A Masquerade in the Moonlight(13)
P.T.—Vain and believes he knows everything. Just ask him, and he’ll tell you.
R.H.—Greedy. Ambitious and unnaturally superstitious. Poor fellow, so afraid to die that he has yet to live!
Stinky—Never saw a penny he couldn’t gamble away.
W.R.—Enigma, damn him. Beware the man without weaknesses.
“Oh, Papa,” she said, propping her elbows on the desktop and dropping her forehead into her hands, “how could you have been so smart and yet not heeded your own warning?”
“At it again, are you?” Maisie asked from the open doorway, her hands full, holding a silver tray laden with teapot, creamer, cup, and a plate piled with steaming muffins. “A body could busy herself reading from the Good Book and not have half again so many worries,” she said as she placed the tray on the edge of the dressing table. “Dead’s dead, little miss, and no amount of scheming will bring either of them back, may the good Lord rest their souls. Life is for the living, and not for digging up old hurts.”
Marguerite closed the diary and rose from her chair, the long, full skirt of her dressing gown whispering against the carpet as she moved. “Thank you, Maisie, for that most insightful lesson. My father as good as murdered and my mother succumbing to the shock of being forced to relive that death—and you say I should forget it all and get on with my life? It’s so stunningly simple the way you present it. Why can’t I see that for myself? Why don’t I know lie piled upon deception, disaster following after tragedy, is the natural order of the world? Did you find this knowledge in your Good Book, Maisie—perhaps somewhere close beside that drivel about always turning the other cheek?”
She then grinned at the old woman and snatched up one of the still-warm muffins, taking a lusty bite out of it before launching herself onto the bed, to sit cross-legged at its very center, her expression suddenly solemn. “I’m sorry, Maisie, for I didn’t mean to snap at you. It’s just that I’m afraid my soul simply doesn’t possess much in the way of Christian charity.”
Maisie lifted the tray and re-deposited it on the bottom of the bed. “I should tell Sir Gilbert what you’re up to, that’s what I should do, and he’d take you away from here and back to Chertsey before the cat could lick her ear. Just what that poor old gentleman needs—to tuck up another of his loved ones with a shovel.”
“I’m not going to die, Maisie,” Marguerite countered, rolling her eyes comically as she lifted another muffin from the plate. Maisie was so prone to exaggeration. “They’re not even going to know I’m the one bringing them down. I’ve made my plans carefully this past year and they’ve all already been set into motion. One by one they’ll soon begin to topple, quite easily, while I act the sympathetic, supporting prop in their tribulation. I have no great desire to advertise my triumphs, Maisie, just a need to know I’ve bested them, one by one by one.”
“Stuff and nonsense!” Maisie retorted, sniffing, as she opened the door at the sound of a knock, then stood back to allow a procession of footmen to enter with pails filled with water for her mistress’s bath. “Nothing goes quite so easily as a runaway cart heading downhill toward a ditch, missy, and don’t you forget it. Here, now—boy! Don’t you go slopping water all over m’beautiful carpet!”
The offices of Sir Peregrine Totton, situated in the building housing many of the gentlemen serving the Secretary of the War Ministry, were as impressive as a museum, and nearly as well fitted out with paintings, statuary, and objets d’art. After spending an interminable four hours impatiently waiting in an antechamber crammed full of winged Pegasuses and tapestries depicting successful hunts and bloody battles, Thomas and Dooley were ushered down a hallway lined with portraits of some very sour-looking gentlemen and into a large, airy, high-ceilinged chamber apparently devoted to Greek and Roman statuary.
Dooley raised a hand to scratch behind his ear. “Did you ever see such a mass of ancient grandeur, Tommie?” he asked, leaning to his left to go nose to nose with a statue of Athena, who was sadly missing her left ear and a portion of her right arm. “Put ‘em all together and I doubt you could make one whole person, and that’s a fact. Lookee here,” he said, extending a hand to point at another statue. “It’s like someone took a hulking bite out of this one’s hip. See, Tommie—I can put the whole of my five fingers inside this—”
“Don’t you dare advance by so much as another inch, you ignorant, ham-fisted plebeian!”