Lucy (16 page)

“We’ll moor over at that little island,” said Andrew. “Drink our champers, eat our breakfast, and think comfortably of the rest of the house party snoring in their beds and missing all this beautiful morning.”

He helped her to alight and took a rug from the punt and spread it on the grass and then helped her ashore.

“Do you like my home?” asked Andrew with his fair hair bent over the picnic basket as he fished out the champagne and two glasses.

“It’s beautiful,” said Lucy, looking across the park to the mellow brick of the old mansion.

“I’m very fond of it myself,” he said, handing her a glass of champagne. “I’m going in for agriculture, you know. Do you like the country? Or do you prefer it in town?”

“I much prefer the country,” said Lucy with a happy sigh as she sipped her champagne. “London is so noisy and dirty and being a debutante is so exhausting. I wish my father had left me ‘in.’ I don’t really want to be brought ‘out.’ I agreed to it because I thought it would be … oh, very elegant and leisurely. But it’s already a rat race of balls and teas and masquerades and what Boofy said to old Chuffy and don’t you think poverty is simply all the fault of the poor and have you ever heard of anything more ridiculous than women trying to get the vote. And I’m expected to sit manicured and glittering and confined in boots two sizes too small and smile and smile … but never too enthusiastically or I might get wrinkles. Most of the time I feel like a high-class Chinese harlot.” She blushed and looked embarrassed but he only laughed.

He refilled her glass. “Don’t stop,” he said. “You don’t have to be ladylike with me.”

“Oh, but I do,” said Lucy quietly.

He put down his glass and leaned over her. “Then … it’s not just me. You feel the same.”

She gazed into his blue eyes, trying to think of some flirtatious rejoinder but found that she could only nod. His face was drawing nearer, the blue eyes serious and intense, no longer mocking. He put one arm gently around her shoulders and with his free hand turned her face up to his. Their kiss seemed to last an eternity until at last they broke apart, trembling and breathless.

“Walk with me a little, Lucy,” said Andrew quietly, helping her to her feet. There was a little colonnaded marble rotunda at the other side of the island. He wanted his proposal to be perfect, not a scrambled affair over the half-empty champagne bottle and the untouched breakfast.

He took her arm and they walked along the narrow path that led to the rotunda on the other side of the island.

He led her inside and Lucy sat down on a marble bench. She instinctively knew he wanted this moment to be perfect.

She turned her head in order to allow him to prepare his proposal and leaned her arm on the sun-warmed ledge and gazed down into the deep, deep, clear depths of the lake.

The white face of Didi stared up at her, her long red hair, now as brown as the brownest seaweed, floating out around her small head. Her little hands made a pathetic pleading gesture as the water quivered under a sudden breeze, rippling the mirror of the lake and distorting the dead face below its surface.

The house party huddled together like survivors on a desert island the following day. The compte had left to arrange for his wife’s body to be removed to France for burial. A long and hysterical note from Didi explained the reason for her death all too clearly. Suicide.

“Of course, it was drugs, you know,” said the dowager marchioness carelessly. Everyone looked at her in surprise. They had all been moping around the drawing room in a disconsolate sort of way.

“You didn’t
know
?” exclaimed Aunt Emily. “Why, the child’s eyes were like pinpricks. And, my dears, her behavior!”

“Drugs!” whispered Lucy.

“Oh, lots of society people take them,” said Hester with a brittle laugh. “What do you think she was taking, Jeremy, dear?”

“Heroin,” he said briefly, and stared out of the window.

“I must say it was downright inconsiderate of her,” said Emily. “Now we can’t enjoy ourselves because it wouldn’t be the thing, and the train doesn’t leave until this evening so I can’t get rid of any of you.”

“That is one of those thoughts that one ought to keep to oneself,” said Andrew acidly.

Poor Didi
, thought Lucy.
And poor Didi’s parents, who had spent a fortune to give their American daughter a taste of aristocratic living, and where had it all led? To a loveless marriage and a cold death beneath the waters of the lake.

“There is a willow that grows askant the brook,/ That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream …” Andrew murmured half to himself. Lucy looked up, recognizing the quotation. Didi had indeed been an Ophelia made mad by love … but love of drugs, not of any man.

“Did you say ‘whore,’ Andrew?” snapped his aunt. “If you are going to murmur obscenities under your breath, then I suggest you take yourself off to the smoking room.”

“I was quoting
Hamlet.
“

“That’s no excuse. Shakespeare is full of filth.”

MacGregor suddenly let out a high-pitched scream and everyone jumped.

He smiled apologetically at the marchioness. “Since saying and doing exactly what one thinks and feels seem to be the order of the day, I was merely following the fashion. I felt like screaming so I did. Shall I tell you what I think about you at the moment, my lady?”

“Good God! Don’t you
dare
,” screamed Aunt Emily.

Andrew watched Lucy’s white face from across the room. He wished savagely he had proposed then and there instead of searching around the island for a romantic setting. He had managed to ask MacGregor for his permission to pay his respects to Lucy and MacGregor had granted it, after a little hesitation, when Andrew had thought for one horrible minute that he had meant to refuse. But MacGregor had asked him to wait until their return to London. Lucy had had too much of a shock, he had explained. And only Lucy knew how much she longed for Andrew to indicate by one glance or one touch that he felt something for her. But the viscount was hell-bent on demonstrating to MacGregor what a correct English gentleman he was and what a super son-in-law he would make, and so he left Lucy to endure the unwelcome attentions of Jeremy Brent and to watch Hester undulating around the viscount like a species of lace-covered cobra.

The afternoon dragged on and the light began to fade. “There are the carriages being brought around, thank God!” said Emily. “I shall leave tomorrow, Andrew, although I know my role of hostess is over, unless, of course, you become enraptured of anyone else. Of course, it was Frenchwomen with your dear grandfather. What an old rip he was, to be sure. Scotch! Makes a change. Time we had some new blood in the family. She looks a strong girl.”

“Yes. She’s got good strong hocks and splendid shoulders, my lady. Would you like to see her teeth?” said MacGregor.

“Go along with you,” laughed Aunt Emily. “
You
can come and see me any time, Hamish, which is more than I can say for the rest of the party.”

What possessed me to ask her to be hostess ?
thought Andrew miserably.
She’s going dotty.

Lucy and MacGregor sat alone in their railway carriage on the way home. Andrew had gone to join his army friends.

“You’re all set for the altar,” remarked MacGregor finally. “Andrew Harvey has got my permission to pay his addresses.”

“It’s all wrong,” said Lucy miserably. “What if he ever finds out? He’s bound to find out.”

“I don’t see how … if we play our cards right,” said MacGregor. “Och, you’re just feeling upset over Didi’s death.”

“Poor Didi,” said Lucy. “If only I had known. But people in society seem to behave so oddly sometimes.”

“You couldn’t have done anything,” said MacGregor comfortingly.

But to Lucy, Didi’s death had made the whole of the Season look like some macabre charade. She could only remember Didi as she had first seen her in Dinard, very pretty, very charming, and very much alive.

They made their farewells at the station and Andrew Harvey promised to call on the following day. Lucy went home to write a letter to her mother and to feel more like a fraud than ever.

The next day brought sunshine and a revival of Lucy’s spirits. Andrew Harvey had not said at what precise time he would call, so she canceled all her engagements for the day and sat down to prepare an elaborate toilette.

A shy housemaid answered the imperative summons of the bell and, bobbing a curtsy, said that Sally’s mother had been “took bad again.”

Lucy frowned and threw down her hairbrush. She was about to call Jobbons, the butler, and tell him that Sally was fired. But what if the girl’s mother were really in distress? Lucy, who felt she had neglected her own mother shamefully, did not want to be too hasty.

As the day wore on and there was no sign of Andrew, she began to fret for some sort of action. She rang the bell for Jobbons and asked him to supply her with Sally’s address and told him to ask the cook to pack up a hamper of goodies for Sally’s mother. Jobbons returned with the address and begged miss not to go. Sally’s family lived in King’s Cross. Probably a rough area. Better to send a groom.

But Lucy was tired of waiting. She had convinced herself that Sally’s mother was indeed in need of nourishment and help. She would take the carriage and two footmen and go to King’s Cross.

If Viscount Harvey called, he was to be told to wait. She would not be long.

By the time the carriage had reached the dark buildings of King’s Cross, that seemed to squat under a perpetual haze of smoke through which the sun shone with a brassy glare, Lucy had forgotten Sally’s faults and sullen behavior. She remembered only the fresh-faced willing girl that she had employed, who was so eager for a chance in life.

The carriage finally came to a stop in front of a dark, dilapidated building. Several grubby barefoot children with swollen stomachs and little stick legs were squatting on the worn steps. An old woman sat in a battered armchair at the entrance, wrapped in a dingy shawl and swigging gin from a bottle.

“Wait here, ma’am,” pleaded one of the footmen. “Let me make the inquiries.” He seemed to be gone a long time. An interested and ragged crowd had begun to press around the carriage. Lucy looked away from their grinning faces and shut her ears to their broad remarks and prayed for the footman’s speedy return.

At last he came back with the information that neither Sally nor her mother were at home and that they had best make their way back.

“’Ere! Is you lookin’ for our Sal?” shouted a voice from the crowd. A thin, dirty woman pushed her way forward and peered up at Lucy with her eyes alight with malice. “I’ll tell yer where she is.”

“Be off!” said the coachman, picking up the reins.

“Wait!” called Lucy, turning to the woman. “I am worried about Sally. She is my maid, you see.”

This provoked a great gale of laughter from her audience and mysterious calls that “our Sal wurrent nobody’s maid, nohow.”

“Stop being so mysterious,” snapped Lucy, “and tell me where she is.”

“Oh, hoity-toity,” screamed the thin woman. “Well, she’s gone shopping in Piccadilly, my lady.” She swept Lucy a grotesque curtsy and the crowd cheered and laughed.

“Thank you, my good woman,” said Lucy, feeling uncomfortable. “Piccadilly, John.”

The coachman gave her a sad look but he was anxious to get his carriage and horses out of the district intact. He saw several members of the crowd bending to pick up stones and bottles. Lucy had noticed them as well. She opened her reticule and threw a handful of pennies on the ground. The mob dropped their stones and scrabbled for the money, and by the time they had raised their heads, the carriage and Lucy had gone.

“If I lived there,” thought Lucy miserably, “I should behave exactly like them.” The smells of filth and urine began to fade as the carriage picked its way toward the West End.

Lucy realized that it was mad to search for one young girl in the bustle of Piccadilly, but she was determined to try. Poor Sally! No wonder she often behaved badly—coming from a background like that.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather just go home?” pleaded one of the footmen who stood on the step of the open carriage behind her.

“No,” said Lucy stubbornly. “I am determined to find Sally.”

“Then … if you must,” said the footman heavily, “she’s over there, ma’am.”

Lucy followed his white-gloved finger and gave a gasp of astonishment. Sally was standing against a lamppost talking to two other girls. She wore one of Lucy’s garden-party hats incongruously atop a purple silk evening gown. A scraggly feather boa was wound around her neck and her fresh-faced complexion was hidden under a mask of paint. Lucy halted the carriage and climbed down.

“’Ere. Wot’s all this?” screamed one of Sally’s companions. “’Ere’s the nobs come for to queer our pitch!”

Sally looked around and saw Lucy. Her face under its paint was set in mulish lines.

“Well, what did yer expect?” she screamed before Lucy could open her mouth. “You and your twenty-five quid a bleedin’ year. A girl’s got to make a bit of extra money.”

“But what are you doing?” pleaded Lucy, uncomfortably aware that an interested crowd was gathering.

“Wot am I doin’ of?” mimicked Sally in a high, shrill voice. “I’m a walkin’ up and down lookin’ in them shops, ain’t I?”

“You will collect your belongings from Jobbons as soon as possible,” said Lucy with all the dignity she could muster. “I do not wish to see you again.”

She began to climb into the carriage.

“Oooh!” screamed Sally. “Kicks me out of the job just like that,” she called to the crowd. “Well, you can take your bleedin’ lady’s maid position and put it right up your—Oh, Lor!”

A policeman was approaching along Piccadilly. Sally gave Lucy one last vindictive look and vanished into the crowd.

“Naow, then!” said the policeman, leaning against the carriage. “Is you here one of them suffragettes?”

“No,” said Lucy faintly. “I was merely trying to talk to my lady’s maid.”

“Ho! That’s a fine one. You run along home, miss, and stop hanging around prostitutes or I’ll have to report you to your parents.”