Free Maggie MacKeever by Fair Fatality Page B

very wearing task, and sometimes I think I must reach my wits’ end. Well you may look sympathetic, Jevon! I have taken Jaisy to linen-drapers and milliners and modistes, to bookshops and music stores and picture galleries; I have sat through equestrian displays at Astley’s Amphitheater; I even took her to Sadler’s Wells to see Grimaldi perform! And while I am quite willing to concede that Grimaldi must be the king of clowns, I do not derive any particular enjoyment from seeing a grown man sit between a codfish and a huge oyster that opens and closes its shell in time with the music, and sings!”
    “Zounds!” Jevon looked intrigued. “Did it?”
    “It did!” Sara replied bitterly. “This is one of Grimaldi’s most famous songs, I gather: ‘An Oyster Crossed in Love.’ Quite half the audience was in tears.”
    “My poor Sara!” responded Mr. Rutherford, much moved.
    “So you may say!” agreed Miss Valentine. “If all those excursions were not wearying enough, I must constantly be on my guard lest Jaisy decide that she must visit Hoby’s, where Carlin procures his boots, or Lock’s or Weston’s, his hatter and his tailor, or even Berry Brothers so she may weigh herself on the same scale! And then there was the day she announced to me that we should stroll down St. James’s, on the chance that we might encounter Carlin exiting one of his clubs.”
    “My poor, poor Sara!” Somewhat belatedly, Jevon realized that his sister’s misbehavior, if she did succeed in escaping Sara’s vigilance, would rebound to the good credit of no one involved. “What is it you wish me to do?”
    “Scolding her accomplishes nothing; she merely assures me that when approaching an apparently insurmountable hurdle one need only throw one’s heart over and one’s horse will invariably follow—though whether she considers Carlin as horse or hurdle I have not dared ask! Even if I did, she would probably only assure me once again that she is pluck to the backbone!” A trifle tardily, Sara received the impact of his words. “Oh, Jevon! You will help me? I will be forever in your debt!”
    To receive from Miss Valentine that melting look, to reanimate her classic features and soft gray eyes, Mr. Rutherford would have undertaken tasks far more arduous than hinting away his sister from an unsuitable parti. Only in the very nick of time did Jevon prevent himself from explaining to Miss Valentine that fact. Not until Jaisy was fired off could the matter of trysts be subtly reintroduced into his companion’s thoughts. Doubtless it would improve his character to experience impatience curbed.
    Doubtless, also, that self-improvement would be devilish hard-earned, decided Mr. Rutherford, as in an excess of gratitude Miss Valentine pressed his hand. Abruptly, Jevon halted the whiskey and descended into the street, where before Sara’s bewildered gaze, he spun the coin with a pieman, and won. He then resumed his seat in the whiskey and shared the profits of his enterprise with her, in celebration of their newly formed partnership. Prevented by the condition of his teeth from joining in this congenial repast, Confucious snarled.
----
Chapter 8
    Never one to shilly-shally, especially when to do so was to delay the achievement of a highly desired object, Mr. Rutherford sought to set his scapegrace sister’s affairs to rights at the earliest opportunity. Occasion to hold converse with Lord Carlin presented itself to Jevon that very evening, at the King’s Theater in the Haymarket. The attendance of both Mr. Rutherford and Lord Carlin at this function was no special coincidence. The King’s Theater was London’s most popular center of entertainment, ablaze with bejeweled ladies, and gentlemen with orders strewn across their chests. Boxes cost as much as £2500 for the season, despite the blinding chandeliers which hung before them, casting the actors into the shade; admission to the pit cost 10s. 6d.
    Not for Mr. Rutherford nor Lord