by Joan Aiken
“Good gracious!” exclaimed Fanny. “How very unfortunate! They do not know, I suppose, that your cousin was obliged to leave England. I wonder how this letter may be sent on to her? Perhaps Thomas may enclose it in one of his own, next time he has occasion to write to Countess van Welcker.”
Fanny herself had not yet achieved her intention of writing to her cousin by marriage; every time she suggested it to Thomas he had replied that it was not necessary, he himself had said everything that was proper, a letter from Fanny would add too much extra weight to the packet of business communications that he was dispatching.
The strange, foreign-looking epistle was placed on the hall table and lay there all day awaiting the return of Thomas and arousing intense speculations in the minds of his daughters. He himself, when he came home, cut short all discussion by immediately opening the cover. He did not read the letter aloud or divulge the purport to his interested family, but since, having perused its short contents, he then flung down the paper and walked upstairs with an exclamation of annoyance, Bet was able to pounce on it and acquaint herself and the others with its contents, which were dated in August of the previous year.
“Dear Cousin Juliana [she read aloud],
I cannot tell you with what surprise and delight I received your kind note delivered by Col. Cameron, and what a happiness it was for my Brother and myself to learn that we have a Cousin in England—and such a generously disposed Cousin, too! Had your letter arrived only a few weeks since, I wd not have thought it likely that we wd be able to avail ourselves of your very Welcome Invitation, but now Circumstances render it urgently necessary that we leave Ziatur, the town where we have been living, with our Friend Miss Musson, and we shall, therefore, be extremely happy to accept your Offer of a Home in England under your Roof. Our journey to England must necessarily be taken by a somewhat roundabout & Circuitous Route (due to reasons which I will not go into here, lest this paper should fall into the Wrong Hands). I cannot, therefore, give any very precise indications of when you may expect us, but I’d guess that it may not be for a number of months after you receive my Letter (which I am entrusting to a Mr. Wharton, an American Dental Practitioner who is bound for Surat and assures me that he will see it safe on to a Ship). Sometime then, in the course of next year, dear Cousin Juliana, my Brother and I will hope for the Delight of making your Acquaintance. In the meantime, pray accept the grateful and Sincere Thanks of.
Your two Cousins,
Scylla and Carloman Paget”
“Well! Upon my word, that is cool!” exclaimed Bet. “They call themselves Paget when I daresay they have no more right to the name than Jem bootboy!”
“Wait, there is a postcriptum,” pointed out Fanny, picking up the paper.
“I fear it will be of no use my putting any Address or Direction to which you might address correspondence, since we are to set out immediately, and are not able to designate any places that we might pass through on our journey.”
Needless to say, this letter provided food for endless speculation, comment, discussion, and wonder among the female occupants of the Hermitage for many days and weeks after its arrival.
“When our cousins come—” “After our cousins have arrived—” was a phrase constantly on the lips of Bet and Martha. They very soon learned not to allude to the subject in the presence of their father, however, for it threw him into such a black mood that his displeasure was likely to be visited on the person who raised it. The thought that two uninvited guests were liable to arrive, that he was powerless to prevent them or to put them off, having no knowledge of their present whereabouts, that they were people he had never met, who had no personal claims on his generosity, and that they might intend to remain under his roof for an indefinite period, put him into a perfect passion of indignation. For already he had fallen into the habit of considering the Hermitage as his house, regarding it as less and less probable that the real owners would ever wish to return from Demerara and claim it.
This impending visitation, therefore, was one of the reasons for his decision to take a trip to London.
“I shall visit Throgmorton,” he said (Throgmorton was the Countess van Welcker’s man of business who had arranged the terms of the contract under which Thomas and his family occupied the house). “I shall visit Throgmorton and discover precisely what my rights and obligations are in the case.”
Fanny wondered why Thomas, usually so frugal, did not merely indite a note to the lawyer, instead of going to the expense of a trip to the capital, necessarily lasting two or three days. However in the course of time she learned that he was obliged, in any case, to go to town; his presence being required by the Admiralty in a matter involving alleged bribery of a press gang official. Usually such cases were tried internally, by courts-martial, but in this instance a wealthy Portsmouth saddler, who had given a press officer fifteen pounds to release his best journeyman, was not unnaturally aggrieved when the officer, having accepted the money, then forgot to release the impressed man. The saddler therefore took the matter before the civil courts. Thomas, who had been the senior officer in the case, had been summoned by the defense to appear and give evidence as to character, greatly to his irritation. However this was somewhat appeased by the fact that his coach fare would be paid to London, besides his expenses at a hotel while he was obliged to remain in the city. Otherwise, Fanny felt certain, he would hardly have considered taking her along as well.
Thomas, in fact, thought it best to travel to London while he might. Buonaparte had recently signed a treaty with Austria and was massing his troops in the north of France—a force known as the “Army of England.” Tales were circulating about England as to the construction of huge French rafts two thousand feet square, propelled by giant windmills, each capable of carrying two divisions of men with ammunition. If the French landed, a journey to London might have to be indefinitely postponed. He resolved to set off without delay.
Captain Paget’s mode of travel was a subject of great disapproval with Mrs. Socket. Thomas, always unwilling to tire his own horses, had at first considered hiring a hack post chaise but, finding that it would be cheaper to go by the accommodation coach, which ran from Petworth every other day, he resolved on that means of transport, since the Admiralty allowance, sufficient for a post chaise, would not cover Fanny’s expenses at the hotel.
“Obliging his poor little wife to ride in that barbarous stagecoach!” said Mrs. Socket to her husband. “It will take them quite five hours, and she will be shaken half to pieces. If she miscarries, he will have only himself to blame. The man is a monster!”
But she had abandoned all attempts at remonstrance with Thomas, suspecting, rightly, that her intervention only rebounded upon Fanny.
Fanny did indeed feel horribly ill in the coach, and had it not been for a fat kindly haberdasher’s wife, who was traveling with her three children to visit her sister in Edmonton, she might several times have fainted. That lady, however, carefully propped Fanny among her numerous bundles and administered cowslip cordial and an extremely powerful vinaigrette whenever her young companion appeared noticeably paler or to be on the point of falling on the seat. Thomas knew nothing of these vicissitudes; one look at the three children and he had elected to travel outside, where he had a comfortable conversation with a fellow passenger about the outrageous new taxes levied to pay for the war taxes on windows, on male servants, on horses, carriages, and Lord knew what next. The lack of her husband’s presence was a source of considerable relief to Fanny, who felt too ill to notice the countryside they passed through and was unable to take any nourishment when they stopped to change the horses at Dorking.
Arrived at the small and unpretentious hotel in High Holborn selected by Thomas, she was only too glad to go straight to bed and soon sank into a troubled sleep, vaguely aware of the incessant noise outside in the street, and haunted by dreams of Barnaby, for the pain of his loss had been renewed by thi
s visit to a place where he might possibly still be found—supposing that his regiment had not yet been ordered abroad.
If I should encounter him in the street! was one of the thoughts that beset her feverish slumbers, for she had been too unwell as they drove along to apprehend how very large a city London was, and the extreme unlikelihood of this coincidence. And she tortured herself over wild improbabilities: Barnaby’s loudly greeting her in the street, calling out, “Why, there’s my dear little briar rose!”—the rage of Thomas at such a piece of familiarity to his wife—the possibility of a duel—seconds, choice of weapons—pistols at dawn on Wimbledon Common.
After such a night, fagged, feverish, queasy, and wretched, Fanny was in no case to get up next morning and go out into the streets. This, in fact, really suited Thomas’s purpose quite well. He had only brought her to London because of a vague general dislike and distrust of leaving her to her own devices without his supervision; but he had not come to any practical conclusion as to what he was to do with her all day long while he was obliged to attend the sittings of the court. If Fanny were too ill to get up, very good; she might remain in bed; and Thomas paid the chambermaid a small sum to bring her tea and toast, and went out with great relief, dismissing her from his mind.
For two days Fanny lay in bed, gradually recovering from the journey and listening, with slowly reviving attention, to the busy voices of London in the street outside: the cries of oyster women and hot-pie vendors, the rattle of wheels, clatter of hoofs, the raucous music of street performers. Perhaps, she sometimes thought, Barnaby is walking past, outside; perhaps those very footsteps are his!
On the third day, which was a Sunday, she felt sufficiently improved in health to rise from her bed. This was just as well, for the court was not in session, and Thomas would have required her to get up and accompany him to church even if her recovery had been far less advanced. Fanny, weary of the stuffy, poky inn bedroom and the casual ministrations of the chambermaid, was glad enough to wrap up warmly and accompany Thomas along Kingsway and down the Strand to the Church of St. Clement Danes.
It was a crisp winter day and the Sunday streets were relatively clean and quiet; she looked about her with interest, trying to store up impressions to take back to her stepdaughters when she returned—for they, poor things, had been consumed with envy at her luck and had besought her to describe all the ladies’ fashions.
This was not a fashionable part of the town, she knew, but still she saw many toilets far superior to those of Mrs. Socket or the ladies who assisted in her parish duties: a walking dress of striped poplin with a quilted petticoat, an exceedingly elegant riding habit of blue velvet with a tight page’s jacket, frilled stock, and black hat with a cock’s feather, a bonnet shaped like Athene’s helmet, a ravishing pair of pink shoes, and wonderful pink and green embroidered Norwich shawl. These interesting sights compensated for the taciturn demeanor of Thomas, who was annoyed because the court case seemed liable to drag on for at least another two or three days, and he feared that the men at the Petworth press gang rendezvous, without his regulating presence, would be falling into mischief and idle ways. He had hoped to return at least by Monday.
The church service was shorter than those Fanny was used to, and the sermon sounded more like a dramatic recital than a message from heaven—the clergyman waved his hands so, and rolled his eyes, and his voice boomed from low to high and back again—but still, Fanny found comfort in the familiar ritual and prayed earnestly that she might be helped to goodness and acceptance of her lot. She prayed too for her unborn child, that it might make Thomas happy and be a means to bring him closer to his wife.
They had arrived early in the church, which had filled up very considerably after they were settled in a pew. When the service ended they were obliged to remain seated for many minutes, despite Thomas’s impatience to be gone, and, even when they were able to rise, their progress along the crowded aisle was very slow. The reason for this became apparent when they emerged, for a light sleety rain had begun to fall, and parishioners were delaying on the church steps to put up umbrellas, summon carriages and sedan chairs, or look in vain for hackney coaches, thus hindering the exit of those behind them.
“This is nothing of a shower!” said Thomas irritably, turning up his collar. “We can be back in High Holborn in ten minutes if we walk briskly, so come, Frances—do not be loitering—” And he was about to take her arm when a jostling movement of the crowd pushed them apart. Fanny, craning about to find him, suddenly received such a shock as nearly made her heart stop beating, for there, not six feet away from her in the crowd—she was sure of it!—was Barnaby! She could not mistake! True, she could see only the back of his head, but it was a neck and ear she had studied so often and so lovingly that she felt not the slightest shadow of doubt. Even then, though, habitual caution, propriety, and timidity prevented her crying his name aloud; but she must, she must get a glimpse of his face, and, moving between the foot passengers with a speed and energy of which she would hardly, ten minutes before, have believed herself capable, she worked her way through the crowd in his direction. People were pushing everywhere, cursing, shouting for cabs, summoning their carriages; she thought she heard Thomas’s voice indignantly raised behind her: “Frances! Where have you got to? Come here to me directly!” but she paid no heed, only went on. At last she came out of the thickest part of the crowd and saw two young men threading their way across the street through the slow-moving traffic. Both wore uniform and surely—surely—one of them was Barnaby. Slipping nervously behind a carriage, darting boldly in front of two horses, Fanny followed them.
I won’t speak to him, she was saying to herself. I won’t even let him see me—but oh, just to look at his face again, just for one moment—perhaps God meant me to have that indulgence. He could not have meant to torment me by just letting me see the back of Barnaby’s neck!
The two young men turned to their right, along a side street that led uphill quite steeply. Fanny, blind, deaf to everything but her one objective, followed as fast as she could—but they were striding out at a smart pace, talking and laughing together—she began to be left farther and farther behind; still she followed, in hopes that they would pause somewhere so that she might manage to come up with them. Now that they were away from the main thoroughfare there were fewer people about, so that at least it was easier for her to keep them in sight. And they, walking briskly through the gathering rain, were quite unaware of Fanny hastening behind them in her thin, soft slippers.
Now they had entered a region of narrow, short streets. Shabby, poor-looking people, going about their business, stared in surprise for a moment at the pale, distraught young lady in white muslin who ran by them, and then shrugged and forgot her; London was full of distraught young ladies; she was not their concern. Still Fanny ran on; having come so far, she felt that she must, in the end, be rewarded by a sight of the loved face; heaven would not, surely, be so unkind to her.
But heaven was keeping its own counsel; presently rounding the corner of an even shorter, even shabbier street, Fanny was at first overjoyed to find that the two young men had stopped to speak to a third; also, very fortunately, they were just beyond a whelk and cockle stall, under cover of which she was able to come up close enough to study them without herself being observed. So far, she was lucky. But when she did arrive near enough to see them plainly, then there was preparing for her a most bitter disappointment, for the young man she had seen on the church steps was not Barnaby—indeed, when she saw him full face on, he was nothing like Barnaby—she did not know how she could ever have been so mistaken! The blow was so severe that Fanny actually staggered, putting her hand to her heart.
“You all right, missus?” said the whelk seller.
“Yes, thank you,” said Fanny with absent, mechanical politeness. But in truth she was not all right; when the three strange young men walked away down the street, talking and laughing together, she fe
lt as if the whole side of the universe had been torn away, leaving her naked and cold, exposed to the blast of heaven’s scorn. There was a flight of steps behind her, a church entrance; trembling, she sat down, regardless of her thin muslin cloak, and began to cry in bitter, racking sobs, as if something had broken inside her.
* * *
Thomas, meanwhile, was cursing the day he had ever decided to bring Fanny to London. Furiously he walked from side to side of the crowd, calling her name. Then, when the crowd had completely dispersed and she was still not to be seen, he went back inside the church, in case she had taken shelter there. Failing to find her, he at last returned to the hotel; he did not place much dependence on Fanny’s sense, but she might have enough presence of mind to remember to ask her way back to High Holborn. Finding that she had not, he became seriously disturbed. Could she have been abducted? It seemed highly improbable that anybody should wish to abscond with Fanny, so pale as she was nowadays, and plain from ill-health, quiet, unassuming, and dressed by no means in the first stare of fashion. But then—could she have run away? Even to the mistrustful mind of Thomas this seemed most unlikely: Fanny was so humble, so docile, tried so hard to do what was expected of her. Why should she have taken such a step as that? The fact remained, however, that she was gone.
At first he thought. Well, she has got herself lost and is wandering about the streets. When she has the sense to ask her way and finally comes back, I shall give her such a scold! But when dusk fell and she still had not come back, he became very seriously disquieted and began to wonder if he should report the matter to the constables. However, as yet, his anxiety was overborne by his reluctance to appear in the somewhat ludicrous aspect of a deserted husband; he could imagine, only too well, the knowing looks, the winks, the private comments of his auditors, when he related his tale.