Moving forward, Lady Hathaway advanced upon Bristol like a tidal wave, her silky skirts flowing around her protruding stomach like sheets of water rolling from a ball. She stalked around Bristol, stamping her cane and muttering. “Good God! You’re worse than I imagined!” Lady Hathaway’s voice emerged from deep in her ample chest, as low-pitched as a man’s. She rolled blue eyes to the sky, her heavy jowls working. “That dress is impossibly provincial... it must go! And your shoes! A disgrace. You look like a country bumpkin or”—the cane lifted to indicate Bristol’s dust cap—“or a servant!” Lady Hathaway turned toward the green-and-white carriage. “Inside! Get inside quickly before someone I know sees us.”
Bristol’s spine stiffened and her jaw set. What could be keeping Aunt Prudence? Where was she? It looked as if Bristol would have to handle this strange encounter by herself. One thing was certain: she had no intention of going anywhere with this Lady Hathaway—whoever she might be! Warm color sparked Bristol’s cheeks, and she planted her feet firmly where she stood, refusing to budge an inch.
“Lady Hathaway...” Bristol began. As her anger built, her voice steadied. “While I appreciate your uninvited comments”—her voice clearly stated she appreciated nothing—“I hardly see how my appearance can be a concern to you. Nor my person. I have no intention of entering this carriage or any other. I am being met by my aunt, thank you.” As gracefully as she could manage in the circumstances, Bristol sat firmly on top of her trunk lest these mad people attempt to take it again. She folded her arms across her chest and turned her face toward the reeking Thames. Why didn’t Aunt Prudence come? All Bristol’s previous worries returned in force.
Lady Hathaway stopped midway to the coach and turned around, her mouth opening in a little round circle. Then she clutched her stomach and laughed, an explosive booming sound so like Noah that Bristol swiveled her head and stared.
“At least you have spirit; I like that,” Lady Hathaway gasped. She held her jiggling stomach and wiped laughter from her eyes. “You young dolt, I’m Prudence Adams. At least I was before I married that old fool Robert Hathaway. Now, come along, enough of this nonsense.” She stepped up and thrust her head and shoulders through the carriage door, her enormous bottom hanging outside. “Bridey!” she shouted.
The little woman in black hurried past an openmouthed Bristol and placed her palms upon Lady Hathaway’s bottom. Bridey drew a breath and shoved mightily. Lady Hathaway popped into the carriage and fell back against an upholstered seat cushion. She frowned out the window. “Are you addle-minded, girl? Come along!”
Lady Hathaway was Aunt Prudence? Bristol closed her mouth and gave her head a curt shake. This strange woman was so unlike anything Bristol had been led to expect that her mind rebelled at the information. She stared in bewilderment at the fleshy face glaring out the coach window and struggled to connect this orange-haired vision with the stern, juiceless sermons Noah received each month. That sober writer was Bristol’s Aunt Prudence, not this painted, booming mass of silk and ruffles.
Involuntarily Bristol cast a final sweeping glance over the dockyards, a part of her mind still searching for the Aunt Prudence of her expectations.
Lady Hathaway leaned forward and thumped her cane on the carriage floor, and Bristol started and scurried up the steps, taking a seat across from her formidable new aunt. They inspected each other in silence while the driver lashed Bristol’s trunk to the back of the coach. Then he and Bridey climbed up onto the driver’s seat and the carriage jolted forward.
Lady Hathaway’s sharp blue eyes peered from folds of flesh. “What’s wrong with you, girl? You’re pale as a fish’s belly!”
“I... this is such a surprise... Papa forgot to mention your new name or even that you’d married. He didn’t tell me...”
Lady Hathaway leaned against the velvet upholstery with a rustle of silk, and she waved a jeweled hand airily. “Well, of course Noah didn’t tell you. I never told him. Noah Adams is a good man, but such a prig! Ideas of class and so forth. He’d never understand or approve marrying above one’s station in life. To Noah, self-interest is the devil’s torment, and only community welfare is of importance.” Lady Hathaway laughed. “His letters are full of such tripe. Noah always looked at personal wealth like a dire disease to be avoided at all cost—as if the aristocracy was a sort of scab on existence. Does he still hold such outlandish views?”
Bristol nodded slowly, a slight frown creasing her forehead. She felt uneasy, not certain if she was being disloyal to her father by listening to Lady Hathaway’s criticism.
Lady Hathaway grinned, the edges of her wide lips disappearing into a wall of cheek. “Well, Lord Hathaway may be an old fool, but he is a very rich old fool.” She snorted. “Noah thrives on hard work and noble sacrifice too much to understand the pleasures of an advantageous marriage.” She lifted the rings flashing on both dimpled hands and nodded pointedly.
Bristol chewed the inside of her cheek. She felt an urge to defend Noah, but Lady Hathaway had said nothing untrue. The point of unease lay in the fact that Bristol had never before heard her father’s opinions presented as a negative. Sharp blue eyes noted Bristol’s distress, and Lady Hathaway waved her sausage fingers, cutting into Bristol’s weak protest. “Now, don’t misunderstand, dear, there’s much to admire in your father. In fact, I admire and respect Noah enough not to trouble him with a marriage he’d never approve. I don’t wish to upset him.”
Recognizing the unmistakable affection in Lady Hathaway’s booming voice eased Bristol’s mind. She smiled hesitantly. “Perhaps you misjudge Papa, Lady Hathaway. Papa would be pleased to know you’re happy and well provided for. I think you might consider informing him; I know he’ll want to offer his best wishes.”
Lady Hathaway’s exploding laugh filled the carriage. “I can’t very well do that without compounding the misunderstanding. You see, this deception has been continuing for twenty-four years.” She shrugged her shoulders. “How could I guess a niece would one day appear to find me out?”
“Twenty-four years?” Bristol’s green eyes widened. “But your letters...?”
Lady Hathaway leaned over the cane, a wicked twinkle sparkling in her eyes. “Once a month I copy Reverend Cornwell’s dullest sermon and post it to Noah, shamelessly appropriating the words as my own.” Lady Hathaway grinned and gave Bristol a conspirator’s wink.
Bristol’s mouth opened and closed. She blinked. A twitch began at the corner of her full lips, widening helplessly into a smile. “But that’s terrible!” She pictured Lady Hathaway copying the sermons and then remembered Noah earnestly reading them aloud to the Adams family, setting Prudence as an example his girls should strive to follow. A bubble of laughter welled in Bristol’s throat. “That’s just...”
Lady Hathaway nodded happily. “Terrible!” she agreed.
Together they burst into delighted laughter, Lady Hathaway’s booming guffaw drowning Bristol’s softer voice. Bristol laughed until she felt weak and her sides ached. Aunt Prudence was a flagrant deception, nothing whatever like her letters suggested.
Bristol fell against the velvet seat cushions and held her sides. “I promise your secret is safe, Lady Hathaway.” It would be a shame to betray her aunt’s secret after so many years. Bristol smiled. Following the shared mirth, it seemed stiff and formal to call the woman Lady Hathaway. Bristol looked at the orange hair and powdered face. “Aunt Prudence,” she amended awkwardly.
“Pru. Everyone calls me Pru.” Aunt Pru leaned forward and pounded Bristol on the knee. “I like you, Bristol Adams! You’re pretty and practical and have a sense of humor, thank God!”
Explanations disposed of, Aunt Pru’s deep voice chattered on, remembering Noah and past events, liberally interlaced with local gossip, advice, and an occasional demand that Bristol peer out to see a famous landmark passing the coach window.
“Look over there!” Aunt Pru’s jeweled hand tugged Bristol forward. “There’s the memorial to the great fire of 1666.” Aunt Pru in
dicated a towering pillar, and Bristol dutifully murmured admiration. “I met Robert Hathaway in the aftermath of the fire. Practically two-thirds of London burned to the ground. You can imagine the confusion! By the time things sorted themselves out, the young fool was enough in love with me not to care that I had no money and no title. Of course, I was younger and considerably thinner twenty-four years ago. Oh, it was quite a mad affair, I assure you. In fact, Robert’s father threatened to disinherit Robert if he dared marry me.” A note of pride entered Aunt Pru’s tone. “Thankfully, the old gentleman died of a seizure before he could arrange a new will.” Aunt Pat grinned impishly, and her orange curls bounced around her cheeks. “Love is one thing, but love in the slums is something else entirely. Thank God the old man had the good grace to die when he did!”
Overwhelmed, Bristol nodded with a weak smile. She leaned into the seat cushion and let Aunt Prudence’s voice wash over her, focusing on the stream of conversation only when it seemed a fact emerged from the monologue which Bristol should remember. For the most part, she simply stared at her incredible aunt and fought to sweep away all previous notions, trying to think of this woman as her aunt and not a flamboyant stranger. Whoever and whatever Prudence Adams Hathaway might be, Bristol realized she thoroughly enjoyed the woman, was entranced with the strangeness of her. Aunt Prudence appeared to value qualities New England frowned upon, and a suspicion grew in Bristol’s mind that her London visit would be anything but what Noah intended.
Glancing at her aunt, Bristol hid a smile behind her hand. Poor Papa would be appalled if he knew how ill-suited his sister seemed for the task of instilling discipline and sober thought into a young girl’s mind. Unless Aunt Prudence were other than what she appeared to be, Bristol guessed the trip was not destined to be a lonely exile after all.
“Aha! Now, this is the very heart of London,” Aunt Pru crowed, waving at the teeming crowds outside the coach windows. “Here you see the greatest city in all the world! Look outside so you’ll have something to describe to your father besides the deceptions of your aunt!”
Obediently Bristol peered from the windows into a maze of crowded lanes. The coach crawled through a heavy, noisy traffic of competing carriages and mounted riders. The lanes were choked and dirty and noisy and smelled of offal and garbage”—but above everything hung an unmistakable aura of excitement and bustle.
Hawkers jammed the narrow walkways, holding up their varied wares and singing: “Hot pears and pippins!” “Diddle, diddle, dumplin’s ho!” “Sweep here, cheap sweep, here!” “Knives to grind, pretty ladies, knives to grind!” “Secondhand clothes! First is dear, seconds is cheap!” The symphony of the streets rose and fell in jumbled cadence.
Behind the hawkers, Bristol saw a row of beggars lining the sooty shop fronts, being chased away, only to reappear. As she stared, a sightless bundle of dirty rags extended a hand and groped toward the hem of a passing gentleman’s finery. “A shilling,” the beggar pleaded in a professional whine. “One shilling, good sir.” The gentleman passed without looking up from the papers in his hand, and the blind beggar clutched toward the next passerby. At his side, a mad-looking woman waved a filthy, mutilated stump and cried, “Shillings! Shillings for them what’s poor and unable to work. Shillings!”
Bristol sucked in her breath. No such creatures roamed the lanes of Salem; she’d never seen such persons. Their hollow cheeks and extended bellies and their crust of filth affronted Bristol’s sense of decency, How could pedestrians pass so callously? She shivered and turned a pale face to her aunt.
Lady Hathaway shrugged. “It’s said they do it to themselves. Whack off an arm or a foot to extract pity and shillings.” She sighed and patted Bristol’s shoulder. “Don’t distress yourself pitying beggars. Look at the fine shops, the grand buildings, the magnificence of the carriages, the... Oh, see there! I believe it’s the Marquis de Chevoux.” Aunt Pru poked her face to the window, peering at a resplendent young man leaning negligently on a diamond-studded cane and chatting with an admiring group. “Yes, it is.” Aunt Pru studied the young man thoughtfully, then reversed her instruction and pushed Bristol back on the seat away from the window.
Bristol pulled her mind from the beggars and looked a question at her aunt.
Noting Bristol’s arched eyebrow, Prudence leaned back with a naughty grin. “Well! It wouldn’t do for the marquis to see you looking like a servant girl. He’s one of the season’s most desirable catches.”
Bristol’s face turned a becoming pink, and she felt acutely conscious of her plain high-necked gown of drab gray. It hadn’t taken long to observe she was years behind English fashion. She’d seen but one woman on the streets wearing an apron and dust cap, and none with the Puritan collar.
Bristol cast a curious glance at the twin mounds of flesh rounding out of Aunt Pru’s low-cut bodice. Without thinking, she touched the high collar of her gray gown; fashion or no fashion, Bristol didn’t think she’d be comfortable exposing her own breasts like that. On the other hand... She shook her head. Perhaps something fashionable existed midway between her own high collar and Aunt Pru’s plunging neckline.
Aunt Prudence leaned over her gold-headed cane and lowered her voice in confidence. “The marquis is a Frenchman, as you’ve guessed. Frenchmen are fantastic lovers!”
Bristol’s mouth fell open, and the blush on her cheeks deepened to scarlet. She felt the gold chain beneath her collar, and a sudden image of Jean Pierre leaped into mind, bringing a warm tingle.
Misunderstanding the sudden heat fusing Bristol’s face, Aunt Pru frowned and thumped her cane. “Now, don’t be provincial, niece!” She examined Bristol carefully, as if reflecting on Bristol’s background; then she continued in a softer voice, “Naturally, I can’t expect you to know about French lovers.” She cleared her throat and shifted on the seat. “And of course, I myself know nothing from personal experience.” An impish glint implied a doubt. “But rumor has it that once safely married, a woman can do worse than seek a French lover.” She hooted at Bristol’s flaming face and pounded her niece’s knee. “But first things first. We’ll try to keep you virginal until we’ve made you a suitable match.”
“A match?” Bristol repeated weakly. At this point, she couldn’t have said which part of Aunt Pru’s conversation surprised her more.
“Of course. We can’t send you back to that barbaric colony where young girls are whipped for flirting. For flirting!” Aunt Pru sniffed her outrage. “They might as well lash girls for breathing! If you marry here, you can stay here—in a civilized country!” She waved at Bristol’s stricken expression. “If you insist on returning, at least you’ll return with a wealthy husband and no more ridiculous courtship barbarisms. My dear, New England has reverted to the Dark Ages; I was positively shocked by your father’s letters!”
Bristol’s expression hovered between amusement and dismay. Glancing out the window at the choking filth, the sooty overhead cloud, and the rows of towering buildings leaning one upon the other, Bristol thought perhaps Dark Age Salem did have a few redeeming qualities. Such as breathable air, clean lanes, and graceful homes of manageable size. And few French lovers.
Aunt Pru’s voice rushed on, continuing to arrange Bristol’s future. “Keeping you virginal may prove formidable,” Aunt Pru mused thoughtfully, clearly relishing the problem. Her knowing eyes swept Bristol’s lush figure, stripping away the unsuitable clothing and draping her niece in silks and dropping necklines. “Considering your figure and your face, we’ll have to maintain a strict guard at all times.” She laughed, pleased by the prospect.
Bristol smiled faintly and lowered her pink face to the hands clutched in her lap. If Lady Hathaway had blithely announced an upcoming journey to the moon, Bristol wouldn’t have been more astonished and off balance than she was at this moment. The entire conversation was simply unthinkable; for a few seconds Bristol had actually considered mentioning her lack of virginity. Aunt Pru’s breezy, knowing manner encouraged such confidences. And t
o confess her fall from grace repudiated all Bristol had been taught to revere; she assumed people did indeed commit moral wrongs, but never, never did they speak of them.
Bristol sighed. Lovers. Virginity. Dyed hair and secret marriages. She shook her head to clear it. She felt as if she’d walked into an upside-down world where none of the old rules applied. In a stroke, Aunt Pru swept away the solid values and principles Bristol had believed founded in iron, unquestioned, and transgressed at peril. And if the rules were broken, the actions were hidden and people went on as if the old rules still applied.
But that didn’t seem to be Aunt Prudence’s world. Seeing herself as her aunt must, Bristol suddenly felt like a dolt, a country fool who might better be tucked away in a village hamlet than sitting in an elegant carriage conversing, however badly, with a powdered sophisticate whom Bristol doubted anything could astonish.
Another stunning fact to emerge from a conversation studded with revelations was that Aunt Pru seemed confident Bristol could be molded into a young lady of this time and place—the country edges could be polished off. An idea about which Bristol didn’t feel as certain. Already Aunt Pru foresaw a “suitable match” for Bristol and had jumped past that momentous event to advise a French lover!
Bristol darted a glance from the affable mountain of flesh seated across from her. Aunt Prudence smiled to herself in supreme confidence, obviously plotting the brilliant transformation of her young niece into a dazzling beauty to be slotted neatly into London society.
Well, why not? Bristol asked herself, absorbing some of Aunt Pru’s confidence. She peeked discreetly at her ripe breasts pushing the bodice of her drab gown and dared to wonder how she would look if her neckline plunged as drastically as her aunt’s. Intuitively she guessed her figure had been fashioned for display. Bristol’s spirits lifted. If she must place herself in Aunt Pru’s ample hands, she might as well relax and enjoy the experience. She guessed that resisting Lady Hathaway would be like resisting an earthquake—impossible.
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