Poppy (7 page)

“I didn’t marry Freddie for his money,” said Poppy, and then she remembered the rent.

“Then what did you marry him for?” asked the duke, with all the insensitive, arrogant curiosity of his class. “Strong maternal feelings? Not love.”

“Yes, love,” said Poppy, suddenly losing her fears in a healthy burst of anger. “But then that’s something I swear you personally know nothing about.”

“You are quite right,” he replied with irritating amiability. “But I consider myself old enough and experienced enough to recognize it when I see it.”

“You’re certainly old enough,” flashed Poppy, dying to hurt him, seeking blindly for some weapon to penetrate the duke’s urbane hide.

“Control yourself, Mrs. Plummett,” he said sharply. “Let us not descend to cheap insults.”

“See here,” said Poppy, unaware that she was now not trying to speak properly; her voice in unconscious mimicry had almost assumed a perfect upper-class accent. “It’s a bit thick. You calmly sit there and tell me I married Freddie for his money, that you disapprove of the marriage, and that my husband is a drunk and a gambler, and
you
—you talk of insults!”

Her eyes were flashing, and her bosom was heaving. The duke studied her with interest, turned over her words in his mind, found to his surprise that she had a point and also that he was finding this spectacle of excessive emotion rather refreshing, and said, “My apologies, Mrs. Plummett. I have treated Freddie like a naughty schoolboy for so long that I am afraid I gave you the same treatment.”

He smiled charmingly into her eyes, and Poppy found she could not resist and smiled weakly back.

“There, that’s better,” he said. “You have a beautiful smile. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Not exactly,” mumbled Poppy, feeling weak at the knees and dropping her eyes in confusion. Dealing with the duke reminded her of being on one of those swings at the fair. Exhilarating, but definitely giddy-making.

“I saw you before,” he said. “I know, I heard you sing. You have a beautiful voice. Where did you perform?”

“I was a Lewis girl,” said Poppy proudly. “I saw you too,” she said boldly. “With that Freda woman, in Cutler’s Fields. You was slumming.”

“Yes,” said the duke.

Silence fell as Poppy racked her brains for something to say to counter that bald admission. The wind moaned through the trees outside, and from below the window came the wild scream of someone experiencing the agony of death.

“Peacocks,” said the duke, picking up his pen and doodling idly on the blotter in front of him.

The duke felt he should ring the bell and have her conducted to her rooms, but something strange happened in that moment. He felt an odd companionship with this impossible girl—a strange and heady mixture of exhilaration and ease. He was so fascinated with picking up and turning over these new feelings that he completely forgot that the cause of them was sitting across the desk from him.

Poppy, seeing that he was seemingly absorbed in his thoughts, found herself beginning to relax, and a lot of the fear and awe she had first experienced on seeing him again began to ebb.

She looked curiously around the room for the first time. The day was darkening outside, and intermittent gusts of rain slashed across the long windows. There was an oil lamp on the desk, a heavy brass thing with a green shade, but the duke made no move to light it. Shadows gathered on the paneled walls. There were framed hunting pictures on one wall, and a glass-fronted bookcase on another The fireplace had a polished high brass fender topped with a sort of leather bench around it, and the fire itself suddenly spurted up, sending flame patterns dancing over the walls and up to the low ceiling. A pair of lovers by Du Paquier in yellow and pink porcelain carried on their eternal courtship on the mantelshelf. Poppy thought idly that perhaps she should leave to go and find Freddie, but her emotions had been so buffeted about since her marriage that she felt like a weary ship come to port after a storm. So she sat silently, occasionally looking around the room and sometimes at the play of firelight on the duke’s face as the storm grew louder outside and dusk crept over the lawns and ornamental water.

Suddenly he raised his head, and their eyes met, Poppy’s wide and blue and wondering, and the duke’s black and inscrutable.

Freda, who had been leaning her ear to the other side of the door in the hopes of hearing the new Mrs. Plummett get her comeuppance, could not understand the continuing silence, and with a shrug assumed she was too late and that the interesting interview was at an end. She pushed open the door.

The duke stared at her with a strangely blank look on his face. Poppy remained facing him and did not even turn around. Somewhere far below, the dressing gong sounded.

“What are you two doing sitting in the dark?” exclaimed Freda, rustling forward, lighting the lamp and turning it up to its fullest. A flicker of irritation, which was quickly masked, crossed the duke’s face, but not before she had noticed it. He felt annoyed with Freda. He was sure if she had not come in, he would have been able to analyze, to his satisfaction, these new, strange emotions that had beset him.

“In case you have not noticed,” said Freda with an edge to her usually charming voice, “that was the dressing gong.”

“Oh, thanks, Freda,” mumbled Poppy, getting to her feet. The duke, with his usual punctilious courtesy, immediately got to his own.

Freda’s eyes were like ice. “For your information,
Mrs
. Plummett,” she said. “When you address me, you call me Mrs. von Dierksen. Only the duchess calls me Freda.”

Now, Poppy would have done well to follow the duke’s example in trying to analyze her emotions. As it was, she did not realize that the sudden, trembling rage and dislike for Freda, which consumed her, was based on jealousy, pure and simple.

With great dignity the Honorable Mrs. Freddie Plummett gathered her skirts about her and glared at Freda. “I don’t know why you’re going out of your way to be so nasty,” said Poppy, “but I suggest you take whatever it is and stuff it up your jumper!”

Then with one apologetic glance at the duke’s immobile face, she fled from the room.

“Well…!” said Freda.

“I know,” said the duke. “You never in all your born days.”

“Exactly. How could you bear to be closeted with such a low creature?”

“My tastes are becoming debased with age, my darling. I found her quite delightful.”

“Don’t tease so, Hugo. She’s awful. Think of your poor mother. I do feel for her.”

“I shouldn’t,” he said in a mocking voice. “Mother resents your presence here so much more than Mrs. Plummett’s.”

“But that is your fault, Hugo. You should tell her we are affianced. There is no barrier to our marriage. I am of the finest blood.”

“Ah, yes, but you forget I have no intention of marrying,” said the duke lightly. “What is marriage after all, my dear Freda? Merely a form of romanticized lust.”

“You’re impossible!”

“And unmarriageable, dear Freda.”

“I am tired of being treated like a courtesan, Hugo, and so I warn you. You never sit with me in darkened rooms in rapt silence.”

“Ah, no, my love. But I am extremely active with you in darkened rooms. Come, Freda, please don’t be a bore. I cannot abide threatening women, and if you do not like the terms of our alliance, then you can put an end to it.”

His voice was quite sharp, and Freda laughed, her special rippling laugh, while her brain worked feverishly. How could she have been so clumsy, she who was mistress of the light touch and the sophisticated amour? It was all the fault of that little slut, Poppy Duveen. Freda would most definitely telephone His Grace’s heir. And before dinner too!

“I’ve got to work,” said Freddie gloomily. “I’d do anything for you, Poppy, I swear, but it hits a chap hard to have to work when he’s not been brought up to it. If only I could have a drink,” he added peevishly, twisting his thin body restlessly on the counterpane.

“I would’ve thought this place would’ve been bursting with drink,” said Poppy, then added, “but stop worrying about drink, Freddie, and tell me what I’m to wear.”

“You look nice in black,” said Freddie, trying to consider her problem.

“I can’t wear the same gown!” wailed Poppy.

“Wear that thing you had on at the wedding,” said Freddie, rapidly losing interest.

Poppy swung around from the dressing table and surveyed him with amazement. “We left all our clothes.”

“So we did,” exclaimed Freddie, heaving himself off the bed. “I’d better go and see Uncle and borrow some of his things. It can’t put him in a worse rage than he was in this afternoon. Maybe I’ll run into a decanter on the way there. What did he say to you, Poppy? You were gone a long time.”

“He said I had married you for your money,” said Poppy in a low voice.

“And so you did,” said Freddie, cheerfully dropping a kiss on the top of her head. “But seriously, I do love you. You do know that.”

“Yes, Freddie,” said Poppy in a tired voice. “But you should’ve told me you didn’t have no—any—money. I mean,” she added hurriedly, “I’d probably have married you just the syme—
same
—but I would’ve kept me job at the theater.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t allow any wife of mine to work,” said Freddie quite sternly. “It’s just that it’s a bit thick, Uncle Hugo finding me a job. He’s got pots and pots of money. Did he say anything about why he wanted me to work?”

Poppy shook her head. She found she could not possibly hurt him by repeating the duke’s remarks about drinking and gambling.

“Well, toodle-oo. I’ll go and hunt up some clothes,” said Freddie from the doorway.

“What about me?” cried Poppy.

“You look jolly nice in that black thing,” said Freddie bracingly. “Nobody’ll notice.” And with that he was gone before she could call him back.

She stared dismally at her reflection in the looking glass, and then began to unpin her hair slowly, in order to give it a good brushing before putting it up again.

There was a discreet scratching at the door, and she called, “Come in.”

A footman entered, carrying her worn basket trunk and Freddie’s valise.

“His Grace’s compliments,” said the servant, depositing the luggage by the bed.

Poppy could hardly wait for him to leave. She would be able to dress for dinner after all. The duke had evidently paid their bill at the hotel.

But once she had donned the stage gown that she had worn on her wedding day, she experienced a certain qualm. It was one of the best she had ever worn, comprised of a bright pink blouse with the inevitable high-boned collar, and a fishtail skirt. The lace at the bertha was made of cotton crochet. But in the subdued elegance of Everton, did it not seem… well… just a little
brash?

If only Freddie would come back so she could ask him. Well, there was nothing else
to
wear. And at least it had two taffeta petticoats to go with it—those petticoats that supplied that swishing froufrou as she crossed the stage at the end of the line of Lewis girls.

Far away in the nether regions of the great house came the muffled sound of a gong. Poppy felt a stab of fear in her stomach. She crossed to the writing desk and picked up a crested card, which informed guests of the times of meals.
Dinner—8:30 p.m
. stared up at her in neat italic script.

All at once Poppy realized that Freddie had found his decanter and that she was either going to have to plead a headache or brave the house party on her own.

For a while she toyed with the idea of the headache, but she thought of the duke and how relaxed she had felt with him during those last silent moments in the study. She thought of the duchess—so reassuringly like Ma Barker.

Poppy pushed open the door and looked along the silent corridor. She tried to remember the direction of the main staircase and could not. Poppy did not know that even such a notable as the lord lieutenant of the county could not find his way downstairs at Everton either and usually rang the bell for a servant to guide him.

Taking a deep breath, she plunged down the corridor, made several left turns, and became hopelessly lost in an endless chain of gilt and carving and rococo. Blind-eyed statues with the cold half smile of the eighteenth century held up their arms in graceful attitudes. Clocks ticked sonorously in the padded hushed silence that only great wealth could produce in that naughty world.

Then at the end of one room, she caught a glimmer of claret-and-silver livery, and with a sob of relief fled toward it. But like the White Rabbit in
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
, the owner of the livery flicked from view, and when Poppy reached the end of the room, passing through an open door into another corridor, there was no one in sight.

Panicking and completely disoriented by this time, Poppy frantically pushed at a small leather-covered door and saw with relief a narrow flight of stairs leading downward.

Picking up her skirts, she ran lightly down and down until she could hear the clatter of dishes somewhere far below.

The duke’s servants were startled when His Grace’s latest house guest errupted breathlessly into the servants’ hall.

All rose to their feet and stood politely to attention.

Gawd!
thought Poppy.
They’re more terrifying than the ones upstairs
.

Stammers was on duty in the dining room, but the housekeeper, a severe-looking woman in a black bombazine dress and a lace cap sailed forward.

“I am Mrs. Pullar, His Grace’s housekeeper. May I be of assistance, madam?”

Still Poppy could not bring herself to say she had lost her way. But how else to explain her presence in the kitchen?

“I heard the kitchens at Everton were famous for their modernity,” said poor Poppy, improvizing wildly, “and I thought I might be permitted to have a look at them.”

It was an inspired remark. All the staff were extremely proud of their quarters, believed to be the finest in the country. In the excitement of showing off her treasures to a fresh audience, Mrs. Pullar flushed with pleasure, and never once paused to consider until much later that it was odd indeed of Mrs. Plummett to neglect the company in the dining room.