Initially fearing that she would not find anywhere to sit, Imogen was surprised to find an entirely empty bench towards the south end of Rotten Row. As much as she liked Hyde Park, Imogen had never understood the appeal of Rotten Row to anybody. As pleasant as it was, it was its use which she found most curious.
Constructed more than a hundred and fifty years before by King William the third, it had initially been known as Route du Roi, or King’s Road. Only in England, of course, could such a pretty name be corrupted over time to something as low sounding as Rotten Row. However, the privileged of England loved it, finding it a fine place to display their new clothes and fine horses throughout the London Season.
As far as she could tell, the vast majority of society displayed their fine clothes throughout the entire London Season anyway, primping and preening at every event imaginable. But, of course, it was more or less a covert sort of thing; something more akin to an accidental bragging whereas parading oneself on Rotten Row was much more deliberate. It was, in truth, the entire point.
In the end, Rotten Row had done exactly what Imogen had hoped it would do. As she stared out at fine young ladies, all from backgrounds similar to her own in terms of wealth and comforts, they tossed their great manes of hair and eyed one another with jealousy and suspicion. How glad she was to have had such sensible parents, people who understood that life was for living, not exhibiting. And that was exactly what these people did; they did not share their lives, they exhibited them. And she felt sure that what they exhibited was so far from the truth of the thing that they must surely confuse themselves in the end.
No, Imogen was not one of them, and she knew that she never would be. Imogen was made of different stuff, and she was going to roll up her sleeves and dig her hands as far into life as they would go. She was going to help the poor and do everything in her power to change the world, even if nobody noticed the effects for a hundred years. That was a life worth living.
“Now, I really had not expected to see you here, Lady Pennington.” Imogen looked up in some amazement to see the Earl of Reddington standing at the side of her bench.
“And yet, had I thought about it, I would have entirely expected to see you here, Lord Reddington.”
“And why is that?” he said, walking around the front of her to sit at her side once more.
Imogen came very close to exclaiming over the whole thing; what on earth did he mean by sitting down next to her when she had not invited him? Really, the man was unbearable.
“Well, I suppose it is because it is all so very vain and inconsequential.”
“I see that you and I are set to trade insults again, My Lady,” he said and sounded surprisingly annoyed.
“Perhaps I am already on my guard, Sir, for every time we have met, you have mocked me.” Imogen had absolutely no intention whatsoever of apologizing to him and, to make her feelings very plain, she turned in her seat and fixed him with a hard stare.
“I do not mean to mock …” he said and stopped abruptly. For a moment, he stared at her, his sharp, bright blue eyes softening a little. “I say, are you quite well, Lady Pennington?”
“I am quite well, Sir, I thank you,” she said and remembered suddenly that she must look quite a sight.
Everything she had seen in the Lambeth workhouse had laid her very low indeed, and she could not help thinking that it would see her spirits trodden down for a very long time. Of course, when she had come out of the workhouse she had cried harder than she had done since her dear mother had died. The very moment she had regained the safety of their carriage on Princes Road, she had, quite literally, bawled. Without a doubt, such high emotion had taken its toll on her appearance.
“You are nothing of the sort, My Lady,” he said, and for a moment every ounce of antagonism and mocking seemed to evaporate from his face. In all honesty, he looked rather gentle at that moment, and something about it quite upended her and made her feel most disquieted. “You have been crying, Lady Pennington.”
“Yes, I have been crying, Lord Reddington. But I am quite well now, I thank you. Your concern is most kind but entirely unnecessary.”
“Why have you been crying?” he went on, overstepping the mark once again. However, as much as she wanted to feel annoyed with his intrusion, she could not.
“I can hardly tell you, Sir, for I see you would not understand and would turn to mocking me again.”
“And if I promise not to mock for a moment, would you tell me?” he said and looked so sincere she could hardly believe she was talking to the same man.
“It is to do with my charity work, Sir,” she began a little falteringly. “This morning, Lady Redmond and I have visited the Lambeth workhouse.” She paused for a moment to check his reaction. Had she seen one hint of amusement in his eyes she had fully determined to rise to her feet and walk away from him without even the courtesy of bidding him farewell.
“Good heavens, why on earth would you go inside?” he said incredulously.
“In order to be able to help people fully, Lord Reddington, one must stare at the whole situation and not flinch.”
“And did you flinch?” he said quite gently.
“Indeed, I did flinch, Sir. But only for a moment,” she said and stopped for long enough to swallow down the emotion which threatened to bubble up again.
“Tell me, what did you see? What was it which upset you so?”
“I can hardly pick through the elements of this morning to find the one thing which upset me, Sir. There was so much to pity and so much to break one’s heart that I can hardly put it into words for fear of dissolving once more. And that I should not like to do.”
“Perhaps if you just told me a little?” he went on, and she wondered at his curious perseverance.
“This morning, Sir, I have seen tiny children breaking rocks with great hammers. They do so to have enough to eat, and yet they do not have enough to eat. They are little more than breathing skeletons, and there was nothing on this earth to prepare me for such a sight. There is nothing in my experience which equates, and I felt truly ashamed of the privilege I have enjoyed all my life.”
“But why should you feel ashamed of it? You no more had any say in your privileges than the poor had in their poverty?”
“But once you know, Sir, once you know the thing and have seen the great differences and the unfairness of it all, how can one go on living in such privilege?” She looked at him without turning away, wondering if her words were permeating his mind at all.
“I daresay to see children in poverty is always the most upsetting of things,” he said, quite inadequately.
“It was not just the children, Lord Reddington. Today, I have seen men and women without hope. Their eyes are dead, and their souls crushed; as crushed as the stones they are breaking, Sir. And they are kept apart. Married men and women who previously shared lives and homes and families are no longer allowed to sit at the same table to eat nor retire to the same room. They are forced to become estranged under such rigid and cruelly unbending rules.”
“I am so very sorry, Lady Pennington.”
“And even when they do eat, they are not allowed society, Sir. They do not sit at tables whereby they can face one another. I think that was the thing which finally broke me if I am honest. One of the guardians was kind enough to take us around the whole building. The women and children eat in one room and the men in another. They are great rooms Sir, almost halls if you will. And there in these halls are long trestle tables row upon row. And everybody sits facing the front, like children in a schoolroom. The only company a person has is the back of the head of the person at the table in front of them. They eat in complete silence, gaining no society either from the person to the left or to the right. It was as if they had been denied even that much humanity and for what?”
“I must admit, that does seem rather punitive.”
“Punitive? Yes, it is certainly that,” she said and laughed bitterly. “I have never seen such conditions
and such a crushing of the human spirit in my life and for nothing more than the crime of poverty. When did it become a crime, Sir?” She turned to look at him again.
“I am afraid I do not know the answer,” he said and stared out across Rotten Row as a group of determined young sisters strolled past, their chins high and their gowns immaculate.
“And so, I come here, Sir, to Rotten Row. I come here to look at a very different crime. The crime of privilege without consciousness. And I do so to fortify myself, to make me strong so that I might stand up defiantly in the face of all who would seek to mock me. In the end, what does it matter what they think of me?” she said and swept an arm to indicate the perambulating upper classes.
“I wish there was something that I could say to make you feel better, My Lady.”
“I am afraid there is nothing, Lord Reddington,” she said and began to rise to her feet. “Well, you asked me to tell you, and I have. And you promised that you would not mock and you did not, so I thank you for it. But now I must beg you release me, Sir, for I am expected back at the Pavilion in a few minutes to meet with Lady Redmond.”
“Of course,” the Earl said and rose to his feet also, performing a solemn bow before turning to leave her.
Chapter 9
“I must say, I am looking forward to this afternoon. There is nothing like a good Adelphi screamer to keep one occupied for an hour or two,” he said, striding into the drawing room of his Belgravia mansion.
His mother and sister had been sitting in that room in silence for some time, both nursing some sort of injury they thought the other had imposed. He had no doubt that the two of them had come to disagree over something or other, trivial or otherwise, earlier in the day, and they were intent on holding onto their resentments for as long as possible.
When he spoke, it was with the hope of easing the tension for a while and diverting their energies in another direction altogether.
“Oh, what a vulgar expression,” his mother said, rolling her eyes dramatically.
“Mother, with a reaction such as that, I daresay there might be a place for you on the stage this afternoon,” he said and was pleased to hear his sister Prudence let out a brief but explosive chuckle that she obviously could not contain. “And in any case, that is what the plays at the Adelphi Theatre are commonly known as.”
“They are melodramas, Heath. Really, you make yourself common by falling in with the vernacular. I feel certain that I have not raised you to do that.”
“But Mother, everybody calls them Adelphi screamers,” Prudence said, joining the argument. “Regardless of their status. I cannot see why you have taken offence.”
“Of course, you would argue that the sky was green if I said it was blue.” Veronica Montgomery glared at her daughter, and Heath very quickly realized that his attempts to divert them from animosity had only sought to fuel it.
“Well, regardless of what they are called, I am very much looking forward to it,” he said, wishing that he had stayed in his dressing room until it had come time to climb into their carriage.
“I must admit, I do not particularly enjoy the theatre,” his mother remarked with a pained sigh. “Still, it appears that dear Jemima has a great fondness for melodrama and so, you see, there is just one more thing that the two of you have in common.”
“It is hardly common ground of consequence, Mother, is it?” Prudence said in a quiet manner which suggested that she did not expect any response whatsoever. And that was exactly what she got.
“So, we are to meet Jemima and her father there, I gather?” Heath said, still determined to keep the tone light, despite the efforts at maintaining war that his mother and sister clung tightly to.
“Yes, I have given them the time that we are due to arrive, and we shall meet them in the foyer. After all, it would be nice, would it not, for us to all sit together to enjoy the play?”
“Except that you shall not enjoy it, Mother,” Prudence added again but did not look up from her book.
“I must admit, I am surprised that the captain of industry is interested in such diversions as plays,” he said, mischievously.
“I do wish you would stop referring to him as the captain of industry. Lord Jeremy Ravenswood is a Baron, an aristocrat. I do not know why it pleases you to talk as if the man rolls his own sleeves up and makes his hands dirty. It is far from amusing, Heath,” Veronica chastised her son, much to his further amusement.
“I do not have to take to the father to enjoy the company of the daughter, do I?” he said and shrugged.
“And do you enjoy the company of the daughter, Heath?” Prudence looked up from her book and addressed him directly.
“Yes, she is uncommonly pretty,” he said, smiling at the very thought of her golden hair, beautiful face, and ample curves.
“That is not exactly what I asked,” Prudence said and smiled at him weakly before returning her attention to the book on her lap.
“You do say the most ridiculous things, Prudence. Of course, your brother enjoys her company. And why would he not? After all, she is a most suitable young lady.”
“I daresay the definition of suitable, particularly when used as a description of young ladies, is quite a fluid thing. Rather subjective, one might say,” Prudence said and smiled when her mother looked somewhat confused by her sentiment.
“Well, perhaps we ought to make our way down,” Heath said, interrupting before another little row could open up. “After all, we do not want to leave Miss Ravenswood and the captain of industry dangling in the foyer of the Adelphi Theatre, do we?” Heath laughed and then clapped his hands together as if to hurry his relations along.
As he had fully expected, the carriage ride from his mansion in Belgravia to the Adelphi Theatre on the Strand was almost entirely silent. Trying not to let the whole thing annoy him any further, Heath decided that he would enjoy the silence for a while. And, after all, his mother and sister would come to life again once they were out in public and engaged with their company for the afternoon. At least his mother would, at any rate.
In the meantime, Heath amused himself by staring out of the window as the carriage rumbled its way through the London streets. He had always liked London, and never once did he miss out on the amusements of the London season.
As the buildings passed by his carriage window, Heath looked up at them, all tall, impressive stone frontages and enormous windows.
However, the lazy smile which had crept over his features as he relaxed and enjoyed the moment soon dropped when his eyes were drawn to the sight of two young children begging in the street.
He had seen beggars before, obviously. And they often drifted into the more affluent areas, such as the one he was currently being driven through, probably in the hope of finding people better placed to give them charity.
And yet, as he leaned forward a little in his seat and stared at them intently, Heath was reminded that he had never described such giving as charity before. He had always thought of it in terms of a handout, something that was simply taken, giving nothing in return.
The children could have been no more than five or six years of age. There was a little boy, slightly taller than the little girl at his side, and he could not help imagining that they were brother and sister. The little girl wore a long and ragged gown which was a good deal too big for her. For a moment, he thought of the sort of ladies who went out and about around Hertfordshire gathering up used clothing to give out to the poor.
Of course, it was clear to him now that it was unlikely that any clothing given ever truly fitted properly. Especially if it had been tailored to fit another. And when he thought of such ladies who involved themselves in clothing collections, he could not help thinking of Lady Imogen Pennington. No doubt she had collected much clothing in her time. After all, it was clear that she was not new to the world of good works.
The carriage had slowed since there was another one which had stopped briefly in front of it. Heath had turned full in his seat t
o look out at the children and could see that they were holding hands. Something about it struck him as sad, although he could not say exactly what. And then, just as his carriage began to move again, he saw the little boy approaching a well-dressed man who was striding along the street, his walking cane clipping the pavement smartly as he went. The little girl’s head was bent as her brother reached out a hand and looked as if he was speaking to the man.
The man did not even look at them. He simply walked around them, giving them an extraordinarily wide berth as if they carried some manner of disease which he hoped not to catch. The man held his head high and turned it a little as if to look out into the road. Heath realized that, despite the man’s determination to give nothing to the children, still he could not look at them, however determined he was.
“What interests you, Brother?” Prudence said, shuffling a little in her seat beside him as she tried to lean around to see what he was gazing at.
A Lady for the Brazen Earl: A Historical Regency Romance Book Page 7