by Willa Ramsey
He swung his cane roughly, thwapping at the weeds along the curb. Taking up all these duties after avoiding them so many years—fixing the house, finding Edie a husband and himself a wife—made his head feel thick and electrified all at once. But taking them up under Father’s ever-present marble gaze? That was just too much.
He didn’t care about the distance. He knew that a long walk—and some masterful paintings—would clear the roiling clouds from his mind.
Edie had been right: His curiosity about Miss Crispin had grown stronger by the minute, and his decision to seek her parents’ help had surely been influenced by his desire to see her again.
But, unlike Edie, he wasn’t sure this was a desire he should indulge.
It could not be a good idea to become further attached to someone who was skeptical of marriage, and perhaps even of love itself. He’d be better off focusing on finding Edie a husband, and proceeding with a renovation of the house with a different architect.
But, he had never been so open, so comfortable with someone he didn’t already know. Something about Miss Crispin had neutralized his fear of being judged for what he said and did. It had been exhilarating for him.
And yet, on their second meeting, he had discussed with her his hopes for marriage. Not the weather! His hopes for marriage.
Perhaps exhilaration was something he should take in smaller doses.
Turning down a narrower, less familiar street, he decided he would take one meeting with the Crispins and then move on. Because if he continued to spend time with their daughter, he might continue to admit things he ought not to admit. And he might continue to become more and more attached to her.
His swung his cane up and around and was about to strike a loose cobblestone when he heard shouting from an alley just ahead. He hurried forward and looked down at a crowd of men not fifty yards away, wearing everything from the tall beaver hats of society to the soiled aprons of the butchery. None of them noticed as he approached, their shouts and cheers growing louder.
Inside the circle of onlookers—Adam could easily see over them—was an unruly tangle of scraped knees and longish hair: two boys of perhaps ten or twelve, holding their fists aloft in a mimicry of real pugilists, took turns pummeling each other with messy blows. Adam stepped back, his heart thudding in his chest. He might be a grown man, and his body might be pressed against the wall of a London shop at that moment, but his heart and mind traveled back to Ardythe, and back to his boyhood. There, he was sparring with Father again, while a poison of one part boyish eagerness, one part deep reluctance, coursed through his veins.
He shook himself free of this unpleasant spell and stepped forward, toward a man standing nearby. He was a merchant of some kind, judging by his new-looking clothes and by the accent he revealed when he shouted his encouragement to the boys.
Both boys, Adam noticed.
“What’s going on here?” he asked. Breaths had become harder to come by. “Are these your sons?”
“Yes, my lord,” the man replied, his fingers hooked inside his lapels. He smiled broadly.
“What are they going on about?”
The man cocked his head at him. “I don’t understand, my lord. We’re just having some sport—”
A blood-thickening screech came from inside the circle, and Adam turned just in time to see the larger of the boys tackle the other about the waist. Both went thudding across the foul ground, knotted up in a frenzy of grasping, yelping, and biting.
Adam cringed and pressed himself against the wall again, gently palming the smooth stones. Father had shown him how to execute punishing combinations, to inflict crushing blows that would debilitate an opponent. He’d been able to give Father his attention, at least, but he’d never been able to summon the courage—or was it nerve?—to do such things to another person. Indeed, he’d never overcome the visceral disgust that bubbled within him at the very thought of harming another. So he’d never graduated from sparring—at least not before Father’s fever worsened, not before Adam could rush home from school, not before a sudden and unexpected death shocked their entire household.
“It toughens ’em up,” the man continued. “Makes a man outta ’em. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“I do not agree,” he replied.
“Beggin’ your pardon? These are my boys, and there’s no harm in—”
Adam didn’t let the man finish. He turned and pushed aside several onlookers, eliciting an “Ey!” and a “Watch it!” before the speakers could turn and take in his size, his attire. He reached into the melee with both hands, his heart pumping wildly, and pulled the boys apart by their collars like a pair of snarling alley-cats. He lifted them off the ground, feet dangling, and brought them to their father. The men of the crowd had suddenly much less to shout about.
“H-h-how have we offended, my lord?” the man stammered in the newly quiet alley.
Adam ignored him, and looked at each boy in turn. “Do either of you like art?”
The boys looked at their father, his eyes wide and darting, then back to Adam. The younger one shrugged sheepishly, his face and neck stained with tears, and the older one trembled as he tried to pick the grit from the scrapes on his every extremity.
“Is this your place of business?” Adam asked with a toss of his head to a nearby storefront. “With your permission, I’ll take these lads with me to the Royal Academy. I’ll have them back before sundown.”
The man nodded, and Adam let go of the boys’ collars. Then he tugged downward on his waistcoat, tipped his hat, and moved on to his paintings, a pair of new companions in tow.
Chapter Seven
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Crispin,
I write to you with a business proposal. My sister, Lady Edith Wexley, and I would like to discuss with you some repairs that are required at our London home. We began a renovation last month under the direction of another architect—who was in turn under the direction of my mother, Lady Ryland. When the architect broke his contract and Lady Ryland broke her leg (in incidents unrelated), the home was left in a state of half-repair. Bricks are falling. Stucco is peeling. I have been told that something must be done, and that you are the family to do it.
I understand that Lady Edith is already known to you through her friendship with your daughter, Miss Caroline Crispin, who is also a graduate of Mrs. Hellkirk’s Seminary for Wayward and Willful Girls. One of these young women has already gotten it into her head that our collaboration would be a fine idea; if the other is to get wind of it, there will be no stopping it. I don’t know what Mrs. Hellkirk does in her leisure, but I’m quite certain that our fine officers on the Peninsula could have benefited from her tactics, once upon a time. General Bonaparte would not have stood a chance.
If you are amenable, please advise me as to your availability.
Yours truly,
Ryland
“What do you make of it?” Papa asked, smoothing his beard.
“May I see it?” Caro replied, snatching the letter and walking closer to the window. “When did it arrive?”
“Just now. Stinson brought it upstairs at once.”
“Humph. It would have languished in your correspondence a long time if he hadn’t,” she muttered, grudgingly giving Stinson some credit.
“A few weeks, at least!” Papa replied, fanning a folded newspaper before his face. Even with the best air circulation in London, their third-floor drawing studio could be sweltering by midday. “That’s how far behind we are in the letters, Caro. We need more of your help in that regard, I’m afraid.”
“Indeed,” Mama added. “Papa and I seem to become especially busy with other things when it comes time to write the most powerful men in England, denying their requests.”
“Especially those who are known brutes!” Papa added. “They say he almost killed a man, you know. In the ring, when they were just sixteen.”
Mama tossed him an affectionate frown, then walked over to Caro and put her arm around her waist. “He has an odd sens
e of humor,” Caro said, still engrossed in the letter.
“Who? Ryland?” Papa had returned to his stool and was leaning over a drawing.
“Is that what you call him, Papa?”
“I’ve never met the man. But his peers do, yes.”
She stopped now to picture Lord Ryland as Ryland; as a man alone, apart from his aristocratic bona fides. Lord Ryland…Ryland…Rye…Adam…My—
“Caro,” Mama interrupted softly, “are you listening?”
“Mmmm?”
“Can you do that for us?”
“Do what?”
“Write a polite refusal to Lord Ryland,” Papa replied, frustration edging softly into his tone. “That’s why we called you up here.”
“But his project—shouldn’t we consider it?”
He removed his spectacles and massaged the bridge of his nose. Noticing his discomfort, Mama passed him her handkerchief and watched as he dabbed at his brow. As usual, smudges of ink and graphite blackened the heels of his hands and the undersides of his forearms. And as usual, Mama was even messier. She nearly always wore black, to hide the traces of paint that inevitably made their way to her dresses, coats, and gloves.
Both her parents looked much older than their years. They were in their early fifties and their health was fine; they were spritely on building sites, and could sit for long hours atop hard wooden stools. But the deep grooves in their hands and foreheads had created the cruel illusion of years, as did the abundance of whites and greys in their hair.
“My dearest Caroline,” Papa began again. “We cannot accept any new commissions. You know this. And we have a great deal to do in preparing the balloon for our next land survey. We should refer Lord Ryland to another architect—one who needs the work, and who could use it to build up his name.”
Mama looked at the floor. It was a subtle expression, and it came precisely when Papa said the words “his name.”
It was obvious to Caro—and to anyone who spent time with her parents—that Mama was utterly devoted to Papa’s work. What wasn’t known beyond their small family (and Edie, and their various pupils, past and present) was that Mama didn’t show her devotion by keeping the books or by mothering said pupils, but rather by contributing an equal share of design ideas and by drawing more drawings than anyone else in the studio.
Caro walked over and put her arm around her Mama’s waist, nuzzling the crown of her head into her neck. Mama responded by leaning back against her, allowing Caro to support her, her head resting against the pile of soft curls. A small sigh swelled and crested through each of them, one then the other. And when Caro lifted her head, Mama smiled and touched the pendant on Caro’s necklace—a silver locket that every young woman received upon graduating from Mrs. Hellkirk’s.
It had been Mama who insisted on sending her to that controversial school, where strange notions were taught and where it was expected that, one day, the lives of women would be different. Where it was taken on faith that the hearts and minds of women had always been far more than they were credited to be.
“I noticed that Ryland addressed his letter to both of you,” Caro added, planting a kiss on Mama’s cheek before walking over to Papa. “That’s unusual. It must be Edie’s doing.”
“You mustn’t call him Ryland, dear,” Papa replied.
“You did.”
“Yes, but only to the two of you. You’re likely to do it to his face.”
She smiled and placed a hand on Papa’s forearm. She did not blame him for silencing Mama; she knew that in private, they consulted over every expenditure and every cornice-line, and that it was society that demanded they hide Mama’s contributions. Indeed, it was marrying Papa—then a fledgling pupil to a hard-drinking master architect, who needed all the help he could get—that gave Mama the chance to learn architecture in the first place.
“I think we should meet with them,” she replied.
“Caroline…” he droned, shaking his head slowly.
“His letter is so polite.”
“This isn’t up for debate…”
“And it’s just one meeting…a tour of their home, as a favor to our beloved Edie. While we’re there, I’ll call him Ryland and he’ll run us out of the building in horror.”
He looked up at her and smiled.
“I’d call him Adam, but I fear that’d be a touch too far.”
“Dearest, if only—”
“We should do it,” Mama said suddenly, speaking up for the first time in several minutes.
Papa tilted his head and stared into her eyes for some time. Neither of them flinched, and the exchange seemed to communicate more than a simple disagreement on whether or not to accept Lord Ryland’s invitation. Their expressions seemed to contain within them the clashes and compromises of many decades—the incremental dismantling of individual hopes, and the building up of new, different, shared ones. “Darling…I—”
“It’s like Caro said, Mr. Crispin: It’s just one meeting. If the work doesn’t contain any interesting new challenge, we can simply decline it.”
Papa sat hunched on his stool, bending lower every second, looking more and more defeated as he went.
“And won’t it be pleasant to socialize with such a charming pair of siblings, Mr. Crispin? Amusing people, whom our daughter is so clearly attached to.”
“Well,” Caro replied over a cough, “I’m attached to Edie, of course…”
Papa sighed. His head was practically resting on his desk now. “I believe I am outnumbered.”
Caro bounced on her toes at his concession, stopping just short of clapping her hands. It often worked out this way: Mama wanted Caro to do as she pleased, and Papa wanted to exercise caution. As Caro ran out the door she called back, “And we like you, Papa. Just think how Monsieur Bonaparte would feel!”
She descended a flight of stairs and scuttled down the hallway to her rooms. She was happy, for the sake of Edie’s entire family, that her parents had agreed to meet with them. But that wasn’t her only reason for feeling pleased: She needed the meeting for her own benefit.
She needed to see Lord Ryland again.
The night before she had paced her bedroom, considering whether Lord Ryland would be amenable to going to White’s for her. She was now certain that he was her best, and perhaps only, hope.
Situated at her writing desk, she drafted her response:
Dear Lord Ryland,
Thank you for your letter. We would be happy to meet with you and Lady Edith to discuss the architectural needs of your home. And by “we,” I refer of course to Mr. Crispin, Mrs. Crispin, and myself…
In her many years of helping Mama and Papa with their letters, she had never referred to her parents as if they were equals—partners, in a way. But Lord Ryland had done it; why couldn’t she? That he had addressed them both endeared him to her, and it suggested a sensitivity in him that bolstered her hopes that he would grant her favor.
…Our ability to work on your home will depend on several factors, which we will discuss at our meeting. We have an opening tomorrow and can be at your home for a tour around 10 o’clock. Are men of your station up and about by then?...
There was no one else she could ask, really. She hadn’t any gentlemen friends; Strayeth and Chumsley had made that painfully clear at the time of their wager. She did have a few acquaintances among the artisans who collaborated with her parents, but those men kept quite busy and were unlikely to be members of an aristocratic-leaning club. Papa and Mama’s current London pupils—a Mr. Dalton, a Mr. Davies, and a whiskerless fellow named Mr. Darrin—were amiable enough, but she’d have to ask them to keep the favor a secret from her parents. And that wouldn’t be fair at all.
…You are probably concerned—though not surprised—that I have already taken over your project. But do not fret. I only write to you (and other potential patrons) because it allows my parents to devote more of their attention to design matters. I promise to leave the architecture to them. Or most of it, at any r
ate…
Lord Ryland, on the other hand, could waltz right into White’s if he wanted to. He was probably a member. And he had good reason to accept her strange request, and to be discreet about it: She and Edie were as thick as peas in a shell, and the society mavens who knew them practically thought of them as one. If the respectability of one were to take a steep tumble, it would surely dint the respectability of the other on its way down. A woman’s reputation never belonged to her alone, she had learned; many other people had a stake in it, and an influence upon it.
…Please be prepared to furnish all prior plans, elevations, sections, and other drawings of your home upon our arrival.
Yours truly,
Miss Caroline Crispin
She set down her quill and looked out the window. Her desk faced the street, and at that time of day there was always a parade of fashionable people coming and going along the sidewalk.
A woman dressed in a scarlet frock caught her eye, and Caro recognized her at once as a Miss Greer, a prostitute who seemed to find steady customers on the streets of Marylebone and Mayfair. Visible even from a second-floor window, the ruby-red paint on her cheeks was a telltale sign of her profession.
Suddenly Miss Greer looked up, and Caro ducked swiftly beneath the windowsill. She rose after a few seconds, holding a thick burgundy drape in front of her, and watched as Miss Greer continued down the far sidewalk. She held her head high, even as a finely-dressed couple crossed the street in a clear attempt to avoid her.
And to Caro’s surprise, she felt a pang of guilt at having taken such umbrage at being compared to her. She had long regarded prostitutes as just another set of cogs in the rigid social machinery of London. How strange, then, that it had stung her—had pained her to the point of distraction—to be compared to one.