Maggie MacKeever (20 page)

“It
likes
you!” said Delilah, awed.

Neal was no less overwhelmed. Little had he known how much had been denied him by his previous lack of even a nodding acquaintance with a babe. What fascination it exercised, what perfection of tiny, exquisite limbs. Neal poked a gently inquiring finger into the baby’s midriff. Amazing, the tenacity of the little hand that so firmly clutched his finger! Enthralling, that barely heard belch! But the poor little fellow must have a name.

A heated discussion ensued. Delilah suggested Osbert, Ebenezer, Faramond; Neal countered with Kenrick, Mortimer, Bartholomew; Jem interjected Charles, David, William. Too common! protested Neal. So exceptional a child deserved a brilliant name. Perhaps, Tobias? Here the baby belched again. A sign of accord, surely. Toby it would be.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

On the following morning Miss Sibyl Baskerville returned from a long and solitary walk upon the cliffs to be greeted by her cousin the duke with an irate demand for a clarification of the absurd on-dit with which he had been gifted by Edwina just moments past. Binnie adopted a blank expression. “What on-dit is that?” she asked innocently.

“This ridiculous rumor that you are to marry Mark,” retorted Sandor. “I can only conclude that Edwina has windmills in her head.”

“Windmills?” Binnie pulled off her very unbecoming bonnet. “How can you say that, Sandor? Weren’t you saying just recently that you wished me to marry Mark? I declare I do not understand you.”

Obviously she did not. The duke could not blame her for it; he did not understand himself. Politely, he recalled to her their truce. “The word without the bark on it, if you please.
Are
you to be married?”

He sounded so skeptical, so incredulous, that Binnie decided he truly thought her at her last prayers. Destined to lead apes in hell, was she? It was with no small satisfaction that she disabused him of this notion. “Yes,” she said.

The duke was subject to the queerest sensation, as if he had been planted a facer as deftly as he’d tipped a doubler to the tinker Johann. This odd reaction did not leave him feeling especially charitable toward Miss Prunes and Prisms. “Binnie,
why?”
he inquired.

This not-unreasonable question left Binnie at a loss. Though she suspected Sandor of innumerable villainies, it would hardly be diplomatic to inform him of her suspicions. She took refuge in her habitual irony. “But, Sandor, it is my duty to oblige you, is it not? You are the head of the family. If you didn’t wish me to marry Mark, you should have told me so! I thought by accepting his handsome offer, I was doing your bidding.”

Sandor looked very much as if he wished to throttle his cousin, which in point of fact he did. “Tongue-valiant!” he uttered, wrathfully. “Admit it: you’re cutting a sham.”

Miss Baskerville regarded the duke, somewhat smugly. He didn’t approve her betrothal? So much the worse for him! “Not at all, Sandor. I have told Mark that I will become his wife, although the betrothal is not to be announced just yet.” Very curiously, she awaited his next comment.

“Not Edwina!” snarled the duke.
“You’re
the one with windmills in your head! To marry Mark—the devil, Binnie!”

Since these remarks were ambiguous, and since Miss Baskerville was well aware that the duke was in the habit of referring to her as Miss Prunes and Prisms, she interpreted his overt disapproval as stemming from concern for his friend. Sandor thought Mark could look higher for a female with which to settle in matrimony, that Mark should have chosen a wife both younger and more agreeable. Secretly, Binnie shared these sentiments. Still, that Sandor shared her lowly estimation of herself cut her, very irrationally, to the quick. Binnie would never allow Sandor to know that his harsh words had very painfully struck home. “I had hoped you would wish us happy,” she said quietly.

What Sandor wished was to know what had suddenly inspired Miss Prunes and Prisms to contract a singularly inappropriate betrothal—though why he considered that betrothal inappropriate was another thing the duke could not have explained. However, Binnie had already made clear the futility of asking questions of her. With a shocking oath Sandor spun round on his heel and strode down the hallway. Behind him the front door slammed.

Binnie savored the triumph attendant upon having had the last word, and found it very flat. What was wrong with her, that by her betrothal she should be rendered even more melancholy? Other ladies, having arranged for themselves so eligible a connection, would be all rapture. Binnie deduced that she was of a less romantic turn. Her marriage to Mark she regarded as a business arrangement through which she would receive assistance in dealing with her various problems. And Mark? she wondered suddenly. What would he in turn receive? Binnie lacked the faintest notion of what Mr. Dennison would require from his wife—or even why he wished for marriage with a dowdy female like herself. No matter! Binnie would keep her part of the bargain, whatever it entailed.

In this way reflecting, Binnie wandered through the house, giving the morning room in which Edwina was ensconced a very wide berth. Edwina was in alt, envisioning for herself any number of alternate residences; and Binnie did not care to hear further raptures on the topic of Mark. That this attitude was churlish, she knew. So very good was Mark that he had agreed to her request that they keep quiet their betrothal for a time without even inquiring why she wished to do so—which was very fortunate, since Binnie would have been hard pressed to come up with any reason at all.

Why
did
she wish to wait? mused Binnie. Having decided to plunge into waters matrimonial, why dither about getting one’s toes wet? Perhaps she wished to see certain other matters neatly tidied up. Or perhaps, as Sandor had so unchivalrously suggested, she really did have windmills in her head.

Binnie’s ruminations, and her unguided footsteps, had brought her to the door that led to the nether regions of the house. She looked at it, unseeing—and then the door swung abruptly open, and the youngest of the duke’s footmen walked through it. Or, to be more precise, he crept, laden down with a miscellany of items that included a cup of milk, a bowl of bread pudding, several other diverse receptacles the contents of which could not be ascertained, and a very large assortment of dish towels. Her curiosity pricked, Binnie reached out and gently tapped his shoulder. Jem was an excellent footman: he started violently and spun around; he stared and shook as if Miss Baskerville were a ghostly specter; and during all these contortions he spilled not a drop, nor dropped a single thing.

“ ‘Tis the hound, ma’am!” he gasped, in response to Miss Baskerville’s ironic inquiry as to what he was about. “Miss Mannering’s pet. Locked in the old nursery! Excuse me, my lady, I must go tend to it!” Permission granted, he fled.

The footman’s conduct, decided Miss Baskerville, as she watched him mount—with more speed than decorum—the stair, was altogether perplexing. Delilah’s decision to imprison her pet in the nursery was also a puzzle. Doubtless that young lady would have an explanation. Binnie thought she would like to be acquainted with it. She, too, mounted the staircase.

It was not so much that Binnie required enlightenment on Jem’s queer behavior and Caliban’s imprisonment; she was in the dumps, and there was no surer way to relieve a depression of the spirits than to laugh away an hour with Delilah. Anticipating an amusing encounter with Miss Mannering, Binnie approached the nursery door.

Voices came to her; she frowned. Neal should at this hour have been engaged in military duties elsewhere. How had he arrived in the house without, attracting notice? And what was he doing in, of all places, the nursery? Talking about his fiancée, it would seem, from the comments that came faintly through the door. That was the strangest thing of all, decided Binnie, who could not imagine why anyone would voluntarily discuss Miss Choice-Pickerell.

Actually, Neal was not doing so of his own volition, but in response to some very pointed questions asked him by Miss Mannering. Why Delilah should be so interested in his fiancée, Neal did not know, but he had done his best to satisfy her curiosity. “A beautiful refined profile,” he said, in way of conclusion, “and a ladylike manner. Very high-minded.”

“Why is it that high-minded people are often so very dull?” inquired Miss Mannering. “Not that I mean to imply that Miss Choice-Pickerell is a dead bore! Of course she must not be, since you want to marry her.”

Neal had opened his mouth to inform Miss Mannering that her estimation of his fiancée’s character was, unfortunately, correct, when he was distracted by the unmistakable squeak of door hinges. The lieutenant froze, lips parted. His fellow conspirators also paused motionless, anticipating disaster.

Consequently, Binnie was greeted with a paralyzed tableau. Delilah and Neal sat on the floor, one holding a bowl of bread pudding, the other a stuffed animal of undefinable breed; Jem, to whom had been assigned the more practical details of this undertaking, was attaching damp dish towels to an improvised clothesline. A cot had been set up in one comer. Caliban sprawled on it, sound asleep.

Dish towels? A cot? Binnie pinched herself. Surely that was not a
baby
on whom Delilah had so firm a grip? “Gracious God!” she breathed.

With her words, everyone relaxed. “I am so glad it’s only you!” said Delilah. “Pray lock the door! For if Miss Childe— or, even worse, the duke—had come upon us, we would truly have been in a hobble.” Neal was less charitable; he demanded to know what his sister meant by giving them such a nasty turn.

Binnie did as requested, she locked the door, and then she turned around again. It
was
a baby. She stared at him. As if aware of her fascination, and the use that could be made thereof, Toby wriggled immediately out of Delilah’s grasp, and waddled across the room with amazing speed on his chubby little legs. Having safely reached his destination, he grasped Binnie’s skirt, then leaned back to look up at her. And then he lost his balance and sat down hard on his plump little behind.

Binnie was a lady with a very kind nature, despite her various megrims; she bent and swooped the baby up into her arms. Toby made a little gurgling sound, wrapped a fist in her hair, and treated her to a gap-toothed grin. Binnie could not help but smile back at him.

“Then
that’s
all right!” said Delilah, rather enigmatically. “You’ll be able to help us, Binnie! Because if Lord Knowles finds out, he’ll turn poor Toby out into the streets, and that would be a terrible thing.”

Certainly it would, Binnie promptly agreed; none but the most callous of monsters could so mistreat such a delightful child. That Sandor
was
the most callous of monsters, she could not deny. For all that, she was very interested in knowing just who Toby was, and what he was doing in Sandor’s house. Briefly, Delilah explained. Since it was the same explanation she had rendered Neal, and a tissue of lies from beginning to end, in the telling she blushed bright pink.

Miss Baskerville, having become very closely acquainted with the devious Miss Mannering, had a very good idea what Delilah’s blushes signified. Furthermore, even though on some subjects Binnie’s thought processes were demonstrably muddled, she in general possessed very good sense. Toby was remarkably stout for a babe mistreated and abandoned and starved. In short, although Binnie heard out Delilah’s explanation without interruption, she didn’t believe a single word. “But how,” she inquired, when Delilah had concluded, “do you mean to keep his presence secret?”

That, too, Delilah explained. Barring such errors as unlocked doors—Jem received a stern glance—she anticipated no difficulty. Toby was a great deal more energetic than she’d anticipated, she admitted; he ran around the nursery like a veritable whirlwind on his fat little legs and got into everything—and while it didn’t matter if he crawled into the cupboards below the bookcases that lined the walls, the fireplace was a definite problem. “But he makes very little noise, Binnie! I mean, he may break things, but that we can blame on Caliban! You see, Toby is mute.”

Binnie regarded Toby, whom she had returned to Delilah, and who was making a very large mess with the bread pudding. Toby gurgled once again and waved his spoon, his serene blue eyes on Binnie’s face. “Poor little thing!” said Binnie. Apparently content with this response, Toby resumed his meal, a great deal more of which adorned his person than went into his mouth.

“So you realize,” continued Delilah, wiping bread pudding from her face, “that he cannot be left untended a single moment! It is very difficult with only Jem and me, and Jem forced to attend to duties elsewhere—and Neal of course cannot be forever hanging around the house!—but with your help, Binnie, we shall pull the thing off easily!”

“But Delilah!” Much as Binnie hated to spoil sport, she felt impelled to interject a note of reason. “You cannot hope to keep the child’s presence secret indefinitely!”

“Not at all!” With a doting expression, Delilah watched Toby totter over to Neal and collapse against his chest. Neal hugged the boy. Toby responded to this excess of affection by gaily pounding Neal’s shoulder with his spoon, to the further detriment of Neal’s uniform. “Only until we can make other arrangements.”

Binnie offered no response, though she saw countless fallacies in Delilah’s reasoning. Sandor missed little that went on, especially when it went on in his very house; he was not likely to long remain in ignorance of the fact that his household had suddenly been increased by a one. Nor would the servants remain long unaware that something untoward was under way in the old nursery, or that various supplies turned up missing. Binnie glanced around the nursery, where she had not set foot in years. Then she looked again at Toby, who had abandoned the spoon to clutch the disreputable stuffed animal. “Why, it’s Button!” she exclaimed, glad to have at least one puzzle explained. Button was, or had been, a rabbit, fashioned for a much younger Neal by no less surprising a personage than the duke himself. Odd how very sad it made her, that memory of long-ago and much more congenial days.