Maggie (13 page)

Maggie did not answer, merely repeating that she had better go and change. Her Scottish maid, Betty, was waiting up for her and pestered her mistress with questions about the opera. Betty had been brought down with the other servants from Scotland as parlourmaid and had been
elevated to the position of lady’s maid when Miss Rochester and Maggie had arrived from Beaton Malden. Apart from Roshie, not one of the other servants had recognized Maggie Macleod in the quiet Miss Dunglass.

Maggie answered as many of Betty’s eager questions as she could and then sent her off, saying she would put herself to bed. She felt it would be too exhausting to try to explain to Betty why she was about to change and go out walking in the middle of the night with Lord Strathairn, since she did not herself know why she was doing it.

She changed into a tailored skirt and a high-collared lace blouse and put on a tight little black felt jacket.

She pinned on one of the new ‘pancake’ hats which had arrived from the milliner that day and tilted it forward on her forehead, pinning her curls into a
chignon
at the back. Quickly working the buttonhook with nimble fingers, she donned a pair of kid boots, marvelling that boots should be so fine and elegant, and then ran lightly down the stairs and into the drawing-room.

The earl had changed into a venerable blazer, a relic of his Balliol College days, and a pair of grey flannels.

They walked through the quiet streets of St. James’s and down to Pall Mall, then past the black Tudor bulk of St. James’s Palace, along Trafalgar Square, down Northumberland Avenue and along the Embankment where the huge round moons of the lamps sent their shadows scurrying behind them into the darkness. A few lights shone in the factories on the Surrey side, sending their reflections twinkling on the dirty, sluggish waters of the Thames.

“Has Sir Percy known Mrs. Murray long?” asked Maggie, breaking a long silence as they stood with their elbows on the balustrade and watched the moving river. Big Ben sounded one o’clock, one long harsh chime.

“Percy? I don’t know. She knows a lot of men.”

“How old is Mrs. Murray?”

“Dolly? About the same age as I, I suppose. About thirty-two.”

“As old as
that
!” exclaimed Maggie, making the earl feel like Methuselah. “She is a remarkably fine-looking woman.”

“Yes.” The earl shifted restlessly. He had hoped to walk away from this new enchantment Maggie held for him, but she seemed even more vulnerable and feminine in her walking dress than she had done in her opera gown.

“Tell me about your husband,” he said.

“I don’t want to talk about him,” said Maggie quickly. “Please don’t ask me anything about the murder. It haunts my dreams. I want to be Margaret Dunglass tonight… your cousin and your friend.”

He was strangely touched. “Very well, Miss Dunglass. Do you feel tired?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“Then, Miss Dunglass, we will walk to Covent Garden and buy hot coffee from the stall and put the world to rights. What do you want to talk about?” he went on, taking her arm and leading her away from the river.

“Nothing serious,” said Maggie. “Nothing that concerns
now
. Tell me about the books you’ve read and the places you’ve seen. Roshie said you had been in India. I know, tell me about that.”

And so the earl talked about his regimental life, of tiger hunts, of monsoon weather, of heat and death and strange Indian customs. He lost himself in his memories, reliving old scenes and old battles, dimly aware that Maggie was losing herself in his stories, both of them living in his past to block out the present with its long shadows of murder.

They drank coffee, standing amid the debris of old programmes and oyster shells in Covent Garden. Then they strolled back to the Thames and across the bridge to Waterloo Station.

“Let’s go somewhere,” said the earl, looking at the list of
places chalked on the departure board. “Let’s just pick out a place and go there.”

He did not want the night to end, to sleep and wake to the reality of an angry and jealous Dolly Murray and the fears that he might be keeping a murderess under his roof.

“Look at that,” Maggie laughed, and he thought he had never before seen her so young and carefree. “Bennington-Super-Crash. There can’t be such a place.”

“There must be,” smiled the earl. “Let’s go and see.”

There was a milk train leaving in fifteen minutes’ time so he purchased first-class tickets and the morning papers and they steamed out of Waterloo Station as the sleepy pigeons began to come awake and the sky turned to light grey.

The train chugged its lethargic way through the buildings of London and out into the English countryside. A large red sun rose above the fields, slowing changing to gold, and flooding the frowsty compartment with warmth. Maggie felt sleep pricking at her eyelids and determinedly fought it off. To go to sleep would mean the end of the dream. The train picked up speed and fussed energetically past trees and hedges, letting out an occasional squawk of a whistle blast.

At last it slowed and rattled over the points and came to a stop with a series of spasmodic lurches.

“Bennington-Super-Crash,” called a hoarse voice from the platform.

“We’re here,” said the earl, “and just in time for breakfast. I’m starving.”

They climbed down onto the wooden platform and watched while the train gave a cough, a belch of black smoke and chuffed busily away.

They handed their tickets to a sleepy ticket collector and walked out into a small station yard ablaze with geraniums.

It was very quiet and still, the only sound in the silence the clopping of the milkman’s horse. The road from the station wound down into a picturesque village. Thatched cottages
crouched along the edge of a wide village green where story-book ducks bobbed on a round pond and a brown Jersey cow studied its reflection in the water.

At the end of the village stood an old posting-inn called
The Barley Mow
. It had a thatched roof, white walls, green shutters, and roses round the door.

“Incredible!” murmured the earl. “I expect mine host to come bustling out wearing a powdered wig. He will have a large stomach hanging over his knee breeches. It’s all so perfect. Perhaps not a landlord. I know, a plump, motherly matron with a print dress smelling of lavender and wearing a huge starched apron. Her cheeks will be rosy, her eyes welcoming, and her hair shining with silver threads.”

They stepped into the small entrance hall of the inn, so small there was only room for a table, a hatstand and a brass bowl with a glossy aspidistra.

He rang a brass bell on the hall table, looking at it with distaste as he did so. It represented a simpering lady in a crinoline.

The landlady came sweeping out and Maggie stifled a giggle. She was tall and angular and dressed in black silk covered with a quantity of cameo brooches. Her sallow face was set in lines of permanent disapproval.

“You’re very early, sir, madam,” she said.

Maggie felt like apologizing and saying they would come back later, but the earl said breezily, “What on earth is the Crash?”

“It’s the river, I mean the River Crash,” said the landlady, startled. “It flows at the bottom of the inn garden.”

“Splendid!” said the earl. “Let’s go and have a look at it.”

The landlady opened her mouth to protest and then closed it again and reluctantly led the way through the inn parlour, through a dining-room at the back, and out into a garden which consisted of some rustic tables and chairs, a
sloping lawn and some lovely old trees.

The River Crash flowed silently at the foot of the garden, a moving mirror of lazy blue water with flag iris standing sentinel at the edge and a scarlet rowing boat shifting gently on the movement of the stream.

“Beautiful,” said the earl, stretching his arms above his head. “Simply beautiful. Gosh, I’m hungry!”

The landlady pursed her lips. “It is a little early for breakfast, sir, but…”

“Breakfast! Who wants breakfast?” laughed the earl. “By Jove, we haven’t even had supper. Get us a champagne supper and pack it up and we’ll take that boat along the river and have a picnic.”

“Really, sir,” began the landlady. “I…”

“And plenty of rugs and cushions,” added the earl cheerfully. “Come along, Maggie. We’ll sit and watch the river until it’s ready.”

He turned his back on the landlady and led Maggie to a table near the water’s edge.

How wonderful to have that sort of confidence, thought Maggie. He’s never paused for a minute to think the landlady might not want to do it, and so he will probably get what he wants.

And that is exactly what happened. In no time at all, an ostler and a boots were carrying out a large hamper down to the boat, followed by a housemaid, carrying rugs and cushions. The landlady did not reappear.

The earl tipped the servants after he had paid the bill and then assisted Maggie into the boat. He picked up the oars and began to row down the stream while Maggie let her hand trail in the water and wished life could always be like this.

Screaming swallows skimmed and dipped over the river, a fish plopped in the lazy warm silence and cattle grazed on the cool green fields which ran down to the water’s edge.

Thrushes and blackbirds hopped busily on dew-soaked fields and a pigeon was cooing monotonously from a belt of woodland. Far away came the whistle and the shuffling clank of a goods train.

“I think we’ll moor over there,” said the earl at last. “There” was a semicircle of grass at the water’s edge, ringed with trees of birch and larch.

He pulled the boat up on the bank and then spread the rugs and cushions on the grass and opened up the hamper.

“What have we here? Chicken and rolls and a veal-and-ham pie and a rather limp salad. Champagne, and chilled too! Eat up, Miss Dunglass, before you fall asleep.”

So Maggie ate and sipped champagne, feeling the sun warm on her head. She removed her velvet jacket and her hat, and the earl took off his blazer, hung it on a branch and rolled up his shirt sleeves.

After they had eaten, he neatly packed away the remains of the food and plates. Maggie lay on her back, her head against the cushions, and stared up at the shifting pattern of the translucent young leaves. She felt a confused mixture of weariness and exhilaration.

The champagne seemed to be bubbling along her veins. She closed her eyes, feeling the warm sun on her face as it filtered down through the leaves.

The high-boned neck of her blouse was digging into her chin and she unfastened the small buttons at her throat, letting the gentle breeze play on her neck.

She sensed the earl was very near her and opened her eyes. He was lying beside her on a rug, leaning on one elbow and looking intently at her face.

“What’s the matter?” asked Maggie sleepily.

“You,” he said huskily. “Only you.”

Her eyes widened and she stared up into his blue ones which were now so very near her own.

She opened her mouth to say something but her voice
seemed to catch in her throat and her lips trembled.

He bent his head and placed his lips very gently against her own. Maggie lay very still, passive, frightened.

He drew back a little and smiled down at her. “Do not be so afraid. I am kissing Miss Dunglass. I know Mrs. Macleod would not approve but then she is not with us. You must kiss me back, Miss Margaret Dunglass. It is only polite.”

She gave a weak smile and shook her head, moving her head against the pillows, watching, fascinated, the hard line of his mouth, the faint gold stubble on his tanned chin, and the way the breeze lifted his gold hair on his forehead.

“Then you are going to be very much in my debt, Miss Dunglass,” he whispered, “for I am going to kiss you again.”

This time he drew her close in his arms and, cradling her head on his shoulder, he bent his mouth to hers again. His lips were warm and exploring, pressing deeper, moving sensuously against her own. Maggie felt a melting, drugged sweetness stealing over her body, a lazy lethargy induced by the sun, the champagne, and the feel of his mouth and arms.

Suddenly she wound her arms around him, digging her fingers into the crisp golden hair at the nape of his neck, and kissed him back on a wave of great all-consuming passion.

His lips moved slowly from her mouth to the sun-warmed skin at her neck where her blouse lay open. She timidly kissed his ear and he gave a low groan and began kissing her breasts which were thrust up by her corset against the thin silk of her blouse.

“Morning, guv,” called a cheery voice. “Lovely day for it.”

The earl abruptly released Maggie and sat up, his face flaming with embarrassment. An old man was sitting in a rowing-boat in the middle of the river, leaning on his oars and beaming at them.

“Lovely day for what?” demanded the earl acidly.

“Why, for a picnic to be sure,” said the old man cheerfully. “Morning, guv, mum.” He touched his forelock and began to row energetically upstream.

Maggie had buttoned up her blouse and was sitting, as if turned to stone, staring at the stream.

The earl muttered something under his breath and began to carry the hamper towards the boat. Her silence and stillness made him feel awkward, and he maintained an air of forced jollity as he rowed them both back to the inn.

Dark clouds were moving in from the west, the effects of the champagne were gradually receding, and he was wondering what had come over him. If he did not mean to marry Maggie properly—and he most certainly did not—then he had behaved disgracefully by making love to her, particularly when the girl was a guest under his roof. As he helped her from the boat in front of the inn, she looked briefly up into his eyes, her own dark and shadowed. What did he really know of this girl? The long shadow of unsolved murder laid its cold fingers on his senses.

Her lips opened. She murmured something which sounded like, “You think I did it,” but a sudden gust of wind whipped through the old trees about the inn, and he could not be sure he had heard her aright: did not want to know.

There was a silent, weary wait for the next train. After a few remarks about the weather and the prettiness of the town, the earl found he could not think of another thing to say.