Maggie MacKeever (18 page)

It opened but a crack, through which peered a suspicious eye. That eye traveled over Rosemary, taking in every detail of her toilette—stone-colored habit trimmed with swan’s-down, black beaver hat, large sealskin muff, black kid half boots. The door swung open.

“Mr. Thwaite?” inquired Rosemary of the individual thus revealed, a person of slight stature and homely features that were further disfigured by a squint. “I wish, if you have a moment, to speak with you.”

Mr. Thwaite, for it was he, stepped back a pace or two and made a sweeping bow. Rosemary entered the chamber, which was shabby and sparsely furnished and none too clean. Mr. Thwaite wiped off a hard wooden chair with his coatsleeve, indicated that his visitor should be seated, and took up his own position behind a battered desk.

Rosemary sat down, and readily; she was heartily regretting the decision that had brought her to Newgate Street. If Chalmers learned of
this,
he wouldn’t merely divorce her, he’d murder her outright. Since she was here, regretful or no, she might as well get on with the business. How best to broach so delicate a subject? “You
are
Mr. Thwaite?” she inquired doubtfully.

That individual propped his elbows on his desk, touched his fingertips together, and smiled. “That I am, missy! Open your budget, I’m here to please. For I’ll tell you as shouldn’t that you ain’t the first to run aground and be fretting your guts to fiddlestrings because your pockets are all to let. Fine feathers make fine birds, I always say, and so they may, but it ain’t quite so easy as winking to catch the eye of a well-breeched swell, even if you are square-rigged! Which brings us to a little matter of securities and credentials, if you follow me.”

That Rosemary did not follow is not surprising; Rosemary was unfamiliar with the protocol observed by moneylenders, practices that had earned the practitioners of that benevolent profession many sobriquets, mildest among which were “damned bloodsuckers” and “curst cent-percents”—practices at which Mr. Thwaite so excelled that his address was claimed by various young bucks of his acquaintance to be the legendary Queer Street. “I beg your pardon?” said Rosemary.

Mr. Thwaite frowned. He had on first inspection cast his visitor as demure immorality in beaver and sealskin, such worthies being prone to deck themselves out in the most extravagant rigs, for which they generally lacked the means to pay the reckoning, a habit that had greatly enriched Mr. Thwaite’s own pocketbook; but it was being borne in on him that his visitor was in a most nervous and prostrated state. Bits o’ muslin, in Mr. Thwaite’s experience, were not prone to nervous states of mind.

“Seems to me we’re not getting any forwarder!” he observed shrewdly. “Let’s start at the beginning. You
are
a trifle scorched? Under the hatches? Badly dipped? Set yourself up in the very latest mode and now find yourself a little short of the Ready-and-Rhino?” Rosemary, interpreting these colorful queries to mean she was in the unhappy position of being unable to discharge her debts, nodded. Mr. Thwaite frowned yet once again. “Who set you on to me?”

Here, at least, was a clear enough question. “Madame Eugénie.”

“Aha!” Mr. Thwaite regarded his fingertips. Not a fair Cyprian, but a delicately nurtured gentry-mort. He should have known it right off; this was not the first flat to be dispatched to his tender mercies by the enterprising modiste, who received a share of the profits made therefrom. “Then all’s bowman, missy! You should have said so at the onset, but no harm done. Now let’s get down to the nitty-gritty: you needn’t fear
I’m
a gabble-grinder; you can get on to puckering because I’ll keep dubber mum’d!” This generous invitation drew from the lady only a wide-eyed stare. “But I shouldn’t be talking flash to you, because it’s plain as a pikestaff you don’t understand a word of it,” added Mr. Thwaite. He explained that his visitor might speak frankly, because they were quite private; he was a positive marvel of discretion, and would never repeat to any living soul a single word she said.

In so kindly a manner was this invitation delivered, such kindliness being no small part of Mr. Thwaite’s stock-in-trade that Rosemary without hesitation told him the whole. As her story progressed, Mr. Thwaite’s eyebrows rose. The tale itself was not unfamiliar; he’d heard many such; the lasses, ladies and lady-birds alike, had a proclivity to get themselves under a cloud, bless their little hearts. What caused the elevation of Mr. Thwaite’s eyebrows was the growing certainty that before him sat the plumpest pigeon ever to tumble into his cooking-pot.

“And so you see,” concluded Rosemary, “I have been guilty of shockingly foolish conduct. I have been so worried I couldn’t think
what
to do!”

“Now don’t go nabbing the bib, because it’ll cut no ice with me!” Mr. Thwaite said sharply. Rosemary looked blank. He condescended to explain that she should not cry, though he refrained from further explaining that he was inured to weeping females, of whom he had enjoyed a large acquaintanceship during his long and prosperous career. “No need to be fretting yourself to flinders when I’ll help you raise the wind!”

“Oh,
will
you?” cried Rosemary, excessively relieved. “I dared not hope—because if Chalmers should find out—”

“Who’s this Chalmers?” interrupted the quick-witted Mr. Thwaite.

It never occurred to Rosemary that the most prudent course of action might be to withhold that particular information. Indeed, Rosemary was glad to inform Mr. Thwaite of her status, a piece of data that generally met with a gratifying obsequiousness from shopkeepers and merchants and people similarly in a position to profit from the patronage of a lady who had married such stupendous wealth. Rosemary thought the common Mr. Thwaite very fortunate to receive the business of so exalted a lady as herself, which is an excellent example of the Millikin processes of reasoning, or the lack thereof. “My husband. The Right Honourable Lord Chalmers,” she said.

To the obsequious attentions lavished on Lady Chalmers by shopkeepers and the like—until, that is, said shopkeepers discovered her ladyship’s unfortunate habit of leaving debts unpaid—Mr. Thwaite was no exception. The moneylender made it his business to be cognizant of the Upper Ten Thousand, and therefore was aware that Lady Chalmers’s husband was rich as Croesus.

With an airy gesture of one hand Mr. Thwaite dismissed such inconsequential matters as securities and credentials; with the other he unlocked a certain desk drawer; in the most amiable manner he put forth an opinion that it was a pity a lady could not determine whether a gentleman was of choleric temper and clutchfisted tendencies before she was hitched, by when it was a great deal too late. This piece of presumption Rosemary swallowed with good grace, partially because she did not understand precisely what was being said to her, and partially because Mr. Thwaite had with a flourish bestowed upon her a large bundle of bank notes. Her ladyship must not fear he would press her for payment, promised Mr. Thwaite; none knew better than himself that needs must when the devil drove. There was one other little matter, pure formality; he was sure her ladyship would understand he couldn’t dispense with such petty details even in so exceptional a case. If Lady Chalmers would just sign this silly little piece of paper, there, and there? Her ladyship was exceedingly obliging, to be sure!

Solicitously, Mr. Thwaite escorted Lady Chalmers down the cluttered stairway, out into the street. He made short work of the old-clothes man who lurked near the doorway with the sinister intention of tossing her ladyship into his barrow and trundling her away; he settled her ladyship carefully in the waiting hackney-coach and watched her depart. No sooner had her ladyship passed out of hearing-range than Mr. Thwaite burst into a most immoderate fit of loud laughter. Chuckling still, Mr. Thwaite repaired to a nearby boozing-ken, where he treated his cronies to mugs of flesh-and-blood, and the information that he was about to step much higher up into the world.

Chapter Fifteen

Had Angelica known of her sister’s private stock of Godbold’s Vegetable Balsam and Velno’s Vegetable Syrup, she might well have had recourse to those remedies. Angelica’s state of health deteriorated daily, a fact that of course had nothing to do with her daily encounters with a certain hardened rakeshame.

“Palpitations!” she said, as she paced the floor of her eldest brother’s specimen room. “An oppression of the chest! And I warn you, Valerian, that if you prescribe me a hot brick, I am very likely to throw it at your head!”

Valerian cast a professional eye over his sister, who had paused in her perambulations to gaze gloomily into a display case. “You’re looking knocked into horsenails, Sis. Leave what’s-her-name and the others to deal with their problems and go home. You need a rest.”

“I am to have a rest in the country?” Angelica turned away from the display case, in which were very advantageously arranged a remarkable variety of spinal cords, and moved to inspect a fine array of teeth. “A quiet country holiday? In company with Marigold and Hysop, Hyacinth and Violet, Amaryllis and Camilla, every one of whom is every bit as aggravating as Rosemary? Thank you, Valerian, but no! Apropos of which I have had another letter from Marigold. She claims it is taking me too long to fire off Lily, and accuses me of being dilatory in my attentions to my family. And she hints that she might come to town herself to take over our affairs.”

“The devil!” responded Valerian with prompt horror. “Put her off, Sis!”

“I have tried,” Angelica said, to the fine display of teeth. “The truth of the matter is that Marigold has grown weary of coping single-handed with the children. In Fennel’s absence, Hysop has taken to putting toads in
her
bed.” She sighed. “Clearly, if Rosemary doesn’t win free of this muddle of hers, Marigold will hold me to blame.”

The most practical of Valerian’s sisters—or the sister who had once been the most practical—turned to him with an appealing expression that Valerian did not approve. “No!” he said with brutal candor. “It won’t do you the least good to make sheep’s eyes at me; I refuse to be plagued by Marigold and her curst brats. If you take my advance, you’ll wash your hands of them. You’re looking—”

“Knocked into horsenails!” Angelica concluded wryly. “So you’ve already said; and so I was informed over the breakfast cups. Lily announced I was looking worn to the bone; Rosemary said immediately that it wasn’t
her
fault if I am fagged to death, and that she is scandalized by my conduct. I couldn’t imagine what Rosemary meant, since it is very much her fault if I am a little peaked—not that I begrudge my efforts—and so I set myself to find out. Valerian, those two ninnyhammers have convinced themselves that I am embarked upon an
affaire!”

That Angelica should engage in such uncharacteristic behavior was not among the contingencies foreseen by Valerian. He gave it his judicious consideration. “I shouldn’t think
affaires
would suit you.”

“Oh, no! Not the ugly duckling!” Angelica responded rather irritably. “Sometimes I wish very strongly that I had been born beautiful, because then I should very likely bid the whole family to the devil and enter into a carefree life of dissipation, pleasing no one but myself!”

Angelica’s behavior grew momentarily more erratic. Valerian was not surprised that his sister should voice so startling a suggestion; it was but another of her mysterious symptoms —mysterious to Angelica, that is; Valerian was perfectly aware of the nature of her malady, although he had never experienced it himself. That he allowed his sister to remain in ignorance was due less to compassion than to curiosity. Valerian was interested to see which way she would jump. Anyway, for what ailed Angelica, there was no cure.

“Did you tell what’s-her-name about Sir Randall?” he inquired. “We agreed that the fewer people who know the truth, the better. For you to be working for Sir Randall is hardly ladylike—in fact, it looks damned odd. Perhaps I shouldn’t have—”

“Piffle!” Angelica leaned in an exhausted and most perilous manner against a case crammed full of skulls. “I told Rosemary nothing; there was no opportunity. She was kicking up a dreadful dust, accusing me of making a cake of myself. Oh, I would like to
shake
her!”

Here, Valerian interrupted, with an opinion that what’s-her-name was queer in the attic, and a request that Angelica have a care for his specimen case. Obligingly, Angelica un-draped herself from the case and took another turn around the room. “I haven’t told you the best joke of all! Rosemary hopes I have not conducted myself in a manner that would leave me open to reproach; as the sister of a baroness I must at all times comport myself with decorous dignity. Though Rosemary does not like to speak of it, she fears I may have been a little indiscreet—but she is willing to make allowances, because I do not know how to go on in society!” Valerian choked; Angelica grimaced. “I don’t know where Rosemary comes by her ideas. Or I
do
know, because Lily is forever spinning fairytales. And when I think that Fennel dared say— in the kindliest of manners!—that if I am offered a slip on the shoulder he hopes I’ll remember my obligations to the family—it is no wonder I’m distraught!”

“Were you?” interrupted Valerian. “Offered a slip on the shoulder? Because if you were, you should have told me about it, so that I could defend your honor.”

At this noble offer, Angelica stared. “Defend my honor?
You?
Valerian, I never heard of such a thing!”

Unabashed by this blunt rejoinder, Valerian grinned. “I’m the head of the family; Chalmers said so himself. Answer my questions.
Has
he offered you a slip on the shoulder?”

“Chalmers? You must be mad!” Angelica then realized whom her perspicacious brother thought capable of such infamy. “How can you say such a thing? Or even think it? Of course he has not, nor will he. In point of fact, he promised Sir Randall he would
not
make a violent attack on my virtue, so you see this is a fuss over trifles. I am not at all the sort of female whom Simon Brisbane would invite to toss her bonnet over the windmill.”