THE PROPOSITION

by Judith Ivory

  "Since you like bathing so much," he said, "you try it." He picked the fellow up—he was light enough Mick could've done it by a fistful of coat, but he gathered the old bloke up real polite—and dumped him into the water. Clothes and all, a big swooshing ka-plosh.

  Mick was gentle with him. Didn't want to hurt him, just sort of showed him he wasn't getting in any tub of hot water, which was fine for carrots but not the likes of Mick Tremore.

  No sooner did the water slop to a standstill than he heard Miss Bollash, feet pounding up the staircase, all those skirts churning. When she burst through the doorway, though, he was struck dumb, nothing to say for himself.

  Well, well, well. His new teacher certainly wasn't ugly. No, sir. She wasn't pretty neither exactly, but with her hat off, God bless her, she was something to look at.

  Her hair was red-gold, thick and shining. It lit her face—the way light coming through a window could make an ordinary room glow like a church. Her skin, white as milk, was dusted with pale freckles, like she been powdered with gold dust. Freckles so close and so many of 'em, he couldn't see between some. She had big, round eyes—or, no, maybe they were just startled. They blinked behind eyeglasses. But the best thing about her face was her nose. It was long and thin and curved like a blade, a strong nose—and a good-sized one, too, for such a thin woman. If she'd held her head up a bit and showed it off, he'd've said it give her real character.

  Though, given the caution in the eyes behind Miss Bollash's eyeglasses, he was bound to say she didn't cherish her looks.

  Still, with her hat off she was a sight. Bright-colored, funny-looking in a pretty way: like coming upon a fairy in the woods.

  A tetchy fairy. She said, "Oh— Oh— Milton! Are you all right? What have you done, Mr. Tremore! I could hear your swearing downstairs!"

  Milton and Mick talked at once.

  "All I done was protect meself from his slimy fingers—"

  "Yes, I'm wet, but fine—"

  "I ain't swimming in no bloody tub. No one mentioned no tub of water today—"

  "If I may say so, your ladyship, the man belongs in a zoo, not a bathtub—"

  "Not for no hundred quid do I let some ol' sod—"

  "Enough!" she said. "Enough of your oaths and fulminations, Mr. Tremore."

  Ungrateful woman. Mick sucked himself up, squared his shoulders, and, trying to hold back from yelling, told her, "I'll have you know, duck, if it wasn't for me 'fulminations,' as you call 'em"—he mimicked the word, tone for tone, though he could only guess what it meant—"I'd be standing here in the rude with me widge hanging out."

  That caught her back. Her big eyes grew. They got as wide and round as blue saucers.

  Good. While he had her quiet, he drove home his point. "You can't tell me no gent soaks in water like a plucked chicken, like he was dinner—"

  "Mr. Tremore, gentlemen most certainly do take a bath—"

  "And how do you know? You ever seen one take a bath?"

  She blinked, scrunched up her freckled brow, then swung her eyes onto the dripping fellow who was climbing over the edge of the tub. She asked, "You—you take a bath, don't you, Milton?"

  "Indeed, madam. Though usually I remove my clothes first."

  "Which explains," Mick pointed out, "why he's so wrinkled and stiff-looking. Too much water—"

  The over-washed servant continued to mutter complaints, but she ignored him. She only shook her head at Mick with her lips pressed together. "You must take a bath." She didn't know how to make him do it, he thought, and it mattered to her. His refusal made her right upset. So upset that for a minute he wanted to do it. Almost. Just for her. For the sake of her worried expression and shy sort of pluck.

  For his own sake, though, he had to tell her the truth. "I don't have to do nothing. And I gotta tell you, too, that the mustache stays where it be: on the lip."

  She wrinkled her brow again, deeper, puckered her mouth, which in turn puckered her long chin. It was pathetic, her look. She stared at his mustache like it wanted to bite her, focusing on it. She was fighting looking lower, he realized—at his chest. He folded his arms over it, not to cover it but because he knew it flexed chest muscle. It made it look better, stronger. The hell with her. "The mustache stays," he repeated.

  She squinched up her mouth some more, then said, "Well, a trim then. We'll trim your mustache for now. But you have to wash in the tub."

  "I won't."

  Oh, she wanted him in that tub. Her mouth pressed into a strained, fretful line—while her eyes shifted nervously to stay above his neck. She told him, "I can't make you into a gentleman, sir, if you insist on the toilette habits of a beggar."

  He let out an insulted snort. "Listen, duck. There be an important understanding to get to here. I know them blokes asked you to change me, but, thing is, I'll take charge of me, all right? You say. I'll listen. But I'll decide what be right for Mick Tremore. And a swim in soup water ain't right."

  She put her fists on her waist, her long, thin elbows poking out into the doorway. Her face was getting pink. She was really working herself up. "Then it's over, because you're filthy. Which reminds me"—she pointed a finger at his pocket—"you have to get rid of that as well."

  She meant Freddie. And she meant the bet was off, if Mick didn't get in the bathtub. He straightened, gently brushed his coat down the front, and tried to gather some dignity. Bad enough he stood here missing buttons and pieces of his shirt, bad enough he had to hold his manliness together against some fellow who wanted his clothes. Now some bossy woman expected him to put Freddie out.

  Then she pointed at Magic. "And your dog has to have a bath, too."

  Ha. Mick began reasonably, "Well, if you can get Maj in your tub, feel free to wash him. But Miss Bollash, if this cockeyed bet goes sour, Freddie here be me livelihood. Freddie be the best damn ferret what ever was. I gotta have her with me."

  "I can't have some rodent—"

  "Ain't a rodent. The opposite. She hates rodents. She hunts them."

  "He can't hunt them in my house."

  "She. Freddie be a jill, and she's gotta be with me. A good ferret is like gold, you see."

  She waffled. He thought he was going to win for a second, when she asked, "How do you keep her where you live?"

  "She has a cage she sleeps in sometimes."

  "Can we get it?"

  "I'd guess."

  "All right. Can we put the cage out back in the carriage house?"

  "No, gotta have her with me, I'm saying."

  "Not in the house."

  He thought about it. He wanted the bet to go, he guessed. It was going to be harder, more than he first thought, but he wasn't ready to give it up. He didn't lose a hundred pounds easy. Besides, the idea of talking posh and living nice, more for fun than anything, had grown on him. "Well, if the carriage house is close. And has light and lots of air, and I can go see her plenty. But no bath, all right? I'll wash up in a sink."

  "And a bath, Mr. Tremore. For you. A bath and a haircut and a shave." She frowned at his upper lip again. "A shave every day," she continued. "And clean clothes. This is not going to be a lark, sir." She took a breath, pink-faced. For a skittish thing she sure could get her knickers in a knot. "You will be struggling with a lot of new ideas, a bath being your first, I suppose. You will have more than mere difficult sounds and constructions of the English language to learn. If you intend to be a gentleman in six weeks, you'd best begin by listening to me."

  "I ain't the one who ain't listening," he said. "I'll learn all what makes sense to me, but nothing else. How can I? Things got to make sense or I'll just be mimicking what I don't see, what I gotta see from the inside, you know? And a bath I don't see at all. It be unhealthy for one. I'll catch me death. I could drown—I can't swim. I'll wash up in a basin. I always do. I'm a clean bloke—"

  "Not clean enough—"

  "Bloody clean enough for some." Damn her anyway. He told her, "You ain't the first fine lady, you know, to take me upstairs, Mis
s Bollash—"

  He watched her face turn white. Oh, hell, he thought. He ran his hand into his hair—and got a palmful of soot. He'd forgotten. Bloody hell, he didn't doubt he looked like a cat caught all night in a coal bin. He'd been up a flue, crawled around on a floor, then been chased partway through London only to end up beat on by a dozen people.

  All right, he was dirty. All right, he wished he could call that last back. The fact that ratting rich ladies' houses had occasionally landed him upstairs in rich ladies' beds—ladies a lot less particular than this one—was most surely something not to discuss with Miss Edwina Bollash.

  As brittle as ice, she told him, "You'll have a bath or leave immediately." She wasn't joking. Once she had a bite-hold of something, there was no getting it away from her.

  But he meant what he said, too, and would damn well see she give him respect for his part in what they were planning to do. "Not unless you and Milton here be strong enough to put me in it."

  Her bottom lip came up, covering a piece of her top lip as she pressed her mouth tight. She looked pained for a moment. Then she said softly, "Leave."

  "Pardon?"

  Louder, "Leave."

  He scowled, staring at her. Relentless, she was. "Fine then," he said. "Suit yourself."

  He pushed past the two of 'em: the prudey Miss Know-It-All, wasting her time trying to wash life clean, and her manservant, soaking wet from trying to help her do it.

  Didn't need this. Stupid idea. No, made no sense whanking around with a bloody-arse bet that wasn't good for nothing but entertaining a bunch a' rich folks. Sod them. Sod them all to Hades and back. Let them play with their money, not him.

  * * *

  Halfway down the block, though, he was already regretting his decision. Dream or not, what if she could show him how to be a proper gentleman? What if he could change himself into a … a bloody valet or … whatever that fellow Milton was now, a butler, wasn't it? Then, Mick, ol' chum, you could live in a fine, clean house all the time, too. And send a lot more money to Cornwall and the brood. Everyone could live better. Even Freddie here might just appreciate a carriage house, if it was dry and clean and got sunlight into it. And you like the way she talks, you know. Not to mention the way she smells.

  Besides, a gentleman almost certain got to get a lot closer than any ratcatcher to the tall, timid-fierce girl who'd thrown him out over bathwater.

  * * *

  Chapter 4

  « ^ »

  Mr. Tremore's foot treads diminished without a pause, his and the soft-click trot of his dog's. Down the stairs they went, through the front hallway, then the front door opened and slammed. Edwina stood there in her modern bathroom, listening to silence. It was a funny moment, the house achingly quiet where only a moment ago it had rung with the most colorful talk, and lots of it.

  She listened, waiting to hear his knock downstairs on her front door. He'd return, because he was smart and because it was in his best interest to reconsider. And because he was wrong.

  When hushed stillness, however, only attested to his intention to remain wrong, she was surprised by the steep descent of her disappointment.

  "My lady?"

  She startled. It was Milton. "Yes?"

  "Shall I clean up the bathroom then? Do you wish anything further?"

  She had to think a moment to make sense of his questions. "Oh. No." She shook her head. "I mean, yes. Please clean up. But I won't need anything further from you. Not till tea at ten." She always had a cup of chamomile before bed.

  She left the room, thinking, So. That was that.

  A shame, she consoled herself. Mr. Tremore was perfect in any number of ways. She didn't very often hear a linguistic pattern as distinctive as his. And she would have guessed by his alert attention, not to mention the way he mimicked sounds, that he would have made a good student. An excellent study. Ah, well.

  What a plummet though. She felt utterly depressed as she came down the stairs.

  She went about her business. The house was calm and orderly. She spent the afternoon tutoring: first a lawyer's daughter with a lisp, then a Hungarian countess who wanted to pronounce English better, then the daughter of country gentry who had "picked up an accent" in her native Devon. The last girl left. Edwina went to dinner, which was punctual, elegant, and delicious, thanks to a French-schooled cook.

  Very late that night, however—with her in her flannel nightgown, padding around in the dark, looking for the key so she could wind her father's old clock—she heard a faint knock at the door below stairs, then voices at the kitchen entrance.

  She went to the top of the stairwell to be sure, then smiled: There was no doubt. The sound of Mick Tremore's unmistakable, deep voice filled her with a kind of joy. It was so delightful to hear his dropped H's, his wadden's for wasn't's, his ruined diphthongs and flat vowels.

  "I come to a decision," he said. "And it wasn't"—wadden—"that chronic to get to."

  "Chronic, sir?"

  "Long and painful. Was easy, once't I saw it."

  Edwina's smile widened as she heard Mr. Tremore ask quite clearly, "So would you help me"—'elp me—"what's your name again?" Whot's yer nime?

  Clearly or not, Milton didn't understand him. They grappled with Mr. Tremore's pronunciation for a few moments, until Milton finally said, "Oh, you want my name?"

  "Yes." Ace.

  "Milton, sir."

  "Milton, I be wantin' a bath and shave, since the lady says I got to."

  Edwina felt her senses come alive. Elation. As she heard Milton admit Mr. Tremore into the house, she did a little dance in her slippers there on the landing. But she stopped still as a lamppost to hear, "She be a smart woman, ain't she?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "I shouldn't've made such a fuss. I can get in some water."

  Just like that, he admitted he was wrong. What an amazing conversation.

  He continued graciously, "See, I be pigheaded sometimes." He laughed, a deep, rich vibration that made something move in her chest, thudda-thud, the way a bass drum did in a parade. "It come from bein' mostly right, 'course. But she knows a thing or two about the gentry, I guess."

  "Yes, sir." She could tell Milton had little or no idea what the first part had been about. He responded graciously to the last though, saying, "She's gentry, sir."

  "That's what I thought. Will you help me then?" 'Elp me thun?

  "Yes, sir. My pleasure, sir."

  Edwina turned and all but floated up the main staircase to her bedroom. Why, she wouldn't be surprised if he shaved the mustache as well. He was being so reasonable.

  In the morning, she would pretend nothing had happened, that Mr. Tremore had done just as he should have in due course, no argument, no embarrassment. She envisioned saying good morning to him at breakfast (his face clean-shaven), inviting him nonchalantly into her lab—When you're finished with your meal, you can find me down the hall, last door on the right.

  Once in bed, though, she didn't go to sleep. She wasn't sleepy, she decided, so she picked up a book instead. She opened it, then never read a word. Instead, she listened to the water cut off, the pipes clanking as the flow stopped. She jolted slightly against her pillow as she heard a ka-plosh, then, "Ai, that be hot!"—Mr. Tremore entering a tubful of water. She lay there listening to the substantial splashes and sloshes of his large body moving through the business of a bath.

  She thought about his naked chest again. Her memory of it both fascinated and repelled her. Hair. It had been there again as they had argued in the bathroom. She shuddered. Who would have thought? Yet she had studied it with surreptitious care: a pattern of dark hair, two perfect swirls over muscles that bunched when he folded his arms, swirls that converged to become a dense pattern in the crevice between chest muscles, then (when he pulled his arms away to push back his hair) ran in a dark, ever-narrowing line, like an arrow pointing downward. Mick Tremore in the rude, as it were. This way to the widge.

  Edwina started. Heavens! Up till now, she real
ized, she had carefully avoided forming in her mind any word for that part of a man. Even the scientific word made her vaguely uneasy; her sensibilities veered away from it. Still, she'd known immediately what Mr. Tremore referred to when he'd said that. His word seemed friendlier. A fond name. Were men fond of that part of themselves? It was certainly not the best part of statues; she made a point not to look there. And it changed, it grew. She'd read that astounding piece of information in a book. That was the worst part, the horror—or it had been the worst until this very moment, when it occurred to her that, goodness, a man might have hair there, too. She did. Oh, something that grew larger, up and out of a tangle of hair. How disgusting.

  No, no, she mustn't think of it anymore. Enough. She must think of something else.

  The mustache. From down the hallway came ka-plosh, ka-plosh. Mr. Tremore getting clean. Truly clean—taking off all the thick, wiry hair that grew on his lip. Good. With that satisfying thought, punctuated by the pleasant, occasional lap of bathwater down the hall, she fell into a doze. There was no telling for how long, but she came to herself with a start, her reading light still on, the house quiet.

  Then no: she rose up onto her arms, for a different sound reached her. The noise of movement, someone walking in the dead of night. Edwina sat all the way up, thinking, What the blazes. It seemed to come from the direction of her father's study.

  She hopped off her bed, putting her arms through the sleeves of her faded blue dressing gown. She walked quickly out into the hall, lifting her heavy braid from where it was caught with one hand as she pushed her spectacles up from where they'd slid down her nose with the other.

  At the far end, the door to her father's study indeed stood partly open. The light was on. She walked toward it, continuing to hear the soft shuffle of someone moving about. She thought irritably, It must be Mr. Tremore prowling around. But when she pushed the door open further, she could only step back.