by Baird Wells
CHAPTER FOUR
Carriages came and went on the street below Simon’s townhouse, evening rain making golden lamp-light ripples across their polished black roofs and cracked brown leather ones. Hannah watched them jealously from the second-floor parlor window, concealed by the dark room. People who came and went as they pleased were a novelty, so that she felt that the pedestrians below, and not she, was the animal in the zoo.
She sighed, admitting that her retreat had run its duration. She would have to come out and endure her brother-in-law and his highbrow set, and whatever street tramp he’d invited to join them this evening. Simon took delight in blessing the lower classes now and then, inviting some poor tradesman or merchant to dinner under the guise of charity, but she knew the truth: He did it to feel superior. She danced to Simon’s tune because she had to, because they kept their fangs on each other’s necks, and she was grateful when the last fork rested on its plate and the hour tipped from hasty to reasonable for making her excuse to go. She felt sorry for the other guests, too dazzled to meet their host on equal footing, or think to decline from the start.
She left the parlor by small steps, begrudging every inch until she was in the hall. Simon’s mansion had gone from one sort of gaudy to the next since his marriage to infamous Irena Filipova. Animal heads and big game had been replaced by tapestry covered chairs in depressingly dark wood, their backs towering like thrones in each empty corner. It reminded Hannah of the two-penny displays of Henry VIII, where all the mannequins were clad in moth-eaten velvet sofa coverings.
Simon and Irena; one of them with too much money, and the other with bottom-of-the-barrel taste. She snorted -- or both with no taste. Perhaps that was the explanation for a fifty-two-year-old man marrying the ballet dancer with whom he’d dallied while his wife lay dying at home. Irena had wished to go diamond shopping on the day of Evelyn’s funeral, and had been sorely put out by the dead woman’s taking precedence.
On that recollection, Hannah remembered starkly that she was a curiosity in a deranged zoo, indeed, and laughed bitterly to herself in the dreary stairwell.
She descended the last run of steps, set to indulge her distaste for her brother-in-law, when movement in the hall at the foot of the stairs drew her up short.
Whoever the man was, he cut a long, dark line across the white marble floor, his broad shoulders straining the fine black wool of his evening coat. A high, white collar, starched to a sharp ridge, flirted with crisp black hair at the back of his collar. He stripped his coat with masculine grace, strong but elegant movements which held her eye and thudded her pulse. Hannah lurked in the shadows between the landing and the hall and waited for a glimpse of his face. She was rewarded when he turned and handed off his top hat to the butler, offering her his profile.
She had stopped looking at men, in the same way that the blind no longer looked at grand paintings, with inability rather than disinterest, and from no fault of the subject’s. She’d given in under the press of Simon’s thumb, but couldn’t help herself now, anonymous to the stranger. His lower lip was firm but not thin. From the side, his chin formed a blunt ridge which sloped up into a broad jaw. His dark brow pulled into a frown and furrowed with an ease which hinted the expression was perpetual. A smoothness to his cheek spoke of freshly shaved skin, and her fingers sang in answer. A somber aura radiated from him and touched her faintly, reaching her as nothing had in ages. His melancholy spoke to her above London’s empty pomp.
He disappeared around the staircase, led away by the butler and depriving her of further enjoyment. She hung her head, alone in the cold shadow of the staircase and allowed guilt and danger to pass before she dared to trail behind. Passion simmered back down through her, deep inside where it belonged, where it was safe. There was no room for it when every bit of her must be devoted to guarding herself in the dangerous silence between courses.
* * *
He shouldn’t have come. There were so many people. How many pints would that hundred pounds have got him at Garvey’s? He could have eaten and drunk and despised himself in solitude.
The Webster’s dining room reminded him of meals with Emily’s family, the mandatory excess presented as though it were a daily occurrence of free will. Where a little gold gilt would be sufficient to awe guests, the whole affair was bronzed to mortally wound any hope of closing the social gap. He had been welcomed by her parents in those days, before they married, before he’d dared crossing the divide.
At Meadowcroft he’d felt like a king, twenty-six and settled in a house left to him by his parents, a mansion by village standards. He saw scores of patients who paid in coin or with eggs, cheese, or ham. He ate well, lived comfortably, and fell asleep each night satisfied to his core. A minor gentleman, but a gentleman all the same.
It occurred to him now how naïve he had been thinking that life was so simple, compared to sixteen-year-old Emily, a sort of old soul he’d found rain soaked and sprawled in roadside mud. She had seen the difficulties of their world and resolved to overcome them, while he had missed them entirely until they crashed headlong together. It was a funny, sad predicament for a doctor, who should be better acquainted with hardship than anybody. James thought maybe the role of his profession was making others comfortable with the fateful or unfortunate, while failing to do the same for themselves.
Wrapped up in that idea, he was more certain than ever of her wisdom, though at the time he had pegged her soundly as a petulant child. Her ankle twisted and horse run off, she had still crossed her sodden arms and turned her face away, asserting that she would be just fine without his assistance. He wished he could boast having reasoned with her, won her over. Instead he’d been reduced to tossing her over his shoulder and then over his saddle, her arms and one good leg pummeling him all the while.
His first glimpse of Braburn Manor had forever rendered his house at Meadowcroft a shabby ruin in comparison. Red brick peaks and towers sprawled out across the landscape’s breadth, punctuated by uniquely Tudor banks of rectangular windows that glowed into the stormy evening. Thick, green boughs of wisteria canopied the front doors and dotted him with raindrops from their purple blooms while he’d braced Emily and a distraught maid had helped pry off her caked boots. He had returned to tend her ankle for the next three days over protests and stubborn silence. This had eventually thinned into an occasional curious question when Emily could help herself no longer.
Lord and Lady Lennox, slack and nearly sobbing with relief over their missing daughter, had greeted him that first night with the same reward as Sir Simon, an invitation to dinner. He had expected three or four courses; peacock and maybe oysters, perhaps a meringue. Instead, The Lennoxes had expressed their gratitude with eight courses, stuffed chicken and boar in cream sauce, and a rich celery soup. There was, in fact, meringue, which was shaped into little swans. Orange jellies powdered in fine sugar, and pink-frosted cakes, and desserts numerous enough to be granted their own sideboard had trailed opulently behind. It had impressed him, humbled him, their difference in riches, but hadn’t chased him away. Emily, a little magpie, began to speak, to question him and to share with him every detail imaginable about herself, her family. Delighted by her when she wasn’t frowning at or frustrating him, material grandeur had been eclipsed by her brilliance.
There was no such distraction now, in the Websters’ dining room. He was adrift, abandoned to the splendor of the hall and the people themselves. Like the attendees, a long white expanse of table, which should have been welcoming to the guests, was anything but. Its sharp linen cloth was cut down the middle by ornaments too tall to have any use but dividing conversation. Silver trays on high bases formed towers of luxury, topped with pineapples and plums and clusters of grapes. Candelabras, at the middle and both feet, were comical excess over frosted-globe gas lamps that blazed on each wall.
He skirted behind the chairs until he found his name on a card at the foot of the table, its ivory rectangle bold against a place setting of gold flecke
d Venetian glass. He’d longed to give Emily this sort of splendor, more fitting for her in his opinion than stoneware plates and chipped crockery. That was only his opinion; he knew it now, so long afterward. Emily had been as happy with their plain tableware as with what sat before him in that moment.
He missed Emily’s roast and thin brown sauce, her tough homemade bread which had never improved despite her two years of effort at making it less dense. He missed her leaning across their small table, hands clasped and eyes wide while he took the first bite. In the early days, he had mm’d, no matter how bland or burned it had been, but eventually his stomach and Emily’s pride had demanded honesty. Despite the unfortunate bread, she made the best lemon meringue pie he’d ever tasted. It was a luxury usually reserved for his birthday, and was nowhere near as elegant as the simplest dessert spread before him on the Webster’s table, but it was his favorite despite its comparative plainness. He would trade a hundred Webster dinners to have it again. His chest ached, and he wished again that he hadn’t come.
Sir Simon came in with Lady Irena on his arm, her teal silk gown noisy in contrast to her husband’s smart black suit. Simon introduced the other guests, although they had already mostly made one another’s acquaintance in the drawing room.
Tad Hamilton he had liked well enough from the start. He was young and urbane, fair and too humble for having much money or an awareness of his own good looks. Tad was the widower of Sir Simon’s daughter from his first marriage, and different enough from the Websters that James wondered what kept the man around. Upon learning of their mutual widowerhood, James got the impression Tad wished to commiserate. James did not.
Sir Jonathan was dusty and gouty, with white sideburns like wide gills and was otherwise exactly what James would expect such a man to be. He harrumphed and squinted through his monocle and hmm’d at remarks aimed his way, with little other conversation. Tad had explained in the drawing room that Jonathan was a member of one of Simon’s clubs, as if that said all that needed saying about the man.
Mister and Mrs. Chalmers were middle-aged and gauche, and in trade. They were attempting to scale the Websters without a clue that there were no more rungs available to them on the social ladder. They wore too much brown silk and false hair, too many paste diamonds, and made too many remarks upon things which cultured people had the breeding not to mention.
Their self-consciousness was rivaled only by that of Lady Irena, who, for all her real diamonds and splendid furnishings, seemed constantly aware of having lucked into it with a beautiful face. Long fingers flitted a nervous path from blonde curls to cheek to shoulder, as though a mere press of her hand could push back time, or flatten out a wrinkle. Sir Simon, at least twenty years her senior, was not much different, smoothing two halves of his silver hair around a bald spot, or twirling his moustache as though he hoped to find more follicles and less gray each time.
All the actors found their marks, ladies poised beside their chairs with partners at the ready, anticipating that feat of timing that was sliding a woman to the table.
“Well,” remarked Tad beside him, when moments ticked by, “Is Hester coming, or no?”
“One supposes,” grumbled Simon, who snapped his fingers and muttered something to a footman.
James leaned in to Tad. “Hester?”
Tad grinned and shook his head, stealing a glance at the other guests. “I’ll explain it after dinner.”
Intrigued for the first time all evening, James watched the doorway until the footman reappeared with his tardy charge behind.
She came in on a waterfall of black silk, bustle swishing and train whispering over the threshold. Crisp black lace hugged her throat and fell away in tiers at her elbow, matching her raven locks and contrasting winter-white skin. Curls bounced at her shoulder, and though she was covered neck to toe, she refused to be stiff, no crisp pleats or tight piping. Her gown, her hair, even her rebellious half smile draped her with soft curves. Her blue eyes narrowed to pierce each face before her in turn.
When she found him she stopped, cocking her head. Something in her eyes stirred a sensation, almost an emotion, though he counted few of his reactions as such anymore. Whatever it was, it dawned thin and indistinct, passing as it had come on a short gust of memory. She held his gaze until Sir Simon cleared his throat and broke her spell.
“Doctor Grimshaw, this is my sister-in-law.” He drew out the words in a weary monotone. “Lady Hannah Webster.”
James knew his mouth hung open, and he stared in earnest. It felt like so long ago; he tried calling up her face, behind her veil and shadowed by darkness. He couldn’t draw up her features, but those eyes…There was no forgetting their deep cerulean. He rose, clumsy under her attention. “Lady Hannah. I –”
“No,” she cut in, a hint for his silence in her words and gaze, “the pleasure is well and truly mine. Sir Simon has rightly praised you at length for the service you did my niece.” She arched a brow with mathematical calculation. “Though he couldn’t recall you by name.”
Simon coughed and made a stomping sound, glaring her down, and Irena toyed desperately with her rings. No one spoke.
It didn’t surprise or distress him, being half-forgotten by a man like Simon. He made a bow and kept as silent as the other guests, all the while turning over her not mentioning their acquaintance. He glanced the table’s length, took in the others, and wondered if she was ashamed.
Sir Simon took his chair, and everyone followed suit. Irena, seated on James's left, relaxed when he did no more than offer please and thank you, seeming grateful at not having her halting grasp of English taxed. Simon, at the head of the table, talked across Hannah on his left, murmuring with Mister Chalmers, who answered with an occasional glance at James, as though he was afraid of being eavesdropped on.
Sir Jonathan grunted like clockwork at Mrs. Chalmers’s ceaseless prattling, his noises encouragement for a woman like her, even if he’d meant for them to be otherwise. Tad managed his place on James's right, and his food, as though he were the only person in the room, entirely oblivious. Hannah stared down at her plate in silence and shifted peas from one spot to another.
The food was delicious, and not solely because it wasn’t black pudding. Meats were salty and juicy, roasted to perfection. Scallops were sweet and tender and the wine tart and dry, but he hardly noticed under a pall that settled as conversation gave way to good manners and guests began to eat. Everyone took pains to avoid everyone else’s eyes, except Simon, who bored into Hannah while she picked at her quail. If she felt it, she showed no sign
Wood banging plaster, the dull jar of a door being thrown open, mashed through the dense tension, startling everyone it seemed except James, who would have welcomed canon fire in the dining room just then.
Elizabeth’s little shoes clicked like hooves on the marble, her bustle jostling wildly behind. She was pinned up like a miniature woman, from the curls atop her head to her green-and-canary silk gown. “Papa! Papa! Is he here? Has he come?”
“Ho-oh!” Simon shot to his feet, chair rocking perilously, and the sound he made was the sort of bellow James thought would be saved for a runaway hound. Irena came part-way up from her seat, but looked too put out to manage the rest of the way, admonishing her daughter in half-forgotten English.
Elizabeth dared a few more steps in good-natured defiance, skidding to a stop with her fingers just able to rest on James's sleeve, peeking up at him.
“You are not to be in here,” declared Simon, as though it were a physical impossibility for a child to cross the dining room’s threshold. “What time are you abed? Where is your nurse?” He asked the last to the entire party, who shook their heads and murmured disapproval. James wondered if it was provoked by Elizabeth’s intrusion, or by Simon’s not knowing that she must have left her nurse for a governess years before. All of them grumbled, James noticed, except Hannah, who was watching Elizabeth with a strange mix of tenderness and smug amusement at the chaos she was causing.
> “I only wanted to say thank you. It’s polite to thank someone when they do you a kindness.” She raised the pointed chin of her pretty oval face, owlish blinking betraying the answer of her bedtime.
He smiled back at her, patting her hand. “It was hardly a –”
“I am disappointed in you, Elizabeth.” It was the cruelest thing Simon could have said, more brutal than a lashing, and she flinched. “You know better than to behave in this fashion.”
What was ‘this fashion’? James demanded silently. He thought of Emily’s parents, expressing themselves at a similar humiliation, and strangled his napkin with a fist.
Elizabeth’s impish countenance fell, and then pinched, exaggerating a trembling lower lip that threatened to buckle under tears. Not entirely childish tears, he saw by a shamed flush in her cheeks, but also a pinch of womanly disgrace. It was worse in his opinion, because unlike a child wounded and then mended with a few hugs, Elizabeth was bound to remember this moment, when her earnest gratitude had been made a sin, and to be influenced by it for the rest of her life. Grated by Simon’s tone and stung on Elizabeth’s behalf, James cleared his throat. “I don’t think –”
“Where is Miss. Harrowby?” demanded Simon, not caring what James did or didn’t think.
The tardy governess dashed in, conspicuous in her starched white apron, shoulders hunched in the posture of someone about to be struck. “I’m very sorry, sir. So very sorry,” she moaned in a penitent whisper. “She was just coming down for her book.”
“We’ll speak of it later,” Simon warned in a tone that discouraged further apology.
Elizabeth’s eyes still shone with chastised tears, but a smile played at her lips. “I think you’re very brave,” she whispered quickly, as Miss Harrowby closed in. “And I hope Aunt Hannah will bring you to see me one day.”
“Come on, child,” grumbled Miss Harrowby, thick face and lips puckered in annoyance as she took Elizabeth by her narrow shoulders.