Maggie (8 page)

“Now, now,” said Mr. Farquharson soothingly, “There’s no need for that. She’ll be well looked after.”

But the earl was already off and struggling through the crowd. Mr. Farquharson reflected sadly that he did not really know young Peter very well after all. Why, the man was running after a possible murderess like any other vulgar notoriety-seeker. But Peter Strange was his guest—he could never really think of his young friend as the Earl of Strathairn—and it was his, Mr. Farquharson’s, duty to see that no harm came to him. He found the earl after a search. He was in a room off the main court with Maggie Macleod and Mr. Byles, her counsel. Flora Meikle stood sentinel by the doorway.

“I came to collect ye, Lord Strathairn,” said Mr. Farquharson, his accent broadening in his embarrassment. He kept his eyes averted from Maggie. “I’m right glad Mistress Macleod is free and it’s unco’ guid o’ ye to concern yourself with her welfare, but, och, I’m sure the lassie has relatives to take care of her.”

The earl hesitated. Maggie sat with her eyes downcast. He wished to leave with Mr. Farquharson but found he somehow could not.

Mr. Byles cleared his throat. “I would like you, Mr. Farquharson and Miss Meikle, to wait outside until I have a word with Mrs. Macleod and Lord Strathairn in private.”

Mr. Farquharson opened his mouth to protest, but the earl said, “Please leave us,” and he reluctantly withdrew from the room, accompanied by Miss Meikle.

Mr. Byles waited to make sure they had gone and then he said, “My lord, this strange marriage of yours has been on my conscience. Provided I do not keep you to it, then there
is no reason why it should be considered legal and binding. It is a form of marriage which has all but died out. You are a young man and were no doubt carried away. As you can see, Mrs. Macleod is a free woman and there is nothing to stop her returning to her home and making a new life for herself.”

The earl’s first reaction was a feeling of intense relief, as if he, too, had just been found not guilty of a crime. He was now free to go back to his happy, carefree bachelor life. Perhaps it was the thought of the life he had experienced since inheriting his peerage—a mixture of loneliness and indolence—that irked him, but much to his surprise he found himself protesting, “I feel it would be ungentlemanly to leave Mrs. Macleod like this. What sort of life awaits here? The verdict did not clear her name. Her home will be surrounded for weeks by photographers and reporters and the curious public. Have you any relatives, Mrs. Macleod? Your father…?”

“I don’t know where my father is,” she said in a flat voice, drained of all emotion. “I only know that if I did find him, then he would not give me a home. I have no other relatives that I know of.

“I agreed to marry you, my lord, because I felt you had been tricked into it in some way. A bet, perhaps?”

The earl flushed.

“I was sure I would be sentenced to death so it did not seem to matter very much either way.” She raised her eyes to the earl’s. “As far as I am concerned, my lord, the marriage, if such a comedy can be called a marriage, never took place.”

“But what will you do?” demanded the earl.

“I don’t know,” she said wearily. “I just don’t know.”

The earl thought quickly. He could not bring himself to walk away and leave her to her fate. That was something the Marquess of Handley would do and Lord Strathairn did not
want to be like the marquess. It would do no harm to get her away from Glasgow for a bit, away from the staring crowds. Then, when she had recovered from the murder and the trial, and the interest in her had died down, why, then he could return her home with an easy conscience.

“I, too, agree to forget all about the marriage,” he said. “Some day I will explain to you why I behaved in such a foolish and callow manner. I have discovered I own a town house in St. James’s in London. Would you like to come to London with me for a bit? Mr. Byles will find a way we can leave the court without anyone seeing us. Say you will come. I promise to take care of you until such time as you are recovered from this nightmare.”

She looked at him very steadily and she wondered what he was thinking.

“My lord,” said Mr. Byles sternly, “I would like to believe your motives are of the purest, but you must admit…”

“My motives are altruistic,” said the earl crossly. “I have no interest in Mrs. Macleod as a woman, only as a fellow human being in need of help.”

Mr. Byles studied the earl’s face. It was too handsome to be trustworthy, he decided, and yet there was a firmness about the jaw and mouth and a steadiness in the earl’s gaze which belied the philanderer.

“I think,” he said cautiously, “I should leave the decision to Mrs. Macleod.”

Maggie turned her steady gaze on Mr. Byles. “Do I have any money?” she asked.

Mr. Byles looked startled. “Where were your wits during the trial, my girl? And, when your late husband’s solicitors called to see you in prison? Mr. Macleod left you a great deal of money, not to mention his house and all the contents.”

For a brief moment, a vision of escaping to America flashed through Maggie’s mind. She was just about to refuse
the earl’s offer when there came a great, impatient roar from the crowd outside—Maggie, Maggie,
Maggie
. She shivered. She studied the earl with sad eyes. He did not look as if he would beat her. Her father had run her life, then the inspector. It was better to settle for the evil one knew. She was tired, so dreadfully tired. This aristocrat was holding out the promise of an escape to London, away from the jeering crowds, away from the black savagery of this low-country city.

“Very well,” she said softly. “I will go with you, my lord.”

“I think you should learn to call me ‘Peter’ and I shall call you ‘Maggie’,” said the earl, affecting a light-heartedness he did not feel.

But Maggie had turned her head away and appeared lost in her thoughts.

Mr. Byles looked at them doubtfully. “I shall not mention the marriage to anyone,” he said. “I will find some means of smuggling you both out of the court. I would advise you both to be discreet and circumspect in your behaviour, or you may both end up having to marry each other properly.”

He opened the door and signalled to Mr. Farquharson, who was in the corridor outside, to join them. Flora Meikle remained on guard outside the door.

“Mr. Farquharson,” said the earl, unable to look his old friend in the eye. “I would be grateful if you could send my man, Roshie, here with my bags. Tell him to get me two first class tickets for the London train and, of course, one for himself.”

“What’s this?” cried Mr. Farquharson. “In the name o’ the wee man, you’re never going to London with Mistress Macleod!”

All Mr. Byles’ doubts were re-animated by the look of shock on Mr. Farquharson’s respectable face. “Indeed, I think you have not thought the matter over properly, my lord,” he ventured. “But I would like to point out…”

“And I would like to point out,” said the earl, “that I am thirty-two years of age which is nearly middle-aged. I am neither abducting Mrs. Macleod, nor do I plan to seduce her.”

But the earl had only begun to present his case. It was a full hour before he could convince Mr. Farquharson to agree to let him leave the court and go to London with a woman whose name had not been cleared of the charge of murder.

In the days that followed he often thought that had Mr. Farquharson not put up such a staunch opposition to the idea, then he might easily have changed his mind and left Maggie to her fate.

With an enormous belch of black smoke and a high wailing whistle, the
Grand Scotsman
puffed out of Central Station, slowly gathered momentum, and in no time at all was hurtling out of the city of Glasgow, tossing black tenements aside, straining and puffing and panting, clattering over the points, as if desperate to reach the countryside.

The earl leaned his head back against the blue upholstery of a first class compartment and wondered for the first time if he were as mad as Mr. Byles and Mr. Farquharson obviously believed him to be… not to mention Roshie who was somewhere further down the train in a second-class compartment.

Their escape from the court had gone off very smoothly. Flora Meikle, acting as decoy, had donned clothes similar to Maggie’s and, heavily veiled, had been led from the court by Mr. Byles and into a closed carriage. It was only when she alighted at the Macleod home in Park Terrace and threw back her veil that the Press and the crowd realized they had been tricked.

Opposite the earl, Maggie Macleod had fallen asleep, her face white and strained, even in repose.

Thick eyelashes lay against her wan cheeks and her mouth looked soft and vulnerable.

The earl sighed and looked out at the flying fields. The round green hills of the southern uplands stretched on either side, dotted with sheep. Great fleecy clouds raced across the sky. The wires on the telegraph poles appeared to fly up and up to join them and then suddenly to be pulled down just when it might seem they would disappear from view. The train gave a long melancholy whistle and plunged into a tunnel. He fingered the little gift-wrapped box on his lap. Roshie had given it to him before they got on the train, saying it was a present from Mr. Farquharson.

As the train hurtled out into the daylight once more, he idly unwrapped it and uncovered a small box.
Parkinson’s Miracle Emetic
said the label. “For all cases of poisoning, take two spoonfuls and send for the doctor.”

The earl burst out laughing and wrapped the package up again so that Maggie should not see it.

And then he thought, “I don’t know whether she did it or not. I’ll never know now.”

He had been so sure of her innocence in court when everything and everyone seemed to be against her.

But now…

The train plunged into another tunnel with a great wailing roar and his fingers tightened involuntarily on the little package in his lap.

It was only when Roshie silently handed him the London newspapers at Euston Station that the earl realized his flight was not going to solve anything unless he took action very quickly.

He had thought the case of Maggie Macleod would only have been featured in the Scottish newspapers. But every London newspaper was full of it.

The earl had not grasped the fact that the ‘great’ murders, the ones that the public read about avidly and remember for years afterwards are the respectable ones, the ones with a middle-class background.

There were plenty of murders in the teeming slums, but no one paid much attention to them. It took a really solid respectable setting to titillate the imagination of the public. The poor and the aristocracy were expected to sin; the middle classes were not.

The earl stood scowling down at the newspapers, wondering what to do. Maggie would need a chaperone. He had no intention of setting up house with her openly.

But what to do?

He suddenly recalled he had a maiden aunt living in a village in Oxfordshire. He had not seen her for many years but he hoped she was still alive. London was too dangerous. Too many eyes.

Maggie was too tired and numb to protest when she
learned their journey was not at an end, and that they were to take the train to Oxford and from there, hire a carriage to take them to the village of Beaton Malden.

She had slept most of the journey but still looked exhausted.

But it was already eleven o’clock at night and Roshie muttered he was sure they would not get a train to Oxford until the morning.

“The house in Charlton Street,” said the earl suddenly. “Are there servants in residence?”

“Oh, no, my lord,” said Roshie. “The old earl aye took the servants doon frae Scotland. It’s a wunner ye didnae ken that,” he added tartly.

The earl stared at him coldly for a few moments, reflecting there was a lot to be said for the more obsequious manner of the English servant, but contented himself by asking in a voice of chilling politeness how one got into the house.

“I hae the key,” said Roshie. “I carry a spare set o’ keys around wi’ me to a’ your lordship’s property.”

“Well,” said the earl, brightening, “we may as well go there for the night.” He turned to Maggie. “We may have to sleep without linen but we’ll manage somehow.”

“I wish I had a change of clothes,” murmured Maggie in her soft voice, her eyes flinching away from the passing crowd since the station was busy even at night.

“We’ll arrange something in the morning,” said the earl.

“We could go to an hotel, of course, but someone might recognize you.”

The house in Charlton Street had belonged to the Strathairn family for over a hundred years. It was a prim Georgian building with shallow marble steps leading up to a glossy black door with a fanlight.

On either side of the door were still huge snuffers where the link boys used to extinguish their torches.

Roshie put a large key in the lock and opened the door. His face had not relaxed its lines of disapproval since they had left Glasgow.

“Is there any electricity?” asked Peter, groping about in the blackness of the hall.

“No, my lord.”

“Well, light the gas.”

“Nae gas, my lord. Just candles.”

“Dear God,” said the earl impatiently. “Then strike a match, man, and light some candles and take some money and find some restaurant which will supply you with food for all of us.”

Roshie muttered something in Gaelic, and the earl sensed rather than saw Maggie’s hurt.

“You will speak English from now on, Roshie,” said the earl sharply. “Mrs. Macleod is to be treated with courtesy at all times. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, my lord,” said Roshie gloomily. He lit a candle and led the way into a drawing-room on the ground floor and proceeded to light branches of candles until the room was flooded with a soft light.

Peter looked around with pleasure. The furniture had obviously not been changed since the days of the Regency. Faded, striped, green-and-gold wallpaper adorned the walls and the chairs and tables were Sheraton and Chippendale.

Maggie sank down into a chair beside the cold fireplace.