Jessica flushed to the roots of her hair. “Aunt! I haven’t chosen anyone, and I forbid you even to hint such a thing to anyone.”
“As if I would,” retorted Lady Susan indignantly. “But it’s no use denying your feelings to me, my dear. Or to yourself. They will persist, whether you attend to them or not.”
“What feelings?”
“Jessica, do not treat me as if I were all about in my head,” Lady Susan said tartly. “I have eyes, and I use them. And I know you. Have done all your life. I know when you are out of sorts, which you are. And I certainly can see when your heart is disturbed. As it is, my dear. Can you, in all honestly, deny that?”
“Oh, you are being foolish,” Jessica muttered, refusing to look her aunt in the eye. “As of this very moment, there is certainly no reason for me to be disturbed or out of sorts. I have no right to feel that way,” she added dismally.
“He has made you no offer?”
“Oh, once he said I was the very woman he’d been searching for and never expected to find. No more than that.”
“I don’t know what more you need to hear,” her aunt said with a wry twist of her lips. “The man is clearly interested. Why have you not brought him up to scratch?”
It never occurred to either of them that they might not be discussing the same man. Nor did it occur to Jessica to deny any interest in Sir Brian. But the last question stopped her short. She stared at her aunt.
“How can you ask a question like that, when he is what he is and who he is?”
“Fiddle, he is a most agreeable young man who thinks just as he ought.”
“Aunt Susan, he owns slaves in the West Indies. He has women and children working down in his mines. How can you say he thinks just as he ought?”
Lady Susan tilted her head, giving the matter some thought. Then she looked her niece straight in the eye and said, “He is the man for you, Jessica, for all that. Neither his plantations nor his mines enter into the business at all. Besides the which I have yet to hear that he mistreats his slaves or exploits his workers. And we certainly cannot do without sugar, copper, or tin. I have never advocated that course, and never will. If I work to outlaw slavery, it is because the institution itself is a despicable one, but that does not mean that, simply as a matter of course, I despise all slave owners. Many of them are good men, trying to make things better for all concerned. I believe your Sir Brian is one of those. In fact, by all I have heard of him, he is one of the most generous and benevolent men in England. I know for a fact that he is constantly on the lookout for newer, more modern equipment to make his mines safer for his workers.”
“But the mines will always be unsafe, no matter what modern equipment is used. I’ve heard they have no idea what causes those dreadful explosions where so many are killed. And the dust. They say that kills, even when nothing else gets them. And the deformities suffered by the women and children from crawling through narrow tunnels and carrying huge loads—you know, Aunt Susan!”
But Lady Susan was staring at her now. “Jessica, Sir Brian owns tin and copper mines, not coal mines.”
“Oh, Andrew told me that, but I fail to see that there can be a difference,” Jessica replied impatiently.
“Nonsensical child, of course there is a difference. The explosions you speak of occur often in coal mines, but rarely in others. And the harmful dust is certainly coal dust, not that from tin or copper. But you should discuss this with Sir Brian. He cannot be aware of these misconceptions or he would have straightened the matter out long ago.”
“Is such mining so safe, then? Miss St. Erth was assaulted on the road not long ago by one of her father’s miners, who could not get his master to listen to his complaints that the mines were unsafe. Even Sir Brian agreed that they were.”
“And so they very likely were,” Lady Susan informed her. “I have met Sir Warren St. Erth, and I can tell you the man is an unconscionable pinchpenny who grudges every farthing spent on his mines. Repairs and new equipment are always expensive, and heaven knows there are any number of conditions that can exist in any mine that would make the mine unsafe. The condition of the ladders leading down into the mine, the amount of water that is allowed to collect, the supports for the tunnels—all those things exist in all mines, although coal mining is a particularly dangerous occupation because of certain factors that pertain only to that industry. It is for that reason that while rioting rarely occurs in Cornwall or Devon, it is a constant threat in such places as Newcastle and Manchester. People in coal country fear for their lives and their health even when the conditions are as safe as they can be. That is why we fight to get women and children out of those mines. But with regard to the St. Erth mines,” she added, “I’ve not the slightest doubt that once Sir Brian discovered the dangers, he took the matter up with Sir Warren.”
Jessica nodded.
Lady Susan reached out a slender hand to touch her niece’s shoulder. “Jessica, you really must discuss all this with Sir Brian.”
“Well, I can scarcely do so when we do not know even where he is,” Jessica replied with a sigh. “He is furious with me, too. I said dreadful things to him, and he said dreadful things to me. I doubt he will want to discuss anything with me ever again.”
“Now you are being as melodramatic as the actors we saw in the farce tonight,” Lady Susan told her with a touch of asperity. “I think your best course of action at the moment is to get a good sleep. Once you are thoroughly rested, you will be able to look upon the world with a less jaundiced eye, my dear.”
Jessica went obediently upstairs and found her patient Mellin waiting to put her to bed, but though she was soon tucked under the soft blue eiderdown, sleep refused to come. Instead, her mind’s eye seemed to be filled with the sight of a tall, broad-shouldered twinkling gentleman who had once always seemed to be watching her whenever they were present in the same room, and whose twinkling gaze she had begun to search for on those rare occasions when previous arrangements to meet had not been made between them. Clearly, Sir Brian had come to mean more to her than she had allowed herself to realize, she decided. If nothing else, his presence definitely exerted a beneficial effect upon her state of mind. A niggling little voice deep within her seemed to take exception to that wandering thought, and Jessica knew she was hedging. Somehow her mind was avoiding a collision with the truth. Her father had been right. And Aunt Susan was right. Whether Sir Brian had chosen her or she had chosen Sir Brian, and whether the choice had been made purposefully or not, the fact of the matter was that she seemed to have fallen in love. But what she was going to do about that fact was more than Jessica could say.
12
JESSICA HAD HOPED THERE might be a reply to one of her advertisements regarding Jeremy before the end of the week, but when Friday arrived, there was still no word. Nor had there been word from Sir Brian.
“Not so much as a brief scrawl,” said Andrew, having stopped in Hanover Square to pay a morning call, “which must mean that he intends to return soon, Miss Jessica, for otherwise I dashed well ought to have heard from him by now.”
With that she had to be content. She had arrived at the conclusion that her aunt was right about one thing. It was time she sat down and had a talk with Sir Brian, explaining her misconceptions about mining and asking him to explain certain matters to her about his own mines. As for the fact that he owned a few slaves on an island far away, well, maybe she could convince him to free them or sell the property, or to find some other way by which her own sensibilities could be reconciled. Then, too, she had to admit in all honesty that, when she thought about Sir Brian, the issue of slavery seemed somehow rather remote.
However, before the weekend was out, Jessica discovered that issue to be having an effect much nearer home than she had dreamed. Having enjoyed a comfortable coze in Duke Street with her sister Sunday afternoon, she returned to Hanover Square to discover her aunt in the drawing room, looking very much like the cat cleaning her whiskers after a venture into the cre
am pot.
Lady Susan’s eyes fairly danced with excitement, and Jessica experienced a sudden sinking feeling. “What on earth—” she began, only to break off when her aunt spoke at the same time.
“You’ll never guess what’s happened, Jessica,” Lady Susan said. Her hands were clasped at the waist of her primrose-colored high-necked afternoon gown, beneath which she actually seemed to quiver with triumphant glee.
“You look very much as though you mean to tell me that a cache of diamonds has been discovered beneath one of the tiles in the entry-hall floor,” Jessica said, managing a weak smile.
“No such thing. I think I’ve discovered the answer.”
“The answer to what, Aunt Susan? There are a good many questions being asked in this world, you know.”
“Yes, but only one that has been plaguing my mind of late,” retorted her aunt.
“A name for Georgie’s baby?” Jessica suggested hopefully.
“Don’t be daft, girl. Attend to me. Did Mr. Hatchard not say that if the matters of slavery could be made to appear more of an English thing and less the business of unknown men on distant islands, the business could be settled in a trice?”
Jessica did not remember that Mr. Hatchard had put the matter in quite such succinct terms as those, but she was not one to haggle. “He did say that the distance between Antigua and England made it more difficult to illustrate the iniquities of that particular situation,” she said carefully.
“I am persuaded he did not intend to define the matter so narrowly,” said Lady Susan with confidence. “He made an excellent point, one that I had not clearly understood before. But now that I have done, the matter is in a way to be settled.”
“How?” Jessica stared at the older woman. “What on earth do you mean to say, Aunt?”
A strand of Lady Susan’s gray-blond hair had slipped out of its coil, and she pushed it back behind her ear with an impatient gesture. “I mean to say that I have done something—really done something, at last—that will make every Englishman face up to the fact that he does indeed allow slavery to exist right here at home.”
“Merciful heavens, Aunt Susan,” Jessica breathed, “what have you done?”
“I’ve freed Albert,” her ladyship replied simply.
Jessica returned a blank look. “You’ve done what?”
“Freed Albert. You know, that despicable Prodmore woman’s little black page. Although,” she amended conscientiously, “he is not so little. Twelve or so, I believe. At any rate, I asked him if he wanted to be free, and he agreed that he did, so I freed him.”
Somewhat distractedly, Jessica found a chair and sat down. “Please, Aunt Susan, I am not following this explanation of yours very well. You say you freed Albert, but since he is not your property, I quite fail to see how that can have been accomplished.”
“Well, perhaps it was a trifle premature to say I’ve freed him, but I mean to assist him to seek his freedom, so it is by way of being the same thing. Still, I daresay it would be more accurate to say that I have rescued him—like Jeremy.”
“Oh, I see.” Jessica breathed a sigh of relief. “You have purchased Albert from Lady Prodmore. Well, that was indeed kind of you, Aunt Susan, but you can very likely be held up on charges of slave trading, you know. It is not quite the same thing as purchasing Jeremy’s apprenticeship.”
“Purchased him?” Lady Susan’s clear voice rose perilously. “I should say not. I’d never traffic in such a business, Jessica, and you should know better than to suggest such a thing of me. Why, I never. To buy a slave. Me? When you know how very abhorrent the entire institution is to me. Besides,” she added, recovering some of her customary composure with a little sigh, “I doubt that she would agree to sell him to me, you know. She is a most disobliging woman.”
Managing without much difficulty to stifle the smile stirred by the near-petulant tone of these last words, Jessica tried to bring her relative to the point as gently as possible. “I apologize if I misunderstood you,” she said, “but if you did not purchase Albert, how on earth have you managed to rescue him?”
“Well, I simply told him he need not return home again when he brought me an invitation from that utterly loathsome woman to take tea with her on Wednesday. As if I would. Take tea with her, that is,” she added, her expression daring Jessica to remind her that she had already, upon more than one occasion, done that very thing, in her own home if not in Lady Prodmore’s, and certainly in other homes where they had chanced to meet.
When Jessica wisely said nothing, her ladyship’s expression relaxed. “When she knows, as indeed she must, how I feel about human exploitation—to flaunt Albert under my nose constantly the way she does. It has been more,” she declared, lifting her chin, “than flesh and blood can tolerate. So when I asked Albert if he liked being a slave and he said no, I told him he need not be one any longer, that I would set him free. And I see no reason why he cannot stay here with us and Jeremy until the matter is completely seen to, Jessica. I do not know precisely what must be done in such a case, but I expect Sir Brian can tell us when he returns. He was in such a pucker last time because we did not seek his advice that I am persuaded it will relieve his mind considerably to know that we are learning to depend upon him.”
Jessica could not imagine that anything about the matter at hand would in any way serve to relieve Sir Brian’s mind. He would no doubt be as dismayed as she was herself. The power of speech seemed to have deserted her for the moment, and she could only stare at her aunt. When she was finally able to speak, all she said, weakly, was, “Aunt Susan, you must send the boy back.”
“I shall do no such thing,” declared her ladyship, squaring her shoulders. “I promised him his freedom, and by heaven I mean to see to it, and at the same time to let every civilized man in England know what is going forth. I daresay I can find someone who will know precisely how to get the entire tale printed in the newspapers. Why, there are members of the Africa Institute who do that sort of thing all the time. I shall only have to recall a name or two to mind and the matter will be attended to in a trice.”
“Aunt, you cannot keep Albert here,” Jessica said desperately. “He belongs to Lady Prodmore. You would be guilty of theft.”
“Pooh, nonsense. Oh, one might steal a child from his parents, as you believe to have been the case with dear little Jeremy, but Englishmen, proper homebred Englishmen, do not own people, Jessica. Even that awful Crick, though he may have thought he owned poor Jeremy, only owned some papers entitling him to certain services. You will see, Jessica. A good many of our friends, you know, still think poor Albert is merely an ordinary servant, for she does not puff off the fact of his slavery to everyone the way she does to us, and dear Lady Prodmore will not wish to make a name for herself as a slave owner. To parade about with a decorative little black page is one thing, though even that is not fashionable anymore. Why, I would be hard put to it to name five ladies who sport pages these days, and most of them—like the Countess of Carisbrooke, for example—are quite elderly and their pages are in their teens, at least. Those who were purchased, of course, were purchased quite le…” She broke off, a puzzled expression on her face. “Everyone used to have them. I wonder what became of them all.”
“No doubt they have become properly trained footmen or are quietly earning their keep by occupying various other positions of trust on their masters’ estates in the country,” Jessica said tartly. “One does not know what became of all the little monkeys that ladies of the beau monde were leading about on silken leashes a few years ago either. Not,” she added hastily, “that that is by way of being the same thing, of course, or that it is any more to the point than the other, Aunt. The fact of the matter is that Lady Prodmore does own Albert, and she is very unlikely to let him go without a fuss, whether she is keeping him out of some false notion of being fashionable or not.”
“Well, even she must have realized that the passion for trailing pages after one has quite gone off,” Lady Su
san insisted stubbornly, “so I believe she took to the notion because, without requiring the exertion of her mind to the slightest originality of thought, it made her feel that she was being unique, while allowing her to puff off her consequence. I cannot think of anyone more odious than a person who comes into money and does not know the proper way to live with it. But that woman must care what others think of her, when all is said and done. Mark my words, she will be as easily convinced to leave the matter alone as Mr. Crick was.”
Jessica didn’t believe for a moment that Lady Prodmore cared a whit what others thought of her, so long as they realized how wealthy she was. In Jessica’s estimation, a woman who cared what others thought was seldom as outspoken as Lady Prodmore had proven to be. Nor would a woman who cared what others thought take such delight in parading a black page before one who was adamantly opposed to the institution of slavery. And Lady Susan, Jessica knew, had not been overstating the case when she had accused the woman of flaunting Albert. Jessica had seen as much with her own eyes. Every time they met her ladyship, the woman made some excuse to bring Albert to Lady Susan’s attention, whether it was by giving the boy some capricious order to carry out or by scolding him and sending him away. Jessica had seen her aunt’s growing irritation and knew that Lady Prodmore could not have helped observing it too. Not if she were twice as oblivious to the feelings of others as Jessica believed her to be.
Jessica was as certain as she could be that this time Lady Susan had bitten off more than she would be able to chew, and she did her utmost to persuade her that she must send Albert back to his mistress. But in answer, Lady Susan sent for the boy, and when Jessica realized that he was as adamantly in favor of remaining in Hanover Square as Lady Susan was of keeping him there, she knew she was fighting a lost cause. Still, she made a last-ditch attempt to convince Albert that he was making a mistake.
The Battling Bluestocking Page 17