A Radical Arrangement (8 page)

“It is very slow, lying here. It appears they have no books at this inn. You mentioned cards. I thought we might try a hand, if you are still willing.”

“Of course. I’ll fetch them.” Turning away, Margaret hid a smile. The insufferable Sir Justin Keighley had certainly altered since the morning. A few hours’ boredom was apparently salutary. She found the cards and ran lightly back upstairs, still smiling. There was a certain pleasure in this change. He deserved a bit of chastening.

“Do you play piquet?” Keighley asked when she presented the deck.

Margaret shook her head.

“Whist? Bezique?”

“I fear I’ve rarely played cards. The only game I know is Patience.” For an instant his face showed such chagrin that Margaret had to suppress another giggle. “I am willing to learn,” she added with a sweet smile.

Justin closed his eyes briefly, then opened them with a sigh. If he had had to describe his idea of hell, it probably would have closely resembled his present situation. No doubt the girl would be an execrable cardplayer. Perhaps even boredom was preferable to trying to teach her a game. He considered this alternative but rejected it. “Is that tray still about?” he asked. “We can put it here and use it for a table.”

Margaret brought the wooden tray back, after removing the dishes, and placed it at his side on the coverlet.

“All right,” he continued wearily, fanning the deck out on it with his good hand. “We will try piquet, I think. These are the rules.”

* * *

An hour later, Margaret hunched, frowning, over the cards in her hand while Sir Justin gazed at her with a look of such rigidly controlled fury that Mrs. Dowling might have been alarmed at her patient’s state. “Are you going to play?” he asked. His tone would have withered any number of habitués of White’s, where Keighley was known as one of the finest cardplayers in London.

But Margaret was concentrating too closely to notice. She had been making an intense effort in the past hour to remember all the rules he had thrown at her and to play a creditable game. This seemed to become ever more difficult as time passed, and at the moment she was completely at a loss. “Do you think,” she responded without looking up, “that all the cards are here? I have not seen the jack of hearts. Have you had it?”

Sir Justin clenched his teeth, and his face reddened ominously. “Did you not count the deck before we began?” he said slowly, enunciating each word as if he feared to let it out.

“I didn’t think to. I should have. I daresay these cards have been lying about for years.”

“You are the stupidest girl I have ever had the misfortune to encounter!” exploded her companion. “Not only are you utterly unable to grasp the simplest set of rules, but you don’t even have the sense to examine cards before you begin a game. Even an idiot does that much.”

“Indeed?” Margaret’s chin had come up in outrage. “Why didn’t you do it, then?
You
are supposed to be the expert. I never claimed to know anything of cards.”

“I
assumed
you had taken care of the matter,” he snapped venomously. But her point was so telling that he abandoned this line and added, “In any case, I think we may dispense with cards. You will never be even an average player.”

“I don’t think that is fair. I have scarcely tried.” Margaret did not understand the rage of a first-rate player after an hour of hesitations and mistakes, and thus she failed to comprehend the depth of his emotion.

“
Do
try the next time, then. Perhaps if you strain your faculties to the utmost, you can at least learn the rules.”

“Well, you are a very poor teacher. You did not explain them at all clearly. My governess used to—”

Keighley seemed to swell with rage. “I could not be
less
interested in what your governess used to do. Nor in your opinion of my teaching abilities. Let us simply abandon this effort, for our
mutual
benefit.”

Margaret stared at him. “Very well. I do not see why you are so angry. It is only a card game, after all.”

As he struggled to form a reply to this astonishingly naive statement, Sir Justin had a sudden vision of his circle at White’s. What would Denison or, better, Rowley, do faced with this girl’s attitude? The answer was so ludicrous that much of his anger dissipated. He almost wished he could set Margaret down among them and watch their faces as she wondered why they became so heated over “only a card game.”

“Shall we do something else?” the girl was inquiring blithely. “Or are you tired out?”

Keighley sank back on his pillows with a sigh and a short laugh. “What would you suggest?”

“It
is
difficult. There is little to do indoors here. We could just talk, I suppose.” She sounded a bit doubtful.

He was even more so. “About what?”

Margaret remembered one of her earlier ideas. “Politics, perhaps. You are very interested in political matters, I know, and I…”

“And you are as ignorant about them as about piquet,” he finished.

“I am
not
. I have listened to political discussions all my life.”

“I would hardly call your father’s complacent self-congratulations political discussions.”

“How dare you? He is a highly respected member of Parliament and…”

“And a pompous fool.”

Margaret sprang to her feet, her fists clenched at her sides. “Why, why you…”

Keighley gazed appreciatively at her glowing cheeks and flashing blue eyes. This was much more amusing than trying to teach the chit cards. “All right, then,” he challenged. “What do you know about the Corn Laws?”

Margaret struggled with herself. She wanted to give him a blistering set-down or leave him alone again to amuse himself, but the amused look on his face suggested that he was waiting for her to do either of those things, and to laugh at her for it. It would be far better to show him that she knew as much as he—or more.

“The Corn Laws,” she began icily, “are to aid agriculture by stopping the import of cheap foreign wheat. The landowners were being ground down and required protection. And the poor should realize that a good price for wheat is necessary so that—”

“So that they may starve,” he interrupted. But despite his sarcasm, he appeared a bit surprised. “People can’t pay a good price if they have nothing, which is what we are leaving our laborers these days. In any case, the law failed even to do what it promised.”

“If they were willing to work hard,” began Margaret.

“Work?” Keighley shook his head. “What do you know of work? Have you ever bent in the fields or been shut in a dark factory for sixteen hours, and for a sum that would not purchase the buttons on that gown? And those are the
lucky
ones. Many don’t even have work. There is no work for them.”

His vehemence confused Margaret. Her father had never talked of these issues in such an impassioned tone, nor had Philip. Nonetheless, she ventured, “A great many men have made fortunes in trade. There are opportunities…”

“Oh, stop this. You haven’t any idea what you are talking about. You have never seen a truly poor man in your life. You are just like all of Society, blind to the realities that surround you. You live in London without the least glance into the noisome slums that abound there. It was the same in Brussels during the war. They held balls—
balls
—while men were fighting and dying not five miles distant. And in London one hardly knew a war was going on. Despicable! But it is unlikely to last much longer, I can tell you. If the so-called ruling class does not allow some reforms soon, it will be overwhelmed by what lies beneath.”

Margaret gazed at him, silenced. Whatever she might think of his opinions, his vehemence had impressed her. It was obvious that these ideas were extremely important to him. She had not thought him capable of such serious feelings.

Seeing her astonished expression, Keighley laughed harshly. “I see you share everyone else’s opinion of my beliefs,” he added. “My aunt, my grandmother, most of my former friends, even my political allies find me far too radical. Why can people not see the inevitable?”

Margaret had no answer to this or, indeed, to any of his statements. But before her silence could grow noticeable, they were interrupted by a brisk knock on the open door and the entrance of Jemmy Appleby, carrying a gigantic, glistening fish. “Ma says to ask if you’ll have this for dinner,” he said, dangling the creature by its tail before them. “I caught it myself, just now,” he added proudly.

Margaret stared at the silvery scales, only inches from her eyes, with awe. The fish’s round, dead eye returned her gaze. And suddenly, without warning, Justin Keighley began to laugh.

He laughed until he had to put a hand to his shoulder to ease the pain, until tears ran down his cheeks, until Margaret and Jemmy frowned at him in perplexity. And when he finally brought himself under control again, he was worn-out with laughter and had to sink back on his pillows in exhaustion.

“Won’t it do?” asked Jemmy uneasily. “It’s a fine one, a flounder. Ma said she’d bake it nice.”

Keighley started to laugh again, more weakly.

“It will do very well,” answered Margaret, seeing Sir Justin’s tiredness. “Come, let us go and tell your mother so.” Putting a hand on Jemmy’s shoulder, she guided him out of the room. “I will be back at dinnertime,” she said to Keighley, who simply nodded.

But as she walked down the stairs she puzzled over the new facets of his personality she had seen today. She would never have predicted the passionate interest he had shown in the poor, and his hearty laughter had been still more surprising. She recalled his face as he laughed. It had been nothing like the Keighley she had been told about and thought she had met. Indeed, she could not reconcile that burst of humor with anything she knew about the man. It was exceedingly odd.

With this thought, Mrs. Dowling’s words recurred to her. Apparently the old woman was right. Men were odd, very odd. Margaret felt another flash of the curiosity those words had engendered. She would see Mrs. Dowling again soon.

Sir Justin napped through the late afternoon, worn-out by his earlier exertions. But when dinnertime came, he roused and flatly refused to remain in bed for the meal. He
would
get up, he insisted, and he would even come downstairs and eat at table like a civilized man. Margaret, Annie, and Mrs. Appleby argued with him, but he was adamant, and finally Mr. Appleby was summoned to help him dress and come down.

Margaret waited anxiously at the foot of the stairs and followed the pair into the parlor, where a table had been set for them. Keighley was leaning heavily on the innkeeper, and she still thought he was making a mistake. He sighed when he was settled in his chair. “Weak as a kitten.” He leaned back. “Blast it.”

“You should stay in bed for…” began Margaret.

“Please. Spare me. We have been through all that. Let us talk instead of coats. I have, of course, only my riding coat with me. With one shirt, and so on. Is there any place in this village where I may add to that store?”

Margaret shook her head. “It is a very small place. There aren’t any shops except the greengrocer and…”

“I see.” He surveyed her blue cambric gown. “You at least have a change of clothes, I suppose?”

“Yes. I brought three dresses with me.”

“Yes.” He sighed again. “Well, I shall have to ask Appleby to send someone to the nearest town.”

“Jemmy will go.”

“That boy with the fish?” Keighley smiled slightly.

“Yes. He does all the errands. He is very resourceful.”

“Somehow that does not surprise me.”

At this moment Jemmy himself entered the room, weighed down by a large platter upon which rested his fish—baked and garnished and looking splendid. “Ma said I could bring it,” the boy informed them. “It looks prime, don’t it?” Setting the platter in the center of the table, he eyed his catch complacently.

“It does,” agreed Margaret.

“Did you get it in the bay?” asked Keighley.

“’Bout a hundred yards beyond the mouth. I caught three, but this is the biggest.”

“You must have a tight boat. The seas were high today.”

“Aw, she’s all right.” Jemmy surveyed Sir Justin with a shrewd air. “
You
have a boat, I guess.”

He smiled and nodded. “I keep her at Southampton.”

The boy leaned forward eagerly. “Forty-footer, I’ll bet.”

“Not quite so big, but she’s a neat little thing.”

“I daresay.” Jemmy proceeded to pelt Keighley with questions about his boat, its anchorage, and a great many other nautical matters. Margaret was lost almost immediately in a welter of sloops and ketches, gaff rigging, spars, sheets that did not seem to bear any relation to bed linen, and other terms she could not even begin to translate. When the rapid conversation finally slowed, the light of hero worship had appeared in Jemmy Appleby’s eyes, and Keighley was looking both amused and kindly. “I’ll show you my boat anytime you like,” promised the boy. “She ain’t much to look at, but she rides well for a dinghy.”

“I should like to see her,” agreed Keighley solemnly. “We shall have to wait until my arm is better. Then perhaps you can take me out.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Jemmy fervently.

“Now, however,” interrupted Margaret, “we had better try this splendid fish, or it will be cold.”

Jemmy started, just as his mother’s voice was heard calling from the kitchen. “Lord, I’ve got to fetch the potatoes,” he exclaimed and ran for the corridor.

Keighley laughed, as did Margaret after a moment. He picked up the serving piece and said, “May I give you some of our friend’s excellent catch?”

“Yes, indeed. He is a nice boy, isn’t he?”

“Very engaging.”

Jemmy brought the rest of the dishes at full speed. He showed some inclination to linger after the last, but his mother called him again, and he went reluctantly.

Margaret and Sir Justin ate in silence for a time. He was looking tired, and she hardly knew what topic to begin that would not cause friction. At last, however, she felt she must speak, so she said, “I have been thinking about what you said this morning.”

He looked surprised. “Have you?”

“Yes. About the poor. I am very sorry for them too, you know, and so is my father.”

Keighley looked skeptical.

“He is! But the poor will not be helped if the landowning classes cannot sell their corn for a decent price. And their rioting and machinery breaking will do them no good. Indeed, it only makes people angry.”

Her companion sat back with a sigh. For a moment it seemed that he would not reply, then he ran a hand over his eyes and said, “It certainly does that. But those people make no effort to understand the desperation behind the riots and protests.”

“Yes, but…well, this very year there was that riot in London. They looted shops and burned a building.”

“Their purpose was to present a petition of grievances to the Prince,” said Sir Justin. “Surely an acceptable one.”

“But—”

“But it got out of hand and turned to violence—yes. I cannot deny that. I would say, however, that such violence arises out of the frustration felt by those whose petitions are, at best, ignored. No one
listens
to them, you see.”

Margaret pondered this. She knew how it felt to have one’s opinions ignored, but she could not imagine setting fire to a mill or attacking a constable as a result.

Her expression must have mirrored her thoughts, for Keighley added, “I realize you don’t understand. So few do. It continually amazes me; it seems so obvious.”

“Your own ideas are always obvious, seemingly,” she replied, a bit piqued. Did he think he was invariably right? “Do
you
ever listen?”

He looked startled. “Actually, I do—quite often.”

“But not to someone like me.” She gazed at him. His hazel eyes met her blue ones with bemused puzzlement.

He sat back again and examined her carefully. Something had happened to the timorous, wearisome girl he had met at the Mayfields’ dinner. That girl would never have spoken to him so or stared so challengingly. Indeed, he was not certain any woman had ever fixed his eye in just that way. “What have you been up to?” he asked. “You have changed all out of recognition.”

Margaret’s stare became perplexed, then her eyes dropped and some of her shyness returned. In her interest in the subject, and in Keighley’s very unusual opinions, she had almost forgotten who he was and where they were and why.

“Can shooting me have brought out this new character?” he added, half teasingly. “If so, I hope it does not become fashionable.”

She flushed, keeping her eyes on her plate.

“Please do not retreat into your tedious former persona. I’m not certain I could endure it.”

A spark of anger made Margaret look up.

“That is better. Shall I insult you further? Will that make you speak?”

“You
are
a dreadful man.”

“Aren’t I?” he agreed cordially. “Perhaps you would prefer to insult me?”

“I should greatly prefer it, but I am too well-bred to do so.”

“Now where, Miss Mayfield, did you find that riposte? You must tell me. I would swear it was not in the head of the whining chit I met at your parents’ home. Or are you the most skilled dissembler in the realm? I don’t believe it. Something
has
happened to you.”

Margaret considered him frowningly. What right had he to talk to her in this way? Yet she could not deny that he was right. She repeatedly astonished herself with the things she found to say, particularly to him, recently. Where did they come from? And what had happened to her? “I…I don’t know,” she stammered finally.

Keighley regarded her with more interest than he had shown, or indeed felt, in the whole course of their acquaintance. “Do you not?” he said meditatively. “I wonder.”

A silence fell. Margaret eyed her companion nervously, but he seemed lost in thought.

“Tell me,” he said finally, “when we were talking just now, why were you so eager? What were you thinking of?”

“I was interested in what you were saying.”

“Yes?” he encouraged her when she stopped.

“That is all.”

“But have you never been interested in what someone was saying before?”

“Well, of course I have, but…” Margaret paused. When her parents and Philip talked of the Corn Laws or other political issues, they never seemed as engrossing as when Keighley had spoken about them today. And it was the same when the Mayfields had political gatherings at the house. She had not, in fact, been interested in hearing them. She thought of other conversations—during the season or with her mother about household matters—and was astounded to realize that she had probably never been so caught up by a topic as she had been today. Why? She reexamined her memories. Philip and her parents made things so dull, and so did her mother’s friends whom she had met in London. Usually she had shut off her mind after two or three exchanges, and since few ever addressed her, she had spent most of her social encounters in a kind of dream. Margaret blinked. Perhaps she had spent most of her
life
in a dream. This idea was so unsettling that she shivered.

“What is it?” asked Keighley, who had been watching her curiously.

“Nothing.” She was not going to tell
him
these thoughts.

He gazed at her.

“Why do you talk as you do?”

“What?”

Margaret flushed again. “I mean, what made you believe as you do? You are so…so vehement in your opinions. Why?”

Keighley put his chin in his hand and frowned. Margaret followed each move. She was intensely interested in the answer to her questions, though she had not known this until she voiced them. From their first meeting, she had been puzzled and unsettled by Keighley’s emotional effect on her. He had made her react in unaccustomed ways and with unheard-of passion. And now he himself had shown feelings deeper and more moving than anyone she had known before.

“I suppose,” replied Sir Justin slowly, “that it was my father.”

“Was he also…” She paused in confusion.

“A radical?” He chuckled. “In his way, I suppose he was, though not as I am. He was much more respectable.” Keighley’s smile lingered. “He was inspired by the French Revolution in the beginning. That will shock you. He was an idealist who thought he saw his theories coming to life, only to be forced to watch their failure. That would have discouraged many men, I imagine, but not he. He carried on.”

“What did he do?”

“Oh, all manner of things. He wrote pamphlets and books. He spoke wherever they would have him. He even went abroad to see conditions for himself, and very nearly did not get back, I understand.” He grimaced. “I have never seen my mother so angry as when she speaks of that incident.”

“Was he in Parliament?”

“No, indeed. He was not the sort of man to attract votes. Most of his neighbors thought him a bit mad.” Keighley’s tone was warm.

Margaret wondered at it. He sounded like a very odd sort of father. “He was busy with your estate, I suppose. It is large.”

“Passably. But he never concerned himself with it for more than five minutes at a time, as far as I know. My mother managed everything, superbly. She is amazingly sharp. I have always thought that my grandfather must have chosen her for his son because of her wits, though she was not bad-looking.” He chuckled again.

“They were a pair, my parents. I’m certain they were very attached to each other. I remember them so. My mother took care of all the practical details of living while my father spent his days dreaming in his study, and sometimes writing. When they met at dinner, each was remarkably happy, having passed the time as he wished. And the conversations at that table! I always joined them when there were no guests, from the very first, and I can remember endless, passionate debates about everything under the sun. They were both people of strong opinions, and they loved airing and defending them. Sometimes I think they took opposite sides just for the joy of battle. My sister and I plunged headlong into it as soon as we were able.”

Fascinated, Margaret compared this vivid vision to the dinner-table conversations of her childhood. The contrast was marked.

“Do your parents never debate politics?” asked Keighley curiously. “Among their friends, I mean. I would not expect them to do so with me.”

“They do,” responded Margaret doubtfully. “But not in the way you describe.”

“Ah?”

“They all seem to agree from the start. I mean, they do discuss things, but they only say how right their position is and how wrong that of the others. There isn’t any…battle.”

“I see.” Keighley’s tone was dry. “Well, I think that answers your question. I was taught that no idea is right until it is proved against the strongest and cleverest opposition. That is why I ‘talk as I do.’ I am championing my position against all comers. I cannot help throwing every resource at my command into the effort.”

Margaret nodded slowly, taking this in. He watched her, wondering for the first time what it must have been like to grow up in the Mayfield household. For him it would have been hell. Or would it? He would not have known anything else, as Margaret had not. He tried to imagine such a life, and could not.

“What did you talk to your parents about?” he asked her.

She looked up, startled. “I?”

“Yes. You must have had other topics besides politics.”

“Well…they always asked about my studies, when I was younger. I had a governess, and they would review my progress at the end of each week. A special time was set aside for it. And, of course, my mother taught me a great deal about running a household and…and that sort of thing.”

“And you had friends in the neighborhood, I suppose.” Keighley strained to recollect. “The Camden girl, and so on.”

Margaret shrugged. “I was very busy with my studies. Mama felt that they were more important, though my governess and I took ample outdoor exercise.”

For the first time Sir Justin felt something other than impatience or anger with the girl. Clearly she had some excuse for her shortcomings. He pitied her sincerely for her bland, sterile upbringing. He himself would no doubt have gone mad in such an environment or driven his tormentors mad. This vision brought a brief smile to his face, but it faded when he met Margaret’s anxious gaze. If it were not for his own damnable involvement, he could almost have been glad for the incidents that had made this girl flee her home. It could only help her to be away from it. Indeed, it
had
helped, as he had already observed.