Love & Folly

by Sheila Simonson

  Jean wore her old pelisse and bonnet, also grey, with black gloves and a veil rigged from a black mantilla the same maid, their sworn ally when Lisette proved deaf to hints, had found in a trunk in the box room. Jean had tucked her hair up in the bonnet, which was rather hot. She was supposed to be a widow. She clutched Owen's manuscript in her black-gloved fist.

  The driver's small dark eyes appraised both girls shrewdly. He wore a battered hat and a dusty cape with a wilted posy in the lapel. Jean did not like his manner. She was glad the veil spared her direct scrutiny.

  "'Ow's that? Greek Street?"

  "Number 37," Maggie said very clearly. "It is down from Soho Square."

  "I know where it is, missy. Wot I don't know is why two gentry morts wants to be drove there at this hour of the morning."

  "My mistress has business to transact, my good man."

  The jarvey leered. "Business, eh?"

  Jean felt hot blood flood her face. "Not this one," she hissed in an undertone.

  Maggie bit her lip.

  The jarvey snickered.

  "Never mind," Maggie said with a fair assumption of hauteur. "Madam prefers a cleaner carriage. You may drive on."

  "Hoity-toity." The man twisted the reins. "'Business,' she says," He drove on, snickering.

  They were attracting attention. Perhaps Bond Street had not been a good idea. Loungers from one of the coffeehouses made raucous remarks as Jean and Maggie walked past. It was early, before ten, so the raised walkway was not yet thronged, but wagons and carts and gentlemen on horseback returning from their morning rides in Rotten Row kicked up a dust in the wide street. The comments of passersby made Jean blush beneath the veil. She wondered at Maggie's composure.

  Just as Jean was about to suggest that they give it up, Maggie waved energetically and a smarter carriage drew up beside them. The elderly driver, fine as fivepence in a many-caped benjamin, beamed down at them.

  "My mistress wishes to be conveyed to Greek Street, sir." Maggie sounded breathless. "Number 37, and she will pay twice your usual fare if we may have the carriage to ourselves."

  "Done," the man said cheerfully. "Fine day for larking about, miss."

  Maggie-the-maid helped Jean up into the vehicle. It was large, made to accommodate six or seven people, and, though the leather seats were cracked with age, the driver had laid fresh straw on the floor. The brass shone with polishing.

  Jean made room for her sister and settled back. As the carriage creaked into motion her apprehension began to give way to excitement. "You were splendid," she whispered.

  Maggie kept her face correctly somber. "Madam has only to command."

  Jean stifled a giggle. A lark. It was going to be a lark, after all. Why had she not told Maggie of her mission sooner? Since she had, everything had fallen into place. The costumes, the timing--they were supposedly sleeping late after a long evening at one of Anne's musicales--even the mistress-servant roles they were playing, all had been Maggie's invention.

  Jean was used to leading. How comfortable to let her practical twin deal with details. As the jarvey negotiated a corner and made his skillful way along Piccadilly, Jean considered how often in the past she had relied on Maggie to fill in the details of her own wild-eyed ideas. Maggie seldom initiated their adventures but she always came through.

  They passed Hatchard's. The traffic was much heavier in Piccadilly than it had been in Bond Street, and less genteel. Pushcarts and laden waggons jostled hackneys and tilburies, an accommodation coach, dozens of carriages and gigs, and even a shiny perch phaeton driven by a gentleman whose tiger stared at them curiously. Ahead, to the east, the crowds afoot grew thicker. The din of vendors shouting their wares and drivers bellowing at each other took on a deeper menace as the carriage approached Mr. Nash's new circus, which was still under construction.

  "Bloody Mob out for the queen," the drive volunteered in a half shout.

  Jean nodded. They had encountered a similar demonstration near Great Portland Street as they had first entered London in Elizabeth's carriage. Jean kept her eyes on the empty seat facing her. She hoped Maggie was following suit. It wouldn't do to respond to the remarks that were directed at them. As they drove on they were hailed by half a dozen male voices. Same of the comments were rude, others incomprehensible.

  The driver was silent now, his attention given to the tricky business of threading their way through the crowd that poured among the vehicles like a liquid. Jean shrank against the seat and felt Maggie shrink beside her. The noise pressed on her ears like the roar of the sea.

  "I don't like this," she muttered.

  "What? I can't hear you. Madam." Maggie added in a half shriek.

  Jean shook her head. "Never mind."

  Then, blessedly, the roar abated and they found themselves in a narrower. quieter street. There were few pedestrians and, indeed, no raised walkway. The jarvey picked up the pace. He was a skillful whip. Twice Jean thought they must tangle wheels with passing carts hut he pulled them by with inches to spare.

  "It cannot be a genteel neighbourhood." Maggie craned round. A heavily rouged woman in rumpled finery blinked at them from a doorway.

  Jean swallowed. "No. But Owen told me that Lawrence--the painter. you know--lived in Greek Street once, and, er, other famous artists."

  "What if Mr. Carrington is not at home?"

  "Then I shall leave the poem with his servants."

  "What if he has no servants?"

  Jean had not thought of that unlikelihood. "There's bound to be someone."

  "What a lot of soot there is on that church. It must be very old. Look how the rain has washed it clean in patches."

  Jean looked. "It can't be very old. London burned, after all. Perhaps it's one of Wren's churches." Miss Bluestone, their governess, though not herself artistic, had tried to teach her charges the principles of architecture. Jean decided London was really very dirty, principles or no principles.

  The way was narrower now, cramped with a traffic of pushcarts, waggons, and shrill street vendors. The hackney crept on. Maggie gawked. Jean kept her eyes straight ahead.

  "Greek Street," the jarvey announced, breathless from negotiating a tricky corner. "Wot was the number, missy?"

  "Thirty-seven," Maggie said firmly. It was not a long street. According to the map in the book room, it terminated in Soho Square on the north and Compton Street on the south. Jean thought busy Crown Street must be only one street over. That would explain the racket. Although Greek Street was relatively deserted, she could hear a great deal of noise--chanting and shouting as well as the ordinary hubbub of a busy thoroughfare at mid-morning.

  "'Ere you are, ladies." The jarvey drew up in front of a soot-stained house. It was tall and narrow and distinctly seedy. The paint peeled from dirty window sill, but someone had planted pinks in a first-floor window box. The pinks were reassuring.

  "It's split into rooms and let out," the driver said as he helped them down. "Most of the 'ouses is these days."

  Jean's heart sank. She had been thinking that Mr. Carrington was sole tenant. He was Owen's friend, probably young, probably unmarried. Of course he would let rooms.

  She left Maggie to deal with the fare and climbed the steep front steps slowly. The paint was also peeling from the door. Resolute, Jean banged the knocker.

  "He wouldn't wait!" Maggie wailed from her station on the walkway. "He said the Mob were out and he didn't want to risk it."

  Jean whirled in time to see the hackney pull away.

  Maggie's eyes were wide as saucers. She tucked her reticule beneath her cloak, which must have been as warm as Jean's pelisse, and climbed to the step below the landing Jean stood on. Indignation had left her a little breathless.

  Both girls watched the jarvey drive off. Jean suppressed an urge to call him back, to plead with him. No one was going to answer the door. They would be stranded.

  She knocked again, louder.

  "He's not home," Maggie said flatly.

  "Perha
ps not, but somebody will be." As Jean raised the knocker again, the door opened. She let the grimy brass fall with a clatter.

  "Who is it?" A middle-aged woman in a mobcap peered at them through the crack.

  "I should like to speak to Mr. Carrington."

  "Wot? Speak up. I don't 'ave all morning."

  Jean repeated her request.

  "And who may you be?" The door opened wider but the woman's stout figure blocked their entry.

  "You may tell your master that I am a friend of Mr. Davies. I have a message for him."

  "Tell my wot? Look 'ere, Miss 'Igh-and-mighty, I'm the landlady, see. I ain't nobody's blooming servant."

  Jean cleared her throat. "Then I beg your pardon, ma'am. May I speak to Mr. Carrington?"

  "'E ain't in. Off with 'is Radical friends kicking up a ruction whilst honest folks work." She jerked her head in the direction of the noise, which resolved into an incomprehensible slogan followed by loud cheering.

  "Then I wish to leave this for him." Jean was still clutching the slim packet of foolscap in her gloved hands. With the sinking sensation that she was making a mistake, she thrust the manuscript at the woman, who was perhaps too startled to refuse it. Jean took off her gloves and fumbled in her reticule for a coin. She came up with a half crown. Far too much, but she wasn't about to haggle. "Here. This is yours if you promise faithfully to deliver that letter into Mr. Carrington's hands, and his alone."

  The woman eyed the coin.

  "If you please," Jean said desperately. "You should have something for your pains."

  "Well..."

  "Please, it's very important."

  The woman took the coin in one red hand. "Well, miss, if you say it's important. I don't like it, mind, and if you'd asked to see 'is rooms, I wouldn't oblige, not for nothing. Young women calling on my gentlemen in their rooms is wot I will not 'ave. I run a respectable establishment. "

  "I'm sure you do," Jean said hastily, "and I'm sure you'll let no one but Mr. Carrington see the message. Thank you very much."

  "You're welcome, miss." She was closing the door.

  "Wait!"

  "Wot is it?"

  "My si-- ...er, maid and I will be needing a hackney. Where are we likely to find one?"

  "The Square, or Compton Street, I dessay." The lines of suspicion eased about the woman's mouth. "See 'ere, love, that's a wild lot out in Crown Street now. You look lively or you'll find yourself in the suds. 'Ire a jarvey, quick-like, and tell him to take you 'ome through the back streets."

  Jean swallowed hard. "Thank you. That's good advice."

  "Well then, good morning to you."

  "Good morning."

  The door closed. There was a peephole. Jean could feel the woman's eyes staring at her. "Let's go."

  Maggie nodded. They regained the pavement, which was uneven and unswept. "North?"

  "No, Compton Street is closer." Jean had heard unpleasant references to Soho Square. She tucked her reticule into the pocket of her pelisse. It wouldn't do to lose it to a cutpurse. "How much do you have left?"

  "A few shillings. We did pay twice the usual fare for two."

  Jean tried to calculate her own reserves.

  "Make way!" An impatient woman in a cap and apron jostled them.

  "We're blocking the path," Jean muttered. Irresolute, she began to move down the slippery cobbles in the general direction of the river. The noise of the crowd swelled. Maggie stayed at her elbow.

  "I wish the driver had waited for us."

  "Yes."

  "Shall we find another hackney with the Mob out?"

  "I hope so."

  "Should we not walk the other way?"

  "What...back towards Piccadilly?"

  "Ow!"

  "What is it?"

  "Someone pinched me!" Maggie stopped and glowered round.

  "Keep moving!" Jean ordered, grim.

  They had reached what must have been Compton Street. Suddenly the crowd was thicker, and, she saw with horror, composed chiefly of men, men in mechanics' or shopkeepers' dress among what seemed like hundreds of beggars, old soldiers, and, surely, cutpurses. The girls were being pulled along, as anonymous as leaves in a flowing gutter, in the direction of Crown Street.

  Other than themselves, there were no women in the press of people, not even vendors. The women had sought safety. Strangely, though, Jean heard no rude allegations. It was as if she and Maggie no longer had an identity. They had become part of the crowd, the crowd had become one enormous man, and that man was mad.

  As the men about her surged forward, Jean felt her feet slip. It was like being caught in an undertow. Desperate, she clutched at an arm and righted herself. The arm pulled away. She stumbled on. For a moment she thought she had lost Maggie.

  "Take my hand," Maggie shrieked, behind her.

  Jean reached back blindly and her wrist was gripped. She felt as if she had been saved from drowning. Her feet in their dainty kid slippers ached from being stepped on. The stench of sweating bodies made her head swim. She was being jostled--shoved, bumped, pushed--from every direction at once, though the Mob was flowing north now, up Crown Street toward St. Giles's. Only Maggie's fierce grip kept Jean upright.

  "We must make for the shops!" she shouted, but she did not think Maggie could hear her above the dreadful roar of the crowd. Glass shattered in the street and a cheer went up. They were shoved against a stalled cart, almost under the wheels. As the men surged forward again, Jean yanked her sister to the tail of the cart where there was a spot of stillness. They were trapped in the middle of the sea of shouting men.

  Cowering against the tailboard and still clinging to Maggie's hand, Jean tried to collect her wits and take stock. Her veil was gone, ripped from her bonnet in the crush. Maggie's cap hung awry and a tendril of red hair clung to her smirched cheek. Jean's twin was wide-eyed, red-faced, and panting from exertion. There was no point in trying to speak above the thunder of the crowd.

  Then, horribly, their sanctuary began to move. Jean clung to the tailboard. If only they could climb up on the cart. It moved very slightly. Maggie apparently had the same thought for she jerked her head upward as if to say, shall I give you a boost? Jean shook her head. If she knew one thing it was that she did not mean to loosen her grip on Maggie's hand.

  The cart inched forward and they inched with it. All about them the crowd of men shoved and hallooed and shouted. Once a clerklike fellow in rusty black stumbled against them, but he regained his feet and lurched off, apparently without noticing their presence.

  All at once the press began to thin. Jean could see no reason why.

  "Isn't there a bookshop along here somewhere?" Maggie shrieked. They had been pulled north on Crown Street into a region of fusty bookstalls and secondhand shops.

  "I think so. Let's run for it." Jean peered round the edge of the cart It was moving faster now, its load of corn sacks jouncing, and she had to trot to keep close behind it. "You take the lead," she shouted. "The shop's over there." She could see the sign.

  The street was by no means deserted. Stragglers, shopkeepers, and bystanders clogged the far footpath and adventurous waggoners had already begun to push north again as well, but at least the dreadful press of people had thinned. One could see daylight. One could hear.

  Jean saw her sister take a deep breath. "Now!" They ran, still linked hand in hand, for the shop and sanctuary. Maggie's skirts were wider than Jean's and she wore stouter shoes. She leapt and dodged and bounded like a deer.

  They had almost gained the safety of the footpath when Jean saw that the Mob, in its mindless seeking, had turned round and was heading toward them. Maggie stopped, poised on her toes, staring, then she leapt forward in a last bid for the haven of the bookshop.

  Jean had pulled her skirts to her calves. She leapt, too, and would have succeeded if it had not been for her foolish slippers and the treacherous cobbles. She stumbled, cracking her right knee on the stones. Maggie yanked her up and began to run again. Stones were
flying through the air.

  Just as the girls reached the crammed footpath, a brickbat struck Maggie a glancing blow on the head and Jean's twin fell to the street.

  "Help me pull her up!" Jean screamed.

  No one on the walkway moved.

  Another stone, this time a cobble, struck her own arm. Desperate, she tugged at Maggie's still form. "Help me!"

  And suddenly someone did help. A stout woman in a rusty black bonnet knelt beside Jean and a clerk in shirt-sleeves took Maggie's left arm. Dragging the limp form, the three of them gained the footpath and Jean sank to the pavement, cradling her sister's head in her arms.

  "What the devil are you doing here?"

  "What?" Dazed, Jean bent over her sister.

  "Is she hurt?"

  Jean choked on a sob. "I think she's dead."

  A man bent over her and touched Maggie's wrist It was the gentleman who had been staying at the house, Clanross's friend, the satirist. For a moment, such was her confusion, Jean could not remember his name.

  "She's just fainted," he said.

  "Thank God! Colonel Falk--" That was his name, wasn't it?

  "I must find shelter for you at once."

  "What?"

  The crowd was roaring again.

  Colonel Falk had disappeared.

  12

  Johnny had been following Jean and Maggie from Grosvenor Square, but always at a maddening distance. From the moment Lisette, their maid, reported them missing, and the weeping chambermaid confessed her part in rigging them out for their masquerade, Johnny knew the twins were bent on devilment. And he knew it was all Owen Davies's fault.

  Hot, cross, and sick with anxiety, he finally reached Crown Street afoot because the jarvey refused point-blank to enter the thoroughfare in the midst of a riot. Throughout the entire maddening chase, Johnny had alternated between fear and guilt, and a strong desire to throttle both girls, but especially Maggie. Maggie had been his confidante. She ought to have trusted him.

  He reached the edge of the crowd in time to see the girls whirled off in the vortex.