Maggie MacKeever (9 page)

Sir Geoffrey gave up his efforts to steer Lady Grey in a different direction. Amazing how even the frailest and most pliant female could, given the right provocation, become as unmovable as a tree. “A trifling matter!” he said feebly. “Tabby was supposed to attend to it—yes, and I shall know why she did not!’’

Gus could not be displeased that Miss Minchin had failed to satisfy. However, at this moment her attention was largely for the woman in the absurd hat, who was withdrawing from her reticule what appeared to be a note. The woman stopped an urchin, pointed at Sir Geoffrey, handed the child the missive and a coin.

“How very strange!” said Lady Grey. “If the woman wishes to speak to you, why doesn’t she simply do so? This clandestine behavior is hardly what one likes!”

Sir Geoffrey, as he watched this little drama, considered his options. The earth would not open and swallow him, and he was not sufficiently a coward to flee. The urchin approached, held out the note. Lady Grey snatched it from the child’s hand.

Her pale complexion turned even more ashen as she read. “ ‘Have you forgot so soon that I conceded you the ultimate favor!’ ” she gasped. “Geoffrey, who is this Mrs. Quarles? Do not bother answering; I’m sure I do not care! You will see, I think, that I have no choice but to declare our betrothal at an end!”

This time, Sir Geoffrey made no effort to follow Lady Grey as she stalked haughtily down the esplanade. He bent and picked up the note from the ground where she had let it fall and tucked it into the packet of fish. Then he set out homeward, with the intention of blowing out his brains.

Chapter Ten

The kitchen was a busy place, where maidservants assisted in the cook’s culinary efforts, pounding and scrubbing and chopping, polishing the copper cooking utensils and the cooking range. It was an area of the house that Drusilla particularly liked, despite the fact that the lower floor was badly ventilated and overly warm. She enjoyed the bustle and the cooking smells and the gossip she overheard there.

This day, however, there was no gossip to overhear, only Tabby quarreling with the cook. At first they seemed to be arguing about the best way to stew carp. Then the debate turned to the tin traps set about the room to entice the black beetles that liked to congregate there. Cook averred that the traps should be baited with brown sugar, then plunged into hot water when the insects ventured within. Tabby seemed to think that cooking sherry would be more to the point, which made no sense to Drusilla, nor apparently to the kitchen maids, who looked bewildered as result of the exchange. Lambchop created a diversion, then, edging close to the roast that was intended for the evening meal and causing the cook to snatch angrily at a broom.

“Tabby, I must talk to you!” Drusilla cried, as she hurriedly exited the kitchen in the wake of her pet. Tabby’s reformatory zeal was temporarily frustrated by Lamb-chop’s ill manners and Cook’s resultant wrath. She followed Drusilla up the stairs into the drawing room, where Lambchop collapsed on the Brussels rug.

Tabby collapsed onto a parlor chair of brass-inlaid rosewood. “What was it you wished to speak to me about?”

“As if you didn’t know!” Drusilla dropped down beside her pet on the floral-patterned carpet. “Pa trusted you, Tabby, and you have let him down, even after he was good enough to give you a place here! And after I went to all the trouble to filch one of Ermy’s gowns. Just what did you
do
at the party? You wasn’t sent there to have fun!”

“No, nor did I!” retorted Tabby, who was made very cross by this ingratitude. “Nor did I find—”

“Well!” a third voice interrupted wrathfully from the window seat.
“Well!
Filched my gown, did you, Dru? So that Tabby here might keep an assignation, which is even worse! I don’t suppose it occurred to you that in my gown she might be mistook for me!”

This notion had occurred to neither Drusilla nor Tabby, both of whom now looked blank. “Tabby don’t bear the least resemblance to you,” Drusilla pointed out. “She’s shorter and rounder, and furthermore, her hair ain’t red.”

“My hair isn’t red!” protested Ermyntrude. “It’s gold! And if someone were nearsighted, they might make such an error, queer as it might seem. I have decided St. Erth must be nearsighted. Did you see him at your party, Tabby? Did he pay you particular attention, thinking you was me?”

Tabby thought of the gentleman who had paid her particular attention. “To the best of my knowledge, St. Erth wasn’t there.”

“Don’t try to bamboozle me!” Ermyntrude stamped her little foot. “I know perfectly well he wasn’t in his rooms last evening!”

“Are you spying on him now?” Drusilla was distracted from her annoyance with Tabby by this indication that her sister’s misbehavior had been even worse. “You’d do better to have Philpotts, Ermy. He’ll wear better in the end.”

“Never!” Ermyntrude shuddered. “I ask you, who could cherish tender feelings for a man with such a name as Osbert Philpotts?” She turned to Tabby for confirmation. “Could you?”

Tabby thought that damsels who lived in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Before she could frame a tactful response, Ermyntrude had turned away. “I am quite victim to my heart. It is the family weakness! But neither of you would know about such things.”

Drusilla grimaced meaningfully at Tabby. “It makes me cross as crabs to hear her go on like this. When I think— Well, I’m only thirteen, and Ermy was tolerable when she was thirteen, but look at her now!”

Tabby did glance at Sir Geoffrey’s elder daughter. Ermyntrude’s expression was pensive. When she became aware that four eyes rested on her—six, counting Lambchop’s—she roused. “A particularly elegant, handsome man!” she sighed. “A very Apollo in form! The curve of his handsome mouth—the way his curls tumble forward on his brow!”

This description, not surprisingly, reminded Tabby of a certain rakehell. Surely Vivien wouldn’t be so very wicked as to trifle with a lovely pea-goose like Ermyntrude? But he had been willing enough to trifle with a plump little nobody like Tabby herself. Oh, why was she thinking of him now? Still, she could not refrain from asking, “Who?”

Drusilla rolled her eyes. “Who else? Lionel, Viscount St. Erth! Ermy wants to lead St. Erth into parson’s mousetrap, but it’s clear he don’t care a button for what she wants.”

Tabby let out her pent-up breath. How foolish she had been. And how relieved that one of her charges hadn’t somehow been exposed to the wicked Vivien.

Ermyntrude was glowering at her sister. “I am
not
on the dangle for St. Erth! It is St. Erth who has a distinguishing preference for me.”

“To be sure he does,” Drusilla retorted. “He just ain’t discovered it yet. Don’t be such a goose, Ermy! Maybe St. Erth would be a fine catch for any miss, but you’ve been throwing out lures ever since you first clapped eyes on him, and it looks to me like he’s less enraptured than downright indifferent.”

“And what would you know about it?” So indignant was Ermyntrude made by this calumny that she abandoned her indolent posture on the ottoman to pace with some agitation around the room. “Throwing out lures, indeed! You’ll make Tabby think I’m a complete flirt.” She turned to Tabby. “Dru is just a child! You mustn’t pay her any heed. It utterly sinks my spirits that she is such a gudgeon on the subject of St. Erth.”

Tabby’s own spirits were of a somewhat melancholy cast. Each further moment passed in Sir Geoffrey’s household made her wonder if, in being so eager to take a position, she had not jumped from the frying pan into the fire. “A gudgeon, am I?” retorted Dru. “Very well, Ermy, I’ll make you a wager! Gran’s pearls that you can’t bring St. Erth up to snuff!”

“Done!” cried Ermyntrude, without hesitation. “Though why Gran left her pearls to you in the first place, I have never understood!”

“Mayhap she liked me better,” Drusilla suggested. Ermyntrude’s cheeks flamed. “This is fair and far off, Ermy! You might try to think of other people once in a while. Here we are trying to pull Pa’s coals out of the fire, and instead of trying to help, you do your best to add fuel to the flame!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ermyntrude said sulkily. “And I don’t see how it’s going to pull anyone’s coals out of the fire to send Tabby off to keep assignations in my place!”

“It wasn’t in your place,” interjected Tabby, before Ermyntrude and Drusilla could get to dagger drawing once again. “It had nothing to do with you, Ermyntrude.”

Ermyntrude wasn’t easily sidetracked. “Of course it had to do with me!” she snapped. “It was my gown you wore! You may bamboozle Dru into thinking you were doing Pa some favor, but you shan’t bamboozle me. You were having an assignation of your own.”

“Nonsense!” Tabby responded sternly. “Since you will not leave the subject, I wish to speak to you about that gown. It’s not at all the thing for a girl your age. Indeed, for a girl of any age, unless she’s a demirep! I’m surprised your papa does not forbid you to wear it. He must realize it will give any gentleman who sees you in it the wrong idea.”

“Not the wrong idea!” said Ermyntrude, further incensed by this intimation of the gown’s success. “And how would you know about all that unless some gentleman had got the wrong idea about you? Which no gentleman would have if you hadn’t niched my dress! You needn’t deny it! I know the signs.”

So did Drusilla know the signs. She stared in dismay at Tabby’s rosy cheeks. If Cupid’s dart had smitten even the practical Tabby, there was no hope Drusilla might escape.

Firmly, Tabby banished the image of a green-eyed rake-hell from her mind. “I am not of a romantic nature. My mama was, you see, and ran off when I was very young, leaving my papa and me to rub on without her as best we could.”

Ermyntrude wore a faraway expression. “Just fancy. A carefree life of dissipation. Flitting from flower to flower.” She became aware of the consternated expressions turned toward her and forced a laugh. “Sillies! I was only hamming you.”

Tabby hoped that Ermyntrude was indeed teasing. “That sort of thing is not so amusing at firsthand,” she responded quietly. “It is the families who suffer when someone throws her bonnet over the windmill.”

“Yes, and it’s also the families who suffer when someone blows out their brains!” Drusilla interjected brutally. “Which is what runs in
our
family. Uncle Willard swallowed his peas off his knife, then used it to slit his wrists. Not that anyone could blame him, because he was married to Aunt Hester, and she used to remove her false teeth at table and rinse her mouth with water in front of us all!”

Ermyntrude looked impressed. “Fancy you remembering that! You were barely out of the cradle then.”

“How could I forget?” Drusilla hugged Lambchop. “I thought Pa was the greatest beast in nature because he wouldn’t let me have false teeth of my own.”

Ermyntrude studied her companions, both of whom appeared to be in the dumps. In perfect reverse proportions, her own mood improved. “How the two of you do go on,” she said. “What about Pa? Why should his coals need hauling from the fire?”

Tabby recalled guiltily that Drusilla had wished to speak to her about that very matter. “Yes, what’s happened now? Why is it so dreadful that I was unable to speak to Mrs. Quarles?”

Drusilla extracted a folded square of notepaper from her bodice. At the smell of fish, Lambchop roused. Drusilla fended off her pet. “Hang it!” said Tabby, as she recognized the notepaper. “I mean, she is the most letter-writing female!”

“What female? Who is this Mrs. Quarles?” Ermyntrude plucked the missive from Drusilla’s hand. What a queer scent clung to it. Frowning, Ermyntrude struggled to decipher the handwriting. Then her eyes widened, and she sat down plump on a zebrawood sofa. “ ‘Conceded the ultimate favor’—oh, gracious! Who’d have thought that Pa-”

Drusilla retrieved the note before Lambchop could make a feast of it. “Apparently Lady Grey didn’t have any trouble thinking so! She cried off. But Pa will be all right for a time yet, because I’ve hidden his dueling pistols and dosed him with laudanum, He
is
just the sort of gudgeon who would blow his brains out! He says he can’t live without Lady Grey, but Lady Grey’s nerves won’t stand a scandal, so— I suppose it’s the family weakness that prompted Pa to indulge in a torrid love affair with the sort of female who’d later proved deuced indiscreet!” There was nothing for it then, of course, but that she must explain the whole. At the conclusion of her account, both Tabby and Ermyntrude were pale.

Ermyntrude spoke first. “We must do something! Poor Pa!”

For once, Drusilla found herself in agreement with her sister. She left off hugging Lambchop, for which the dog was grateful; due to the severity of her emotional disturbance, Drusilla’s caress had felt more like a stranglehold. Lest she be tempted to similarly abuse him again, Lambchop moved away from her and collapsed across Tabby’s feet.

“Tabby was
supposed
to do something!” said Drusilla. “She was to meet this Quarles female and talk sense to her last night! It’s obvious Pa can’t talk to her, because if he’s threatening to blow his brains out, he might decide also to blow out that female’s, did he meet her face-to-face. And if Lady Grey won’t stand for his old amours being brought to light, think what she would say about his shooting one of them! I’m very disappointed in you, Tabby! Disaster threatens us—Pa disgraced, Ermy and me left fatherless, and you without a place. All of us brought to a standstill because you wouldn’t help. And, I vow I shall scream if I hear one more word about your dress, Ermy, so be quiet and let me think!”

Ermyntrude obeyed this injunction, and Tabby was lost in her own thoughts, so all was quiet for a space of time. Ermyntrude gazed out the window into the street, while Drusilla nibbled on her thumb. Meanwhile, Tabby tried to convince herself that it was not her fault Sir Geoffrey was in the devil of a pickle, and failed.

If she had not run away from Vivien, she might have contrived to speak with Mrs. Quarles, might have persuaded the woman not to write the note that had been read, with such disastrous results, by Lady Grey. It seemed to Tabby that she had behaved in a very cowardly and ungrateful way. She wriggled her toes under Lambchop’s bulk. The dog was hot on her feet and was probably shedding his fur all over her dress, as well as imbibing it with a distinctly doggy smell; but Tabby took comfort from the contact.