Lightning Strikes (Hudson 2)

"What's it look like?" I fired back.

"You pay for what you break in this 'ouse, you know," he said, looking at the pieces of the dish.

"She didn't break it," Mrs. Chester told him.

"You payin' for it then?"

"Don't worry about it," I said. "I'll pay for it. Slip the bill under my door when you march by in the morning. And if you want, you could add the VAT tax," I said. The value-added tax, I had learned, was like a sales tax in America.

He glared at me, nodded and left the kitchen.

"I wouldn't rag that man, I wouldn't," Mrs. Chester warned.

"Why not?" I demanded more firmly.

"E's got somethin' bad inside 'im, 'e does."

"Then why does Mr. Endfield keep him working here?"

"I don't know," Mrs. Chester said turning away from me quickly, "and it ain't me place ta ask."

I shook my head and returned to the dining room to finish clearing the breakfast table. The Endfields were already gone. Mary Margaret came in to help, her eyes bloodshot and downcast.

"It's all right, Mary Margaret," I said. "Maybe you can go out with me some other time."

She looked up at me with relief in her face as if I had freed her from some horrible obligation. And all I had done was ask her to go to a play.

I would have been happy to take Mary Margaret to the play if she had wanted to go. Perhaps we could have become friendlier as a result. Now that she wasn't going, however, my mind settled on Randall. I called the dorm to tell him about it and he was very excited.

"When you come today, you might bring a change of clothes with you," he suggested. "We'll spend the day on the river and do some more sightseeing, and then you can freshen up here and we'll go directly to the Old Vic. I've been there before. It'll be fun," he said.

I thought he had made a good suggestion, so I chose what I would wear and put it neatly into a large bag. Then I headed out to take the underground and go to the dorm, which was really only a two-story house about three blocks from the school.

As the skies cleared, it was turning out to be the prettiest and warmest day since I had arrived in London. Perhaps because of all the rain the city got, the flowers were the brightest I had ever seen, and that included some of the magnificent gardens on the estates in Virginia where Grandmother Hudson lived. The brightness seemed to put more smiles on the faces of people around me, too, and I wondered if people blossomed like flowers. If so, Mary Margaret could certainly use more exposure to sunshine, I thought.

The residence hall was a gray stone building on a side street. There wasn't a dorm mother or anything like what might be in a school in America. There was a caretaker for the building, but other than that, everyone who lived there had their own apartments. The building had no facilities for meals, but in the lounge there was a small electric stove for a teapot.

Randall was sitting there waiting for me when I arrived, and with him were the French sisters, Catherine and Leslie. They all looked up.

"Ah, but here she is, the American princess," Leslie said. They both wore jeans and pretty light blue sweatshirts with designer logos on the front. Catherine had a pearl barrette in her hair.

"After clearing dishes, washing the table, and scrubbing a sink, I don't feel very much like an American princess," I explained.

"I told them where we were going and they wanted to come along," Randall said in the tone of a confession. "I hope that's all right."

"Why shouldn't it be?" I replied.

"You can't have him all to yourself so soon, cherie," Catherine declared, threading her arm through Randall's. He blushed and rolled his eyes.

"Are those your things for later?" he asked, nodding at my bag.

"Yes."

"Let me take them to my room for you, and then we'll get going," he said. I handed him the bag as he rose and he went out and up the short stairway to the second floor.

Almost instantly, Leslie reached up and pulled me down to sit beside her and Catherine.

"So, you tell us how you win this handsome boy's heart so quickly, eh? We have both been trying since we first gazed into those beautiful eyes."