Black Rainbow (17 page)

"Oh, why the devil pretend, Georgie? Edmund . . . Edmund's man of the world. Knows a fair trade when he sees it. Business proposition, marriage. Old honorable name, title —money. Fair enough."

"Get out." Edmund's voice was barely recognizable. "Both of you. Get out of my house."

He had advanced far enough into the room so that Megan could no longer see him. It was not difficult to follow the ensuing action, however.

"Now, old chap, keep calm." Belated awareness of his error sobered Lord Henry somewhat. The pew creaked as he got to his feet. "Just a joke, that's all. Heard you coming, and thought we'd play a little joke."

The sound of a ringing slap, a shriek from Lady Georgina, and a muffled oath from Lord Henry were followed by a moment of tense silence.

"You'll pay for that, Mandeville," Lord Henry said thickly. "By God, you'll pay."

"I have paid, and dearly," Edmund replied. "Must I call the servants to put you out?"

There was no audible reply. Megan could well imagine the burning looks and sneers that were being exchanged. Then Lady Georgina came into her field of vision, closely followed by Lord Henry. They paused for a moment; exchanged a silent glance; Lord Henry offered his arm; and the pair walked, with some dignity, along the gallery and out of sight.

It was several minutes before Edmund followed them. His face was ashen except for two spots of hectic color high on his cheeks, and he swayed like a man who had received a mortal wound. Slowly he reached for the chapel door and started to close it.

Megan had only seconds in which to think what to do. Edmund was in a state of shock, barely aware of what he
was doing, but he could hardly miss seeing her when he closed the door behind which she was standing. Bad enough to be caught in the humiliating pose of a sneak and eavesdropper; but if Edmund knew she had overheard his humiliation, he would never want to see her again. She flung herself to the floor and closed her eyes.

It was a risk, a terrible risk; she dared not open her eyes even the slightest slit. But she heard Edmund's exclamation and felt his hand first on her shoulder, then on her cheek. She did not stir when he slipped his arm under her and lifted her so that she was supported by his bent knee. After he had repeated her name several times, in tones of growing concern, she let her eyelashes flutter.

"Thank heaven," he exclaimed. "I feared. . . . What has happened?"

"Where am I?" Megan murmured. Then her eyes widened, and she shrank away from him. "Unhand me, you villain—I will appeal to Mr. Mandeville, he will not allow. . . . Oh! It is you, Mr. Mandeville! Thank God! He pursued me, he caught me here, when I tried to hide from him, he. ... I remember nothing more."

Sobbing, she turned her face into Edmund's shoulder.

The tears were genuine. She was suffering from intense nervous strain. But one part of her consciousness waited, coolly, to judge how the performance had affected Edmund.

"Did you see Lady Georgina?" he asked.

"I remember nothing from the moment that fiend overpowered me till I opened my eyes to see your face."

"So you have been their victim too," Edmund muttered.

Megan decided to pretend she had not heard this. She sobbed more violently. Edmund's arm pressed her close. "There is nothing to fear now," he said gently.

There was no calculation—at least, not much—in Megan's heart when her arms stole timidly up to embrace him. She had dreamed of this moment for so long. Edmund's quickened breathing assured her he was not immune to the appeal of her yielding body and tearstained face. His vanity having
been wounded by one woman, he found solace in the adoration of another. Their lips met in a long, passionate kiss.

After that it was a foregone conclusion. Edmund raised her to her feet.

"Will you marry me, Megan?"

Megan would have agreed if he had proposed introducing her as a descendant of the lost Dauphin, and rightful Queen
of France. She drifted through the days in a fog of happiness; the bleak winter days seemed bright with sunlight.

The sun finally did shine one day, after a week of sleet and rain, and she decided to take some needed exercise by walking to the village. She wanted to run and dance and shout her exultation to the skies; and she did let out a shout or two once she passed the park gates. Then she settled down to a brisk walk, swinging her arms and smiling idiotically at everyone she met.

The village was not as pretty as she remembered. Closely curtained windows and closed doors had an air of rejecting strangers; the once bright little gardens were barren stretches of earth and dried weeds. The section of houses where the mill workers lived might have been wholly uninhabited. A meager wisp of smoke from an occasional chimney was the only sign of life, and there was a new look of indifference or neglect—a broken gate here, a window stuffed with rags instead of glass, a dangling shutter.

Like the rest of the village, the shop was empty. Megan had learned to share Jane's fondness for the place, which was at once haberdasher, milliner, draper, and half a dozen other establishments. Some of the merchandise had not been disturbed in twenty years. New acquisitions were simply piled on top of the old, and a customer who had time to rummage in the heaps of odds and ends might come upon unexpected treasures.

Mrs. Miggs, the proprietor, was a widow and a foreigner —that is to say, she had come from Somerset thirty years before to marry Mr. Miggs, and the villagers still regarded her as an outsider. She was a cheerful soul, shaped like a cottage loaf and possessing a mind as pleasantly disorganized as her stock. Perched on a high stool behind the front counter, where a row of large glass jars held the bright-colored sweets Lina favored, she sat knitting all day long, shouting suggestions and questions at her customers without ever leaving her seat. When Megan entered that morning, to the musical jingle of the bell over the shop door,
she looked up from the bright blue scarf she was knitting, but her greeting lacked its usual heartiness.

Megan wondered what ailed her, but did not ask; Mrs. Miggs's troubles were her own affair. She began turning over the untidy piles of merchandise. It was like a treasure hunt. She found a paper of old-fashioned boot buttons, half of them missing, and a saltware mug with busts of the Queen and Prince Albert—a memento of the royal wedding, fifteen years before.

Seeing a shimmer of blue among a coil of bootlaces, thread, and knitting worsted on a nearby table, she started to untangle it, and found a pretty bit of ribbon, suitable for Lina's doll. All at once an object in the corner, which she had taken for a heap of old clothes, stirred and mumbled. Megan started, pricking her finger on a darning needle entwined in the yarn. Looking again, she found herself under the intent scrutiny of a pair of malevolent black eyes, presumably part of a face almost hidden by shawls and scarves.

"Good morning to you," she said. "I did not see you before."

A wrinkled, blue-veined hand emerged from the wrappings and clawed at the folds of fabric, disclosing the face of an old woman—or possibly an old man—the beady little eyes and shrunken face had lost all distinctions of gender. An orifice appeared under the bony nose and a shrill voice squeaked out a comment. Megan could make nothing of it; the mouth appeared to be quite toothless. She nodded and smiled, though the tone had been far from affable, and then hurried back to the counter with her ribbon.

"I am afraid I disturbed your—your friend," she said in a whisper. "I did not see her . . . him?"

Mrs. Miggs sighed deeply. " Tis Mr. Miggs's old mother. Her do have her liddle house, but never won't stay there in winter, her comes to me and. .. . Noo, miss," for Megan had turned, intending to render the courtesies her ignorance of the bundle's identity had prevented her from making before.

" 'Tain't no manner of use to speak; her hears none o' what you zay—"

A peremptory, high-pitched grumble gave the lie to this comment. Mrs. Miggs's face sagged into lines of deep depression. "There, you zee—her do hear what her wants to hear! That's tuppence, miss, and thankee for your trade."

"It is good of you to care for your mother-in-law," Megan said, proffering the coins.

"Her'll drive me to my grave, miss, that her will," said Mrs. Miggs in tones of gloomy conviction. "Eighty-odd years old, but her'll see me coffined. The customers won't come when she's by, they be that frightened of the old witch —oh, yes, that's how they call her. And she do bless for the bleeding, I'll zay that. . . ."

"I assure you, you won't lose my trade," Megan said, trying to conceal her amusement. "I'm not afraid of witches. Nor is Miss Mandeville."

"Her do favor Miss Mandeville. The dear Lord knows why; her do favor no one else." The old woman squealed out a comment, and Mrs. Miggs shouted angrily, "-Bide quiet, Mam, unmannerly you be, speaking zo about the young lady."

"What did she say?"

"I'll not repeat it. Her's an ignorant old body. Don't you be a-listening to she."

"Please don't worry about it. I will hope, on your account, that we have an early spring. Good day, Mrs. Miggs—" She raised her voice and added, "Good day, Granny."

A low growl was the only response to this courtesy.

When Megan left the shop, the sun had gone behind heavy clouds and a cold wind tugged at her bonnet. She regretted her decision to walk; her new black pelisse, trimmed with beaver, was quite warm, but the return journey, uphill and in the face of the wind, would not be pleasant.

As she started up the street, she saw a familiar form
approaching. His brisk stride and cheerful whistle made the gray skies a little less dismal. Catching sight of her, he came to meet her, cap in hand.

" Tis not a fit day for you to be out," he said; but his smile robbed the words of their sternness.

"Good morning, Mr. Freeman," Megan said.

"It looks like rain," Sam said. "I'll walk with you a ways —if you've no objection, that is. I'm going that way."

"I would be glad of your company." Megan did not point out that he had been going in the opposite direction.

They walked in silence for a time. Sam was deep in thought, and Megan saw no point in wasting conversational elegancies on a man who was not accustomed to that exercise. When they reached the workers' town, she could not help exclaiming, "How dreary it looks, and how ill-kept. One would think they could at least keep the houses painted and make necessary repairs."

"Paint costs money," was the sharp reply. "The old squire kept the place up proper. His son chooses to buy gewgaws for the great house instead of roofs for his tenants."

"You must not speak of Mr. Mandeville that way," Megan said coldly.

Instead of being offended, Sam smiled at her. "Your loyalty does you credit, miss."

They had left the village and were on the road leading up to the park gates before he spoke again.

"I've educated myself, you know. Been to school the past six years."

Megan was secretly amused. Rich or poor, gentleman or peasant, men were much alike. All of them cherished the delusion that a woman was certain to be fascinated by their accomplishments and ambitions.

"I would have thought you were too busy at the mill to find time for school," she said.

"It's at night I go. Mr. Knightly, at Northgate, holds classes at his house. He's a learned man, Mr. Knightly."

Megan was impressed. Northgate, a neighboring village,
was almost five miles away. It required some dedication to cover the distance several times a week, after a long day at work.

"You go on foot?" she asked.

"Mostly." He added gruffly, "I'm learning Latin. Mr. Knightly said last month I was ready for it. Do you know Latin, miss?"

"I have studied it. But I suppose you think women should not trouble their heads with that sort of thing."

"Why not? Women have brains, just like men. And you can't judge brains by their size; look at Miss Jane, she's got more sense in that little head of hers than—"

He broke off with a sheepish glance at Megan. She decided to overlook what would obviously have been another slighting remark about Edmund if Sam had not stopped himself.

"You are to be commended for improving yourself," she said pleasantly.

"I won't be a foreman all my life. I've got plans." Sam plodded on for a few more paces, his lips moving and his brow furrowed. Suddenly he burst out, "My mother would like it if you would take Sunday dinner with us."

The invitation was so unexpected that Megan forgot to watch where she was going. She stumbled over a rut, and Sam caught her by the arm. He continued to hold it as they stood facing one another; and his embarrassed look confirmed the suspicion that had taken root in her mind. She was not well acquainted with rural customs, but she thought she knew what this invitation implied.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I fear that is impossible."

Once over the first hurdle, Sam faced the others like a man. "I love you," he said. "I don't have much to offer now, except that; but I'd work for you, there's nothing I wouldn't do to make you happy. I don't expect you to care for me, not yet. All I want is a chance to make you care."