by Joan Smith
“Lord Dolman must be a youngish gentleman,” I said, as the dashing yellow curricle and lively team of grays clipped along.
“No, why do you say that?”
“Because of this curricle. When you spoke of wanting your independence, I thought he must be a crusty old fellow.”
“He would be shocked to hear himself described in that way. He is well enough, but when you are a guest in a gentleman’s house, you are at his beck and call. One’s plans must be changed if an extra man is required for dinner or the theater.”
“Surely that would not be much of an imposition!”
“That depends on what lady requires an escort. You may be sure it is not the Incomparables who lack a companion.” He turned a conning smile on me. “I am a little particular about the ladies I squire about town.”
I believe that was intended as a compliment, but there was a superficiality in it that irked me. “Not every lady is so fortunate as to be beautiful—nor does it matter in the least, so long as she is of good character.”
“Only a lady sure of her own charms would say so.” He smiled.
“Should you not be enlarging your circle of ... prominent friends,” I said, struggling over the proper word to describe the sort of people he would not meet on Wild Street, but that would be helpful to a struggling politician.
“I frequently complete Dolman’s party of an evening, but I prefer to do it at my own pleasure, and with advance notice. I do have a life and friends of my own as well.”
“Of course,” I said, nodding as though in agreement. But I had to wonder what sort of life and friends these were, that he had to keep them secret from his patron. I felt if Mr. Alger were truly interested in advancing his career, he would be more conciliating to Lord Dolman.
The curricle was dashing along at a speed that played havoc with my bonnet and pelisse. I had a good idea why Alger was setting such a dangerous pace and wished him to slow down.
“With the best will in the world and the fastest team, Mr. Alger, you cannot conceal that the area we are flying through is disreputable in the extreme. Look at that!” I exclaimed, pointing to a pair of derelicts staggering down the street at ten o’clock in the morning, drunk as lords.
“Would the rector’s daughter like to stop and try her hand at reforming them?” he asked playfully. I glared. “We will soon be on the Strand,” he said, and after several more blocks of extremely dangerous driving, we did reach the Strand with the carriage still intact. Mr. Alger was an excellent fiddler.
“You can slow down to sixteen miles an hour now,” I said, straightening my bonnet and arranging my pelisse.
He turned north on to Piccadilly and drove at a normal pace up New Bond Street, where the ton were on the strut, rigged out in the highest jet of fashion. I could not restrain a few gurgles of delight.
“So this is New Bond Street, that I have read of in La Belle Assemblée. And there is the very bonnet that was in last month’s issue! Is it not charming? I wonder what shop carries it.”
“A cut above the High Street in Radstock, eh, Miss Irving?” He smiled, happy to have found something to impress me at last.
“This beats even Milsom Street, in Bath,” I breathed.
“High praise indeed!”
Several fashionable ladies and gentlemen nodded or waved to Alger. One pretty young lady with blond hair and a fetching high poke bonnet had her rig drawn to a stop and called, “I did not see you at Lady Bingham’s rout last night, Algie. You promised me a waltz.”
“We shall remedy that at the next rout,” he called back. Then he drove on. “That was Miss Carter,” he said.
The name meant nothing to me, but the face would recommend itself to any gentleman with eyes in his head. He did not stop to converse with any of the people who greeted him, nor did he heed my hint that the shops looked lovely.
I continued gawking about at the various bow windows holding elegant trifles, and the crowds jamming the street. “I have never seen so many people, even in Bath,” I said.
“To us in London, going to Bath means rusticating. I wager you will feel the same after you have become accustomed to the pleasures of London. The theaters, the balls, the routs.”
An elegant young gentleman took his life in his hands to cross the street in the middle of heavy traffic. “I say, Algie, are you going to the club this evening?” he called.
“Not tonight, Pelham. I am busy.”
The man called Pelham turned his saucy grin in my direction. “I see.” He grinned in a way that suggested I was to be the evening’s entertainment. Then the exigencies of traffic caused him to dart off, to avoid being run down by another curricle.
That was Lord Harding,” Mr. Alger said. “But we were discussing your remaining in London, and the many entertainments available here.”
I felt I was missing an opportunity to meet the very sort of people who could make those entertainments possible. My reply had a sharp note. “I do not anticipate such diversions as you speak of. I am hardly making my debut, you must know. In fact, I am in mourning.”
“You are not wearing mourning clothes,” he pointed out.
“Well, I never actually met Mrs. Cummings. Papa did not feel it necessary to go to the expense— That is—”
“I understand. As you do not consider your aunt close enough that you must wear mourning, some modest entertainments are not out of the question.”
“If I remain, Miss Thackery and I shall hire modest rooms somewhere. I do look forward to the theaters and art galleries and libraries and drives.”
“We shall go to the exhibition at Somerset House one afternoon when the carriage and I are free. You must not hesitate to tell me when you want it. That was our bargain.”
The offer put me back in humor. “That would be lovely!”
Since Alger seemed reluctant to stop the carriage and take a walk, I felt he was in a hurry to get to work. I said, “Will Lord Dolman not expect you to be at the office by now?”
“He never goes to the House before noon.”
“London is very strange. Men do not go to work before noon; my aunt did not rise until mid-morning; she did not eat in her dining room.”
“I told you the experience would be broadening.” He laughed. “I got caught up on all my work before I left yesterday. About the balls, Miss Irving, I understand your reluctance to attend them, but I am invited to many less formal routs. If you have a taste for dancing, that aspect of London is by no means closed to a young lady who has not made her debut.”
“You are very kind, but I did not come prepared for that sort of socializing. Papa expects me to put the house up for sale and return to Radstock within the week.”
“But you mentioned hiring a flat in town,” he said, looking a question at me.
“Yes, well, Papa does not know that yet,” I confessed. “Until I have the money from the house, I am not in a position to remove from the rectory.”
“So you do have some rebel blood in your veins. Good! Just what is it you have against your father’s house, if it is not overly inquisitive of me to ask?”
Alger had driven back down New Bond Street to Green Park. It was sparsely populated at that early hour. Then, when there were no interesting young people to meet and no shops to look at, he suggested we get out of the carriage and walk. As we made a leisurely tour of the park, I found myself explaining about Mrs. Hennessey and her daughters.
“It all sounds very trivial and selfish after hearing how poor Mrs. Clarke and Mr. Butler live, but like you, I want some independence, Mr. Alger. I will never have it in Papa’s house after he is married.”
“Under the circumstances, I should do the same thing,” he said at once. “But being a hardheaded businessman, I would stay on at Wild Street until the property had increased in value—and I had stored up a nest egg. Then I would hire a small house in the fashionable part of London.”
“And how would you make any decent friends, living in Wild Street?” I asked. “One c
ould hardly invite the gentry to dinner in that place.”
“This is London. You would be surprised what oddities are overlooked here when a lady has a substantial dowry, ma’am.”
“I do not have a substantial dowry. I have only five thousand pounds.”
“And another five on the Wild Street property at today’s prices. That makes ten thousand, the going price for a baronet. If you waited a few years to sell, your fortune would be more like fifteen thousand. We gazetted fortune hunters usually allow a little something for a lady’s appearance as well.”
He stopped walking and let his eyes make a slow tour of my face, which I could feel turn pink as his admiring gaze lingered. “A face like yours, neither haggard nor short of teeth, no squint, no spots— Why your worth is closer to twenty thousand. I daresay the dukes will be falling all over you.”
I said primly, “Don’t be foolish.”
“Why not? It is delightful to be foolish on a fine spring day ... with a lovely lady by your side. And before you leap to some derogatory conclusion, let me say, I was not fooling about your being beautiful. You are, you know, in an unconscious sort of way.”
“I am not unconscious!”
“You twist everything I say. I meant you were unconscious of being attractive.”
“My hair is mousy.”
“Tawny, like a lion’s mane. Your eyes are rather lion-like, too. Green, with that peculiar slant.”
“But lions do not have freckles.”
“No, nor do they argue with every word a man says. I am trying to compliment you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Alger. You are very handsome, too. In a few years, however, my face will devalue.”
He gave me a laughing look. “Perhaps you should strike while the iron is hot—if you could be satisfied with a baronet, that is to say.”
“And if a baronet could be satisfied to live on Wild Street. I assume these gazetted fortune hunters do not possess a home of their own to take a bride to.”
“That is the luck of the draw, ma’am. But I think your face will hold together for a decade or more yet. You cannot be over twenty.”
“I am one and twenty.”
“Then you worry for nothing. I can give you ten years, and I still consider myself quite a stripling.”
“Just so, but dogs and ladies age more quickly.”
“I shall refrain from commenting on that incendiary speech.” He put his hand on my elbow, and we resumed our walk. “More importantly, what do you think of my idea of remaining on at Wild Street? If it is the lack of friends, I might be of some help.”
I had seen for myself that Mr. Alger had a good many friends. The notion was certainly tempting— but still, to live at Wild Street ... “I shall think about it. Of course I would have to write Papa and see what he has to say.”
“I shall be waiting to hear his reply. And for the meanwhile, you must not let the tenants take advantage of you, Miss Irving.”
“I am not accustomed to being taken advantage of, Mr. Alger,” I replied. His eyes narrowed as he tried to determine whether there was any reference to himself in that remark. “I notice Miss Whately and Mr. Sharkey have not yet paid their rent. I shall dun them this very evening.” He did not reply, but I sensed some mischief lurking in the depths of his gray eyes. “The tenants seem very nice,” I said. “I was surprised they were so respectable.”
“Why thank you, ma’am. We try to behave ourselves.”
“Oh, I did not mean you, Mr. Alger!” I said, laughing. Yet he was one of my tenants. After having spent an hour in his company, I could not fathom why he did stay at Wild Street. He was so obviously a cut above the others. He was even connected by marriage to the nobility. Surely there must be some reason why he did not live in a more gracious neighborhood. But he seemed extremely eager to talk me into keeping the house, and he certainly implied that he would continue as a tenant.
“Would a set of rooms at Albany cost much more than your rooms at my place?” I asked. “Mr. Nugent, a gentleman friend from Radstock, stayed there when he was in London a few years ago. He mentioned it was a favorite haunt of bachelors.”
“Yes, it would cost much more,” Alger said firmly. “Above my touch, I fear.” Then he gave me a conning smile and said, “You sound as if you are trying to be rid of me, Miss Irving. I hope the perilous pace I set in my curricle has not given you the notion I am a ramshackle fellow.”
“No, it merely failed to conceal that the neighborhood is ramshackle, but I shall think over what you said. Very likely Papa will order me to sell the house and return at once.”
“And will the rebel do as her papa orders?”
“Yes, I expect so. But when—if—he marries Mrs. Hennessey, I shall definitely remove to either Bath or London.”
“I shall take you home now, to let you write your letter. Let us settle on a time to visit Somerset House. Are you free tomorrow afternoon?”
“What about your work?” I parried.
“I shall go to work in the morning instead. Dolman will be in committee meetings all afternoon. He shan’t need me.”
“That sounds like a convenient sort of position you have.”
“I am not complaining,” he replied airily.
“I should think not. Very well then, tomorrow afternoon.”
We went back to the curricle and returned to Wild Street. Prepared for the worst, I found the house did not look so horrid as I remembered. If it had been on a more respectable street, with the windows cleaned and the door painted, it could have looked respectable, if not elegant.
Mr. Alger saw me to the door before returning to his curricle and presumably to Whitehall. That door filled me with revulsion. Successive layers of paint had cracked until the surface was the consistency of small curd. It is impossible to describe its color. I think the last coat of paint may have been black or gray, but it had a sort of iridescent haze to it that changed color with the passing shadows. It was so filthy that I handled the doorknob with care.
Mrs. Scudpole had prepared an indifferent lunch of more cold mutton and cheese.
“We cannot expect her to cook and clean and do everything,” I said apologetically to Miss Thackery. “If Papa agrees to my remaining on awhile until we sell the house, we must hire more help. And of course we must send back his carriage, too.”
I wrote the letter that afternoon, outlining the state of affairs here, and the potential profit if I held on to the house for a few years and did some minor repairs. Mullard posted the letter for me. He did not complain, exactly, but I took the notion that he was bored to flinders.
“P’raps you could find some odd jobs for me around the place, Miss Irving. The backyard could be made into a tidy little garden, if the rubbish was cleared away.”
Miss Thackery and I went to the yard with him to survey it. If the interior of the house resembled a furniture warehouse, the outside was nothing else but a refuse heap. Any lumber my aunt felt not worth keeping had been unceremoniously dumped here. Broken chairs were heaped on top of a derelict stove, turning to rust. A wooden box was overflowing with broken crockery. The excess littered the ground.
“I could chop up those rotting chairs and what-not and burn them in the stove or grate,” Mullard suggested. “An ironmonger might haul away the old stove, and I could bury the crockery.”
Miss Thackery, who was a gardener, thought we could grow vegetables in half the yard, with flowers in the other half.
“There were flowers here, once upon a time,” she said, poking amid the debris. “Those are the leaves of peonies, and surely that is a rosebush. It has thorns, but no flowers.
It was agreed that Mullard would begin cleaning up the yard. I went again and looked at the front of the house. A fresh coat of paint on the door would be an inestimable improvement. But first the curds of paint would have to be scraped or burned off. After careful consideration, we set upon dark green as a suitable color. A lighter shade would have been prettier, but the house did not lend itself to pr
ettiness. As Miss Thackery said, with so many people using the door, and using it so carelessly, every kick mark and dirty fingermark would show up.
“I shall buy a nice brass knocker,” I said, smiling to myself to think how fine this would look. “I shall ask Mr. Alger to take me to a shop when we go to Somerset House tomorrow.”
I had told Miss Thackery of the proposed outing and asked her to join us. I did not like to leave her alone again.
We spent the remainder of the afternoon looking over the excess lumber indoors and putting little white stickers on those pieces that the tenants might help themselves to.
“We shall dun Mr. Sharkey and Miss Whately for their rent when they come to help themselves to the furniture,” Miss Thackery said. “It is strange, I have not seen either one of them all day. I daresay Mr. Sharkey has been at work, but I wonder what Miss Whately does with herself.”
Tapping footsteps sounded in the hallway. “That would be her,” Miss Thackery whispered. We both looked expectantly to the door.
Chapter Five
The dainty tapping called up an image of a petite lady, perhaps elderly, refined. What stood framed in the doorway was a female of generous proportions, although the word “fat” did not immediately come to mind. Her flowing bosom and flaring hips, accentuated by a small waist, might have been painted by Rubens. Her white arms were dimpled at the elbows. She was not young, but not yet old, either. She could not by the wildest stretch of the imagination be called refined. Her ornately arranged coiffure and the quantity of paint on her face were enough to cast suspicions on her profession. Throw in the low-cut gown of violet silk, liberally sprinkled with bows, flowers, lace, buttons, brooches, and a wilted corsage of red roses, and you will know to what ancient profession I refer.