Once in a Blue Moon

by Penelope Williamson

  "And your clerks are starved with it. Really, Clarence, I cannot believe you're such a nipcheese that you won't provide those poor men with a fire."

  "A little chill in the air keeps them on their toes. It takes hard work, Jessalyn, to get where I've come," he said even as he tipped some more coal onto his own fire. He straightened and looked around the room, as if seeing it for the first time. "Where is your footman? Surely you didn't come here on your own."

  "I haven't a footman, Clarence. You know that."

  "Your abigail then. You should have at least brought that girl with you, the one with the hideous scar."

  "Becka isn't well. She says she has a gouty pain in her head. Really, Clarence," she snapped, her nerves making her irritable with him, "I did not come here for you to read me a lecture."

  Clarence shrugged out of his greatcoat, which he hung on the wooden tree. Although it had only been a couple of months since she'd last seen him, he looked changed. He was wearing his hair different, brushed up to give its growing sparsity more fullness. And there was an odd tightness about his mouth.

  "I am sorry to scold you," he said as he came up to her. "You know it is only my deep regard for you that—" He had started to raise her fingers to his lips, and now a look of surprise crossed his face. He turned her hand over to examine her palm. "Whatever have you done to yourself? These look like burns."

  She curled her fingers over the scabbed pads. The blisters were healing, but they still pained her too much to wear gloves. "End Cottage caught fire. Gram and I were fortunate to get out alive."

  "You were in the house at the time. But—" He cut himself off. Distress had darkened his eyes to the color of stone moss, and Jessalyn felt touched by his concern.

  She removed her hand from his clasp and went to the window. There was a man in the yard, bent over the trough, sloughing water over his head. For a brief moment, as he straightened, he turned, and Jessalyn saw a pitted, jowly face beneath shaggy, dripping hair. Then the man spun around and walked off, disappearing through a door in the mews.

  Jessalyn stiffened, sure that—but no... Dear life, since the fire it seemed that everywhere she looked she saw the face of Jacky Stout.

  She turned from the window. Clarence was watching her, a frown drawing a crease between his brows. "I must say, Jessalyn, you look fair done up. Has something happened?"

  "Clarence, I..." She gripped her hands behind her back and forced herself to meet his eyes. "I have come to tell you that it is impossible for me to be your wife."

  He held himself very still. Then his breath left him in a gentle sigh. "I see. And what has made it impossible?"

  "Oh, Clarence. I tried once to tell you... I am fond of you, you are a dear, dear friend, but I simply don't love you in that way. And I understand now that I never shall."

  "You will forgive me if I do not share your certainty. I had hoped that with time—"

  "Clarence, I shan't marry you. Ever."

  He squeezed the bridge of his nose between two fingers, his eyes wincing shut. Then he flung back his head and swung away from her, his fists clenched at his sides. The room grew so quiet she could hear drunken singing coming from the gin shop next door. Jessalyn's teeth sank into her lower lip as she stared at his stiff back. As hard as that had been, this next part was going to be even worse.

  She sucked in a deep breath, as if she could draw courage from the air. "I know that it is very bad form of me to turn down your offer and then beg a boon in return, but..." She swallowed around a terrible dryness in her mouth. Dear life, but this was cutting at her pride like a whiplash. "But I find myself in somewhat straitened circumstances. Clarence, I—I wonder if I might apply to you for a loan."

  His fists unclenched, and he coughed. He walked away from her, toward the desk. He hitched his hip onto one corner and looked down at his clasped hands. His face was as white as the bleached linen of his shirt. "How—" His voice broke, and he had to stop to clear his throat. "How much do you need?"

  Jessalyn's fingers were trying to twist knots in her skirt. "Ten—ten thousand pounds. I'm afraid I've little to give you as collateral. The Adelphi house is mortgaged from cellar to chimney pot. But there are the horses." A flash of pain stabbed at her chest, but she ignored it. "As they are, they aren't worth much, but if Blue Moon wins the Derby..."

  He was swinging one long booted leg back and forth. He raised his head. Though his mouth quirked into a little smile, she saw to her dismay that his eyes shone wet with suppressed tears. "My dear. You know that if you marry me, you could have your every whim gratified, no matter how outrageous or expensive. And if you are in the suds... well, as your husband I shall be obliged to settle all your debts."

  "I have explained why I cannot marry you, Clarence. The reasons for my needing the money are—are personal."

  "Jessalyn, Jessalyn..." He shook his head, as if admonishing a slow-witted child. "Do you take me for a fool? You want it for him—for Caerhays. He finally has done it, hasn't he? He's made you his Trelawny whore."

  A rush of heat spread up her throat. "How dare you?"

  "The man is married. Have you no shame?"

  "Emily is dead!" Jessalyn blurted, guilt making her shout the words.

  Clarence straightened with a snap, and his pale face took on a sudden animation. "Dead, by God! And the brat? Would it have been a boy?" He threw back his head and hooted a laugh at the ceiling. "Poor cousin, to be so close and then phit"—he snapped his fingers—"it's gone." He paced the bare plank floor, chuckling to himself. Suddenly he swung around and his gaze refocused on her. "And you think he'll marry you—teetering as he is on the verge of ruin and disgrace? He hasn't a hope or a prayer of escaping prison, now that his little heiress is dead."

  Jessalyn stared at him, seeing the fair, slender face of the boy she'd ridden bareback with across the moors, the boy she'd challenged to a diving contest in Claret Pond, the young man who had given her her first kiss before a Midsummer's Eve bonfire. Surely that Clarence would have emptied out his purse to save his cousin.

  She lifted her hand to him, as if reaching across time to the boy he had been. "Oh, Clarence, I can understand why McCady's pride has forbidden him to ask it of you. But what has stopped you from offering to lend him the money he needs?"

  "My dear, he owes it all to me in the first place. It is my bank that holds his notes." He paced the room, pumping his arms, then grasping his hands together as if in prayer. "By God, I have waited years to bring McCady Trelawny to his knees. If there was truly any justice in this world, he would soon go the way of his brothers, and I could come into the title, but as it is, at least I can have the satisfaction—" He stopped, swinging around, and a crafty look narrowed his eyes. "He must be getting quite desperate now if he has sent you to me."

  "He didn't send me. And you mustn't tell him, Clarence, please. You know how he is, his pride. He would never forgive me if..." Her voice trailed off. She was speaking to him as if he were the old Clarence. But she didn't know this man.

  A withdrawn look had settled over his face. He adjusted his neckcloth, smoothed down the lapels of his coat, as if regretting now his earlier outburst. He went back to his desk and settled into the chair. He shot his cuff, dipped a quill into the inkpot, and began to write in a red leather ledger.

  Jessalyn drew in a breath to speak, then expelled it in a silent sigh. She retrieved her cloak and muff off the coat-tree and went to the door.

  "I shall give you the ten thousand pounds, Jessalyn."

  Her hand fell from the latch, and she turned. She stared at his bent head, not daring to breathe. He continued to write, the pen scraping roughly across the paper. "Will you, Clarence? And what must I give you in return?"

  He tossed down the pen and leaned back in his chair, fingering the coins in his fob pocket. His gaze was as cold and merciless as a winter wind. "You will give me yourself, of course."

  "I see." Tears filled her eyes, but she blinked them back. She lifted her chin. "I know all about
these sorts of transactions, for someone once explained them to me in great detail. I am to become your ladybird. For one night? Or do you wish for a more permanent arrangement?"

  "Oh, no, my dear. I still want you for my wife. I will have you for my wife."

  Jessalyn's breath caught in her throat like a clap of bellows. It was odd, but the thought of being this man's wife was a hundredfold more intolerable than being his harlot. "No," she said.

  He raised one languid blond brow. "Not even to save your lover's life? It costs to live, you know, even in Fleet Prison. Warm blankets and food and gin and the rope mats they give you to sleep on—they all must be paid for. You must even pay to have the irons struck off your ankles; otherwise you are left chained to the floor. They all cost, Jessalyn, and he'll not long survive if he doesn't get them."

  Jessalyn's mouth tasted like burned paper. She did not want to listen to Clarence's words. She did not want to have to make such a choice.

  He picked up the quill and began to rub the feather back and forth across his palm. "And what is it the philosophers say—one cannot live on bread alone? One needs plans, ambitions, dreams. Already he has had to grovel, to sweat and bleed to lay those forty miles of track. He's even swung a pick himself if the stories are true." His voice turned soft and menacing. "You would be preserving his dream, Jessalyn."

  "But I don't..." Slowly she shook her head. She felt weighted with a great inertia, like a butterfly trapped in a bucket of treacle. It seemed to be taking all of her energy just to think. "I don't understand. Why do the very thing that will save the man you've set out to destroy?"

  "Because more than his ruin, my dear, I want you."

  Memories came to her one after the other, like chains of paper dolls. McCady riding a wooden horse, his face alight with laughter while lights whirled around his head like stars; his long, scarred hands cradling a tiny baby, Babies and winsome virgins always put a quiver in my knees and a quake in my heart; steam wreathing around his dark head as he shoveled coal into a firebox, I should like to come along with you, Lieutenant Trelawny....

  Dark eyes, sun-bright with passion, seeing beauty in her body, touching her, I have wanted you since you were sixteen....

  Jessalyn clasped her hands behind her back and held herself tall. She lifted her chin and stared down her nose at this tutworker's grandson. "Then you may have me, Mr. Tiltwell," she said. "But ten thousand pounds is not enough. You are to settle all his notes, not simply forgive the interest. All of his debts, down to the last farthing."

  His head flung back. "But you're talking about over forty thousand pounds!"

  "That is my only offer. Take it or leave it."

  He stood up and came to her, trying to intimidate her with his man's authority. A frown thinned his mouth, and a muscle tightened along his jaw as he stared at her, gauging her resolution. Jessalyn stared back at him. Beneath her corded muslin skirts, her legs were shaking. But she didn't blink.

  He pursed his lips, pushing out a breath. "Very well, Jessalyn." He held up his hand, and the soft menace re- turned to his voice. "But I have a condition as well. Once you are my wife, you will not go near him. Nor will you mention his name, to me or within my hearing. To us it will be as if he has died."

  It felt as if a bone were caught in her throat. Unable to speak, she jerked her head in a sharp nod.

  "We have an agreement then. You will become my wife, and I will give you his promissory notes, fully settled, on our wedding night."

  She looked up at the pale, thin face of the man she had once thought of as her dearest friend. Tears blurred her eyes. She tried to hold them back, but they overflowed, spilling down her cheeks. "Why, Clarence? I thought you loved him. I thought you loved us both."

  He caught her tears with his fingers, and his face softened. "I can make you happy, Jessalyn. You'll see that I can make you happy. In time you will forget him. You will cease loving him and come to love me instead, as you were always meant to."

  "I will never forget him. Or stop loving him."

  Clarence's thin nostrils flared slightly, but he went on, as if she had not spoken. "We shall be married immediately. I should have no trouble obtaining a special license—"

  "No. We will be married the week after the Derby."

  He pressed his tongue between the gap in his teeth and slowly shook his head. "Jessalyn, what purpose would it serve—what would it serve him to wait?"

  She backed away from him, her fingers fumbling behind her for the door latch. She had to get out of this miserable room before she was sick. "Because the Derby is my dream, and I will not have it sullied by living it as your wife."

  He brought his face toward hers, but she turned her head aside. His fingers spanned her jaw, holding her still, while he planted his mouth on hers in a hard, punishing kiss. "You had no right to give him something that was mine," he said, his breath hot against her mouth. "It shall be a long time before I forgive you for that."

  She jerked out of his grasp, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. "You do not own me, Mr. Tiltwell."

  "On the contrary, my dear. I have just bought you for forty thousand pounds."

  Topper walked down Fleet Street, feeling on top of the world. He whistled through the hole in his teeth at an apple-cheeked maid, who had stepped out of a tavern to empty a slop bucket. He tossed a penny into the lap of a legless man who rolled by on a three-wheeled chair, playing a pipe. A lamplighter appeared around the bend ahead of him, reaching up with his long pole, and soon small points of light began to appear, one after the other in the misty dusk. Topper fancied they looked like a string of pearls.

  Tipping his hat, he stepped aside for a gentleman, who was preceded by a liveried footman with an ivory-handled cane. Someday I'll be like that swell, Topper thought. Someday he, too, would be rich and wear flashy togs and ride in a coach with postilions and matching pairs. And if he felt like hoofing it, well, then, he'd have a footman go before him to pave the way.

  His nose twitched at the aroma of fresh hot-cross buns wafting from a pastry cookshop. He bought a mutton pie but passed up a strawberry tart for dessert. The Derby was coming up, and a knight had to watch his weight when he was riding the horses. Someday, though, he'd be able to stuff his face with strawberry tarts till he shot the cat. He'd be that rich.

  Now the guv'nor—he was that rich, Topper thought as he turned off bright, noisy Fleet Street and began to wend his way through dark, narrow streets toward the river. His gaze darted to the shadows, searching for footpads; they'd as soon bludgeon your head in as spit at you in this part of town. Rich as a king was the guv'nor, though you wouldn't know it to look at where the man conducted his business. But then it wasn't smart to flash the ready when you were sitting cheek to jowl with boozing kens and tenements. 'Course, a lot of the guv'nor's money came from those same boozing kens and tenements. Two shillings a week he got from every man jack who dwelled in this particular rookery.

  Topper knew well what living in those places was like: the dark, dank rooms lit only with stinking tallow dips; the walls alive with wood lice. Just as he knew what it was like to be so hungry you'd eat a rotting apple core off a sidewalk slimy with spittle. Or melt the stubs of candles into your gruel to make it thick enough to fill your belly.

  A door swung open, and a sweep's boy stumbled out into the street, nearly knocking Topper down. The lad was bent double under a bag of soot, and his master was flailing at his legs with a broom handle. Topper hurried away from the sight. He knew what that was like, too. Being roused at dawn out of a cold bed of soot bags and straw and set to work cleaning rich folks' chimneys. To have your knees and elbows made tough as leather by rubbing them with brine, till they streamed with blood and you were screaming from the pain of it. To be forced into a flue too narrow for a rat, forced to climb until you were trapped, unable to go up or down, trapped in the dark...

  Topper's mind shied away from these memories. Those days were over now and best forgotten. And besides, as bad as being a
climbing boy had been, Topper knew there were other, worse ways of starving. Like spinning catgut in the workhouse or working for a molly-house where you had to sell your body like a girl. Or you could get caught cutting purses and be sent to gaol. Topper shuddered at the thought. The idea of being shut up in a small dark cell made his belly go all over queasy. Those times he'd been trapped, the walls squeezing in, the air black and thick, had left Topper with a mortal fear of small dark places.

  There was only one thing he feared worse, and that was getting the sooty warts. It happened sometimes to climbing boys, those who managed to grow old enough to bed girls. Not that they were able to bed girls for long after they got that hellish disease. Their privates were usually entirely eaten off by the time they died.

  He'd noticed the sores six months ago.

  Topper's mind slammed shut on the thought. They were nothing to worry about. Just something he picked up from that dolly-mop he'd bedded the night of the Crombie Sweeps, when he'd gotten stew-eyed drunk on Strip-Me-Naked gin. If they were sooty warts, they would hurt, wouldn't they? And these sores didn't hurt. They were hard and scalylike; he could poke them with a pin and not feel a thing. No, they weren't sooty warts. Just something he'd picked up from that dolly-mop.

  The gin shop was busy tonight, with men standing three deep at the bar to wet their whistles with a glass of ninepenny. Topper entered the warehouse through the back way and slipped into the clerks' room. Light shone beneath the closed door of the guvnor's office, causing the tall stools to throw weblike shadows onto the wall. A cultured voice, cold with anger, said, "You bloody fool. You weren't to have set fire to the house while she was in it."

  "When else was I supposed t' do it 'cept at night?" came a whining answer. It was Jacky Stout, the bullyboy the guv'nor used to collect his tenement rents and do other dirty jobs. "A man can't go around puttin' a torch to a house in the bright light o' day."