by Splendid You
He himself could never see that starving to death as a second-rate touring actor was nobler than giving brilliant performances as a medium for a select few. At least dogs didn’t chase him when he walked through the streets, nor did small boys think it funny to disrupt his speeches with rude noises and cherrystones. Despite various drawbacks, he much preferred staying in one place for more than a single night, especially in such luxurious surroundings.
Herr Esbach of Mittle Berenia had been so generous to lend him this town house when he’d been so suddenly recalled to his home court. Basil had given him warning that to have less than a perfect apology prepared for the King’s hearing would mean certain ouster both for the Elector and his charming mistress.
Basil patted the bed reminiscently. Elsie had been really too good for the Elector. She’d probably kill him one day with her gymnastic abilities. Basil made a mental note to ask about the Elector’s future at some time when the spirits were in a good mood. With a telegram at the proper time, he’d earn both the Elector’s continued gratitude and, with luck, the return of the delectable full-bodied Elsie to London.
All his difficulties arose from the fact that the spirits only came when they chose to. He hadn’t wanted to create plausible effects to fool people. He’d been forced into it. When someone had paid five guineas to talk to dear departed Uncle Gerard, they don’t want to hear that he’s not in the mood to chat.
“I only cheat so people don’t go away disappointed,” he said, lighting the candles that stood on mantelpiece, tables, and shelves. “I wouldn’t do it if you were all more cooperative.”
Naked, he sat down in a wing back chair and opened his mind. “I want to know about Julia Hanson,” he said slowly. “Julia Hanson.”
Chapter Fifteen
Usually Julia enjoyed domestic details. Though her bent was toward scholarship, she did not believe that one must live in squalor to be intellectual. As a rule, she devoted an hour a day to ordering the menu, talking over linen and preserves with her aunt, and inspecting the maids’ work. Then she turned with a quiet mind to her translations, knowing the tranquility that comes to the toiling Marthas of this world.
She realized now, inspecting all that needed to be done in the London house, the difference a full complement of staff made. With only two girls, rendering the house livable would take all of her time in the foreseeable future.
“Best get started,” she said. “When did your mother say she’d have a cook for me?”
“Tomorrow morning, bright 'n early!” Min said. Her hair was tied up in a cloth, her sleeves pushed up past the elbow. “We brung our tea in a padded basket, miss.”
“I’m glad, for I doubt there’s so much as a usable leaf in the place.”
There’d been a strong smell of mice in the kitchen and sour grease in the sink. Though the servants had covered the furniture in great swaths of holland, the floors were dusty and the library had evidently not been aired properly in weeks. Frowning, Julia wondered if anything had been done as it should have been after the butler had closed the door behind her after her last visit.
“What can’t be cured must be endured,” she muttered. “But cure this I will!”
She set the girls to work in the kitchen, preparing it for the cook. Julia herself started clearing up the brighter of the two morning rooms, the one just beyond the dining room. This is where she would receive visitors, once she’d begun leaving her cards on the wives of her father’s business associates. They’d think her immodestly forward in her notions, but she owed it to him not to neglect any such small courtesies.
She scrubbed the soot from the surface of the white marble fireplace. Of course, she’d brought no clothes for such dirty work, but luckily it seemed the last cook had been a woman of considerable girth. A much-spotted apron, unearthed in the kitchen, had wrapped twice around Julia. With her sleeves rolled up to the elbow and a duster tied around her hair, she fancied that she looked exactly like a maidservant and amused herself while she scrubbed by inventing a family to work for.
She’d just decided that the family governess would be the long-lost daughter of a duke—stolen by gypsies in infancy—when the front door knocker beat a tattoo. Julia stood up, brushing a wisp of fallen hair from her eyes with the back of her hand.
Going out into the hall, she called, “It’s my baggage,” to the girls in the kitchen. She heard an indistinct reply.
Wiping her hands on that voluminous apron, Julia opened the door. “Mrs. Archer? Amanda? Apple?”
“Good afternoon, Miss Hanson. My son told me what an enormous task you undertake and I simply had to drop by to offer my services.” Mrs. Archer turned to her maid. “Make yourself useful, Apple.”
“Yes, madam.”
“Why, thank you, Apple. If you don’t mind?”
The black-haired maid, with cheeks as round as her name, suddenly smiled and dipped a curtsey. “Naw. Where should I start?” She glanced down at Julia’s hands. “What were you doin’, miss?”
“Scrubbing the morning room fireplace. Oh, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Archer! I’m so at sixes and sevens, I forget my manners! Won’t you come in?” She stood back to let the three women enter. “I’m afraid I haven’t anything to offer you. Would you believe there’s nothing to eat or drink in the house?”
“Your servants must have taken advantage of you. They will take refreshments on holiday to save on their own expenses.”
Amanda said with the abruptness of uncertain adolescence, “It’s a very pretty house. I like the ... the ... um ...” her voice petered out.
“And such a central location! Your father must need ride hardly ten minutes to enter the City. That must be a great savings on time.”
“I believe he didn’t consider that when he purchased the house. He wanted a house in London; this one met his not very stringent requirements. I’m not even certain he saw it himself beforehand. He did it all through his solicitor.” Julia couldn’t help noticing how gratified Mrs. Archer was at these revelations. “Would you care to see over the rest of the house? It isn’t quite straight yet, I’m afraid.”
“I should be charmed. Miss Hanson. It isn’t often one gets the chance to explore another person’s house. I suppose it isn’t ladylike to be curious about such things, but I just can’t restrain myself.”
Though Mrs. Archer’s nose wrinkled in some of the rooms, she pronounced herself captivated by the overall house. She admired windows in one room, a handsomely carved oak frieze in another, the placement of the furniture in the third.
“It needs bringing up to date,” Julia admitted. “There’s several weeks of work to be done just on the ground floor alone. Happily, I’m a lifelong reader of ladies’ magazines and am all but stuffed with ideas I want to try.”
“You must be a great comfort to your father, Miss Hanson. Would it be asking too much too see the upper rooms?”
She glanced with puzzled eyes at Amanda, walking silently behind them. Letting Mrs. Archer busy herself with unheard raptures over an uncovered portrait, Julia murmured, “There are only bedrooms upstairs. What ‘upper rooms' does she refer to?”
“Mother’s too elegant to say the word ‘bed,’ Miss Hanson,” Amanda replied, confirming Julia’s belief that the girl’s attitude was too meek to be true. They grinned at each other and Julia felt that, no matter what happened between herself and Simon, she’d found another friend.
In the ‘upper rooms,’ Mrs. Archer’s pleasure in everything seemed to fade. “Oh, no, no, no. My dear girl, you can’t mean to reside here.”
“Well, yes, I had intended to do so,” Julia said.
“But the paper is peeling off the walls from damp. And the other three rooms are just as bad. You’ll have to build big fires in each room and keep them roaring for a week to chase it all away. You’ll stifle in the heat!”
It was true that in the bedrooms a nose with any claim to sensitivity would be assaulted with a musty, mildewy odor. “It wouldn’t be practical to fix one room
and then move on to the next, would it?”
“Not if you want to have everything prepared in time for your father’s wedding. Yes, Simon told me what a marvelous gift you are giving them by decorating this house. But it’s much too big for one young girl to do alone!” Mrs. Archer held up her hand while Julia was still planning a justifying argument,
“You must air the rooms thoroughly first, so that the smell won’t come back on the first overly warm day. Then the paper must be torn off and new pasted on, or perhaps a coat of distemper, which means having the painters and the paper-hangers in.” She sniffed appraisingly. “That carpet will need to be cleaned and all the upholstered pieces aired. It will take days.”
“I suppose it will.”
“Meanwhile, where will you sleep? What will you eat? Everything will reek of paint.” Mrs. Archer put her head to one side like a bird checking which way a worm would crawl before coming down on it.
“I could go back to the Bull and Bush....”
“A common staging post? Acceptable for one night when first arriving or on the day one leaves, but not for an extended stay. No. There is only one solution. You must come back with us.”
“Oh, but...”
“Wasn’t your room comfortable?”
Julia hardly had a chance to say “very” when Mrs. Archer pounced, “Then it’s settled. You’ll come here every day to check on the maids’ progress. We’ll put Apple in charge; she has the most experience.”
Julia wished Simon could see his mother now. This woman, whom he complained about, saying she dithered, was now giving orders like a battlefield general, telling the Pierce girls-that they were under Apple’s leadership, quelling the inevitable grumble, and taking for granted everyone’s agreement.
Amanda murmured, “You may as well give in. She won’t stop until you do, and really, my sisters and I would love to have you.”
“But why does your mother want me to stay?”
Amanda’s eyes were as wide as a doe’s. “Don’t you know?”
Julia shook her head.
“I probably shouldn’t say this ... promise me you won’t blame Simon?”
“Simon? What does he have to do with anything?” Julia caught herself being breathless at the thought that Simon might have obliged his mother to offer the invitation. Did he want her under his roof? If so, she thought a tad bitterly, it is only to keep me from seeing Dr. Mystery again.
“Late last night, he told Mother about your father, the mill owner. I know he only wanted to assure her you are respectable. But, you see, Mother wants us all to marry well ... do you see what I mean?”
“All too well. Never mind, Amanda. I don’t blame anyone. I’m used to it.”
Impulsively, seeming to surprise herself as much as Julia, Amanda hugged her around the waist. “I don’t care if you’re rich. I like you. Please come and stay with us. We’ll have ever so much fun. Not Lucy, maybe. But Jane is great fun.”
“All right,” Julia said, feeling rather as though she were being besieged by an army of puppies, equipped with the latest ordinance of adorability. “I will.”
Once she’d made the decision to accept Mrs. Archer’s kind invitation, she realized how much she’d been dreading spending the night in the town house. Neither of the Pierce girls would be sleeping there. It surprised her to be troubled by the thought of being all alone in the house. She’d never known that kind of nervousness before. Perhaps it had been brought on by the thought of vast London breathing outside her windows. Or did the memory of Billy the Wall trouble her? Perhaps it had been the expression in Dr. Mystery’s eyes.
She considered that expression, trying to interpret it, to place it in a category. Men had looked at her so many ways in her life—from the proud puzzlement of her father to the ardor of a suitor interested in her money. That particular expression was mirrored on Mrs. Archer’s face, though for her son rather than for herself. One or two boys had actually believed themselves at feast as much in love with her as with her fortune, only to prove themselves willing to love her only with certain changes in her behavior. “Why can’t you try being just a girl?” one had asked.
But that only brought her back to the enigma of Dr. Mystery.
Could he know about An-ket? Surely he’d been standing too far away the previous night to have heard her impetuous outburst to Simon. Yet he’d either followed or searched out Mrs. Pierce and asked her questions about “unchancy” happenings. That having lead nowhere, he’d gone on to the next string in his bow—Julia herself. She further recalled Simon’s neighbor telling him about some man who had been loitering outside the Archer house sometime before dawn.
She found Amanda standing in the den, her attention completely absorbed in a book. “Look what I found. Les Trois Musketaires. When Mother heard that the Duchess of Kent wouldn’t let the queen read it, she took it away from me. Do you mind if I come with you tomorrow so I can read it here? I’ll work, too, of course.”
“I’ve read it. I’ll tell your mother so. It’s a very mild work, really, except for Milady. By the way, Amanda, that cat from last night...”
Amanda’s eyes had been drawn once more to the fascinating work of Monsieur Dumas. “Cat?”
“Yes, have you seen it anywhere around today?”
“No. Mother doesn’t like cats.”
* * * *
Simon had all but convinced himself that it would be best if he never saw Julia Hanson again when Jane informed him of his mother’s good intentions.
He’d been passing a restless hour in his den, having retreated there to catch up on his lost sleep with a catnap. At first, the silence had pleased him. No bright, rapid voice, no shining eyes and eager smile disturbed the blessed peace of his sanctum sanctorum. He told himself that he preferred women like his sisters who could be counted on to leave a man strictly alone, if such was his wish. They never challenged his pronouncements.
Spending time with Julia Hanson, he reflected, was like the day he’d visited a horse-mad friend, Luke. He had been lent, in all innocence, a steeple-chaser that Luke had only just purchased. Once out of sight of her stable, the mare had careened all over the country, beyond control of rein, of voice, of knee. Clinging to the saddle like a burr, despite plunges, switchbacks, and flat-out gallops that brought his heart into his mouth, Simon could do nothing but hang on and pray. He closed his mind firmly against the treacherous thought that he’d never had a more exhilarating ride in all his life.
No, he thought firmly, much better not to see too much of Julia. Naturally, he’d be polite should she return to the museum, but when his mother had her come to tea, he should be able to arrange to be somewhere else. During the party, he would ask her to dance, once. After all, that was using her with common courtesy, such as he would show to any young woman.
Above all, he would contrive never to be alone with her. There must be no repeat of the kiss he’d pressed upon her in the carriage. What had he been thinking of, ushering a young woman about London without his mother or some other woman for chaperon?
Julia might be an unusual young woman but the risks she took were enough to make a proper man’s hair stand on end. She didn’t seem to care a jot for her reputation. To his shame, he’d done nothing to help her protect it. His only excuse was that he had a very hard time thinking of Julia as just another young woman. She was Julia.
He sat down, putting his feet on the corner of his desk. He couldn’t decide what he liked least about her. Was it her flat contradictions of every opinion he held? Was it the way she smiled, like a bold privateer, as she engaged him in argument?
On further consideration, he tended toward the view that the worst of her was that she didn’t seem to realize that her zest for information enhanced her beauty, while any man with red blood would be distracted from his own defense by the splendid contours of her figure.
If only she’d made an obvious play of these natural attributes, he could have disliked her intensely. But she seemed to forget in the heat of d
ebate that she was a woman at all. Yet he could never charge her with being unfeminine. She remained a lady in all she did and said, even when she’d seized him by the shirtfront. He would have liked to have kissed her then, too.
He’d been doing so when Jane woke him up to tell him that Julia was coming to stay.
Blinking at her, startled by a return to reality from a dream that had seemed even more real than life, he couldn’t force even one word from his dry mouth.
“Don’t be such an owl,” Jane said. She perched on the edge of his desk next to his feet. “Does she have good handwriting? I ask you because you’ve exchanged so many letters. Do you think she’d mind helping me address all these invitations?”
“What did you say?”
“I asked you if Miss Hanson would mind lending me a hand with all these dreadful invitations? I wouldn’t have thought you’d know so many people, Simon, what with spending all your time in Egypt.”
Due to his parents unfortunately having lost several infants between the births of Simon and Lucy, there were almost sixteen years between himself and his youngest sister. She had been in the schoolroom until this year, under the care of a competent governess, so Simon had seen very little of her, as he’d been either at school or in Egypt for most of her life. He had not thought, however, that she’d learned to speak obscure Oriental dialects in that time, yet her words made as much sense to him as if she’d been speaking Khmer.
“Did... did you say that Julia is coming here? To stay?”
“I didn’t know you’d taken to calling her ‘Julia.’ Mother will be pleased.”
He sat up from his weary sprawl and tried hard to focus. “Jane, kindly begin at the beginning.”
She rolled her eyes. With an almost theatrical clarity, she said slowly, “Mother sent a messenger to tell me to tell you that Miss Hanson, finding that her house needs more work than she anticipated, has accepted Mother’s invitation to stay with us while the work is being done. That’s clear, isn’t it?”