Lady Anne's Deception (7 page)

when he learned that her ladyship wished to remove herself from town.

So that was how Annie had ended up at the quiet seaside resort with only her maid for company.

Exclusive turned out to mean dull.

The inhabitants of Britlingsea frowned on such seaside diversions as Pierrot and Punch-and-Judy shows.

The promenade at the front where all those London trippers could strut was not for them.

And so the tiny town was still very much as it had been in the days when it had been a fishing village.

Long, narrow lanes of cottages led from the one main street down to a small, rocky beach. Large villas had sprouted up around the town and one Grand Hotel at the west end catered to rich holidaymakers.

Annie had taken a suite at the Grand. Now she was trying to enjoy her newfound freedom, but she found life there just as boring as it had been with her in-laws.

The sun was very bright and hot, with a hot August wind raising the dust from the cobbles and setting the striped awnings of the shops flapping. Glimpses of choppy blue sea could be seen at the end of each narrow lane leading from the main street. Great bunches of black sand shoes hung outside the shops, along with shrimping nets, buckets, and spades. Racks of colored postcards revolved on their stands.

Then in the post-office window her eye was caught by a poster announcing: “Are You Tired of Being a Slave to Men? Why Shouldn’t Women Get the Vote? Come on Thursday, August 19, at 7:30P.M. to the Masonic Hall and hear that great suffragette, Miss Mary Hammond, speak. One shilling. Tea and cakes.”

Annie looked at it thoughtfully. Members of the Women’s Social and Political Union, the suffragettes, were often featured in the newspapers. They had become increasingly militant. They had planted a bomb in the home of Lloyd George, the Liberal leader, blowing up almost half of the furniture. They had claimed that it had merely been a warning, and suffragette leader, Mrs. Pankhurst, had taken the blame and had been sentenced to three years’ penal servitude. Another woman had thrown a steel spike through the window of Lloyd George’s cab. It had just missed his eye and cut him on the cheek. They had been damned as “man-haters,” even by avowed feminists like H. G. Wells, despite the fact that the leaders of the movement, if they were not happily married, at least carried no sexual resentment.

But Annie believed them to be man-haters because of all the adverse publicity the movement had received in the press, and it was that that made her want to go to the meeting. It was already August nineteenth. She had nothing else to do after she had eaten her solitary dinner at the Grand Hotel.

And so it was that she found herself that evening sitting on a hard bench in a drafty Masonic Hall listening to a large, tweedy woman telling her and about fifteen other women that men’s sole goal in life was to debase and humiliate women and to keep them enslaved. Miss Hammond did not belong to the Women’s Social and Political Union. She had once but aimed to form a splinter group. She had a sort of Lysistrata plan in which the women of Britain would unite by stopping marriage, stopping any form of intimate relations with men, therefore stopping child bearing “until the men are brought to their knees.”

All of which seemed a splendid idea to poor, hurt, childish, humiliated Annie. She would have been amazed to learn that the leaders of the WSPU considered Mary Hammond quite mad. Miss Hammond did not want equality; she wanted superiority.

She was, nonetheless, a forceful personality and held the attention of her small audience until a little, local woman on the front bench called out, “Wot! No more slap an’ tickle, then?”

“No!” replied Miss Hammond, majestically. “And no cuddling or canoodling either!”

Everyone except Annie burst out laughing, and had it not been for the prospect of tea and cakes, which they had already paid a shilling for, most of the audience would have left.

Annie did not know that every woman in the place was well aware of who she was until the lecture was over and she found herself being my-ladyed right, left, and center.

The audience was more interested in the tea and cakes and the pretty marchioness than in the speaker.

For Annie did not know the effect that smart clothes and a good lady’s maid had wrought in her. By any standards she was now an extremely pretty young woman.

But one by one the audience left and Annie found herself alone with Miss Hammond, who had asked her to stay behind for a moment.

“My dear Lady Torrance,” said Miss Hammond. “I was extremely flattered to find a young and beautiful member of the aristocracy taking an interest in my one-woman movement. It is only a one-woman movement at the moment, but I hope to swell the ranks,
swell the ranks.
”

“I’m surprised everyone knew who I was,” said Annie.

“The hotel issues a circular with the names of all its notable guests,” said Miss Hammond. “And, of course, people point you out to each other. What brought you to hear me, Lady Torrance?”

“I hate men,” said Annie savagely.

“Yes, but you will find sometimes that we have to use the pests,” said Miss Hammond. “That is why I call my movement ‘Superiority for Woman’—no
direct
attack, you see.”

She was a large woman with pale eyes and a mouth full of large, strong teeth. Her iron-gray hair was swept back in a bun, and she wore a mannish tweed suit with a short skirt that showed her ankles. She wore a man’s tie and a shirt with a shiny celluloid collar.

But like quite a lot of people who teeter on the borderline of quasipolitical insanity, she had a warm, engaging, maternal charm and a humorous way of putting things, which belied the fact that she had no sense of humor at all.

“In fact,” Miss Hammond went on, “I have been invited to take tea tomorrow afternoon with a Very Important Person. I do wish you would come with me, Lady Torrance. You would be most impressed.

He is a famous man who plans to support my cause. But it’s hush-hush.
Very.
”

“Oh, please call me Annie.”

“Annie, then. And you must call me Mary. I gather from your tone that your recent marriage is not a happy one.”

But Annie would not discuss her husband. “Who is this V.I.P.?” she asked.

Miss Hammond looked about her in the manner of a stage villain and whispered, “Mr. Shaw-Bufford.”

“What? The chancellor of the exchequer?”

“Shh! The same.”

“I find it hard to believe . . .”

“Oh, I know. But wait until you meet him.”

“Is his wife . . . ?”

“He is not married.”

“Then I don’t see . . .”

“You will. Only say you’ll come.”

“Very well,” said Annie.

“Good! Splendid!” exclaimed Miss Hammond. “I shall call at your hotel for you at quarter to five tomorrow. The chancellor has a villa just outside the town.”

When Annie returned to the hotel and had been made ready for bed by Barton, she sat in front of the open window, looking out at the sea and wondering whether she had suffered from temporary insanity.

She, Annie, did not hate men. She wished she did. She wished she could remember her husband’s kisses with revulsion.

But her whole treacherous body ached and burned for him.

* * *

Mary Hammond was nuts. Absolutely, definitely, and quite positively nuts. If the chancellor of the exchequer was anywhere, it was not in Britlingsea. Mr. Shaw-Bufford was reported in the papers to be a sort of eighteenth-century gentleman, cultured, austere, with a biting wit. He had hoped, it was said, to be chosen by his party to be prime minister, but they had chosen the fiery Scotsman, James Macleod, instead.

But one thing was sure. Mr. Shaw-Bufford was too grand and too ambitious a politician ever to be seen in the company of someone like Miss Hammond.

Now mature, sensible, and grown-up people who wish to get out of an engagement send a letter of apology by hand, or telephone if they are lucky enough to have that wonder of science. But immature young people like Annie do the first thing that comes naturally, and so Annie decided simply to give Miss Hammond the slip. She would go out walking at four-thirty, thereby neatly avoiding that lady, and she would leave Barton to make her apologies.

And so at precisely four-thirty the next afternoon, Annie tripped lightly down the red-carpeted steps of the Grand Hotel and across the palm-tree-studded expanse of the entrance lounge—and straight into the massive bulk of Miss Hammond, who was, it seemed, parked across the hotel entrance.

“So you are early just like me, Annie,” said Miss Hammond. “I didn’t tell Mr. Shaw-Bufford that you were coming.
That
is going to be our little surprise.”

“Yes,” said Annie, gloomily.

Mary Hammond had at least
looked
like a sensible woman in the meeting hall last night. But today she seemed quite eccentric. Despite the heat of the afternoon, she was still wearing the tweeds, tie, and celluloid collar. Furthermore, she had cropped her gray hair, causing Annie to wonder why this man-hater should do her best to try to look like one.

Annie still did not believe that she was to meet Mr. Shaw-Bufford. But after they had walked a little way out of the town, Miss Hammond stopped in front of an imposing villa and pushed open one of the wrought-iron gates.

The gentleman who answered the door was Mr. Shaw-Bufford in person. Annie had seen photographs of him in
The Illustrated London News.

He was a tall, thin man of about forty-five, with a narrow, almost monkish face with deep-set eyes and thin mouth. His hair was silver.

“Why, Miss Hammond,” he said in a dry, precise voice. “Who have we here? I thought I had made it plain that . . .”

“Oh, but this is the Marchioness of Torrance!”

“Delighted to have the pleasure of entertaining you, Lady Torrance,” said Mr. Shaw-Bufford. “Come in, come in. I shall ring for Hodder to fetch another cup. I thought tea in the garden on a day like this would be very pleasant. I wonder if I could beg you to go ahead to the garden, Lady Torrance, while I have a little private word with Miss Hammond?”

Annie nodded and walked in the direction of the garden, which she could see through the open French windows of a long room at the end of the hall.

There was a table under an oak tree on the lawn. Out on the blue, blue ocean, white-sailed yachts darted here and there. Little, fleecy clouds curled across the deep blue of the sky. It was pleasantly cool in the shade of the tree, with only the sound of the gentle breeze moving in the leaves above her head and the hum of bees from a clump of hollyhocks beside the French windows.

All at once she was glad she had come. Somehow she had at least managed to meet a distinguished politician like Mr. Shaw-Bufford. Miss Hammond could not be quite the madwoman she seemed or the chancellor would surely have nothing to do with her.

A butler appeared with a silver tray and began to set a magnificent silver teapot, cream jug, and hot-water pot on the table. He was rather an unnerving-looking man. His livery of cutaway coat and striped waistcoat seemed to be too small for his great bulk. He had sparse strands of hair carefully combed over the top of his head. His face looked as if it had been smashed up at one time and then badly rearranged.

He did not once look at Annie or make any polite remark that one would normally expect from a butler.

He disappeared and, after a few moments, reappeared with a large tray bearing plates of cucumber and salmon sandwiches, a magnificent plum cake, and a plate of hot scones oozing with butter.

Annie waited and waited after he had left. She was thirsty but did not want to pour herself a cup of tea until her host and Miss Hammond arrived.

The minutes began to drag by. A wasp hovered over the strawberry jam and she impatiently shooed it away.

Annie found herself wondering what it would be like to shed a few of her underclothes. She could feel the heat emanating from the horsehair pads on her hips and bust, the long Empire corset, and the layers of petticoats. The high, boned collar of her blouse was digging painfully into the back of her neck. Would they never come?

Just as she had given up and was reaching for the teapot, Mr. Shaw-Bufford and Miss Hammond appeared through the French windows. Miss Hammond looked . . . well,
strange.
Sort of elated and frightened and defiant and furtive—all at once.

“My apologies, your ladyship,” said Mr. Shaw-Bufford. “I fear we have kept you waiting. Miss Hammond, will you pour for us? I hope to hear your husband speak in the Lords when the House sits again, Lady Torrance.”

“I never thought of him even attending the House of Lords,” said Annie, startled.

“He is a powerful speaker and a great loss to the House of Commons. Were he not a titled man, then I would certainly persuade him to try to run for office.”

“I have not been married long,” said Annie. “My husband is in France at the moment.” She gave a very brittle, little laugh. “I don’t know much about him at all.”

That was surely the cue for Miss Hammond to expound her down-with-men philosophy, but she remained strangely silent. In fact the rest of the conversation did not touch on Miss Hammond’s interest at all. At one point Annie tried to turn the conversation in that direction, feeling that it was only polite to do so, but Miss Hammond only seemed to want to talk about commonplaces, just like any ordinary housewife.

As it was, Annie had only eaten one sandwich and drunk one cup of tea when a look flashed between Miss Hammond and the chancellor, and, as if on cue, both rose to their feet at once.

“We really must be rushing along,” said Miss Hammond. “The chancellor has a great deal of important papers to sign.”

“Of course,” murmured Annie. “I am sorry our meeting was so brief, Mr. Shaw-Bufford.”

“And I, too. Will you be staying in Britlingsea long?”

All at once, Annie made the first grown-up decision of her life. She would return to London tomorrow.

She would wait in town for her husband. And she would ask him why he had married her.

“I shall be leaving tomorrow,” she said firmly. “On the early train.”

“Splendid,” he said. “I have a compartment reserved on the London train and would deem it an honor if you would share it with me, Lady Torrance.”