“Miss Menthrip? It’s I, Maris Lindel. I want to talk to you.”
She heard a gusty sigh and the thump of her walking stick as Miss Menthrip crossed the floor. A few moments later, there came the snap of the lock springing open. Miss Menthrip, her dress dusty black, her hair as tightly controlled as ever, waved her in. “I know you,” she said, her voice harsh. “You’ll keep it up until I give in so I might as well give in now.”
“Everyone’s very concerned about you, Miss Menthrip. You haven’t been to church in so long,” Maris said as she followed her into the kitchen at the back of the cottage.
“Of course, I haven’t been to church. How can I go when I can’t afford to put even a shilling in the bag? A shilling? Ha, I can’t manage a groat.”
Maris lifted the basket to the well-scrubbed table. “Why can’t you?”
Miss Menthrip laughed. “Matter of fact child, aren’t you? I can’t because I’ve no money barring the few pounds I’ve kept in the stocking’s foot. Every other farthing has been lost.” Though her voice rang with something akin to triumph, her posture slumped as she fell onto a chair.
“Yet...” Maris paused before passing on the gossip. “I’d always heard that your brother left you well beforehand with the world.”
“Talk about me, do they? Well, they’ll have plenty more to say now. Soon they’ll start to pity me. But I’ll not take charity from anyone. What’s in the basket?”
“Not charity, I promise.” Miss Menthrip’s eyes widened in their nests of wrinkles when she saw the book.
“I’ve had to let my membership in the lending library cease which was the most unkindest cut of all.”
“I met the man who wrote it,” Maris said. “Everyone calls him Pinkie but he’s really a French marquis. Or at least, his father was but he has some hopes of reclaiming his title from King Louis.”
“You’ve met a deal of grand people, I’ll warrant.” Miss Menthrip would not sink so low as to ask questions, but she was obviously agog to hear all the details.
Maris told her enough to content her for the moment, and to make the roman a clef more intelligible. Then, tactfully pouring out a glass of wine, she returned to the purpose of her visit. “How did you come to such straits, dear Miss Menthrip?”
“It was that solicitor-johnny my brother made trustee. I told him that Jackie Household had a nasty, cheating, furtive eye but nothing would do for Worrel but that he give this business to his old friend’s boy. ‘His father was the best of men,’ he said to me. ‘I know this boy is just such another. He even looks like Jack.’ I tell you plain, if he looked like Jack Household, it wasn’t his mother’s fault!”
Maris did not look shocked, only pouring out a little more wine to calm Miss Menthrip’s cough, sparked by this bit of old scandal. “This Mr. Household has lost your money on the “Change?” she asked.
“Worse than that. It seemed he made quite a tidy fortune by some hasty dealing just before Waterloo. My little nest egg had grown to the size of a roc’s egg. I’d even begun to plan what I’d do with it, counting my blessings too soon, as it turned out.”
“What happened?”
“Master Jackie absconded to the Continent, taking with him not only the profits of his venture but all my capital as well.”
This was worse than Maris had imagined. She waited until Miss Menthrip stopped coughing again, disquieted by the hacking rattle at the end of the paroxysm. She wished very much that her mother were here to judge the severity of that cough.
“Surely he is being pursued?”
“Oh, yes. I’m not the only one in this basket, thank heaven. Others, who did not entrust every cent to Master Jackie, have hired Runners to go after him. But he was three days gone before anyone realized what he’d done so the trail is very cold. There are so many English going to Europe these days, there is but little hope they can find one shifty-eyed brute among so many.”
“I’m sure they’ll catch him.”
“Maybe they will and maybe they won’t. If they do, who’s to say but that he will have spent it all before they hunt him down. It’s not Jackie Household’s future that has me in a proper swivet. It’s my own.” The wrinkled hands folded on the knob of the stick tightened until the white knuckles showed but could not slow their frightened trembling.
“I shall have to go into the almshouse,” she said, her voice quavering, sounding like an elderly lady plagued by confusion instead of the forthright spinster. “I visited there once and I’ve never forgotten it. Outside the gate it said, WOODRUFF HOUSE FOR INDIGENT SPINSTERS AND WIDOWS. ESTABLISHED 1744. They all wore snuff-colored bonnets and cloaks with a large white cross on the back. You never heard anyone speak. And they were never allowed to be alone—they even slept all together in a long dormitory, bed after bed.”
“That won’t happen,” Maris said, stooping to slip an arm about Miss Menthrip’s shoulders. She was shocked by how thin and fragile her friend seemed. Miss Menthrip must be trying to support existence on the cheapest, plainest food, and not much of it either.
“You’re a good child, Maris Lindel. But I tell you plain. I’d rather die than go to such a place.”
“I promise you; it will not come to that.”
Chapter Eleven
Lucy’s eyes filled with tears as she embraced her friend as the chime of the noon bell mingled with the hysterical yapping of Gog and Magog. “You look so different,” she said.
“Do I? You ought to see Sophie.”
“I can’t quite tell what it is. An air of fashion, perhaps. Be quiet, Gog! Get down, Magog.”
“I doubt it. But look at you. Why in heaven’s name are you wearing that cap?”
Mrs. Pike, waiting her turn to greet the prodigal, laughed ironically, silencing the dogs. “Well you may ask, Maris. I have been waiting for your return so that you might talk some sense into this daughter of mine. I tell her it is ridiculous for her to throw away her youth even for a brother.”
Maris shook hands with the vicar’s wife. “Which brother?”
“Ryan, of course. He’s been asked to teach at a rather prestigious school and nothing will do but that his sister should come to keep house for him.”
“Ryan is to teach?” Maris marveled. “But he’s just a boy himself.”
“It’s a great honor, Dr. Pike tells me, to be so singled out at his age. Dr. Valega at Oxford recommended him for the post, saying that he himself had no more to teach him so he might as well teach others. Though why, in the name of goodness, he has to drag Lucy along, I shall never understand.”
“It’s only for a year, Mama,” Lucy said wearily. Maris had heard that tone in her own voice more than once this summer and knew it meant Lucy had been arguing in the same words until she was exhausted.
“If you can be spared from the household,” Maris said, changing the subject, “Mother asks if you and Lucy will be our guests at dinner tonight.”
Mrs. Pike’s eyes softened as she smiled. “I meant to invite the three of you, but I suppose those rascals of mine may fend for themselves for once. I shall inform Mr. Pike. I do not think he will object.”
“Tell him, if you wish, that we are to discuss what is to be done to aid Miss Menthrip.”
“Never say you have been to see her? Maris Lindel, you are a worker of wonders.”
“Not I, ma’am. I was merely the scouting party in advance of the main body. My mother is with Miss Menthrip now. She believes that the first order of business must be to have the doctor call upon her. I wonder if you would be good enough to ask him to do so at his earliest opportunity.”
“I’ll do so at once. Tell me, though. Is she very ill?”
“Mother thinks not, but does not like the cough that hangs upon her. There have been some reverses in her personal economy and she has been skimping on food.”
“Oh, these old women are all the same,” Mrs. Pike said, peering in the hall mirror to be certain her own cap was straight. “They will believe that they must conserve every f
arthing and end up spending themselves. I wonder if she would care for that pig’s cheek? I was saving it for a cold collation on Sunday, but...” She walked purposefully toward the back of the house, still talking to herself.
Lucy seized Maris’s hand and ran with her up the stairs to her room. “Hurry, before she thinks of a task for me.”
“Are you really going off with Ryan to a school?”
‘Yes, I am. He’ll never manage without someone to care for him. There are some married housemasters so I shall not be quite without feminine companionship and the masters’ chambers are charming. Sixteenth century buildings, you know.”
“Surely he can hire someone to care for him.”
“No one can do it like I can. You know how absentminded he can be when he’s studying. If I’m not there to feed him and remind him about his classes, he won’t stay long at the school. And this is such an important step for him. There are excellent Roman remains at Chitterton and Ryan hopes there may be a villa at Medley. He said that the landscape is precisely what the Romans liked. The governors of the school have given him permission to excavate when he’s not teaching.”
Lucy wore her most obstinate look, exactly like a pretty white mule. Her mother must have known it was pointless to argue with Lucy when she looked like that. “What does your father say?”
“Oh, he quotes something about laboring seven years for Rachel, which doesn’t seem to apply, does it?”
“Not very well. Is Ryan pleased?”
“Yes. When he asked me, he made it clear that he thought it a very good opportunity for me as well. There are bound to be unmarried masters and as the only single female at Medley, I should have a success even were I more ill-favored than I am.”
Maris leaned back on her elbows on her friend’s white coverlet, squinting at her. “I’ve learned a great deal in London, one way or another,” she said. “You’re not really plain at all, Lucy.”
“Oh, come. With this thin hair and crooked nose?”
“Hmmm. Take off that cap.”
“No. I’m resigned to my fate.”
“Never resign yourself to fate, Lucy. If I’d done that, I’d be Lady Danesby.”
“What?” Lucy leapt off the stool, where she’d been drooping like a wilted lily. “Tell me everything at once!”
“I shall tell you everything if you let me fix your hair. I shall anyway, so you might as well listen while I work.”
She was so enthralled by the tale Maris told that she paid no attention to what Maris was doing until the sewing scissors came out. “No, what are you doing?”
“This.” And Maris cut.
Though Lucy shuddered at each snip of the scissors and invoked the name of her mother like a sacrifice calling upon a goddess, Maris was ruthless.
With her soft hair taken out of a scraped-back topknot, a few pieces cut short and forced to curl about her forehead, her eyes looked softer, larger, and more vulnerable. The wispy curls also concealed the few spots on her forehead. A low chignon, nestled against her neck, changed the shape of her face and hid her ears.
“Let me see your dresses,” Maris demanded.
Lucy was leaning toward the small mirror, all her vicar father had allowed her, moving her head so that she could see herself. She waved toward the wardrobe and didn’t turn her attention away from her face until she heard the first rip.
“Maris!”
Maris flourished a scrap of lace tucker aloft like a savage exulting over his first scalp. “So perish all such pathetic scraps. Only spinsters and invalids wear these little lace borders anymore. For the rest, décolletage is lower than ever.”
“But what will Mama say?”
“Nothing, when she sees that I am wearing the same thing. Now, come help me rip all these off.”
“No, no. Maris, you’re going too far,” she gasped when Maris picked up another gown and began to struggle with the lace.
“Very well. Put on this one. If you don’t like it, I shall sew it on again myself.”
But when Lucy saw her figure displayed for the first time, Maris using her own sash to remodel the fit of the too-large dress (one of Mrs. Pike’s cut down), she turned and twisted, growing more excited by the minute. “There’s a pier glass in the best spare room,” she said. “I want to see all of me.”
One glance was enough. She turned to Maris with tears in her eyes. For an instant, Maris felt a burning sense of guilt. Then Lucy smiled. “You’re my fairy godmother,” she said.
“There’s nothing much I can do except spend my life in good works,” Maris answered.
“Can you never go back to London?”
Maris shook her head. “No. Not until the stories stop flying and they would only begin anew if I return. Perhaps I could go back if I found a husband of greater note than Lord Danesby, but what are the odds of that?”
“I still don’t understand why you didn’t agree. I would have, in an instant.”
“I don’t think you would have. To have a husband that you adored but who despised you? I wouldn’t wish anyone to suffer that torture. Besides, that is no fit fate for either of us. We are young, we are blonde, we have nothing to be afraid of.”
“Except Mama,” Lucy said. She turned again to the mirror, “Do you think she’ll be angry?”
“No. But she might not let you go to Medley until after the winter assemblies. I think the sight of you like this might reanimate her ambitions of a good marriage.”
“They’ve certainly awakened mine. I look ... I look...”
“Say it,” Maris urged.
“I look so pretty.” Then the tears came.
Maris still had a damp patch on her shoulder when she led Lucy downstairs to meet Mrs. Pike to escort her to Finchley Old Place, both their cloaks over her arm. Mrs. Pike turned, her usual affectionate scoldings drying on her lips. “Good God in heaven!” she exclaimed, the first time she’d taken the name of the Lord in vain in her own house.
“You asked me to persuade her out of her cap, ma’am,” Maris said.
“What next, Maris? Water into wine?” She held out her arms to her daughter and Lucy flew down the last few stairs.
“You’re not angry, Mama?”
“Angry?” She cupped Lucy’s face in her hands, gazing at her with wonderment. “I confess I should have said no if you had asked me for permission. I would have been wrong. But what have you done to your dinner dress?”
“Maris said no one is wearing tuckers anymore except for old maids and invalids.”
“Quick, put on your cloak before your father sees. I don’t object but he surely will.”
It was too late, however. The vicar came down the hallway to bid his wife and daughter a pleasant evening. He did not appear to notice that Lucy’s figure was considerably more on display than was usual. He did abjure her to wrap up well and held his wife back a moment when she would have followed the girls at once out the door.
“What did he say?” Lucy asked tremulously when Mrs. Pike joined them in the garden.
“One believes one knows a man after more than twenty years of marriage.” She seemed dazed.
“But what did he say, Mama?”
“He reminded me that the daughters of Israel adorned themselves to dance before David and reminded me that his mother’s jewelry was still in the bank. A very fine set of garnets and some quite good pearls, Lucy. They will become you very well.”
Dealing with the question of Miss Menthrip, however, took more ingenuity than a few clips with a scissors and some determined yanking of stitches. The chief problem was money. Neither the Pikes, with their many sons, nor the Lindels, after their recent expenses, had any to spare. “I can pay the doctor’s bill,” Mrs. Lindel said. “But I don’t know where to lay my hands on enough for this trip to Bath.”
“Must it be Bath?” Mrs. Pike asked. “Surely there are lesser spas.”
“No, he said that the water at Bath is the most efficacious in the matter of weakened lungs. We should also have to fi
nd someone to accompany her hence. In her present state, she cannot be expected to find lodgings or fend for herself.”
“I’ll go,” Lucy said, only a breath faster than Maris.
“Yes?” Mrs. Pike answered. “And what of your brother?”
“There’s no point in discussing it until we find the money,” Mrs. Lindel reminded them. “Is there anything in the parish funds? Might not some charity money be diverted to this cause?”
Mrs. Pike shook her head regretfully. “There’ve been many calls on the parish these last few months. Mr. Pike says that at most we may offer a widow’s mite but no more until next year.”
Sophie had been listening intently. “It won’t do any good to send Miss Menthrip to Bath if she must still live in her cottage when she returns. Not two windows fit tightly in their frames and the door rattles with every breeze. She’ll only fall sick again if these matters are not mended. I know she meant to have them seen to this year but now someone else must do it.”
“I hate to say this,” Mrs. Lindel said, “but perhaps the almshouse is the best place for her.”
“Couldn’t she live with us?” Sophie asked. “I’m very fond of Miss Menthrip.”
Maris caught the glance that passed between the two mothers. Neither of them could afford to add another person to their households, and even if that were not the case, adding an elderly woman famous for her sharp tongue and freely offered opinions would not be a gain to harmony. The best answer would be to keep her in her own house, snug and independent, but that solution still required money.
Did she know anyone with money to spare? She was not on terms with any of the grand people she had met in London to solicit their assistance. The wealthy nobles of England already received countless charitable requests; the plight of one old woman would not stir their hearts. The great charitable institutions did not hand out funds, preferring to absorb the deserving poor into their rigid embraces.
“I will ask Mr. Pike to poll the parish committee when it meets next week. Perhaps some of them will be able to determine a course for Miss Menthrip’s relief.”
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