by Rose Lerner
Other people.
There was a long, horrified silence in kitchen. “I’m afraid it’s too late to make the change,” Mr. Moon said apologetically. “We did agree on Grecian. Next year, if you like?”
Another long pause. “Next year, then. And how do you intend to decorate it?”
Betsy shivered through long minutes of “Do you think meringue might be nicer?” and “There will be sugar paste men and women, won’t there?” and “I do love raspberries…” How Mrs. Lovejoy contrived to have so many opinions and yet be so indecisive was a true mystery.
She ought to be wasting Betsy’s time. That was Betsy’s work, so Mr. Moon could do his own.
“Can you put some of the jellies in martial molds? Cannons and so on?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t any,” Mr. Moon said. His pained pauses got less and less with each question, at least. “And I don’t know anyone who does.”
“Could you have one made?”
“Not by Tuesday,” he said firmly.
“Then perhaps Lord Wellington’s new coat of arms might be displayed somewhere.”
Betsy sank down to the floor, pressing her chest and forearms against her thighs for a little warmth, and tried not to imagine murdering her.
“Have you a picture?” Mr. Moon asked. “I can’t send to London by Tuesday.”
“There was one in the Intelligencer when his lordship was made a Knight of the Garter,” Mrs. Lovejoy said eagerly. “When was that? Before Vitoria, I know…February?”
“I’ll send Betsy to the printing office,” he agreed. “If Jack Sparks can find it, I’ll paint the arms on a sheet of gum paste for the table.”
“Where is that girl? Shouldn’t she be helping you?”
Betsy stopped breathing.
“I sent her out on an errand.”
“Dawdling somewhere flirting, I don’t doubt.” Mrs. Lovejoy sighed so loudly it was audible in the cold room. “She has an eye for the men, I’ve noticed.”
Betsy’s jaw dropped. What?
“I’ve always found her a very modest young woman,” Mr. Moon said, without a trace of self-consciousness at the lie.
“Oh, well, I’m sure she’s careful when she knows you’re watching.”
She glared at the door. But inwardly, her blood ran colder. What if he believed Mrs. Lovejoy?
“I’m afraid I’ve a deal more to get done today. I assure you, ma’am, that everything will be ready for Tuesday, and to your satisfaction.” Mr. Moon sounded annoyed. Could he be jealous? Jemima would call jealousy a good sign, but Betsy felt faintly ill at the thought.
“I’m sorry, you must be wishing me at Jericho,” Mrs. Lovejoy said with a mortified little laugh.
“Not at all, ma’am.”
“You’re too kind, I know you must be bored to death of me.”
And still it was minutes more before the bolt finally slid home behind her. Betsy stood, limbs stiff, and walked out into the warmth of the kitchen.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Of course.” She smiled tightly as she yanked her shift over her head.
“You never—you never spent. Shall I—?”
She drew back.
He saw it. Miserably, he turned away and went to stand in front of his temple.
“You can’t please everybody,” she said, and wished there wasn’t an edge in her voice.
He measured the columns with his hands. “I can’t please anybody.”
“What she said,” Betsy said with sudden resolve, “about me flirting—”
He didn’t look at her, but he turned his head slightly in her direction so that she saw him in profile, fierce and austere.
She faltered. “I…”
“I hope someday I shall have the right to ask you what you do when you aren’t with me,” he said quietly. “But I don’t. I know that well enough. And I know you aren’t—” He took a deep breath. “You’re always quite prompt on errands.”
As if that was the point.
Suddenly she couldn’t bear to admit that the last man who’d bedded her was fifteen-year-old Lenny Sadler. That she’d been waiting about for Mr. Moon, dreaming of him, longing for him.
It would only make him nervous, anyway. She couldn’t bear that humiliation on top of everything else.
Chapter 6:
Sunday
Betsy did not love Sunday mornings. It might be called a day of rest, but she couldn’t even sleep late, because she had to get up and put on her Sunday best. She had to cram herself into the gallery at St. Leonard’s, everyone shoving and elbowing to the front so they could show the whole church how respectably they were dressed, and then she had to stand through a long sermon.
She didn’t mind the sermon. It was the standing she hated, after a long week on her feet. Mrs. Piper was even shorter than Betsy, and liked to be early to claim a coveted spot crushed against the railing. Betsy spent most Sunday mornings gazing enviously down into the box pews with their benches and cushions.
Sunday afternoons, on the other hand, were usually delightful.
But today everything was backwards. After church Betsy had to hurry back to the Honey Moon instead of lazing about with Jemima, and she was eager to get to St. Leonard’s and maybe smile at Mr. Moon to make up for yesterday’s ill humor.
“Does my hair look all right?” she asked Nan. Their small mirror showed only a few square inches of it at a time, and that distorted.
“What difference can it make?” Nan said. “It’ll be under your hat.”
Betsy sighed, wishing she’d saved her money for that bonnet she’d been eying in Miss Tice’s window, even if Miss Tice was a Tory. It had paper honeysuckle climbing in thick clusters over the hatband and was the prettiest thing Betsy had ever seen.
Of course she spent her spare coins on sweets and coffee as fast as she earned them, instead.
Still, she felt pleased with her appearance. Her dark purple Sunday dress had faded to a lovely shade of lilac, and her kerchief and gloves had no stains even if they weren’t really white any longer. Her bonnet had a new ribbon and she’d bought lovely paste shoe buckles from a peddler at the market, which winked as she walked in a very gratifying way.
“I don’t know why you bother,” Nan said. “He’s always late to church and never stands with us.”
Betsy flushed hot.
But he’d said I hope someday I shall have the right to ask you what you do when you aren’t with me. That had to mean marriage. Maybe…maybe today would be different.
Or maybe he’d be so shamed by what they’d been doing that he’d not come to church at all.
But when the Pipers climbed the stairs to the still nearly empty west gallery, Mr. Moon was waiting by one of the arches, in the center just behind the pulpit. Mrs. Piper’s favorite spot.
Betsy’s heart skipped a beat. Today was different after all!
He gulped and straightened when he saw them, turning his battered tricorne round in his hands. Oh, he was so very handsome! When he smiled, nervous but genuine, her heart pounded like a mortar in a pestle.
She hadn’t ought to think of bed in church, but how could she help it? Those long fingers white on the brim of his hat had…
She swallowed hard herself, trying to forget. “How lovely to see you! Mama, you know Mr. Moon.”
“Of course. How nice to see you again.” Mrs. Piper chatted pleasantly while Betsy tried to contain the happiness bubbling up inside her. Even seeing Mrs. Dymond fussing over her sister’s new son in their pew near the back of the church barely dampened her mood.
“Did you hear the baby was born two months early?” Nan whispered. “That means she was pregnant during the election. Do you suppose that had anything to do with why her sister tried to marry Mr. Moon? I’m glad the father did the right thing in the end.”
“Do you think Mr. Gilchrist is the father?” Betsy whispered back.
Mrs. Dymond’s brother-in-law lifted the boy above his head to play birdie with every
evidence of joyful adoration. “Oh, look at him,” said Nan. “He must be.”
Betsy bit her lip. Mr. Piper had been Nan’s undisputed father, but Betsy couldn’t remember him ever holding her like that.
“Girls, don’t gossip in church,” Mrs. Piper said.
Betsy raised her eyebrows at her. “You just wish you could hear what we’re saying.”
Mrs. Piper laughed. “I can guess, and so would they if they looked your way. Leave that child be.”
Looking up at his nephew, Mr. Dymond caught sight of them and waved. Mr. Moon waved back, so he was looking at them too.
Betsy’s hopeful mood crumpled.
She was swept with bitter envy at Mrs. Dymond’s family pew. Her father had been a lawyer, practically a gentleman. Standing up with the Pipers, was Mr. Moon thinking he’d have not one, but three new poor female dependents if he married Betsy?
“I owe them so much money, and they’ve barely got any themselves.” He beat a nervous tattoo on his hat brim. “She looks happy, though, don’t she?”
Just at the moment, Mrs. Dymond was grumping with Jack Sparks about something or other that made them both very indignant, but Betsy knew what Mr. Moon meant. She nodded wordlessly.
He laughed a little. “Happier than she’d have been with me, I don’t doubt.”
“Nick Dymond looks happier than you’d have been with her too.” Oh, of all the shrewish things to say! When she’d meant to be so cheerful.
“I’m glad,” Mr. Moon said. “He were miserable last fall.”
She felt more ashamed than ever. Robert Moon was sweet as ice cream, and she kept acting like curdled milk.
* * *
Robert chewed over that comment of Betsy’s all through the service. Would he have been happy with Mrs. Dymond? He’d been so afraid of losing the Honey Moon that he’d barely thought about it. He’d never thought about it. He’d thought only that he’d never be happy again if he let the shop fail.
He was happy with Betsy. He was happy just standing next to her looking down at a hole in the top of her bonnet. He could hear her voice in among everyone else’s during the responses, soaring shyly during the hymn.
She sang a little off-key. It charmed him terribly. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea that this first bloom of love might ever wear off and one day, as a middle-aged man, he might now and again be irritated by it.
Again he promised himself that as soon as he had his twenty-five pounds in hand, he’d ask her to marry him.
He’d always meant to wait until the Honey Moon regularly turned a profit. But if Mrs. Dymond was happy broke, Betsy could be too, and it was only for a little while, wasn’t it? The shop was doing better now than last year. Next year it would do better still, and one day, he’d pay the Dymonds back and have enough left over to buy Betsy as many new hats as she liked.
* * *
Coming out of church, Robert spied their milkwoman. “Good morning, Mr. Diplock, Mrs. Diplock, how do you do? I’m glad I ran into you, ma’am. I just wanted to be sure you’ll have those twenty gallons of cream for me tomorrow morning.”
She chewed at her lip. “Mr. Moon, might I speak to you apart a moment?”
Mr. Diplock made a worried face. “Oh, Bell, don’t, it’s Sunday.”
She gestured helplessly. “He asked me on Sunday.”
Robert’s heart sank. “What is it, ma’am?”
“It’s a business matter, sir. Maybe…” She looked at Betsy.
He knew it would be bad news. He’d have liked to tell Betsy to wait a little ways off. It would all come right in the end and it was no use her worrying over it. Faith, he could do that enough for both of them.
Or maybe it wouldn’t come right. Maybe Mrs. Diplock wouldn’t give him the cream for the assembly, and he’d never get that twenty-five pounds. Robert’s heart raced.
Betsy glanced up at him, the uneasy tilt of her mouth and one uncertain eye all he could see below the brim of her bonnet. His arm was sweating where she held it, and her skirts were worse than a woolen blanket against his leg. But he didn’t want her any farther away.
He was going to make her his wife. He was. A man hadn’t ought to hide things from his wife. And she’d a way of calming him down when he fretted.
“That’s all right, Mrs. Diplock. What is it?”
“Do you know how many gallons of milk have to be skimmed to make that much cream?”
He did, and the figure was so high he couldn’t bring himself to say it. “Not—not to the gallon, ma’am. But I know it’s a good many.” That’s why it costs so damn much, he added silently.
“A good many indeed.” She sighed. “I’ll have it for you, Mr. Moon. I’ve sorted it out with the dairies already. But after that, there’ll be no more milk or cream or butter on credit until I’m paid in full what you owe me. And after that, I’ll expect you to settle up every fortnight, rain or shine. I’ve got my own family to think of.”
Her husband looked very embarrassed, but Robert sagged with relief. She was giving him the cream. “Of course, Mrs. Diplock. That’s no more or less than fair. Thank you. You’ve been very patient, and I’m that grateful.”
“You needn’t worry,” Betsy said cheerfully. “When he’s paid for the assembly, he’ll have the money.”
His hopes felt less flimsy, to hear her echo them. Robert took a long, steadying breath.
The milkwoman sighed again. “I hope so, Miss Piper. I do hope so.”
When they were almost past the churchyard, Betsy said timidly, “I wouldn’t…I wouldn’t mind dealing with some of the tradespeople. If you wanted me to. Since you…”
Since it makes you wriggle like a hooked worm. She was too kind to say it, but shame ate at him, sharp as vinegar. “I hadn’t ought to get so wrought up about it. It doesn’t help anything.”
She leaned her head on his arm, just for a moment. “It’s harder to change how you feel than it is to change who talks to the milkwoman.” There was a little silence. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.”
“No, it is,” he said. “I…” But he couldn’t finish the sentence, even though she looked pleased by it. He meant to make all his business her business, and what shabby business it was!
She would calm him when he fretted, and take on responsibility for his debts, and talk to the tradespeople and make him eat breakfast when he’d forgot to, and what would he give her, exactly? Would he ever really be able to buy her those hats?
What if her mother had to go on the parish one day because he hadn’t provided?
Luckily, she was distracted by her friend Jemima rushing up. “Richard Ralph was found not guilty.”
Betsy’s jaw dropped. “No.”
Jemima was frowning even more deeply than usual. “The defense managed to convince those fools that his wife might have died of an apoplexy.”
A great deal of heated chatter about witnesses, surgeons, and blood followed, which left Robert not much to do except feel vaguely unsettled at how many murders seemed to go on all the time, and specifically unsettled about his finances.
A gaily unhappy voice stopped him in his tracks. “Mr. Moon! Were you going to go by without saying good morning?”
He tried to smile. Betsy and Jemima went quiet as mice. “Good morning, Mrs. Lovejoy. I’m sorry, I didn’t see you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You weren’t avoiding me, were you?”
“Of course he was avoiding you,” her husband said with a snort. “He looks like a man with somewhere to be and no time to listen to you jabber.”
Mrs. Lovejoy flushed bright red.
Robert’s skin crawled with sympathetic humiliation. “I promise I wasn’t avoiding you, ma’am. I was only lost in thought. We’re on our way now to juice the pineapples for your ices.”
“But it’s the day of rest!”
That brought Robert up short. They had to work today, or they wouldn’t be done in time. What should he say?
Mr. Lovejoy snorted again, trying to meet Ro
bert’s eye in a hearty man-to-man way, which didn’t help. Urgency filled up his brain, pushing out all the words.
“We haven’t that much to do, Mrs. Lovejoy,” Betsy said brightly. “We’ll rest as soon as we’re able. I feel rested enough for a week already, though. Wasn’t it an uplifting sermon?”
Mrs. Lovejoy glared at her. “Don’t take that flippant tone with me, young woman. You’re always so polite to everyone else. Isn’t my money as good as theirs?”
Betsy’s hand tightened on his arm. Robert hoped very much that Jemima wouldn’t say anything cutting. For the moment, she merely kept her stony gaze fixed on Mrs. Lovejoy in what Robert knew was silent condemnation, but to strangers might be indistinguishable from indifference.
Mr. Lovejoy rolled his eyes. “Christ, not this again.”
Mrs. Lovejoy flinched. “Don’t you take the Lord’s name in vain,” she said without conviction.
Robert felt a headache coming on. “She wasn’t being flippant, ma’am.”
“I meant no disrespect,” Betsy said nervously. “I swear I didn’t, ma’am. I’m that sorry if I seemed flippant.”
Mrs. Lovejoy ignored her, her face softening as she looked at Robert. “Oh, you always see the best in people, don’t you? That reminds me, do you think we could have a few bowls of pastilles and candies scattered—”
“You’re embarrassing yourself. Let’s leave these people to their business.” Mr. Lovejoy stalked off, leaving his wife alone.
The three members of the lower orders stared at their feet, unwilling to say anything that might make matters even worse.
Mrs. Lovejoy drew herself up. “I accept your apology, Betsy. I suppose you don’t know any better. You ought to improve your mind instead of reading about those grisly crimes.” Betsy stiffened and Jemima audibly set her teeth. “I’ve got a book of sermons, really edifying ones, that I think would help you to lift yourself up a little. I’ll bring it with me next time I come to the shop.”
It was so unfair when Betsy had spent dunnamany hours of her life being kind to Mrs. Lovejoy! “Thank you, ma’am, but please don’t,” Robert said.