“Yes, obviously. Where are you?” Telephone lines had not reached Hampstead yet, so she couldn’t be at home.
“At the dressmaker’s. I must speak with you.”
He thought again of his mother answering the telephone. “You should know better than to call—”
“Today, Sidney.”
He could recognize distress, tinny or not. Pushing aside his annoyance, he replied. “I’ll meet you at Lambert’s.”
Over, then under, Sidney thought in his chamber upstairs, tying his silk paisley cravat. It occurred to him every now and again that he should have a valet, as his father had had all of his adult life. But he invariably talked himself out of hiring one. The chambermaids maintained his wardrobe and polished his shoes and cuff links. Why should he pay someone to choose his clothes, tie his cravat, and button his shirts, when he could invest the forty pounds per annum? Most of London’s peerage were so fettered by tradition that they had no concept of trimming the excess in their lifestyles in order to increase their fortunes. Indeed, the land-rich-but-penny-poor gentleman was almost a cliché.
“Half the eligible women in London would give their last bonnets to be courted by you,” came a voice from his doorway.
“But then, why would I wish for a woman with no bonnet?” Sidney quipped. “You may as well come in, Mother.”
She stepped inside the room and folded her arms. “You’re twenty-seven years old. Don’t you think it’s time you settled into a decent life?”
“I consider my life very decent, thank you.” Sidney frowned at the knot and started over. “I’ve robbed no banks nor murdered anyone.”
“Adulterers inevitably pay a price, you know.”
“Then it’s a good thing we’re so rich,” he couldn’t help but say, taking up hat and gloves. He heard a sniff and looked at her again. Her grey eyes were lustered over. He sighed and wondered if female tear ducts ever wore out.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“I didn’t comfort you enough after your father died,” she said, her voice heavy with regret. “And I assumed the Church was teaching you proper morals.”
It was true that he had felt abandoned by the person he needed most, but maturity allowed him to look back at those bleak months—the servants’ hushed voices and soft steps, the breakfast trays ignored outside his mother’s door, frequent visits by the doctor—with some understanding.
“You were a good mother,” he said, meaning it. One could not give what one did not possess at the time. “I never questioned that you loved me.”
As to the Church, he could actually look back with gratitude for the ritual and routine that had provided some stability during those terrible fatherless days. But he simply no longer believed in its fables.
She was weeping, he realized. He took an extra handkerchief from a drawer and walked over to her. “There, there now, Mother,” he said, wiping her cheek while she blinked watery eyes at him. “You mustn’t work yourself up like this. Lady Kelly is an amusing conversationalist. And I happen to think myself well-versed in current events. We simply enjoy meeting for a chat every now and again.”
“And what do you chat about, Sidney?” she sniffed, pain etched in every line of her face. “Her husband? Their three children?”
It was clear that nothing he could say would comfort her, that she was as intent upon having her say as he was intent upon leaving. So he handed her the handkerchief and patted her shoulder. “It’s not healthy to worry as much as you do, Mother. A nap would refresh your mood, don’t you think?”
****
The crimson and gold interior of Lambert’s outdistanced garish into vulgar, in direct contrast to its nondescript grey stone facade. But it was one of the most popular places for London gentlemen of means. The maître d’ greeted Sidney in the usual obsequious manner and escorted him upstairs to his usual room, appointed with a low table, beaded lamp that gave subdued light, Turkish rug, a print of Watteau’s Embarkation for Cythera in a gilt frame, two plush chairs of gold brocade, and a red velvet sofa.
“Shall I send up some Château Ausone, your Lordship?” the maître d’ asked as he helped Sidney out of his topcoat. He had the professional tact not to ask if Lady Kelly would be joining him, even though she had done so dozens of times over the past two years.
“Yes.” Sidney wished he had thought to ask Leona if she would care to have lunch. Why pay for two meals if one would be wasted? He sighed. “And Lady Kelly will be joining me. What do you recommend?”
“The Moules Marinieres are excellent today, your Lordship.”
You’d say that if they scraped them from the bottom of old boats, Sidney thought, pulling off his gloves. But he said, “Yes, fine.”
Ever since a friend at Lincoln College told him about a disgruntled footman, who had vented his ire at the friend’s family for years by contaminating their meals in a vile manner, Sidney harbored a horror of someone doing the same to his food. And so even though he could leave shop clerks and chambermaids trembling in his wake, he treated waiters and maître d’—and especially his own cook and kitchen maids—with a degree of respect.
Five minutes after the maître d’ had left, Sidney was sitting with his head against the back of the sofa, pulling on a Three Castles cigarette and blowing streams of smoke toward the ceiling. Should have brought a newspaper, he told himself, clicking the pointed toes of his patent leather boots together. He sat up at the soft knock at the door.
“Yes?”
The wine steward opened the door, stepped back, and allowed Leona entrance. She looked marvelous, Sidney thought, getting to his feet. Her tailored street suit of striped camel’s hair in golden brown shades only made her look all the more feminine by emphasizing her lavishly endowed figure and tiny waist.
But at the sight of the crimson splotches upon her pale cheeks and bluish shadows beneath her eyes, he regretted ordering both meals. He had a feeling neither would be touched. Out of the frying pan, into the fire, he sighed silently.
“Please put that out,” she said, fanning a gloved hand in front of her face.
She had never complained of his smoking before, but he shrugged and leaned down to extinguish the cigarette in a crystal ashtray. He helped her out of her cloak and handed her a glass of wine once she had settled onto the sofa.
“What is it, Leona?” he asked, sitting next to her after the wine steward was gone.
She raised her glass, draining it as if it were water while her green eyes stared dully at him from above the rim. Uncharacteristically she wiped her mouth with the back of a hand, not even glancing at the reddish stain left on her doeskin glove. But she shook her head when he reached for the bottle.
“Martin informed me Saturday that he’s taking the children to New York,” came out in a rush. “Last year he bought half-interest in his brother’s hotel, but I had no idea—”
“Wait—just wait,” Sidney said, holding up a palm. He shook his head. “He’s threatening—?”
“Not threatening. He’s already booked five passages on the S.S. Patagonia nine days from now.”
“He expects you just to up and leave England? In nine days?”
She shook her head. “The other passage is for Betty. She’s agreed to relocate.”
Though Sidney had never met the nursemaid, he was well aware that it was her dedication to the Kelly children that had allowed Leona ample opportunities to be with him over the past two years. “But what about you?”
“He gave me three days to decide if he should book another passage. That time ends tomorrow evening.” Emotion thickening her voice, she said, “I was frantic for fear you wouldn’t return—”
“There, there.” He picked up her gloved hand, squeezed it. “I’m here now.”
“Yes,” she breathed, managing a grateful little smile.
He had to think. “What happens if you refuse to go?”
“Then I shall be allowed to stay in the house only until his solicit
or sells it,” she said through trembling lips. “After that, I’m on my own. He says I’ve dragged the family name through the mire, and that our . . . children will never be able to hold their heads high in England.”
Sidney let out an oath. Meek, soft-spoken, stoop-shouldered Sir George Kelly, who peered through spectacles as thick as the bases of sherry glasses? The same Sir George who could never have procured a wife on Leona’s scale were it not for his money? “But surely he’s suspected something about us for ages. Why now?”
She took a deep breath. “I have suffered nausea every morning for several days. When the housekeeper heard me—twice—on Thursday, she informed George. He sent for Doctor Lloyd in spite of my assuring him it was a reaction to some bad oysters.”
“And . . . ?”
“It wasn’t.”
Studying her splotched face, Sidney said, “You mean . . . ?”
She nodded. “And he knows it’s yours.”
Sidney could feel the pulse in his Adam’s apple squeeze against the cravat he had tied with such precision. “That’s impossible, to know . . .”
“I’ve not allowed George into my chamber for months, Sidney. You know that.” She drew in another breath, studying his face. “But he says he’s willing to raise the child as his own—”
“If you leave with him.”
“Yes,” she murmured, tears puddling in her eyes again. “And become a proper wife and mother.”
A knock sounded at the door. “Take it away!” he called, vexed that the kitchen staff would no doubt feast upon the mussels, which would show up on his bill next month. The irritation passed, overwhelmed by a larger sense of loss. Tears stung his eyes as he held her wrist gently and pulled the glove from her hand.
“Life without you . . .” he said, curving her fingers to press them to his cheek. “I don’t know how I shall bear it.”
When she did not speak, he opened his eyes again. She was staring back.
“You would have me go?”
Sidney blinked. “What other choice have you?”
Another silence, then, “I should think you could suggest one, considering I’m carrying your child.”
The smooth fingers curved over his hand suddenly felt like a trap. It had never troubled him that his and Leona’s names were whispered behind open fans. But it was one thing to have a married mistress, and quite another to be in the midst of a divorce scandal—with an out-of-wedlock child to boot. Just last summer Lord Hauxton was blackballed from the Club when it was discovered that his son was a homosexual.
Sidney credited most of his investing success to knowing the right people, belonging to the right gentlemen’s club. Newspapers were not always privy to trade secrets discussed in a setting of soft leather chairs and fine pipe tobacco. Why, during his week of fox hunts, he learned of plans for an electrical power station in London within the next two years, a promising investment opportunity he intended to research.
The cutting off of his social connections wasn’t the only thing to consider. Leona would leave the marriage as she had entered it—virtually penniless. After ten years of grand living, she would not be content with a little flat in Soho and modest allowance.
Her hand slipped from his. “Sidney?”
He cleared his throat. “I should think you would wish to be with your children, Leona.”
Pain washed across her face. “And I should think you’d wish to be with yours.”
The cravat felt even tighter about his neck. They stared at each other. Her lip trembled. A solution came to him, and he grasped for it, knowing that he would despise himself afterward. Focusing his eyes just a shade below hers, he said, “I’ve only your word that the child is mine.”
He moved his attention from her face to his fingernails, studying them. He could feel the weight of her stare and braced himself for the outburst to come. But several seconds later she merely said in a dead voice, “Very well, Sidney. Lie to yourself if it makes you feel better.”
Then she rose. He stood as well, moving over to the coatrack. But she shook her head and took her cloak from him when he attempted to put it upon her shoulders. The air seemed to have been sucked out of the room, and he had the strong desire to say something to make it right, to smooth away the cold resignation upon her face. But the words stuck in his throat like Macbeth’s amen. He opened the door and stared at the floor as she passed through. After the door closed again, he leaned against it.
He did not leave the room until he had composed himself. Two more glasses of wine and another cigarette helped, along with the press of a cool flannel against his face at the washstand.
Out on Cannon Street he stood by the coach and tapped his foot while his coachman sprinted up the pavement with a brown paper parcel in his hand.
“Sorry, m’Lord. I thought I had time to nip down the street for a—” “To the Club, Jerry,” Sidney said with a seething tone.
“Yes, m’Lord.” But once Sidney was inside, Jerry stood there with the door still open and peered at him. “Are you unwell, m’Lord?”
“That’s hardly your affair, is it?” Sidney snapped, setting his hat beside him. “And I didn’t appreciate having to wait for you.”
The man’s face colored. “It’s just that I’ve had no lunch, m’Lord.”
“Get a move on or you’ll have no job!” Sidney barked. The relief at having someone upon whom to vent his sour feelings was a tonic, and by the time the coach turned up Saint James Street he was quietly whistling the third movement to Bach’s Concerto Grosso.
Conversations rising from the leather chairs of the Brookes’ Club mostly revolved around fox-hunting exploits on various estates. The hours spent there were not wasted, for even though Sidney acquired no information that could behoove him financially, his account of attempting to slip unnoticed back to the house with ripped trousers after being tossed from a belligerent horse brought knee-slapping laughter. He agreed with Emerson’s observation that a person who wished to rule the world must keep it amused. He had no desire to rule the world, just to acquire his fair share of it, and then a little more for good measure.
When Sidney walked out to Saint James Street, he nodded approval at Jerry, who had hopped down from the box to get the door. He walked through the quiet house on Belgrave Square at half-past ten. A pencil of light shone beneath the library door. It was not his mother’s custom to wait up for him, but he had a feeling she was in there. She looked up at him as he eased open the door, a sheath of papers on the desk before her.
“Sidney,” she said. There was none of her usual warmth to his name, and reproach lingered in the hollows of her face. “I didn’t expect you back so early.”
He walked over to the desk and looked down at the lined page. “What are you writing?”
“I haven’t given it a title yet. But it takes place in Epping Forest.”
“Then why don’t you title it The Parker Twins in Epping Forest?”
“Perhaps.”
Touching her shoulder, he said, “I’m sorry I caused you grief, Mother. And it’s over.”
“You mean . . . ?”
“Lady Kelly is no longer in my life.”
Some hope penetrated the reproach. “Are you just saying that because I want to hear it, Sidney?”
He shook his head. “She’ll be leaving London with her family for the States in a few days.”
Her shoulders moved with a deep breath. “Permanently?”
“Permanently.”
There was a hesitant silence, then, “I hope this means you’re giving some thought to your future, Sidney.”
“I think about the future constantly,” he told her. Why did she think he spent so much time poring over investment information?
“I’m not speaking of money,” she said as if reading his thoughts. “While you’re accumulating pounds sterling, the minutes of your life are slipping through your fingers. And there’s no more pathetic creature than an old man who has squandered his youth instead of building a so
lid life.”
He hated it when she attempted to lead his thoughts in that direction. And horror of horrors, lately his thoughts had begun to venture down that path of their own accord. For someone of his social class and financial advantages, it stood to reason that he should be happy. Amusements he had had plenty of, but happiness had flitted just beyond his reach for so long that he had begun to take it for granted that no one was truly happy.
“Is that the moral of the Epping Forest book?” he quipped to silence the voices of warning in his head.
“Sidney . . .”
“Sorry, Mother. You’re so right.” He leaned to kiss her furrowed forehead. “And that’s precisely what I said to Lady Kelly.”
Eight
Catherine was only slightly more fond of verse than she was of classics, though in third standard she won the Poetry Medal for reciting all thirty-six lines of Wordsworth’s “Poor Robin.” She wasn’t quite certain who discovered Milly’s great mental storehouse of poetry, but it never failed to delight her when someone pressed upon her to show it off. After all, she was the one responsible for nudging Milly out of her standoffish ways, so she claimed a tiny bit of the glory for herself. Only privately though, for she wasn’t sure anyone else would see it that way.
Milly’s fame had spread even to the older students. It was a junior who stood up during breakfast on Tuesday and said, “Do favor us with a poem to start the day, Miss Turner.”
“Yes, do,” others chorused.
“No rest for the wicked,” Peggy murmured, eliciting smiles from Catherine and the other freshers at the end of their table. Milly mugged a face at her and rose to her full regal height. She sent a nod across the hushed dining room to the student who had made the request.
“From Lord Byron’s ‘Dear Doctor, I Have Read Your Play,’ ” she said, clasping hands beneath her bosom and raising her chin slightly.
“Dear Doctor, I have read your play,
Which is a good one . . . in its way,
Purges the eyes, and moves the bowels,
And drenches handker—”
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