Tilly Read online

  Tilly remembered Toby’s family failing. “Is there no cure?” she asked. “Surely it is a matter of willpower. Can’t one just stop? It is a moral weakness, after all.”

  “I do not understand it, my dear,” said the vicar gently. “Sometimes a strong belief in God effects a cure. That is my department. Sometimes just a belief in something or someone outside themselves. I have seen rips of fellows cured after they’ve fallen in love with pretty girls.”

  Tilly glanced speculatively at the pretty face of Emily Waring. But did Toby ever sober up enough to notice a pretty face?

  The vicar and his wife began to talk of parish matters, while Emily played with a shaggy puppy in the grass. Tilly watched her. She must be only a year younger than me, she thought, and yet she romps away there without looking like a tomboy. Perhaps one day I can work backward from all these rigid social manners and social conventions.

  Suddenly a picture of her husband’s lean, hard naked body danced before her eyes, and she felt quite dizzy and faint. This could not be love, thought Tilly angrily. It was more like a sickness.

  Then a shadow fell across her and she looked up into the blue eyes of the cause of her sickness and her heart did several somersaults.

  He did not look at all angry, she noticed when she could. He was smiling at her, actually smiling.

  The marquess drew up a garden chair next to the vicar and began to chat in his light, pleasant voice.

  “Who is that gorgeously romantic man?” whispered Emily.

  “My husband,” said Tilly, with pride.

  “No,” whispered Emily shyly, “not his lordship. That young man over there.”

  Tilly turned her head. Toby Bassett was standing at the garden gate. His face was as pale as marble and his eyes smoldered as he looked across at the group. Really, thought Tilly, if one didn’t know Toby was drunk, one would think he was in the throes of composing an epic. But she merely said, “It is my husband’s friend Mr. Bassett.”

  Toby ambled lazily over and dropped down on the grass beside Emily. He was wearing a striped rowing blazer with white flannels. He looked like an illustration of something called My Oxford Days.

  Tilly introduced Emily to him. Toby stared at Emily vaguely and Emily stared wonderingly back. Then the puppy romped in between them, jumping up to lick Toby’s face, and then rolled on its back and waved its fat little paws in ecstacy.

  “He’s called Towzer,” said Emily shyly. “It’s not a very original name, but he seems to like it.” She chattered happily on and Toby seemed content to lie in the sun and listen, his straw boater tilted over his eyes.

  Tilly watched her husband’s animated face as he talked to the vicar and his wife and wished the moment could be frozen in time—the marquess’s fair head gleaming in the sunlight against the cool green background of the trees. The garden smelled of flowers, sugar, cake, and tea. Up above, great white castles of clouds sailed majestically across a cornflower-blue sky. Beyond the wroughtiron gate set into the garden wall, a field of corn stretched lazily into the summer distance, turning green and gold as the breeze rippled across it.

  Then the marquess rose to his feet and the golden spell was broken. Toby dusted grass and leaves from his clothes and looked about him in a bewildered way, as if he were emerging from a particularly beautiful dream and wished to stay asleep.

  The marquess and Toby, it transpired, had walked the five miles to the vicarage, while Tilly and Francine had traveled in the dogcart. With a slight hesitation in his voice, the marquess asked Tilly if she felt energetic enough to walk back with him and let Toby and Francine travel in the dogcart. She nodded her assent and unfurled her white lace parasol to protect her face from the sun.

  They all left, promising to come again. To Tilly’s surprise, the marquess pressed an invitation to dinner at Chennington on the vicar and his family. Toby had that rare sober look on his face as he picked up the reins of the dogcart and bowled off down the dusty lane with Francine sitting beside him, her print cotton dress fluttering in the wind.

  The married couple walked along in silence. To take her mind off her disturbing companion, Tilly was turning over in her mind the possibilities of matchmaking. What if Toby should marry the vicar’s daughter? Perhaps all he needed was to fall in love with someone and, although Emily was only a country vicar’s daughter, Toby’s family must know of his excesses and would surely be delighted to see him settled with a respectable girl. If he ever got free of Aileen’s clutches!

  “Penny for them,” said the marquess.

  “I was thinking of Toby,” began Tilly and then saw a dark scowl on her husband’s face. Of all the unfortunate remarks! She hastened to explain. “I was only thinking that perhaps Toby would settle down and not drink so much if he were married to a nice girl like Emily.”

  “Wouldn’t that break your heart?” he demanded acidly, beginning to walk more quickly, so that Tilly had to pick up her skirts and lengthen her step to keep up with him. “He’s free now, you know. The engagement’s off.”

  “Oh, do slow down!” she cried. “Please, Philip. I want to talk to you.”

  The marquess slowed his step, and Tilly caught her breath and gathered her courage. “I only said that about Toby that night to hurt you,” she said in a small voice. “I wanted to hurt you the way you had hurt me… only making love to me because of the terms of your father’s will.”

  “I should have told you about the will,” said the marquess after a long silence, during which poor Tilly thought he would never speak again. “But it seemed so cold, so crude. Especially after my abominable behavior on our wedding night.” There, he had said it, and he felt infinitely better. “I wanted to make you fall in love with me, Tilly. That was suddenly the most important thing.”

  Tilly’s heart seemed to stand still. “Why?” she asked. “Why was it so important?”

  He stopped, turned, and looked at her. She was wearing a cool white blouse with a lace bertha that had a little ribbon of black velvet threaded through the lace at the neck. A wide biscuit-colored straw hat covered in a whole garden of fruit was perched on her small head, casting her face into shadow. Her long sage-green poplin skirt was tailored tightly over her hips to accentuate her trim figure. The white lacy parasol sent golden flecks of sunshine flickering over her face and dress, and in her wide blue eyes two large, perfect tears formed and welled slowly over onto her cheeks.

  He took out his handkerchief and gently dried her tears. “I have fallen in love with you, Tilly,” he said slowly. “Perhaps I have always been in love with my noisy schoolgirl and then my beautiful wife. I didn’t know it until this minute. I wanted you to be in love with me to satisfy my vanity. But I am in love with you, dear heart.”

  Poor Tilly broke down and cried, standing in the middle of the dusty country lane with the great tears raining down her face and falling to sparkle on the lace of her blouse. He looked around and saw a few yards in front of them a little stone bridge curving up to cross a glittering stream that ran underneath.

  He took her gloved hands in his and led her gently to the parapet of the bridge and made her sit down. Then he dried her tears again, bending his head forward to catch her broken words. “I—I I-love you so awfully, Philip.”

  He put an arm around her shaking shoulders and hugged her close, murmuring, “Don’t cry, sweetheart. Please don’t cry. You will ruin your pretty eyes,” and other such nonsense that was like a balm to Tilly’s soul.

  When she had recovered, he turned her face up and kissed her softly on the lips. “I am a beast,” he said penitently. “And I scared you and rushed you, didn’t I? Listen, Tilly, I shall make it up to you. You shall have your courtship and your kisses and love letters and flowers, just like any other girl. And then when we—you know—when we feel comfortable together, we can get down to some more serious lovemaking. We have all the time in the world now that we know we love each other.”

  Tilly gave a sigh of pure happiness and leaned her head against his che
st, crushing her smart straw hat in the process. They sat like that for a long time, as if turned to stone.

  The silver water chuckled over the stones of the river underneath the bridge. The breeze had dropped and tiny blue butterflies danced erratically through the heavy summer air.

  Somewhere in the warm distance, Cyril Nettleford espied the two figures and dismounted from his horse, tethered it to a tree, and made his way quickly and cautiously across the fields on foot until he was able to creep down under the shadow of the bridge.

  He mopped his streaming face and listened hard.

  “You have not answered me, Tilly,” the marquess was saying in such a caressing voice that Cyril felt his heart sink to his elastic-sided boots. “Shall we have our courtship and leave the more dramatic side of lovemaking until later?”

  “Oh, yes, Philip,” sighed Tilly shyly, failing to hear an echoing sigh of relief from under the bridge.

  I still have time, thought Cyril. Sentimental fools. The well-turned calf of a footman or the trim, muscular waist of a valet could set Cyril’s unlovely pulses racing. Women disgusted him.

  He crept to the side of the bridge and watched the happy couple make their way off down the road. The marquess stopped, gathered Tilly in his arms, and kissed her hard. The two bodies seemed to fuse together in the dizzying, dancing sunlight.

  Blast! thought Cyril cynically. They won’t wait long. He chewed his lip and thought how convenient it would be if Tilly could meet with an accident. From there his mind moved on to the idea that an accident might be arranged.

  Francine was waiting for Tilly when that young lady bounced into her room, looking flushed and exhilarated. She breathlessly told Francine of the marquess’s proposed wooing.

  “Very much the gentleman,” was Francine’s delighted comment. “I was wrong about that one. I think now that all men are perhaps not like my wicked compt.”

  “And, oh, Francine,” cried Tilly, throwing her mangled hat on the bed, “I have a marvelous plan for Toby. Wouldn’t it be splendid if he were to marry Emily Waring? I am sure she is just what he needs.”

  “Emily is too young,” said Francine repressively.

  “Fiddle,” sang Tilly, pirouetting around the room. “I am much younger than Philip and only see how it has worked out. I want everyone to be happy. What about you, Francine? I feel in the matchmaking mood. What about James, the footman? He is so handsome and I have seen the way he looks at you!”

  “James is not for me,” said Francine primly. “Just be satisfied with your own happiness, my lady. It is always wrong to meddle in other people’s lives. See what a mess I was making with you and your good husband!

  “Now come, my lady, I will draw your bath. It is nearly evening and you want to look your best for dinner, non? Alors, there is just one little favor I wish to ask, my lady.”

  “Anything,” said Tilly, who felt that if she could wrap up the world and give it to Francine, she would do it there and then.

  Francine cast down her eyes and pleated the material of her print dress in her long fingers. “It is an unusual request, Lady Tilly,” she said at last. “You know that I have been in the habit of escorting you to the drawing room before dinner?”

  Tilly nodded.

  “And always I am very correct. I wear the print dress in the daytime and the black silk at night. Eh bien, tonight, to celebrate your happiness, I would like to wear a color. Something very plain. I would not wish to appear not to know my place.”

  “Of course, Francine,” said Tilly, amazed. “I have masses of gowns. Take anything you want. We are now about the same size.”

  “That is very generous of you, Lady Tilly, but I do have a suitable dress of my own. Your gowns would be too elaborate for a lady’s maid.”

  “As you wish,” said Tilly. “Isn’t life marvelous, Francine? Nothing can happen to hurt me now.”

  Tilly had been rejoicing at the thought of only Cyril Nettleford being present that evening, but as she walked into the drawing room it was to find herself faced by two high-nosed, formidable ladies attired in the latest fashions in mauve silk and the latest in hard, frosty stares.

  The marquess introduced his aunts, Lady Mary Swingleton and Lady Bertha Anderson. Both were wearing feathered headdresses and, as they nodded their heads to Tilly, they looked remarkably like a pair of well-bred, high-stepping bridling horses. Both had remarkably fine complexions, each appearing to boast a natural, doll-like circle of color on each cheek. Tilly only learned later that the aunts had had the color of their faces tattooed on by no less a practitioner than George Burchett. A faint smell of sweat was still considered attractive to the opposite sex, being called “Bouquet de Corsage” and to Tilly’s fastidious nostrils, the aunts appeared to have it in abundance.

  “So you’re the bride,” said Lady Mary, staring down her nose at Tilly’s slim figure in its white, demure lace dress. “Saw you at your wedding. You’ve changed a lot. Hasn’t she, Bertha?”

  Lady Bertha produced a lorgnette and studied Tilly with a pair of hideously magnified eyes.

  “Quite,” she said.

  “At least she’s correctly dressed,” barked Lady Mary. “Not like some I could mention.”

  Both aunts turned as one person and glared at Cyril Nettleford, who was lounging in a chair by the fireplace in a blue velvet smoking jacket. He scratched his spots angrily and stared back.

  “My dear,” said the marquess, drawing Tilly to him, “my aunts assured me they sent us a wire announcing their arrival and find it hard to believe that we never received it. But you are always unfortunate with your communications, aren’t you, Aunt Bertha? My father always swore that you never sent them, but it was probably his idea of a joke. And we have another guest, Tilly. You remember Mrs. Plumb, of course.”

  Tilly looked carefully around the room. It was like one of those competitions in the illustrated papers—“What Is Up with This Picture?” After some minutes she was able to make out Mrs. Plumb lying on a dark-green sofa, wearing a dark-green dress. Mrs. Plumb smiled faintly and closed her eyes.

  Lady Bertha turned her attention to Francine. “You haven’t introduced me to the lady,” she pointed out.

  “My lady’s maid, Mademoiselle Francine,” said Tilly.

  “Indeed!” said both aunts in outraged tones and, as one, they turned their backs on Francine and began talking to Toby Bassett, who was communing with a glass of lemonade over by the windows.

  Francine certainly looked every inch a lady—and a very attractive one at that. She wore a deep burgundy silk dress cut low on the bosom and swept up into a bustle at the back. Her black hair was dressed in a looser, less severe style.

  “I’m sorry about this, Tilly,” said the marquess quietly. “They are very bad-mannered and make a habit of dropping in on people without warning. I shall let them stay for two days and then I’ll get rid of them.”

  “How?” asked Tilly.

  “In the usual way,” said her husband, smiling. “I shall simply tell the servants to pack their baggage and bring their chariot round, and I’ll insist that they told me they were leaving. Mrs. Plumb won’t inconvenience us. She sleeps the whole time.”

  “Where are their husbands?”

  “Both dead. But they both have marriageable daughters. It’s a miracle they didn’t bring them along as well to show me what I’m missing.”

  “Are they so very pretty?”

  “Not as pretty as you, anyway,” he said, smiling into her eyes in such a way that Tilly wondered whether a slow, delicate courtship was a good idea after all.

  Dinner was served earlier that evening, the host wishing to pack his unwelcome guests off to bed. Lady Bertha, feathers nodding, regaled Tilly with various stories that all seemed to deal with the marquess’s soft heart—“… always helping lame ducks,” and “… quite a terrible reputation with the ladies, my dear, but I am sure you will keep a firm eye on him.”

  Toby Bassett seemed even more stormy and brooding than ever and
was drinking iced lemonade in great gulps. Tilly hoped it was the influence of the pretty vicar’s daughter, and when Toby at last joined the conversation with a vague remark that he had once wanted to take holy orders, Tilly was sure of it and quite glared at her husband, who had collapsed in an unmanly fit of the giggles.

  Cyril excused himself before the dessert was served. He said he had just remembered that Sir Charles Ponte had asked him to drop over that evening. Sir Charles was a military martinet whose estates bordered the marquess’s to the south. Lady Bertha acidly expressed her amazement that a gentleman like Sir Charles should wish the company of a young man like Cyril, but Cyril had already left.

  Mrs. Plumb was the next to go, protesting faintly that late nights gave her the headache. She seemed unable to stay awake for longer than an hour at a time.

  Then the marquess was called to the telephone, which was, as in most country houses, situated in the draftiest and darkest corner of the hall.

  He came back looking worried, and bent over Tilly’s chair.

  “That was some relative of old Crump’s,” he said. “He’s one of my tenant farmers. He has had a heart attack and I really must go and see him. They’ve called the doctor, of course, but you know how it is, Tilly, in these family emergencies…?”

  “It’s all right,” said Tilly, her heart sinking. “I will entertain your aunts until you get back.”

  Then Toby Bassett muttered that he was feeling unwell and begged to be excused, and Tilly was indeed alone with her two formidable tormentors, who proceeded to make the most of it.

  In sugary-sweet tones, they recounted all the marquess’s amourous adventures, until Tilly felt ready to sink under the dinner table. In despair, she led them through to the drawing room, hoping for the support of Francine, but the lady’s maid was unaccountably absent and Masters, who answered her summons, sent a footman in search of Francine, but that young lady was not to be found anywhere in the great mansion.

  I am a married woman, thought Tilly fiercely, and this is my home. I don’t want to endure another minute of these horrible women. Aloud, she said, “You must excuse me, ladies, but I have a headache and I am going to bed,” and before they could open their painted mouths (coral pink—the latest shade) to reply, she had left the room.