by Jane Ashford
“No one will know who did it,” Caroline said. As if it might be a reassurance, she added, “Mr. Conolly and I are quite good at pranks. Did you know that he once…?”
“Do you want to see me thrown out of the Foreign Office once and for all?” At last the room went quiet. They were all looking at him. John felt his cheeks redden. “We have been the subject of quite enough…attention,” he continued. He saw Mary’s wince and regretted it, but he needed them to understand. “We are not going to manufacture another opportunity to be…singled out for criticism. Purposely.”
Caroline’s chin came up. Suddenly, she looked every inch the aristocrat. “You can’t stop us from doing whatever we please.”
“Caroline,” said Mary. “If John does not wish you to…”
Conolly gazed at John. “Have my pranks ever truly damaged anyone, Bexley?”
John hesitated. The victims he could bring to mind had all seen the jest in the end. Even he, with his superfluous chair, had laughed. “Reynolds,” he remembered.
Conolly nodded. “Ah, yes, Reynolds, who meant to…um…take advantage of that émigré girl who’d come for help in finding her parents.”
Reynolds was a blackguard, John admitted silently. He’d more than deserved to be…curbed.
“We only mean to give Edmund Fordyce the opportunity to behave badly,” Caroline wheedled. “He needn’t do so. It is his free choice.”
John’s mind was a muddle. The impulse to risk warred with the fear of failure. A desire for justice clamored against the caution that had been drilled into him in his childhood. And through this churning indecision, he kept seeing the look on Mary’s face when Lady Castlereagh snatched her drawing away from Fordyce. If Mary was involved in a scheme of revenge against Fordyce and he found out, he would turn on her like a poisonous snake. “No. I want to make a serious effort to come about from this recent…setback. Not indulge in…high jinks.”
“How can you be so tedious…?”
Conolly interrupted Caroline’s protest. “I understand.” When Caroline started to argue, he held her eyes until she subsided. “I will escort you to your grandmother’s house,” he added. He took her arm and practically dragged her away.
When they’d gone, John and Mary sat down to a belated dinner. They ate in silence for a while, and then John said, “We have made our own plans. Fordyce is…a creeping nothing. He isn’t worth a thought.”
Mary nodded. “Although the thought of wiping that smug look off his face is tempting.”
“He’ll be quite downcast if I succeed.”
Mary nodded. She looked wistful, but as John saw it, Conolly—and still worse the unpredictable Lady Caroline—threatened to bring her more pain, not less. It simply wasn’t worth the risk.
* * *
After dinner, John went up to his study for a while. Mary drifted into the front parlor, but she couldn’t sit still. After poking the coals of the fire, straightening perfectly orderly cushions, and staring with loathing at her basket of mending, she gave up and went to her sitting room studio. So often in her life drawing had made her feel better. It had also made her feel many other things, of course. Drawing was her solace and her bane, her gift and her burden. She turned to it now, closing the curtains over dark windows, lighting lamps, sitting at the long table before her easel, holding a pencil, and waiting.
At first it seemed that inspiration had closed up shop for the day. Her hand did not move. To encourage the flow, Mary doodled along the edge of the paper—a flower, a bucket, a series of interlocking triangles. The next image turned into a monkey, creatures she’d seen only in pictures. She remembered the long limbs and tail, though, the projecting jaw and liquid eyes. Her monkey squatted in the corner of the page, hands on its knees.
When finished it was a creditable likeness of the breed, even charming, she thought. However, it had none of the resonance of her human portraits. Mary wasn’t certain whether this was because her talent was limited to people or because she had no particular monkey in mind. They must have some individual characteristics. And one would never draw a generic “human being.” She had once produced a portrait of Petra’s cat that plumbed the depths of Tomasina’s arrogance.
Her pencil moved on, outlining the little monkey in another pose. Then bold strokes swept into the center of the page, heralding a larger image. Wiry frame and furry tail, hands so like a person’s—only this monkey’s face emerged differently. It came out as a distorted version of Edmund Fordyce’s long countenance. Mary’s lips curved as her hand moved faster and added details. The man’s hooded eyes fit right in; she went ahead and made them blue with a bit of chalk. Fordyce’s sneering mouth appeared, lengthened into a simian snout. She gave the figure ears, flattened against the sides of the skull, and some incongruous tufts of yellow hair. With a soft laugh, she added shadows to a squashed nose, a furtive hunch to sinuous shoulders.
When she was done, she had a face and figure that screamed of low cunning and sly malice. She’d never done anything like this before—and it was an insult to the breed of monkeys—but she was thoroughly enjoying herself. She rubbed out some lines with her fingertips and began to sketch in a little costume, like the ones Caroline had mentioned. Soon, this version of Edmund Fordyce wore a frogged jacket and pipe-stem trousers; he held out a little cylindrical hat, begging for pennies.
“Mary?” called John’s voice from outside the room. There was a knock at the door, and then he was looking around it. “There you are.” He came in, holding a sheet of paper. “I found this…” He spotted the drawing on her small easel, and his eyes widened.
Mary put down her pencil and waited.
John took a step closer. His lips parted in astonishment. Then they curved up at the corners. His penetrating blue eyes started to sparkle. And he laughed.
It was a joyous, wholehearted laugh, the easiest she’d ever heard from her husband. And it went on, and on. Delighted, and a touch relieved, she joined in.
John pointed at the image. “The hair,” he gasped and went off again. He laughed so hard that tears came to his eyes.
Mary laughed along with him, delighted by this evidence that her drawings could make him happy as well as cause trouble.
It was quite a while before John’s mirth finally ran down, reduced to occasional chuckles. “I didn’t know you drew caricatures,” he said.
“I don’t. I didn’t. I suppose it was something about the conversation tonight…”
“The way he holds out the hat…” Laughter overtook John again. “How I wish I could hang that in my office for all to see,” he said when he’d recovered again. “Can we even show Conolly, I wonder?” He shook his head. “Far too tempting for him. How he would relish it, though.”
“I won’t keep it,” Mary replied.
“No, you must. We’ll take it out when we feel low and laugh again.” He grew more serious. “Don’t show it to anyone else, though.”
Mary nodded. Did he think she would be rushing out to show off her drawings, after the last time? “You said you’d found something?” she asked, pointing at the sheet of paper in his hand.
John looked down and seemed surprised to find it there. “Oh, yes. This…diagram was on my desk. Is it yours?”
Mary took it. “No, Arthur did this. It shows the workings of a steam engine.”
“It does?” He gazed at the nest of lines scrawled over the page. “Why was it in my room?”
“He wanted to show it to you. I forgot.” She’d been preoccupied with her own problems again, Mary thought. She’d overlooked Arthur’s confidences. “He was eager to impress you, I believe,” she added.
“With this?” John retrieved the paper and looked at it more closely. He turned it around to get another angle, frowning.
“He’s quite knowledgeable about how the engines work.”
“Indeed.” The word vibrated with John�
��s lack of interest in mechanics.
“He said something about not being able to find a proper adventure.”
“Proper…?” This appeared to arrest his attention.
“He seemed rather downhearted,” Mary went on. “And I forgot all about it. I’ve been so selfish, involved in my own concerns.”
“Nonsense,” John said.
“But I was. Arthur wanted to speak to…”
“He’s probably forgotten all about this by now.” John put the page on the table.
“I don’t think he will have.”
“I’ll speak to him.”
“I know you have a great deal on your mind, but it would be…”
“Don’t worry, Mary, I will take care of you,” he replied.
The tenderness in his eyes sent a tremor all through her. But she wanted to do her part, not simply be protected. “We’ll care for each other,” she said.
Then he took her in his arms and kissed her, and her reasoned arguments were lost in a flood of desire.
Seventeen
Several days passed with no more talk of monkeys, or of Edmund Fordyce. Routine took over and, with it, a measure of calm. Yet the shadow of disappointment lurked in the background. As Mary went through her days, a question constantly echoed in the recesses of her mind, “What else can I do to make things right for John?”
This preoccupation so distracted her that when she went out on Tuesday morning to replenish her supply of watercolor paints, she forgot her reticule. She had to turn back to fetch it. The artists’ supply shop would give her credit, but she had other errands as well and needed her purse.
She let herself in quietly, not wishing to pause for household concerns. She had one foot on the stair to go up to her bedchamber, when she heard Lady Caroline Lanford’s voice from the kitchen. Which was odd. Had Caroline come to visit and found her out? But why would she go downstairs?
Mary started for the basement steps.
“Have you mixed it up for me?” she heard Caroline say.
“I have, my lady,” Kate’s voice answered.
“And it will turn hair lighter with…umm…no ill effects to the skin?”
Mary frowned, confused. Caroline’s hair was already a lovely golden blond.
“Yes, my lady, as long as you remove it after twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes,” Caroline repeated. “And…umm…if someone was to eat it?”
Mary stopped on the stairs, startled.
“Eat it?” Kate sounded incredulous, as well she might.
“Accidentally,” said Caroline.
“Well, they’d better not, nor get it in their eyes either. You have to take some care with this mixture.”
Kate would never learn tact, Mary thought. Her tone made it plain that she thought the inquiry idiotic. It certainly was odd.
“Of course,” said Caroline.
Mary went on down the stairs. When she reached the kitchen she found Mrs. Tanner stirring a pot on the stove. Kate was standing nearby, next to Caroline, who held a small bottle of pale liquid. Arthur sat at the long wooden table, clutching a lidded basket on his lap.
All eyes swiveled to Mary. “Hello,” she said.
“Oh!” said Caroline. “I thought you were…that is, I came by to get one of Kate’s marvelous concoctions.” She held up the bottle, then thrust it at Arthur, who put it in the basket.
Mary looked from her to the boy, and back.
“I’ve been helping…” he began.
Caroline cut him off. “Arthur has been kind enough to accompany me and carry my purchases today.” She reached for the basket handle. “Thank you very much, Arthur. I can take them across the square.”
Arthur held on. “But you said I could go along with you to…finish up.”
“I mustn’t keep you from your work any longer.” Caroline lifted the basket.
Mrs. Tanner snorted and muttered something about Arthur not knowing the meaning of work.
“But…won’t you stay a while, have some tea?” Mary wondered.
“Grandmamma will be expecting me,” Caroline replied and headed for the steps.
Mary looked at Kate, who gazed blandly back. She looked at Mrs. Tanner, who was tasting the broth from her pot. “What was that about?”
“Her ladyship wanted a hair dye,” Kate answered.
“For a friend of hers,” Arthur said. “Have we got any of them scones left, Mrs. Tanner?”
“No, ‘we’ do not,” grumbled the cook. “You ate the last one this morning, Sir Greedyguts. That stomach of yours is a bottomless pit.”
“I’m growing,” Arthur declared hopefully.
Mrs. Tanner snorted again. “Well, grow into the scullery and finish scrubbing out the pots. I set a pan of hot water by the basin.”
“Yes’m.” Arthur jumped up and went out.
At least he seemed more reconciled to his job here, Mary thought. “It was kind of Lady Caroline to give you a commission,” she said to Kate.
The maid merely nodded.
“I think El…the dowager countess might be kind enough to offer her patronage as well.”
This would give Kate a great advantage, should she become…associated with the Jenkins apothecary, Mary thought.
“Yes…ma’am. She has said she would.”
Once again, Kate was ahead of her. But what precisely was going on? “Have you taken any more concoctions to Mr. Jenkins’s shop?”
“Just this and that.”
“‘This and that,’” repeated her mother grumpily. “She’s brewing and straining until she hardly has time for her proper work. And in my way with the doing of it.”
Mary retreated from yet another quarrel between them. As she passed the scullery doorway, she paused to say, “Mr. Bexley was quite impressed by your drawing of the steam engine, Arthur.” It wasn’t untrue. John had found the diagram noteworthy, though he hadn’t been much interested in the subject.
“That’s good,” said Arthur, up to his elbows in suds.
He didn’t seem nearly as pleased as Mary had expected.
Feeling somehow superfluous in her own house, Mary walked up the stairs, fetched her reticule, and resumed her interrupted errands.
* * *
Hearing Fordyce’s voice in the corridor up ahead, John turned to find a different route out of the Foreign Office building. He required some sustenance this early afternoon, but he didn’t care to encounter the idiot. “Well worth the investment,” he heard Fordyce say. And then he was out of earshot.
When he returned to the office, Conolly was back. He’d been out on some errand for the morning. “What have you done to yourself?” John wondered. Conolly’s left hand was wrapped in gauze, and his right boasted a long red scratch.
“Oh,” was the reply. “Got an aunt with a tabby built like a Russian bear. Vicious thing.”
“Is that where you were? It attacked you?”
“Whenever you visit, she insists you pet the blasted creature. And then wrings a peal over your head when it shreds your hand.” Conolly made a wry face and spoke in a high piping voice. “‘What have you done to poor puss, you great brute? I’m sure she wouldn’t scratch you if you were gentler with her.’” He shook his head. “Cat just sits there looking smug.”
John laughed.
Conolly sat down, letting his bandaged hand drop behind his desk. “Did you see the report from Hansen? I thought he was onto something.”
“No.” John looked down at the piles of documents before him.
“I put it there on top. You should take a look.”
“Right.” They fell to work in their customary easy rhythm. John was lulled, comforted by the details of his work. There was no upheaval among his papers, whatever mayhem they might report. He could study and analyze them with measured care. This f
amiliar world was a kind of retreat from worries and plans.
When he had made his way through the pile, he turned to the private notes he had accumulated over his visits to the London slums. They still amounted to little more than hints and implications. And his sources continued to dry up. People were more evasive. They threw looks over their shoulders and retreated from conversations.
His guide Henry Tsing was restless as well. On their last foray, he’d said, “You don’t live anywhere near Limehouse. You go off to your safe life and leave me here among them.” Which was perfectly true. And all of it suggested that some new factor had entered Limehouse and was causing a change in his reception. He wanted, needed, to discover what it was. But the more he pushed, the more people resisted.
He riffled through the notes again. He had to find a way to discover more or his grand plan was going to come to nothing. He was set to go out tonight. He’d persuaded Henry, with great difficulty. This trip must yield some progress. John shoved the pages into a drawer and returned to his regular work.
* * *
When she went down to the kitchen to let Mrs. Tanner know that John would not be home for dinner, Mary found Jeremiah Jenkins there, looking very much at home at the wide wooden table, with a cup of tea before him. He stood at once when she appeared. “Ma’am.”
“Mr. Jenkins.”
“I’ve just brought some attar of rose for Kate.”
With his use of the maid’s first name, Mary was not much surprised when Kate turned from the large pot she was stirring to say, “We’re getting married.” She was smiling, eyes bright, but otherwise she seemed much like her customary self.
“Ah.” Mary wondered how this had come about. There’d been so little sign that a connection had been formed. “I’m very happy for you. Both.”
“Thank you…ma’am.”
Mary suppressed a smile at that last reluctant word. Kate would no longer have to exert herself to defer to a mistress. She wondered if the young woman would find it easier to cater to customers at the apothecary shop. Probably she would, as they would be holding out their hands with payment.