by Joan Smith
“You’re too lenient with those people, Miss Warwick,” he said, reverting to her formal name in his pique when they returned to her carriage where he had left his clothes. His valet usually helped him into his close-fitting jacket. When Elizabeth saw him struggling she helped him. “I shouldn’t have rewarded Fanny for stealing my purse. I should have called a constable.”
“Did you see any constables there? I never have. King George is the only law.”
“I can’t imagine why you want to go there, mixing with thieves and whores and worse. You have certainly changed.”
“I see you haven’t,” she replied tartly.
“No, I still prefer civilization to the law of the jungle.”
“In my ignorance I judged them rather harshly when I first began coming here too,” she said. “I chided the girls for going on the street, urged them to find honest work. My eyes were opened up by a young prostitute about fourteen years old. ‘How long since you last ate, Miss?’ she asked me. ‘A few hours,’ I said, wondering what she was getting at. ‘A few days since I’ve had a bite. Me backbone’s getting entirely too close to me stomach. Seems Lord High and Mighty don’t want me scrubbing his floors or minding his kiddies. What am I supposed to do, starve?’
“I learned, through no fault of her own, she could neither read nor write and was certainly not the sort of girl anyone would hire as a servant. So what was she supposed to do? There are thousands like her in London. I can’t change that, but I can do a little something for a few of them. I’ve chosen the Dials as my territory. That’s all. Didn’t you feel just a little sorry for Fanny? I don’t think she does overeat, but without someone to see she gets to a doctor, she may die from her condition. I shall speak to Doctor Tom about her case.”
He didn’t argue. There was really no argument to be made. In a jungle it was eat or be eaten, and Seven Dials was a sort of human jungle. “Who is Doctor Tom?” he asked, smoothing down his shirt and jacket, since he couldn’t think offhand of any honest employment for the likes of the girls he’d seen that morning.
“Just a very kind retired surgeon who runs a little clinic for those we can persuade to visit him. His name is Thomas Brisbane, but everyone calls him Doctor Tom.”
“Any relation to George Brisbane, old Lord Norval?”
“Yes, Tom is the youngest of three sons. Since he inherited no estate and very little income he became a doctor. He’s a friend of Lady Gertrude. He helps us out at the Dials. We rent a couple of rooms in an old derelict house. Our present goal is to buy the house and fix up a proper clinic in it for him. Aunt Gertrude set the clinic up some years ago and we collect money to keep it going. People think we’re awful pests, but they can afford to give something. If we didn’t pester them they wouldn’t realize how desperate the situation is. You really don’t know until you’ve seen it for yourself. Your cravat’s crooked,” she said, and reached up to adjust it.
Nick felt a little frisson as her fingers brushed his throat. He thought of Elizabeth as a controlled, almost cold lady, but her cheeks were flushed with emotion now and her eyes were sparkling. Her face was inches from his, her lips close enough to kiss.
“In other words I am a selfish, blind ogre,” he said, feigning offence, but his husky voice was at odds with the words. She didn’t contradict him but just gave the cravat a last touch. “All right! I admit I should have let Fanny keep the demmed purse.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” she said firmly, as she stood back to view the cravat. “Fanny’s not used to handling a large sum of money. She’d only give it to Darling Dan, or buy gin and have a party with their friends. I never give more than a small amount in cash. It’s more effective to target your giving. It sounds patronizing, but it works. We help with their immediate problems. We give them medicine, clothes and food.
“What they really need is education. The parents wouldn’t go to school, of course, so you’d have to begin with the children. And that’s a job for the government, which takes no interest in it. They prefer to hire more policemen and judges to catch and punish the miscreants than to get at the cause of all the petty crime. End of lecture. I wouldn’t want to set you yawning.”
“I’m not yawning. That was an excellent rant. Put out your hand,” he ordered.
“What for?” she asked, half expecting a playful slap.
He took her hand and deposited his purse in it. “You decide how best to put this to work.”
She laughed in delight. “Nicholas! If you expect me to refuse this kind donation, think again. This will go far. Doctor Tom needs all sorts of things for his clinic. Thank you. I’d kiss you, if I weren’t afraid you’d take off like a frightened hare.”
“You’re not that frightening,” he said, but when he recovered from the shock of Miss Warwick mentioning kissing a man she wasn’t engaged to, he noticed that she had called him Nicholas.
She bit back the rejoinder that he must have changed from the old days and said, “Now, what am I to do about the rubies?”
“I should think Sara still has them. If she had them in her pocket, we could set Fat Fanny on her. We. You’re not ditching me now. Don’t think to frighten me off by that threat to kiss me.” His teasing smile made it an invitation, which she either didn’t recognize or ignored.
“Oh I’m not done with you yet. I still need you to escort me to Lady Belmont’s ball. I hope Sara does still have the necklace. I can’t think of anything else to do about that until tonight. Thank you for your help, Nicholas. I shall call on Tommy this afternoon and let him know how things stand. I told him I’d keep him informed.” She directed the coachman to return to the mews and they got into the carriage. As they drove home, she thought to herself, “Did I just call him Nicholas? I did! It would seem rude to revert to Carbury now.”
“Where is Tommy staying?” he asked.
“In a little cottage in St. John’s Wood. Bob Harcourt hired it for his latest bit of muslin — that lovely redhead with green eyes.”
“Ah yes, the beauty who switched her affections to Lord Harvey’s fatter purse.”
“Oh, of course you would know her. Why am I not surprised? It seems Bob had paid the rent on the cottage for the season, so Tommy is hiding out there.”
“I don’t know Margot personally. Everyone knows of her. I’ll go with you to see Tommy.”
“That’s not necessary. You have that appointment you mentioned, and you will want to pick up your diamond cravat pin as well.”
He mistrusted the pseudo-innocent expression accompanying that speech. “If you’re insinuating my cravat pin is a lavish necklace I mean to hang about the neck of some Jezebel —”
“Where would I get a silly idea like that? Just because you positively glared at poor Perkins and cut him off before he could say anything, why should I leap to the conclusion he was going to say diamond necklace? I thought he was only going to say diamond bracelet. I’m sure one would have heard if Lord Carbury had given some lightskirt a carte blanche. A flirt gets only a bracelet, n’est-ce pas?”
“You are well informed. I would not have thought the sort of lightskirt met at Seven Dials received such perquisites,” he said, and felt both foolish and mean.
“No indeed! They’re fortunate if they get the few pence or shillings promised for their favours, but then of course their customers are not often lords, or even gentlemen. As a rule their trade is carried on at a lower level.” But occasionally gents did go slumming, as did Mr. Smith of the squinty eye. Who could he be?
Nicholas realized that what she was saying without actually quite saying it was that keeping a mistress was just high-class prostitution. Hardly earth-shattering news, yet upon consideration it did seem a wretched, squalid business. “In any case, I’m going with you to see Tommy,” he said firmly. “In my carriage. This rattletrap is jarring my teeth. You are welcome to accompany me.”
“Very well, but I must stop at home to let Aunt Gertrude know where I am going, and what I’m doing.”
“Fi
ne. I haven’t seen Lady Gertrude for some time. Pity I shan’t have any blunt to give her.”
“Are you hinting for the return of your purse?”
“Certainly not!”
“Good, because you’re not going to get it.”
They switched carriages and were driven to Hanover Square, where Lady Gertrude sat at a table with a footman and maid in a garish drawing room, rolling bandages. She was a widow of a certain age, but though hefty, she was lithe and lively. Her rusty-coloured hair ran riot over her head, with no cap to hold it in place. She rouged her cheeks with a generous hand.
Both her own body and her drawing room were outfitted quite independently of fashion in a style vaguely oriental. Vivid crimsons and golds and purples clashed alarmingly. The sofa was draped in colorful shawls, with a similar one worn over her shoulders. The gown she had on at the moment was a striped lutestring in shades of jonquil and moss green that would have been more suitable for the stage. A clutter of glass and brass bracelets jangled on her wrists as her hands moved swiftly over the bandages.
Now that age was catching up with her, Lady Gertrude seldom visited Seven Dials, but pursued her good works from the comfort of her home and the homes of her friends and acquaintances. Card parties, tea parties, routs, concerts, even balls were all opportunities for dunning folks to donate to charity.
“Lord Carbury!” she exclaimed, looking up from her work. A question gleamed in her eyes as she turned to Elizabeth. “Lizzie, you’re late,” she said. “I expected you back half an hour ago. Did everything go well?” Her bright eyes kept flashing to Nicholas in a silent demand to know what the deuce he was doing in her salon.
“No one knew anything about the rubies. Nicholas went with me, which is why he is here. We’re going to visit Tommy. I’ll speak to Cook about taking him some food, in case there’s none in the cottage.” Elizabeth hurried off.
Gertrude’s quick ears caught that “Nicholas,” and she wondered about it. It seemed she could drop the “Lord” but she would not call him Nicholas. She was on thorns to know how he came to be with Lizzie. Surely she had not called on him? No, of course not. She had run into him somewhere.
“Well, Carbury,” she said, “do sit down. Kind of you to give us a hand.” He did not take the hint and say how this had come about. “Of course Tommy is a cousin of yours. So foolish, thinking he would steal anything. When his pockets are to let he lives on tick, or lays his watch on the shelf or borrows from his friends, like a gentleman. What did you and Lizzie do this morning?”
He drew out a chair and sat across the table from her. “We spoke to her — er, friends at Seven Dials.”
“Ah, she took you there, did she?” she said, and looked for his reaction. What had got into the girl? Elizabeth never took her beaux there. If Alfie could not handle a job, she used Tommy.
“Yes, I accompanied her. An interesting experience.”
“And you got away with your jacket still on your back. Congratulations.”
“Actually I didn’t wear this jacket. Elizabeth happened to have some old clothes in the carriage. King George was asking for you.”
“The dear man. I really must go and see him one of these days. I’m sure I could weasel one of those pictures from him, if only I knew who he’d stolen them from was safely dead. To auction off, you know, to make money for the clinic. Take care or Lizzie will be dunning you for money. I take it you were not dismayed to see the sort of work she does?”
“I was certainly surprised. I had no idea ...”
“We keep that part of it close, actually going to the Dials. Folks are so narrow-minded nowadays they would think it improper or downright dangerous, as if poverty were contagious. In the old days dear Georgie and I — the Duchess of Devonshire, you know, thought nothing of riding into Long Acre to help out in the elections. We mingled with the rag tag and bobtail and loved every minute of it. True blue and Tory too.
“Such fun we had, and the goings-on at Devonshire House! Foolish, the fuss they make over poor Caro Lamb and Byron nowadays, as if that sort of thing were something new, though she is very indiscreet, and so is he.” She babbled on without waiting for a comment or question, and all the while her bracelets kept jangling and her busy fingers kept rolling bandages for Doctor Tom’s clinic.
When she was finished, she set aside the bandages and said, “Would you mind getting us a glass of wine from the tray just over there? This is dry work, and I daresay you’ve earned a libation as well.”
Nicholas welcomed the drink. He feared it would be some inferior wine, but it was very good. He knew that Lady Gertrude had her annual seat at the theatre reserved, and attended the best parties. She was by no means an ascetic, cut off from the world. It seemed strange that this worldly dame should take such an interest in the poor and disadvantaged.
Where had he picked up the notion that good people were necessarily boring, narrow-minded and ostentatiously ascetic? She was not one to be quoting the more severe passages of the Bible at a fellow. She was just a well-to-do lady who was trying to help the afflicted. In fact she was Machiavellian in her willingness to auction off a stolen painting if she could get away with it, the end justifying the means.
“Ah, there you are,” she said, when Elizabeth returned. “Not stopping for luncheon, dear? You must be famished.”
“Cook included enough food for Nicholas and me in the basket she packed for Tommy.”
“Ask Winters for a couple of bottles of wine. Poor Tommy may be dry as dust by now, if there’s no drink in the cottage.”
“I included some wine, Auntie. Is Doctor Tom calling for those bandages?”
“Yes, he said he would drop by today.”
“Ask him about a girl called Fat Fanny. She’s terribly overweight, but I don’t think it’s from eating and she’s not enceinte. She stays at the convent. And take some more of the antiseptic salve and any medicine he thinks might help Prissy. I’m hopeful she’ll pay him a visit. She won’t allow him to examine her properly but the medicine might help.”
“Silly thing. As if Doctor Tom would molest her. I shall tell him, dear.” The butler appeared at the door with a picnic hamper. Nick stepped forward and took it from him. “You run along now, and say hello to Tommy for me.”
When they were settled in Nick’s carriage, he said, “Was I blind before, or has your aunt changed from the time when I was — we were — Demme, you know what I mean, Elizabeth.”
“Yes, I know,” she said, stifling down any show of emotion at the memory of that awful spring. “She has changed. It was just after you stopped calling that it began. She was having some health problems — the change of life, you know, and was afraid she was dying. Someone recommended Doctor Tom.
“She recovered, perhaps it was he who cured her. He mentioned he was unhappy wasting his time seeing to the imaginary ills of ladies whose only problem was boredom. She admitted she was bored. She began looking around for something useful to do with her life and discovered Seven Dials. She took Doctor Tom there and he agreed to help. Helping people in need gave meaning to her life and his.” She did not add, “And to mine,” though she believed it.
Nick was becoming curious about this Doctor Tom. He wondered if he was the reason for Elizabeth’s involvement with Seven Dials. Perhaps she was in love with him. “How old would Doctor Tom be?” she had mentioned he was Lord Norval’s youngest son.
“Oh I don’t know. He seems young.”
“He must be an impressive fellow,” he said.
“He’s wonderful,” she said, which didn’t tell him what he wanted to know. “Auntie decided she had been wasting her life doing what other people expected of her. She was too old to be pretending she was something she wasn’t, and she didn’t see why she must behave like Hanna More just because she wanted to do a bit of good in the world. I fully agreed with her. So she changed the house to suit her own ideas of beauty, bought some new gowns and began painting her face and just doing things she wouldn’t have done before
, never mind what anyone thought. I like her much better this way, don’t you?”
“Yes, she didn’t make me feel like a sinner, as so many who do good works do.”
Elizabeth took this for a jibe at her own behaviour. She ought not to have twitted him about the diamond bracelet. “If I did that, I apologize,” she said at once. “I didn’t mean to. I hope I know better than to judge people on the little they reveal to the world. The worst kind of sinners are usually at pains to keep up a pious appearance.”
“I’ve never gone in for a pious appearance,” he pointed out.
“I never thought you were the worst kind of sinner, Nicholas,” she said.
He knew what kind she took him for — selfish, spoiled, dissolute — and was surprised she didn’t consider it the worst kind. He narrowed his eyes at her, but when he saw she was laughing, he decided to leave well enough alone.
Chapter Five
The drive through the countryside to St. John’s Wood in a well-sprung, well-upholstered carriage was pleasant in springtime. Nicholas let down the windows to allow the perfume of a thousand blossoms to waft in. Cow parsley foamed by the roadside. Flowers bloomed in the hedgerows and blossom-laden apple trees in the distance looked like giant snowballs.
Petals spiraled through the air like snowflakes when the breeze disturbed them. Birds soared and swooped in the azure sky above, and from treetops birdsong warbled a sweet symphony. As if by mutual consent the occupants ceased speaking of rubies and charity and just enjoyed this feast for the senses.
“On a fine day like this we should have taken your curricle,” Elizabeth said.
“I seem to recall you didn’t care for an open carriage,” Nicholas replied, harking back to memories of that long-ago spring.
“That was a long time ago. Actually I wanted to try it. It was Auntie who thought it not quite the thing. She was afraid what people would think, and I, being fresh from the country, was guided by her.” She turned a laughing eye on him. “Is that why you told me this morning you were driving your curricle? You don’t know me very well, Nicholas, if you thought that would be enough to put me off.”