Well, well, well. Seems odd to me. Not allowed to see my own daughter-in-law. But come inside and we'll talk.”

The duke cast a longing look back at the flower bed, heaved a heavy sigh, and trotted up to Delham Court beside the tall figure of his son.

The great house was much as Charles had remembered it from childhood, dim and silent and redolent of dry rot and damp dogs.

“Come in, my boy. Come in,” said the duke, leading the way into a ground-floor saloon. “Now we can be cozy.”

The marquess's lips twisted in a wry smile. The vast, chilly saloon stretched into infinity and a minuscule fire of sea coal flared on the vast black hearth. The duke pottered from side to side of the great saloon, picked up a gardening book, removed his hat, straightened his wig with one earthy finger, and to all intents and purposes forgot about his son's existence.

The marquess sighed. It was always a mistake to come back. Always a mistake to come searching for the home that had never really existed outside his imagination. As a boy, he had rarely seen either his father or mother, having been brought up by the nurse, then the tutor, then Eton and Oxford, and then another tutor to take him away on the Grand Tour. His mother had died when he was at Oxford, and he was ashamed because he had been more upset over the death of his old nurse. His head throbbed and ached from the effects of the brandy and he longed for bed.

He gave a gentle cough, but his father remained immersed in his book. Charles looked at him sadly for a minute or two and then got to his feet and quietly left the room.

The duke was vaguely aware later that someone had arrived and that he should perhaps be arranging something for their comfort. But after all, that was what one kept servants for. He returned to his book.

The marquess slept long and heavily, only awakening as a fiery sunset burned out the end of the winter's day. The rooks were wheeling and diving over the bare brown fields. Trees threw their skeletal arms up to the red and blazing sky like lost souls stretching up out of hell.

Faintly, somewhere in the great house, the marquess heard the sound of the dressing gong. His father was a stickler for protocol, and he would be expected to present himself attired in evening coat and knee breeches for dinner.

As he rummaged through his jewel box, he thought of the brooch he had so carelessly bestowed on Mrs. Harrison. If only there were
someone
, just anyone, to confide in. But one did not share the secrets of the marriage bed with one's friends.

Dinner was a long and solemn affair. Father and son sat at either end of a long polished table. The duke had his book propped against the saltcellar.

Remove followed remove until at last the port and nuts were brought in and the army of servants withdrew.

“Father!” said the marquess in an imperative tone.

The duke looked along the length of the table until he realized that his son and heir was seated at the other. He carefully and reluctantly marked his place in the book. “Hallo, Charles,” he said genially. “When did you arrive?”

“I arrived this morning,” said the marquess testily, “and before you forget my existence again, perhaps you would favor me with your attention.”

“Of course, of course, my boy,” said the duke, his eyes staring longingly at his book.

The marquess picked up the decanter and strolled languidly down the length of the table and drew up a chair next to his father. He gently lifted the book from the saltcellar and turned it face down on the table, ignoring his father's annoyance and distress.

“You're going to ask me for money,” said the duke almost pettishly.

“I have plenty of money of my own,” pointed out the marquess.

“Then what else can you want?” asked the duke patiently.

“Strange as it may seem,” said the marquess slowly, “I would like to hear what my mother was like.”

The duke stared at him in surprise and then turned to stare at a portrait of his wife, which hung above the fireplace, as if expecting the painted mouth to open.

“Well, there she is,” he said, waving a feeble hand to introduce the portrait. “Ain't as if she died when you was a child.”

“But I never knew her, you see,” said the marquess gently. “I saw her very briefly during my childhood—and you too, sir, for that matter.”

“That's natural,” protested the duke, retreating behind his favorite argument. “That's what servants are for. You had the best nurse, the best tutors.”

The duke stared myopically into his glass.

“Alicia,” he said at last. “Pretty name. I still miss her, my boy. Still miss her. People thought she was a cold, autocratic woman. But she wasn't, at least not with me.”

He stared again at his glass, again forgetting his son's existence and talking almost as if to himself. “Fire and passion, that's what she was.”

His son stiffened suddenly.

“Fire and passion,” mused the duke, his face alight with memories. A log fell in the fireplace and sent a sudden sheet of flame up the chimney, and the wind began to rise again outside.

“We were lucky, very lucky,” the old voice went on. “It was a suitable match, but a love match for all that. I had everything a man could desire, a handsome wife in the drawing room and a passionate seductress in the bedroom.”

“But surely women—society women—are not supposed to—er—behave with any abandon in the bedroom,” said the marquess in a husky voice.

“Eh, what?” said the duke. “Oh, hallo, Charles.”

“Father,” said the marquess, slowly and patiently. “It is important for me to know ... for you to tell me. I had thought that women of our class did not indulge in strong passions.”

“Why not?” asked the duke, looking properly at his son for the first time. “Women are the same all over, ain't they? You can't say we neglected your education along those lines. Didn't I fix you up with the best courtesan in London soon as you were old enough? Didn't she teach you anything?”

“She taught me that an experienced woman can supply what she is paid for,” he said dryly. “After that I had one abortive affair with a certain society lady, and the fire and passion that she gave to me meant all the world. I gave her my love and my heart. In return she supplied that fire and passion to several lovers apart from me, with happy, carefree indiscrimination. When I taxed her with it, she laughed in my face and called me a green boy. Since that time I have paid for my pleasures.

“A wife ... well, I expected nothing more than that she should comport herself properly and supply me with an heir. On our wedding night, she seemed to burn in my arms. And I was shocked. No gently nurtured female should show such abandon.”

“Fiddle,” said his father. “It's all the fault of your damned Methodist-ridden generation, your milk-and-water misses. In my day, we expected our women to match our passions.”

A slow feeling of panic began to grip the marquess.

“Had you told me this earlier—” he began wrathfully.

The duke picked up his book. “How was I to know you would be so stupid?” he countered.

He pulled a branch of candles nearer and proceeded to read, unaware that he had rocked his son's well-ordered world to its very foundations.

Unnoticed by his father, the marquess rose and left the table. He must return to London as soon as possible. He had behaved like a fool. Some of the remarks he had made at Watier's seemed to burn into his mind as he groaned aloud.

The duke mistook his anguish for indigestion.

“Try rhubarb cordial,” he said kindly. “Best thing. Works every time.”

But the duke spoke to empty air.

The marquess had gone.