Leading Lady (9 page)

But that was not to be, in Bethia’s case, for when she returned to her room, the Bartholomew Fair vase sat in the center of the study table, overspilling with daisies. Her dismay turned to horror when she discovered the finger of water arching out from the base to puddle about her composition.

“No!” she cried. She grabbed the stack and quickly began peeling pages from the top to lie out on the dry end of the table. All but the first three were ruined, water blurring the edges deeper and deeper, until the final page was a mass of pale blue scribbles.

Because of the ink on her fingertips, she used her knuckles to rub her burning eyes. The envelope propped against the base was ironically dry,
Miss Rayborn
penned in Mr. Pearce’s all-too-familiar block script. She snatched it up and threw it into the wastepaper basket, then turned the vase upside down to shake the daisies into it as well.

She was wiping water from the table with a towel when she thought of the original composition in the basket. Perfect or not, she was at the point where she would rather turn that one in than have to recopy the final pages of her revised one. With held breath she pushed aside wet stems and dug for the papers. They were legible enough to copy but not to turn in,
for water had soaked the bottom right corners about two inches into the script. Woodenly she pulled out the chair and filled her fountain pen. If she worked through supper, perhaps she would be able to go to bed at a decent hour.

But first, she would write a letter. Chest on fire, lips pressed together tight, she unscrewed the jar of ink and refilled her pen.

So cathartic was the act of committing her frustration to paper, that the words flowed as fast as her pen could form them. She addressed the envelope in care of Sun Insurance Company, London, and before she could change her mind,
went downstairs to the reading room and added the envelope to a stack in the wicker basket.

****

It was during Miss Stauton’s Monday morning lecture on Margaret of Denmark’s conquest of Sweden that Bethia wished she had toned the letter down a bit.
You wouldn’t kick a wounded animal in the street,
her conscience prodded. She could have expressed her sentiment just as firmly without resorting to cruelty. After lecture she hastened to the reading room. The mail basket contained only two envelopes, neither one hers.

Should she write again, explaining to Mr. Pearce her state of mind at the time the first one was penned? With cordial firmness she would add that her feelings had not changed, lest she give him false hopes.

The mere idea of doing so brought on such queasiness that she decided to let the situation rest as it was. He would despise her, but having experienced the effects of his professed love, perhaps that was preferable.

Seven

“Three little maids from school are we. . . .”

“Sh-h-h!” Muriel hissed, leaning closer upon Douglas’s arm while feeling the stares of other patrons leaving the Savoy Theatre’s production of
The Mikado.

But that only encouraged him to sing more loudly. He had a rather nice baritone, identical to Bernard’s. Only Bernard was more inclined toward hymns than Gilbert and Sullivan ditties.

“Pert as a school-girl well can be. . . .”

“Douglas!” But this time Muriel’s stomach cramped from suppressed laughter. “Everyone’s looking!”

“Filled to the brim with girlish glee, Three little maids from school!”

“Drunken sot!” was muttered from Muriel’s right.

She wheeled on the speaker, an older gentleman with a young woman attached to his elbow. “My brother’s a war hero with a bullet in his head,” she said to the startled couple. “And I’ll thank you for some compassion!”

“I-I beg your pardon!” the gentleman stammered.

“What did she say?” came another male voice from Douglas’s other side.

“He’s a war hero,” still another male voice replied.

“How tragic,” a feminine voice murmured.

Muriel dared not look at Douglas for fear they would both burst out laughing and spoil it all. Fortunately, they had reached the coach. Once Ham had closed the door behind them, waves of mirth struck them both so savagely that Muriel had to hold her sides.

“A
war hero?
” Douglas chuckled, top hat balanced upon his knees as the coach trundled past the queue of carriages on the gaslit Strand.

“It was the first thing that came to mind,” Muriel confessed, wiping her cheeks with a handkerchief.

One week had passed since Douglas showed up in her morning room wringing his hands. This evening it was as if Bethia Rayborn had never existed. They had entertained each other with reminiscings of childhood antics over a fine meal at Gatti’s and later smiled at each other in fifth-row theatre seats over Gilbert and Sullivan’s clever lyrics.

He’s over her,
Muriel thought. She reached across for her brother’s hand and felt safe enough to say, “I’m proud of you.”

Douglas returned her smile. “But I wasn’t
really
a war hero, you know.”

Muriel laughed again. “I’m speaking of you-know-who. You’ve not mentioned her all evening.”

Even in the dim light she could see the cloud that fell over his face. She groaned inwardly, chiding herself.
Why did you have to go and upset the applecart!

She let out a relieved breath when he said, “You were right. She’s not worthy of my affection.”

“Good for you!” Muriel said, squeezing his hand.

****

But her brother’s return to the Land of Common Sense was not to last. Two evenings later, she was lying against her pillows with her well-worn copy of Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein
when a soft knocking sounded.

“Lady Holt?”

“Yes?” Muriel lowered the book. “What is it?”

Joyce opened the door and stuck in her head. “Begging your pardon, m’Lady, but your brother, Mr. Pearce, is here.”

“What does he want?”

The parlourmaid hesitated. “I don’t know, m’Lady. But he seems in an awful state.”

Muriel closed her eyes, blew out a breath. “Tell him I’m asleep.”

“Yes, m’Lady.”

“No, wait,” Muriel said as the door was closing. She sighed again. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

She shrugged into her dressing gown and slippers, grumbling to herself at how much better her life would be without family. When she entered the sitting room, Douglas jumped up from the sofa and took a crumpled envelope from his coat pocket.

“Read this!”

Muriel yawned. “Must I?”

He was still waving it at her. With still a third sigh, she took it from him and sat on the sofa. She looked up at him. “I can’t read with you standing over me blocking the light.”

When he dropped into the cushions, Muriel pulled out the crumpled page. The words were as cruel as any she had ever read. She clenched her teeth together and thought,
How dare you!

“She says she couldn’t love me if I were the last man in England!” Douglas cried. “She signed it
with utmost contempt!
”

There was something odd about the letter, on second look.

“Why does she mention daisies?” Muriel asked. “I thought you sent roses. And what is this about church? And the telephone?”

His expression turned sheepish. “Well . . .”

“You didn’t go up there again, did you?” Muriel asked, lowering the page.

“Sunday past.”

“Douglas.”

Quickly and defensively he said, “I just wanted another look at her. That was all. I didn’t tell you because I knew you would lecture me. And besides, I
thought
I was getting over her.”

“Well, it would certainly help if you burned this bit of poison.” She thrust the page at him. “And stayed away from trains, don’t you think? Where were your brains?”

He took a deep wounded breath, then another, eyes closed. When he opened them again there was a calmness about him
that was disturbing in its rapid onset. Pocketing the letter, he said, “I had my fortune read yesterday, Muriel. I wish you could have been there. She knew everything about me.”

“She whom?”

“Madame Aldona.”

The laugh Muriel attempted to squelch came out of her nostrils in a snort. Her brother’s face went pink, and he gave her an injured look, to which she shook her head helplessly with a hand over her own mouth. When she could trust herself to speak, she moved her hand and said, “You don’t mean that place with the big hand for a signboard.”

Nestled among the fruit stalls and flower stalls of Covent Garden, the shop was good for an elbow nudge and grin, with its yellowed hand-lettered sign in the window:

For years the price of the reading had been two shillings, but several months ago that was crossed out with the three-shilling price inked beside the old one. Muriel supposed even gypsies who could tell the future had to keep up with the rising cost of living.

“If you’ve never been, you’ve no right to criticize,” her brother said with chin raised. “Madame Aldona knew I was suffering from a broken heart before I even said a word.”

“Anyone could look at you and see that.”

Ignoring her comment, he held out his left palm and pointed with the index finger of his right hand. “That long line running diagonally is my happiness line. Can you see those three broken sections branching out from it?”

Muriel humored him and leaned forward. “I suppose.”

“It means the three efforts I’ve made toward happiness
have failed. Can you see? The letters to Miss Rayborn, the flowers, and the visits. How could Madame Aldona have known that?”

“But wouldn’t the telephone call count as four?”

He opened his mouth a second before any sound came out. “A telephone call is the same as a visit.”

You gullible boy,
Muriel thought, even though at twenty-seven he was three years her senior. By some quirk of nature, she possessed more common sense than both brothers combined. “It doesn’t matter how she knew that, Douglas.
You
knew that too, before you handed over your three shillings. So what good did it—”

He waved away her lecture and held out the palm again. “The line here. See?”

“The happiness line?” Muriel asked.

“No.”

“Well, I don’t see another where you’re pointing.”

He closed the gap between his thumb and index finger, forming a crease which branched from the one he termed the happiness line. “Now you see it. It’s my love line.”

“And . . . ?”

“The love line is only visible when I take action—moving my thumb—and then it connects to the happiness line here. Which means that by my taking drastic action, I can make Bethia mine.”

Frustration was sliding rapidly into boredom. Muriel let out a weary sigh. “So you’re going to go back up to Girton and wiggle your thumb at her?”

Douglas snorted this time, but out of impatience and not amusement. “You can be so dense sometimes, Muriel. Moving the thumb is
symbolic.
”

“And I suppose she informed you what sort of drastic action it represents?”

“She said the opportunity would present itself to me by the end of the day. And sure enough, less than an hour after
I returned to the office, Mr. Rowley called me in and gave me the sack.”

Muriel’s eyes widened.
“What?”

“He said he had run out of warnings over my missing so much work.” Douglas shrugged. “I was distressed too, especially knowing how steamed Father would be over it. I was beginning to doubt Madame Aldona, when Randall Adams approached as I was cleaning out my desk—he’s the co-worker I’ve mentioned.”

“The one who cracks his knuckles?”

“It’s just a nervous tick. But listen! He’s going to Canada!”

Muriel gave him an odd look. “Whatever for?”

“To look for gold in the Klondike.”

“What’s a Klondike?”

“Do you never read newspapers? It’s in northwestern Canada. Prospectors are raking in millions.” He leaned closer with arm hooked over the back of the sofa, hazel eyes intense. “Randall and I are leaving next Friday. We can be in New York in six days, Alberta in nine—”

For a fraction of a second Muriel was struck with an unsettling
déjà vu,
as if she had lived through this scene before.
Nanny Tucker and the sweets factory,
she realized.

“ . . . purchase equipment, settle in for winter and be prepared when the spring thaws—”

“Douglas! You get sniffles when you sleep with a
window
open!”

“We’ll bring our warmest clothes, of course.”

“You get a
nosebleed
in a bumpy carriage!”

“Not lately, I haven’t,” he said in a miffed tone.

“This is insane. You’re as loony as King George.”

He drew up his shoulders, jaw taut. “That was the only drastic action suggested to me yesterday, and so I’m positive it was what Madame Aldona read in my palm.”

“And exactly how would this help you win Bethia Rayborn’s affections?”

“She’ll have lots of time to think about how she mistreated
me when she learns I’m gone. And it’ll be worth any hardship to see the look on her face when I return with my fortune.”

Delicately Muriel unraveled his plan, pointing out that if great wealth mattered to Bethia, she would not love a coachman’s son, that Douglas could return with
no
fortune, that it would be cruel to worry Mother in her state of declining health.