“Yes, everything.”
“We’ll ship your other gifts as soon as they arrive,” Naomi said as the two embraced. That was the only damper on the season—slight that it was—that no packages from India had arrived.
“Thank you, Aunt Naomi.” Catherine knelt to embrace the children, one in each arm. “And I wish I could take you both to school with me.”
Sarah’s father smiled. “We should leave now, Catherine.”
When the door closed behind the two, Sarah and Naomi turned for the staircase with the children. “I wonder if they’re feeding those girls properly at that school.”
“I don’t think it’s the school,” Sarah said. “She doesn’t eat much here, either.”
“I eat much,” Danny said, nodding righteously. “Huh, Mother?”
Naomi tousled his brown hair. “You do at that, Danny.”
****
The temperature warmed slightly over the following two days, but not too warm for snowflakes to form. By Saturday morning, rooftops and hedges were dusted white, and there was enough accumulated for Father and William to take the children—Guy Russell included—sledding on Parliament Hill on the Heath. A large box from Bombay arrived by parcel post that afternoon. Sarah and Naomi sorted through the contents in the parlor, under the watchful eyes of Bethia and Danny. Even Father and William looked up from their chess match now and again. The parcels labeled for Catherine were set aside, the others handed out. For Bethia there was a sari-clad Indian doll of coffee-colored china, with glossy black hair and thick dark lashes. Danny’s gift was a mechanical tin elephant, which walked and raised its trunk when wound with a key. Sarah and Naomi received shawls of beautifully woven pashmina wool; William, a book of photographed scenes of India; and Father, a fine teakwood cane with carved ivory handle. There was even a gift for Sarah and William’s yet-to-arrive baby, a soft cotton blanket embroidered about the hem with finely stitched honeysuckle vines and flowers.
“Pity Catherine’s not here,” Naomi said, trying on her shawl. She looked at Father. “You know, we could bring her gifts up to her tomorrow after church.”
Father looked up from winding Danny’s elephant and smiled. “Then let’s go.”
The children pleaded to be allowed along. Father was kind, but adamant that they should not. “Your mother and I haven’t had an outing alone in years. We’ll ask Avis to look after you. And when the weather warms, we’ll take you on a special trip.”
Both small faces fell, but with the distraction of new toys, disappointment was soon forgotten.
“Should we wire her?” Naomi said. “I believe she and her friends spend most of Sunday in Cambridge.”
Sarah, wrapping her shawl around Bethia, said, “She told me she’s been attending the parish church so she’d have more time to study.”
“We’ll just take our chances,” Father said. “Even if we don’t see her, we’ll at least be able to drop off the gifts.”
“She’ll be surprised,” Bethia said. “Won’t she, Mother?”
Naomi smiled at her. “I expect she will be, Bethia.”
“I like surprises,” Danny said, cradling his elephant.
“Everyone likes surprises,” Bethia told him.
****
“Did you put the ring away?” Sidney asked Catherine on the following day as the coach rolled out of Chesterton toward Girton.
“Yes.” With an enigmatic smile she held up her gloved right hand. The ring made a little bulge in the base of her third finger. “Here.”
“You’re still wearing it?”
“There is less chance of losing it that way. I’ll find a place for it in my room.” She sighed. “But is it necessary? Who’s to say it wasn’t a Christmas gift, a family heirloom?”
“It was a family heirloom,” Irene said from the rear-facing seat.
Sidney gave his aunt a warning look. The ring had been a bone of contention for years, after being passed down to his father instead of either of his father’s sisters, and then not handed over to one of them later, when Mother remarried.
“It’s best if you hide it away,” he said to Catherine. “The purloined letter principle only works in stories.”
“Purloined letter?” she asked.
“It’s a story by Poe. Have you never read it?”
“No,” she said, grey-green eyes sheepish.
He quelled his slight irritation by reminding himself that there would be plenty of time to broaden her horizons when they were married. Patiently he explained. “The protagonist hid a damaging letter in plain sight.”
“I see.” She gave him a grateful smile. “You don’t mind if I show Peggy and Milly, do you? They won’t tell.”
“Very well,” Sidney said, smiling at her eagerness to show off the ring, even though he was getting a little weary of hearing of the two friends. Again he had to remind himself of the limitations of her life experience, in spite of her family’s travels. “And then find a safe place for it.”
“Hmph!” Irene snorted, turning her face toward the window even though it was white with condensation.
Sidney pruned up his face, imitating her. Catherine covered a shocked smile. At least Irene was keeping her agreement not to intrude upon their privacy in the parlor. But he would have to speak with her about today’s little barbs as soon as they were alone.
Another reason he would be glad when they were wed, besides not having to deal with Irene anymore, was that cab fare was costing him an arm and a leg. Fortunately his Express rides from London to Cambridge and back were free, owing to some favors traded between Henry and one of the line’s owners. But cabbies were, as a rule, unpleasant creatures.
He forced all gloomy thoughts from his mind and took Catherine’s hand. She squeezed his, and they rode on, not speaking because of Irene’s presence, but so strongly aware of each other that words were not necessary anyway. And he dared to brush a quick kiss against her lips once they stopped outside Girton’s gates. Steamed windows were good for something. He could still hear the frame squeaking from the cabby climbing from his seat, when the door swung open.
“Catherine!”
The young woman who thrust herself halfway through the door was tall and fair, nose and cheeks pinkened by the chill, with ash blond hair spilling out of a mink hat. The eyes were of a startling shade of medium blue, one that Sidney could not put a name to in his mind.
“Oh!” she gasped self-consciously. “I didn’t know—!”
“Milly, this is Lord Holt,” Catherine said hurriedly. “And his aunt, Mrs. Fry. May I present Miss Turner?”
Irene mumbled some halfhearted acknowledgment, and Sidney said, “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance at last, Miss Turner.”
“Thank—”
“What’s going on, Milly?” Catherine cut in. “Why aren’t you in Cambridge?”
“We were too cold. And it’s a good thing for you.” She glanced back toward the school. “Peggy’s been entertaining your aunt and uncle for the past quarter of an hour.”
Catherine gaped at her. “Which aunt and uncle?”
“The ones from Hampstead.”
“Oh dear! What should I—”
“Calm yourself, Catherine,” Miss Turner said. “Miss Scott told them you’re with a family friend. They assume it’s a friend on your mother’s side.”
Indigo, Sidney thought.
****
The following Sunday in Irene’s parlor, Sidney put his arm around Catherine’s shoulders and said, “I would like to do something for your friends. They certainly saved us from disaster.”
She turned her face up to him and smiled. “That’s so typically thoughtful of you. But you don’t have to do anything. I’ve already thanked them.”
He caught something just a little odd in her tone, and realized what it was. “They were angry?”
“No, of course not.” But after a hesitation, she added, “They just didn’t appreciate being forced to become involved. They still don’t like it t
hat I slip around to see you.”
“And do they think we have any choice?” Sidney pulled her closer and rested his chin against the top of her head as she leaned against his chest. “Anyway, I’d still like to try to change their opinion of me—as well as show my gratitude. Invite them to accompany you next week, and I’ll order a nice meal from the inn upstreet.”
“Very well,” she replied. “But you won’t be offended if they won’t accept, will you?”
He shrugged, causing her head to move a little. “Then we’ll have all the food to ourselves. You could use more nourishment anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
With his free hand he picked up her left hand, pushed back the sleeve a bit to circle her wrist easily with his thumb and forefinger. “This is what I mean.”
And she was looking almost gaunt, with little hollows deepening under her cheekbones. The change had been so gradual, their time together so limited, that he had barely noticed. But now her leanness was detracting from her beauty, and in addition, putting her at risk of falling prey to some lung disease like influenza or consumption. He didn’t know what he would do if anything happened to her.
“I want you to start putting more on your plate. I want to marry a woman, not a skeleton.”
“I will, Sidney,” she said almost happily.
“That’s my girl.” He squeezed her shoulder, and reminded himself that moments like these would be the warp and woof of his life once they were married. How ridiculous, that he would allow Miss Turner’s face to visit his mind several times over the past week, when he had only met her that one, brief moment. And especially considering that he was happily engaged to the most wonderful young woman he had ever met. He was almost tempted to tell Catherine he had changed his mind about the invitation.
****
One of the principles Hugh’s grandfather established in the days of Sedgwick Tea’s infancy was that a Sedgwick would always be the first to arrive at the office each morning. Doing so conveyed the correct impression in the employees’ minds that the owners were not content to sit back and collect profits while managers ran the business. Fuller Sedgwick had carried on the tradition for almost thirty years and seemed happy to pass along the morning duty to his eldest son.
Hugh did not mind, though he had first shuddered at the notion of rising at four o’clock for six days a week. He was fortunate to have his position, he reminded himself often. And once he got on his way, he rather liked being one of the few awake and alert while the bulk of the city was still wrapped in gauzy slumber. Morning fog softened the lines of the businesses flanking Aldergate Street, transforming the atmosphere of blatant modernity into one of romantic centuries past, when the Saxon Gate stood here long before William and his Normans crossed the Channel.
After opening the lock on the front door to Sedgwick Tea, Hugh often stood a minute to allow his eyes one more pleasant sight before they would be attaching themselves to tonnage reports and advertising dossiers and the like. He was doing so on the nineteenth of January, head cocked to listen to a ship’s bell lolling lazily in the distance, when he felt the light tug at his topcoat pocket, heard the padded scurry of feet on the snow-covered pavement. The shock was so great that for a second or two he could only gape in the direction of the figure fading into the darkness.
“Hey! You!” he shouted, dropping the keys into his pocket and giving chase—with care, for the thief clearly had had considerable practice at darting about on icy cobbled stones. Hugh had the advantage of a tenacity brought on by indignation. He caught up with the figure past Aldgate Station just before the Middlesex intersection, and flung his arms about him. He was a boy, Hugh realized. A squirming boy, who growled and then whimpered and pleaded to be let go.
“Not until you stop fighting!” Hugh growled back.
They struggled on, the boy even sinking his teeth into Hugh’s sleeve, but the thick wool was a formidable barrier. Panting, the boy went limp. Hugh held his arms around the thin frame long enough to grab the lad by an ear.
“Ouch, Mister!”
“My purse,” Hugh told him, tightening his grip.
The boy pushed back his coat sleeve and dipped a bare hand into his pocket. Even in the darkness, Hugh could see that the coat was too large for the lad, frayed at the sleeves and full of holes. “Here!”
Hugh shoved it into his own pocket and relaxed his grip on the ear just a bit. “If you needed money, why didn’t you just ask?”
“Coos I ain’t no beggar!” the boy replied. He had to be all of nine, his face filthy and pinched, his hair in clumps over his frayed collar.
“So stealing’s better? What would your mother think?”
“Got none. You got yer money, Mister. Let go of my ear!”
Hugh let go, his anger replaced by pity. He reached into his pocket again. “Look, you don’t have to go about picking pockets.”
But the boy shot away from him, fast as a whippet, and was swallowed up by darkness.
“Wait!” Hugh called, taking a step in the same direction. “I’ll give you—”
That was when he realized his purse was lighter. He opened it, to be sure, and jabbed a bare finger inside. He gave chase again, but by the time he reached the beginning of Whitechapel’s slum, he had no clue as to which dark lane the boy had taken.
You were going to give him the money anyway, he told himself on the way back to the office. It was all of two pounds and some coins for the Underground—a pittance for Hugh but a tidy little bounty for a young street urchin.
A sickness of heart took hold of him and lingered on through the day, even after he reminded himself that the boy could buy several hot meals with the money. The wall surrounding his safe, insulated, well-fed, and well-polished little world had been scurried over by a visitor from a more desperate one. Even though the visitor was gone, a picture of his small footsteps in the snow refused to fade from Hugh’s mind.
****
She’s loyal to a fault, Catherine reminded herself in Mrs. Fry’s parlor the following Sunday. Everything about Milly’s manner said that she was unaware that she looked for all the world like a goddess standing atop Mount Olympus, while the lines of John Wilson’s “By the Banks of the Clyde” flowed effortlessly from her lips.
“. . Here let me walk abroad when tempests fly,
And careless hear them rage along the sky;
Where forest trees with daring grandeur rise,
Disdain the earth, and bold invade the skies.”
And Sidney’s fondness of poetry was the reason for the admiration in his eyes. After all of Catherine’s babbling on about her two best friends’ talents, it was only natural that he would ask Milly to recite. If Peggy had brought her violin, he would have asked her to play.
She should be grateful for his thoughtfulness, she chided herself with at glance at the remains of the feast on the table. Would she be this way when they married? A shrew of a wife who felt threatened by every face fairer than her own? If so, heaven forbid that she should ever allow herself to grow old!
But she could not help but wish she would have hinted to her friends that they should not accept the invitation. They would have followed her wishes. She felt Peggy’s stare from the chair adjacent to the sofa and looked at her. Peggy smiled, and Catherine smiled back. But something in the meeting of their eyes told Catherine that Peggy knew what she was feeling.
Catherine stretched her smile wider. She didn’t want any unwarranted pity. Sidney loved her and her alone, and that was that.
“I’ll wager you don’t know any by George Peele,” Sidney was saying.
“Hmm . . .” Milly murmured, arms folded and ash blond head leaning thoughtfully. “The name strikes a chord.”
“You can’t win that one, Sidney,” Catherine said brightly. A little too brightly in her own ears, but she could not inhale her words again.
Milly winked at her and cleared her throat.
“Not Iris in her pride and bravery
Adorns her arch with such variety;
Nor doth the Milk-white Way, in frosty night,
Appear so fair and beautiful in sight . . .”
Because the coach would only accommodate four, and Catherine and her friends could not be caught with a single male, Sidney planned to hire another coach to take himself on to Cambridge Station.
“We should do this again next week,” he said as Milly passed through the gate he held open.
Catherine halted in her tracks, but caught herself and managed to continue so that it appeared as if her boot was caught on the edge of a flagstone.
She could have saved herself the trouble, for Sidney did not even notice.
“You’re very kind, Lord Holt,” Peggy said, just ahead of Catherine. “But I’m afraid I have a composition due that Monday.”
Milly nodded. “Yes, very kind. But it’s my father’s fiftieth birthday, and I want to surprise him.”
Catherine let out the breath she was holding. Were Sidney and Mrs. Fry not present, she would have hugged her friends right there. Sidney did not seem disappointed. He even smiled and said, “How thoughtful. Where does your father live?”
“St. Ives. You know . . .”
“From the nursery rhyme,” he finished.
After helping his aunt into the coach, he offered an assisting hand to first Peggy and then Milly, thanking each one for being such good friends to Catherine. And then he smiled down at Catherine and touched her cheek, his blue eyes as affectionate as ever.
Your imagination needs a leash, she told herself, returning his smile.
On the road to Girton, she fingered the ring beneath her glove, comforted by the feel of it. When she was not with Sidney she kept it in the jewelry box in her top drawer beneath her ribbons and stockings. She restrained a smile at Peggy’s and Milly’s attempts to make polite chatter with Sidney’s aunt. They had been warned, and besides, they had achieved the same tepid results on the way to Chesterton.
“What was it like, attending a one-room school?” Milly asked.
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