“But what if no one in the family wishes to construct railways?” Marie asked, eyes wide. “How can they make you?”
“Well, you see . . .”
“Mr. Knight is teasing us, Marie.” Grandmother turned again to the curate and said with a trace of wistfulness in her voice, “How proud your family must be of you.”
The conversation turned to politics and the debate over Prime Minister Disraeli’s push for Parliament to purchase shares in the Suez Canal. Mr. Knight’s face began to assume a blank look, as if he found it difficult to maintain interest in political matters. Or perhaps he’s exhausted from traveling, Sarah thought after daring another glance. And she could well understand how draining it was to orient oneself to a new environment.
****
That evening in their usual box at the Adelphi, she told Naomi and William about Mr. Knight’s mismatched eyes while they waited for the start of the comedy Waltz by Arditi. “The condition is called helerochroma iridis,” William said. “Only about one in a thousand people has it.”
“What was he like?” Naomi asked.
“Rather quiet,” Sarah replied. She had started to say handsome, but then they might mistakenly get the impression that she had some sort of silly schoolgirl infatuation for a young man she hardly knew.
The following day in church, she saw no sign of Mr. Knight from the pew she shared with Marie—the maid had stopped sitting in the gallery when Grandmother was no longer able to attend. Most servants would have enjoyed this elevated status, but Marie, who was not impressed with the upper classes, took it in stride. Sarah and Marie were moving down the wide aisle at the end of the service—their circumstances of birth separating them from the sea of people with whom they rubbed elbows—when Sarah spotted the curate in the vestibule with Vicar Sharp. When her turn at the door came, she offered her gloved right hand.
“It’s good to see you again, Mr. Knight,” she said a little shyly.
“Very good to see you, Miss . . .” His words faded, and his handsome face assumed the distracted expression of someone struggling to think in a hurry.
“Matthews,” Vicar Sharp inclined his head closer to supply before Sarah could remind him.
“Do forgive me—Miss Matthews,” he said warmly.
She was about to reply that it was understandable that he would need some time to recall so many new names, but he had already released her hand, and his warm smile slid over to Marie and the others waiting behind her.
And so Sarah reminded herself, He has so many new names to learn.
****
On Monday morning, Daniel paused at the wrought-iron fence separating the service entrance of 14 Berkeley Square from the pavement and took three deep steadying breaths. Father, help me through this. The prayer calmed him enough to approach the steps, though he could still feel his hands trembling inside his gloves. A matronly looking woman wearing spectacles answered his knock, took his coat, gloves, and hat while asking about the city traffic and whether he was glad that the rain seemed to be gone for a while. Though she appeared only five or so years older than he, she reminded Daniel of his mother so much that he was put a little more at ease.
She ushered him upstairs and, after a soft knock on a door, led him into a parlor furnished with bold colors. He was introduced to Mrs. Blake, who did not remind him of his or anyone else’s mother despite her white hair, but rather of a white-wigged judge holding court. Pale blue eyes appraised him with such intensity that he feared some of breakfast’s marmalade lurked on his chin or that he had forgotten to fasten some vital part of his suit. The lady’s maid, introduced to him as Marie Prewitt, was no less forgiving in her scrutiny. It was all Daniel could do to keep the tea in his cup while questions went on about his church background and education, even whether he indulged in smoking, drinking, or gambling.
“I do not,” Daniel replied to the latter three questions.
“Have you ever patronized a brothel, Mr. Rayborn?”
I’m going to kill you, James, he thought. His “easy as cake” remark, surely meant to inspire confidence, had caught him completely off guard. “No, never.”
“And you left King’s College in 1861 to write textbooks?”
The question would have been so easy to affirm, because there was just enough truth in it to appease his conscience. But his mother’s “half a truth is no truth at all” was so ingrained into him that he could do naught but reply, “I was dismissed because of my heavy drinking.”
“But you said you did not drink.” It was the lady’s maid, Miss Prewitt, who spoke this time. Daniel turned his face to her.
“And I don’t. Not for the past nine years.”
Mrs. Blake, seemingly satisfied that they could ease up a bit, said in a more congenial voice, “May I ask what led you to ruin your lecturing career?”
“My wife’s suicide.”
There was a second of silence, and then, “Why did she do so?”
“She suffered a mental disorder, Mrs. Blake. Please don’t ask me to explain. Surely Mr. Mitchell would not have sent me here if he had found out anything amiss.”
“And you could only cope by drinking?” she asked softly.
Finally he could see evidence of the maternal feelings that had drawn her to his daughter. “I welcomed the numbness,” he told her.
“I understand. I felt that way for years after my son and husband died. The pain of loss has very sharp edges, hasn’t it?”
“It has. I’m very sorry about your husband and son.”
“Thank you.” She smiled, and all traces of the judge disappeared. “God sent an angel to comfort me, Mr. Rayborn. No doubt He has provided the same for you, or you wouldn’t be sitting here today.”
“That’s so, Mrs. Blake.” His parents, brother, neighbors, minister, and the good parishioners at King’s College Chapel had kept him from a total slide into despair, even in the days when he was too inebriated to recollect their doing so. And now Sarah!
“The position is yours, if you wish. Mr. Mitchell has discussed wages with you, but he may not have thought to include lunches in the servants’ hall.”
Mr. Mitchell had only alluded to the wages and not provided a specific amount, but Daniel did not correct her. As long as he could pay Mr. Garrett, who had agreed to do the typing, that was all that mattered.
Mrs. Blake cocked a white eyebrow. “Your brother asked for time to consider the position and then turned it down. You aren’t going to do that, are you?”
“I can start today,” Daniel replied, his heart dancing in his chest.
“Today?” Mrs. Blake and even the maid chuckled. “Sarah would like that, but tomorrow will be soon enough. I’ll send for her now, and you’ll see why I drilled you so mercilessly, Mr. Rayborn.”
Miss Prewitt rose to pull a bell cord that was answered almost immediately by a thin maid with auburn hair. She was dispatched to fetch Sarah, and when Daniel turned his face from the door, Mrs. Blake was staring at him with renewed scrutiny.
Uh-oh, he thought. Just because Sarah favored her mother physically did not mean he and she shared no family resemblance. James had even mentioned the eyes.
“Your tea, Mr. Rayborn. It’s the best you’ll find in London. Have you taken even one sip?”
Daniel looked down at the cup and saucer balanced upon his knee as if for the first time and thought it was a wonder that he hadn’t spilled it upon himself. Out of politeness he took a sip of the lukewarm tea, which caused both women to smile. This time he returned their smiles, and Miss Prewitt got up to take his cup and pour him another.
“It’s excellent tea,” he said and took two more sips before the door opened and a fair-haired young woman came through it.
“Mr. Rayborn,” she said, extending a hand when they were introduced. It was only then that Daniel realized he had somehow gotten to his feet.
“Miss Matthews.” He clasped her hand as if it were a fragile bird. She looked so much like her mother, and yet there were traces of his mother in her
fine-featured face. And James had rightly recognized the green eyes.
You are so good to me, Father, he breathed. He knew how the Biblical Jacob must have felt at his first sight of Joseph, after believing his son to be dead for so long.
“Tomorrow?” his daughter was saying to Mrs. Blake, who must have spoken when he was in a stupor. The girl shrugged at Daniel and smiled. “I suppose I can wait one more day.”
“Why don’t you show Mr. Rayborn the library and the texts you’ve just completed?” Mrs. Blake suggested. “And then you may as well introduce him to everyone.” To Daniel she said, “Have you time for that, Mr. Rayborn?”
It was like asking a schoolboy if he had time for a game of cricket.
****
On Friday, the twenty-sixth of February, Ethan Knight opened one eye and groaned at the quantity of sunlight slanting through the bedroom window. Not again! He threw back the bedclothes, his heart sinking with every “cuckoo” of the parlor clock, a farewell gift from his family’s Prussian housekeeper, Mrs. Grundke. Nine!
Fifteen minutes later he was tying his cravat while hurrying down the staircase alongside the vicarage carriage house. The upstairs flat, his home for the past week, possibly would never be again after today. Once the Church booted him out, he would be pressured to join the Institution of Mechanical Engineers with his father and brothers. It was either that or the army.
School was no longer available as a refuge—his father had drawn the line after financing five years of minimal effort at Trinity College, Cambridge. That was when Ethan realized with a jolt that he was going to have to work at something for the rest of his life. The ministry seemed the easiest path, for hadn’t his grandfather made it appear so? Deliver sermons in the pulpit, pay calls to the ailing, and count tithes.
If you haven’t botched it all up! he thought on a sprint across the vicarage garden. He bounded up the steps two at a time, and before he could calm himself, he pounded on the door. Mrs. Lambert, the housekeeper, answered his knock. An accusing frown lengthened her narrow face.
“He’s in his study, Mr. Knight,” she said with a nod over her left shoulder.
Vicar Sharp answered Ethan’s quieter knock with a “You may come in.” The elderly man sat at his desk with pen in hand, open notebook, Bible, and a jar of ink before him. He continued writing for what seemed an hour but had to be less than a quarter of that time, for Ethan had yet to hear any part of Westminster chimes from the grandfather clock in the parlor next door. Finally Vicar Sharp held his pen over the blotter and looked up at him.
“You missed the morning reading, Mr. Knight.”
“Do forgive me, Reverend! I was praying and completely lost track of time.” Even as he spoke, his words sickened him. Just because the vicar seemed a bit naive, surely a man of his age and experience would not be so gullible as to believe the same excuse used on Tuesday. You should have pleaded a headache, Ethan chided himself. That one would even have the ring of truth, for there was a little stabbing pain behind his eyes from reading John Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by lamplight into the wee hours. He winced inwardly as the aged eyes moved over his face and was on the verge of blurting out that he had overslept and promising it would never happen again when Vicar Sharp smiled.
“Your piety is to be commended, especially in one so young, Mr. Knight. And I myself am in the habit of beginning each day with prayer.”
“Ah . . .” He had to clear his throat to cover his surprise. “Yes?”
“But I do not think our Lord meant for us to spend so much time on our knees that we neglect our duties.”
He can’t be serious, Ethan thought, feeling almost guilty at how easy this was. Vicar Sharp was obviously one of those rare souls who went beyond naiveté into innocence, so pure in heart that he believed only the best about everyone else. With eyes wide and a supreme effort to keep lips from twitching, Ethan asked, “Isn’t prayer our most important duty, Reverend?”
“Without question, Mr. Knight.”
The older man folded hands upon his open notebook, brow furrowed as if mindful of the gravity of giving the proper counsel. “But as Saint Paul wrote in the book of First Corinthians, ‘Let everything be done decently and in order.’ There are only a certain number of hours available in the day for making calls. In the evenings we have greater opportunity for lengthy prayer and studying Scripture without having to be mindful of the clock.”
“Yes, sir.” Ethan gave him a rueful smile. “I’ve still much to learn, haven’t I?”
The vicar actually chuckled. “We all start out green, Mr. Knight. Do continue your morning prayers. But do aim for brevity as well.”
“I will, sir. Thank you.”
“Very good. And we’ll get started, shall we? But wait . . . you’ve not had breakfast.”
“I’m not hungry,” Ethan lied. He had been granted a reprieve, but just enough of the morning’s panic lingered to make him unwilling to cause any more delay. “May we go ahead and start?”
“Very good! Are you up to going out on your own today?”
“By myself?” He felt his Adam’s apple push pass his cravat and wondered if the vicar heard the gulp that practically exploded in his eardrums.
“Lots of elderly people in Mayfair, Mr. Knight, and with winter weather still upon us, quite a few have taken ill. You’ll do just fine—Mr. Mumford and I used to divide the duties often.”
Bully for Mr. Mumford, Ethan thought.
Vicar Sharp wrote out three names with house numbers on a piece of stationery. “They all live on Maddox Street, so you won’t be running all over the place. And if you allow a half hour per call, you’ll be back in time for lunch.”
Lunch, he thought with a bit more interest.
His first call was to a Mr. Fisher, a white-haired man confined to a luxurious but solitary bedroom. The phthisis that caused a whistle to be sent out with every breath did not prevent him from laboring to tell Ethan about being among the first to ride the Liverpool & Manchester railway when he was a boy. Ethan partially blamed himself, for he happened to mention he came from a family of railway engineers. His self-conscious attempt to break the silence backfired, for Mr. Fisher simply refused to give up.
“Twenty-five . . . miles an . . . hour!”
“Incredible,” Ethan told him. “But perhaps you shouldn’t be speaking like—”
“I . . . thought . . . we were . . . flying! But . . . this was back . . . in . . .”
“Eighteen-thirty, you already mentioned.” Twice, you mentioned.
The elderly man nodded. “Eighteen . . . hundred . . . and . . . thirty.”
His second visit was with a Mrs. Wright, suffering from dropsy. He stood as close to the bed as politeness allowed, averting his eyes from the grotesquely swollen feet propped upon pillows. “I’m in constant pain, Reverend,” the woman told him, eyes watering. “But I’m trying to be strong.”
“So sorry,” he said and found himself moved enough by her suffering to take her hand. Almost. But he eased a step backward instead. Surely the vicar wouldn’t have sent me here if it were contagious . . . would he? “I’ll certainly pray for you. Do be strong.”
“Thank you.” She stared at him for a minute and closed her eyes. Better let her sleep, Ethan told himself and left the room.
His next call was to a Mrs. Stafford, who showed consideration by falling asleep before he actually rang the bell. All that was required of him was to assume a clergylike posture while listening to the account of the woman’s palsy from her daughter-in-law, then promise to pray.
Out on the pavement of Maddox Street again, he took out his pocket watch and discovered he had almost an hour before time to return to the vicarage. New Bond Street has shops, he recalled, looking off to the west. A few coins rattled in his pocket—enough to buy something to hold him over until lunch. SIMMONS FINE BAKED GOODS beckoned from across the street soon after he turned the corner from Maddox and headed north. He bought a meat pie from a white-aproned man wi
th dried pastry bits clinging to the hairs of his hand, wolfing half of it down by the time he crossed the street again. He was just about to head back for Maddox when movement at his left caught his eye. His own reflection stared back from the glass of a bow window. Narrowing his eyes, he took a step closer to peer past a display of open and closed parasols. An attractive woman stood behind the counter, reading.
Ethan stepped back a bit to read the gilt letters stenciled in upon the glass at chest level. W & J SANGSTER. His eyes then focused on a hand-printed pasteboard sign propped in the center of the display: “Offering Every Variety of Sun Shades and Parasols, in Brocades, Glaces, Irish Lace, and China Crape for Fetes or the Promenade, From 7s.6d to 3 Guineas Each and Upwards.”
He realized with a start that the shopgirl was staring curiously at him. Ethan, fully aware of his own good looks, touched the brim of his hat and sent her the smile that had disarmed many a Birmingham lass. She looked for a second longer, then went back to her reading. His pride felt no injury, and in fact he took it as a sign of interest. Just as his arsenal included a boyish smile, many women used coyness in the same manner.
He debated using that same coyness and moving on—to give her several days to wonder if he would return. But he was so terribly lonely, and not for the company of the good vicar and his wife or aged parishioners with their ailments and stories.
A bell overhead tinkled as he walked through the doorway. The shop was tastefully appointed with subdued taupe fabric wallcovering, forest green carpet, and velvet upholstered chairs in muted floral patterns. And to his delight, it lacked patrons at the moment.
“How may I assist you, sir?” the shopgirl asked, neither smiling nor frowning.
She was dressed simply in a white blouse and blue bustled satin skirt, with a matching sash around her narrow waist. Without the glass between them, Ethan realized she was not beautiful. But beauty was overrated in his opinion, even boring. She possessed an interesting face instead, with lips a trifle too narrow and clear cheeks too angular. The eyes were nice, he discovered as he stepped closer to the counter. Dark brown flecked with golden lights like a topaz. So was her reddish-brown hair, flowing up into a chignon so precariously fastened that it appeared one tug of a hairpin could send it tumbling about her full bosom.
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