Maggie MacKeever (4 page)

Valerian turned to stare into Angelica’s face. “Sits the wind in that quarter?”

“No!” snapped Angelica. “It does not! Lily has the crackbrained notion that I should marry
someone,
and Chalmers and I are both
clever,
you see!”

This novel notion gave Valerian food for thought. He was not in the habit of contemplating the unhappy lot of the only sister whom he held in affection, by habit directing his contemplative moments toward such weighty matters as the nesting habits of cuckoos and the propagation of eels; but on Valerian’s behalf it must be stated that he had not been hitherto aware that Angelica
was
unhappy, their concourse having been limited to terse and sporadic letters over the past several years. Now that he turned his keen intellect to the matter, he realized that Angelica could not be other than dissatisfied, their paper-skulled siblings being hung around her neck like so many millstones.

A gentleman of blunt manner, Valerian made this sentiment known. “Why
don’t
you get married?” he inquired.

“To whom?” retorted Angelica, irritably. “Chalmers, as Lily suggests? Fustian! I’ll have you know, Valerian, I’m tired of people chattering eternally at me. Were I to develop a fondness, it would be for a gentleman who was impenetrably taciturn! Not that I shall have opportunity to do so; any gentleman who admires me need only take one look at any one of our sisters to forget my existence altogether—and you needn’t say that’s fudge, because I speak from experience!”

From this slightly hysterical outburst, Valerian deduced a number of things, chief among them that Angelica’s patently low evaluation of herself was directly attributable to the unchristian Marigold. He moved from his chair to stand before the feeble fire, from which vantage point he thoughtfully surveyed his sister.

Angelica, huddled in the chair Valerian had abandoned, was the picture of gloom. True, she was no beauty, not in the flamboyant fashion of Marigold and, from report, Marigold’s children; but she was not unlovely either, in a subdued, understated style. Tall and very slender, Angelica was blessed with the bone structure that ensured her looks would not deteriorate with age. Marigold, as Valerian recalled, and he did so with no small satisfaction, was not similarly blessed. Too, Angelica possessed an almost formidable intelligence, a quality for which Valerian had the highest respect, and another quality Marigold patently lacked. But Angelica would never credit that her stepmother might be jealous, and Valerian did not waste his breath.

“I am being unbearably foolish!” said Angelica, with the air of one determined to be so no more. “It is hard to be the ugly duckling amid a flock of swans, because one cannot help but hanker after swanliness oneself. You will never have heard anything half so absurd, I expect! I vow I sometimes marvel at myself.”

As did Valerian, who would not have expected a display of sensibility from so sensible a source; perhaps Angelica had from long exposure picked up some of the less admirable habits of her charges. “Did you tell what’s-her-name that you were coming to see me?”

Angelica deemed it neither politic nor kind to inform Valerian that, for all the mention made of him by the family, she was the only one who remembered his existence. “I left Rosemary attempting to teach Lily the shawl-dance. They are engaged this afternoon to attend a harlequin-farce at Astley’s, from which I excused myself.”

Valerian quirked a brow. “What’s-her-name doesn’t pay much attention to your comings and goings, then?”

“I suppose not,” replied Angelica, bewildered. “You must not think too poorly of the child, Valerian! Rosemary is sadly out of curl, due to the anxieties preying on her mind, and she is not in the habit of, er, regarding any but herself. Nor must you think I am ill-treated, because I’m not! Doubtless I should not have complained so to you, but there is no one else—and I am very fond of the family!”

To these protestations, Valerian paid scant heed. “Could you slip away from Chalmers House as easily again? Could you do so regularly?”

Unaccustomed to the company of a brother who reasoned rationally, Angelica watched him with fascination. “I guess I could, but to what end?”

Valerian smiled, an exercise that he performed seldom, and executed beautifully. “Would you be willing to do so, if it helped you to haul what’s-her-name’s coals out of the fire?”

Angelica blinked, then frowned. Of course she would do anything within her power to rescue Rosemary from almost certain ruin, but Valerian’s smile had recalled to her some of his own less laudable tendencies. Her elder brother was made up of a curious blend of indifference, deviousness and sharp, shrewd wit; and he had an uncanny knack of manipulating people to suit himself, as if they were no more than chessmen on a playing-board. “Why should I?” she asked cautiously.

“All in good time!” retorted Valerian. “Yes or no?”

Strongly, Angelica was tempted to respond in the negative. But she recalled Rosemary’s dilemma; the number of impecunious admirers who dangled after Lily, which gave rise to a strong fear that Rosemary had dropped several fallacious hints concerning the contents of the family pocketbook; Fennel’s ominous utterances, in view of his admiration for the infamous Byron, about having a bit of frolic. “I am used to manage,” she responded hollowly. “Don’t tease yourself.”

Valerian stifled a snort. Manage, did she? “I thought you wanted my help?” he murmured craftily. “Things have come to a very pretty pass when you cannot bring yourself to trust me. It makes me melancholy, Sis, to think that Marigold has estranged even
you
from me.”

That Valerian didn’t look the slightest bit melancholy escaped Angelica’s attention. In a flurry of skirts she rose from the chair, ran to the fireplace, and clutched his coatsleeve. “It’s not that! Honestly, Valerian! If I seemed unappreciative, it is just that I am distracted—oh,
pray
forgive me.”

Slightly ashamed of himself for even briefly adding to his sister’s budget of woes—but she would, he hoped, come to thank him for this piece of work—Valerian magnanimously indicated forgiveness. Angelica, anxious not to further wound this most beloved of her siblings, humbly begged to know for what reason he would have her slip away from Chalmers House in a manner that, due to Rosemary’s newly acquired dignities, was bound to be clandestine.

“Stiff-rumped, is she?” inquired Valerian, with disinterest. “I’m glad it’s you must deal with the chit! If it was me, I’d wash my hands of her—of the lot of them! Since you won’t, I’ve thought of a way for you to raise the wind.”

Oddly, Angelica felt no relief at this promise of rescue. “That is?”

Again, Valerian smiled. “I have a friend—one of my old teachers—who is in need of an amanuensis, being engaged in writing his memoirs. You’d fit the ticket perfectly.”

“I would?” Angelica’s tone was skeptical. “Why? I can’t imagine that such a position would be difficult to fill.”

Nor would it have been, had the position existed in the first place. Not by so much as an eyelid’s flicker did Valerian betray his engagement in blatant falsehood. “Sir Randall is a physician,” he explained, “and deuced hard to please. Even so, you assisted Papa in his surgery, so you won’t be squeamish; and if you can put up with Marigold and her gudgeonish brats, you won’t mind Sir Randall’s little eccentricities.”

Why did Angelica feel as if she was being pushed willy-nilly in a direction she didn’t wish to go? “What makes you think that your Sir Randall would wish to tolerate me?” she responded doubtfully. “If he’s so difficult to please?”

Valerian was not put off by this missishness; when pursuing his own ends, and Valerian seldom pursued any
but
his own ends, Valerian was undeterred by even acts of God. “Oh, he’ll like you!” he asserted, as he surreptitiously tugged at the bell cord that hung beside the mantelpiece. “And you’ll like him. Think of the opportunity, Angelica—Sir Randall was one of the most highly respected physicians of his day. You always said if you weren’t a female you’d have been a physician—well, here’s an opportunity to work for one and at the same time to earn enough to keep what’s-her-name’s creditors at bay while we think of some way to put them off entirely.”

Angelica should have been rendered highly suspicious by Valerian’s sudden helpfulness, but suspicion drowned in a wave of dizzying relief. She had not dared hope that, in her wearing task of keeping Rosemary from disaster, Valerian would render aid. She had misjudged her brother, enormously —he offered not only a chance to help Rosemary, but involvement in the world of medicine that was denied her by her sex. In defense of Angelica’s lack of foresight, it can only be said that she had been unexposed to Valerian’s highly original methods for a large number of years.

“Oh, Valerian!” she breathed. “If only Sir Randall—I should like it of all things!”

“Thought you might, Sis!” Valerian ruffled her hair. “You just go and see Sir Randall—here, I’ll write you a note of introduction.”

As he did so, under Angelica’s bemused eye, Valerian’s elderly housekeeper shambled into the room and announced, breathlessly, that an urgent case of measles awaited the doctor’s attention. Angelica had too high a regard for the art of medicine to hamper its practice; clutching the note, stammering her gratitude, she took her leave.

Valerian looked after her, then back at his desk. That he made no effort to attend the urgent case of measles is explained by the circumstance that no such case existed, this being the standard ploy he used to rid himself of visitors of whose company he had tired. Not that Valerian had tired of Angelica; but he was not a man to waste time with words when action would better serve.

For the problems of what’s-her-name and spouse, Valerian had neither interest nor concern. He did not, however, intend that Marigold should succeed in her obvious intention of seeing Angelica dwindle into a fubsy-faced old maid.

Angelica yearned after a gentleman most impenetrably taciturn? Wearing a smile that was distinctly diabolic, Valerian penned yet another note, informing Sir Randall Brisbane that he had just hired an amanuensis, sight unseen.

Chapter Four

It was a very foggy day, of the sort that inspired prudent folk to remain at home by their snug hearthsides. The Millikins, however, were marvelously imprudent, and not to be deterred from the delightful prospect of visiting the shops by the minor inconvenience of not being able to see more than a few scant paces in front of them. Too, Rosemary was fast learning how to deal with impatient creditors. When one lacked the wherewithal to settle one’s debts, one could stave off the reckoning by ordering additional goods.

They were a gay little party, Rosemary and Fennel and Lily, and soon to that group were added Messrs. Gildensleeve and Meadowcraft, Steptoe and Pettijohn, the core of Lily’s admiring retinue. Ardent young men all, Messrs. Gildensleeve and Meadowcraft, Steptoe and Pettijohn professed themselves oblivious to such lowly considerations as the quality of the elements. What mattered an influenza when by it one was privileged to escort the Fair Incomparable?

Alas, Lady Chalmers knew the parents of these ardent young swains to be rather more practical. Perhaps Angelica had been correct; perhaps it
hadn’t
been quite the thing to give out that Lily’s portion was a great deal more handsome than the truth—but the thing was done. Without making herself look a fool, Rosemary could not retract the tales she’d spread before Lily ever came to town.

The party browsed through the shops that lined Oxford Street, a wide boulevard inlaid with flagstones and lighted with street-lamps enclosed in crystal glass. Since the Millikins displayed a marked determination to inspect each and every establishment, their perambulations took a great deal longer than the brief time promised airily by Lady Chalmers to her coachman, who had deposited them in Piccadilly, and received instructions to pick them up again in Oxford Street in a half-hour.

“I don’t know
how
it happened!” wailed Rosemary, as she whisked her sister into the establishment of W. H. Botibol, a
plumassier
by trade. “The family never had sixpence to scratch with, and suddenly
I
did! Chalmers left me alone so much, and I wanted so very badly to cut a dash; I didn’t realize everything was so expensive, and it was much too late by the time I did!” She sniffled. “I dare not ask Chalmers to bear the expense, or let him know my accounts are of the most desponding cast, because he is the most unfeeling man and I cannot bear that he should condemn me for my irresponsible conduct yet once again.”

Reluctantly, Lily withdrew her dreamy attention from ostrich feathers and artificial flowers destined to adorn bonnets and huge gypsy hats. “How can you still be so dreadfully in debt?” she asked, with what was for her a fine display of logic. “After all, you
did
pop the sapphires.”

“Hush!” Frantically, Rosemary glanced around and waved away the hopeful shopkeeper. “Do you mean to tell the whole world of my predicament?”

There was on Lily’s lovely face a look of keen interest. “The sapphires!” she persevered.

“Oh, if you
must
know!” Rosemary flushed. “I meant to pay my dressmaker off, honestly I did! But on my way to do so, I stopped for just a moment in a most elegant little shop and—well, there I saw the most elegant
toilette.
You needn’t look so disapproving, I
did
pay for it! And the cream of the jest is that I have had to hide it in my closet and dare not wear it, because Chalmers would be bound to read me a scold.”

Lily was driven by this confession to actually frown, despite the well known detriment to ethereal complexions of such exercise. As a result of this unprecedented act, Rosemary’s blue eyes filled with tears. “Don’t scold me! I cannot bear to be spoken harshly to! It is bad enough that Chalmers holds me in disgust. Oh, how did I get in such a muddle? I have wracked my brains for some solution, but nothing answers the purpose.”

“Come, come,” soothed Lily, with infinite patience, as she patted her sister’s hand. “Don’t bother your head further. Remember, Angelica promised to fix it up all right and tight.”