She had spared herself the expense of hiring new servants by shutting up Chelmswood and bringing the country servants to town. In that mysterious way that servants have of finding out the deepest-laid plans of their employers, everyone from the elderly butler to the knifeboy knew of Lady Margery's scheme for saving her home.
Lady Margery was sitting one morning in the back drawing room, surrounded by bales of cloth and back numbers of La Belle Assemblée, since she had plans to make this season's wardrobe herself. The butler, Chuffley, had laid the tea tray on a table in front of the fire, but he still hesitated, standing first on one foot and then on the other.
“You have something to report to me, Chuffley,” said Lady Margery, recognizing the familiar symptoms. “One of the servants has been misbehaving?”
Chuffley cleared his throat and looked from the ceiling to the floor. He finally addressed himself to a Chinese pagoda on the wallpaper.
“It's like this, my lady. Me and the others, well, we know why you are in London, my lady ... to find a husband.”
Margery looked amused. “Is that not the ambition of every young lady who embarks upon a season?”
Chuffley looked even more embarrassed. “It's like this, my lady. We all wish you well and ... well ... we had the idea that you were planning a sort of campaign. Now, if you were to furnish me with the names of the gentlemen your ladyship was interested in, then me and the other servants could find out interesting things about them which might be useful to my lady.”
Margery blushed and accused, “You have been listening at keyholes, Chuffley.”
The butler drew himself up. “Chelmswood is an old house and voices carry,” he said stiffly. “However, if your ladyship feels I have been impertinent—”
“No, no,” said Margery quickly, suddenly touched by this show of loyalty. “We have known each other long enough, Chuffley, not to have any secrets. Servants’ gossip about the gentlemen I hope to wring a proposal from would be very useful indeed ... if you could arrange it in a way that would not put me to the blush.”
“Don't be afeared of that, my lady,” said Chuffley, his face breaking into a rare smile. “It's our home we'll be saving, same as yours.”
Lady Margery crossed to a small escritoire and took out a thick book. “Come here, Chuffley, and I will show you my plan of campaign. Here are three names. First is Viscount Swanley. He is a shy, poetic type of man. Other than that, I don't know much about him. The next is the Honorable Toby Sanderson, a sportsman. I suppose I shall have to learn all about driving a four-in-hand and the art of fisticuffs.”
“I shouldn't think so, my lady,” said Chuffley. “These sporting gentlemen, for all their tall tales and bluster, are often terrified of the ladies. Mr. Sanderson would perhaps like a lady who was very gentle and feminine and who made him feel very strong and powerful.”
“And what about Viscount Swanley?”
Chuffley scratched his powdered head, which, as usual, was itching under its stiff plaster of flour and water. “Poetic gentlemen,” he said slowly, “now, they like a sort of managing female. Not bossy, mind, but the type of female who can get a chair in a thunderstorm and make him feel like he's done it himself. Oh ... and who gives him the impression that all the other ladies are jealous of her for catching him."
“What a font of wordly wisdom you are,” laughed Margery. “Now to the third. Mr. Freddie Jamieson, who seems to be a drunk, pure and simple.”
“That's difficult, that one,” said the butler. “Gentlemen who imbibe too much are always coming across ladies who tell them so and want to reform ‘em. I've no advice there, my lady, except to humor him when he's in his cups and speak to him in a soft, gentle voice any time before five o'clock in the evening.”
“How ruthless we sound,” sighed Margery.
“Not ruthless,” said Chuffley. “Practical-like. Why, there's great lords marrying cits’ daughters to save their homes. These three gentlemen are as rich as Golden Ball, my lady. But there is another one I might mention ... the Marquess of Edgecombe.”
“No!” said Margery sharply, and then in a quieter voice: “No, the marquess is a rake and I have insufficient experience in dealing with that sort of gentleman.”
“I've heard stories,” said Chuffley slowly, “that the marquess was not always so. It is said he had a liaison with a certain older society lady when he was a very young man. Treated him badly, she did.”
“Oh, no!” Lady Margery put her hands up to her hot face. “Then it is true ... that he was disappointed in love. And I told him so. I was only funning and wondered why he became so furious.”
“In that case, my lady,” said Chuffley, “it is well that his lordship is not on your list.”
“Just as well,” said Margery with a faint tinge of regret.
“There is one other thing, my lady,” said Chuffley, hovering near the door.
“Yes?”
“Since this campaign of yours is so important to all of us, my lady, I feel it would be as well to hire a lady's maid.”
Lady Margery looked at him in surprise. “But I have my Chalmers. I have a lady's maid.”
“Well, now, my lady, Chalmers is getting on, and she never was a
real
lady's maid. More like a housekeeper, I've always thought. Why don't you send her back to Chelmswood and put her in charge of seeing that the place is swept and clean for your return. A
real
lady's maid, my lady, can work magic.”
“I have known you since I was a baby, Chuffley,” said Lady Margery, “and now I feel I do not know you at all.”
“Sometimes old heads are better, if you will forgive the familiarity, my lady. A good general needs the best soldiers in his campaign.”
“Very well, Chuffley, so be it. Find me a
real
lady's maid and let us see whether this duckling can become a swan."
As Chuffley left, Lady Amelia walked into the room and sank down on a sofa ... and nearly did a somersault.
“Tcha!” she said impatiently, “I never can get used to these backless monstrosities.”
“It is the latest thing, all the crack I assure you,” laughed Margery. “You are supposed to imagine that you are Cleopatra reclining on an Egyptian couch.”
“Never mind Cleopatra. I have brought the ribbons and trimmings you desired. Are you
sure
, my dear, that you should be making your own gowns? I am sure you are an expert needlewoman, but will they not appear ... well, provincial?”
“Not a bit of it,” smiled Margery. “I have copied the designs in
La Belle Assemblée
down to the last thread."
Lady Amelia looked at her cautiously. Margery seemed to be so happy and assured. At least they did not need to begin their campaign until the opening of the season, which was a full month away. She voiced this comforting thought and found to her horror that Lady Margery meant to begin her siege that very day.
“I am like the Duke of Wellington,” laughed Margery. “I do not hesitate to attack no matter how severe the odds. I wish you to accompany me on a little walk.”
Lady Amelia eyed her nervously. “And what am I to do on this little walk?”
“Why, nothing,” said Lady Margery brightly. “I will do all that is necessary. The weather, I assure you, is perfect for my plan.”
Lady Amelia stared out at the lowering sky. “It looks as if it might come on to rain at any minute.”
“Exactly,” said Lady Margery.
Viscount Swanley darted nimbly down the steps from his lodgings. The sky was very dark indeed and he intended to make a dash for his club before it came on to rain. He had meant to stay comfortably indoors, since he neither wanted to get drenched or have to battle for a chair or a hansom cab, but one of his footmen had just imparted the news that there was a tremendous wager on at White's right at that very minute. His footman had just received this startling piece of intelligence from someone's venerable old butler, and Viscount Swanley was never one to let a good bet go by.
Two things happened as he reached the bottom of the steps. Heavy drops of rain began to fall and he collided with a very smartly dressed young lady who seemed to have grown out of the pavement in front of him.
He swept off his curly-brimmed beaver and stammered his apologies.
Then he noticed there were two ladies, the younger one being escorted by an older, plumper one.
To his amazement, he realized that the young lady had placed a confiding little hand on his arm. Viscount Swanley was small in stature, but the tiny figure looking up at him made him feel like a giant.
“Oh, please, sir,” she whispered, “could you procure a hack for me? It is ... it is starting to rain.”
“Delighted,” said Viscount Swanley, although his heart sank to the bottom of his glossy Hessians.
He moved slowly to the edge of the pavement and gloomily raised his cane, expecting the cabbies to drive past him as usual as though he were invisible.
Then he blinked in surprise.
Not only one hack but three came to a stop, including several private carriages. Viscount Swanley did not know that the reason for this sudden halt in the traffic was because Lady Margery was pirouetting round and round on the steps behind him and waving her umbrella frantically in the air.
Margery tripped past the amazed viscount and climbed into the first hack, carefully ignoring the outraged stare of the driver. She turned back on the step of the carriage and looked at the viscount from under her lashes. “Can I drop you anywhere, sir? I am most grateful, you see. No gentleman I have known before has had a commanding enough personality to stop
three
hackney carriages in a downpour."
“By Jove, yes!” said Viscount Swanley, much struck. “I am going to St. James's, so if you could drop me at the corner of Piccadilly, that would be splendid. Charming ladies like you should not be seen in St. James's Street.”
He climbed into the carriage and seated himself between Lady Amelia and Margery. Lady Amelia was in a silent state of shock.
“Have we met before?” asked the viscount, enjoying the novelty of having to look down at someone he was talking to.
“Allow me to present myself,” said Margery in a little voice. “I am Lady Margery Quennell and this is my aunt, Lady Amelia Carroll."
“Servant!” said the viscount.
The little lady beside him fell silent. The viscount was suddenly struck by a splendid thought: By Jove, she was shy! He decided to draw her out.
“Shall you be at the opening ball at Almack's?” he asked.
She raised her eyes fleetingly to his face. “Yes, indeed."
“May I have the first dance with you, Lady Margery?” asked Viscount Swanley, feeling like no end of a lady-killer.
“How very kind you are, my lord. I shall be delighted. I believe this is where you wish to be set down.”
“Oh, what! Eh! Yes, yes. Of course. Enchanted. Remember, first dance, what!”
Lady Margery nodded and smiled, and Viscount Swanley ran swiftly down St. James's and plunged into the gloom of White's. He had completely forgotten why he had gone there.
The first person he saw was the Marquess of Edgecombe.
“I say, Charles,” gasped the viscount, collapsing into a chair opposite. “You'll never guess what happened. I rescued a lady in distress.”
Peregrine noticed with satisfaction that he had succeeded in surprising his elegant friend for once.
“Yes, indeed, and it's no use looking down your nose at me like that. It's true!”
“Tell me all about it,” said the Marquess of Edgecombe in a soothing voice.
Viscount Swanley needed no second bidding. “It was like this,” he said. “I was coming out of my lodgings and I bumped into this young lady and her companion who seemed to have appeared from nowhere. Well, the young lady asked me to get her a hack, and my heart fell, ‘cause you
know
I never can.
“So I held up my cane. Just like this, by Jove, and you would think it was Merlin's wand. Not one but
three
hackneys stopped. You could see the young lady was vastly attractive, because all the cabbies stared at her as if they had never seen anything like it before. Anyway, we shared the carriage as far as Piccadilly and ... oh ... I don't know what we said except she has promised me the first dance at Almack's.”
“Who is this paragon?” asked the marquess lazily.
“Lady Margery Quennell.”
“Lady ... My dear Perry. You are all about in your upper chambers. Lady Margery is a drab little female who has propped up the wall at Almack's for many a season.”
“Can't be the same one,” said Lord Peregrine promptly. “This lady is a tiny little thing. Very fetching eyes.”
“She certainly must have some mysterious presence,” said the marquess dryly, “to halt three cabbies in a downpour.”
“Oh,
I
did that,” said his friend with beautiful simplicity.
The marquess fell silent and studied the fair and foolish face of his friend thoughtfully.
It was all very strange.