I cleared my throat, and he turned. “What is it, milady?”
I had never spoken to Tom Rampling before. The young man was rarely in the house and never in the rooms I frequented. He worked mostly in Daniel’s surgery and more recently in the laboratory the doctor had set up in Mr. Thornfax’s warehouse on the Thames. I was surprised by his deep, gentle voice and the solemn way he regarded me. His eyes were closer to grey than blue, the colour of a winter sky. My words died in my throat.
He crossed over to me. “Are you well?” he said, softer still, as though I were a bird he might frighten away.
I recalled myself. Naturally Tom Rampling would have heard of my affliction and would approach with care. “H-Hattie,” I said, and I motioned him to follow me.
He stopped at the parlour door and frowned at the servant girl’s prone form. Hattie seemed to have fallen back into a doze. Tom dug two sooty fingers into his breast pocket and pulled out a folded apothecary envelope. “Give her this, please, milady.”
Inside were several white pellets. “M-morphine pills?”
A harsh sound from Tom’s throat drew my gaze to his face, which had hardened into a sudden scowl. “You’re quick enough to recognize it,” he said. “A common remedy in your family, I’m sure.”
I stared at him, unable to account for this shift into rudeness. “My father t-took it for his p-pain, before he d-died,” I tried to explain. “But Hattie needs food. B-broth, cocoa.”
He didn’t seem to notice the stumbling of my words. “Hattie needs this. And she needs it soon.” Tom looked down at his soot-covered boots as if he were considering whether to take them off or walk across the parlour rug in spite of them and dose Hattie himself.
“Please, c-call Dr. Dewhurst. He will know what to d-do.”
“No.”
“P-pardon?”
Tom crossed his arms. “I won’t call him.”
“V-very well then, I sh-shall.” I moved toward him, expecting he would step back at once and let me out of the room. Instead, at the last moment, Tom raised an arm to block my exit, and I flinched back from a collision only just in time. My skirts swished against his shins.
Tom’s long, tapered fingers made a print where they pressed on the wallpaper. He smelled of woodsmoke and blacking. My mouth dried, and my heart beat faster at his audacity in defying a mistress of the house. If he hadn’t seemed so worried for Hattie I would have suspected him of baiting me, of trying purposely to upset me like the stable-boys at Holybourne used to do in hopes I would amuse them with one of my outbursts.
I watched Tom’s throat move as he swallowed. The grey eyes searched my face. “Miss Somerville, please. Not him, of all people. Not now.” He sounded somehow impatient and afraid at once.
I shook my head; he wasn’t making sense. But in any case I found that speech had deserted me again and—more confusing still—I could not seem to wrench my gaze away from Tom Rampling’s face. The fine planes of his brow, his cheekbones, his jaw—the pale skin wasn’t sallow but warm, as if he were somehow illuminated from within. His nearness heated my skin like fireglow.
“Please,” he repeated, and blinked and shifted his stance. His free hand came up to brush aside a strand of my hair. I was shocked at the touch, but this time I knew he wasn’t baiting me. In fact I had the impression that Tom hardly realized what he was doing.
“You forget yourself,” I said, at last. I didn’t stammer, exactly, but my voice carried none of the sternness I intended.
Tom blinked again, frowned, and swiped at my cheek with his sleeve. “I’ve gone and smudged you,” he muttered.
“Rampling, where are you?” My brother-in-law’s voice boomed out from the hall behind us. Tom dropped his arm, stepping back from me just as Daniel’s portly form rounded the corner. “Ah, there you are!” His brows shot up at his assistant’s soiled clothing, and he tsked. “Have you been at the stove again? What have I told you about doing that girl’s work for her?”
“Hattie’s taken poorly, Dr. Dewhurst,” Tom reported, so smoothly and levelly that I wondered if I’d entirely imagined his rebellion of the previous two minutes. “Miss Somerville found her and called for help.”
Daniel crossed the room and bent over to press his thick fingers to Hattie’s sternum. “Well, well.” He puffed, struggling upright again. “Pick her up, Mr. Rampling, if you don’t mind, and convey our poor girl to the surgery.”
“At once, sir.”
My brother-in-law patted my shoulder. His smile pressed deeper dimples into his round red cheeks. “Now don’t frighten yourself, Leonora. Hattie will be restored by teatime, I assure you.”
I returned Daniel’s smile, but my reassurance was shattered when I happened to glance back at Tom Rampling gathering Hattie’s limp form into his arms. I met in those grey eyes so thunderous an expression that for a moment it was hard to draw breath, and I was filled with a disquiet I did not understand.
FOUR
My father had been the minister at the Church of the Holy Rood in Holybourne, a small village fifty miles from London. Growing up at the manse Christabel and I lived comfortably but never lavishly. Father’s dear old valet doubled as our butler and carriage-driver, and after we girls outgrew Mrs. Dawson, our nurse, we kept only one regular maid in addition to the cook. In my last years at Holybourne after Christa was married, whenever Father felt well enough for his parishioners to come to dine, it had fallen to me to oversee the turning out of rugs and drapes, the choosing of a menu, and the ordering of a vintage appropriate to the occasion. Now that I lived with my sister and her family at Hastings House my tasks were vastly simpler. In fact I had only one duty: to stand still and submit to being dressed and tressed to Christabel’s satisfaction by the maids.
This occupation, light in description, was nevertheless burdensome in execution, as it consumed the better part of the week leading to my sister’s card party. A ball was too extravagant for March, Christa and her friends had decided. Better to force Mr. Thornfax to court me at a casual evening of card-playing, where the music wouldn’t overwhelm the conversation. Besides, they’d reasoned, Christa would have to invite every young lady of our acquaintance to a ball, and a gentleman new to the circle would feel obliged to dance with each one of them in turn. At a card party we might have Mr. Thornfax to ourselves.
Christabel had yanked from the wardrobe all of my gowns from last season and heaved them, one by one, across my bed. She’d wiped the glow of exertion from her brow and grimaced at the jumble of criss-crossed pastels. The deflated dresses looked to me like disappointed young maidens, crossed in love or unsuccessful in seduction, wilted and jilted. Well that was me, wasn’t it, despite my sister’s—and my wardrobe’s—best efforts last year? Still husbandless.
Looking at the pile of silks I’d sent a silent plea out to Mr. Thornfax. Marriage to a man like that would mean independence, status, and a home of my own. More importantly it would mean invisibility, and therefore freedom from society’s constant gossip and judgment. Be as stout-hearted and bold as Daniel says you are, I prayed, not like the others. Take me, even if I should shock you.
Within an hour the seamstress and her assistants had arrived to tear the pile apart and refashion the outdated gowns with lower waists and necklines. Fewer bows and more buckles, Christabel ordered. Less lace and more ruffled-ribbon trim. All week, whenever I was not standing on a box with my arms extended at my sides, strung with tapes and stabbed with pins, I was slumped before the mirror in Christa’s dressing room as the maids experimented on my hair with heated irons and starch spray.
As my physical appearance was so central to my purpose at Hastings House, I do not think it would be too immodest for me to describe it as it was finally shown to me, there in the looking glass, on the evening of the party. The gown Christabel had chosen for me was pine-coloured crepe de Chine with cream ribbon at the neck and waist. She claimed the green matched my eyes, but in truth they tend more toward hazel. My brown hair was brushed to its best shin
e, coiled, pinned, and adorned with a silk blossom. Cream-coloured gloves, silk slippers, and a string of pearls from our mother’s jewel box completed the ensemble. For my part I was quite satisfied with how it all looked.
But my sister came in behind me, peered over my shoulder into the mirror, and frowned. “Ugh. You look positively common, Leo.” Her nose wrinkled. “Bess! Come tighten her stays!” So I was undone and retied until my ribs ached within the restrictive undergarment. Christa adjusted my décolletage herself. “Oh, do stop blushing like a child! Your bust is your best feature, you know, and you had better make the most of it. Lord knows poor Thornfax won’t get his fill in conversation. The least we can do is to offer him something to look at.”
“I can s-speak to him,” I said. “Dr. D-Dewhurst said he won’t mind.”
We were interrupted by my nephews’ nurse, Greta, who had brought Christabel’s little boys round to bid good night to their mama and auntie. Three-year-old Bertie had been allowed to sample some of the treats our cook was preparing for the party and was now very sulky about not being permitted to stay up with the “big people.” Greta held baby Alexander for us while we kissed his cheeks, so that we would not wrinkle our gowns.
When we were alone again Christa reached out and flicked my lips with her fingernails, surprising me into a squeak of pain. “You will not speak to Mr. Thornfax,” she said, “no matter what Daniel might have said. Keep your stumbletongue to yourself until he falls thoroughly in love with you. Then it will seem to him nothing but a charming quirk.”
“He is s-stout-hearted. He w-won’t mind.”
“You listen to me, Leo!” She pinched my chin hard between her thumb and forefinger. “Dr. Dewhurst has managed to broker Mr. Thornfax’s interest. In his great generosity to you, Dr. Dewhurst has argued the advantages of becoming brothers as well as business partners. But that is all. You and I both know how easily it will crumble if you fail to keep a handle on yourself.” Christabel pushed herself from the vanity and brandished the hairbrush at my reflection like a club. “I swear to you, sister, I will cut your tongue from your mouth if you let Mimic attend this party!”
Stumbletongue, Gargle, Crippletongue, Mutemouth— none of my sister’s names for me was ever uttered with quite the same ire and revulsion as Mimic.
I knew Christa hated Mimic, and to be perfectly fair to my elder sister there were times Mimic had made her life very miserable indeed. Embarrassed her before her friends. Tattled on her, thwarted her plans. Scared off potential suitors—in fact one young man she’d liked very much had had to be sent away from our house thanks to Mimic’s interference. More recently, of course, it was my own suitors who tended to bolt. Last spring a nice young gentleman named Mr. Greenlove had frequented Hastings House until the afternoon Mimic made an appearance. Mr. Kelso and, disastrously, the Duke of Manchester had similarly been driven off. Christabel’s only consolation was that the fine scruples of these gentlemen had ensured that news of Mimic’s existence had not travelled far beyond our household. Of course, there were always a few ladies—Christabel’s friends, mostly—who made it their business to know our troubles.
My aunt Emmaline, the Countess of Hastings, had a very large fortune. The knowledge that Christa and I were her only heirs was widespread enough to guarantee that more young men would emerge from the woodwork to call. But as my sister was fond of reminding me, “Madness will take the shine off gold.” Where Mimic reigned neither fortune nor beauty would be enough to secure me a spouse.
For now at least, Christabel had evidently finished with the whole subject. Emily had brought her a glass of water and her little bottle of laudanum, the opium tincture that Daniel prepared specially for her frequent headaches. Christa squeezed the rubber bulb, her lips moving as she silently counted out the correct number of drops into her glass.
As she drank it down her eyes caught mine in the mirror, and she turned to squint closer at my face. “Freckles? Oh, Leo,” she wailed, “’tis only March! Why do you insist on walking without your parasol?”
She ordered Bess back to powder my nose again. Next came rouge for my lips and cheeks. Then pearl ear-bobs, a smart little silk hat from her own collection instead of the flower, a dab of rose scent on each wrist, and a lace handker-chief folded into the cuff of my glove.
“Now you are a town lady, at last!” Christa sighed. “Look there, what a pretty parcel for an eligible gentleman!”
I looked in the mirror. There was no denying my sister’s artistry. I was ivory-pale—except for my bosom, still reddened from Christa’s tugging. I looked a good deal older than my seventeen years.
How do you do, Miss Somerville? I greeted myself. This Miss Somerville was indeed a parcel of sorts—an empty box, or a blank page for someone to write his fantasies upon. I swallowed. How easy it had been to assemble the costume and don the mask. How easy then it should be to play this role. Only my eyes seemed overly shiny, my pupils dilated— whether from dread or excitement I could not say.
Christabel insisted I stay upstairs until called so that my entrance would make a bigger impression. I chose a novel from the drawer of my bureau, but I was too nervous to concentrate on the story and instead found myself staring out my window at the lights of Daniel’s surgery. A candle flickering on one of the sills lit the face of a young boy looking at a picture book. My brother-in-law saw his patients in a converted carriage house directly across the courtyard behind the house. The main consulting room doubled as a surgery where he performed minor medical procedures. Upstairs, in a loft reached by a spiral staircase, beds were laid out for those who had no place else to recover.
I’d spied the same small boy just yesterday being chased by Tom Rampling. The boy had darted out the surgery door and tried to outrun the doctor’s assistant. Perhaps Daniel was treating him for some illness—though judging by his vivacity, I thought, he must be well on the mend already.
Tom had caught him up, twirled him round, and tickled his ribs until he shrieked with laughter. A broad grin had transformed Tom’s face from its cool seriousness to something entirely new—a radiance, a warmth—that made me remember by contrast the frowning disdain he’d shown me during our confrontation in the parlour.
At last Bess came to fetch me downstairs.
“Ah, there you are, Leonora!” Christa trumpeted as I crossed the threshold into the Great Hall. The gentlemen within earshot rose from their seats at the card tables, and I curtsied in answer to their bows. Only a small number of the guests were actually playing at whist. The idea of a card party was to circulate, gossip, and flirt—and anyhow half the ladies’ gowns were too elaborate for comfortable sitting.
My sister led me round the room for hasty introductions to the newcomers on our guest list. The Fayerweathers, an elderly couple recently returned from Bath, remarked on how well I’d grown since they’d last dined at Holybourne. Mrs. Fayerweather had a beaked nose under her swooping, wide-brimmed hat and a voice that reminded me of the chatter of squirrels. I must have been very young when the Fayerweathers visited Holybourne, for I had no memory of the woman. After she’d reminisced about our “poor dear mother, God rest her, and curse the scarlet fever, and you poor dears were only such tiny things when she was taken,” Christa moved us along to Dr. Johnstone, a surgeon friend of Daniel’s.
Once we’d exchanged the usual niceties, he and my brother-in-law resumed the conversation they’d been having before our interruption. “Have you solved your dosage problem then?” Dr. Johnstone inquired.
“It’s complicated,” said Daniel. “The strength of the drug appears to depend in part on the patient’s emotional state, and even the location at which it’s administered.”
Dr. Johnstone frowned. “An environmental factor? That doesn’t sound like morphine at all. Which solvent have you been using to purify it?”
Daniel chuckled. “No, you won’t fiddle it out of me that easily! How can I hope to win a patent if I give up the formula to every medical man who asks me?”
Dr. Johnstone’s face fell, but he covered it by giving Daniel a congenial slap on the back. “If I were you I’d forget the patent and start selling at once. A bright label, a romantic name—that’s all you really need! ‘Dewhurst’s Celestial Dew’ or some such.”
Daniel shook his head. “Any middling chemist can glue a label on a bottle. This is different, Johnstone. It will put all the cordials and nostrums out of the market entirely. Cheaper to produce, four or five times more powerful. No ill effects on digestion, no wasting or prolonged stupor—”
“So you’ve claimed, so you’ve claimed,” said Dr. Johnstone. “Well, we are all standing by with bated breath, Doctor.”
“Mr. Thornfax! You approach us at last!” Christa’s greeting was amplified by her relief at the opportunity to change the subject.
Daniel threaded his arm through the taller man’s. “Thornfax. Back me up, will you? Johnstone here insists that securing a patent is a waste of our time.”
“I’m afraid I couldn’t speak to that, one way or another,” Mr. Thornfax said, smiling round our circle. “My expertise lies rather on the supply side of the equation—the raw materials, so to speak.” He reached past Dr. Johnstone to clasp Christabel’s hand and bent to kiss it. “My radiant hostess.”
Christa giggled and, when he released her, leaned her head against Daniel’s arm. Her husband patted her hair and bent to kiss her pink cheek.
“So it is a derivative of opium, if that man has a hand in the enterprise!” Dr. Johnstone crowed.
Still Mr. Thornfax ignored him. “And her fair sister,” he murmured, taking my hand in turn. “Good evening, Miss Somerville.”
Francis Gabriel Thornfax. An angel’s name, I thought, for an angel’s visage. My sister’s friends had not been overstating the gentleman’s handsomeness. Mr. Thornfax had clear blue eyes and honey-coloured hair framing his strong-boned, open face. He towered over the other men in the room, and his broad shoulders filled out his tailcoat most becomingly. He was twenty-eight years old and by all accounts rich as a prince.
Mad Miss Mimic Page 2