Polly Read online

  Alf saw Polly into a third-class compartment when they arrived at the station. “Don’t speak to any mashers, now,” he cautioned. “And ’ere, these are for you,” he added gruffly. He pulled a bag of bull’s-eyes out of his pocket.

  It was a strange present to give such a well-dressed young lady but Polly remembered how, when she was a child, her father would always sneak up to her room when she was in disgrace and give her a bull’s-eye—one of those gigantic sweets that lasted for hours and changed all colors of the rainbow when you sucked it.

  She gave him a fierce hug. The whistle blew and Alf climbed out of the railway carriage.

  “Keep the window closed,” he said, as the train began to steam out of the station, “or you’ll get soot all over that dress.” The train gathered speed and she clung onto her hat as his last words faintly reached her—“And don’t damage that there dress o’ Edie’s or I’ll cut yer ’eart out.”

  Polly was alone in the compartment. She had taken a later train than the rest of the office party. She gave the leather strap a jerk and pulled the window up and then sat back on the worn seat, watching with dreamy eyes as the houses of London Town swept past to be replaced by green rolling fields.

  The train puffed on, belching a great column of black smoke that rolled and writhed across the summer fields.

  By the time Chelmsford was reached, Polly of Stone Lane had been left somewhere along the line and that well-known debutante, Miss Polly Marsh, shook the dust of the third-class carriage from her French heels and moved along the platform to take her rightful place in society.

  Soon she was seated in the open brougham with her pink parasol unfurled as the carriage clattered over the sun-dappled cobblestones of Chelmsford.

  Shortly after, the carriage had left the old town and was traveling along a succession of long green lanes, their hedgerows so high that it was like plunging into cool green tunnels. The leaves still had the fragile, translucent green of spring. White bramble flowers starred the rough grass on the steep banks and the air was heavy with the smell of lime and lilac.

  The carriage came to a stop before a square lodge house and the lodge keeper ran out to open the gates. Polly bowed her head in a stately manner and the gatekeeper touched his forelock. She settled back in the carriage with a sigh of pure pleasure.

  The two glossy brown horses clopped up the long avenue of limes. An ornamental lake came into view with swans floating elegantly across its smooth surface. Then the trees disappeared and the driveway came to a fork. One road led to a huge mansion. Polly blinked. It was like a palace.

  The once elegant Palladian mansion had grown considerably since the Westermans had taken over the younger son’s riches and added on service wings, bachelor wings, vestibules, and porte cocheres with careless abandon.

  The other road led to a white-and-red-striped marquee with tables spread out on the lawns. The whole of Westerman’s was already gathered and Polly’s sharp eyes could see no sign of any ducal personage, young or old.

  A footman in claret-and-silver livery stood at the fork of the road. His task was to make sure that the members of the office party went toward the marquee and that the duchess’s guests went to the house. His practiced eye took in the glossy brougham and the fashionable young lady. “Straight ahead to the house,” he said.

  The driver cracked his whip and the horses clopped forward toward the imposing porticoed entrance.

  Polly could feel her heart thudding against her stays. She knew somehow that she should have taken the other road to the marquee. But, then, was it her fault that she had been directed to the house?

  A magisterial butler in a striped waistcoat opened the door and led her across a vast black-and-white-tiled entrance hall. He held aside a peach-colored portiere and opened a heavy mahogany door. “Name, miss?”

  “Miss Polly Marsh,” said Polly, feeling as if she had just burned her boats behind her.

  “Miss Polly Marsh,” announced the butler in awesome tones.

  Mary, Duchess of Westerman, rose to her feet, hoping that she did not look as puzzled as she felt. She had no recollection of having asked any Miss Polly Marsh, but then she had gone and got slightly squiffy at the Cartwright’s breakfast the other day and God only knew what she had said or who she had invited.

  She sailed forward with her usual aplomb. “My dear Miss Marsh. We thought you were never going to get here. But now you are here, you’re still in time for tea. You know everyone, don’t you?” She realized her other quests were looking slightly bewildered. “No? Then let me introduce you. Miss Tracy Otis from New York, or do we say Noo Yawk—such a quaint accent—so piquant. Colonial people are such a joy. Just my little joke, Miss Otis.” Miss Otis, a pretty brunette, had had just about enough of happy English jests about colonials but she smiled frigidly and inclined her head. “And let me see, Daisy Jennington and Mrs. Farthington-Bell and dear, dear Bubbles.” Bubbles was an elderly dowager who raised her lorgnette and surveyed Polly from head to foot. Polly could not imagine anyone less than a duchess daring to call her “Bubbles.”

  Polly sat down and was handed a fragile teacup and saucer. There was a little silence and then the other ladies began to talk. Polly refused the cake stand and then looked around the room. It seemed to be the beginning of a long succession of rooms stretching out into infinity. This one was crowded with photographs in silver frames. They were crammed onto every available space from the top of the piano to the fragile whatnots in the corners.

  There was a portrait over the fireplace of a high-nosed lady in Regency dress who was wearing a purple turban. Her protruding blue eyes stared straight at Polly with cold hauteur.

  Polly glanced up at the high painted ceiling. Various gods and goddesses were disporting themselves with the eighteenth century’s interpretation of Greek abandon. A man with horns and goat’s feet had one brown and muscular hand firmly clasped around the enormous breast of a simpering female. Polly felt her cheeks grow hot and wished she could find the courage to announce that she was in the wrong place and belonged with the office party. She eyed the duchess covertly and her heart sank.

  The duchess was a formidable-looking lady with a great heavy head and a great heavy figure, which was draped in a sulphur-yellow tea gown. Her shoulders were covered with a dirty lace shawl and several of the sticks of her tortoiseshell fan were broken.

  Bubbles, the dowager, again brought her lorngnette into play and transfixed Polly with two hideously enlarged eyes.

  “Don’t know any Marshes,” she said suddenly, “except the Sussex ones. That your lot?”

  “No. Kent,” said poor Polly, improvising wildly.

  The duchess narrowed her eyes. She must have been very squiffy indeed to have asked this girl. She wished people would stop calling these afternoon affairs where one drank too dreadfully much, “breakfasts.” Well, she had better be extra nice to her in case the mysterious Miss Marsh realized that her hostess had been… well, had had a little too much to drink.

  “Darling Miss Marsh,” she ventured. “I do adore your gown. Du-veen. And how are the Cartwrights?”

  Polly sighed to herself. In for a penny, in for a pound. She gave her pretty laugh. “Oh, the same old Cartwrights.”

  “What was the name of that terribly funny German singer they insisted on dragging along? Sounded like a sneeze… Frutz… or Nitz… or something.”

  “Nietzsche,” said Polly desperately.

  “I say, what an intellectual conversation,” drawled a voice from the doorway, and a languid young man ambled in.

  “Now Peter. What do you mean by interrupting my tea party? You’re supposed to put in an appearance with your brother at that Westerman picnic.”

  “Oh, I’ll join the ink-stained wretches later,” he laughed. He looked straight at Polly. “Will someone introduce me?”

  “This is Miss Polly Marsh, a great friend of the Cartwrights.”

  Lord Peter bent over Polly’s hand. “Charmed,” he said. “I’m real
ly most awfully charmed.”

  He was a tall, slim young man with glossy black hair worn rather long. His skin was very white and his eyes under their heavy lids were a vivid emerald green.

  Polly’s heart sang with happiness. Nothing could go wrong on this splendid day. The door opened and the duke himself bustled in. Ah, well, she would charm him too….

  “Sorry to be so long, m’dear,” he was saying to his wife. “But some damned stenographer female is missing from the party and Baines is worried that something might have happened to her. She lives in some infernal place… I’ve got it written down somewhere… going to phone the local cop shop and get them to send a bobby round to her address and find out if she left home this morning. I’ll just go to my study.”

  Polly got to her feet. Miserable, frightened, and quaking, she faced the room. Visions of an officer of the law arriving at her home and then telephoning back to say she had left and even—who knows?—giving a description of Stone Lane flashed across her terrified mind.

  “I am that stenographer, Your Grace,” she said firmly. “The footman in the drive directed me to the house. As I am practically the only lady at Westerman’s, I thought Her Grace was going to entertain me separately.”

  “But you said you knew the Cartwrights!” snapped the duchess.

  “Obviously not the same family,” said Polly faintly.

  “I should think not,” said the duchess. “Fetch Jenkins,” she called to some servant out in the hallway. The ladies stared at Polly in frigid disdain with the exception of the young American, Miss Otis, who gave her a flicker of a wink.

  The footman of the driveway, Jenkins, came into the room.

  “Tell me, Jenkins,” said the duchess awfully, “how it comes about that this person was shown to my tea instead of to the Westerman party?”

  “She came in a private carriage, Your Grace,” said Jenkins glaring at poor Polly. “I says that the Westerman party is over there and…”

  “You did not,” said Polly. “You told me to go straight to the house.”

  “Well, well, no harm done,” said the duke jovially. “I must say that Miss Marsh looks every bit as fetching as one of our society beauties. Jenkins, run along and tell Mr. Baines that his stenographer has been found and, Peter, it’s time you helped your brother at the party. Escort Miss Marsh to the marquee.”

  “Delighted!” said Lord Peter. “This way, Miss Marsh.”

  Jenkins had unfortunately collared Mr. Baines before Polly’s arrival and had given Mr. Baines and the listening audience of Mr. Friend, Miss Feathers from the switchboard, the three other clerks, and sundry message boys a venomous description of Miss Marsh’s presumption.

  “Oh dear! Oh dear!” sighed Mr. Baines. “Now I shall have to dismiss her. And she is such a good worker. Why, she has halved the office work. What got into the girl?”

  His wife, Gladys, a bad-tempered-looking matron in cerise velvet, gave a contemptuous sniff. She was fed up with hearing nothing but Miss Marsh this and Miss Marsh that. Why, the girl was no better than she should be. “You’d best tell his lordship, the marquis,” she said importantly.

  “But, my dear, he is over there with the directors. I can hardly—”

  “It’s an excuse to put yourself forward,” hissed his wife. “Go on!” She gave him a little push so that he half tottered toward where the Marquis of Wollerton was standing.

  One of the directors, a choleric man called Sir Edward Blenkinsop, who had lost his digestion and his temper in India at Westerman’s Bengal branch, eyed the unfortunate Mr. Baines.

  “Well, Baines, found your girl yet?”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Baines, turning his new gray bowler around and around in his clammy hands. “There was a misunderstanding and she went to the house by mistake and the duchess thought she was one of Her Grace’s guests.”

  “She must be quite an enterprising young lady to have fooled Mama,” said a husky pleasant voice. Mr. Baines looked nervously at the Marquis of Wollerton. A pair of light-gold eyes looked amusedly back. Then the marquis glanced from the empurpled face of Sir Edward to the green-faced distress of Mr. Baines and added, “I am sure you will find there has been some misunderstanding. Is this girl good at her work?”

  “Oh, y-yes, my lord,” bleated Mr. Baines. “Extremely competent girl, and a very hard worker.”

  “You’ll have to dismiss her,” barked Sir Edward.

  “Come now, Sir Edward,” said the marquis lightly. “You are assuming the girl to be vulgar and pushing. She is probably some quiet little thing who was directed to the house by mistake and was too overawed to open her mouth. Is that not so Mister Baines?”

  “Yes, indeed,” said Mr. Baines gratefully. Without his beautiful secretary he felt that he would return to being a mere nobody in the eyes of Bloggs & Co. He looked over the marquis’s shoulder. “Here comes Miss Marsh now.”

  The marquis swung around and caught his breath. Escorted by his brother, Peter, Miss Polly Marsh floated across the smooth green lawn toward him. An errant breeze sent the blond cobweb lace of her tea gown swirling around her beautiful body, Danae in a shower of gold. Lord Peter carried his silk hat in his hand and his head was bent toward Polly’s. They made a handsome couple—the epitome of young England on a summer’s day.

  The band of the Grenadier Guards had started to play selections from Gilbert and Sullivan on an improvised stand beside the marquee. Servants from the Chase bustled about laying out tea. All the smells of an English summer reached the marquis—hot tea, melting sugar, strawberries, methylated spirits from the stoves, roses, and freshly mown grass.

  He was almost reluctant to hear Polly speak. An ugly voice would ruin such a pretty picture.

  “Hullo, Peter, my boy. I see you’ve found the missing stenographer.”

  “Oh, it was a riot,” said Peter boyishly. “There was Mama, all social bristles like a porcupine. A stenographer at one of her teas!”

  Polly flushed delicately and studied the ivory tip of her parasol.

  She raised her eyes fleetingly to the marquis’s face and then dropped them again. He did not look at all like his brother. In fact he looked quite terrifying. More people than Polly had found the marquis’s looks awesome.

  He had eyes of a peculiar light gold and heavy drooping eyelids. His nose was thin and high-bridged and his mouth long, thin, and mobile. His heavy brown hair was streaked with gold. He was well over six feet and carried himself with a languid hauteur that belied his muscular athletic body.

  The more mischievous of his friends gleefully pointed him out to visiting Americans as “the perfect British aristocrat.” The Americans were quite delighted with him as, before they had set eyes on the splendid marquis, they had been terribly disappointed to meet dukes who looked liked plumbers and plumbers who looked like dukes.

  “Miss… ah…” began Mr. Baines severely. “Have the goodness to go and join the other members of the staff. I will have a word with you later. How came you to make such a mistake?”

  “I’m very sorry, Mister Baines,” said Polly miserably. “But I was directed to the house and I thought that, as I was about the only female in Westerman’s, I was being… er… segregated.”

  All the men, except Sir Edward, gave indulgent laughs but Mr. Baines had been joined by his wife, Gladys, whose small eyes darted jealously over Lady Windermere’s tea gown.

  “You should be taught a lesson, my girl,” she said bitterly. “Aping your betters, that’s what. And I’d like to know where you got the money for that frock.”

  Now, somewhere, Polly had read that the only social defense in this sort of situation is complete honesty.

  Gathering her courage, she smiled sweetly at Mrs. Baines.

  “Oh, it isn’t my frock,” she said. “It’s Lady Windermere’s.”

  The marquis looked amused. “You mean Mr. Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere?” he asked.

  “Yes,” replied Polly sedately. “Act Two. I have a friend who was a theatrical dr
esser.”

  All the gentlemen burst out laughing, including Mr. Baines, who received a fulminating glance from his wife.

  Mrs. Baines did not know when she was defeated. “And to say ‘the only female’ is pure impertinence. I am here and all the other wives. There are plenty of ladies present.”

  Polly’s cool blue eyes drifted across the scene. “You must forgive me, Mrs. Baines,” she said gently, “I really had not noticed.”

  The marquis was beginning to feel heartily sorry for Mr. Baines. A shrew for a wife and a minx for a secretary.

  “I am sure you must be looking forward to a cup of tea, Mrs. Baines. Why don’t you take Miss Marsh over to the tables and your husband and I will refresh ourselves with something stronger,” he added with gentle malice, sliding his arm through the arm of the much gratified Mr. Baines.

  “My Bert don’t drink,” said Mrs. Baines.

  Mr. Baines opened his mouth like a fish out of water.

  “Oh, but we gentlemen have to discuss business. I insist,” said the marquis firmly.

  “Don’t worry about Miss Marsh,” said Lord Peter hurriedly. “I’ll escort her.”

  He swept Polly off, leaving Gladys Baines alone with Sir Edward. Sir Edward’s bad temper had returned. “Harrumph!” he said to Mrs. Baines and stomped off.

  The chatter at the tea tables stilled as Polly and Lord Peter approached. Amy Feathers, the switchboard girl, felt her heart sink right down to her little white spats. Bob Friend had been ever so attentive and now he was staring at that Polly girl as if no one else in the world existed. The staff had been freely maligning Polly and her stuck-up ways in her absence and they, with the exception of Mr. Friend, felt it very unfair that, not only was she remaining unpunished for her cheek, but that she was being escorted to tea by a lord.

  “I say, I don’t feel like joining that mob,” said Lord Peter cheerfully. “Hey, Jenkins. Fetch a little table over here under this tree for me and Miss Marsh.”