Leading Lady (10 page)

“I
have
to do this,” he said.

Muriel was not so delicate when pulling apart the final strand, but then, she had to extinguish his every thought of this foolish escapade, lest they have this conversation over and over for weeks to come.

“Think, Douglas,” she said. “Just forget ‘Madame Three Shillings’. If Bethia and that coachman’s boy both graduate in June, they’ll probably marry soon afterward.”

“That’s a risk I have to take,” he replied. “But I don’t think it will happen.”

Muriel blinked at him. “And why wouldn’t it?”

“Because it wasn’t in my palm. Besides, didn’t you say that if I would stop pursuing her, she may realize she has some affection for me?”

“That was before you stalked her to Girton.”

“I didn’t
stalk—
” He took in a deep breath, leaned forward again. “She has feelings for me, Muriel. She may not even realize that yet, with her mind filled with that Russell fellow, but a man can tell. Madame Aldona could tell, and she’s never even
met
her. When Bethia learns what I’ve done, she’ll regret not giving me the chance to court her. I’m convinced she’ll wait.”

And I’m convinced there’s a Father Christmas.
Muriel knew she should press on, but when had he taken her advice over the course of this whole ridiculous infatuation? It would be just as effective to argue with the mantel clock ticking away minutes that she would rather spend in bed.

But then one more idea occurred to her. She twisted to reach for the candlestick telephone on the table.

“What are you doing?” Douglas asked anxiously as she lifted the earpiece.

“I wish to place a call to Gleadless,” she said into the mouthpiece, ignoring her brother’s frantic waving hands. “Holy Cross vicarage.”

Douglas’s face was buried in his arms against the back of the sofa by the time a sleepy-sounding “Vicar Pearce speaking” connected with Muriel’s left ear.

“Bernard?” she said.

“Muriel?”

“Sorry to ring you so late. It’s just that—”

“Is Georgiana all right?” he said anxiously.

“Oh, fine,” she replied. And then, realizing she had barreled past the necessary pleasantries, she said, “How are Agatha and Sally?”

“They’re well, thank you. Sally
finally
has a tooth! And Agatha’s mother says the later they appear, the stronger they’ll be.”

“Indeed?” Muriel said, vaguely recalling the same reverence in Nanny Tucker’s voice upon announcing Georgiana’s first tooth. “Yes, she’ll be grateful for strong teeth. We have a problem here, Bernard. You need to speak with Douglas, get him to explain to you his plan to go to Canada.”

Without waiting for a reply, she shoved the telephone and earpiece at Douglas. “Come on now.”

Douglas raised his face, sighed, and took the telephone from her. “That wasn’t fair, Muriel.”

Muriel gave him a long-suffering frown, passed the cord over her head, and got to her feet. Being captive audience to the melodrama once was quite enough. She paused in the doorway until satisfied that Douglas was indeed describing his plan to his twin, then went on down the corridor to the water closet. When she returned, Douglas was replacing the receiver with a
click,
his face crimson.

“Well?” Muriel said, sitting again beside him.

“I’m not going,” he said with voice flat.

Muriel leaned to pat his sleeve. “You’re making a wise decision.”

“Yes.”

“Shall I have Joyce make some hot chocolate?”

“No.” He shook his head and got to his feet. “I’m tired. I’m going home.”

Home
was the flat he leased in Bloomsbury. “That’s a good idea,” Muriel said, rising with him. “A good night’s sleep, and you’ll feel better about all this in the morning.”

“Mm-hmm.” He accepted her kiss on the cheek, his eyes as dull as his voice, and left the room with a backward wave from the doorway.

When he arrived to escort her to
A Happy Pair
at Trafalgar Theatre three days later, he seemed almost his old self and made no mention of Canada nor Klondike gold. And when she asked about his looking for another job, he replied that he had contacted some people.

But on Friday the twenty-ninth, Muriel was planting Orange Emperor tulip bulbs when Mrs. Burles entered the garden from the house with a telegram. “It’s from Bristol, your Ladyship.”

“Bristol?” She knew no one in Bristol. Still, she held up her soiled gloves as an excuse. She shared her mother’s superstition that telegrams inevitably contained bad news. “You read it.”

The housekeeper nodded gravely, cleared her throat.

“Departing on SS
Baltic
within hour. Please inform family. Return September, earlier if enough gold.”

Muriel pulled off her gloves, muttering, “That foolish boy!”

“I beg your pardon, m’Lady?”

She did not reply but hastened into the house.

“This is an emergency,” she said into the telephone mouthpiece. “To whom do I speak in Bristol concerning a ship leaving?”

“The Port Authority, madam,” came the tinny reply.

“Well, get them on the line!”

She fidgeted, winding the cord about her fingers while waiting for the operator to make the connection.

“Good morning.” a man drawled presently. “Office of the Port Authority. Mr. Starling at your service.”

“I wish to speak with someone connected with the SS
Baltic.
”

“Hmm. That would be the Cunard Line. But you’ll have to telephone them direc—”

Muriel broke the connection, jiggled the bar a couple of times. When the operator’s voice came through the line again, Muriel gave her the information and insisted she hurry.

“Why, yes. The ship left an hour ago,” a man from the Cunard Line informed her.

“Please bring it back. I need to speak with my brother. His name is Doug—”

“Madam, that is quite impossible.”

“You don’t understand. This is an emergency!”

A pause, and then, “What sort of emergency, Madam?”

“He’s going off to Canada to impress a silly girl who doesn’t deserve to walk on the same side of the street as he does. He’ll get himself killed.”

Frantic worry had pushed the words past her lips. Too late Muriel realized she should have invented something more drastic. A death in the family, perhaps. “Please. You must bring him back and allow me to speak with him.”

An infuriating chuckle came over the line. “Now, now, Madam. Do calm yourself. People go to Canada all the time. Your brother will surely return after he’s had his adventure.”

Simmering, Muriel questioned the legitimacy of the man’s birth and broke the connection during his outraged reply. She lifted the earpiece again to telephone her parents. But as soon as the operator’s voice came through the line, she realized that Mother would be hysterical—too much for Muriel’s frayed nerves.

“Connect me with Vicar Bernard Pearce at Holy Cross vicarage in Gleadless.” While waiting for her brother’s voice
on the line, she thought,
Well, you’ll be happy now, Bethia. Won’t you?

Eight

On Sunday, the thirty-first of October, Bethia’s parents, along with Sarah and William and their son, John, came up from London to celebrate her birthday, which would actually fall on the following day. After services at St. Andrew’s, they took lunch at the Carlton Hotel on Regent Street in Cambridge, where Bethia’s father handed her a small satin-covered box. She raised the lid. On a pillow of velvet lay a gold ring, beset with tiny turquoises spiraling into a small oval.

“Oh my . . .” she breathed, taking it out and sliding it effortlessly down the third finger of her right hand.

“There are twenty-one stones, dear,” Mother said.

“For twenty-one years.” Father’s eyes misted behind his spectacles.

“You’ll notice she didn’t hesitate to choose the
right
hand,” William said. “Are we saving the left for something special, Bethia?”

Bethia made a face at her brother-in-law, but she loved him dearly. As head of the Hassall Commission, William inspected cases of adulterated foods and harmful or useless medicines. The eight-year-old scar running vertically up his square jar was a souvenir from an entrepreneur who took exception with being ordered to cease marketing the identical formula in half-pint jars labeled
Wright’s Miracle Wrinkle Cream
and in quarts labeled
Wright’s Miracle Wallpaper Stripper.

“Don’t embarrass her, William,” Mother scolded.

“I’m not embarrassed,” Bethia said while holding up her hand for all to see. In truth, she had a strong and lovely premonition that Guy would be offering her an engagement ring for Christmas.

“Good for you, Bethia,” Sarah said.

Bethia smiled at her. At forty-one, Sarah still looked as delicate as a Dresden figurine, with large green eyes and corn-silk
hair. Biologically they were half sisters, sharing the same father. But the “half” never entered Bethia’s thinking. Still, Sarah’s childhood had been radically different from her own sheltered one.

It had started out in a typical, almost tranquil way—with University professor Daniel Rayborn and his first wife, Deborah, anticipating the birth of their first child. But when Sarah was born with a fingerless left hand, Deborah’s sanity deteriorated to the point where she believed the deformity was punishment from God. Two years later she jumped into the River Thames with Sarah in her arms, leading the police and a distraught Daniel to believe both had perished. But an eel fisherman had pulled Sarah from the water, and later, turned her over to a Methodist orphanage in the slums of Drury Lane.

Then, at age thirteen, Sarah’s life took another abrupt twist when a private investigator believed her to be the illegitimate grandchild of wealthy—and lonely—Dorothea Blake. In one day, Sarah went from an orphanage to a Mayfair mansion. When Mrs. Blake later discovered that her
real
granddaughter died shortly after birth, she kept the news to herself, for she loved Sarah, as did the whole household, especially the cook, Naomi Doyle, and her nephew William, stable boy turned Oxford scholar.

In still another twist, Uncle James applied for the position of a tutor in Mrs. Blake’s home, and was stunned by Sarah’s crippled left hand and the resemblance she bore to his brother’s late wife. He went to Daniel with the news and helped him find proof that Sarah was his daughter. With his typical consideration for others, Daniel decided against barging into Sarah’s life with the news right away, but instead applied for the position as her tutor.

The two formed an affectionate teacher-student bond. And Daniel and Naomi fell in love, later to marry. When an opportunistic curate, Ethan Knight, courted Sarah for the wealth she would inherit, Daniel revealed his own identity
in order to expose Ethan’s true nature. Sarah was overjoyed to learn that her tutor was her father and that she had an “instant” extended family consisting of Uncle James, Aunt Virginia, and their daughters, Catherine and Jewel. Her joy was tempered with sadness, however, when her beloved Mrs. Blake passed on, leaving Sarah her fortune as well as Blake Shipping Company. As Sarah was coming out of mourning, she realized that she loved William and told him so.

The lesson being, Father had said more than once over the years, that a person must never give up hope that God can turn ashes to gold. Had he himself continued down a path of self-destruction by alcohol after losing his first family, he would have never been reunited with Sarah or met Mother. Hence, Bethia and Danny would never have been born. And Sarah could possibly be married to Ethan Knight instead of William Doyle, thereby canceling out John’s existence.

****

“This is from us,” Sarah was saying as she handed Bethia another small box. “We have to confess some collusion—I was with Naomi and Father when they bought your ring.”

The box contained ear wires of the same turquoise stones. The food had not yet arrived, so Bethia excused herself for the lady’s lounge to remove her gold pair and exchange them for the new ones.

“Very nice,” fifteen-year-old John said when she brushed back her hair with her fingers for all to see.

“Thank you, John,” she said, touched by so simple a compliment, for her nephew could not have cared less about feminine baubles. Sports of every variety were his passion, and over his relatively short life-span he had broken both arms, his right foot, and a finger.

The food arrived and commanded their attention for a few minutes—William and John squeezing lemon slices on their veal cutlets, Mother asking for tartar mustard for her baked cod, Father dousing his stewed mutton kidneys with
mushroom ketchup, Sarah and Bethia dousing fried whitings with malt vinegar.

“Mr. Pearce hasn’t attempted to contact you up here, has he?” Father asked at length.

“I believe he’s forgotten all about me,” Bethia replied, not directly answering his question. She hoped her reply to be the truth, for two weeks had passed since Douglas had appeared in church, and she had received no more telephone calls or letters.

“I’m relieved,” Mother said.

“So am I.” Sarah shook her head. “He seemed rather unstable.”

“Small wonder,” William said while sprinkling salt upon his green beans. “Was he the one who once kicked Mr. Duffy?”

“That was his twin, Bernard.”

“Why would anyone kick Mr. Duffy?” John asked with the same outrage as if learning that someone had kicked the elderly Queen. Mr. Duffy, gone to heaven some five years ago, was more than a gardener—he was a gentle giant whose perpetual good mood infected everyone about him for the better. His widow, Claire, became the housekeeper when Mrs. Bacon retired on a pension.

“Because Mr. Duffy stopped his sister, Muriel, from feeding green tomatoes to a horse,” William replied.

John’s gray eyes widened. “Aren’t they poisonous to horses?”

“Lethally so, in most cases.”

“Then, why . . . ?”

“Because she’s Muriel,” Bethia said quickly. “And may we please change the subject?”

“Good idea.” William nodded and asked Father if he had collected any more noteworthy research on the book he was writing about the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. Bethia gave her brother-in-law a grateful smile. The subject of Kentish rebels was far more agreeable than that of the Pearce family.