Frost Fair

by Edith Layton

  “Flea!” Maggie exclaimed. “Why are you here at this hour? Aren’t you supposed to be at work? Won’t Auntie Jane be angry with you?”

  “That one!” Mrs. Gudge said on a sniff, as Mrs. Gow added something Maggie pretended not to hear.

  “She said I should go,” Flea said sadly, his large, handsome face set in lines of deepest sorrow.

  “Oh no,” Maggie gasped, “never say she dismissed you? Because you brought me to talk with her? Because she thinks I brought the runner?”

  Flea looked confused. He hung his head.

  “Flea, do you still work for Auntie?” Maggie asked.

  He nodded, relieved, clearly happy to be able to understand enough to answer. “I still work for Auntie. She said I must get rid of Dog.” He looked down at the puppy sorrowfully, “She says the girls spend too much time with her. She says the neighbors pay too much attention to her too, and so too much attention to her house.” His forehead wrinkled as he struggled to remember what he’d obviously tried to commit to heart. He nodded and went on, “She says it gives the gentlemen the wrong idea too. They should be thinking of the girls and nothing else, she says. So I’m taking her to you, Missus.”

  It was the longest speech Maggie had ever heard from him. He looked at her with hope. “And it’s surely meant as a punishment for you, for bringing me,” Maggie said angrily. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Flea.”

  “She’s a good dog,” he said anxiously.

  “Well, I’m sure she is,” Maggie said. “We can use one too, what with all the people suddenly prowling around the district bent on harm.” That reminded her. “Jack!” she called. Jack popped his head in the door. “You go with Flea here,” she told him. “Have him tell you what the dog needs. We’re keeping her. She can stay in the hall or the kitchen, we’ll settle that later. The girls will love her, little Davie too. Don’t worry, Flea, we’ll take good care of her and you can visit whenever you want.”

  “Thank you, Missus,” Flea said, but he didn’t look that much happier when he walked out of the sitting room with Jack.

  Will scowled. “Do you think it’s a good idea to invite that great lumpkin to run tame in your house?”

  “I trust him more than most people I know,” Maggie said defiantly. “He’s got a good heart, even if he thinks a bit slow.”

  “A bit slow?” Mrs. Gow chuckled. “I’ve met cockles think faster. But ’e’s a good ’un, like she says.”

  “But a bitch?” Mrs. Gudge asked. “You’ll be up to your knees in more puppies soon as you can spit.”

  “Not if she ’as Old Abernathy brew up a concoction for ’er too,” Mrs. Gow laughed.

  “She’s got paws on her,” Will warned. “Don’t be surprised to find you’ve got yourself a horse in dog’s clothing. Well, we’d best be going,” he said, looking over at the viscount. “My lord? Lord Maldon? I believe he’s dropped off. What was in that tea?”

  “No,” Lucian said dreamily, passing a hand over his eyes, “only resting my eyes. Time to go, yes.”

  “Will he be all right by himself?” Will asked Maggie.

  Lucian chuckled. “I am never by myself, Mr. Corby. I pay too much money to insure my comfort for that. No need to worry, I’m just a bit drowsy. I heard everything. So. Everyone’s going to a Frost Fair?”

  Mrs. Gudge and Mrs. Gow had too much respect for the nobility to laugh outright. But Will did. Maggie shot him a quelling glance. “Indeed, we probably shall. Should you like to come with us?” she asked Lucian.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I just may.”

  “If it’s there, I’ll be there,” Will said, though no one had asked, and maybe just because no one had. “Because if everyone else is there it’s my job to be too. We don’t want to find the viscount smiling up at us from under the ice, do we?”

  Maggie took this very seriously. “If we go, I’ll ask Flea to come. He’d make sure everyone’s safe.”

  “If he isn’t the one they should be looking out for,” Will said, rising to his feet before Maggie could argue. “Thank you for the tea, Mrs. P. I’ll get his lordship home.”

  “Here,” she said, taking a small packet from her skirt and handing it to Lucian. “Have your servants brew half this in a pot of tea if you feel poorly this evening. No more than that, though, for you’re sensitive to something in it, I think.”

  “Best give it to me, and I’ll give it to them,” Will said, taking the herbs. “His lordship might use it as snuff, the way he’s reacting to it.”

  “I’m a two bottle a day man. But one cup of your tea has quite finished me,” Lucian agreed, swimming up from the muzzy depths of content. “Thank you, Mrs. Pushkin. We shall meet again, under happier circumstances, I hope.”

  But Maggie was happy enough with her day. She’d been out of the shop, had tea with a lady, gone riding in an elegant carriage twice in the company of two dashing men, and had helped one of them too. It was more excitement than she usually had in a year. And no one had to turn up dead to provide it.

  The two men bowed, and left. The cold air woke Lucian somewhat. He was sorry for it. Getting to his house took longer than usual because the falling snow made it heavy going for the horses. His leg started aching, and the ride home reminded him of his ribs. Will saw him to his door, and gave the packet to his butler. “If your master leaves the house this night, I won’t bet on his being able to come back,” Will warned the man after he gave him instructions for the tea. “He’s a bit muddled from the medication.”

  “So glad you said ‘from the medication,’” Lucian laughed. “But never fear. It would take several armies to get me out tonight.”

  “I’ll come round in the morning,” Will said. “No need to play the hero and seek me out. Tell him I said that, later,” he told the butler, setting Lucian laughing again.

  *

  Lucian sat in his dressing gown in front of the fireplace in his study that evening. His foot was propped on a pillow, and he held a book in his hand. But he couldn’t read. Even half a packet of the fishwife’s tea made the words on the pages take flight. They seemed to swim away to the margins of each page when he tried to make sense of them. He was drowsy and yet not enough to actually sleep. But again, he felt wonderfully well.

  “My lord?” his butler asked softly.

  “Yes? Speak up. I can hear, even if I can’t seem to see the words in this book.”

  “Your brother is here, but I told him you were feeling poorly.”

  “If you’re ill, Maldon,” Arthur’s voice said, “I’ll come round another time, though I wanted to see you,”

  Lucian cracked open one eye. “I’m not ill, Arthur, I’m dying. No, no, I jest. Come in. I can’t read, but I can talk. Bring my brother some wine—or some of this marvelous tea. I’ve been sipping it all evening. Nothing hurts now, Arthur. Nothing.”

  “Nothing to drink, thank you,” Arthur said, pulling up a chair as the butler left them. “You look terrible…but happy,” he said curiously, studying his brother’s pale, but serene face.

  “Exactly,” Lucian said, drifting.

  “I wanted to know if you’ve discovered anything,” Arthur said from farther away than Lucian thought he’d been. “I wondered what you two—you and Spanish Will—have come up with so far.”

  “We two are a multitude,” Lucian said, and hearing himself, sat up straighter. He tried to focus on his brother. Arthur looked younger and paler tonight. But Lucian allowed that might be because he was incapable of seeing sharp edges now. “We think Uncle might have gone to a low brothel the night he died,” he said quickly, trapping the words on his mind and forcing them out on his tongue before they melted away. “At least, so the rumor runs.”

  “Uncle at a low brothel!” Arthur gasped, astonished. “Any kind of brothel would be shocking, but a low one? Uncle?”

  “Yes, in Spitalfields, not far from where he was found. Will and I spent the day chatting with bawds. That sort of thing could put a man off women for a lifetime…well, yes, exactly.�
�� He chuckled, vastly amused at his inadvertent joke.

  Arthur watched him closely. Lucian sat up straighter, vaguely embarrassed, for a brief moment.

  “What else did you do today?” Arthur asked.

  “Louisa invited me to tea. Me, and a mermaid.”

  “I wish you’d stop joking. Or are you joking?” Arthur asked.

  “It’s a private jest,” Lucian said with a smile.

  “I’ve come to give you a warning,” Arthur said, dropping his voice, even though the butler had left the room.

  “Mama wants me to wear my boots, because it’s going to snow,” Lucian guessed, and frowned, because his words didn’t even make sense to himself. He opened both eyes, forcing the fog from his brain. “The medicine I took for my aches makes me nonsensical. But I am sensible. Come, what’s toward?”

  “I think I’ve been followed today, even here, even though I came in the company of that footman Mama sent,” Arthur said anxiously. “I can’t be sure, because when I turn around there’s no one there. I told Mama’s butler someone seemed to be lurking in the park across the street from her house when I visited her today. He saw a shadow too, but whoever it was fled before the servants could catch him. But now you say Uncle died in a brothel? Or is that your medication talking? Tell me, I must know.”

  ‘No, not died’ there,” Lucian said peevishly, “was there that night, I said. Someone said.”

  “Where, exactly?”

  “We don’t know. Some bawd’s house that start’s with J or G.”

  “Who said?” Arthur persisted.

  “Everyone.”

  “You know no more?”

  “I will know more,” Lucian murmured, “I will. Will and I will.”

  “But then why should we be in danger?” Arthur asked thoughtfully. Lucian began to doze in the long silence that followed. When Arthur exclaimed suddenly, it woke him. He frowned at his brother’s obvious excitement.

  “A woman of the slums!” Arthur gasped. “That’s it! Don’t you see? Uncle may have had a secret lover! Perhaps a hidden child by her. A bastard who wanted Uncle’s money and seeks revenge. Or is she herself seeking vengeance? It fits. It makes sense, terrible sense.” He sounded as gleeful as horrified by his conclusions. He leapt to his feet. “We must discuss this with the runner. Can you hear me?”

  “I hear, and obey,” Lucian said.

  “No use talking to you now. I’m going. I’ll see Spanish Will in the morning. Lucian, can you hear me?”

  Lucian did, but barely, because the voice he heard kept fading away. He drowsed. His brother stood, prepared to leave.

  Lucian’s head lay back on his chair, eyes closed. Arthur paused, gazing at him curiously. He’d never seen that clever face so unguarded, bereft of personality, so utterly still. But not vulnerable, Maldon could never be that. Pallid, his long high-bridged nose tilted upward, Arthur thought his brother looked almost like an effigy of himself, like one of their ancestors on a crypt in the family fault. He was so accomplished, so distant, cool and complete, he was as far from his younger brother’s reality as any one of those ancestors were. But now Arthur felt a queer and unfamiliar pang of emotion.

  “You’re my brother,” Arthur finally said, low. Lucian heard the words from a distance, and yet felt his brother was near, his breath was warm on his ear. “It’s my duty to warn you,” Arthur said. “I must. If I can do nothing else, at least I can do that. Only listen. Be warned, beware. Trust no one. No one.”

  After a time, Lucian opened his eyes to find he was alone. “Beware,” he murmured. The thought penetrated his misty mind. But only until he fell asleep a moment later.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It wasn’t what Maggie had expected. It was beyond anything she could have imagined. She’d made great concessions in order to go to the Frost Fair, closing her shop for the entire day. It was the first time she’d done such a rash thing since her husband’s funeral. But the Fair had finally come to be, and had been up and running for two days now. Everyone was talking about it, the children were on fire to see it. She finally decided to sacrifice an entire day’s earnings so they all could go.

  It was worth every penny she lost. This was a once in a lifetime event, and she was only glad it had happened in her lifetime. She’d never experienced anything like the awe she felt as she gazed down at it, spread out on the breast of the frozen Thames before her.

  There was a whole new city risen before her eyes. A city built on the frozen surface of the river itself, ephemeral as ice, as transient as the winter itself was. The mighty Thames was rigid, tamed and turned to solid land. It was almost frightening, the way such powerful inexplicable forces of nature always were. It was certainly ridiculous because of what people had done with it. Maggie was astonished and delighted. Her girls stood open mouthed in shock. Even the viscount Maldon said nothing for a moment.

  The ice extended from the hastily constructed boardwalk covering the river stair where they stood, and stretched far as the eye could see. London Bridge rose high on her left, Blackfriar’s loomed far to the right. But there was no need for either bridge today. Because there was no river. Only a vast tundra, populated by celebrants. In the distance, crowds of people on London Bridge gazed down on the festival too. Because it looked as though all the rest of the population of London was cavorting on the vast plateau.

  There were tents, dozens of them in ragged lines. Smoke from fragrant cookfires rose from them. Bonfires burned right on the surface of the ice. It was as if nomads had crossed over from the northlands, as in days of old, and set up camp. There were actually streets created between the tents, clearly marked by hastily erected signs. Every vendor had a sign to show his wares, and brightly painted pictures of pigs and boots, hats and sheep and every kind of merchandise decorated the stalls. Music floated on the air, as did the smells from all those fires, filling the breeze with the scent of pork and chestnuts, pies and spices.

  Pennants and flags streamed in that light mild breeze—and it was mild. The biting cold was gone. As though to complement the madness of the enterprise, for the first time in weeks it was almost balmy, with a taste of spring in the air. It made the scene all the more amazing.

  People surged through the temporary streets. They hooted from merry-go-rounds and roundabouts as they spun in circles. Here and there, tripod tentpoles held up wooden gondolas shaped liked half moons, with tiers of seats on their inner walls, for riders. They were filled with merry makers waiting for donkeys to pull the ride this way, so they could go that way, rocking like pendulums and screaming with glee. There were donkeys to ride too, and fortune tellers, makeshift ale halls and high wooden platforms where dancers were reeling. And that was only what Maggie could see at a glance.

  “I thought the river would be like a looking glass,” she marveled. “They said it was frozen so I thought it would be like a pond, all smooth and clear. But it’s white and heaped up. There are hillocks and valleys. It looks more like a mountaintop than the top of the Thames.”

  “Ice from upstream has been breaking off and floating down, they say,” Lucian said. “I read it in the paper. It formed floes, you see, and they’ve collided with others, heaved up and frozen fast. The snow kept falling over them. It looks like the surface of the moon—or what I always thought it might be.”

  “It looks like we have to pay before we can even set foot on it,” Will grumbled. “What this?” he asked the hefty bargeman standing on the ice below the walk before them, his hand out.

  “It costs a coin to cross the water,” the fellow said. “Ice toll, is what we calls it, and it’s only fair. All them that crosses the Thames must pay the waterman, winter or summer, whether they use his barge or no. Aw, don’t hang back. And no need to look like thunder. All are paying it, up and down the river. What? Would y’have our kiddies starve just ’cause Mother Nature played us a trick? Don’t be a skint. And look,” he added jovially, pointing to a thin rivulet of water sluggishly flowing in the narrow trench he’d dug
, “you’ll be a’crossing the waters anyways, see?”

  It was clever, even if it was extortion. Lucian put his hand in his pocket. Before he could give the man a coin, another called out. “Ho! Is that Maggie I see? So it is! Let her pass, Samuel. Beautiful women pay nothing, or at least that one doesn’t. I’ll pay the reckoning for her.”

  “As if I’d ask it of you,” the bargeman said, grinning.

  “Tom?” Maggie asked, peering at the tall man who hurried up to her. “What are you doing here? Working as a riverman now?”

  “No,” he said, his white teeth gleaming in a smile as he offered his hand to help her down the stair and over the trickle of ice water, “there aren’t enough bargemen to go ’round, not half enough to watch every stair and bank. So they have coal heavers working the game too. Well, all must pay, you see—except for you, of course,” he added, looking into her eyes as he helped her onto the ice. “But some don’t want to. So they need men with broad shoulders to collect the fare, and that goes with strong backs.”

  He flexed his shoulders and gave her another bright grin. Then lowered his head and whispered, “I see you brought the girls and little Davie, and that lumpkin, Flea. But, Luv,” he said, glancing back at Spanish Will, “a redbreast too? Or is it that you can’t be rid of him? Give me the word, and I’ll make him vanish.”

  “I don’t need your help, Tom,” Maggie said, snatching her hand out of his.

  “Too good for old friends now? Now you’ve got a ‘gentleman’ to escort you?” Tom hissed, his eyes glinting blue as the heart of a flame as he watched Lucian paying the bargeman for Maggie’s servants’ passage. “Not just a gent, but a nobleman. Don’t look so surprised, all know who he is. But you’ll catch cold at that, Maggie, my girl. What are you thinking? A viscount and a fishmonger? Don’t make me laugh. He’s only after what his uncle got before they got him, Luv.”