Cry of the Peacock (31 page)

“Who?” Abbie asked. “Tell me who it is?”

“James Benderby,” James answered and then looked to Mariana who had gone a little pale. “I’ve seen him hanging about your neighborhood. Is there any way he can have known we’d be here today?”

“I suppose it’s possible,” Mariana answered.

“Who is this man?” Katherine asked.

“He was one of our laborers.”

“Was? But no more?”

“Precisely.”

“And he has come to find you? Here? Why?”

“I can’t say for certain,” James answered, “but I have a feeling we’re about to find out.”

They soon reached the surface, and the opening of the door released them to cross the station floor. The crowds were gathering again, making their progress somewhat slower than was convenient. They had not reached the exit when Benderby was seen to come out of the stairwell, breathless, perspiring and in apparent pursuit.

James turned to David and together they held a brief council. “Back to the luncheon?” she heard James say.

“It’s too far,” David answered. “The carriages are closer. It’s possibly a good time to be leaving, at all events.”

James nodded and glanced back at the ladies who were following close behind. “Move along,” he said, once more in his merry voice.

They followed the line of carriages, weaving their way through the masses of people, until their own were at last identified. James put Mariana and Katherine into the first. “You’ll send them on?” James asked of his brother.

“Yes, of course. Where are you going?”

“I’m going to go see what this is about.”

“I don’t see him now,” David observed.

“No,” James said, “but that’s little comfort.” And he slid off into the crowd.

“Please, Miss Gray,” David said to Abbie as she hesitated to join her sister and Katherine in the carriage.

She would not be got rid of. Not now. “Let me stay,” she begged him.

“I don’t think so,” he said and tried once more to direct her toward the carriage.

She resisted him. If Benderby had something to say, hadn’t she a right to hear it? “Let me stay,” she said again. “Don’t make me go. I can talk to him.”

David seemed to consider a moment. “It isn’t worth the risk, Miss Gray. He may be dangerous, after all.”

“He is angry, yes. He feels himself injured. But you and I know why. Please?” she said, pleading with him. “Let me stay with you. We’ll deal with him together, as we did Mr. Summerson.”

Apparently reluctant still, David looked up at the driver of the first carriage and signaled for it to drive on home. A second carriage he directed to return to the marquee to fetch his parents and Lord and Lady Barnwell.

And then it was just he and Abbie. “I have a feeling I’ll regret this,” he said. “Until he can be found, will you…?”

He removed his gloves and dusted off the seat, then turned to hand her up. She took his hand and mounted the first step, but stopped and stepped down once more with her exclamation.

“There he is!”

“W
HAT IS SHE thinking?” Katherine demanded of no one in particular. “What can she possibly think she can accomplish by staying?” She turned from the carriage window and addressed her next question to Mariana, who might possibly be able to answer it. “What does she think she can do?”

“Talk to him, I suppose,” Mariana answered with an affected calm that did not quite mask her own concern. “Perhaps she thinks she can persuade him to see reason.”

“And can she?”

Katherine observed that Mariana’s hands were pressed very tightly together. She was almost wringing them, though she seemed to have enough presence of mind to know better. “I can’t say,” she said at last. “I fear his presence here today may have something to do with a mutual acquaintance, and the assistance recently given her. If there is any way to help him in his own trials, my sister will find a way to do it.”

“Will dear Abbie never learn that to help someone does not mean shaking hands with him?”

“Does it not?” Mariana answered with raised eyebrows. Her anxiety was still apparent, but there was something else in her manner now. Something a little hard and determined.

“Of course it doesn’t! Send money if he is out of work. Send him clothes if he is cold. Send him food if he is hungry! We might all have been spared this inconvenience if she had only shown a little restraint and discretion when it came to her beloved laborers. Now look at the fix we’re in!”

“
We
are presently in no fix at all,” Mariana answered actually indignant now, “as
we
shall return safely to the Crawford’s townhouse. My sister, however, is another matter entirely.”

“There is no reason to be cross, Miss Gray.”

Mariana turned from her to look out the window.

“Has my concern for your sister’s well-being offended you in some way?” Katherine asked now of her companion.

Mariana looked at her a moment, closed her eyes and sighed.

“Well?”

“You speak very freely of charity, and what is proper and correct. Have you considered what is most effective?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The last time we met it was when you paid an unexpected call upon my aunt’s house, was it not?”

Katherine suddenly realized her mistake. She had nearly forgotten it in the excitement of the moment.

“The mutual acquaintance I mentioned a moment a go? That was she, and it is because of that man she has sought sanctuary in my aunt’s house.” She paused long enough to let her words sink in. “I’m afraid you will think me unfit company for you,” she continued at last. “I make it a point to shake hands every day with those whom I strive to help. You may consider it indecent. I consider it necessary. I wonder if you can tell me what more—or what less—my sister might have done to avoid the present situation?” But Mariana left no room for an answer. “Had she left our friend to fend for herself, she would have had to leave home to find work. Let me ask you, Miss Barnwell, what kind of work do you suppose there is for someone in Hetty Summerson’s circumstances?”

Mariana, this time, waited for an answer, but Katherine was unprepared to give it. She could imagine how it was—how it might be, but it was not a pleasant thing to think about, and so she avoided doing it even now.

“In her degraded state, she would have been forced to degrade herself further. Rather than rescuing Hetty, Abbie would have been condemning her to a life she did not deserve and would never have chosen for herself. Rather than rescuing her, she would have condemned her to the very situation you society Misses claim to help alleviate. I wonder if you can tell me how it is possible to despise someone and help them at the same time.”

“I don’t despise anyone.”

“Don’t you? You must admit you have judged my sister—whom you once claimed as a dear friend—because she has a sister, and an aunt, who have dedicated themselves to the succor of the unfortunate. Do you really think Hetty deserves to suffer for the circumstances brought upon her by another? Do you really believe that my sister’s desire to share her good fortune with others disqualifies her from your Christian love?”

Katherine had been soundly chastised and was feeling it. “You have made your point, Miss Gray, but I think it worth mentioning that, should the Crawfords learn of Abbie’s connections with a Magdalene…sanctuary, as you call it, they will not be pleased. Nor will they be as easily placated as I.”

Mariana studied her a moment. “May I ask you a question, Miss Barnwell?”

“Yes, certainly,” Katherine said, but almost feared to hear it.

“If the Crawfords should learn the truth of my affiliation with this charitable establishment, will it change their opinion of Abbie, truly? Will their hopes and plans for her change? Will they disown her, cast her out, revoke their love and support? Or, perhaps more to the point, will Ruskin?”

Katherine, who until that moment had been sitting very upright, as was proper for a lady of good breeding, suddenly fell back upon the carriage seat, and was instantly reminded of the hundred buttons of her dress, even through the thick wool of her cloak.

“Will you answer the question, Miss Barnwell?”

“They won’t. He won’t. They will be angry, disappointed, but in the end…as I somehow suspect you already have guessed, it will change nothing.”

“Then why should it change your opinion of her?”

“It hasn’t, only…“

“Only?”

“It is such a tremendous weight to bear, this secret!”

“Perhaps you will not have bear it much longer,” was Mariana’s surprising reply.

“Meaning?”

“Well, if Abbie accepts Ruskin, she will—she must—tell him. And if she refuses him—”

“Don’t say she will refuse him! Why do you say that?”

“And if she refuses him,” Mariana went on without answering the question, “none of it will matter, will it? Either way there will be a resolution.”

Katherine studied Mariana for a very long time, and at last decided there was no use in debating the matter further. Mariana had made her point. It did not matter, after all. They would accept her whatever the consequences. If only Ruskin would decide he didn’t want her… But that was foolishness, for to give up on the idea of Abbie as Ruskin’s was to give up on the idea of Holdaway as Holdaway. Determining herself to do what must be done, she put away her selfish pride, and recommitted herself to ensuring Ruskin’s happiness. It was that, after all, that she wanted more than anything. It was that that made her worthy to love him as she did. It made her worthy, in a way, of David’s love as well. Oh, the complexities of being a woman!

*   *   *

David felt Abbie’s grip tighten around his arm as Benderby advanced through the crowd. He came to stand several paces before them, his face flush and his expression that of a madman.

“What do you want?” David demanded of him.

“Where’s your brother, Mr. Crawford? Where’s that meddling, dandified bast—”

“I’ll ask you to remember who you’re talking to, Mr. Benderby. And I’ll ask you again, what do you want?”

“I want my rights! I want what is mine! What you took! You and your family.”

“We took nothing from you that you did not give up in your depravity.”

“You took my job, Mr. Crawford. And you took my Hetty! Or was that you, Miss Gray? I know she’s in London. Was it you who brought her here? You and your sister?”

“Perhaps I did, Mr. Benderby,” Abbie said, stepping out from behind David, “but she came to me for help. Was I to turn her away?”

“She wouldn’t’ve needed your help if she’d’a married me when I’d asked her. But she won’t have me now, and that’s your doing. You put ideas in her head, you did. You turned her against me.”

“I didn’t turn her against you,” Abbie answered with a sympathetic air.

David was a little bewildered. Knowing what this man was guilty of, how could she find it in her heart to feel sympathy for him?

“I didn’t turn her against you, but how is she to think well of you when you were not there when she needed you?”

“Are you not listening, Miss Gray?” he said, his finger pointing menacingly at Abbie and the volume of his voice rising with every word. “I wasn’t there because I was sent away. But don’t think you’ve succeeded in keeping her hidden. I know where she is and I’ll come for her!”

David, with one arm, pushed her behind him. She would not be shielded, however, but stepped out from behind him to appear at his other side.

“Do you mean to help her now, Mr. Benderby? Do you mean to make it right?”

“Do you mean to tell me, Miss Gray, that she’ll agree to marry me now? Will you persuade her to do it?”

“I’m not sure I can do that. If you were to prove yourself true to her, perhaps in time—”

“Time? There is no time when she is being kept from me. You will not do it, Miss Gray! You cannot keep her from me!”

David watched him advanced once more, his narrow gaze fixed as much upon himself as upon Abbie. What had he done allowing her to stay? A crowd was gathering now. If only James would return, or a constable. Anyone who might help.

“I mean to have justice!” Benderby demanded, yelling both at David and the crowd about them, those who had stopped to watch the scene, and those who passed on by, pretending disinterest.

“The law will have justice with you if you do not go your way now!” David said. Then, half turning to Abbie once more, “Get in the carriage, Miss Gray.”

She did not move, but held onto him all the tighter. “Please, Mr. Benderby. It isn’t too late to make amends. She needs you, still. Your child needs you. You might yet make it right.”

“Tell me how I’m to do it when you keep her from me. When you poison her against me!”

“I’ve done no such thing, Mr. Benderby. You have treated her ill, and you know it. You might help her yet, though. You might prove to her still that you are a man who can be trusted to shoulder his responsibilities.”

“How am I to do that without a job? Without a home? Without even the money that’s owed me? That you owe me!” he demanded of David with balled fists and a face crimson with rage.

The situation was getting worse by the minute. Where in heaven’s name was James! “Get in the vehicle, Miss Gray. Please!” David said to her, and then, to Benderby, “There is work enough to be had for those who do it honorably.”

“You speak of honor now, Mr. Crawford. Is it honor that divides a man from the woman who belongs to him? That divides him from the work he’s done faithfully for longer than you’ve been out of short trousers?”

“If that work includes assaulting women, then perhaps it does!” David was losing his temper. There was no talking to this man, and he worried how it must end if James or the law did not soon appear.

“What of the cottages you’ve condescended to build, and on land that it ain’t yours to build on?”

“The cottages were sorely needed.”

“Aye, but not at twice the price, and they’ve not even the benefit of their allotments to make up the difference. You’ve meddled for the last time, Mr. Crawford. Your family is soon to see what your workers think of your honor.”

“Meaning what, precisely, Mr. Benderby?”

“Meaning there is talk of strike, and at planting time, too. That is what they think of your honor, sir,” Benderby continued. “And you are presently to see what I think of it!”

“I hope you’re not threatening me, Mr. Benderby. I think you would find that a very bad idea.”

“I’m warning you, and there’s a difference. What’s more I’ll warn you that I won’t leave off till I have what belongs to me. I’ll have Hetty, I’ll have my child, and, one way or ‘nother, I’ll have what you owe me. Even if it means I have to wring it out of you and your meddling brothers myself!” Benderby, with that, took another step forward.

“In the carriage, please, Miss Gray,” David asked her once more. He was prepared to pick her up and set her there if he must. “I’ll pay you twice what you’re owed right now if you’ll leave and never show your face again, to me or to either of the Misses Gray.”

Mr. Benderby was once again livid.

“Oh, you’re so honorable as that, are you, Mr. Crawford? Well I’m a man of honor, too, in my way, and I won’t be bought off!” He was suddenly coming at them.

“Will you get in the carriage, Abbie!” David said, and with an arm around her waist he prepared to lift her in. A hand on his collar prevented him from accomplishing the task. He turned to find Benderby, his hand fisted and prepared to strike.

But suddenly James was there, and with a hand on Benderby’s shoulder, spun him around and struck him square between the eyes. There was blood and yelling, and Abbie screaming. James struck again, sending Benderby reeling towards the open doorway of the carriage, and David standing within it. There was no time to get out of the way. David grabbed hold of the carriage door and used it as a shield between himself and Benderby. With the one hand he held the door, and with the other he wrapped his greatcoat around Abbie and held her close within it. Together they stood there, the two of them, precariously pinned, but, at least for the moment, safe.