Maggie MacKeever by Jessabelle Read Free Book Online Page B

Christian kindness—as well as indulging your own most unChristian desire for revenge—if you could persuade Lady Camilla to cry off.”
    “ I persuade Lady Camilla?” echoed Jess, astounded. “The opportunity is hardly likely to be presented me.”
    “I think it is.” Lady Emmeline looked dour. “Lady Camilla has expressed a strong desire to speak with you—she is of the opinion that Vidal may form the habit of divorcing his wives, and since she would not care to be divorced, she has formed the intention of asking you to explain just where you went wrong. Lady Camilla is not a young lady accustomed to having her wishes thwarted, you see.”
    Jessabelle discovered in herself a burning desire to gaze upon the damsel who was to become Lord Pennymount’s second countess. “Doesn’t she realize how Vidal must react to such a meeting? He has already forbade you to speak my name under his roof. He will be even less tolerant of her!”
    Lady Emmeline recalled her nephew’s decree, and her own rebuttal, which had left him acting sulky as a bear. Since this condition was not unusual, Em did not refine too much upon his displeasure, although Dimmy privately confessed it quite rent her heartstrings. Em glanced at her twin, who was gazing in a morose manner upon the stout oak bars which held the orangutan encaged. Satisfied that Dimmy’s preoccupation was complete, Em turned again to Jess.
     “Vidal has been allowed to grow a great deal too high in the instep,” she explained. “Once I had hoped you would teach him to be more human—but I have not come here to scold you for that singularly foolish elopement. Rather, we must decide what may be done about Lady Camilla.”
    “Lady Camilla!” echoed Dimmy, whose attention had progressed from the orangutan to an ostrich, and from the ostrich to her own sister, through thought-processes uniquely her own. “Do you know, I have quite decided that some things are a great deal worse than atmospheres of ancient gloom? Pennymount Place, that is! My dear Jess, if only you could have seen Lady Camilla’s drawing room!”
    Bewildered, Jessabelle listened to Lady Dimity describe that chamber, a description from which Jess concluded that a violent disaffection for the Chinese style of furnishings had left Dimmy unalterably opposed to her nephew’s fiancée. “The girl is a a pretty widgeon,” interjected Lady Emmeline, when she was given the chance, “whose only saving grace may be her awareness of the fact. She told us she had decided to marry Vidal because no one else had ever looked at her like a thundercloud and it made a refreshing change. I cannot think our nephew will profit from an alliance with a female who goes about speaking of pig’s whiskers, no matter how biddable she promises to be. Therefore I decided to ask your assistance, Jess.”
    Nor did Jessabelle think her irascible ex-spouse would be made happy by alliance with a goosecap; but it was in no way Jess’s ambition to dissipate her energies on behalf of Lord Pennymount. This unpalatable fact of life she gently pointed out. “I would be a widgeon myself, were I to try and serve Vidal a good turn; after the abominable manner in which he has treated me, it is much more fitting that I should throw a rub in his way. Which I have every intention of doing! I fear we shall be working toward opposite ends, Em.”
    “Oh!” wailed Lady Dimity, before her sister could speak. “If you knew what violence it does my spirits, you would not talk like this! As if it were not bad enough that you must ill-wish my poor nephew—not that fondness blinds me to his little faults! If anyone ever did, Vidal deserves to be ill-wished! I know Papa would not approve so unChristian a viewpoint. Or perhaps he might. I recall that he said some heated words about Vidal himself—but worse, you must do it in this dreadful place, when I am already plunged into grief by seeing all these poor beasts imprisoned!”
    “Don’t make such a