by Betina Krahn
“Then what is it, Camille? What does he do?” Antonia asked, clenching her teeth and steeling herself for whatever would follow.
“He doesn’t do anything, Lady Toni,” she said plaintively. “He won’t hardly speak to me, except to ask me to pass a dish at supper—that is, when he’s actually home for supper. Most nights he eats at his club and then stays to do whatever it is men do at those hideous places. And he only comes home well after I’ve gone to bed. He will hardly look at me or talk to me, and he has yet to introduce me to his friends and their wives. He pretends I don’t even exist … except when …”
She dissolved into sobs again, but every woman present knew exactly when a man like Bertrand Howard acknowledged his wife’s existence: late at night, in the dark, in his bed.
“Then when I got your letter, Lady Toni, asking if I was happy and … I just couldn’t bear it anymore. I know you said you’d call on me in a few days, but I just had to talk to someone now.”
Antonia held Camille while she cried it out. All around them her ladies exchanged sad looks and sighs. A few dabbed at tears.
“Well, you don’t have to suffer his coldness anymore, Camille,” Antonia said with a tightness in her throat. “If that’s the way he behaves, he doesn’t deserve you. You can just come back here and stay with us. Your old room is still empty, and to be honest, we’ve missed you terribly.”
Camille raised her tear-streaked face to Antonia. “Really?” she whispered.
“Really,” Antonia said with a definitive nod, which was repeated around the group. “And if Mr. Bertrand Howard doesn’t like it, he can just go hang.”
“I doubt he’ll do that,” Camille said miserably. “I don’t think he’ll even notice I’m gone.”
“Fine.” Antonia rose and pulled Camille up with her. “That will give us time to retrieve your things from your house. Hoskins! Go for a cab—”
“That won’t be necessary, Lady Toni,” Camille said, lowering her eyes. “My bag is outside on the steps.”
Antonia laughed. “Welcome home, Camille.”
Near midnight, in a set of small but tidy town houses behind Regent’s Park, Bertrand Howard fumbled to insert his key into the lock of his front door, swayed, and made a second, more successful try. He let himself into his house, hung his hat on the hall tree, and launched himself up the stairs in the dark. He had to grope his way through the bedroom door by the wisps of light coming through a set of lace curtains she had put up recently. Moving stealthily, he undid his tie and removed his coat and collar. Soon his shoes sat side by side, stuffed with his stockings, and his trousers and shirt lay on the chair near the window. He felt for his nightshirt—on the seat of the chair, where she always left it for him—and drew it over his head.
The darkness and the quantity of whiskey he had consumed at White’s kept him from noticing that her dressing gown wasn’t hanging over the end of the bed. And it kept him from reaching for her as he usually did when he came home late. Tonight, his heavy eyes and limbs told him, it was just too late.
It was the next morning before Bertrand Howard squinted at the other side of the bed and saw it was smoothed and tucked as if it hadn’t been slept in. He glowered and padded into the hallway in his bare feet and nightshirt, thinking of calling to her but deciding against it. It was something of a relief to be able to dress and make it downstairs without encountering her and her doleful morning-after looks.
But when he reached the dining room, there was no pot of coffee, no morning paper, no scones or griddle cakes or fluffy eggs, and none of that marmalade he loved so well. In the kitchen he found their maid-of-all-work lolling about beside a cold stove. “Where the hell is my breakfast?” he snapped.
“Wot?” The maid looked up at him with a disagreeable expression. “Ye be wantin’ somethin’ to eat, after all?”
“Of course I want something to eat!” he snapped. “Where is she?” When the girl looked a bit puzzled, he clarified: “My wife … Mrs. Howard …”
The girl shrugged and pushed to her feet, annoyed. “I ain’t seen ’er. Figured you wasn’t to home, either. I cain’t read minds, y’know.” She reached for an iron skillet and smacked it down on the stove. “It’ll be a spell a’fore the stove gets hot. Ye’ll just have to wait.”
He snorted. “Don’t bother—I won’t have time.” Irritably, he stalked through the house, looking for her, calling her name. There was no answer. And as the silence loomed and reverberated around him, it finally registered: she wasn’t there … probably hadn’t been there last night when he came home. He straightened, alarmed.
Rushing upstairs, he discovered that the little table where she kept her hairbrush, mirror, creme pots, and jewelry was empty. With mounting disbelief he went to the bureau and opened a drawer. Bare wood. He threw open the wardrobe they shared and found her things gone, except for two hatboxes tucked away on top. He looked around in shock. There was hardly a trace of her left in the place.
Rushing downstairs, he searched the parlor and dining room and came to a lurching halt in the entryway. Caught between anger and guilt over having wished for this very thing—that he would wake up one morning and she would be gone—he missed seeing the envelope bearing her handwriting on the hall tree. It fluttered to the floor when he grabbed his hat, and he snatched it up and tore into it. There was her girlish script—neat little rows and rounded letters—telling him she couldn’t bear his coldness and silent censure anymore. The truth slowly sank in. She had left him.
He read and reread the part of the letter stating that she had gone to stay with a friend and that he needn’t trouble about her ever again. And each time he read it, he felt a wrenching and unexpected sense of loss deepening inside him.
Promptly at nine o’clock the next morning, the Earl of Landon’s stylish black carriage rolled up before Paxton House and sat waiting, while Antonia stared down at it from the window of Aunt Hermione’s bedroom, and everyone else in the house clustered by the front windows to have a look. At length she sent Hoskins out to tell the driver to move on. The driver shrugged and said he was under orders to wait for the mistress of the house. She sent Hoskins out a second time, instructing the driver to carry a message to the earl that she wouldn’t be going to his offices—not today, not ever. But the fellow just shrugged and said that he had all day. The carriage didn’t move.
By ten o’clock Antonia was pacing and wringing her hands. She asked Hermione to go for her and deliver her message. Hermione politely declined, then offered to accompany her if she decided to go herself.
By eleven o’clock the house was full of whispers, some of which were aimed at Antonia. Her ladies had clearly taken sides in the matter, and hers was not the side they had taken. But the final blow to her determination came when several men in checkered wool coats and tasteless bowler hats appeared and began quizzing the driver. His answers to their questions caused them to grin at each other, whip out their notepads, and stare expectantly at her front door.
News writers, she realized with no small alarm. What on earth were they doing at her door again? She had no way of knowing what might have brought them down on her this time, but she did know that the longer she delayed the inevitable, the more vultures would gather. This was all Remington’s fault, curse his hide.
She sent for Aunt Hermione, went for her hat and gloves, and strode furiously out the front door. The driver hurried them into the carriage, then climbed onto the box and set off for the City at a fast clip, leaving several newshounds running down the street after them, shouting questions.
“I’m going to give him a royal piece of my mind,” she informed Hermione.
“Of course you are,” Hermione said with an ubiquitous smile.
“And then I’m coming straight back home.”
“Absolutely.”
“And his carriage can rot in the street the next time,” she declared, giving the soft velvet upholstery and gilded trim of the carriage a glare of warning.
When they
entered the lobby of Remington’s building, Antonia immediately noticed a number of strange men milling around, and it took a moment to realize why they seemed so out of place. They were wearing wool coats with eye-popping checks, and cheap bowlers that would have been much more at home on the rough East Side. They were not a part of the financial world, she was certain. They looked more like—
“There she is—that’s her!” one of them yelled, pointing at her.
In a heartbeat she was besieged by a dozen men with stubbled faces and hungry eyes. They crowded around her, assaulting her with smells of sen-sen and cheap cigars, and questions.
“Is it true the earl attacked you on the street yesterday?” She grabbed Hermione’s arm and tried to pull her along, but whatever direction she moved, the newshounds scrambled to block her path. “Is it true he’s making you keep your half of the Woman Wager, after all?” “Does that mean you lost?” “What kind of men’s work does he make you do?” “Do you deny that it was you and the earl who were caught together last week by a pack of gents?” “How do you feel about giving women the vote?”
She tried to make her way through them, but they squeezed together, shoulder to shoulder, and refused to let her pass, still hammering away at her with their questions. When she pushed, they pushed right back! She had never been treated with so little respect in her life! Just as panic was setting in, a black-clad arm broke through that pack to take hold of her wrist. She looked up to find Remington snarling at them to clear the premises before he had them removed. When they began firing insulting questions at him instead, he turned to several men on the stairs and motioned for them to intervene. A brief shoving and shouting match ensued that sent the pernicious newshounds into a hasty retreat.
The gratitude Antonia felt as Remington pulled her and Aunt Hermione up the stairs and out of the writers’ reach was humiliating to her moments later, when she faced him in the upstairs corridor. He was, after all, the cause of the entire mess.
“What are they doing here?” she demanded, flinging a finger toward the stairs. “And how did they learn about your requiring me to fulfill the wager?”
“Someone may have heard us speaking in the hall. Or it could have been that nasty little article in Gaflinger’s this morning about the contretemps in the alley yesterday, or the fact that you were seen in my offices—but it doesn’t matter. I won’t let them near you again.”
“It doesn’t matter?” Then the rest of what he had said struck her. “What nasty little article?”
“There was a story on the front page of that scandal-rag, Gaflinger’s. Apparently someone witnessed my little misunderstanding with the constable yesterday and decided to turn it into a headline.” He eyed her accusingly. “This sort of upset could be avoided entirely if you’d just accept my offer of protection.”
“What you have offered me is a form of eternal servitude, not protection. And for your information, your lordship, I am quite capable of fending for myself,” she snapped, reddening a moment later as she realized how ridiculous that sounded in the wake of what had just happened. He smiled.
“Good day, Mrs. Fielding,” he said, turning to Aunt Hermione. “I believe Uncle Paddington is eagerly awaiting your arrival. And you, Antonia”—he narrowed his eyes—“are late for work. One of the things men prize in their employees is punctuality, you know.”
“Late for work?” Only the prospect of being arrested and carted off to jail kept Antonia from committing mayhem just then. The effort of stifling her violent urges momentarily robbed her of words, and he seized the moment.
Ushering her into his offices, he took her straight to a conference room containing a large table ringed with chairs. He introduced her to a number of men in dark suits, some of whom had helped to clear the news writers from the lobby. She quickly learned that they were all employed by him in one or another of Carr Enterprises’ various financial or commercial concerns.
Remington pushed her gently down onto a chair, and one by one his managers and directors began to lay out charts and diagrams detailing his financial empire. They quoted prices and government policies and tossed out numbers, categories, and percentages until they began to run together in her head.
“All this is fascinating, to be sure,” she said finally, with a thinning air of civility. “But it has nothing to do with me.”
“Oh, but it does, Antonia,” Remington said confidently, stepping around the table to meet her as she rose. “You see, I’ve decided to give you not only a taste of commerce, but a taste of power as well. These gentlemen will not only explain my commercial interests to you, they will also help you make decisions on various matters. Just the sort of thing men are required to do every day.”
“I—I’ll do no such thing,” she protested, sensing a trap of some sort like a small animal senses a snare. “I don’t know anything about sheep farming, or knitting mills, or import-export regulations, or the mercantile trades—it’s ludicrous to expect that I would. And I have never been in a ‘departmental store,’ as you call it, in my life.”
“No?” He seemed ungodly pleased by her admission. “Not prepared to start at the top, eh? Then I take it you prefer to work your way up, instead. For that is how it is with men’s work, you know. If you don’t inherit, marry, or buy into the upper ranks of a concern, then you have to start with a modest position and improve yourself as you go. Something of a burden, wouldn’t you say … having to prove yourself constantly?” His gaze connected with hers, letting her know he was speaking of more than just men and their work.
“But I believe it can be done,” he continued, gesturing to the men around the room. “Every one of my managers, directors, and heads has come up that very way.” As she looked around, she saw them nod and glimpsed the pride in their eyes.
“His lordship has a policy about making opportunities for self-improvement available,” Hallowford, the director of the central offices, put in. “A number of the younger men take advantage of the program. And then there are the reading and typewriting classes for the wom—”
“Yes, thank you,” Remington interrupted, “but we’ll not burden Mrs. Paxton with details. What we need is a place where she can start—at the bottom.”
He sighed and rubbed his lip as he was wont to do when thinking. Then one of the others, a bookish, tidy-looking fellow spoke up. “The mercantile has always been a good starting place for those with little experience of the business world.”
“Excellent! Thank you, Markham,” Remington declared. He took her by the hand and headed for the door. “Come with me. I have just the place for you.”
Over her protests he led her out a little-used rear door tucked away behind a series of cabinets and cartons. She found herself on a rickety set of wooden steps that zigzagged down the outside of the building and lowered toward a dark service lane.
“You’re putting me to work in an alley?” she demanded, straining against his grip as she stared anxiously at the ground far below.
“A shortcut to avoid prying eyes,” he said, looking up at her pale face. “Unless you would rather face another gauntlet of news writers.”
She couldn’t argue with that and reluctantly allowed him to guide her down those steps, then out of the alley and to a cab stand.
Three hours later Antonia found herself standing atop a ladder in the departmental store, Carr’s Emporium, wearing a bib apron and an ugly dust cap, and wielding a feather duster. Spreading before her were what seemed like miles of shelves stocked with every form of dry goods imaginable: fabric, sewing notions and trims, flat irons, lamp wicks, linen sheeting, ready-made pillows, machine-knitted socks, children’s knickers, and manufactured shoes, to name a few. Looking out over the huge store, across the bustling walkways and past racks of ready-made clothes and displays of housewares that were touted as the latest conveniences, she felt a bit bewildered by her presence there. What on earth was Remington trying to prove, installing her as some sort of menial and then disappearing for hours on end?
What sort of seduction was this? She glared at the feather duster in her hand, wondering just how this was supposed to convince her to marry him.
Before she completed the dusting of the upper shelves, the department head, a fusty old fellow named Hanks, appeared, scowling at the way her ankles were revealed by her position on the ladder.
“Mrs. Paxton, would you please step down from there,” he commanded shortly. When she was safely on the floor, he gave her a dour look. “In future you will confine yourself to work on the floor. It is most unseemly to have you dangling about in customers’ faces with your … footwear … showing. Go help Davidson tidy displays instead.”
As she surrendered her feather duster and walked away, she could feel the department head’s glare boring into her back. He hadn’t been told who she was or why she was there, only that she would be working in his department. And he clearly resented having her added to his staff without his consent.
Davidson proved to be one of the junior clerks, a lanky young fellow with a generally pleasant face—which just now was drawn taut. With terse efficiency he showed her how to tidy and reposition displays to show the goods to advantage. When they finished, they were set to restocking shelves and dusting lamp globes, and Antonia watched him turning frequently to stare across the other departments to where the other young clerks were busy with customers. When she dropped a lamp globe, he managed to catch it before it reached the floor, and glanced up with a scowl.
“I’m sorry you’re saddled with me,” she said. “I hate this as much as you do.”
He set the globe back on its shelf and turned to her with a severe look that melted when he saw the distress in her face. “I don’t hate the work … or you,” he said. As he relaxed his guard, a tired but boyish smile tugged briefly at the corner of his mouth. “It’s just that I’d rather be waiting on customers. We’re paid on commission, and the more I sell, the better my wages. And if I want to advance and someday make a marrying wage, I have to keep on my toes and make every sale I can.”