Chapter Five

 

Miss Halliday and her visitor had withdrawn to Georgia's bedchamber and firmly shut the door, thereby foiling the efforts of several interested parties to eavesdrop, a case of closing the stable gate entirely too late, for Tibble had already heard enough to astound his audience, if only he could remember it straight.

The bedroom was a pretty chamber furnished with a dressing table made in satinwood and decorated with festoons of flowers painted in natural colors and surmounted by a circular toilet-glass; a tallboy chest of drawers veneered with finely figured dark mahogany lined with oak; a reasonably fine wardrobe with matched oval panels of figured mahogany veneer; a tester bed with carved mahogany posts; and a corner basin stand. If the painted flowers had faded, and the veneer pulled away from its backing, and the wood of the tallboy chest had separated at the joint—well, the muslin window hangings were carefully mended and freshly washed, the faded carpet on the floor newly shaken and swept, the grate and andiron dusted and polished with Brunswick black. Pretty embroidered pictures hung upon the plaster walls. If there were no real treasures in this chamber, neither were there cobwebs nor dust.

Marigold glanced around the room, and then back at Georgie. Although the surroundings were not what she was accustomed to, it would be most imprudent for her to remark, because Georgie's expression was already very stern as she said, "Well, Marigold?"

Marigold's lush limps trembled. "I'm sure I meant no harm! I merely said all the ton have been whispering about Warwick, which they have, so you needn't glower so. I thought you would know the truth, because he is practically a member of your family. Or was, at any rate. But I do not mean to flog a dead horse!"

Georgie wondered how Lord Warwick would respond to this description of himself. "Marigold, you are a goose-cap. Warwick hasn’t murdered anyone. Now we will hear no more about it, if you please."

Marigold was quite content to speak no more of Warwick. She had not liked the man. Nor had he liked her, which was very strange in him. Most gentlemen took one look at Marigold and responded very differently, at the very least calling her fair fatality, and proffering their hearts.

She sank down on a stool by the dressing table and gazed at herself in the looking glass, watched a practiced tear trickle down one porcelain cheek. "It is very hard of you to pinch at me when I am in such a quandary. Oh, Georgie, I don't know what I'm going to do."

Neither did Georgie know what she was going to do, with a household on the verge of revolt. If rebellion wasn't yet in the air, it soon enough would be. Georgie didn't imagine that Janie—even then attacking the guest bedroom with sweeping-brush and dustpan and moist tea leaves—would be overjoyed to learn that in addition to her numerous other duties, she was about to be asked to serve as lady's maid. Agatha was unlikely to appreciate someone whose palate was not sufficiently adventurous to savor such delicacies as eels à la tartare and fried cow's heel. Tibble, though he might be willing, was not sufficiently robust to undertake duties more strenuous than those he already attempted to perform. And Andrew's nerves were not likely to benefit from exposure to a sad shatterbrain like Marigold.

Still, Marigold was Georgie's oldest friend. There was no real harm in her, other than being dreadfully spoiled, which was not surprising in someone who had been cosseted from the cradle and married three times by the time she was twenty-six. Georgie sank down in the faded wing chair and picked up her embroidery. "You still have not explained this quandary of yours. Suppose you start at the beginning," she suggested.

Marigold rose from the stool to pace back and forth across the faded rug. "I wouldn't have to start from the beginning if you had not lost my letter, which was very bad of you, because it took me the longest time to write it all down. Yes, and it was also very dear to post! Oh! This is all Leo's fault."

Georgie blinked. Leo had been the first of Marigold's husbands, with whom she had eloped when she was fifteen. The union had been short-lived, due to the disappearance of the bridegroom during his honeymoon. "Have you heard from Leo?" she asked, with genuine interest.

"Oh, that I had!" Marigold wiped away a tear. "Leo always knew what to do. If only you had met him you would understand. He was so dashing, so handsome, so—romantic!" Prettily, she cast down her eyes. "How different my life would have been had not poor Leo met up with foul play."

How different Marigold's life might have been had she not been taken advantage of by a man of the world, amended Georgie, silently. Beautiful though she might be, Marigold's understanding was not powerful; she was heedless and stubborn and extravagant, a charming, gay butterfly with scant interest beyond the moment and what amusement it might bring.

It was hardly for Georgie to censure anyone's conduct. Only a short time past she had herself been regretting that she was a respectable female. "What do you think happened to him?" she asked.

Marigold pressed her hand to her lush bosom. "It is such a puzzle! I have wracked my brains until I cannot think! Leo would never have parted from me willingly, I vow." From her sleeve she plucked a lacy handkerchief and wiped away another tear. "You know that Papa cut me off after my elopement, for which I suppose I cannot blame him, because much as I doted on Leo, even I must admit that he was not the thing. Oh, but we would have lived a carefree life of dissipation, and he would have taken me to fascinating places, and shown me all manner of forbidden stuff." She paused, lost in wistful imaginings.

Delicately, Georgie coughed. Reluctantly, Marigold returned to the present. "But it was not to be. Leo disappeared, and though I thought I should die from a spasm of the heart, clearly I did not. I knew nothing of Leo's family, or even if he had a family. And so unaccustomed was I to being purse-pinched that I thought it was only people who became deranged!" She fanned herself with the lace handkerchief. "I would have been in the basket altogether, had it not been for Mr. Frobisher. I did not know where else to turn. Why I didn't think of you I can't imagine, other than my senses were so overset."

To say that the flesh crawled on Georgie's bones as a result of this suggestion might be an overstatement, but she did allow her embroidery to drop unheeded in her lap. "Mr. Frobisher would be the theatrical gentleman?" she asked.

"Yes." Arms held out at her side, Marigold spun around, then sank into a graceful curtsey. "He set my feet upon the stage. It was vastly interesting, Georgie! I appeared in oh-so-many productions in the provinces." She smiled as she recalled how she had advanced from appearing most often as a supernumerary ordered to play whatever walk-on part was needed, dressed in whatever old costume might be left over in the theater wardrobe, to a leading lady of whom one unkind critic had written that she was "a pretty piece of uninteresting manner, with almost enough ability to speak her lines."

Her smile faded. What did that critic know of acting? He had never trod the boards. Nor played to so discerning an audience as the one she played to now. Marigold raised a languid hand to her pale brow. "And then, just when things were going well, poor Mr. Frobisher suffered a dreadful accident."

Georgie watched her friend's dramatic perambulations and wondered just how good an actress Marigold had become. That these confidences were leading somewhere, she had no doubt. "What manner of accident?"

Marigold did not deem it of any purpose to speak of wheelbarrows and pigs and gentlemen who habitually took too much to drink. "A fatal one," she sighed. 'Truly I have tried to choose a companion for life. It is not my fault if something happens to them all. I met Sir Hubert when I was performing at Tunbridge Wells. He had gone there to nurse his gout. It was a most felicitous encounter. Sir Hubert was taken with me straightaway. And I vow I did not care a minute if he was quite old, no matter what anyone may say."

Georgie had not realized, until presented with these disclosures, how very dull had been the events of her own life. Marigold seemed to be awaiting some response. "Good gracious," Georgie murmured. "How very bothersome for you."

Had there been a tinge of irony in Georgie's voice? Marigold could not be sure. The ladies were interrupted then by a tap on the door. "Enter!" Georgie called.

Tibble tottered into the room, gingerly carrying a tray. Georgie quickly rose and rescued it from his trembling hands. "I know you wasn't wishful of being interrupted," he apologized. "But Miss Agatha would have it that you'd care for some refreshment."

Georgie was grateful to see that her cousin's notion of appropriate refreshment was a beverage stronger than tea. "Thank you, Tibble," she said, and watched her butler make his unsteady way out the door, en route to the kitchen, where he would report that Miss Georgie's hair, always an excellent barometer of her emotions, currently made her look like an owl in an ivy bush.

"My cousin's own ratafia. It is very potent." Georgie presented Marigold with a glass. Ratafia was a sweet cordial customarily flavored with fruit kernel or almonds. Not one to hedge her bets, Agatha made use of both.

Marigold downed more of the beverage than was prudent. "I should have cared about his age," she muttered, and resumed her pacing. "Because he died before changing his will, and left me not so much as a brass farthing, the old coot." She caught her friend's shocked look. "That is, the old dear! You mustn’t think that I am a fortune hunter, Georgie. Sir Hubert was most amiable, and most boring, and I vow I made him a good wife. Perhaps too good, I fear! The fact of the matter is that I should have been provided for. That I was not—it was a monstrous, shabby thing."

Georgie wondered just how Sir Hubert had gone to meet his Maker. She did not like to ask.

The waters at Brighton were prescribed not only for asthma and ruptures and deafness, but also for agitated nerves. Perhaps Marigold could be persuaded to drink the wretched stuff. "Why are you calling yourself 'Mrs. Smith'?" Georgie demanded. "Let us have the straight of the story without further roundaboutation, if you please."

Marigold's chin quivered. She drained her glass. "If only my poor Leo was here!" she wept. "He would understand how it is that one can do something that one shouldn't and it seems an excellent notion until the piper must be paid." Did Georgie look the least bit sympathetic? Marigold peeked over the edge of her handkerchief, and took a deep breath. "And I'm sure I'm willing to give back the Norwood Emerald, but I no longer have it in my possession, which is entirely Sir Hubert's fault for being such a miserly purse-pinch."

The Norwood Emerald? What the devil was the Norwood Emerald? Georgie wished that she hadn't drunk her cousin's ratafia. Or alternately, that she might drink some more. Carefully, she set down her glass. "Marigold, you haven't—"

Here was the telling moment. The pièce de résistance, the coup de grâce. Marigold sank down on her knees in a supplicating posture. "Oh, Georgie," she whispered. "I do not wish to go to gaol!"