Joan Smith (8 page)

“This is infamous,” Trudie railed impotently. “We paid our rent.”

“He reimbursed me for the unused portion of it. I will not stay where we are so patently unwanted. Pray do not ask it, Trudie. Having to leave Walbeck Park and come up to London was bad enough, without having to be despised by our neighbors.” A tear gathered in Mrs. Harrington’s age-dimmed eyes as she spoke. She blinked it away, but it had been seen, and a terrible angry frustration began to build up in her niece.

“All right. All right, Auntie,” she said, to calm her, but she would have revenge on whoever had done this to them. And who could it have been? Mr. Mandeville had heard the rumor as well. Mr. Mandeville—she would like to put the blame in his dish, but there hadn’t been time, unless he had begun the rumor last night. Was it possible?

She stood for a moment considering what was best to be done. She was proud enough to share her aunt’s distaste for remaining in this apartment. Obviously they must take rooms elsewhere, find some other apartment to let, but it would be difficult to do with their two large trunks in tow. The trunks must be picked up by a carter, but till the carter arrived, they must be guarded. She had very little taste for standing on the curbstone to guard them herself.

“Where are the Bogmans?” she asked.

“In the kitchen, packing up what can be easily carried. There is no need to leave fifty pounds of flour behind, and a good leg of lamb, already dressed.” She continued with a longish list of items, which, while expensive to replace, could obviously not be hauled across London to another set of rooms, though the linen and silver and dishes certainly must be.

“I’ll speak to the Bogmans,” Trudie decided.

Mrs. Bogman said very firmly, “You ought to go to your brother. He’ll decide whether to hire a lawyer and go to court. I think it is that nasty Mrs. Rolfe as ought to be sued for a slanderous detraction.”

“Someone ought to be, except that it would give us so much unwanted publicity. I really ought to consult with Norman, though. Bogman, could you look after our trunks and things while I take a quick trip over to Brighton? Have the things stored at a cheap hotel or inn near the edge of town, till I have discussed this with my brother.”

“Why, you’ve more sense than him and his shatter-brained friends all put together, missie,” Bogman told her. “What would you want to talk to him for?”

She drew a weary, uncertain sigh. “This may be a matter of honor, I fear, and Norman knows more about that than I do.”

“ ‘Tis a sharp pity you hadn’t known sooner, and you could have got a drive with Lord Clappet, but it’s a short distance. You could be back by tomorrow. The wife and I will look after things here, missie. We’ll need a little blunt for the hire of the cart and room at the inn. Where can we leave word for you to know where we’ve gone to?”

“Let me see.” She considered her options and soon realized that she had no friends in London. Her few acquaintances were out of town. “You could leave word at Clappet’s house, perhaps, though his mama is a Tartar. Oh, the very thing! Leave word with his servants at the new set of rooms he hired before leaving London. They’re on the corner of Poland Street, just south of Oxford. In fact, I’ll go myself at once and see if we can leave our trunks there to save hauling them off to the edge of town and back. They’ll be no bother to Clappet; he’s gone for a few days.”

“That would save time and money,” Bogman agreed.

Trudie took Bogman with her to the curb to explain this course to Mrs. Harrington. Even in this fairly polite corner of the city, passersby had stopped to stare and smirk at the sight of two ladies on the street. Fingers pointed, and leering laughs floated toward them, every one inciting a furor in Miss Barten and fear in her aunt. Bogman guarded the possessions while Trudie, trying for an air of nonchalance, found a cab and went with her aunt to Peter’s apartment. It was a wonderful relief to get away from prying eyes in the safety of the carriage.

Uxor, Clappet’s valet, was there arranging his master’s new lodgings. He was not at all happy to be turfed out of a mansion and a soft job as Lord Clappet’s valet and put in charge of a cramped set of rooms where he was, apparently, expected to be servant and cook as well as valet. His thin, ferret
-
like face tightened in disapproval as he listened to Miss Barten’s story.

He doubted her claims of friendship with his master, but as she was familiar with his trip to Brighton and the reason for it, he knew she was at least an acquaintance of his undiscriminating lordship. He reluctantly allowed the belongings to come and be stored but did not offer the hospitality of a roof for the servants, as she hoped. They returned to Conduit Street to arrange the matter with their servants. At least the small mob had disbanded. Bogman’s efforts with the poker had been instrumental, but he didn’t tell the ladies so.

“And now we must be jostled over the roads to Brighton, to rub shoulders with horsemen and race track touts,” Mrs. Harrington exclaimed.

“Also with the Prince Regent and the aristocracy, Auntie,” Trudie pointed out.

Any complaint brought forth a reminder of the princely associations of Brighton, till at last Mrs. Harrington went to the coaching house without an actual grimace on her face. The grimace didn’t arrive till they had reached Brighton and a hackney cab was rattling them over to the west side of town, to what she assumed must surely be the very worst part of it. She eyed askance a cluster of brick and timber cottages and a narrow, inelegant road cluttered with ragged humanity. They didn’t stop right there but were taken to the Princes Hotel, where Norman had rooms and where they hoped to find him.

He wasn’t in, but the Princes was the sort of establishment where the only wonder a young woman’s asking to be let into a man’s room caused was that she should be accompanied by a chaperone. Despite Miss Barten’s genteel appearance, and despite the chaperone, the honor of entering a client’s chamber during his absence was denied her.

“You can wait for him in the lobby,” the clerk said.

“Perhaps a cup of coffee while we wait?” Mrs. Harrington suggested, with a hopeful glance into the dining room.

“The very thing,” Trudie agreed at once, for one of the clients was ogling her from the corner of his shifty eyes.

The ladies knew as soon as their slippers encountered a sandy floor that the dining room would be no better than the lobby, but at least they weren’t leered at. After two cups of coffee and close to an hour’s wait, it was clear they would not be returning to London that night, so they booked a room at the Princes and left word at the desk for Norman to call them when he arrived.

Mrs. Harrington cast a dispirited eye around the dismal chamber. Its unclean condition was not so visible in the fading shadows of eventide as it would be the next morning. She saw enough of the linens to tell her charge they would lie down on top of the counterpane with their pelisses over them, and with their towels for pillow cases. Within half an hour it was necessary to light the lamps. An hour after that, Norman had still not come, but hunger pangs had set in. They sent below for a meal, which was every bit as bad as Mrs. Harrington forecast it would be.

As she ate and Mrs. Harrington nibbled, Trudie thought about their predicament. Mostly she wondered how such an awful thing had happened to them. It had to be Mr. Mandeville; yet where had he got the idea she was a lightskirt? The idea had come from his own low mind. He had no notion of propriety, just money and arrogance. She longed to retaliate for his various offenses, particularly that nasty, punishing kiss.

Her anger and frustration had ample time to grow. Seven o’clock crept to eight, to nine, and still Norman didn’t come.

It was nine-thirty when he came bounding up the stairs, three at a time, his dusty face a perfect mask of astonishment. “Good God, Trudie, what brings you and Auntie to this wretched hole? You are lucky you haven’t been set upon by thieves and worse. Come to my room at once, where you will be safe.”

This speech did nothing to calm their exacerbated nerves. Neither did the appearance of Norman’s room, which had once been a replica of their own but was now so covered with dirty linens, newspapers, dusty boots, empty glasses, cigar butts and other signs of a gentleman’s occupancy that it wasn’t immediately recognizable. Aunt Gertrude took one look, and one gasp of the stale air, and said they would retire to her room instead.

“Have you eaten yet?” Trudie asked. She examined the youth before her with the keenest interest and hardly recognized him as her younger brother. His fine, dark hair had grown an inch; his usually decent provincial toilette had been replaced by a spotted Belcher kerchief at his neck, buckskin trousers, topboots that were very likely leather but appeared to be constructed of caked layers of mud. The jacket and trousers on his tall frame hung more loosely than before. His face, really rather a handsome face, had become tanned from constant exposure and lean from starvation. And beneath all the decrepitude and grime he looked incredibly happy. His brown eyes sparkled.

“Not since noon,” he answered. “But what on earth brings you here to Brighton?”

“We require your assistance, Norman,” Mrs. Harrington said. “The most wretched thing has happened.”

Trudie saw the flash of apprehension on her brother’s face, the fear that he would have to leave this raffish paradise he had discovered. She was very loath to burden him with their problem, and cast an admonishing glance at her aunt.

“A little difficulty, Norman. It is nothing of great account. The fact is, we had to leave our rooms on Conduit Street and want your advice on where we should go.”

“Leave? Why the deuce did you leave? You paid the rent, didn’t you?”

“Yes, it was the neighbors. We—we did not care for them in the least. They were very noisy and troublesome.”

Mrs. Harrington had lived with the Bartens long enough to understand the new situation without explanation. She gave Trudie one accusing look but said nothing.

“I don’t see why you took into your noggins to come pelting all the way down to Brighton,” Norman exclaimed. “Why didn’t you see a real estate agent and hire another set of rooms?”

“That would have been much more sensible,” Trudie agreed quickly. “But you know Auntie always wanted to see Brighton and the Prince’s pavilion, so we decided to come here for a few days first.”

“That makes sense,” Norman said. His hunger soon gave such peremptory signals that he had to tend to it. Another plate of the dry mutton and wet potatoes was brought up, and he attacked it with relish.

“You must leave this place, Norman,” Mrs. Harrington told him. “It is unhealthy.”

“A regular den, but it’s cheap, you know, and I’m hardly here except to sleep. Where are the Bogmans?”

“We left them in London,” Trudie said vaguely. “Did Peter and Nicolson arrive yet?”

“Yes, I have been with them since late this afternoon, checking out Firebird. They took the idiotic idea Firebird was a filly, when I called him a youngster, plain as day, in my letter. Anyway, I’m glad to be home,” he sighed.

That Norman spoke of this slum as “home,” when he was accustomed to an elegant country mansion, spoke as plainly as was necessary of his delight in this sabbatical. Trudie decided she would not trouble him with their London problem. They would go back, find another set of rooms, and await the year’s end, when they could return to Walbeck Park.

As he ate he told them of True Lady’s progress, her various and ever-improving times on the track, her assorted leg troubles.

Though his eyelids were drooping, he seemed ready to talk till morning about True Lady and every other “bit of blood” in the neighborhood. At midnight, his aunt decreed, “You’re ready for bed, and so are we. We shall meet at eight in the morning parlor for breakfast; then you can take Trudie and me to the coaching office.”

“But what about the Royal Pavilion? Don’t you want to see it?” Norman asked. “I thought that was why you came.”

“Yes, so it is
,
” Trudie said quickly. “We’ll leave our bandboxes at the coaching house and go to see the pavilion.

The coaches leave frequently—perhaps we can catch the early-afternoon one.”

“You ought to stay a few days, now you’re here. I’ll get you a room at the Ship’s Inn. I got my linens, by the way. Very useful.”

He yawned as he spoke, shaking his head in an effort to stay awake. He cast a very tired, very happy, very young smile on them.

“I’m having the greatest time,” he said. “I hope you’re enjoying yourselves as much as I am. You
are
enjoying this holiday, aren’t you?” A doubting frown puckered his brow when the response wasn’t as quick as he expected. “If it’s money that is the problem, I can get rid of the groom and train True Lady myself. Everything costs more than I had thought.”

Trudie crossed her fingers in the folds of her skirt and lied for Gertrude and herself. “We’re having a lovely time, Norman. Money’s no problem. You wouldn’t have a fair crack at the Triple Crown if you didn’t have a proper groom.”

The pucker disappeared like magic. “It’s nice to have you both here. Have you heard any word from home? I thought some of the neighbors might have written; I gave her your address. My own wasn’t settled.”

“I haven’t heard from Georgiana,” Trudie said, since it was “her” Norman obviously meant. She hadn’t written to Georgiana either. Half her reason for encouraging Norman in this folly was to get him away from the girl.

He listened, and nodded his head silently. After he had left them, Mrs. Harrington gave vent to all those feelings she had been holding back with such difficulty.

“Let him have his year,” Trudie said. “Norman is sensible; he won’t go overboard. We shall go back to London and wait for him there. I shan’t say a word about Mr. Mandeville or Mrs. Rolfe. He would only feel obliged to make a great ruckus about it.”

“Mr. Mandeville?” her aunt asked. “Why, don’t tell me he misbehaved himself, Trudie! You never mentioned a word about your drive with him, now I stop to think of it. The ejection from our apartment put it off my mind, but you were
walking
home, weren’t you? What did the brute do?”