Maggie (21 page)

The Marquess of Handley was one of those swimmers who cannot bear to get their faces wet and so he swam a breast-stroke, poking his head and shoulders as high above the water as he could. He turned to look over his shoulder. There was a terrific roar as a great gust of wind struck the
Mary Jane
. The ship swung out wildly at great speed and hit the Marquess of Handley’s head with a sickening crack and he sank like a stone.

The earl who had dived when he saw the boat begin to
swing, surfaced and looked about wildly. Then he dived where he had seen Handley go down and searched about in the roaring blackness with little hope of finding anything. But suddenly, just as he felt he could not hold his breath any longer, his fingers touched cloth. He grabbed hold of it and swam for the surface.

He brought the Marquess of Handley’s body up with him. Roshie, who had been throwing every lifebelt on board desperately into the water, shrieked something about the police arriving. The earl swam round the plunging boat and urged the marquess towards a flight of stone steps cut into the wall of the quay. Hands reached down to help him as he thrust the marquess before him out of the water.

The earl ignored the reaching hands and turned Handley round. “Who killed Macleod?” he cried. “Did you kill Macleod?” He shook the marquess roughly by the sodden shoulders of his coat.

The Marquess of Handley’s head lolled to one side, his mouth set in a jeering grin.

His neck was broken.

Shivering and sick and weary, the earl let go his grip, dimly aware of shouting voices, bobbing lanterns and hands hauling the Marquess of Handley’s dead body up onto the quay.

Then he became aware that Roshie had a strong arm about him and was helping him up the steps.

Johnnie, the Marquess of Handley’s servant rounded the corner of a warehouse and saw the dark police uniforms and melted quietly back into the shadows. He was one witness the law would just have to do without.

Three hours later, the earl was comfortably wrapped in his dressing-gown and sharing a celebration bottle of brandy with Colonel Delaney.

He felt he had a great deal to celebrate. For Miss
Rochester who proved to have quite amazing stamina had recovered sufficiently from her ordeal to give the police a full statement. She said she had distinctly heard the marquess tell his servant that he had killed both Macleod and Murdo Knight. The servant, Johnnie, had disappeared and a warrant was out for his arrest but everyone was relieved to have such a reliable witness in Miss Rochester.

Only Maggie, weak and shaken, had protested that the marquess had not admitted to murdering Mr. Macleod. But by the time she had heard Miss Rochester’s version of the story for the third time, she became convinced that Miss Rochester had indeed heard everything and that her own fear had stopped her, Maggie, from hearing properly. After all, it couldn’t have been anyone else.

Maggie had at last fallen asleep, fighting down a feeling of nausea from the blow on her head and a feeling of acute disappointment. After all, when the love of one’s life rescues one from deadly peril, he should at least murmur some words of love, not rush off leaving one to the tender administrations of the kitchen boy!

Maggie and Miss Rochester sat in Maggie’s private sitting-room at Strathairn Castle… and brooded. Maggie was in love with the earl but was sure her recent cold behaviour had chilled him off. Miss Rochester was in love with Colonel Delaney and had sadly come to the conclusion that her love would never be reciprocated.

The day outside was clear and warm. Three weeks had passed since the sensation of the Marquess of Handley’s death. They were no longer a source of interest to the Press. Everything should have been perfect.

Maggie’s business affairs had been competently handled by the earl’s lawyers. The house in Park Terrace had been sold. Flora Meikle had accepted a pension, saying she intended to retire.

She invited the parlourmaid, Jessie, to accompany her, saying with a trace of grim humour that she had always wanted a servant of her own. She had taken a cottage outside Largs on the Clyde coast, and Maggie was glad to see the last of her.

Both Maggie and Miss Rochester had been asked by the earl to stay at Strathairn Castle for as long as they liked. The warmth of his eyes as he had looked on Maggie had held an invitation to her to stay forever. But that had been before she had ruined the whole thing.

Maggie sighed, remembering that disastrous evening. It
had been shortly after their return to the castle. Dinner had been a jolly affair with the colonel telling jokes and stories. Maggie had basked in the warmth of the earl’s blue eyes. He had pressed her hand under the table and she had returned the pressure. Little tingles of anticipation had started to run up and down her spine. She knew he would take her in his arms, sometime before the evening was over, and that he would kiss her.

The very restrictions of polite society that were imposed on their behaviour had made passion between the two run high, while outwardly they both laughed at the colonel’s jokes and teased Miss Rochester on the glory of her new scarlet silk gown.

At last the earl had turned to Maggie and had suggested a stroll in the garden.

With a fast beating heart, Maggie had taken his arm and had walked with him into the sweet smelling night gardens. There was a large yellow moon above the cedar trees. The night was very calm and still. She loved him. Her heart was at peace. He was not as other men. He would not grab or paw or maul. He would take her in his arms and plant chaste kisses on her mouth, and he would ask her to marry him.

Maggie remembered her own lustful feelings when she had lain in his arms on the banks of the Crash.

She gave a little shudder of distaste. That had been the old Maggie. Now she was truly a lady, and ladies did not have such vulgar emotions. This passion she felt for him was something spiritual, something noble.

And then he stopped and pulled her roughly into his arms. He held her tightly pressed against the length of his body while he kissed her ferociously with all the fury of pent-up passion and longing, finally released.

Maggie had let out a choked sound of fear and wrenched herself free, wiping her hand across her mouth and staring at him in wide-eyed horror.

He did not love her; did not respect her. He would not treat her with such abandon if his intentions were honourable. He did not think her a lady and so he was treating her the way he would treat a woman of the streets.

He looked down at her in amazement. “Maggie,” he had said, his voice wondering.

She had simply turned and run away.

And that had been that.

The following morning, the earl had been punctiliously chilly and polite. Maggie had desperately wanted to explain to him what had caused her fear—still wanted to explain to him—but modesty and bewilderment had kept her silent.

A week ago Dolly Murray had arrived with Hester in tow.

Instead of showing her the door, the earl had given her a curt welcome and had then plunged into the affairs of the estates. He had asked Colonel Delaney for his help and both men were out most of the day, in the fields or around the tenants’ farms and cottages.

Dolly Murray had insidiously taken over the reins of the household, and neither Maggie nor Miss Rochester was experienced enough to remove them from her grasping hands.

Dolly had now begun to play hostess, asking various members of the county to dinner, and the earl seemed to find nothing amiss.

Miss Rochester was held back from her customary forthrightness of manner by her languishing love for Colonel Delaney. But at least she had not allowed Dolly Murray to take the head of the table. A small victory, but a victory for all that. Then it had gradually dawned on Maggie and Miss Rochester that their neighbours expected the earl to announce his engagement to the Merry Widow.

Miss Rochester’s heart had begun by aching with sympathy for Maggie and then had ached with pity for herself. For Colonel Delaney had pronounced Dolly Murray
to be “a rattling good sort”.

Mrs. Murray’s rippling laugh sounded from the garden, and the two women looked gloomily out of the open window.

Dolly Murray was presiding over the tea table which had been set on the terrace below. The earl was smiling at something she had said and Colonel Delaney was looking quite enchanted.

“It’s no use,” said Miss Rochester, voicing Maggie’s thoughts. “I can’t compete. She’s years younger than I.”

“Well, I’m younger than Dolly Murray,” sighed Maggie, “but Peter never seems to see me now when she’s around. Did she say anything about leaving?”

Miss Rochester shook her heavy head. “She won’t. Not till she’s got a ring on her finger.”

“I can’t take much more of it,” said Maggie suddenly. “I’ve watched and waited, hoping Peter would fall in love with me. But we’re worlds apart socially. Dolly Murray makes me aware of that every time she opens her mouth. I’m not a lady. Perhaps that’s why Peter… Oh, never mind. I’ve just got to get away. If Peter proposes to her, I don’t want to be here.”

“I can’t stand the sight of her myself,” mourned Miss Rochester. “Flirting and ogling with my Colonel Delaney.”

“It’s not as if I’m destitute,” went on Maggie, thinking aloud. “I’ve got the money from the sale of the house and furniture as well as the money Mr. Macleod had in the bank. I’m surprised the court allowed me to keep it, considering most of it must have been from ill-gotten gains. I could get away. I could go back to Beauly and see what’s happened to the shop. I’ve never heard a word from my father since I was accused of murder.”

“And a good thing too,” said Miss Rochester roundly. “Of all the unnatural parents…”

“But don’t you see,” said Maggie earnestly. “It would
give me a purpose. A reason. I’m not afraid of my father anymore. To tell the truth, I feel like giving him a good piece of my mind.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Miss Rochester, “if you’ll let me have one more evening. Perhaps they don’t find Mrs. Murray attractive and are only being polite. Perhaps our jealousy is making us read things into the situation that don’t exist.”

“Very well,” said Maggie slowly. “Let’s go and join them for tea. There’s nothing we can do, sitting up here.”

Maggie studied herself in the mirror. Normally she would have been pleased with her appearance. She was wearing a new pink organza gown with a high collar and a little white dot pattern, long tight sleeves, and a long skirt cunningly cut to mould itself over her hips. But everything she wore seemed to pale to dowdiness before Dolly’s brash vitality.

She wondered whether she should confide in Miss Rochester and tell her of how she had repulsed Peter’s advances, and why. But one did not talk about such things. Besides she had just confessed to Miss Rochester that she, Maggie, was not a lady and Miss Rochester had not protested. In her low state it did not dawn on Maggie that Miss Rochester might not have heard the remark.

Both of them went silently and gloomily downstairs and out onto the terrace.

“Oh,
there
you are!” cried Dolly gaily. “Where
have
you been?”

“Talking,” said Miss Rochester grumpily.

“Oh, you old-fashioned misses do prefer the company of your own sex. Now, I am quite happy with the gentlemen.”

“Particularly when they’re generous,” muttered Hester who was sitting alone at the end of the terrace, kicking a piece of moss out from between a crack in the paving with the point of one French shoe.

“And we are quite happy with you, ma’am,” said the
colonel gallantly. Miss Rochester stared moodily into the depths of her tea cup.

The earl leaned back in his chair and covertly studied Maggie Macleod’s face. What was she thinking? Ever since the night she had repulsed him so rudely, he had battled with his hurt feelings and had kept out of her way as much as possible.

He had been furious when Dolly Murray had arrived on a visit without so much as a by-your-leave. Then after the initial shock had worn off, he wondered if he could perhaps make Maggie jealous.

But Maggie had simply become more silent and withdrawn. They had been playing croquet the day before and he had put an arm around her waist to show her how to hold the mallet and he had felt her physically shrink from him.

He did not know that Maggie had been alarmed at the vulgar emotions aroused in her body by his lightest touch.

There was a commotion inside the house and the sound of high girlish giggles and the Misses Bentley, followed by Mr. and Mrs. Farquharson, came into the garden.

The sisters were wearing pink and blue checked taffeta gowns, embellished with many frills and bows. They carried pink and blue checked parasols to match their dresses, pink and blue sun bonnets on their heads, and pink and blue dorothy bags dangling at the wrist.

In his unsophisticated way, Mr. Farquharson considered the Misses Bentley the flower of Scottish womanhood, and, since he was also fond of their parents, had been hoping still to marry one of them off to the earl. Mr. Farquharson had seen no evidence of any warmth in the earl towards Mrs. Macleod and judged his intentions in that direction to be purely chivalrous.

The introductions having been made, Dolly launched into a fund of London gossip in the hope of keeping the earl’s
attention to herself. Hester, however, who had joined the group, interrupted her rudely with, “It’s very bad manners, Auntie, to talk about people no one here has heard of.”

Dolly bit her lip. By the time she had rallied, Morag Bentley was teasing out her shoulder ruffles and making little digging remarks to Maggie. Didn’t Mrs. Macleod find it
strange
, after having been brought up in a shop, to live in a castle with all these servants?

Wasn’t Mrs. Macleod so grateful to the earl for risking his reputation to save her? To all of this, Maggie answered “no” and “yes” very calmly, and after a few moments, begged to be allowed to retire. Miss Rochester went with her.

“I think the Bentley girls are the final straw,” said Miss Rochester when they were alone. “I’ve been a very silly woman. Thinking I could attract a man at my age! But I didn’t feel like the old me
at all
in all my new clothes. I’m awfully old.”