by Edith Layton
“Well, she sold ’erself, my lord, is what she did,” he said as lightly as if it hadn’t, as he’d said, near killed him to get it out, “which is why she took a place with two rooms, much as it cost ’er. But not only did old Mrs. Rogers keep a sharp eye on ’er trade, so she had to sneak all the time, we was getting older and she was feart we’d know too much and catch wise to what was going on in t’other room. Some of us did,” he admitted as an aside, before he hurried on, “so she took to the streets and did her trade there in doorways. I worked and I worked,” he said in impotent fury, hitting the back of his chair with a small fist, “but it wasn’t enough, so she snuck out again. But after Baby was born, she was different. She was sickly and she din’t look too good and she never really got better from ’er lying-in. So though she did end as I said, in the streets, it wasn’t collecting piecework she collapsed from, my lord, no, it wasn’t that at all.”
“I’m sorry for it,” the earl said after a space in which Alfie didn’t speak, “but I’d be a poor piece of work if I changed toward you for it. If that’s what’s been bothering you, lad, I’ll agree that it was a wretched business and a great shame, but I can’t say it matters to me, except that I’m sorry for the harm it did to yourself and to your mama. But even as I can’t repair it, I can’t blame you for it. Child, it’s a sad history, but it’s just that, a history.”
“It’s not all of it,” Alfie said fiercely. “Else I’d not have bothered telling it. But you din’t listen close, my lord, for I said she come to town a few years after my da died, and that she ’ad a time supporting the three of us. And the three of us it was, for a long time. Baby…well, sir, Baby,” he said, even as the earl realized what it was he was struggling to say, “she got Baby through ’er line of work, you might say.
“That’s why ’e got no proper name. She din’t want ’im. ’Oo could blame her?” He laughed bitterly, slipping deeper into the voice of the streets with each word. “She took all sorts of things to be rid o’ ’im, that’s why she did so poorly after ’e was born, I think. ’E ain’t got no proper name, ’cause after ’e come she wasn’t ’erself no more and she’d call ’im a different name each day, sort of like a bad joke on ’erself, ’cause she din’t know ’is father’s name.
“But the thing of it is,” he declared fiercely, “is that we love ’im. We do. We could o’ been shut o’ ’im after she went. Nothin’ simpler, think on it. But ’e’s all we got left o’ our mum, and so ’e’s one of us. So we can’t stay on if ’e can’t too, and I know how people feel about babes like ’im. ’E’s nothing. ’E’s just a bad word Comfort near killed me for saying once. He’s nothing but a bastard, my lord,” Alfie said clearly, drawing himself up and staring at the earl with defiance and entreaty, “but he is ours.”
The room was very silent; the night held its breath.
“Indeed,” the earl drawled, at his most urbane. “Then, you’re right, that is too bad, Alfie. For I’d rather hoped you’d share him with me.
“Clunch,” the earl added gently, as he held the trembling boy close so that he could help him conceal his tears, knowing how important that was to a lad, “as if it mattered. He’s one of you. I shall love him too. As will my wife. Oh yes, you didn’t know? It’s to be Miss Victoria. Now, what do you think of that, you expert on social matters?”
*
“Alfie,” the earl said a while later, as he held his governess-companion a great deal closer and quite differently than he had the boy, as they sat before the fire and waited for the dawn, “approves.”
She giggled.
“Well, it’s a relief to me, I can tell you,” he said, his cheek brushing against her hair. “He’s a fearsome lad. We decided too, before we parted for the night, that he’d think on a career in law. I’ll need a sharp man-at-law in my dotage, you see. Bobby’s too gentle for the military, so some sort of career in animal husbandry seems the ticket, Sally will have a dowry to attract whomever she pleases, and Baby, why, since Baby is the best behaved of the lot, it’s clear he’s headed for the church. He can be the one to marry our children off. All our children,” he whispered. “Remind me to tell you something about him someday,” he added, as she reminded him of something else entirely that made him complain after an interval:
“Not a day more than two months from now, no matter what Lady Malverne says about getting space at St. George’s. We’ll wed from right here, if we must, in the music room, so that Lady Ann can be bridesmaid.”
“I do hope,” Victoria mused, from the safety and luxury of his encircling arms, her voice a purr beneath his chin, “that all the uproar in the music room didn’t frighten that lovely girl that I always see there. The fair-haired one,” she explained. “I’ve never learned her name. The beautiful one. Strange that you don’t know the one I mean,” she teased as he began to look at her oddly, “for I was sure you, a lecherous Earl of Clune, would have remarked her. I see her all the time,” she went on, “although we’ve never spoken a word to each other. Why, I mean the absolutely beautiful, ethereal-looking girl who keeps drifting in and out of there, she positively haunts the place…” she explained, before she put one hand over her mouth and stared at him in sudden wild surmise.
*
The children were asleep, Mrs. Haverford and Lady Malverne too; even Miss Comfort, with the help of the doctor’s potent potion, slept, fortunately, and dreamlessly. Even the servants were abed; only the earl and his promised bride were wakeful as they sat and whispered together in the morning room, waiting for another morning to arrive to bring them that much closer to their wedding day.
But in his cot, high in the nursery wing, Baby stirred.
He opened his eyes to dark and complete night. He was, indeed, a very good baby, almost as though he’d always known he lived on sufferance and had to be. But perhaps because in some fashion he knew now that at last he was guaranteed continuance, perhaps because he’d grown accustomed to a warm and nourishing presence attending to him if he so much as coughed out of tune, perhaps because at last he was learning to be a real baby, he looked out into the dark and began to fret. It was a different darkness than the one he’d lately left before entering into the world, and it was frightening in its immensity and silence, and he was, in that moment, acutely aware that he was only a little scrap of a thing, and altogether alone in the great ocean of night.
So he thrust out his lower lip and a tear appeared in one wide blue eye and he drew in his breath and let out a little preliminary sob. It was never enough to waken Nurse, he’d never disturbed her in the night anyway, and so she didn’t listen for him then. But before he could signal the full extent of his new unhappiness, the lady appeared at his door.
She came straight to his cot and looked down at him. And although he’d just begun to learn to focus his blue eyes at all well, he stared at her amazed, for even he could see, in the clear bright light she emitted, that she was very lovely. Her long fair hair streamed about her, and gazing down at him, now knowing what he was, she threw back her head and laughed. And it was lovely to see, even if it all was soundless. Then she bent and lowered her lips to his forehead, and although all he felt was a soft cool breeze, it comforted him.
She gazed all about the room then, with a sort of wistful satisfaction. Then she looked quickly to the window, but although the dawn was near, it was still quite dark. Then she smiled once more, relief and sad remembrance intermingled upon her ethereally lovely face, and she began to drift back toward the wall. And then she stopped and stared at the door. For a huge black dog with drooping ears and eyes stood poised there, and his bulk filled the entire doorway as he stared back at her.
He regarded her intently. Then he stopped panting, he ceased all movement. His great shoulders tensed, his entire body contracted and then he leaped at her. And she dropped to her knees and embraced him and he foundered at her feet like a great wave that had broken on the shore as he tumbled over and over at her little slippers while she laughed and hugged him, and the
ir bright margins devolved into each other’s as they greeted each other, while they neither of them ever made a sound.
Then the lady rose to her feet, and after glancing to the window once more, she looked down at Baby once again, and her smile was like a benediction and a final farewell as she began to move slowly toward the wall again. She had almost reached it when she paused and beckoned to the dog as if to call him home, as though to summon him to his home with her, to give him rest from his lonely wanderings at last. He looked around just once and then leaped up, and they vanished into the wall together.
It was the darkest hour of the night, for dawn was only a blink away. But Baby gave out one contented silvery little gurgle before he settled down to sleep again, and it was a thrilling sound, like a carillon chiming to welcome the morning. It was still the darkest hour. But now it was already lighter in the great Hall than it had been for centuries.
About the Author
Edith Layton has been writing since she was ten years old. She has worked as a freelance writer for newspapers and magazines, but has always been fascinated by English history, most particularly the Regency period. She lives on Long Island with her physician husband and three children, and collects antiques and large dogs.
The above bio appeared in the original print edition of this novel. For more information about Edith Layton's life and books, please visit http://www.facebook.com/authoredithlayton.