Lord Alton headed straight for Mr. Rugby’s office.
“It’s all over,” he told his friend despondently, helping himself to a glass of sherry from the decanter on the bookshelf.
Mr. Rugby was surprised. He had not expected disillusionment to set in so quickly. He was growing quite used to being surprised by the course of this affair.
“We traded insults,” his lordship continued. “I’m sure she’ll never want to see me again. Barney, what shall I do?”
“Do? I thought you said it was all over.”
“I suppose I don’t really believe that. I can’t just let her go, thinking I’m a conceited, pretentious blackguard. I remember too clearly what her grandfather said to me. He foresaw us both standing on our dignity till the Day of Judgement.”
“A gentlemen of discernment.”
“No, for I shan’t. They are removing to Paddington next Monday? I shall call on Wednesday.”
* * * *
By Wednesday afternoon, Hester was exhausted. Even with the assistance of the two maids Jamie had insisted on hiring, it had been no easy business transporting her family to London and settling them in their temporary home. At last everything was unpacked and bestowed in its proper place.
At least she had had no leisure to brood about the breach with Mr. Fairfax—no, Lord Alton—which looked irreparable.
Robbie, having already made friends with a couple of village urchins, had taken off across the fields with strict instructions to stay away from the construction area where the Regent’s Canal would soon join the Grand Union. Jamie had unwillingly escorted a tearful Alice to Holles Street. Geoff had nobly offered to take Susan strolling in Hyde Park. The servants retired to the kitchen, and the house was blissfully quiet. Hester sank into a chair in the small parlour, kicked off her shoes, and tucked her legs beneath her.
Chin in hand, eyes fixed absently on a leafless elm beyond the mullioned window, she mused unhappily for a while. Gradually she drifted into slumber.
The ring of hooves and rattle of wheels on the cobbles outside failed to wake her, as did a firm knocking on the front door. She did not hear a determined masculine voice enquiring for her, nor the maid’s breathless answer.
“She be in the parlour, sir, but I dunno if she be at ‘ome,” said Bessie, flustered by the unexpected appearance of a fine gentleman, “bang up to the nines” as she reported to Dora, on the modest doorstep.
Lord Alton did not wait to find out whether or not the mistress of the house was “at home.” He was all too afraid she was not, at least to him.
“In here?” he queried, and pushed open the parlour door.
The click of the latch as he shut it behind him roused Hester. She looked up at him sleepily. The long rays of the setting sun lit on his tall, powerful form and thick, wavy blond hair, and he looked like a Greek god. He sat down in the chair next to hers and took her hand.
“I must apologise for waking you,” he said gravely, “and for a great deal else besides.”
She blinked at him, too stunned by her vision of Apollo to answer, or even to take in his words.
“Come, you are still half-asleep.” He laughed softly. “Forgive me while you think me a dream, then wake and remember only that we are friends.”
His eyes were pleading with her even while he joked. He needed her compassion, and Hester had never in her life turned away anyone in need.
“We are friends,” she repeated with a wry smile. “Between friends no apologies are needed. I did not trust far enough—”
“No apologies,” he reminded, placing his finger on her lips. He would have preferred to silence her with a kiss, but having made this much progress, he had no intention of rushing his fences and once more losing her precious trust. He asked after her brothers and sisters.
By the time he took his leave, half an hour later, Hester was well on the way to forgetting she had ever quarrelled with him.
“Good-bye, my lord,” she said. “I am so very glad you came.”
“As am I,” he assured her fervently. “I wish you will not call me ‘my lord.’ It is so very formal.”
“I cannot address you as ‘Mr. Fairfax’ any longer, and ‘Alton’ sounds much too familiar.”
“Yet ‘Fairfax’ or ‘Lord Alton’ are almost as bad. Oh, the complex degrees of intimacy! There is no alternative; you must call me David.”
“I could not!” she said in confusion. “It would look excessively particular.”
“Barney Rugby’s wife, Bella, calls me David. He tells me he hopes to introduce her to you. You will not wish to be behind her.”
“But I’m sure she has known you for years! Oh, you are such a tease. Very well, it shall be David, but only in private. There, does that satisfy you? Good-bye, David. I shall endeavour to make your peace with Jamie.”
‘Good-bye, Hester,” he said daringly, an impish twinkle in his eyes.
“Miss Godric to you, sir!” she exclaimed in indignation, but suddenly her name, which she had always thought rather commonplace and staid, developed infinite possibilities.
Geoffrey and Susan came home, full of the extraordinary and wonderful things they had seen on their walk.
“An organ-grinder with a dancing monkey!” Susan told her. “He had on a little red jacket with brass buttons.”
“A curricle race with two ladies driving four-in-hand,” put in Geoff.
“A pastrycook’s with
hundreds
of different kinds of cakes.”
“I bought her a penny bun. We saw the gibbet at Tyburn.”
“Oh, Geoff, how could you let your sister see such a thing!”
“How was I to know we would pass it? I made her cover her eyes and led her past. There weren’t any corpses anyway. They don’t have executions there anymore.”
“Geoffrey, I do believe Alice is right and you are growing quite coarse.”
“I’m not! I wouldn’t go to see a hanging, only everyone does, you know.”
Jamie arrived in time to prevent further dispute. “What a watering-pot!” he exclaimed in disgust, flinging himself into a chair. “Pour me some tea, Sue. You’d have thought I was taking her to her own hanging, honestly.” He ignored Geoff’s cackle and Hester’s silent appeal to heaven. “She managed to restrain herself until it was time for me to leave, then she burst into tears on my shirt. I’m still damp. Cousin Sophie is all over freckles. Aunt Bardry looked sick as a dog when she saw our Allie.”
“Oh dear,” said Hester. “I hope she will not take Allie in dislike. You must go tomorrow, Jamie, and see that she has settled in.”
Bessie came in to light the lamp, and Hester realised that the sun had set some time since.
“Where is Robbie?” she wondered anxiously. “He knows he must be home by dark.”
“He doesn’t know the area well yet,” pointed out Geoff. “He probably wandered farther than he intended. Do you want me to go out and call?”
“Would you? Just in case he is not sure of his way.”
Geoff had his hand on the latch when the sound of raised voices in the kitchen was heard. He opened the door, and they all heard Robbie’s indignant cry.
“I live here! And this boy is hurt. You ask my sister, she’ll let him in!”
Hester picked up her skirts and ran. The back door was open, and framed in it stood her youngest brother, though how she knew it was he through the coating of mud that covered him from head to toe, she could not have explained. He had his filthy arm draped protectively around the shoulders of a smaller boy, a pitifully thin child dressed in rags, who was shivering convulsively and seemed barely able to stand. His skin had a greyish cast marked with smudges and smears of coal black, though compared to Rob he was clean. Confronting the two, arms akimbo, stood Dora, the cook-maid.
Robbie saw his sister.
“Hester! This is Albert. He’s a chimney sweep’s climbing boy, and he’s all burnt and hasn’t had anything to eat for two days.”
“Bath first,” said Hester firmly. “Come in and shut the door, the pair of you. Dora, heat some water, please.”
“Miss, you bain’t agoin’ to take in that there ragamuffin!”
“Why, certainly. Bessie, the tub. Susan, find some clean clothes for both of them, please, and the rest of you go away.
“Oi ain’t ‘avin’ no bahf. Gimme summat to eat, Miss, an Oi’ll go. Ol’ ‘Ardy’ll kill me if ‘e foinds me.” Albert’s tone was pugnacious, but his voice trembled. Unmindful of the dirt, Hester knelt and took him in her arms.
“You poor child, Mr. Hardy won’t find you here. Come, you shall have a good meal when you are clean, and then you may leave if you wish.”
“Werl, Oi ain’t ‘avin’ no lidies bahf me.”
After some argument, it was agreed that the boys, sharing a tub, might wash themselves under Geoffrey’s supervision, while all the “lidies” left the kitchen. Robbie emerged from the black, soapy water rosy-cheeked and
-cherubic. The best that could be said for Albert was that he came out a lighter shade of grey. The soot of his profession was ingrained in his skin.
“His hands and elbows and feet are burned,” reported Geoff as Hester rejoined them. “He’s covered with bruises, and his language is appalling. He says he’s ten, but he’s half Rob’s size.”
Hester anointed the burns with a homemade salve. As she had expected a bowl of hot soup with bread and cheese completed the work done by the warm bath. Albert fell asleep at the kitchen table, a pathetic little figure in a white nightshirt several sizes too large. A straw mattress was set by the stove for him, and he never stirred all through the bustle of belated preparations for the family’s dinner.
“What are we going to do with him?” demanded Jamie as they sat down to eat. “His master will certainly be looking for him.”
“Cor blimey, ‘e’s a bloody monster,” said Robbie experimentally.
“That’s the mildest of his epithets,” Geoffrey assured them. “Jamie’s right, he can’t stay here for long.”
“I shall ask Lord Alton what is best to do,” announced Hester with outward calm.
There was a stunned silence before the clamour broke out.
“Good,” said Robbie, and went on eating.
“But I thought . . .” began Susan.
“I shouldn’t think he will—” was Geoff’s contribution before James interrupted him.
“Hester, you cannot approach him after what happened! I could never bring myself to speak to him, let alone call on him.”
Though the others were quickly satisfied, it took Hester considerable time and effort to convince Jamie that his lordship’s visit and apology were sufficient to allow him to regain his former standing in their eyes. Later that evening, she took him aside.
“I am quite certain that Lord Alton was genuinely sorry that his alias so distressed us,” she said. “He thought it no significant deceit when he gave us his name, and then he could not see how to retract the false information. My dear, be generous.”
“Oh, very well, but I cannot see why he should seek us out.”
“He is a true friend, and besides . . . Jamie, I wish you will not let this go any further. I am persuaded that he is in love with Alice. She has never shown him any distinguishing attention, but I expect he is still hopeful, and if you refuse to receive him, he must cease to think of her.”
“It would certainly be a highly advantageous match for Allie,” said Jamie thoughtfully. “Oh, dash it, Hester, I was used to think him a very good fellow, and I daresay I shall again. I’ll go and see him tomorrow.”
“He promised to pay us a visit tomorrow morning,” she confessed, her eyes brimming with mirthful guilt. “Pray do not be cross with me. I know how fond you had become of him and ventured to assure him that I could bring about a reconciliation.”
Jamie sighed. “Well, I’m sure I don’t know what is to be done about Albert. and he undoubtedly will. And it was excessively kind in him to have helped me with the Greek. You win, Hester. You are a complete hand!”
Slipping into the chamber she shared with Susan, Hester also sighed. She supposed that Lord Alton would now begin to pursue his courtship of Alice openly, and she was far from certain that she would be able to endure the sight with any appearance of composure.
Chapter 11
“Good morning, Lady Ariadne. I am excessively happy to find you at home. Such shocking weather for the middle of February, is it not? I declare quite two inches of snow fell last night. Allow me to present my niece to you—Miss Godric, poor Alicia’s eldest. I see George is here, and dear Marianne. How do you do, Mr. Charworthy? Sophie, take Alice to meet the young people. I daresay she and Miss Charworthy will go on famously together, and you are always happy to see Mr. Charworthy, are you not? Such a charming couple,” said Lady Bardry in motherly tones to her hostess, as her daughter, freckles momentarily overwhelmed by a crimson tide, bobbed a curtsy and led Alice across the room.
“George is by far too young to be thinking in terms of couples,” replied Lady Ariadne firmly. “Though he did tell me the other day how delightful he found Lady Jane Morton. I believe she has thirty thousand pounds, besides something from her great-uncle.”
“Not a penny more than ten thousand, and French blood on her mother’s side. Sophie is the sweetest-tempered child, not at all put out to be sharing her first season with her cousin. They quite dote on each other already, and fortunately dear Sophie has sense enough for two.”
Hiding her chagrin at this clear reference to her firstborn’s acknowledged possession of more hair than wit, Lady Ariadne chose to concentrate on the other implication of the remark.
“Miss Godric has beauty enough for two,” she said with equal malice, “and gentlemen prefer bird-witted females. Her manners seem pretty enough. I take it she has no fortune?”
“A thousand or two. Nothing to signify. However, I daresay I may succeed in passing her off creditably, though Sophie of course remains my chief concern. It is gratifying to see how fond of each other she and George are when they have known each other forever. Quite a romance!”
“George!” called his mother, “you mentioned an appointment at your club. It is growing late.”
“Not important, Mama. I—”
“You are not to be getting in the way of missing appointments, George. Lady Bardry will excuse you.”
“Yes, Mama.”
The departure of the Honourable Mr. Charworthy, heir to Baron Charworthy of Stone and heir presumptive to the Earl of Alton, left three ill-assorted young ladies to an exchange of confidence. Alice was as unaware of Cousin Sophie’s homeliness as she was of her own charms, but thought her very clever and remarkably kind. Even she could see that Marianne Charworthy was a beauty, and she was happy to gratify that young lady’s curiosity about her family and her home. It did not dawn on her that such curiosity in a new acquaintance might more readily be described as inquisitiveness.