Perdita (20 page)

“Is it
my
fault you are a—what you are? I have no penchant for calling names, but it is ludicrous your taking high moral ground with me in this affair. We are both human, fallible, imperfect—let it rest at that.”

There was a dull ache in my heart, and a sense of defeat. I don’t know when it happened. I had no respect for Stornaway; he was all I despised. A rake, unfaithful, opportunist and worse, but I loved him. Like John with his Millicent, I felt
right
when I was with him. I regretted that the only offer I would ever have from him was this unacceptable one.

Even if my true situation were known, the offer would be no different. “Some proper, preferably aristocratic and dowered lady” was his requirement for a wife. I was none of them, no longer even decently proper. A mistress, raising a brood of illegitimate children, and at the mercy of a self-proclaimed scoundrel was the best I could hope for. I could only repay him in kind, hurt him as he had hurt me. My experience with Daugherty and company showed me the way to do it, and end this conversation once for all.

“If you are sure you love me, Stornaway, but I feel I must tell you everything. The truth is, I am pregnant,” I said, casting down my eyes in a semblance of maidenly modesty.

There was utter, total silence from his direction. Curious to see his expression, I looked up at him through my lashes. He was staring, his face cold and hard with anger. For a very long time he stood thus, looking, silent. When he finally spoke, I hardly understood his meaning. “Alton?” he asked. I had to think a moment before realizing he was inquiring for the prospective father. Poor John! This was really too much to saddle him with.

“No! Oh, no!”

“Who?”

“It—I don’t know really . . ." I thought of Daugherty and O’Reilly, but disliked to put myself in such a low category.

“The possibilities are infinite, are they? Any of the Browns or Joneses who were entertained in the Green Rooms? It seems you have given yourself to everyone but me!”

I became frightened at the temper that was mounting in him. There was an angry flush rising from his collar. I backed away a step. “I am leaving now,” I said.

“The hell you are!” He grabbed me, in such a fit of passion that I feared he meant to strike or strangle me. I tried to push him off, which only incensed him the more. I was pulled to the sofa, the two of us wrestling like a pair of professional men. I became seriously alarmed, fearful for my very life. I knew Perdita and Steddy were outside, but hoped to bring Mrs. Steddy to my defense. I opened my mouth and hollered as loud as I could.

"Help! Help!” I screeched. His hand came over my mouth, closing it violently. I wrenched my head aside and screamed again.

This is how she found us, Perdita. She was on her way back into the house, with Lou in her arms. She looked a fright, in that awful red gown. She looked, made some muffled sound, dropped her kitten and left, ran back outside. I called after her, not able to believe she would desert me, in such dire straits as this. Stornaway had seen her, too. The sight of another person had the marvelous effect of bringing him to his senses. He loosened his grip, but was still dangerously angry. It was less than a minute before Perdita was back. She advanced, very calmly, with her hands behind her back, and a grim, determined look on her face. It occurred to me she had gone for a weapon. I hoped it was a good stout stick or a rock.

It all happened so fast, there was no stopping her. She whipped her hand out, holding a pistol. She raised it, her hand trembling, causing the gun to wobble. "Don't!" I shouted, just as Stornaway leapt up to try to get it from her. He was directly in her line of fire. There was a sharp clap that sounded like thunder at close hand; there was one little leap of flame, then Stornaway lay very still on the floor. He had not uttered a sound as he fell.

"My God, you’ve killed him!” I could not move from the sofa. I sat, frozen like a statue.

She dropped the gun, nearly hitting him. “It was self-defense!” she said. Through the fog enveloping me came the realization that
I
was to be the murderess. At the moment, it did not seem to matter much. I willed myself to stand up, to go to him.

I bent over his immobile form, where he lay, crooked, on the floor. There was a hole in his jacket, with blood oozing from it. I found I could not touch him. “Get Steddy. Call the doctor,” I said, in a hollow, stranger’s voice.

It was Perdita who kept her head, who tried gingerly to open his jacket, to see what damage she had done. A very cursory examination showed her the wound was beyond her powers of helping, and still I could not touch him, not in any helpful way. I took his hand, as I crouched there on the floor beside him. The Steddys came, man and wife. The husband was sent off for a doctor, and still I could not seem to move. Mrs. Steddy ran to assemble hot water, clean bandages, basilicum powder, to ready a bed for him abovestairs.

“Sit down. Have a glass of that wine, miss,” Mrs. Steddy suggested, drawing me to the sofa. "Fainting away won’t help.”

“He is not dead, Moira,” Perdita told me. She was sobered to a state of fear and concern. “I didn’t kill him. Why was he fighting with you?”

I patted her hand, speechless, then got up and went back to Stornaway. I stayed with him till the doctor came. The two men carried him upstairs. There was a deal of rushing about the house, during which Perdita was of very little help, and I of none at all. I had time for every sort of remorse. I had been criminally irresponsible to have set out on this course from the beginning. I should have taken Perdita back home when Aunt Agatha did not come to Chippenham. Nothing but evil had come of my action. I had submitted her, an innocent child, to the company of infamous people. I had ruined her, and my own, reputations. I had killed Stornaway.

“If there is a trial, Perdita, I did it.
I
shot him.”

“No, I did it. Moira, is there such a thing as governess-defense? I mean, it was not really self-defense, but I was defending you. He looked as though he meant to kill you, or was trying to rape you. Which was it?”

"I don’t know, my dear. Neither one has been tried on me before.”

"He really
is
wicked, isn’t he? You were right to warn me. I never thought him to be
this
bad. It has taught me a lesson I shan’t forget, ever. No matter how nice and obliging men
seem,
if they are called rakes in the world, I shall know how they can turn.”

"Yes he is wicked. And I am worse.”

“I am the worst of the lot,” she said, but not with her customary pride at being the most. She was very downhearted.

Chapter Seventeen

It was a long, long afternoon with nothing to do but wait. “Should we not send for his family?” I asked Mrs. Steddy. “In case . . ."

“It’s not so serious as all that, miss. He’ll pull through. Her ladyship don’t know about this place, and he’d rather keep it that way.”

“Did the doctor say he would live?”

“Oh, aye, he did. He don’t want him moved an inch though. Steddy is in the dismals he ever let the girl have his gun. He thought she meant to take a shot at the rabbit, you see. That’s how he come to do it.”

The doctor descended, his face sober but not totally despondent. He carried his black bag. He approached Mrs. Steddy to give her instructions. Perdita and I went along, to learn if there was anything we could do. “He’ll need plenty of care. Lost a good bit of blood, but he’s young and healthy. I’ve written up instructions for you, Mrs. Steddy.”

“I want to help,” I said. The news that he would recover was better than a tonic. It was a chance to make up for some of my crimes.

“You would be the young lady he spoke of. His lordship wants you and the other girl to leave immediately. He is very insistent upon it,” the doctor said.

"We cannot leave. He needs every help.”

“The Steddys can help him. I shall come by a couple of times a day at first. It was his last word, before the sleeping draught took effect, that the young ladies were to be taken to London, today. He has given Steddy instructions exactly how it is to be done.”

“You mean he is asleep! We won’t be able to speak to him before we go?”

“He won’t awaken for a few hours. It will only upset him if you are still here. He does not want to see you, ma’am. If you are worried about his lordship pressing charges, you need not. He explained that it was an accident,” the doctor told me, but with a knowing look, and a rude one, telling me tacitly we were not worth protecting.

After this speech, I went to sit on the sofa with Perdita till Steddy came down to outline the plans for our remove to London. "The wife will go with you in his carriage, for the looks of it. She is to stay overnight at his London house, and come back next day. He asked me to tell you he is sorry, Miss Greenwood, to beg your pardon.”

“Sorry?”

“About the misunderstanding. He said you would know what he meant, and he don’t believe a word about Browns or Joneses, or Alton—that it was all a hum. It don’t make much sense, does it? On t’other hand, he was not delirious.”

“What can it mean?” Perdita asked, her brow pleating in confusion. “I think it is a trick, Moira. I don’t trust him.” The pendulum had swung from no caution to a foolish excess of it.

“We must wait till he awakens and find out,” I suggested, with a wary look to Steddy. He nodded his head in satisfaction.

"He won’t like it—much!” He cocked his head on the side and winked.

I do not know what Steddy made of it, but to me there was no mystery. Stornaway did not believe my story about being pregnant. His concern for our getting to London before nightfall suggested he had even come to believe the rest of our claims, that we were ladies in distress, creatures to be protected, and not a pair of the muslin company. He knew their way of dealing very well. They did not take steps that were likely to throw them in the path of the law. Who ever heard of a lightskirt shooting a lord, in defense of her own or her sisters’ tarnished virtue? Only a lady, or at least a bona fide gentlewoman, would behave so properly!

"Let us leave while we can,” Perdita suggested, rather strongly. "He said he would not press charges. Let us go to Alton’s, Moira. We can write from there and see how he goes on."

“Maybe
you
should go to London.”

“I will not leave you
alone
with him, after what he was trying to do!”

“Stay, then. The fat is already in the fire. Things cannot be much worse for us.”

“No, but they could be better, if we went to London,” she answered.

After all my remorse at having led Perdita astray, I was tempted to take, or send, her to London. But I had wronged more people than just her. Stornaway too had been misled, and nearly killed into the bargain. It would really not do to have Perdita singing this ballad through the city, as she might well do, once she got away. She could come to no harm here now, with Stornaway flat on his back, and myself to watch her. At the back of it all, of course, was the purely selfish desire to hear what he had to say now that he knew I was not Molly, but a woman who was half respectable at least.

At five-thirty Mrs. Steddy served us a light snack. At six Steddy took a bowl of soup up to Stornaway. I meant to go up when the bowl was brought down. I depended on Steddy to let him know we had not left, to prepare him for the sight of us, after having been ordered away.

My hope was that Perdita would remain below. To my surprise, she did not offer to join me. She had been jolted into such a fit of caution she did not even want to
see
a rake. “If you need me, just shout, Moira. I shall be within hearing, right here in the parlor.”

“I can handle him, now that he is half dead.”

“He might have a gun,” she mentioned, perfectly serious.

“I don’t think so. Steddy took it away.”

My fear, when I saw him, was not for my safety, but his own. He looked deathly pale, as he lay on the pillow with his eyes closed. I advanced quietly towards him. One eye opened, to regard me diffidently. He lifted his hand, held it out towards me. I put mine in it. For a moment we remained silent, looking self-consciously at each other, not knowing what to say.

“Thank you for staying. You shouldn’t have.”

"I know. I wanted to make sure you are still alive.”

"Only the good die young. I am not much good, am I, Molly?”

“You are going to be all right.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Don’t try to talk. Rest. Save your strength.”

For about a minute he followed my instructions, closing his eyes. I was becoming uncomfortable, leaning over the bed, and looked around for a chair. His eyes opened and gazed at me. “Is there something worth saving it for?”

“Of course there is. You have got several years of hellraking to do yet.”

"With you? Otherwise I shall just cock up my toes and go now.”

“I am going to get a chair. I have a crick in my back.”

“Bring it close. Very close. I want to hold your hand.”

I pulled it up till it was touching the side of the bed. He smiled, and reached for my hand again. “You are not the sort to kick a fellow when he is down, so I am going to indulge in a little self-booting, all right?”

“Kick away.”

“If you get too disgusted, just call April to pull the trigger again.”

“She is waiting below with the gun cocked.”

“Good for her. You were right about me. I am every worthless, despicable thing you said. Born to privilege and wealth, and never did a worthwhile thing in my life. I had too much, too soon, too easily always. I took what I wanted, and when I was through, tossed it aside without a thought or care. I never
did
grow up, which is probably why Perdita’s penetrating question at noon made me so violently angry. It sounds a hedonistic enough life, but you would be surprised how little happiness it has brought me. Like being at a fair for years. I had begun to realize it, had determined to settle down, get married, do all the proper and expected things.”

“Don’t fatigue yourself. You are talking too much.”