Tilly Read online

  “I have troubles of my own,” he said lightly to change the subject. “My father’s will has just been found, and under the terms of it, I find I must marry in a month’s time.”

  “Oh, how simply awful!” said Tilly, suddenly breathless and nervous. “I mean, what if, because you’re in such a rush, you end up married to someone you don’t like?”

  “It could happen,” said the marquess, thinking of Aileen. Had she not revealed herself to be such a shallow miss, he could have well proposed!

  “What type of man would you like to get married to, Miss Burningham?” he asked in a light, teasing voice that sent delicious shivers down Tilly’s well-corseted spine.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, staring at her still untouched food. “Someone to hunt with, be friends with, well… some good sort, you know.” She gave an awkward laugh and drank a glass of wine as if it were lemonade.

  “But then, you would become just another kind of companion,” said the marquess, gently taking Tilly’s plate and beginning to dissect the quail in the way a mother cuts food up into small pieces for her child.

  “No, really,” said Tilly desperately. He didn’t know who to marry! Could he be considering her? “I would have my own home, maybe somewhere like Jeebles and… and… I wouldn’t bother him much.”

  “I have a place like Jeebles,” said the marquess slowly.

  Tilly looked across the little table at him, wide-eyed, and the marquess stared back.

  He wondered if it were a trick of the light, but he suddenly seemed to be seeing two girls: one the awkward, badly dressed schoolgirl, and superimposed over it, for the minute, a wide-blue-eyed, innocent, very feminine girl. Then Tilly crinkled up her eyes and gave a jolly laugh to hide her embarrassment and the illusion was gone.

  “It doesn’t look like Jeebles,” he went on. “It’s all medieval battlements outside and Eighteenth Century rococo inside. But I’ve got a one thousand-acre estate with all the sorts of things you had at Jeebles—park and farms and that sort of thing.”

  “Your wife would have to know how to get on with the tenants,” said Tilly, forgetting her awkwardness. “I mean, it’s very important to visit them and look after them and all that.” She suddenly blushed as she remembered the overheard conversation of Mrs. Pomfret, the lodge keeper’s wife.

  “Oh, I don’t know that that side of it’s all that important,” said the marquess. “I have a damn good manager and, believe me, tenants would rather have someone who looked after the practical side of things, like repairing roofs and fences and so on, than some nosy Lady Bountiful dropping in at awkward times with chicken soup.”

  They would indeed, thought Tilly sadly, but there was no one to tell her. She applied herself to her food and the marquess leaned back in his chair, watching her from under half-closed eyelids and wondering what he had said to upset her. And why on earth had he told this odd girl about his marriage plans? Imagine if he were to be wed to her. How shocked and disappointed his aunts would be! The thought of how shocked and disappointed they would be suddenly appealed immensely to him and he studied Tilly with new eyes.

  She hadn’t looked that bad, he reflected, in her riding clothes. It was all that paint on her face and that dreadful dress that made her look such a fright. Now, just suppose he did marry this girl, he would be supplying her with a home, he would gain an undemanding wife who knew how to run a mansion, and he would infuriate his relatives into the bargain.

  “Where’s my Beast?” cried a light, tinkling voice. Aileen was bending over Tilly’s shoulder, pressing her glowing, beautiful face next to Tilly’s own, showing the marquess what a contrast they made.

  The marquess found he was actually beginning to dislike Aileen immensely. He would love to see Aileen’s face if he wed Tilly. But, oh, Tilly! She was looking nervous and miserable and guilty, as if she sensed that under Aileen’s laughter her mistress was not pleased that dowdy Tilly had kept this handsome lord away from the ballroom for so long.

  “Have you forgotten, dear Lord Philip,” said Aileen, smiling, “that we have a dance?” She waved her little program in front of his nose.

  “As a matter of fact, I have,” said the marquess, knowing he was being rude but enjoying the look of stunned surprise on Aileen’s pretty face. “Are you ready Miss Burningham? Come, Lady Aileen, we shall escort Miss Burningham back to the ballroom and then we shall dance.”

  Relegated again to the row of chaperons, Tilly watched the marquess and Aileen dance past. She gave a little sigh. All she could do was treasure this evening up against the dreary, humiliating days to come; this evening when he had talked to her and looked at her and danced with her.

  Tilly no longer wanted the marquess as a friend. She wanted him as a lover. But she did not yet know it and could only wonder why the sight of Aileen in the marquess’s well-tailored arms should distress her so much.

  To her amazement, Tilly became aware that she was being confronted by yet another handsome man. “May I introduce myself?” said this vision in a drawling voice. “I’m a friend of Heppleford’s. Toby Bassett at your service. Dance, Miss Burningham?”

  Toby had drunk himself slightly sober. He had had a sudden impulse to dance but did not know who to ask. He was too lazy to begin to solicit all the pretty girls only to find at this late stage of the ball that all their dance cards were full. His friend Philip had seemed to be entertained enough with Miss Burningham; therefore, he had decided to ask Tilly.

  He danced solemnly around and around on the same spot until the waves of wine began to encompass him again and he began to reel slightly. He hardly ever danced and he slowly began to remember why. It was because he always fell down.

  “I am very drunk, Miss Burningham,” he said, performing a graceful turn and scrunching down on one of Tilly’s feet.

  Tilly was used to very drunk men from her days on the hunting field and found nothing amiss. She only considered him very much a gentleman to tell her so.

  “Perhaps we could go out into the garden?” she suggested. “The night air might clear your head.”

  “Splendid idea,” he said amiably, holding tightly onto her gloved arm for support. “Lead the way!”

  Feeling more comfortable than she had done all evening, Tilly propelled him through the long windows and helped him to negotiate the steps.

  Behind them in the ballroom the stunned eyes of Lady Aileen and the Marquess of Heppleford watched them go.

  “Now, just sit down here,” Tilly was saying, guiding him to a rustic bench. A large pale moon stared down on the garden and a light, balmy breeze sent the shadows of the leaves dancing on the silver grass. The garden was empty apart from themselves and Tilly gave a sigh of relief and leaned back and closed her eyes, imagining herself back in the peace and quiet of the country.

  A gentle snore from her companion made her open her eyes and turn around. Toby Bassett had fallen asleep, his head resting on his chest and his gloved hands neatly folded in his lap. He would be better for his sleep, thought Tilly, feeling maternal. The leaves and flowers rustled in the night wind and the jaunty sound of a polka echoed faintly from the ballroom upstairs. Tilly was content to sit silently beside the sleeping Toby, glad to be away from the hard stares and heat of the ballroom.

  Lady Aileen thought the polka would never come to an end. First Tilly Burningham had taken the marquess off to the supper room and now she was flirting with that gorgeously handsome Toby Bassett—walking off with him into the garden without so much as a by-your-leave. The polka at last swung to a noisy close and Aileen’s partner joined the rest in crying for an encore. To Aileen’s dismay, the band struck up again and she was pulled back into the dance.

  The Marquess of Heppleford was also wondering what on earth had happened to Toby and Tilly. Toby rarely danced, and drunk or sober or in between, he was never in the habit of squiring young ladies in the moonlight. And Tilly Burningham of all people. But hadn’t he himself found her rather endearing in an odd way? The dance a
t last came to a close and Aileen, followed by her court of admirers, hurried down the stairs into the garden. Unfortunately for Tilly, Toby had, but a moment before, come awake and had been overwhelmed with gratitude that this young female whose name he had forgotten had let him sleep undisturbed. Just as Aileen was descending the stairs he was saying, “You know, you’re a very good sort of girl,” and he followed it up with an affectionate kiss on Tilly’s cheek.

  “Miss Burningham!” exclaimed Aileen, forgetting her usual silvery tones in her wrath. “You appear to forget that you are employed by me as a companion. Back to the ballroom immediately.”

  “Of course, Aileen—I mean Lady Aileen,” said Tilly, jumping to her feet.

  “Allow me to escort you,” said Toby, rising languidly and staring down at Tilly with those brooding eyes that made all the watching female’s hearts beat faster.

  “That will not be necessary,” said Aileen. “Come, Tilly.”

  And Tilly went, head bent, listening to an acid lecture on her forwardness, her impertinence, her lack of duty.

  “Aileen’s jealous of her Beast,” cried a girl from the garden with a maddening giggle. Aileen heard the remark and vowed that something must be done with the infuriating Tilly to put her in her place and keep her there.

  Tilly regained her former seat among the staring, whispering chaperons and bent her head. She felt very tired.

  Slightly flushed, Aileen was claimed by her next partner. Dance followed dance, hour followed hour. Would the ball never end?

  But at long last they were all in the victoria again, bowling homeward. A gray, pearly dawn was rising over London and thin, ghostlike wreaths of mist hung in the branches of the trees in Hyde Park. The scavengers were out sluicing the pavements, which turned from gray to watery blue as the rising sun burned away the mist. Somewhere a blackbird sang an ecstatic song to the new day as the carriages of the rich rolled on, bearing their burden of jaded faces homeward. Aileen’s mouth was folded into a thin line. She had not yet had a chance to tell her mother of Tilly’s disgraceful behavior.

  Perhaps, after all, Aileen might not have complained to her mother about Tilly, since she was of too shallow a nature to sustain any emotion for long, be it love or anger, but the duchess opened her great hairy mouth as the carriage rolled along under the trees to remind her daughter of the startling information that Heppleford would have to get married to someone—anyone—before the month were up, or he would not inherit.

  Aileen remembered the marquess’s strange interest in Tilly. Good Heavens! Perhaps he meant to marry Tilly and that would never do. She, Aileen, would be made a laughing stock if her Beast were to go to the altar first—and with the handsomest man in London!

  Accordingly, as soon as the victoria had rolled to a stop in front of the duchess’s town house, Aileen asked “Mumsie” to trot along to her bedroom for “a little chat.”

  The duchess was much gratified. Her daughter hardly ever seemed to want her company these days.

  She listened in amazement to the tale of Tilly’s forwardness.

  “I felt it was wrong of you to have such a young girl as a companion,” said the duchess, shifting her great bulk around on the end of Aileen’s bed and trying to make herself comfortable. “That girl, Tilly, needs a firm hand. And those balls and parties have gone to her head. You’ve been too soft with her, my puss. I’ll take her over. She can help me with my committees. That’ll instill into her a sense of gratitude. Don’t worry your sweet head, pet. Let Mumsie see to everything.”

  Aileen stretched and yawned and pouted and wished her mother would go away now that Tilly was going to be taken care of, but her mother was still mulling over the news about the Marquess of Heppleford.

  “Do you think he’ll propose to you, Aileen?” she asked anxiously.

  “I’m sure he would if I encouraged him,” said Aileen, yawning.

  The duchess drew her brows together in massive thought. “A little dinner, I think, my poppet. We’ll invite him for next week. And it will be good for him to see Tilly in her proper place, you know. After all, she is only a sort of glorified servant….”

  But Aileen had fallen asleep, serene and content as only a very beautiful debutante with rich and powerful parents could be.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Miss Stapleton will read the minutes of the last meeting,” intoned the duchess. “Hand me my reading spectacles, Tilly.”

  Tilly complied and settled back in her hard chair to endure yet another of the duchess’s committees. “Don’t slouch,” hissed the duchess, and Tilly jerked her spine bolt upright. The duchess had taken to strapping Tilly into a backboard for two hours each day to “stiffen her spine.” And, as if the mahogany slab were not enough agony, a violin string was tied around Tilly’s shoulders so that it cut painfully into her flesh if she so much as moved an inch.

  The Taking Over of Tilly had started the day after the ball and Tilly tossed and turned at night, tortured by dreams in which the duchess’s great, hairy, disembodied face mouthed, “Don’t slouch!” over and over again.

  The committee meeting was taking place in the boardroom of a home for Disreputable Women. The duchess and her equally militant companions would often drive about the streets in search of disreputable women and, having found them, thrust them triumphantly into a home. Several members of the Fallen were lined up against one wall, eyeing their tormentors sullenly.

  Miss Stapleton droned on with the minutes and Tilly reviewed the events of the past week. Gone were the balls and picnics and parties. Instead she had to read to the duchess, massage the duchess’s muscular shoulders, and follow her to committee meetings, carrying all the duchess’s paraphernalia of patent medicines, improving tracts, and reading glasses in her reticule.

  Tilly’s face, scrubbed free of makeup, shone in the warm, musty air of the boardroom. Her hair was scraped back into a bun at the nape of her neck and she wore a hot serge skirt, a striped blouse with a hard celluloid collar and tie, and a straw boater, all of which the duchess considered suitable wear. Tilly’s only pleasure was in eating, each large meal with its attendent glasses of wine serving to dull the humiliation of her existence. She no longer found any enjoyment in the penny dreadfuls and had taken to reading romantic novels, substituting, in her imagination, the marquess for the hero. She had daydreamed so intensely about him since the night of the ball that it was almost a shock to hear the duchess discussing him over the tea and biscuits after the meeting.

  “Heppleford’s coming for dinner,” she told her cronies. “Great hopes there. You know, of course, that he’s got to get married?”

  “Of course,” echoed Lady Wayne, a tall, angular committee member. “How did you manage it? We’ve all invited him to dinner and he’s refused every single invitation. He won’t even look at those cousins of his.”

  “My fairy is very beautiful,” said the duchess in a smug voice.

  Lady Wayne bridled. “My little Emily is accounted quite a picture. Perhaps there is some other attraction….” she added maliciously with a sly look in Tilly’s direction. She lowered her voice to a sort of booming whisper. “He spent quite a bit of time with her at the Quennell ball, you know.”

  “Nothing to it,” replied the duchess with a massive sneer. “He knew her father. Taking pity on her, mark my words.”

  Tilly heard the last words and came down from her dreamworld with a bump. She had been indulging in a glorious vision of the dinner party, where the handsome marquess had eyes for no one but herself.

  She was relieved when the duchess suddenly produced a turnip of a watch and exclaimed it was time to leave.

  She climbed into the victoria after the duchess and sat with her back to the horses. The hard sparkle of the sun hurt her eyes. It bounced from the white, fluttering blinds of the shops, from the plate glass of the windows and glittered on the burnished roofs. The press of horse traffic was immense and hot smells of manure mingled with the smell of dust. A pieman jogged past, his tray o
f steaming pies on a level with Tilly’s nose. All London was hot and baking. Flushed faces wilted above boned and celluloid collars. The duchess’s great red, hairy face seemed to burn like a Highland sunset and the sunlight glittered and flashed on her huge steel hatpins. Above the burning city stretched a sky of deep, fierce blue—Like Philip’s eyes, thought Tilly with a sudden stab of pain. She wanted to cherish and nurse her dreams. She did not want to be faced with the reality of his presence that evening. She was so absorbed in this novel thought that it was a few seconds before she realized the carriage had stopped and the duchess was barking at her from the pavement “to stop gawking and dreaming.”

  The Glenstraith’s house was musty and cool behind drawn blinds, the servants moving quietly through its subterranean light. Tilly longed to stretch out on her bed after releasing her body from its prison of stays and her swollen ankles from the torture of a pair of high buttoned boots. But no sooner had she removed her straw hat when she was summoned again to the duchess’s presence.

  The Duchess of Glenstraith was in her bedroom. As Tilly entered, Her Grace was just in the act of plonking her great hairy feet into a basin of cold water. So, thought Tilly unromantically, must the Highland cow cool his hot hooves in the chill waters of a Highland bog.

  “Read to me,” ordered the duchess. “You’ll find The Times over there. Read the letters.”

  Tilly stifled a sigh. A barrel organ was playing “My Little Grey Home in the West” somewhere at the end of the street, the tinny music rendered poignant by distance. And the unbearably hot world of the outdoors seemed infinitely desirable now that it was shut away behind a screen of thick lace-edged blinds.

  Tilly read mindlessly and then suddenly concentrated on what she was reading as the writer’s ironic humor penetrated her tired brain. The writer to the The Times was complaining that although the opera management of Covent Garden regulated the dress of its male patrons, it did not do the same for the females. The writer explained that he had worn the regulation evening dress. Tilly read: