by Abigail Agar
Lady Elizabeth appeared outside the shelter just after dusk, peering in through the windows. The long line of children swept around the corner, towards the ballroom-sized dinner table at which several of them sat, licking their plates clean. Inside, laughter echoed from wall to wall, and their little mouths smiled big smiles. Bess didn’t want to go inside just now, as it would mean probably two hours of hugs and giggles, of catching up with the kids she’d known for years.
No. Tonight, she had a mission: to meet with Peter, and to bring him home. As he didn’t have any family to speak of, and had agreed to be her assistant, he would be coming to live with her for a brief period—at least until he could get on his feet for the first time. Irene had agreed that this was the proper thing to do, to raise a boy of 14 for a year or two until he could afford a life on his own. “I never truly craved being a mother,” Irene had said, sounding oddly thrilled. “But …” She’d trailed off, forming a little crinkle between her eyebrows. “But, do you suppose he likes the same sorts of foods we do? Should I begin cooking differently?” At this, Bess had just chuckled, throwing her arms around her best friend, her companion. “He’ll eat everything, I’m sure.”
Bess spotted Peter through the window. She watched him as he grabbed a roll from the top of the large basket of buttered ones and then churned through the crowd to get to the door. The door swung open almost too quickly, forcing Bess backward. Peter chewed, grinning madly at her, a small bag wrapped around his shoulder.
“You ready?” Bess asked, her cheeks stretching out wide.
They began to amble back through town, where Bess needed to collect a selection of papers at the offices of The Rising Sun which she needed to construct the rest of the speech for Lord Linfield. The rain was dull against their backs. Peter donned a hat, and Bess stretched an umbrella over their heads, chuckling. “Beautiful weather we’re having, eh?” she asked.
“Better beneath this umbrella, and in your home, than out here on the streets,” Peter said, casting a shadowed glance towards the bricks below. “Although I can’t help thinking about the rest of them. The ones I’m leaving behind.”
Bess halted quickly, reaching for Peter’s forearm and gripping it. She gave Peter her most meaningful gaze, shaking her head. “You can’t possibly think that way, my darling,” she told him. “You can’t think that you’re undeserving. Your best bet, darling Peter, is to better this world by bettering yourself. You’ll work for me. You’ll help out at the shelter as much as you can. And eventually, perhaps, you’ll work your way up the ranks of the world so that you can alter the rules that make it currently so evil.”
Peter gaped at her, seemingly unaccustomed to her ferocity. “I will do it, Lady Elizabeth,” he said.
“Good,” Bess said, slowly releasing his arm. “I don’t mean to scare you, darling. But you’re correct in thinking that you have to demand much from yourself. You simply cannot feel guilty. It’s a waste of a feeling, I can assure you.”
Bess and Peter fell into an easy gait after that, both seemingly waiting for the other to speak first. Bess’s heart rattled in her chest. She wondered if she’d put too much on the poor boy already, forcing him to cast his eyes so far into the future.
As they neared The Rising Sun offices, the crowd became thick: people thrusting themselves past Bess and Peter, glaring at who they assumed to be just a street urchin. “Get back to your alleyway, you little mongrel!” one woman spat at Peter, her face curling up with rage.
“Don’t listen to her,” Bess murmured to Peter, grabbing his elbow and yanking him towards the newspaper office. “Honestly, by tomorrow, the sun will be shining. You’ll be well-dressed and well-fed. Didn’t I tell you Irene—you know Irene—has sewn you some new clothing? Goodness, you’ll look so handsome.”
Just outside the doors of The Rising Sun, Bess spotted a once-familiar form, creeping around the edge of the building. Bess took several rapid steps towards him, shuffling so that he spun fast towards her.
“Marvin?” Bess blared. For it was truly the ex-political writer who’d quit several weeks before, when it was clear he was the second-rate political writer (to L.B.) at The Rising Sun. He looked strangely flustered. His hair was ratty, grown out to his shoulders beneath his rounded hat. He looked at her quizzically, and then turned his eyes towards Peter. He gaped.
“Marvin, what on earth are you doing at The Rising Sun?” Bess demanded. “You quit without another word. You left us in a lurch, you know. After all the years we worked together.”
Secretly, of course, Bess hadn’t cared at all that Marvin had quit. The man had been a bumbling fool, ill-equipped with a quill. Certainly, his knowledge of politics had been malformed, perhaps passed down from a father or an uncle or some such thing. The opinions hadn’t come from between his two ears.
“Lady Elizabeth,” Marvin finally said, curling his lips cruelly. “Can’t a man walk through the centre of London without being hounded about why he’s doing such a thing?”
“It’s simply that I haven’t seen your face in weeks,” Bess said, lifting her chin. “Have you come to collect your final pay cheque?”
Marvin reached for his hair, twirling it absentmindedly. “I would have assumed the proper thing would have been to send it to me, rather than keep it. It felt like a sort of game of cat and mouse, forcing me back in here …”
“Come along, Marvin,” Bess said. She slipped towards the door, unlatched it and entered, sensing Peter hot on her heels. As she walked towards her desk, the other writers peered up. Bags beneath their eyes were grey and dark. They blinked first at her, and then at Marvin in the doorway.
“All right, Marvin?” one of them, a writer named Craig asked. They hadn’t been particularly good friends, not before Marvin left. But Craig was always up for a pleasant comment.
Marvin just scowled at him, and then turned his body fully towards Bess. Bess reached her desk and shuffled through several papers, looking for the folder in which she’d stored Marvin’s final pay cheque.
“I don’t suppose any of you are finally going to tell me who this dismal L.B. is,” Marvin huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. “The word around town lately is that the man doesn’t even exist.”
Bess paused, her fingers atop the pay cheque. She turned towards him slowly. Irene exited her office, leaning heavily against the door and watching Marvin with cat-like eyes.
“Marvin. What a pleasure,” she said shortly. “It’s good of you to finally come by.”
Marvin flinched. He didn’t turn to look at Irene and instead kept himself poised towards Bess. Meanwhile, Peter remained in the centre of the room, turning his body this way, then that, watching the interaction with a mix of fear and amusement.
“Bess, you’re in charge of the money. You’re in charge of the pay cheques,” Marvin said, forcing his eyebrows low. “You must know who he is. You must have some idea. And why won’t you tell? What has L.B. given you to keep your mouth shut?”
At this, Irene let out a cackle. Bess shook her head at her, subtly. Marvin seemed to sense the interaction between them and tossed his head back. “Oh, you wretched women,” he said. “You absolutely wretched women. Again, thinking that whatever you do is somehow greater than anything a man could do in your place. My goodness, I can’t imagine what will happen to you on your deathbed. When you look back and realise you’ve given nothing to God’s beautiful earth. No sons. No daughters. Nothing.”
“Marvin, you imbecile,” Irene said, taking a step forward. “If you weren’t such a horrific writer, I wouldn’t have had to find a replacement for you.”
Marvin’s face fell low: his cheeks seeming to cover up his throat.
“That’s right,” Irene said. “Nothing you’ve said is in any way detrimental to us as women, you know. Bess and I. We’re partners in many ways. In fact, I would love to tell you who L.B. is. Right this instance. For I would absolutely love to tell you the person who took over your position. Would love to show you just exactly why.�
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Bess tilted against the front of the chair behind her, making it crack against the floor. She sputtered, with shocks going up and down her spine. Irene didn’t have the right to give her away like this. She didn’t have the say. Irene glanced back towards Bess, assuredly seeing the stricken expression upon Bess’s face. Bess shook her head ever so slightly. This wasn’t the time. This wasn’t the person she could reveal that identity to.
She’d cultivated the persona for a reason.
But Marvin wasn’t finished. With vitriol, he stepped forward, speaking only to Bess, now.
“And don’t think I don’t know where you came from, Lady Elizabeth,” he continued.
Bess felt the coming comments like a wave. She tried to support her back, to appear stronger than she was. She felt Peter looking at her still harder, trying to gauge her.
“Don’t you dare, Marvin,” Irene said, her voice lowering.
“I will very much dare. For you walk about here as if the rest of us don’t know where you came from,” Marvin continued. “You walk about like you don’t know Craig over there—Craig’s father lost over a thousand pounds after he took up with your father and your late fiancé’s silly little game. And Alice, my wife’s friend? Her father attempted to invest in your father’s idea—a false one, might I add—and he ended up committing suicide, of all things. Your father and your fiancé ruined countless lives, Lady Elizabeth, and now you stay on here at The Rising Sun as if none of it ever happened. Do you know how much you disgust me? Lady Elizabeth. As if you should still be deemed a lady after all of that.”
Silence fell across the paper office. Bess felt close to crying—could feel the tears burning just behind her eyes. She swallowed hard and waited, praying herself back into her bedroom at home. She imagined herself cosy beneath the sheets, counting the minutes till sleep. For the first year or two after Conner’s death, she hadn’t been allowed sleep until far past midnight. She’d known the rest of the world to be peaceful around her. But she didn’t dare dream.
She hadn’t felt she deserved it.
“I don’t. I—I don’t,” Bess began, stuttering.
Marvin mimicked her. He snorted, and then spread his hands wide in front of him. “Well, you have quite the way with words, don’t you? I suppose that covers one question. You’re certainly not the mysterious L.B., are you?” He laughed to himself, laughed so hard that his eyes became pink and strange, showing his drunkenness. “For surely the famous L.B. would have something much greater to say.”
The rest of the newspaper staff was completely silent and still. Bess opened her mouth, then closed it again, unsure of what to say or where to turn. She slid her fingers across the pay cheque before her, praying Marvin would leap forward and take it before she really thought of something to say.
For, if tempted, she knew she could become the “L.B.” brimming within her. It was in her nature.
And since the death of her fiancé and the disappearance of her father, she’d kept her lips pressed together tightly. She’d kept a low profile.
But if provoked …
She wasn’t entirely sure what would happen.
“Give him his cheque, Bess,” Irene said, her eyes smouldering. “The contract has been ended for a great deal of time, Marvin. It’s time for you to take your leave for good.”
Bess’s head swirled. She shot the pay cheque out onto her desk. Marvin ambled forward, gripped it and then hobbled towards the door. He took a final look at Bess, sneering. “I always thought you were a little bit stupid, Old Bessie,” he said. “Never thought you had a comeback in you. That was how your father and that Conner walked all over you.”
Within seconds, he’d disappeared out the door. Bess hurried back towards her chair, falling onto it. Immediately, Peter rushed forward, gripping her upper arm and waving towards Irene. “We need to get her some water,” he called.
Irene disappeared into her office for a moment before returning with a goblet of water. She placed the water to Bess’s lips, but Bess immediately reached for it, shaking her head. “No, no,” she sighed, sipping it. “Don’t worry about me. He just. He just …”
“He was a complete imbecile,” Irene cried. “Absolutely, remarkably horrible. I can’t imagine a worse man in the world. I’m sorry I ever hired him.”
“Don’t worry,” Bess said, gazing up at her friend. “Really. Now, he’s gone. He’s gone for good.”
“Bringing up that nonsense about your past, as if it matters at all …” she said, trailing off.
“Please. Just bringing up what he said will only bring pain.” Bess sighed. “It’s truly best to just pretend … pretend he wasn’t here.”
Irene pressed her lips together after that, and then took a step back from Bess’s desk. Peter brought his skeletal hand around her upper arm and helped her up, looking up at her with expectant eyes. She was his ticket to a better life, yet perhaps he sensed that she needed him just as much as he needed her.
“We’ll be heading home, now,” Bess told Irene.
But Irene shook her head. “I can’t stand to be in this office a moment more. I’m coming along with you.” She turned her tight, rail-thin and tall body back towards her crew of writers, scowling. “And if any of you think the way our Marvin does, then I think you should see the door. This isn’t your home. You’re not welcome here.”
And with that, she hobbled out the door, expecting only Bess and Peter to follow along behind her. They did so, exchanging glances. It seemed the evening was off to a volatile start.
Chapter 20
Lord Linfield and Lord Beauchamp’s carriage stumbled to a halt in downtown London, mere minutes after departing the mansion of Nelle, Everett’s lost love. Both Lord Beauchamp and Lord Linfield nearly fell from their seats in the carriage, so quick was the stop. Lord Linfield called up to his carriage boy, wondering what had gone wrong.
“It’s one of the horses, My Lord!” the boy said, flashing back his damp face towards Lord Linfield. It was ruby red with cold. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her. Let me get off and check.”
Lord Linfield and Lord Beauchamp exchanged glances as they felt the boy sidle down to the ground. With a shrug, Lord Linfield said, “Hate to have the boy out there alone in the cold.”
Both men stepped into the bleary cold, marching towards the front to find the carriage boy upon his knees, inspecting the shoe of the horse on the right. She was a regal beast, jet-black, with a single white diamond between her eyes. Lord Linfield’s father had been a frequent user of this horse—one he’d called simply “Blackie.” Perhaps the horse was up there in years, now. Nearing twenty. Lord Linfield couldn’t be sure.
“What seems to be the trouble?” Lord Linfield asked.
“Just a few stones stuck in her foot. The stable boy on schedule before me, he was meant to change her shoe.” The boy trailed off, pressing his fingers into the dark holes of her hoof. “It’ll take me a right minute to get all these out, My Lords. Please, hop back in the carriage. Warm yourselves up.”
Lord Everett shrugged, pointing towards the corner of the road, where a restaurant gleamed beneath streaks of rain. “Why not grab ourselves another pint, Lord Linfield, while we wait? I could do with a bit of stew, as well. We’ll grab your boy something while he works.”
Lord Linfield agreed, rubbing his palms together with the chill. As they walked together, hurrying towards the restaurant, he realised they were perhaps only a block or two from the offices of The Rising Sun. He imagined Lady Elizabeth sitting at her desk, sweeping her quill across the pages, that little wrinkle of concentration forming between her eyes. Did she speak aloud the words she wrote for him to ensure they sounded right in the air? He imagined her whispering to herself: his words upon her tongue. He shivered, not realising how much he missed her until this very moment.
As if part of a dream, he heard his name through the drizzling rain and diverted his eyes towards the sound, hunting through the crowd of people.
“
Lord Linfield!”
Everett heard it, as well, and turned with Lord Linfield. Suddenly, Irene, the woman who owned The Rising Sun paper, emerged from the crowd, waving her hand. She flashed a bright smile at both Everett and Nathaniel, and then reached back through the crowd to grab someone. She then yanked the hand, then arm, then full body of Lady Elizabeth out of the crowd after her. Lady Elizabeth gave Lord Linfield a sheepish grin before turning her head fast towards someone else, a younger boy of perhaps 13 or 14. The boy was skeletal and big-eyed, almost fearful in the midst of such a crowd.