Maggie MacKeever (8 page)

For some time the squire listened without murmuring either acquiescence or protest, merely munching in a ruminative manner upon his lordship’s chestnuts. When they arrived at the old Middle Temple gate, built by Inigo Jones from a design by Sir Christopher Wren, he deemed it time to interrupt the pleasantries. “I don’t blame you for not wanting to think of Calveley;

it’s deuced annoying to have to concern yourself with this sort of twaddle when there are so many more important things going on. But you must! Consider the succession.” Lord Davenham’s frown reminded his friend not only that the subject of Lady Davenham was taboo; but also that, though slow to anger, Vivien was very handy with his fists. There was in his lordship’s stillness a hint that anger was not far off. “Dash it, Vivien!” James said plaintively. “You should know that it’s folly to give a mettlesome filly her head.”

Lord Davenham did not immediately answer, being wholly occupied with reminding himself that he could not indulge his impulses to roundly snub friends who presumed—at least not if he wanted to maintain those friendships. Vivien wished to keep the squire’s friendship every bit as much as he wished to avoid a discussion of his wife. Perhaps if he refused to answer James’s questions, James would cease to ask them?

With a mighty conversational hop, Lord Davenham progressed from the propagation of light to animal husbandry. “I am not especially concerned,” he allowed, “with the improvement of horseflesh. Sheep, however, are an altogether different matter. I take particular pride in the wool of my merino flock. Persuade that lazy agent of yours to have the swamps drained and you may raise your own flock.”

Though not an especially patient man, the squire was astute, and he knew that the ice on which he stood was very thin. He had expressed his concern. If Vivien chose to divulge confidences, which seemed highly unlikely, it would be in his own good time. “I don’t care to raise sheep!” James responded irritably, as they walked down the Middle Temple Lane.

Relieved that his friend had at last ceased to badger him, Lord Davenham brandished the umbrella—green, lined with yellow—that he carried not as any concession to fashion, but because the grayness of the day hinted strongly at impending rain. “If you do not wish to raise sheep, then why did you introduce the subject?” he very reasonably inquired. “Cattle will do just as well—but you must make up your own mind.”

“Thank you!” the squire responded ironically. By this time the gentlemen had passed the Brick Court where Oliver Goldsmith once lodged. Ahead of them lay the Middle Temple Hall, where Shakespeare had long ago presented his first performance of
Twelfth Night
in the presence of Queen Elizabeth. Beyond the Hall, the Temple garden stretched. “You are roasting me again. You know I don’t want to raise cattle, either. In point of fact, I don’t even want to drain my swamp!”

“No?” His lordship gravitated toward the gardens, narrowly avoiding collision with a barrister hurrying along the peaceful pathway, clutching at his flapping gown and gray wig. Then he turned quizzically to his friend. “I daresay you know your own business best. As you think I do not. You are determined to issue me dire warnings, even though I assure you there is no need to trouble yourself.”

“I am that.” Eager to take advantage of this sudden receptive mood, James still sought a tactful phrasing for his next remark. “I am very much afraid that Lady Davenham—that is, a certain amount of notoriety surrounds Calveley—dash it, Vivien! She’s been
coquetting
with him!”

“Coquetting?” Lord Davenham could hardly take offense at a remark he had practically invited. Wondering what had inspired his passing madness, Lord Davenham gazed upon his green and yellow-lined umbrella. “I very much fear you are suffering from maggots, James.”

“Maggots?” The squire reminded himself that no gentleman, even a gentleman so unworldly as Lord Davenham, must relish learning that his wife was openly intriguing with another man. Naturally, Vivien would attempt to change the subject. What had they been talking about? “In my swamp?”

“No,” responded his lordship gently, “in your brain. Reassure yourself, James; Thea has coquetted with no one in all her life. Indeed, it is Thea you should talk to about these
on-dits
which so concern you. She has the disposition to meddle, not I.”

Obviously, the problem must be approached from another angle, decided the squire. He moved a prudent distance from his lordship’s umbrella before repeating:

“It’s a fool who allows a mettlesome filly too much rein.”

Whimsically, Lord Davenham regarded his friend. “What is this obsession you have today with fillies, James? I did not know you were in the petticoat line.”

Exasperated, the squire scowled. “I’m not!” he snapped.

“You relieve me.” Lord Davenham bent and plucked a rose, inhaled of its fragrance, tucked the flower into the top buttonhole of his vest. “Relieve me on another matter, James. For if I thought you were referring to my wife in so singular a manner, I should be obliged to accuse you of impertinence, which neither of us would care for.” He ruminated. “And in any event, I doubt Thea would like to be kept on a short rein.”

It was Lord Davenham who was singular, decided the squire. What signified Lady Davenham’s dislike? A man was master of his own home, surely, and all who resided therein. At least most men were, James amended. In the Davenham household, from all appearances, the established order might well have been overthrown. He hastened to catch up with his friend, who during his reflections had strolled away down a garden path.

“Vivien!” he wheezed, and clutched at the Duke’s arm. “People also recall that old rumor that Lady Davenham would have rather married Calveley instead of you—it was
more
than a rumor; wagers were laid on it in the clubs! I know that for fact, because I put my own name in White’s betting book.” Recalled by his friend’s quizzical glance to the callousness of this observation, the squire turned ruddier yet. “I wagered that she’d have
you,
of course! The point is that people remember that sort of gossip, and now Calveley no sooner returns than he begins to pay Lady Davenham attentions that are a little pointed. I’m not saying there’s anything to it, mind, but it
looks
bad!”

“Looks bad?” Lord Davenham reached out and ruffled the squire’s whiskers, apparently under the impression that the wheezing noises issued from his arthritic hound. “Nonsense, James.”

Ignorance was bliss, reflected the squire; it was a philosophy to which Lord Davenham obviously ascribed. “Have you not the least concern for the prospect?” James wearily inquired.

The prospect which most interested Lord Davenham was that of escaping the concerned queries of his old friend. Vivien gazed about him, with the guilty air of one whose attention had strayed. “The prospect? It is very pleasant—
so
pleasant that had I been aware of it, I might have considered becoming a barrister at law—had my position allowed such a thing, that is. It is very peaceful here, as befits a place where the rights of sanctuary are still observed—and I confess to an ignoble pleasure in the thought that even the Lord Mayor must leave his robes outside when he ventures into this community.” He dug the ferrule of his umbrella into the soil of a flowerbed. “Beg pardon, James! Did you speak?”

The squire had indeed spoken, and those muttered words had been no praise of Lord Davenham’s evasiveness. “I appreciate the delicacy of your position, Vivien. Calveley is your heir. You can hardly take your wife to task for associating with him.”

“I cannot?” His lordship rotated the ferrule of his umbrella to and fro. “I do not wish to argue with you, James, but it seems to me that I may take my wife to task for anything I please.”

At least a step in the proper direction had been achieved. The squire rendered devout thanksgiving. “Then you will wish to intimate to Lady Davenham that you cannot approve her association with a profligate,” he suggested delicately.

“On the contrary, James; I wish to do no such thing.” Lord Davenham was inspired by the results of his umbrella’s application to drop down on one knee. “Thea wouldn’t like it.”

“Really, Vivien!” The squire was aggravated almost beyond belief. “It is not for me to tell you how to deal with your family, but I warn you that if you do not make some effort to remedy this situation, it will grow abominably out of hand. Or perhaps you do not care
if your family is made an object of notoriety.”

“Not at all,” responded his lordship, who was now digging with his quizzing-glass, and every evidence of pleasure, in the flowerbed. “I don’t pay much attention to such things, you know. If Thea doesn’t mind being talked about, why should I? At any event, the Davenants always
are.”

Faced with such obduracy, the squire retracted his prematurely offered thanks. “I will say no more. ‘Tis you who must bear the consequences of your folly. I only hope those consequences may not be such as force even you to come down out of the clouds!”

This admission of defeat attracted Lord Davenham’s attention as prophecies of disaster had not. “You are very good to concern yourself with me, James,” he said gently. “But you need not. Thea has taken Malcolm in hand with a notion of settling him respectably—and though I doubt she will be successful, it would be wrong of me to interfere. As for Malcolm, he may stand next in line, but I haven’t stuck my spoon in the wall yet. Nor do I plan to do so in the near future. Now, James, are you satisfied?”

The squire was far from satisfied, but he refrained from saying so; already he had tried his old friend’s civility too hard. “Why
did
Calveley leave England, and with such unseemly haste?” he inquired abruptly. “For all the tittle-tattle, no one seems to know.”

Lord Davenham’s interest was not held. He picked up a handful of soil and studied it through his quizzing-glass. As he did so, he said vaguely, “It distresses me beyond description to disappoint you, James, but I have never paid particular attention to Malcolm’s peccadilloes.”

The squire was not deceived by this offhand manner. “Hah! You don’t like the fellow above half.”

Lord Davenham rose and dropped the dirt back into the flowerbed. “You really would be wise to study the different types of soil, James,” he said. “I could tell you all sorts of interesting things from the sample I just inspected.”

“I’ll take your word for it!” the squire responded hastily, glancing at the violated flowerbed. “And nothing you can say will persuade me you have a fondness for Calveley—no, or that you trust him an inch! You’re not half so absent-minded as you make yourself out to be a great portion of the time—although why you chose to do so is beyond my ken!”

Lord Davenham responded to this outburst with a thoughtful look. Ever-hopeful, the squire paused. Perhaps he might yet explain his queer conduct to an old friend?

Clearly comment was called for, decided his lordship. But he could not explain his actions to himself, let alone to his companion. Did she wish to leave him, a man could not bind a woman to him, even his own wife. He could only hope that she would decide she wished to stay. Yet to try and influence her to do so seemed somehow unfair.

That James would scoff at this quixotic attitude, Lord Davenham realized. “Ants,” he therefore supplied. “I wonder if I should tell the keeper of these gardens of my favorite remedy—if one burns empty snail shells with Storax wood and throws the ashes on the ant hill, the little inhabitants will presently be obliged to remove themselves. What do you recommend, James?” The squire grimaced, grunted, and stamped angrily away.

Lord Davenham exhibited no dismay as result of his friend’s desertion. Nor did he follow the squire out of the Temple gardens. Instead, Vivien opened his yellow-lined umbrella against the drizzle that had begun to fall, and strolled for a time among the red and white rose bushes, looking very pensive, and a little bit amused.

Chapter Eight

Much as Miss Melly Bagshot might have admired Lord Davenham’s fashionable yellow-lined green umbrella, that item would have been of little practical benefit. More than inclement weather beset Melly.
Her
aunt’s determined efforts to curb her natural high spirits had afflicted Melly with what is best described as a drizzle of the soul.

At least the weather matched her mood, she thought, as she glanced up from the netted miser’s purse to which she was applying henna beads in a paisley cone pattern. The world appeared dismal and gray through the plate-glass window of her aunt’s shop. Not that Melly would have minded a certain inclemency of weather, if only she could have escaped her aunt’s watchful eye. Even now that piercing eye was fixed on her, as its owner alternately cajoled her customers and chastised the seamstresses busily working in the atelier.

Suddenly the bleak vista was greatly enlivened by the advent of a leather-hatted man, clad in a blue greatcoat and a scarlet vest. He was studying his reflection in the glass, decided Melly, as she watched him grimace at himself. Intrigued, she set down her work. The leather-hatted individual removed himself from the window and reappeared on the threshold of the showroom. There he halted. The saber that he wore over his blue greatcoat was lodged in the doorjamb.

“Bless my soul!” murmured Melly, as she avidly drank in the details of the newcomer’s raiment, which additionally included leather stock, blue trousers, Wellington boots with steel spurs, and white gloves. Though this fellow could hardly compare with such gentlemen as Sir Malcolm Calveley, who need only step into a room to set a girl’s heart aflutter, and who doubtless had never got stuck in a doorway in all his life, the newcomer was a fellow, nonetheless. Melly advanced.

His hair was brown, his figure unremarkable, his countenance earnest, anxious, and a trifle foolish— though it may have been his predicament which made him look that way. Without preliminaries Melly reached out, grasped the saber, and extricated it from the doorway. The saber’s owner untwisted his neck, and ended his resemblance to a dog chasing its own tail. His gaze fell upon Melly. He froze open-mouthed, as if turned suddenly to stone.