Maggie MacKeever (3 page)

Hopgood looked agonized. “Oh, sir! You do not mean to
walk!
Your boots!”

Sir Malcolm surveyed those items, as if contemplating putting them to use in conjunction with a certain portion of his valet’s anatomy.

“Yes, sir! As you wish, sir! Immediately, sir!” hastily amended Hopgood. He darted back to the coach, took firm grasp of their luggage, and trailed Sir Malcolm down the road

Sir Malcolm strolled along the roadway, his thoughts directionless. It was his habit to live wholly for the moment, a custom that stood him in good stead with the gentle sex. His thoughts currently turned toward that gentle sex, as they often did. In this instance he was not, however, musing upon the various endearing habits of ladybirds and lightskirts, bits o’ muslin and birds of paradise, nor of ladies of high station, nor even the Princess Borghese. Instead, he was thinking of his cousin Thea, the only female with whom Malcolm had never been tempted to dally, perhaps because he liked her so well.

A strange sound intruded into Sir Malcolm’s musing, as if some hound labored for breath at his heels. Puzzled, he turned his head. “Jackanapes!” observed Sir Malcolm bluntly, as he forcibly relieved his valet of the heaviest portmanteau. “Why didn’t you leave these things with the carriage, man? Never mind! Here is the village.” A few rustic cheerless buildings nestled amid the trees.

Sir Malcolm unerringly directed his footsteps toward the public house, Hopgood close on his heels. On the threshold of a large, badly furnished room he paused. Hopgood peered around him. “This is
not
what we are accustomed to, sir. Do come away!”

His warning came too late. Angry voices had caught Sir Malcolm’s attention. Looking very martyred, Hopgood set the luggage down.

A buxom serving-wench was engaged in an exchange of vituperations with her employer, the owner of this far-from-select establishment. Even as Hopgood set down the luggage, and Sir Malcolm turned to discover the cause of the commotion the proprietor gave the girl a heavy slap. “Oh, I say!” protested Malcolm, who among his not-innumerable virtues counted a genuine reverence for womankind.

Not surprisingly, this mild protest earned only scorn from its target. “The devil fly away with ye!” responded that worthy, who was not of a disposition to grovel before his betters. To further demonstrate his republican principles, he slapped the serving-wench again. “Pot-walloper! Mugwump!” she shrieked in response. He once more raised his heavy hand, but before that hand could descend, Sir Malcolm had grasped the man’s shoulder.

“Oh, sir!” moaned Hopgood.

The light of battle gleamed in the barrel-chested individual’s eyes. “Think ye’re a proper man with yer fists, is it? We’ll see about that!” And in very short time he
did
see, if not the precise blow which felled him, stars instead—strategy described enthusiastically by Hopgood, totally forgetting his place, as a nice bit of cross-and-jostle work, with a muzzier to finish it, as dandy an instance of serving up home-brewed as he’d ever seen.

The serving-wench gazed with some awe upon the gentleman. “Lawks!” said she, taking in for the first time the full impact of the stranger, an impact not the least bit lessened by the dust that smudged his greatcoat, or the dent in his high-crowned hat, or the scratches on his sun-bronzed cheek. “Milord, you’ve been hurt. Let me tend to it.”

“It’s nothing.” As was his habit with every female who crossed his path, Sir Malcolm leisurely inspected the girl. She was not a bad-looking lass, he decided.
As
was his habit when confronted by a pretty woman, he smiled. “Nothing to signify.”

Such was the quality of Sir Malcolm’s smile that the serving-girl forgot even her stinging cheeks. “Oh, please, milord!” she sighed. “ ‘Tis the least I can do.”

Sir Malcolm glanced from the girl to his host, who would from all indications remain supine for some time yet. Nor would the coach soon be equipped to resume its journey. Undecided, he glanced once more at the girl, and recognized in her eager face another thirst for adventure that remained unslaked.

Sir Malcolm possessed great compassion for frustrated adventurers. He bestowed a look so kindly that it very nearly caused the girl to swoon. Hopgood tut-tutted, catching his master’s attention. “The coach,” murmured Sir Malcolm. “See to it.”

It was not just scratches which the girl wished to tend, the valet thought gloomily, as he set out in search of several stout-hearted villagers, and a wheelwright for good measure. While Sir Malcolm toasted his toes before the feeble fire, waited on hand and foot, Hopgood was as usual expected to deal with the more practical details of Malcolm’s life.

Hopgood sighed. Sir Malcolm’s weakness for the gentle sex would land them in the suds; he felt it in his bones.

Chapter Three

In Oxford Street, in London, stood a fashionable milliner’s shop, a polished angular building with gilt letters over the window, which discreetly spelled out: “Mme. le Best.”

Beyond that plate glass window—which displayed such examples of the milliner’s art as a delicate cap of fancifully embroidered mull trimmed with tucks and lace; a trim folding bag of beige moire; and a fragile fan of pierced horn leaves—the milliner’s showroom lay, and behind the showroom her atelier. This workroom was cluttered beyond imagining with pattern books and pins and paper, scissors and tapes, needles and thread. Bolts of fabric were piled upon the shelves which lined the walls; and snippets of satin and lace, ribbons and bows lay everywhere. In this chamber labored the seamstresses in Madame le Best’s employ.

Madame was not happy with her hirelings, an opinion which she was not reluctant to express.
“Imbéciles!”
she scolded.
“Crétines!
The work proceeds à
pas de tortue—
at the pace of a snail!” The seamstresses put forth no argument, but exchanged commiserative glances and bent industriously to their tasks.

Madame le Best did not note their glances, being engaged instead in contemplation of her image in a large rectangular dressing glass. A woman of middle years with a shrewd, suspicious face, Madame was a walking advertisement for her own art. Her high-waisted gown of pale blue poplin boasted a vandyked skirt, and a triple Vandyke ruff. On her faded hair she wore a cap of satin inlet trimmed with three rows of lace and a rose on top, fastened under her sharp chin with a garnet brooch.

Behind her the atelier had grown so silent that an alert ear could hear needles passing through cloth. Satisfied with her efforts, and having nigh exhausted her scant knowledge of the French tongue, Madame moved to the doorway. There she paused and raised one admonishing finger.
“Regardez,”
she said darkly, and withdrew into her showroom. A source of pride to its proprietress, this elegant chamber was done up in the Chinese style, with wallpaper that made free, even indiscriminate, imaginative use of dragons and pagodas and mandarins, its furnishings japanned and painted with exotic scenes, or fashioned of imitation bamboo.

If there was a certain smugness in her observation of her showroom, a degree of arrogance in the instructions she issued to the seamstresses, these small conceits may perhaps be forgiven Madame le Best; by dint of careful planning, and considerable hard work, Madame’s feet were firmly planted on the ladder to success. Fashionable ladies flocked to her showroom in ever-increasing numbers. Nothing could halt her advance now, she thought with satisfaction, just as a young woman stepped into the showroom—a circumstance that would later lead Madame le Best to reflect bitterly upon the folly of tempting fate.

“Voyons!”
muttered Madame, upon first espying the intruder. “And what is it you’re wanting, Miss? If it’s employment you’re after, you’ve come to the wrong door.
Tout même,
you might as well answer me some questions. You can sew a neat seam? Embroider? Net? Tat? Only the best will do for this establishment.”

There was some justification for Madame’s assumption that she beheld a damsel in search of employment, though a startled expression appeared in the girl’s big brown eyes. Those eyes were the dominant feature in an enchanting little elfin face, which was additionally blessed with merry lips, and dimples. From beneath her bonnet peeped blonde curls.
“Ma foi!”
added Madame. “Have you nothing to say for yourself?”

Astonishingly, the damsel responded with great good humor to this rebuke. “Bless my heart!” she chuckled, as she set down the large straw basket which she’d been clutching to her chest. “It
is
you, Aunt Helen! I didn’t recognize you, got up so fine. Quite a start it gave me when I saw the name above the window—I couldn’t puzzle out how some foreigner came to be doing business at my Aunt Helen’s address. I was quite in a pucker about it, too! For I have traveled all the way from Brighton, and spent my last bit of money, and had you not been here—well, it don’t bear thinking on.”

What didn’t bear thinking on, grimly reflected Madame le Best, was the presence of this very unfashionably clad damsel in her showroom. She stepped into the entrance passage and closed the front door, then dealt similarly with the door between showroom and atelier. Then she gestured toward a chair japanned in gold and black.

Looking pensive, her visitor dropped carelessly onto it. “Le Best? Is that your name, Aunt Helen? Because if it is, I don’t know why you was always called Bagshot, like the rest of us, because you was my papa’s sister, and should have had the same name.”

Madame le Best realized how gravely her complacency had tempted fate. She sank abruptly into an opposite chair. “You will not again mention That Man in my hearing!” she snapped. Her niece’s lips parted. “Melly, hold your tongue!”

Briefly, Melly looked puzzled, as if uncertain whether or not her aunt wished her to actually perform this feat. Then the bewilderment cleared from her brow. “You’ve changed your name!” she crowed. “If that don’t beat all.”

Anxiously, Madame le Best glanced at the door to the atelier. It remained firmly closed. She turned to her niece. “Why did you leave Brighton, Miss? Surely you have not been turned out of yet
another
place?” Melly’s guilty look was all the answer needed. “I should wash my hands of you!”

“You are deuced uncivil, Aunt Helen!” retorted that damsel, on a sigh. “Are you fretting lest I let the cat out of the bag? I am perfectly capable of keeping secrets, even when I don’t know why I
should!”
Her lips trembled. “You’ll be wondering why I came to you, I expect. You see, I was in a bit of a pickle, and there was no one else!”

So woeful a demeanor, such lachrymose tones had been designed expressly to tug at one’s heartstrings, suspected Madame le Best. “You are
always
in a pickle, Melly!” she retorted. “And you must not call me Aunt Helen, but Aunt Heloise.”

“Heloise?” Melly looked intrigued.

Before her niece could digress into speculation upon her change of estate, Madame le Best hastily spoke: “I went to no small trouble to get you that last recommendation, and against my better judgment, and I warned you what would happen if you got up to your tricks! Perhaps the situation may yet be saved. You had better tell me about it.”

A tear appeared in Melly’s brown eye, to be followed in quick succession by several others which trickled down her cheeks. “It was the Hussars!” she wailed.

The Hussars? Madame le Best was reminded that her niece was a trifle bird-witted. This opinion she aired. “I’ve known you from the cradle, Miss!” she added sternly. “Even if I
wasn’t
on terms with your mama—may she rest in peace—as result of her foolishness over That Man. So you needn’t be trying to play off your tricks on me!”

In a very businesslike manner, Melly dashed away her tears. “You always
were
the most complete hand, Aunt Hel—Heloise! I shan’t be a bit of bother, truly; just give me an attic where I may sleep and I will work my fingers to the bone.” As if in proof of her assertion, she wriggled those digits. “You know I am a nacky seamstress; you taught me yourself!”

By experience rendered immune to tears and cajolery alike, stratagems common among the seamstresses in her employ, Madame continued to look severe. “What
about
the Hussars, Miss?”

A kind-hearted girl, who hated to cause disappointment, Melly foresaw that in this instance she could not live up to her ambition of spreading sunshine throughout the world—and for a damsel of nineteen, Melly had already spread a great deal of sunshine, if not throughout the world precisely, at least among those masculine citizens who had been fortunate enough to cross her path. It was precisely for that reason that she found it so difficult to hold down a position. “They looked so very handsome in their uniforms!” she sighed. “Full-dress regimentals with pretty yellow boots!”

Madame le Best, pondering the perverse fate that had, at the moment of her triumph, inflicted upon her a niece prone to fall into pickles, suffered a moment’s disorientation as result of that damsel’s confessed preference for the military. Then she recalled that the Tenth Light Dragoons were on home service in Brighton. It was a fact, she suspected, that she should have recalled earlier. “You have been cutting a lark again,” she sighed. “I don’t know what is to become of you if you go on in this way.”

Had she been of a more reflective nature, Melly might have derived a certain disappointment from her aunt’s failure to appreciate her efforts to spread happiness and good cheer. But Melly was not familiar with rumination. “You always
was
one to kick up a dust over trifles!” she soothed. “I promise you it ain’t anything so dreadful, Aunt Helen—Heloise! It was just a matter of Captain Birmingham missing parade on my account, and I still say it was very shabby of Lady Birmingham to cut up so stiff about it, as if I’d deliberately stuck the needle in my thumb!”

By these confidences, Madame’s foreboding was not stilled.
“Did
you do it on purpose? The truth, Miss, if you please!”

Melly, as befit a damsel bent upon bringing merriment into a dreary world, was disinclined toward truth-telling. Truth, in her experience, was less apt to inspire a smile than a scowl and it was her intention to remove the scowl from her aunt’s brow.