“There are many kinds of cleverness. I’m sure you’re quite good with children as well.”
To Phoebe’s surprise, Miss Higginbotham slowed down and knitted her hands together in uncertainty. “I have no siblings. I have no notion if I even like children.”
Phoebe hid her frown. “Well, I’m certain once you have them, you’ll be fine. You simply need a little experience.”
Miss Higginbotham went completely silent.
Phoebe wasn’t fond of silence. If this was the woman Mr. Blair considered wife material, he was in for a rude awakening. She probed deeper. “I, myself, would prefer to attend the university than to marry and have children. Have you considered that?”
“I am not clever,” she repeated sadly.
“Nonsense. You can make hats, and that is exceedingly clever. Having children takes fortitude and patience but even witless mice manage to look after their young. I’m not sure children require cleverness, just a willingness to learn.” Phoebe stopped to admire a shop window of pretty hats.
“I don’t think I’m willing to learn,” Miss Higginbotham whispered. “Men are hairy, crude creatures. I simply want a little shop of my own and to be left alone.”
Phoebe fought her eyebrows to prevent them from shooting upward. After rearranging her thoughts about the girl’s desire to marry, she said, “Well, then, you must apprentice in a hat shop, mustn’t you? Do you have any income of your own?”
“A small stipend from my grandfather’s estate. I use it for ribbons and such. It is not enough to live on,” she said sadly, barely acknowledging the colorful display in the window.
“If it is enough to feed you, then you might look for a position that offers a room while you learn the trade. Once you start attracting customers, you could ask for a commission. That’s what I would do, if I were clever with hats.” Phoebe had meant to pick her neighbor’s brain, not send her down the road to perdition. But if Miss Higginbotham did not like men. . . She desperately needed a friend.
“My aunt would hate for me to be a shop clerk,” Miss Higginbotham murmured. “She thinks I should marry well and help advance my uncle’s business. Mama just wants me out from under foot while the grocer courts her. I don’t think she’d mind if I set up a shop. But I wouldn’t know how to go about it.”
She glanced up at Phoebe, and her rosebud lips tightened. “I’ve never had anyone to talk to about this before. You will not tell my aunt?”
“Of course I won’t. Are you quite certain you’d prefer a shop to a husband?” Phoebe waited, giving the girl time to think about it.
Miss Higginbotham nodded vigorously. “I am very certain. I’ve thought about this for years. I do not like boys or men. Just the thought of marriage and children appalls me. Is that very wrong?” she looked to Phoebe anxiously, as if she might be a woman of the world who had all the answers.
Phoebe wasn’t precisely a woman of the world. She was probably no more than five years older than Dahlia Higginbotham. She did, however, have considerably more experience than the sheltered miss. She knew, for instance, that there were many reasons a woman might not like men. She didn’t need to know Miss Higginbotham’s reason, just the disastrous outcome if she were forced into marriage. As angry as Mr. Blair made her—putting tenants in the street!—she could not in good conscience allow him to marry an unwilling woman.
“If you are quite certain, then let’s do something about it. Shall we go in here?” Phoebe gestured at the hat store. She’d not be able to afford one of those hats even if she saved her earnings back in the streets for a year. And she didn’t intend to spend her new salary on fripperies. But she saw no purpose in dreams unless one took action to make them happen.
Miss Higginbotham looked up, almost startled to notice the window they stood in front of. “Those are very fashionable,” she said tentatively.
“And won’t look well on anyone,” Phoebe declared. “I’d look like an ostrich in that feathered thing.”
Miss Higginbotham giggled. “And I’d disappear under that straw. Hats should be made for the individual, shouldn’t they be?”
“Exactly. Now keep your chin up and be brave and let’s see what we can do.” Phoebe pushed open the shop door and sailed in, Miss Higginbotham in her wake.
“Good afternoon, ladies.” She nodded at the clerks at the counter and the lone customer. “I should like a new hat, but none of those in the window will suit. I’ve asked my friend here to tell me what I need, if you do not mind? She is an excellent milliner, just back from France, and she’s always advised me well.”
Miss Higginbotham shrank behind Phoebe’s narrow skirt.
The clerks looked askance at Phoebe’s battered porkpie hat, rightfully so. She took it off and twirled it around her finger. “Dahlia trimmed this for me back when we were children, before she had any experience. I wish to remind her of how far she’s come. Now, Dahlia, choose the right style for me, and let’s see what you can do with it.”
“The lace with the slight veil in the window,” Miss Higginbotham said quietly. “You have lovely hair and shouldn’t hide it. And the angle of the veil is slightly rakish and suits you.”
Oh yes, rakish did sound fine. Phoebe waited expectantly. One of the clerks edged over to the window. She pointed at a lovely green confection that almost matched Phoebe’s dress. But it didn’t have a rakish veil.
“No,” Miss Higginbotham said. “The pretty blue one that will set off her chestnut hair. Just to your right.”
By now, everyone in the store was watching them. The clerk picked up the correct hat, and Dahlia nodded approval. “The rosette is too large and disproportional to the brim. This is an autumn hat. A sprig of berries like those there. . .” She pointed at a chip hat on the counter. “And just the smallest red bow, perhaps, to set off the green of the leaves.”
“I vow, I’ll need a whole new wardrobe to go with anything that magnificent,” Phoebe crowed as the clerk rearranged the trim. “May I try it on?”
The clerk offered up the newly-adorned lace hat, gazing at Phoebe’s unruly stack of hair with trepidation. Phoebe wasn’t much inclined to be careful when pinning it up.
Dahlia took the hat. “Duck down so I may reach, my lady. You should wear it dipped slightly toward one eye for the full effect.” She pulled and pinned and fastened the scrap of hat in place. “There, a mirror, please.”
“My lady?” the clerk whispered as Phoebe leaned over the counter to peer in a mirror.
“Lady Phoebe Duncan,” Dahlia whispered back. “Of the Malcolm Duncans.”
Phoebe heard the customer whisper to another clerk. “The eccentric Malcolm Duncans, very old family, well respected.”
Phoebe pretended not to notice the remark as she admired the confection on her head. It really was a very nice hat.
“It is ideal for. . . for the shape of your face,” the clerk who had helped them said.
“Yes, I do like it. Dahlia, perhaps you should help the lady choose what looks best for her.” Phoebe nodded at the matronly customer dithering between two old-fashioned bonnets.
Miss Higginbotham persuaded the lady into a more fashionable chapeau, then suggested changes to more of the stock so that it suited current colors and better proportions. Even Phoebe, knowing nothing of hats, recognized that the results were far superior to the original.
More customers entered and joined in the entertainment. While Dahlia was center stage, Phoebe regretfully removed her pretty chapeau, set it aside, and sidled over to the older woman who appeared to be the shop owner. She was frowning but didn’t appear averse to the spectacle.
“Dahlia is looking for a new place,” Phoebe murmured. “Do not tell her I said so. But the milliner in France. . . well, he was not good for young girls, if you know what I mean. I had to bring her home. I don’t know what I would have done without her when I was a child. But we are all grown now, and she must make her way in the world. If you would be so kind as to recommend a position somewhere nearby, I’d be
forever grateful.”
The proprietress nodded grimly. “I understand. She is very young, but creative. I will have a word with her, if it’s all right with you.”
“Certainly.” Phoebe tilted her head in acknowledgment, hiding a smug smile, her mood considerably improved. She really did enjoy meddling.
Nine
Drew flung his hat at the back-door hook, loosened his cravat, and shrugged off his coat, fully prepared to return to the challenge of creating a machine that printed without snarling keys. If only he could make his pterotype work better than the American typewriter, he could earn a fortune. Unfortunately, investing in tenements had a faster, more certain return.
More for his own conscience than Lady Phoebe’s altruistic outrage, he’d sent Hugh back to Margaret’s Wynd to talk to tenants. If he married Miss Higginbotham, he’d have her uncle’s support when it came time to contract out jobs. He had time to consider that.
Remarkably, the house was actually still. Abby rushed to take his coat. The children were presumably in the nursery, eating dinner and preparing for bed. At moments like this, he appreciated the well-oiled machinery of a proper household. Money might not buy happiness, but it could buy organization and contentment.
Even knowing Cook wouldn’t obey, he ordered dinner to wait until Hugh returned, then started for his office. The boy he’d assigned to the stable popped out of the kitchen stairwell carrying what appeared to be a hatbox. At seeing Drew, he tugged his forelock apologetically, handed the box to Abby, and vanished back down the stairs.
Drew looked questioningly at the maid, who curtseyed, flustered. “Cook says as her knees are too old to be carrying packages up and down the stairs. She told Henry he could earn his keep by helping out.”
Drew shrugged. “Fair enough. I hadn’t realized Cook was having problems with the stairs.” He knew better than to mention a woman’s knees. Back home, he’d have thought nothing of it, but here in the city, gentlemen did not mention body parts. “Is that a package for Lady Phoebe?”
As if summoned from on high, the lady herself appeared on the staircase from the upper stories. She’d apparently taken time to brush and pin her heavy tresses into some semblance of decorum for a change. She still wore the bright green wool of earlier. It didn’t appear any more or less the worse after a day with the children. . . Which was when Drew realized that a lady trailing crinolines, petticoats, and yards of flounces would be thoroughly frazzled after a day spent romping with weans.
Nursery maids and proper governesses were expected to wear simple black and few furbelows. Lady Phoebe was a damned lady. So she’d combined both expectations of governess and lady with her ridiculous costume—the very model of a modern female.
And he was staring as if he had nothing better to do.
Before he could remove himself, Abby presented the lady with the hatbox. Lady Phoebe froze. She glanced nervously to him, then back at the box. This ought to be good. He didn’t see her flustered often enough. He propped his shoulder against the door frame and waited.
He had to give her credit. She recovered swiftly. Opening the box for all the world like a princess being offered a crown, she removed a blue confection of lace and berries. Dropping the princess mode and exclaiming in delight, she set the box down on the stairs. Applying the adornment to her hair, she rushed to the hall mirror to adjust the angle, then swung around to confront him.
“What do you think?” She swirled, giving him a view of front and back.
The rakish veil dissolved the waif-like image of the porkpie hat she’d arrived in. In fact, it made him very aware that she was a grown woman with seductress beauty.
Berating himself for his wandering mind, Drew straightened. “It is very. . . blue.”
It was an enticing bit of frippery, drawing the eye to the lady’s delectable lips and rosy cheeks, teasing with glimpses of mysteriously shaded eyes.
“Indigo. Dahlia calls it indigo.” She rummaged in the hatbox on the stairs and found a note, handing the box to Abby to carry away. The maid disappeared back to the kitchen.
As Lady Phoebe read the note, Drew watched her mobile expression go from surprise to delight to. . . concern? She checked the mirror again, steadied the hat, and took a deep breath before turning to him.
“You may be hearing from Mr. Dalrymple shortly. I shall not apologize to him, but I shall to you. You do not deserve whatever comes of my rash behavior.”
“That whets my interest even more than that improbable fluff on your head. Dalrymple is a bit of a stick-in-the-mud, but he’s helped me find my feet here. I’d rather not be at odds with my closest neighbor. What have you done?” He waited with more curiosity than concern.
She bit her bottom lip, apparently parsing her words before speaking. “Miss Higginbotham wishes to become a milliner, not a wife.” She took off the new hat and approached to show it to him. “She is very talented. She put this together in minutes.”
Drew didn’t see much talent in sewing pieces of fluff to a bit of lace, but women liked that sort of thing, he supposed. “I see. And this has what to do with me?”
“Mr. Dalrymple wishes Dahlia to marry you. I. . .” She shrugged, looking embarrassed. “I encouraged her to follow her heart, and she has. She sent this as a thank you gift to let me know she’s found a position in a hat shop and has taken rooms above the store.”
A hat shop. His hopes for easy support for the tenement project exploded. He’d be fortunate if Dalrymple didn’t have him tossed off every board and committee in the city.
Hugh chose that moment to slam in the back entry. “Progress!” he shouted as his big feet pounded down the hall.
“Later,” Drew warned the governess. “We will talk later.”
After he learned how much trouble he was in if his biggest investor chose to sell out.
Upstairs in her room, regretfully admiring the first brand new hat she’d had since childhood, Phoebe wondered if she should start packing.
It had been a hasty impulse to drag Dahlia into that shop. It had been providence that the owner needed new talent. Phoebe didn’t think Mr. Blair would look at matters quite that way. He’d appeared ready to rain down thunderbolts.
But she’d been right to help Dahlia, she was convinced. The girl had simply needed an understanding ear to give her the confidence to do what she’d wanted to do anyway.
So Phoebe would have to pack her bags and return to her aunts’ house in disgrace. She hated to fail at an assigned task. Knowing she’d done the right thing was cold comfort, especially if the children came to any harm because she was not there to help—which reminded her of Letitia’s journal.
Should she tell Mr. Blair of it before she left? If the twins really did speak to the ghost of their mother and Letitia didn’t wish it read. . . Awkward. Very awkward. She peeked inside the book, at the tiny lettering and foreign words. Perhaps she should start at the back.
Some time later, she’d translated enough to know she couldn’t abandon the children. Letitia had received warnings from the ladies in the village—nothing specific enough for Phoebe to act on but enough to be concerned. She’d have to keep translating to see if she found anything more concrete, but she hadn’t seen any names. What if Letitia’s ghost could pass on names? Was that possible?
With a sigh, she donned her coat and set out for the attic. Piney had taken a liking to Mr. Blair’s wooden box. Phoebe had carried up a few pine boughs from the park and the marten was happily gnawing on them and carrying them into his new abode on the roof.
It was the wrong season for Raven to nest, but he needed somewhere warm for his old bones. She’d piled up some sticks and old bits of wool near the chimney in hopes he might call it home.
She’d have to move her pets again if Mr. Blair ordered her to leave. She needed to tell him about the journal. If she simply told him without giving him the journal, would he believe a ghost might pass on names of killers? He’d need proof. The children had trusted her—a dilemma.
> She leaned against the sloped slate roof near the front parapet and admired the gaslights sprawling into the valley toward the gardens. The castle promontory was far in the distance, along with her home in its shadows. Her home was gone, she reminded herself.
“The stars are out,” Mr. Blair said from the attic door. “Winter will be here before we know it.”
“Just tell me if I must leave without a reference. My aunts will be very disappointed, but I am not ashamed of helping someone who needed it.”
He leaned against the slate with her, blocking some of the wind with his bulk. “Was Miss Higginbotham in any danger from her uncle?”
That startled her. She turned to stare, but he was too uncomfortably close. She returned to gazing at the lights and stars. “She was in an awkward position, that’s all. Some women really do not wish to marry. I know that’s difficult for a man to understand.”
“It’s difficult to understand why a woman with no means of supporting herself would give up the opportunity for a sound roof over her head and a man to look after her, granted. I will try not to take it personally,” he said with what almost sounded like amusement.
“Good, because her decision was not meant to be about you.” Phoebe shoved her hands in her coat pockets.
“I can understand why a sheltered child like Miss Higginbotham wouldn’t be interested in a family that already includes three eccentric children. They would be enough to scare off the most intrepid of women. They have scared off an assortment of better-prepared women.”
She turned and glared at him. “There is no reason to be afraid of children. Now tell me what happens when Mr. Dalrymple learns his niece has run off because of me.”
“If Miss Higginbotham has any brains at all in her pretty head, she won’t tell him about you. What she chooses to do is a family affair, and none of our concern.”
“Your concern must be for the children, I understand. And I will leave for university as soon as I am able. You must find a wife who loves children and will accept a ready-made family. That will not be easy.”
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