“I think not. I appreciate my friends more now that I know what it is to be separated from them.”
Rose scooted her chair closer to Bess. “I was so terrified for you! Kidnapped and forced to do as those savages made you—I was always afraid to Speak to you, for fear you were being tortured. I do not think I could have borne hearing that.”
Bess thought she might be entitled to greater sympathy, if she were the one being tortured, not Rose, but said, “They were not brutal to me, and they were not savages, not the way you imagine. Some of them were very kind.”
“Nevertheless, when I told Catherine Tweedy where you were, she was as shocked as I was! And she said it was a miracle you survived, and I agreed.”
“You told Catherine?” Bess involuntarily looked around as if Catherine might appear out of the crowd, though she knew she had not been invited. “Rose, I did not—if I had wanted Catherine to know, I would have told her myself.”
Rose looked taken aback. “But surely it was not a secret, Bess? Particularly not from your reticulum. I could not bear your distress alone, I simply had to discuss it with someone. But it’s not as if I was not discreet. I only discussed it with Honoria, and Maria Ellsworth, and Eleanora, and Arabella DeWitt and Lady Helen. Oh, and Catherine, but you know she never gets out, so she would not tell anyone.”
Bess resisted an urge to strangle her young friend. “Rose,” she said patiently, “Catherine may be a shut-in, but she is still a Speaker, and did it not occur to you that she might consider the story a fine one to share with others? Or that perhaps I did not want my experience to be public knowledge?”
Rose’s eyes widened, and tears welled up. “But—was that wrong, Bess? I simply could not bear knowing you were in such danger, and I only Spoke to our friends—”
“Never mind, Rose, I am not angry,” Bess lied, clasping her hand. “It is not a secret, just something I did not wish to have to discuss. But I suppose it hurts nothing to have it known.”
Rose wiped her eyes with her free hand. “I knew you would not mind,” she said with a smile. “You are so brave, and I think it is good for people to remember that women can be as brave as men.”
“That is an excellent point,” Bess said.
Chapter 24
In which Bess accepts a recommendation, and must re-evaluate the past
Bess woke the following day feeling invigorated from the previous night’s entertainment. She brought her watch close to her eyes and discovered it was nearly noon. That was much later than she usually slept. Well, it was not as if she had any important plans. She might induce Edmund to go with her to Hatchard’s or Lindsell’s, and spend the rest of the afternoon reading whatever prize she might acquire there. The idea filled her with excitement she gently mocked herself for. Survivor of a shipwreck and captivity, excited about something so prosaic as a new book! It said something about her priorities, she was certain.
Having dressed with the assistance of her maid, Naughton, she went in search of her brother. Instead she found her mother seated before the fireplace in the drawing room, reading a letter. Her brow was furrowed and her lips thin with irritation. “Whatever has you so upset?” Bess asked.
Mama startled and hid the letter behind her like a guilty child caught with a fistful of illicit sweets. “Nothing of importance,” she said. “We are simply—it is nothing, I assure you.”
“You are never distressed by ‘nothing,’ Mama,” Bess said. She held out her hand for the letter.
“Really, Bess, it is a private correspondence. Do not be impudent.” Mama crushed the letter in her hand, then appeared startled, as if she had forgotten it was still there.
“You frighten me,” Bess said. “What is so dreadful that you cannot share it with me?”
Mama closed her eyes and sighed. Then she extended the letter to Bess. “There is nothing to worry about,” she said. “We need not trouble ourselves over people with low minds.”
Bess flattened the paper as best she could and held it close to her eyes. As she scanned the lines, she said, “This seems perfectly…” and then forgot what else she might have said. She swiftly glanced at the signature, then read the letter again, feeling cold and unhappy and furious all at once. She lowered the letter. “Well.”
“I am certain Lady Neill means well,” Mama said weakly.
“She obviously did not wish to come right out and say I am a ruined woman,” Bess said, wishing she had the pinch-mouthed Lady Neill in front of her at that moment. “And I am by no means as certain as you. ‘Would not wish you to feel uncomfortable’ indeed. She believes I will contaminate her card party with my hoydenish and reprobate manners.”
“No one who matters will believe that,” Mama said.
“That is what I told myself, but now I wonder,” Bess said. “I was alone and unchaperoned among the Incas, Mama. Naturally there are those of low minds who will assume the worst.”
Mama rose abruptly and snatched the letter from Bess’s hand, wadded it into a sharp-edged ball, and threw it into the fire. “I care nothing for such folk, and neither should you,” she said. “If we are uninvited by some, there are twice as many who will treat you with the respect you deserve. Do not look that way, Bess.”
“How do I look?” Bess touched her cheeks as if she might read their lineaments through her fingertips. “I am not—well, yes, I am upset, but it is simply anger at women like Lady Neill, who relish any opportunity to vent their spite. You are correct, her ridiculous assumptions cannot harm me.”
“There,” Mama said, returning to her seat, “that is how you should react. Even if she were representative of the majority of society, eventually some other scandal will replace yours, and everything will be as it was before.”
It was so similar to what her parents had told her months ago, when she first returned home as the grieving supposed betrothed of a dead war hero, Bess momentarily wondered whether she might need to take ship again to escape the rumors. “I wish that day had already come,” she said with a sigh, and left in search of Edmund.
Her irritation had not faded by the time the hackney drew up to the door of Lindsell’s, which Edmund had persuaded her in favor of because it was closer than Hatchard’s. But entering the shop, which smelled deliciously of paper and ink and new leather, did much to calm her nerves. Its high, white ceiling drew in what little light there was on this drab morning and magnified it, illuminating the walls of bookshelves filled to bursting with volumes. Bess breathed in deeply and smiled.
“Ah, there you are looking more like yourself,” Edmund said. “If you are ever in a fugue, one need only dangle a freshly-printed novel in front of you and you will sit up like a pointer on the trail of a pheasant.”
“You sound like John,” Bess said, her attention only half on her brother. “He was no great reader and thought it tremendously funny that I am.”
She half-turned to face Edward and was startled by the grim expression he wore. “Is something wrong?”
“I wish I had not reminded you of John,” he said. “I apologize for rousing painful memories.”
Bess put her hand on Edmund’s coat-sleeve. “It is not painful, not anymore,” she said. “I will never forget John, and when I remember him, they are fond memories. And I prefer people not avoid his name just to spare me. That is worse, pretending he did not exist.” She smiled. “It is a sweet memory that in his last letter he teased me about a novel I had recommended to him, mixing up the names deliberately and pretending he had fallen asleep during the most horrid parts.”
That dispelled Edmund’s gloom. “Very well,” he said, ushering her forward, “you will choose a new horrid novel, and I will tease you about your appalling reading habits.”
“There is nothing wrong with novels, and I am particularly fond of the exciting ones.” Bess released her hold on Edmund’s sleeve. “I will wander, and find you when I am finished. Try not to be terribly bored.”
Lindsell’s was not particularly crowded on that gloomy
day, and Bess made her way through the ranks of bookcases with no difficulty. She brushed her fingers along the smooth spines, occasionally removing a volume and holding it close to her eyes to read the title. She was in the mood for something comforting, something not new and fashionable, something more dramatic than her own experiences. That reminded her of Mr. Quinn suggesting she might write her experiences as a novel, which made her smile. Her experiences were far too strange for fiction—or, depending on the fiction, not strange enough.
She came around a corner and nearly bumped into someone. “Oh! I beg your pardon, sir, I did not see you there.”
“At least this time you avoided contact,” a familiar voice said. “I would otherwise be forced to conclude that you harbor some secret grudge against me.”
“Mr. Addison!” Bess exclaimed. “I did not know you were in London.”
“I arrived only a fortnight ago,” Mr. Addison said. Bess was accustomed to him not meeting her eyes, as if she made him uncomfortable, but this time his regard was direct and unflinching. “And you?”
“It is three days since our arrival.”
“And you are in search of something to read.” Mr. Addison touched one of the books on the nearest shelf. “Not a circulating library?”
“Oh, we do subscribe to Dutton’s, but I prefer owning books to borrowing them. It is so freeing to know one need not rush through a novel. But perhaps you do not read novels.”
“On the contrary,” Mr. Addison said, “I am extremely fond of novels. Have you read The Heroine? It is quire amusing, particularly if you are fond of Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels.”
Bess stared at him. Gone was the stiffness of manner, the air of wishing to be elsewhere. His animation made him even more attractive than usual. “I have not,” she said. “If it is a recent publication…I have had little access to new books in the past four years.”
“While you were with the War Office, yes.” Mr. Addison extended his arm to Bess. “If you are willing to take my recommendation, perhaps we might find a copy.”
Bess took his arm, still feeling slightly stunned. He might as well have been a stranger for all he resembled the Mr. Addison Bess thought she knew. “I wish I had known you were a reader of novels,” she said, “because then we might have had much to talk about at all those dances.”
Mr. Addison smiled. “You mean, I might actually have been cordial?”
“I did not say that, sir.”
“No. You are far too genteel to throw my bad behavior in my face.” Mr. Addison stopped and removed three volumes from a shelf, but did not offer them to Bess. “I admit to feeling terribly uncomfortable in social settings. I am no dancer, and feel myself unequal to pleasing any young lady who expects pretty manners and soft speech.”
“Then why attend at all?”
“Oh…a sense of duty, perhaps, or the feeling that if I attend enough of these gatherings, I will grow easier with them. But that has never happened. In truth, I feel rather ashamed of the man I have become.”
Bess’s heart beat faster. If Mr. Addison felt ashamed of himself…that might mean he was, in fact, Mr. Quinn. “I do not believe you are so terrible,” she said, “and certainly anyone who is your true friend will not believe that.”
Mr. Addison smiled ruefully. “I hope you are correct,” he said. He seemed to recollect himself and extended the books to Bess, but withdrew them before she could take them. “Please allow me to carry these for you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Addison, and thank you for the recommendation.” Bess cast about for something else to say that would make Mr. Addison reveal himself. “I am glad we met here today. I cannot believe you have been my father’s neighbor for so many years and we have only just discovered this shared interest.”
“Well, for much of that time, you were rather young,” Mr. Addison said, “and then you were with the War Office. But now…”
Bess waited for him to continue. Finally, she said, “And now?”
Mr. Addison looked away past her, once more resembling the man she thought she knew. “Now I am interested in your opinion of that book,” he said.
The return of his shyness convinced Bess that was not what he had originally intended to say. She chose not to pursue the truth, not here in public, but instead said, “I will be happy to discuss it with you. We attend the Theatre Royal in a few days; will you be present?”
Mr. Addison’s gaze returned to her face. “For you, yes,” he said in a low voice.
Bess blushed. His words had sounded so intimate, and yet he was a near-stranger…unless he was not. “Then I look forward to it.”
Mr. Addison escorted Bess to the counter, where Edmund waited, talking with a pair of fashionably dressed young ladies in gowns far too light for the weather. He eyed Mr. Addison, but said nothing, merely accepted the three volumes from him and returned a nod when Mr. Addison nodded farewell.
Bess watched Mr. Addison move off among the shelves and waited for Edmund to pay for her book. What an unexpected encounter! Mr. Addison was well-read, he felt ashamed of having been so unsociable—though Bess did not understand why that minor misbehavior should qualify as something that would make him abhorrent to her. Unless he meant that their long association, during which he had been nearly boorish, might dispose her unfavorably toward him. He might very well be Mr. Quinn—or he might not. Oh, it was such a muddle!
“I have never seen Addison so animated,” Edmund said on the way back to the Wimpole Street house. “What do you suppose has got into him?”
“I believe he simply enjoys reading, and enjoys talking to anyone who shares that pleasure.”
“Perhaps,” Edmund said, and let the subject drop. But Bess caught him watching her speculatively now and then, and could not feel her explanation was the correct one.
Chapter 25
In which Bess becomes an honorary explorer
Bess knew almost nothing of gentlemen’s clubs except what little Edmund had told her of Boodle’s, and of course the famous White’s, but she pictured Palladian columns, white stone walls, and multi-paned windows permitting the members to look down on lesser folk wandering the streets.
Mr. Pakenham’s organization, the Euthymenes Club, did not meet that description at all. Located in Pall Mall, it was an unprepossessing dark stone building only two stories high that Bess supposed she had passed any number of times during her visits to London without giving a second glance. An iron fence separated it from the street, with bars widely enough spaced that they seemed a mere token rather than an active deterrent. It did have columns, but only two of them, flanking the door, and the bay window next to the door allowed passersby to observe a small reading room that at the moment was empty. It was not precisely welcoming, but neither did Bess feel intimidated by it.
The small, dark entryway inside the front door smelled of pine and a resinous scent Bess identified from her time in India as frankincense. Edmund held the door for her and accepted her bonnet and pelisse when it appeared there was no one waiting at the spindly-legged table to greet them. “Odd thing, that,” he said. “It’s as if they want just anyone to walk in off the street.”
“Not at all, sir,” said a voice from beyond the arched doorway leading to the reading room. Edmund took a step away from the large book on the table, which he had idly flipped a few pages of. A short, round-cheeked man entered and immediately made for the table. “My apologies,” he said, “I was reading, and did not hear the door. You must be Miss Hanley, and…”
“Mr. Edmund Hanley, Miss Hanley’s brother,” Edmund said, extending his hand. The short man wiped his hand on his trousers before shaking Edmund’s.
“Sorry about that, dust, you know how books get,” he said rapidly. “I’m Ansen Nickell. If you’d both just put your names in the visitor log…?”
Bess, in signing her name, glanced over some of the earlier entries. “Do you permit women members?” she asked, seeing a few female names among the signatures.
“Oh, no, of course n
ot,” Mr. Nickell said, apparently oblivious to the insult implied in of course. “But females are permitted to attend our lectures, accompanied by a member, naturally.”
“Naturally,” Bess said, exchanging a look with Edmund, who shrugged. His club did not allow women members either, though in his case Bess could not imagine a woman who would be interested in gambling, eating and drinking to excess, and exchanging coarse ribaldries about romantic conquests. But surely a club devoted to exploring need not be so exclusive? Still, it was none of her concern, as she had no interest in attempting to join, and perhaps she was wrong, and most women did not care for such things either.
Mr. Nickell pulled a bell rope hanging near the arched doorway, and a bell rang somewhere deeper in the building. “Mr. Siddowes will escort you to the lecture hall,” he said. “Welcome to Euthymenes, Miss Hanley, Mr. Hanley.”
Footsteps sounded, and then a man as tall and thin as Mr. Nickell was short and round ducked through the doorway. He did not seem tall enough to actually need to duck, but she imagined he was simply in the habit of encountering shorter doorways. “Welcome, Miss Hanley,” he said, accepting her proffered hand. He eyed Edmund speculatively.
“Edmund Hanley, Miss Hanley’s brother,” Edmund said.
“Of course,” Mr. Siddowes said. “Won’t you follow me?”
Mr. Siddowes led them through the reading room, which was well-lit by lamps despite the brightness of the day and looked very comfortable, to a wide staircase whose treads were painted white. They clung rather stickily to Bess’s shoes, slightly tacky as if freshly painted, and Bess could not help looking back over her shoulder to see if her feet had peeled away flakes of paint. But the stairwell did not smell of paint, just of the same piney, resinous odors she had detected upon entering. It was an unexpectedly homey smell, and combined with the white stairs made Bess feel as if she were visiting some country cousin rather than an exclusive London club.
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