addressing me?” gasped Phyllis.
“Yes, I am… you whey-faced bitch,” said Morag, gleefully using one of her husband’s pet expressions. Morag was still very much a schoolroom miss.
The earl’s great booming laughter seemed to fill the castle. “Go to it, Morag,” he gasped when he could.
Lady Phyllis rose to her feet, her languid airs and poise melting away.
“How dare you, you common little strumpet!” she howled at Morag. “For the likes of you to criticize the likes of me. It makes me sick to… to…”
“Your stomach,” said Morag helpfully, watching with fascination the cracking of Lady Phyllis’s veneer.
With a great effort, Lady Phyllis pulled herself together. “Come, Arthur,” she said grandly. “Take me away from this vulgar company.”
Her lord looked down at the table. “Sit down,” he said reluctantly. “You take things too much to heart. Don’t refine on it so.”
“We are leaving, d’ye hear,” screamed Phyllis, leaning over the table and gazing at him as if she could not believe her eyes.
“Sit down!” squeaked her husband, “and dae as ye are told.”
Phyllis collapsed in her chair, her eyes filling with shocked tears. Never before had her husband disobeyed her commands. Lady Phyllis could not know that her husband had just remembered the sole purpose of his visit—that of borrowing money from his rich brother—and that when he wished to borrow money, there was no one in the whole of Caledonia stern and wild who could be more single-minded.
And so she continued to sob over the tansey pudding and almost tottered when the time came to leave the gentlemen to their wine.
Morag followed her out, feeling miserable. It was one thing to be rude to the icy, haughty Lady Phyllis but another to be unkind to this pathetic weeping girl. Her soft heart was touched.
“I am truly sorry,” said Morag awkwardly, “to have caused you such distress.”
“Of
course
it was all your fault,” said Phyllis, drying her eyes on a wisp of cambric and looking jealously at the younger girl’s glowing beauty. “But you cannot blame me for saying you would not understand high fashion. Why—one has only to look at your gown.”
“What is wrong with it?” asked Morag, curiosity overcoming her temper. She privately thought her gown of gold damask very fine.
“So outmodish,” sighed Phyllis. “The cut is antique and one never wears such heavy materials. One has the waist of the gown
here
”—she pointed to below her bust—“and only wears the thinnest of muslins, even in winter.”
“I am to go to Edinburgh tomorrow,” ventured Morag. “Perhaps I may purchase something t-tonnish there.” Morag stammered slightly over the pronunciation of the unaccustomed slang.
Phyllis treated her companion to a small, superior smile. “Edinburgh,” she said in accents filled with loathing. Then she shrugged. “On second thought, perhaps
Edinburgh
will suit you very well.”
“Why are you so rude and unkind?” Morag demanded hotly. “Because, really, you do it very badly.”
Lady Phyllis looked totally nonplussed, but the door opened and the gentlemen entered. Both were in high spirits: Arthur because he had got his money, and the earl because he had had a most enjoyable time humiliating his younger brother—unaware that when it came to the pursuit of money, nothing could really humiliate Lord Arthur Fleming.
Arthur was so pleased with himself that he was inclined to flirt genteelly with Morag, a fact which distressed his wife even more.
Morag, for her part, could only be glad when the evening came to an end. Phyllis was the first young lady of nearly her own age she had met and the whole experience had been a sore disappointment.
There was more to follow. For after the unwelcome guests had gone, the earl cocked his great head on one side and listened to the song of the rising wind. “Weather’s turning bad,” he remarked. “We’ll no be going to Edinburgh if this keeps up.