But she did fish an extra florin from her reticule, out of appreciation for the driver’s having scolded the young man in town. Even though the student had posed no threat, it was a good feeling to have someone champion them.
“Can you afford to do that?” Peggy whispered uneasily.
“Yes,” Catherine assured her. The three hundred pounds per annum willed to her by Grandfather Lorimer made that possible. And Father had always tipped generously during the highs and lows of family finances over the years, so it seemed only natural to do so.
“Why, thank you, Misses!” the driver said, giving his palm an appreciative look before pocketing the coins. “And may th’ good Lord smile down upon you today.”
“Misses Somerset and Rayborn,” Miss Bernard said with a glance at the notebook in her hands as they approached her. She was an elegant, slender woman appearing to be in her thirties. Moving her pencil to her left hand, she offered her right to Catherine, and then Peggy. “Welcome to Girton. I trust your journey was pleasant?”
“Most pleasant, Miss Bernard,” Catherine replied.
“We discovered each other in the same railway coach,” Peggy told her.
“And you weren’t acquainted before? What lovely happenstance.” The mistress took up her pencil again, checked their names from her notebook, then introduced them to Miss Howard, a tall fourth-year student with a white streak running through her brown hair to the coiled braids in back. “Will you need Miss Howard to show you about?”
Peggy thanked her anyway, saying, “We were given tours in August.”
“Very good,” Miss Bernard said. “Then feel free to explore on your own. There are sandwiches in the dining room, where you’ll see notices for an assembly after supper. Welcome to Girton.”
From the entrance hall they turned left into the long main corridor, airy and light from sunlight pouring in from east-facing windows. Doors to sitting rooms and bedrooms and the lecture rooms ran along the left side, each sitting room adjoining another so that their fireplaces could share the same chimney. On the right, several feet apart, were a bathroom and then a chemistry laboratory. Peggy stopped at the sitting room door to number four, turned the knob, and looked back at Catherine. “Would you care to come in?”
“In a little while?”
Peggy smiled understanding. “You can’t wait either?”
“No.” And it was fitting that each should see her apartment for the first time alone. “I just wish we could be neighbors.”
“We’ll ask permission to move next year.”
If I last that long popped into Catherine’s mind as she looked back to send Peggy a wave. She squashed the thought. Confident thoughts from now on! she told herself, turning left into the south corridor. Number twelve, the next-to-the-last apartment, opened into a sitting room furnished with a study table and four chairs, bookshelves, two plush upholstered chairs, a rug, and a small table and lamp. Coals glowed in the gate of the fireplace. The paneling was painted a restful pale green. A folding doorway led to a bedroom with wardrobe, bed, chair, and chest of drawers with a mirror. Long windows filtered sunlight through lace curtains. The curtains, bed linens, and rug that Naomi and Sarah had helped her select from Selby’s Quality Drapers in Cambridge lent a homelike feeling.
My own apartment! she thought, unfastening her coat. If only her parents and Jewel could see it. I’ll have to sketch it for them. She hung her coat over the cane chair by her bed and pressed her back against the far wall. Or perhaps there’s enough room for a photograph. Surely Girton or Cambridge had a photographer for hire. She could send her family a photograph of her apartment, and even of Peggy, so they could envision her surroundings and new friend as they read her letters. Wouldn’t that be something! she thought as she removed gloves and hat and put them atop her chest of drawers.
A knock sounded at her bedroom door.
My first visitor!
“Your trunk, Miss . . . Rayborn?” said a balding man in his late forties or so, with a sheen across his forehead and a stoop as both hands held the handle behind his back. He introduced himself as Mr. Willingham, groundskeeper, and the thickset man who followed him into the room at the other end of the trunk as Mr. Hearn, husband to the cook.
“Beside my bed, please,” she said, and thanked them as they hurried out. She opened the lid, then knelt to unwind the towels from the silver-framed portraits of her parents and Jewel, relieved that the glass plates had not cracked. The chimneypiece, she told herself, rising again to her feet. But she stopped in the doorway to the sitting room. Voices were coming from the bedroom adjoining hers. She held her breath to listen. The conversation was too muffled to decipher but was obviously a heated one. There seemed to be three participants, one male and two female. Catherine stepped into the space between her bedside table and cane chair and pressed her ear to the wall.
“ . . . have to grow up sometime . . .” came through in a man’s voice.
“ . . . would behoove you to show some gratitude . . .” in a woman’s.
What are you doing? Catherine asked herself. Seconds later she was out in the corridor and knocking at number four. Peggy answered straightaway.
“Why, I was just going to nip over for a look at your place. But you can see mine first.”
Catherine walked through the two rooms, pausing to finger the fine cotton lace at the hem of the coverlet. “How lovely.”
“My mother made the coverlet—curtains too.”
“Your mother sews?”
“Why, yes.” Peggy peered into her mirror and started removing pins from her hat. “She was piecing army uniforms in an attic factory in Cheapside when she met Father at a May Day festival. They were fifteen and got married three months later.”
“Three years younger than us.” Catherine shook her head. “Two of my cousins were married at sixteen, but I just don’t think I could . . .” She stopped herself. “Oh dear. I wasn’t criticizing your parents.”
“Of course you weren’t.” The hat came off, and Peggy started tucking stray red curls into her chignon. “But I agree with you—that’s too young. But my father’s of the mind that, because it was good for them, everyone should do it that way.”
“He wishes you were married?”
“Dear me, yes. To our neighbor’s son, Oliver Piggott. He stands to inherit his father’s haberdashery, and Father says he’s a ‘decent hardworking sort who knows how to treat his patrons.’ ”
She shook her head, loosening a curl from her chignon. “Thank heaven for Aunt Mabel. If she hadn’t insisted upon paying my tuition and board, Father would never have agreed to college. She even pays for my railway tickets, or I would have been in third-class. Would you like to see what she gave me when I graduated from grammar school?”
“Why, yes.”
Peggy removed a key from the pocket of the coat draped over the footboard of her bed. She unlatched her trunk and fished about in the bottom. Handing a narrow velvet-covered box up to Catherine, she said, “I’ve never bothered with jewelry, but I do wear these to church every Sunday, in her honor.”
Catherine raised the hinged lid. Atop the black velvet lining lay a strand of seed pearls. She touched one. “They’re exquisite.”
“Thank you,” said her new friend, beaming as she reached again for the box. “But I’ve shown off enough. Shall we tour your place now?”
“Why don’t we lunch first?” Catherine said. “I’m famished.”
Which was the truth. Still, Peggy gave her an odd look. “Is there something the matter?”
“I’m not sure.” Catherine told her about the voices.
“I’m impressed with your restraint,” Peggy said as they walked down the corridor. “I would have been tempted to eavesdrop.”
“Oh, I was tempted, mind you.”
Sociable laughter drifted down from upstairs, and Misters Willingham and Hearn lugged another trunk past. A trio of young women ambled toward them, older students, judging by the ease of their bearings. They
paused from conversing to send smiles and say, “Welcome to Girton.”
“Thank you,” Peggy replied.
“We’re glad to be here,” Catherine told them before continuing on. They were several feet from the dining room entrance when she said to Peggy, “May I ask you a question?”
“Certainly.”
“This Oliver . . .”
“What about him?”
“May I assume you’re not fond of him?”
“Oliver?” Peggy shrugged. “Fondness is one thing, picturing him seriously as a husband is another. To me, he’ll ever be the gangly boy who once slipped a toad into my pocket and was always saying I reminded him of a matchstick. Besides, can you imagine going through the rest of your life with the name Peggy Piggott?”
Catherine had to smile. “He sounds rather fun.”
“Not you too!” Peggy groaned. “Then you may have him. I’ll be sure to introduce you some time.”
“Hmm.” Linking her arm through Peggy’s, Catherine said, “Just remind me not to wear anything with pockets.”
Three
“I boxed up Catherine’s macaroons this morning,” Naomi Rayborn said to Sarah in London five days later. “I should write and thank the postmaster general. When William was at Oxford, I had to ask Stanley to deliver his packages to Paddington, and it cost twice as much to send them as what parcel post costs now.”
An unseasonable sixty-five degrees had drawn the two to a bench in Berkeley Square. Bethia, almost four years old, was seated between them, and two-year-old Danny sat upon Naomi’s lap. Guy Russell, the coachman’s son, sat at the base of a nearby plane tree.
“I wonder how she’s adjusting to Girton,” Sarah said.
“Oh, very well, I expect. James’s family thrives upon travel. And to be able to walk just down the hall to so many interesting lectures . . .”
Sarah pictured herself doing the same, until she realized a seed of discontent was attempting to take root in her mind. She reminded herself that, had she also gone away to college, she would not have been reunited with her father when the late Mrs. Blake hired him as her tutor almost six years ago. She could see his shadowy form in the third-storey window, where he kept his desk while writing a history of Saint Paul’s Cathedral. He would probably still be living alone in the little Surrey Street cottage, still believing his daughter had perished in the Thames as an infant. Naomi would probably still be a cook, unmarried, and Bethia and Danny would not be here in the Square with them.
And William and I may not have even married, she realized, taking the vein of thought even further. He’s worth more than all the college memories in the world. And the degree granted her by London University after last year’s examinations was just as valid as if she had gone away. Being that it was impossible to travel two life-roads at the same time, she told herself that the one God had set her upon suited her just fine. Especially considering her humble beginnings.
All she could ask for was one more thing, and as Doctor Raine advised, she just had to be patient. Three years was not an alarmingly long time to pass without conceiving a child.
She drew in a deep breath, held it, and eased it out again. “I wish I could box up some of this weather.”
“But if it were in a box, how would you enjoy it?” Bethia asked, bottle-blue eyes serious.
Sarah smiled at her half sister. “Well, that bears some thought. It would have to be a very big box.”
“As big as an apple crate?”
“Oh, much bigger. Roomy enough for me to sit inside. With a book.”
“You would need a candle, too,” Bethia suggested. “And matches.”
“That’s a good idea, Bethia.”
“And would there be room for us? Me and Mother and Father and Danny and William?”
Sarah’s and Naomi’s smiles met over the girl’s head.
“But of course,” Sarah replied.
Looking at the boy seated on the ground, Bethia said, “Guy?”
Guy Russell stopped turning over in his hands the harmonica Mr. Duffy had given him last year. Though his six-year-old eyes indicated that he did not believe such a box would be fashioned, he smiled. “Thank you, Bethia. But I shouldn’t wish to be without Mother and Father and Lottie.”
Lottie was his sister, born just one week ago. “Sarah . . .” Bethia began.
“Anyone you would care to invite could join us inside,” Sarah reassured her with a pat on the back. “We’ll just build a bigger box.”
Two-year-old Danny, in Naomi’s lap, showed more interest in passers-by than in the warm breezes of Berkeley Square. “Who’s he, Mummy?” he asked of every stroller who passed, regardless of gender.
“She’s Mrs. Gregory,” Naomi replied, returning the neighbors’ housekeeper’s wave.
“Would you like me to play a song?” Guy asked hopefully.
He was clearly Stanley’s son, with sapphire-blue eyes and sprouts of dark brown hair. From his mother, Penny, alto in the choir at Saint George’s, he had inherited an ear for music, which had prompted Sarah and William to bring the boy along to a matinee performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore at the Opera Comique two months ago. Any misgivings over doing such were put to rest even before Buttercup came onstage with her basket of goods, for little Guy sat as still as Lot’s wife, soaking in the music through every pore.
“Yes, Guy,” Sarah told him. “Play something for us.”
With hands cupped behind the harmonica, he began coaxing out the notes from the musical, As I Walked Through the Meadows.
“Do it agin!” Danny exclaimed after one stanza. And so Guy complied. This time Naomi kissed the back of her son’s fair head and sang along softly,
“As I walked through the meadows to take the fresh air,
The flowers were blooming and gay;
I heard a fair damsel so sweetly a-singing
Her cheeks like the blossom in May . . .”
An elderly couple strolling along past a stand of trees smiled, the gentleman touching the brim of his top hat. Sarah smiled and nodded back, marveling to herself at how her stepmother could sing so comfortably in the presence of others. Whether it was from having been married to Father for the past five years, or just that reaching forty-two years of age caused one to shed some abashment, she was glad Naomi no longer hid her talent under a bushel. Her clear, soothing voice was a perfect accompaniment to such a fine day.
When the song ended, little Danny’s fickle attention was captured by the approach of two women sheathed in rustling silks and carrying frilled parasols. Mmes. Beale and Archer, formerly Misses Fowler and Welch. Neither had spoken to Sarah since selling her tickets to a charity luncheon outside Saint George’s years ago. Nonetheless, when they glanced her way, Sarah smiled and greeted them.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Beale . . . Mrs. Archer.”
The two pushed out simultaneous “Good afternoons” through tight smiles before hurrying past without a glance to spare for Naomi or the children.
“Who’s he, Mummy?” Danny asked.
“Two ladies, Danny,” his mother replied.
Not ladies, Sarah thought, watching the two parasols meet over whispers and giggles. At least not by her definition. A true lady did not measure a person’s social status before deciding which degree of courtesy to extend.
But she was used to such treatment, having endured it since her arrival at 14 Berkeley Square as a spindly orphan girl with a crippled left hand. Being made legal ward of the late Mrs. Blake, whom she had addressed as Grandmother, and then inheriting Blake Shipping, only brought out the fortune hunters and opportunists. The remainder of Mayfair, with the exception of a few dear souls such as Vicar Sharp, clearly resented that a daughter of the slums had the audacity to live better than most of them.
If they only knew it all, she thought. Drawing room conversations could be fueled for years over the account of how she was pulled from the Thames as an infant by a drunken fisherman after her insane mother jumped with her
from Waterloo Bridge.
Naomi’s high crime was being a cook before marrying Father. Marrying above one’s station was considered bad form, for it blurred the dividing line between the classes, giving other servants romantic notions toward sons and daughters of households.
“I’m sorry, Naomi,” Sarah told her.
“Sorry?”
“For the way they behaved.”
Naomi waved a hand. “They can’t make the afternoon any less lovely, can they?”
But they had done just that for Sarah. Until the thought struck her that the breezes stirring Danny’s cherubic curls were not confined to Mayfair. She asked herself, Why do we cling to this place?
****
“Because Mrs. Blake wanted you to have this house,” William said after stepping out of the little runabout he took to and from the laboratory of the Hassall Commission.
Stanley came out of the carriage house wiping his hands upon a rag, and took Belle’s reins. “I’ll stable her, Mr. Doyle.”
“Thank you, Stanley,” William told him, then turned again to Sarah. “Say, is Trudy still planning fried soles for supper?”
“Yes, fried sole.”
“Very good! I thought of little else all the way home. We had to work through lunch with that court date breathing upon our necks. But we’ve enough evidence now to send those Sleepy-Tot Soothing Tonic rascals to jail.”
They passed the stable yard, where Comet and Daisy pitched and snorted and hung their heads over the top railing at the sight of William. But Sarah’s spirits were not as high as those of the pair of Cleveland bays. In fact, they were heavier than when she had come through the gate earlier to wait for her husband.
Once alone in the garden, William stopped to switch his leather satchel and umbrella to his left hand. Twenty-six years had not taken the hint of boyishness from him; dimpled clean-shaven cheeks and unruly brown hair still balanced out a masculine square jaw and contemplative smoke-colored eyes. Resting his hand upon her shoulder, he studied her face. “I thought you would be happy to hear it.”
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