Polly Read online

  “I’ll do it for you gladly,” said Polly, trying to keep the excitement from her voice and hoping Maisie would not guess that not one of these delicious confections would find its way to the work-house.

  “Oh, goody,” said Maisie. “Then I can leave.”

  She bent over to slam down the lid of her now nearly empty trunk and Polly held out her hands and hastily, with an imaginary measuring tape, took Maisie’s measurements. The dresses would only have to be taken in a very little.

  “Ta-ta,” said Maisie cheerfully. “Oh, you’ll find a gas ring in that whatsit by the fire. It pulls out. There’s a law about no cooking in the rooms but we would all half starve if we obeyed it. I’ve got a frying pan and a plate and knife and fork hidden under the bed in a box. You’re welcome to them.”

  And, with a cheerful wave of her hand, and bumping her tin trunk enthusiastically against the bannister, Maisie Carruthers left.

  Polly clasped her hands and took a deep breath as she looked at the sea of beautiful clothes. There were outfits for every social occasion. Nothing should stop her ascent up the social ladder now.

  She began methodically to hang away the dresses. They would not all go into the closet but Maisie had hammered a line of nails into the wall and that sufficed to hold the rest of the hangers.

  Polly cast her mind back to the days of the bewildering week before this Saturday morning when she had left home.

  Contrary to her expectations and everyone else’s expectations, Mr. Baines had not given her a row. Instead, he had smiled at her and said that he hoped she had enjoyed her outing!

  She had sailed through the Monday morning, typing letters energetically and waiting for the moment when Lord Peter would pop his head around the door. No one at all had appeared except that Amy Feathers, who had stood there silently, twisting her handkerchief between her fingers. When Polly had asked her what she wanted, Amy had burst into tears and rushed from the room.

  Polly had been very chilly and aloof with Bob Friend, preferring to battle for her lunch herself every day. Then all too soon it was Thursday and there had been no sign of Lord Peter. In keeping with Polly’s mood the weather turned nasty and chilly, and her fingers seemed to crawl across the gold and black keys of the typewriter. By lunch-time, she gave up hope. She had been eating penny mutton pies and saveloys for lunch all week, bought from the street vendor, to try to save her wages for her first week’s rent at the business-woman’s hostel. Polly slammed down the wooden cover on her typewriter and determined to seek out Bob Friend to join her for a one-shilling-and-sixpenny businessman’s lunch. But it turned out that Bob had taken Amy Feathers, of all people, to lunch. Polly was just beginning to work up courage to pursue them to the chophouse when the door of her little office opened and there stood Lord Peter, shaking the raindrops from his black curls. It had all been arranged he said. Maisie would move out on Saturday, Polly would move in, and he, Peter, would take Polly for a drive in the park at three in the afternoon.

  There was the sound of voices in the corridor outside and Lord Peter looked guilty and fled. But Polly’s heart sang with happiness. A young man did not take a young lady driving in Hyde Park at the fashionable hour unless his intentions were honorable.

  The morning then passed quickly and Polly decided to forgo lunch since Lord Peter had promised to buy her tea.

  The Duchess of Westerman had had a busy morning as well. Directly after breakfast Sir Edward had called her and had informed her with awful coyness that Lord Peter had been at Westerman’s on Thursday. Did that mean Lord Peter was going to join the company or had he… harrumph… just been calling on that gel, Miss Marsh? Informing him acidly that she neither knew nor cared, the duchess had hung up the receiver and sent for her eldest son.

  Edward, Marquis of Wollerton was not at all surprised to hear what was troubling his mama. He had felt sure that Polly’s name was bound to crop up sooner or later.

  He found his mother in the morning room inexpertly trying to produce a flower arrangement out of several dried thistles and a piece of wood. “Oh, drat the things,” she said as the marquis entered the room. “It all looked so easy when that Jap did it at Nellie’s party.”

  The marquis surveyed it with interest. “I suggest you glue it together,” he remarked languidly.

  “Glue! Of course!” said the duchess, her brow momentarily clearing. “Now, why didn’t I think of that. Edward, you must help. Peter has been calling on that Marsh girl. He tells me that her parents were quite respectable people… died in the Indian Ocean or something and only very respectable people do that. So he must be thinking of marriage. Quite out of the question. So you must go and buy her off.”

  “Don’t be such an utter chump, Mama,” said the marquis, raising his thin eyebrows. “She doesn’t belong to the demi monde. Not yet, anyway.”

  “I wish to God she did,” said the duchess savagely. “Look, Edward, I never ask you to do anything, do I? Please do this one little thing for me and stop Peter from getting entangled with that brazen hussy.” Her massive jaw trembled and her eyes began to fill with tears.

  “Oh, very well,” said the marquis. “I’ll do it as much for the girl’s good as for Peter’s. Where shall I find her?”

  “Here!” The duchess thrust a piece of paper at him. “I found this in Peter’s room. She’s living in a hostel in Euston, but who knows how long that will last.”

  “I’m going up to Town today,” said the marquis, “I’ll drop in on her. But there’s not much I can do if Peter’s really in love with her.”

  “Balderdash!” said his mother. “That sort of girl always has a price.”

  Lord Peter strolled into the sitting room of the hostel and sat down on one of the hard upright chairs to wait for Polly. The sun slanted through the net curtains and shone on the row of aspidistras at the window. Outside, a small child was bowling his metal hoop to and fro on the sidewalk with monotonous regularity while a barrel organ wheezed out last century’s music-hall tunes at the corner.

  Lord Peter picked up a back number of Country Life and flicked through the pages until he found an article on polo. Just then the door of the small sitting room opened and he threw down his magazine and got to his feet. But it wasn’t Polly. It was a small, fat woman with frizzy hair and twinkling blue eyes who was carrying two immense and bulging canvas shopping bags. Must be the housekeeper or the cook, thought Lord Peter, preparing to pick up his magazine again.

  To his surprise, the newcomer plumped herself down next to him and breezily plunged into conversation with a cheery “Ow are yer, ducks?”

  “Very well, thank you,” said Peter, surveying the lady.

  “Me dogs are barking,” said the good lady, easing off her shoes with a wince. “It’s them pavements, they gets harder the older ye get.”

  Peter smiled noncommittally and picked up his magazine again, but the lady was still talking. “Still, it’ll be worff it to know my Pol ’as a decent bit o’ food tucked away.”

  Lord Peter raised his eyebrows. “Pol?” he queried. “Do you mean Miss Polly Marsh?”

  “Yerse,” said the lady. “Know my Pol?”

  “I’ve come to take her for a drive,” said Peter. He introduced himself.

  “Oh, so your Pol’s lordship,” said Mrs. Marsh. “Wot’s this place like then?”

  “I don’t know,” said Peter faintly. “Are you Polly’s foster-mother?”

  “Foster-mother! Naow! I’m Polly’s ma. Wouldn’t think it to see me now, would yer? ’Ere’s me when I was Pol’s age.”

  She snapped open a capacious pinchbeck locket the size of a turnip. The hairstyle and dress were Victorian but the face was very like Polly’s. Lord Peter grinned to himself. Parents drowned at sea, were they? What a rotten little snob Polly Marsh turned out to be. But all to the good. If she came from a cockney background, he had a better chance of seducing her, he thought naively, unaware that the whole of Stone Lane was quite as likely to march him to the altar as any dowager.r />
  “Anyway,” Mrs. Marsh went on, “I’ve brought ’er some decent food. See these…” She opened one of her bulging bags and brought out a string of sausages. “’Ere… take a sniff of those,” she said, holding them out to Lord Peter. “Them’s pure beef, them is. Not like some o’ the muck they sells ahrand the West End where the toffs go.”

  The door opened and Polly walked in and stood frozen to the spot.

  Lit by the afternoon sunlight, Lord Peter’s black curls were bent over a string of sausages held out by Mrs. Marsh that he dutifully sniffed. Polly was just about to turn and run when both looked up and saw her.

  Lord Peter jumped to his feet. Polly opened and shut her mouth as she tried to think of what to say.

  Her humiliation was about to be completed. The door behind her opened and Edward, Marquis of Wollerton, strode into the room.

  His hooded eyes flicked from Peter, who was standing holding a string of sausages to the cheerful, smiling face of Mrs. Marsh.

  Peter was grinning. “I have not yet been formally introduced to this lady,” he said, waving a white hand toward Mrs. Marsh.

  Polly gathered her wits together and performed the introductions with grace.

  “Your mother,” said Lord Peter maliciously. “I thought you said your parents were killed at sea.”

  Mrs. Marsh’s shrewd eyes roamed from Polly’s distressed face to Lord Peter’s malicious one. “Oh, you’re thinking of Uncle Albert,” she said cheerfully, “’im that was a stoker. Got washed overboard at Liverpool. That’s who yer mean, isn’t it ducks?”

  Polly nodded gratefully but Lord Peter gleefully tried to bait her. “But you said—” he began.

  The marquis felt it was time to intercede. “That’s enough, Peter,” he said quietly. “I was told you would be here and wish to discuss a matter of business with you but it can wait. Are you and Miss Marsh going anywhere?”

  “Yes,” said Peter sulkily. “I was going to take Miss Marsh for a drive.”

  “Then don’t let us keep you,” said the marquis languidly. “Mrs. Marsh looks as if she could do with a strong cup of tea. Would you be my guest, Mrs. Marsh?”

  “That would be luverly,” said Mrs. Marsh, lumbering to her feet and gratefully surrendering her heavy shopping bags into the marquis’s hands. “Take care of yerself, Pol. ’Ere! Wait a minute.”

  Mrs. Marsh took in the full glory of her daughter’s appearance. Polly was wearing Lady Jellings’s rose silk gown. It was striped with inserts of rose velvet and she wore a shady rose velvet hat topped with large silk roses.

  “That’s about two hundred guineas you’ve got on yer back,” said Mrs. Marsh slowly, “and I’d like to know where it came from.”

  Polly blushed the color of her gown. “Lord Peter’s friend, Miss Carruthers, left me her wardrobe.”

  “Hoh! That’s all right, me girl. You had me worried for a bit,” said Mrs. Marsh with a hard look at Lord Peter.

  “Come along,” said the marquis gently, taking Mrs. Marsh by the arm, “and we’ll leave these young things to enjoy their outing.”

  “Ta, ever so, me lord,” said Mrs. Marsh. “Goodbye, Pol. Be good.” She gave her daughter a quick hug and a kiss and departed with the marquis. He helped her up into his carriage and then leaned forward. “The Ritz, John, if you please.” Mrs. Marsh leaned back and heaved a sigh of pure pleasure.

  To Polly’s disappointment they did not go to Hyde Park but to St. James’s. Hyde Park would be such a vulgar crush, said Peter, and Polly gloomily assented. All the fashionable world would be parading along the Row but she still felt too faint after her recent humiliations to protest. They left the carriage in Birdcage Walk and promenaded along beside the lake.

  Polly stared unseeingly at the sunny water. She must say something.

  “I’m sorry—very sorry about this afternoon,” she said with a rush. “I lied about my parents.”

  “That’s all right,” said Peter. “We all tell lies like that some time or another.”

  Not if your father’s a duke, you don’t, thought Polly.

  They halted at the railings to watch a family of ducks. Polly looked down and realized that Peter had covered her gloved hand with his own and was pressing it warmly. “Nothing you say or do could upset me, Polly,” he said in a low, intense voice. “And I want you to call me Peter.”

  “Peter,” said Polly shyly, glancing up at his handsome profile. This must be love… this heady feeling. She fought down the niggling voice at the back of her brain that was telling her that the thrill was caused by calling a young lord by his christian name.

  He took her arm and they walked slowly on. “I’ve got a bit of bad news, Polly,” said Peter. “Father called at my diggings just before I left to meet you. I’m joining Westerman’s—”

  “But that’s tremendous, Peter,” interrupted Polly. “I shall see you every day.”

  “Westerman’s offices in Bengal,” he said gloomily. “I won’t be back home until Christmas.”

  “Oh,” said Polly faintly.

  “Buck up! It won’t be all that long,” said Peter. He stopped and took a quick look around. They were under the shade of a stand of willows and nobody was near except an amorous guardsman chatting to a pretty nursemaid. Peter circled Polly’s tiny waist and pulled her gently against him.

  “We shall make the arrangements for our future at Christmas, Polly,” he said in a low voice. “You know what I mean.”

  “Yes. Oh, yes!” whispered Polly, envisaging a large wedding at St. George’s, Hanover Square.

  He bent his head and kissed her fleetingly and gently on the lips. What a Christmas present, he thought. This lovely body in a little love nest in St. John’s Wood!

  They smiled mistily at each other and walked on… unaware that their plans for the future were miles apart.

  “So that’s the way of it, me lord,” said Mrs. Marsh, putting down her teacup. “Our Pol’s done very well, coming from a place like Stone Lane. You can’t blame the girl for a bit of snobbery. ’S’easy not to be snobbish if yer doesn’t ’ave ter be.”

  “True,” said the marquis, leaning back in his chair and eyeing Mrs. Marsh thoughtfully. “Do you think Polly hopes to marry my brother?”

  “Course!” said Mrs. Marsh. “Stands to reason. Young ’andsome lord like ’im. Nuff to turn any young gel’s ’ead.”

  The marquis sighed. He had enjoyed Mrs. Marsh’s company and her gossip about Stone Lane Market immensely and did not want to spoil the afternoon. But he felt it was his duty.

  “My brother,” he said, “is a thoughtless young bounder. I feel he doesn’t plan to get married for a long time, if you take my meaning.” Gold eyes met blue for a long moment.

  “Well, Pol won’t settle for anything less than marriage, me lord,” said Mrs. Marsh. “I wouldn’t let her marry ’im anyways. No good comes of marrying out of yer class.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t go as far as that,” said the marquis pleasantly. “But certainly where Peter is concerned. He is going away, you know. To India. That should put a stop to his philandering.”

  “Well, then,” said Mrs. Marsh brightening up. “Wot’s the two of us a-sittin’ a-worryin’ for. My Polly’ll come to ’er senses soon enough. Thank you fer the tea, me lord. Oh, lord! ’S’all right, not you. I clean forgit to give Polly them sausages and things.”

  “Peter will see that she is fed this afternoon, anyway,” said the marquis soothingly. “I’ll send you home in my carriage. I’m going to walk to my club.”

  And so it was Mrs. Marsh and not Polly who dazzled Stone Lane by arriving in a carriage with a ducal crest on its side and two stunning footmen perched up on the back.

  The marquis did not go to his club after all, but to his young brother’s flat in Jermyn Street. He found Peter in great spirits, lying in a hot bath and drinking champagne.

  “What’s the celebration?” asked the marquis, perching himself on the edge of the tub. “The loss of Miss Polly’s virginity?”

/>   “Not yet,” said Peter cynically. “Pass the soap, there’s a good chap. Yes, Polly. What on earth were you doing squiring old Mrs. Marsh?”

  “I like her,” said the marquis simply. “I don’t want you to have an affair with young Polly, Peter. First of all, the girl’s family is respectable—”

  “Shoreditch! Respectable? Pooh!” said Peter rudely.

  “I said respectable. Secondly, she works at Westerman’s.”

  “Well, she’ll have left Westerman’s by the time I’ve got her to say ‘yes’ to my evil designs,” said Peter cheerfully. “What are you talking about and why are you worried about the girl’s good name? She’s working class and she’s a rotten little snob—lied to me. Told me that”—here he mimicked Polly’s voice—“‘Papa and Mama were drowned in the Indian Ocean. Typhoon, you know!’ She’s a stunning looker but take it from your baby brother, she’s a common little tart with the soul of a slut and that’s the way little Peter likes ’em.”

  “I hope you get drowned in the Indian Ocean,” retorted the marquis. “If I weren’t sure that you would forget this nonsense by Christmas, I’d see to it that you were kept out there for longer.”

  “I’m not a child,” said Peter sulkily. “Go chase after your own love life.”

  The marquis shrugged his elegant shoulders and left. He resolved not to trouble himself any more over Polly Marsh. The girl was obviously pretty hard-boiled and knew what she was doing. And Peter would definitely have cooled off before Christmas.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Lord Peter sailed away to India. At first Polly received a few hurriedly scrawled picture postcards that she faithfully pasted into her album next to the Zena Dare pictures. Then even the postcards ceased to arrive.

  Polly was not dismayed. It was not in the nature of young men to write. Why, she herself found it difficult to find the time to pay as many visits to Stone Lane as she should. For Polly was busy studying the aristocracy.