by Splendid You
“I will certainly recommend you to any of my friends who are contemplating marriage.” She stood up and held out her hand, Lucy/An-ket following her lead. “Good afternoon, Mr. Lake. When I write to Father, I’ll tell him how helpful you were.”
“Tell him instead I’ve found a new vineyard in Portugal that is shipping as soft a port as he’s ever tasted.”
“I shall.”
Outside again, she asked, “What would you like to see first?”
There was a brief internal discussion, then Lucy said, “I’ve told her all about the Tower and the parks and palaces, but she wants to go shopping,”
“Shopping?” Julia looked at the other girl curiously, but An-ket did not deign to appear and explain. “Very well. What’s a good place?”
“Burlington Arcade?” Lucy suggested, then paused with that far-off expression that meant she heard a silent voice. “She says she only wants to go to the most expensive dressmaker. But I can’t afford—
“Perhaps she just wants to look. Do you know of any such places?”
“I’ve heard of someone new called ... called ... Madame ,. . Madame something.”
“They’re all called Madame something.”
She went to ask the driver. He pushed back his hat and scratched a mottled skull that was as bare as an egg. “I drove a laidy somewheres like that t’other day. Don’t recall the name but I knows where it is.”
“Will you take us there?”
“Yus. But ‘ere ... let me tighten that girth afore the horse walks right off without us.” Climbing down from the box, he muttered, “Don’t look naow, missus, but there’s been someone follering you h’ever since I picked you up.”
“Following? Us?”
“Vis. I thought at furst it were just one of them things, but that there same brougham’s been behind us time an’ again. Down there, by that striped awning.”
With extreme casualness, Julia surveyed the busy street. Sure enough, a shiny black carriage stood idle by the curb, the curtains inside pulled down over the windows. It might have been any genteel conveyance waiting for master or mistress to return to it, yet something about it gave Julia a cold feeling. As she stared, one of the curtains moved as though someone had let it drop back against the window.
Perhaps she was imagining things. Perhaps the driver merely enjoyed disturbing people with wild tales. Glancing down into his mild, rather watery eyes, however, Julia couldn’t believe that.
He drove them to a dressmaker’s that was so modest on the exterior as to make certain that the goods inside were expensive. Lucy/An-ket was exclaiming over the single rose-colored dress in the window, displayed against a swath of apple-green silk. Julia’s eyes were employed in a search for the same carriage.
This street was busier yet, with many different kinds of traffic rumbling along, from spindly phaetons to burly two-horse trucks. But she didn’t see any broughams, though she stood watching while passersby had to press almost to the wall to go past her. At last, she turned to enter the store, but her sigh of relief was cut short when she happened to glance up toward the corner in time to see the carriage appear in the midst of other vehicles.
Unlike them, however, the brougham pulled at once to the curb and came to a stop.
The sunlight glinted off the windows so that she couldn’t see if the curtains were up or down. She recognized the horses, both coal-black and glossy, and the driver, a burly man wearing an old-fashioned coat with many capes at the shoulder.
She only gave half her mind to the dresses of Madame Variska, though ordinarily they should have fascinated her. They were almost barbaric in their use of line and color, while Julia suspected that her lavish use of gold lace would cause a sensation.
Lucy and An-ket were both in agreement that Julia should arrange then and there to have the Russian lady create a gown for her. Julia demurred, for the gowns, beautiful though they were, were of the over-fussy and hugely skirted variety, which made it so impossible for a lady to be anything but decorative. However, a few whispered words to Madame Variska brought forth some thread-net shawls in her favorite lace as gifts to the Archer ladies.
The brougham was still there, Julia saw, as they left the shop. While frowning at it, she missed the man who bowed before her, hat in hand, until he spoke. “Good afternoon, Miss Hanson.”
“Goodness! Dr. Mystery, you startled me.”
“A thousand apologies. Your thoughts are far removed from this mundane sphere.” He wore a pair of glasses with small smoked lenses. This reminded her of the brougham and suddenly she knew it was he who had been following her all that day. Had he been waiting for an opportunity such as this?
“You’ll have to pardon me, sir,” Julia said. “We must hurry home now.”
“Why run away? Come home with me instead. Send your friend to make your excuses. That is what friends are for, isn’t it?”
“Julia? Who is this man?” It was An-ket who spoke, sitting upright in the back of the landau. If Lucy had asked the question, Julia would have fobbed her off with an evasion, but An-ket was a sharper article altogether. She made the introduction, using Lucy’s name, of course.
Dr. Mystery kept both hands resting on the golden knob of his walking stick, but he bowed like a prince, or an actor. Julia sighed with relief that he hadn’t noticed anything wrong.
“It is an honor to meet the sister of my dear friend, Mr. Archer. He isn’t with you today?”
“He’s not far away,” Julia lied quickly. “We’re meeting him now.”
She identified the odd sensation crawling up her back— she didn’t feel safe. Never before had she met with a situation that made her feel as though menace were breathing down her neck. She’d always had an instinctive sense that she could take charge of any given circumstance and do it well. Now she couldn’t think of anything to do but hurry away from the slight man with the impeccable manners and fanatical mind.
She looked about her, eager for the sight of one of those hustling passersby who’d nearly nudged her off the sidewalk before. No one was coming. She would have given a thousand pounds to see Simon.
Dr. Mystery said with a cool chuckle, “I’m sure I can amuse you more than he. We did not have the opportunity to finish our chat yesterday. I would be so happy, so very happy, to do so now. My carriage is just there. Please say you’ll accompany me.”
“That’s very kind of you, but I must consider my hostess ... she’ll be waiting tea.”
She moved past him to put her foot on the long step. He took her hand, ostensibly to help her balance as she entered, but he clung to it. As if a last resort, he gave over using his too-bright smile, whispering hoarsely, “Please. I must speak with you. It’s very important.”
An-ket’s eyes were narrowed. Julia assumed that Lucy was informing her guest of the feud between Dr. Mystery and Simon. “This man is a dangerous man,” An-ket said suddenly. “He follows the god of evil whose name is the sound of the whirlwind.”
For an instant, all pose fell from Dr. Mystery and he resembled a squashed frog with his mouth hanging open. He snatched his glasses from his face. Julia saw that the area around his eyes was speckled as though with broken blood vessels. His clutch on her hand tightened painfully. “How is this possible? I can see her! Who is that other woman?”
“Let go!”
The driver, alarmed, was climbing down from the box. “ ‘Ere now! I’m going ter call a constable! ‘Elp! Perlice!”
Chapter Nineteen
When Simon learned that Julia and Lucy were in the hands of the police, his immediate reaction was to leave Julia where she was. While realistic memories of last night ran through his mind, the safest place for her might well be behind iron bars that he could not break through. Knowing she was on the other side of a flimsy wooden door had been one of the chief torments that had driven him to take a bottle to share with Robert Winslow.
Of all the people in the city, he had felt that only Winslow would understand what it was like to want a
woman he couldn’t have. They’d not bandied the names of the women between them; that would be the behavior of cads, but each had a fairly sound idea of whom the other meant.
It had taken the half bottle and most of the whiskey in another bottle Winslow had produced to allow Simon to sleep without tormenting dreams of Julia. Her name was on his lips when he awoke, though he couldn’t recall what his dream had been about. But a decent man couldn’t stay drunk all the time and he couldn’t leave an innocent girl in jail even from the noblest motives.
Even as he hurried to the police station, he wondered that Julia had sent for him at all. She was surely equal to a battalion of policemen. He decided, on thinking it over, that she must need him to calm Lucy’s nerves. It seemed a shame that something like this should happen on the first expedition that Lucy had departed on with any pleasure.
His mother had been more excited than a man with a morning head could attend to without wincing, but he’d gathered that Lucy had gone off with Julia, skirt swinging to a vigorous walk, eyes shining with new interest. Whatever quality of life Julia had, the patent medicine people could make a fortune by bottling it to sell to despondent patients.
When he entered the station, a knot of police officers formed a seething blue circle around a young woman. Ignored by the authorities, another young woman sat on a hard wooden chair in the corner, her face in her hands, the flowers on her bonnet quivering with emotion. It must have been a slow day for crime, for no felons seemed to be present to shock a lady.
Amid the laughter generated by the men in blue, Simon crossed the room unnoticed. Standing above her, he heard a small sniff and addressed her with more gentleness than he felt. “What are you doing here, Lucy?”
The girl raised her face.
“Julia!” He glanced at the laughing men who must, despite his assumptions, be gathered around Lucy. Dropping to his knee, he took Julia’s hands in his.
“Oh, Simon. I thought you’d never get here.”
It seemed only natural to slip a comforting arm about her waist. “I hurried, but the traffic ... What happened? Mother said you went shopping....”
“You didn’t tell her where we are?”
“Of course not. I shouldn’t have even if your note hadn’t mentioned it. There’s no point in worrying her.”
“That’s what I thought. Simon, I have something to tell you, and I want you to control your temper.”
“Believe it or not, Julia, I am a very mild-tempered fellow. What is it?”
“We were looking at dresses ... but that’s not where it started. The driver said that the brougham had been behind us since we’d begun. And then ... and then ...” She put trembling ringers against her hot cheeks. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me!”
By now, Simon was thoroughly alarmed, with his imagination boiling over. With an effort, he kept from catching Julia against his heart, but the strain showed in his voice when he said, “You’ve had a shock. The second one in three days. Your nerves—
“I haven’t any nerves,” she protested. “At least, I never have had.”
One of the officers noticed him at last. He detached himself from the laughing group, still wiping his eyes, and said, “You’d be the young ladies’ brother, sir? Mr. Archer?”
“That’s partly correct,” Simon said, rising. “I’m only a brother to one of them. What’s the trouble, officer? Nothing serious, I trust.”
“Might have been, sir. Some bounder accosted this young lady on the street. Nat’rally she got a bit scared.”
“Julia? You’re not hurt?”
“I’m quite well now, Simon.”
The police officer, who wore a chevron on his sleeve, said coaxingly, “Now that your brother’s come, you’ll make that statement, won’t you?”
“Oh, I’m not her brother. The other one is my sister.”
The police sergeant glanced from Julia to Lucy, and then smiled benevolently. “I think I understand, sir. You’ll do us all a favor, sir, if you’ll persuade your young lady here to give us the information we want.”
Julia said, “I really have nothing to add to what I’ve said already, Sergeant. I don’t know the man and I cannot give you a better description than I have done. He ran away as soon as our driver called for the police. A crowd formed and I lost sight of him among them.”
Simon frowned at her. She gave her unsatisfactory evidence as woodenly as though she were participating against her inclination in amateur theatricals. Where was her sparkle, her spontaneous ability to make people like her? The sergeant showed signs of impatience.
“Surely you remember more than that?” he asked, receiving a grateful nod from the sergeant.
“I’m sorry; I don’t. Perhaps Lucy saw more than I.”
“She says she didn’t even know aught was amiss ‘till the driver started in shouting. She saw the back of this feller’s head but a fat lot of good that’s going to do us. Now we’ll not catch the son-of-a— The sergeant coughed. “You put it to her, sir. If we don’t catch him now, next time he could give some poor old lady enough of a shock to kill her. Now you don’t want that, do you, miss?”
“I don’t believe he’ll search for another victim. Perhaps he thought I was someone he knew and I panicked. Anyone might run away in those circumstances. Yes. That must be what happened.”
From this story, the sergeant could not budge her. As it was none of his duty to bully young ladies of quality, he washed his hands of her a short time later. Simon, who didn’t believe a word she was saying, stood by silently while he questioned her. He could never imagine Julia panicking, therefore the whole tale must be false. Who was she protecting? Lucy? Or the unknown man? Simon wrestled with jealousy, even while reminding himself that he had no claim on her at all.
The sergeant moved onto a happier subject. “That Miss Archer’s a one, sir, and no mistake! The tales she tells! You might not believe it, but I’m a well-read man in my way. I’ve not heard nothing like ‘em even in Mr. Lane’s Arabian Nights. You must’ve taught ‘em to her, eh, Mr. Archer?”
“May I see my sister, Sergeant?”
“ ‘Course,” he said, snapping to. “Here, lads, step aside.”
Lucy—shy, frail, melancholic Lucy—sat on the edge of the sergeant’s desk, her feet swinging while she munched on an apple. Several of the younger police constables had plainly lost their hearts to her. When she prepared to jump down, half a dozen hands were waiting to assist her.
She started talking without a word of greeting. “We’d better get Julia back, Simon. She’s been more frightened than hurt, but still! Good afternoon, gentlemen. I feel that I shall sleep soundly tonight knowing that it’s fine men like yourselves who patrol our streets.”
Climbing into the closed carriage he’d ordered, the two young ladies seemed to regain a measure of their own personalities. Simon still found something faintly unnerving in his sister’s smile as she sat back. It seemed cooler, more remote, as though he glimpsed the smirk of the Mona Lisa on her lips of English rose.
Julia captured his attention by uttering four words the sergeant would have loved to hear. “It was Dr. Mystery.”
Simon’s head snapped around. “What!”
“On the street. It was Dr. Mystery. He wanted me to come with him and was not in the least interested that I had a different use for my afternoon.”
“Lucy, did you see him?”
“Of course,” she answered promptly. “Julia isn’t deranged, you know. What she says she sees, she has seen. What she says is truth, is truth.”
“Then why, in the name of all that’s holy, didn’t you tell the police that?”
“I doubt they’d have believed us.”
“I’ll see to it that they do. We’ll turn around at once.”
“No,” Julia said, pushing down his hands as he reached for the speaking tube. “Don’t you see? Dr. Mystery, if I’m any judge, ran home and created an alibi. Or it may be that he ran home, jumped into bed, and pulled the cover
s over his head. I don’t know.”
“What does it matter?”
“It matters to me. You and Dr. Mystery have a quarrel that is taking place in the press. You seem to have won it. But if you accuse him of assaulting a woman who is a guest in your house ...”
“You’re concerned about your reputation at last, Julia.”
Lucy said, “Don’t be a fool, Simon. She’s thinking about your reputation.”
“Mine? Ladies, I can take care of myself. I do it all the time.”
They looked at each other and Lucy shrugged. “Male pride digs deeper than the claws of lions.”
Julia said, “You have a reputation as a just and fair man. If you make an unsupported charge against a man who has already lost, you will look vindictive, as though you are trying to destroy him completely.”
“I want to destroy him,” he said savagely. “He attacked you in broad daylight. The man’s a menace!”
“He only wanted to talk to me.”
“If that’s the case, why did the police come?”
“The driver—
Again, Lucy spoke from her corner. “Tell him the real reason, Julia. You were afraid. Something about that man frightened you.”
“Yes,” Julia said, hanging her head. “Yes, I was afraid of him. I don’t know why. He doesn’t look strong enough to hurt me.”
Simon, his better judgment swamped in the need to comfort her, drew her close to him on the seat. “Everyone is afraid sometimes, Julia.”
“Not I.” Her voice was muffled by the wool of his coat. He saw that Lucy had leaned her head back against the cushions, discreetly closing her eyes. He hoped her ears were closed as well.
He murmured into the edge of Julia’s bonnet, “The first time I kissed you was in a moving carriage.”
“No, we’d stopped.” She stayed against him during the entire drive homeward, as relaxed and warm as a sleeping child. He sensed there were things she was not telling him, yet he felt a great reluctance to disturb this peaceful moment with the same questions the poor sergeant had asked. He stroked her back through the smooth cashmere of her mantle, trying to quiet his own mind as well as soothe her. Their breathing space lasted only until the hired carriage stopped at the Archers’ front door.