by Jaima Fixsen
“Any idea when we’ll get more?”
Neil shrugged. “A week?” It was any man’s guess, but if he were a betting man he’d wager on a longer delay than that.
Mr. Tyler sent him a sympathetic smile. “Good night, Mr. Murray.”
It wouldn’t be, not for him, but that didn’t stop Neil from returning the sentiment. “Good night, Miss Tyler,” he added for good measure.
“Thank you, sir.” Her brother spoke since she wouldn’t brave a look or make more than a flustered reply. Neil listened to them go, wondering why he came across to her as a dragon. He was fair and patient with all his working men, but he’d never yet lured her into conversation. It was depressing, especially when he’d thought he might fare better with the Miss Tylers of the world. Her laughing conversation with her brother was the sort he was used to, the kind that had filled the rooms of his father’s house in Edinburgh, before father’s patent money moved them out of rented lodgings and sent Neil to school. There was no way, though, Miss Tyler could know that. Somehow, in his struggle for acceptance at school, Neil had washed ashore far away from his own class. It got lonely, days like today, but it did no good to repine on it. He just wasn’t good with ladies.
He dug out a clean sheet of paper and began sharpening his pen for a pointed letter to the quarryman.
“Bad day?”
Neil looked up. “Samuel?” Neil’s face broke into a smile. “I didn’t expect you. What a pleasant surprise.”
Samuel frowned at the debris covering the desk. “I did write, but I daresay my note got lost in all that.” His fingers fiddled with his watch chain, catching Neil’s eye. Samuel never fidgeted. “I wanted to talk, but it looks as if you have other matters demanding your attention.”
“They can wait.” Until the next load of stone came they’d all be twiddling their thumbs.
“Are you certain? When I find you in your office, carving up your pen…” Samuel shrugged. “Not so hard to know there’s trouble.”
Neil leaned back in his chair. “Always is, I’m afraid. What did you wish to speak to me about?”
“I shouldn’t trouble you.” Samuel pushed away from the door frame.
“You’re no trouble. What’s the matter?” He looked tired, Neil decided. Must be working too hard again. It wasn’t surprising, given this was the best chance for reform in decades. Sometimes Samuel cared about his cause too much.
“I met a girl. You won’t believe what I’ve done.”
Not the usual then. This was serious. Neil picked up his greatcoat, finally recovering use of his tongue. “Let’s go some place we can talk.”
Garraway’s Coffee House was less private and significantly louder than Neil’s office, but he knew Samuel would relax there, immersed in his element. Gentlemen leaned on tables, obscured by drifting tobacco smoke, debating, arguing, and reading newspapers. The two men were shown a tiny table deep in the back, away from the shop’s tall windows. The atmosphere had its usual beneficial effect. As Neil sipped his coffee Samuel tended to his pipe. He looked less haggard already.
After a long draw, Samuel began. “It rained yesterday.”
“That it did.” It made for a terrible day, putting in pilings.
“I was returning from the Crown and Anchor. I’m not quite settled in the house yet, you know.” He drew again on his pipe. “Hadn’t met any of the neighbours yet either, but when I came home in the midst of that downpour I saw a girl banging at the knocker next door. It seemed only reasonable to invite her in out the rain.”
Neil restrained his eyebrows. Left on their own they’d levitate to the ceiling. He hadn’t expected this. “And…?”
“I suppose I wasn’t thinking.”
“What happened?” Neil prodded again.
“You know how it is. Suddenly she’s looking at you and you can’t seem to climb out of the mire of her eyes.”
“So you’ve told me.” Neil kept his face smooth. Women tended not to look that way at him. Happened to Samuel all the time, but usually he was impervious. Unfortunately, the times he noticed seemed to get him in trouble.
“She was soaked to the skin, her lips all blue and shivering. Like a nymph cast out by the Faerie Queene.”
Though seldom exercised, when Samuel did make use of his capacity for pity over females, it tended to be a disaster. “What happened?” Neil asked.
“I asked her name. Realized she was the neighbour’s daughter. Neil, if that hadn’t startled me out of it, I would have brought her upstairs. Looked half-drowned but in that moment—God, but I wanted her.”
Neil let out a breath of relief. Wanton seduction wasn’t like Samuel, who was generally a predictable fellow, but when he took it in his head to surprise you it was always a leveller. “You stayed in the hall?” Best to be certain.
“Yes, thank heaven. Left her with tea and Mrs. Wilkins in the drawing room. But that moment before, the poor child must have…”
A young one. Neil’s fingers tensed around the handle of his cup.
“I’m not sure how much of my intent she understood. And I don’t know if ignorance or comprehension is worse. I feel such a cad.”
Generally, Neil kept a tight rein on his temper. Just now it was difficult. He could picture that girl mesmerized by his handsome friend all too easily. “Does it make it better, confessing to me?”
Samuel flushed at the pointed tone. “It ought to. You know why.” He shifted in his chair. “Sometimes I don’t know how you can stand me.”
Anger fled as quickly as it had come. So he was still cutting himself up over it. “I’ve told you it isn’t your fault. No one blames you.”
“But if I’d been there, Elspeth might…”
“I doubt anything would be different. As for this girl…you aren’t married. Not anymore.” Neil took a swallow of coffee and set down his cup. If Samuel was fool enough to fornicate on such little provocation and the girl was stupid enough to agree, it was no concern of his. Except it was. In a way. If you could read the signs, you ought to warn your friends they were sailing into a storm.
Neil brought out a smile. “If you didn’t actually touch her, there’s nothing to worry about.” He studied the bottom of his empty cup. “There needn’t be anything wrong with what you felt. Perhaps you should think of remarrying.” Just not this one.
“I can’t—you know I can’t entangle myself with a female. Not with my work, not now.”
Neil relaxed. “Still married to the cause, are you?”
“I know my duty, even though I was tempted. I suppose that’s the trouble. It surprised me, caught me off guard.”
“It’s been a long time. You’re allowed to notice females again.” It wouldn’t be a bad thing for Samuel to let go of guilt and grief. Some things just happened; they couldn’t be helped. No point punishing yourself forever. But with a new government taking shape and people tossing around the question of electoral reform, Samuel would be working harder than ever, writing and reporting the sessions in the House, which were likely to be long and frequent. If he was this worn out and vulnerable already…
Work might be Samuel’s curative, but walking was Neil’s. Troubles were never as big by the second or third mile. “Let’s go for a walk.” Neil pushed up from his chair. “I could use the exercise before taking up the penance on my desk again.”
Samuel agreed and followed him from the shop. It was a clear day, a fine apology for yesterday’s foul weather. The battens of cloud in the blue September sky looked too bright to ever be disagreeable. And Samuel looked better for his confession. Neil decided he mustn’t begrudge him, though it was no easy thing to play priest.
They walked west to St Paul’s. Neil kept the conversation to discussions of their mutual acquaintances, of his travails with masons and quarrymen, and questions on the article Samuel was writing for the forthcoming edition of the Times. Two days before, Neil had received a letter from his father filled with family news, which he shared with Samuel, who laughed to hear Neil’s
eldest niece had threaded her lost baby teeth onto a string she wore around her neck.
“You must get her some bear claws instead,” Samuel told him. “Then she’ll look properly menacing.”
Neil had too many papers crammed into his case to accept Samuel’s invitation to dinner, but to prolong the conversation he offered to walk him home. It was a good distance away, but words came more easily to him tramping down busy streets than in stuffy drawing rooms or jolting hackneys. Samuel was used to his habits and didn’t mind.
By the time they reached Samuel’s front door, both of them were smiling as if yesterday’s incident were quite forgotten. Perhaps it was. Samuel’s work was always the first thing in his mind and their talk had turned once more to politics and his hopes. Samuel pressed him to come inside, if not for dinner then at least for a drink, but Neil waved the invitation aside. His letter to the quarryman couldn’t wait.
“You’ll dine with me tomorrow, then.”
This time Neil knew a refusal wouldn’t do. He accepted, bid Samuel good evening, then stared a moment at the glossy black door of the new house. It was bigger than Samuel’s last but still modest for a man of his means. Too costly for Neil, but he’d never found fault with his rented rooms on Cork Street: clean, inexpensive and perfectly adequate when you never entertained. The money he saved was growing nicely in five percents at Hoare’s bank. Turning to go, he stopped short when a movement inside the house next door caught his eye. A lady watched from the bow window. She was young, and quite dry, but it was her. Neil was sure of it. His eyes narrowed. How long had she been there, watching? Colouring under his scrutiny, her eyes widened and she whisked the curtain closed. Faced now with nothing but drab lining, Neil took stock. Samuel hadn’t lied. The child looked all of sixteen and wore a forlorn expression Neil couldn’t like. It was all too familiar. Hands in his pockets, Neil read the brass placard with the house number, identifying the place as the medical practice of Dr. Sidney Buchanan. Another Scot. He should have expected it. Samuel had trod this path before.
Heavy-footed now, Neil went on his way. Samuel was his oldest friend, the only one of the boys at school who hadn’t laughed at his working class upbringing and Scottish brogue. Oh, he’d ironed out the burrs in his tongue years ago, but he still didn’t please, not like his friend. And Samuel’s normal defences were weak just now.
He needed watching.
Four
Living under a cloud in Doctor Buchanan’s house was uncomfortable in spite of Cook’s secret offering of conciliatory cake. Mary caught cold and was bathed morning and night, dosed, her urine sniffed, and her pulse calibrated. Papa also made a point of telling her he’d adjusted the strength of Aunt Yates’s drops. They were now so diluted any effect was purely imaginary. Aunt Yates, not in on the secret, found them just as effective.
Mary didn’t see Mr. Brown—she didn’t see anyone—except from the window. She passed her time in the window seat, looking outside and drawing in her sketchbook.
Flipping past an unflattering caricature of her aunt to a clean page, Mary made a few exploratory strokes, then shaped them into the plaque that stood beside her own front door. She knew it well enough to draw it exactly, with a notch in the curve of the uppercase B. A gliding of chalk for the shine of the brass and the sheen of the rain and Mary switched to charcoal again, sketching out a sorry figure in dripping clothes.
Myself on 7th September, 1830, she wrote beneath it. The top corner of the page got an awkward rendering of the rain beating on the road outside the park. An attempt to fix it failed; Mary obliterated it with cross hatches and turned the page. She managed the rain better here, drawing it slashing at a tall form with an umbrella.
Torrents. Wet to the skin. Rescued by a mean Samaritan, was the notation this time. There was just enough room on the edge of the page to fit in a study of a long-fingered hand, gripping a scrolled iron key. Next she tried a stylized leaf from an unfamiliar carpet, though that one deserved pastels in green and gold. It was rich and vibrant, in an airy room, not one filled with the scents of sal volatile and burning pastilles.
Mary had pastels in a box upstairs though not of that deep yellow gold. She could fetch them and try blending but—Mary sighed and took a wider piece of charcoal instead. It fit well in her fingers and reproduced exactly her memory of a jutting curve. Next, the line of a brow sweeping into an aquiline nose and the pressed lips of a displeased mouth: sharp lines, bold and uncompromising. No smudges of the chalk here—it ran thick next to the black gouges of charcoal, cutting the features. A finer point now, to hew the glare out of the eyes.
“My goodness! Is he that terrifying?”
Mary looked up, her hand instinctively shielding her paper.
Aunt Yates peered closer. “That’s the man next door?”
Who else? Mary thought as she nodded.
Aunt Yates shivered. “Looks as if he’d stop at nothing. These radicals.” She looked at Mary. “I had no notion. You must have been terrified.”
“Not at first. This was after he quarrelled with Papa.” Before, his face had been entirely different: troubling in the curve of that suspended bottom lip, magnetic in the intensity of the eyes.
There’d been no call for him to turn so perfectly beastly or to glare at her in such a way, as if she were—Mary jumped, swallowing her alarm as Aunt Yates reached unexpectedly to pat her shoulder.
“Put the book away, dear. That face will give you nightmares—not that there’s any need for such things. Your father doesn’t believe it will ever come to a crisis here. Not like in France.” Aunt Yates had a special disdain reserved for Frenchmen.
Mary had not been thinking of politics, but this reminded her of Papa’s complaints at breakfast the other morning. “He’s a journalist, isn’t he? A—a radical one?”
“I suppose. If you can call it that. He writes for The London Times.” Aunt Yates's dropped voice made the publication sound like a leper colony.
Mary returned a noncommittal hum, unsure if she shared her aunt’s disapproval, but wise enough not to take issue with it. She took herself from the room a few moments later. On her way down to the kitchen she picked up the day’s issue of The Morning Chronicle. After she helped Cook prepare the chickens, Mary read it right through, frowning at the blustering, self-satisfied tone. It seemed Papa wasn’t unique in the force of his opinions. When Annie came in, Mary took her aside and begged her to get a copy of the Times. She wanted to see what Samuel thought.
“Well, I will, but don’t you let the doctor see it!” Annie said.
It felt good to have a secret.
The October day was cold enough for a muffler, Samuel decided, noting the condensation on his window panes. It wouldn’t hurt, either, to buy a heavier coat. The lining in his was frayed in places, but he hadn’t time to visit his tailor. No matter. It could wait another week. He was expected within the hour at the newspaper office and couldn’t be late.
Winding a thick green muffler twice around his neck, Samuel went out just as the doctor appeared on his own front steps. Neither one of them moved until Samuel arched an eyebrow. This was the moment for apology, if the lout had one, but the doctor merely snorted, resettled his shoulders and marched down the steps, refusing to give Samuel another glance.
“Gudgeon!” Samuel coughed. The doctor’s steps faltered and Samuel grinned.
Pity about the girl, though. Samuel hoped she hadn’t landed in too much trouble.
Two days later, returning from a meeting with Birmingham Unionists, Samuel saw Dr. Buchanan again. This time they locked eyes. “Vandal,” the doctor spat.
Samuel had drunk sufficient wine with his dinner to brandish a ready retort. “Brute! Caliban!”
Dr. Buchanan’s mouth worked silently. Unable to parry, he vanished with a slam of his front door, leaving Samuel to fumble in his pockets for his key, chuckling over his victory. The doctor ought to know better than to engage him in a war of words.
Mary obtained a copy of the Times at
last, two days old and delivered from under Annie’s apron when she came to light the morning fire. Thanking her with a smile, Mary huddled under her blankets, determined to read as much as she could before breakfast. Behind the advertisements on the second page was an article by Samuel Brown. Mary read it twice, her forehead crinkling. If the industrial cities of Birmingham and Manchester were as big as Mr. Brown claimed, it didn’t make sense that they had less representation in Parliament than Old Sarum, which was uninhabited, or a bit of East Anglia that had fallen into the sea. Perhaps next time Papa brought up the subject of reform, she could mention this. He needn’t know she was quoting Mr. Brown. Given the inequities he described, change was only reasonable. This wasn’t the world of eight hundred years ago.
When Mary went downstairs, Papa was aggressively smearing butter onto his toast. “Hooligan or ruffian?” he asked.
Mary stopped behind her chair. “I’m not sure.”
Papa grunted. “Hooligan. Sounds better.”
Mary sat down quietly and poured a cup of tea. If Papa was in this kind of mood, discussing Manchester and Old Sarum could wait.
Once she was excused, Mary went back upstairs to finish reading her newspaper. She clipped out Samuel’s article and pasted it in her sketchbook. She missed Wednesday’s paper, but saved Samuel’s articles from the two after that, then realized she didn’t have enough pages in her sketchbook for all of them. If she folded them up, they fit nicely in an empty lineament tin in the back of her bureau. Mary read and reread the articles. She must find some way to speak to him again. Papa and Aunt Yates had forsaken the shared garden behind their house since Mrs. Chin, the Oriental lady, had taken the big house on the corner, but it wouldn’t be hard to slip out some evening when Mr. Brown was there, pacing along the terrace with his pipe. The evenings were cool now, but if she watched for the next week or two surely she’d find a chance before the snows came. She would walk into the garden, pretend to start at the sight of him…and tell him she agreed with his articles? No, that didn’t seem right. Perhaps if she carried a book with her, as if she were going to read among the autumn leaves…