by Jaima Fixsen
His cup and saucer clinked onto the polished table. “I can always tell when girls fall in love with him. Do yourself a favour and stop. You’ll only make him uncomfortable and embarrass yourself.”
She looked like she’d been slapped. Good. He’d meant it to hurt. Her fingers hid in her skirts as she rose to her feet, but he’d already seen the trembling in those artist’s hands.
“You’re unforgivably rude.” Her voice wasn’t so steady either.
“If you were reasonable, I wouldn’t have to be,” he said. “Trust me, I’m doing you a kindness.” Would that Elspeth had accepted the same.
Her face threatened to crumple, so she turned away. “You needn’t be unkind. I—” She caught her voice before it broke and fled past him in a rush of tumbled skirts. The door slammed behind her loud enough he imagined the glass panels quivering in their frames.
It was extraordinarily quiet, now he was alone—not what he was used to, but he was learning to like it. One adjusted, when still living alone in one’s twenty-seventh year. Neil shifted in his chair, still uncomfortable with that last glimpse of her face and the wounded look in her eyes. Like a kicked puppy, he thought, and shifted again.
Of course the room felt vacant without her—it was! Guilt was unavoidable. He wasn’t a monster. He didn’t like hurting anyone, least of all a sensitive, vulnerable girl. Unfortunately, he’d chosen to interfere, so he shouldn’t resent the burdens that came with it. In the long term she’d be better for it. The smart would fade with time.
Maybe it wasn’t too late to sweeten his tea.
There was a bit of awkwardness when Samuel and Mrs. Chin returned, but Neil brushed through with some nonsense about Miss Buchanan suddenly needing to return home.
“No matter. She’ll be back soon for her paints and brushes.” Mrs. Chin looked at him closely, but Neil didn’t blink. She poured out tea for herself and Samuel, who was thumbing over a fifteenth-century copy of a commentary of the Magna Carta.
“This just came with the house?” he asked, dumbfounded.
Mrs. Chin gave an apologetic shrug. “You are welcome to read it. Take it to the south corner. The light is better.”
“I shouldn’t.” He smiled guiltily, like she’d read his mind.
“I insist.” She watched him settle onto a low divan flanked by miniature potted trees. “I underestimated his enthusiasm for books,” She murmured to Neil with a smile of apology.
“I think it’s that particular topic,” Neil said. “I doubt you’ll ever pry him away.”
“Mr. Brown is quite the crusader?”
“Very much so.”
“He said you’ve been friends a long time.” Mrs. Chin refilled his cup. She didn’t look up, or even ask, but somehow knew to put in three lumps of sugar.
“Yes, we met when we were boys. Best friends, and since then we’ve become brothers. He was married to my younger sister.”
“No wonder you take such good care of him. I suppose you chased off Miss Buchanan?”
Neil flushed and glanced at Samuel, who turned a page, deaf to his surroundings. “It wasn’t like that.” Not quite.
“You surprise me. She doesn’t seem the kind to be easily dismissed.”
“You have to understand.” Neil leaned forward and braced his forearms on his knees. Caught off guard this way, he could only respond with the truth. “I’ve seen it happen before. Ladies are always falling in love with him and she’s wrong—not the wrong sort, just wrong for him.” He was explaining himself badly, but his conviction that she and Samuel were ill-suited was stronger than ever, not something he could ignore.
“Oh, I quite agree with you.” She smiled. “Why do you think I brought him into the library?”
Neil leaned back in surprise, but Mrs. Chin was so unruffled they might as well have been discussing the weather. She passed him the plate of biscuits. Neil waved it aside.
“You aren’t the only one who can tell these things,” she said. “The danger was apparent to me from the very first, but I imagined when Mr. Brown and I returned, you and Miss Buchanan would be too immersed in conversation with each other to notice. She’s quite a pretty thing.” Her look was reproving. “I expected you to distract her, not scare her away.”
“I’m not good with ladies,” Neil said. Her eyebrows lifted, but she refrained from speech. Neil took it as a mercy. “I may have been a little sharp with her,” he confessed.
“That’s unfortunate.” She sipped her tea. “Still, she’s resilient. I don’t imagine there’s any harm done.” Her fingers tapped against the arm of her chair.
Neil wasn’t as confident. She’d looked ready to cry. It wasn’t something he was proud of, but treading on her feelings today was necessary to keep her away from Samuel. With any luck, his work was done.
“Tell me about the bridge,” Mrs. Chin said. Neil didn’t consider himself the confiding sort, but somehow with her he found a great deal to say. Too much, he realized, when he and Samuel finally took their leave.
“We’ve taken up your entire morning,” he said, stiffening with embarrassment.
“Nonsense. You must feel free to take up a good many more. Come again soon. I insist.”
Samuel agreed with a smile. Neil hesitated but before he could protest, she anticipated him. “It’s no imposition,” she assured him in a voice pitched for his ears alone. “I’m relying on you. Between the two of us, we can safeguard Mr. Brown.”
He couldn’t argue with that.
Twelve
Mary fled Mrs. Chin’s garden, her feelings suspended between tears and rage. In the safety of her bedchamber she indulged in both and ended up with blotchy eyes and a savage entry in her sketchbook. Too upset to draw, she filled a page and a half with stuttering words reiterating one truth: she hated Neil Murray.
“Something troubling you, miss?” Annie asked, interrupting Mary’s scribbling.
“Nothing.” Mary buttoned her lips, determined to ignore the shame of her reddened eyes. “I’ll help you set the table.” The hour was advanced and there was always a chance Papa might return home for dinner. If she didn’t get hold of herself before then he’d peer at her, listen at her chest, and ask if she was keeping on with her calisthenics. Donning a smile, Mary listened to Annie repeat amusing things told her by Ben. Perhaps it was the retelling, but Mary didn’t find them as delightful. No doubt Ben was wonderful in every conceivable way, but did she have to hear a complete recitation? Smiling absentmindedly, Mary counted out the forks. The table was laid, the flowers arranged, and Annie was lighting the candles when the front door slammed with enough force to make the flames dance. They shared a look.
“Let me handle it.” Mary went to investigate.
Her father stood in the hall, swathed in overcoat and muffler, his gloved fingers flexing mechanically. “Just what—” His chest heaved. “Just what does rampallian mean?”
Mary floundered, too astonished to reason out anything except there was no imminent danger—from rioters or epidemics at least. Papa was another matter. He fumed like a volcano. “Rampallian?” she echoed. Beside her, Annie twitched.
Her father pounced. “You know! Tell me at once!”
“Sir, I—” Annie shrank back against the wall.
“Fustilarian too! Answer me that!”
Mary interceded. “Papa, I’ve never heard either word before. Where are you getting this jabbering?”
“Oh, they’re words all right. Flung at me by that neanderthal Mr. Brown! When I see him next—”
“Mr. Brown called you a rampallian?” Mary asked.
“Yes, and I called him a lothario, but I wouldn’t put it past him to—you!” Papa’s long finger targeted Annie. “I insist you tell me what it means. This instant!”
Annie swallowed. “It’s Shakespeare. From Henry the Fourth. Fustilarian means,” she cleared her throat, “unworthy stinker.”
Papa slammed his fist onto the hall table. “And the other?”
“I don’t know, sir,
” Annie mumbled.
“What are you doing reading Shakespeare? Is there no work to be done in this house?”
“I heard it from a friend,” Annie whispered, her voice nearly lost as Mary rose to her defence.
“Papa! Why shouldn’t Annie read in her free hours?” It was an excellent thing, a pursuit to be encouraged, Mary argued. She broke off mid sentence—Papa looked ready to snarl—and changed tactics, reminding him that dinner was growing cold. “You’ve had a long day, Papa. Any improvement with the Johnson twins?”
Still grumbling, he allowed Mary to take his hat. Over his shoulder, Mary mouthed for Annie to go. A clatter of plates told her Cook was dishing up supper. By the time Mary had coaxed her father into the dining room everything was ready, and Aunt Yates was waiting at her end of the table. “I wrote ten stanzas today,” she announced.
“Very good,” said Papa, and Mary stifled a sigh of relief.
Next morning, once Papa was busy in his consulting room, Mary escaped to the garden carrying her sketchbook. She paused outside the glass house, but told herself Mr. Murray wouldn’t call this early or so soon after his last visit. Even if he were here, she’d amassed a stunning array of retorts to put him in his place. Fustilarian, for instance. It was a pity she’d probably never get to use them.
Ben Pickett looked up at her entrance, and paused long enough over Mrs. Chin’s empty coffee tray to bow. “Madam is with a visitor just now.”
“You needn’t interrupt her. I came to work.” She was a familiar enough presence now, but he bowed once more and reminded her: “You know to ring, should you need anything.” On his way out he paused beside her to shift a cup away from the edge of the tray and whisper, “Can you get this note to Annie?”
“Of course.” Mary slid the paper under her cuff. Ben gave her a smile and was back in the house almost as quickly.
Yesterday’s abandoned drawing was nearly finished, just lacking the final touches: some ochre on the tips of the stamens, a darker tint in the heart of the flower. Mary finished and, loath to return to her own house, brought out her sketchbook and began a caricature of Lord Grey modelled after the cartoons she’d seen. It felt a little wicked, drawing the Prime Minister in a dress, struggling with the seating plan for his ‘cabinet dinner,’ fretting it might be too dangerous to seat Lord Brougham next to his son-in-law, the uncompromising reformer, Lord Durham, known as Radical Jack.
Someone chuckled behind her. Mary jerked around, spilling ink from her pen.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have surprised you. Did I ruin it?” Mrs. Chin asked.
Mary studied the blot marring the roughed-in background. It hovered right above ‘Lady’ Grey’s sideboard and was too big and dark to hide in a pattern of wallpaper. “I could make it part of a vase of flowers. It’s almost the right shape.”
“Looks like a lily. See?” Mrs. Chin pointed to a crimson one in a terracotta pot by one of the armchairs.
It did. If she added a few more petals, some greenery and the right sort of pot… “There. All better.”
Mrs. Chin smiled. “I’m glad. Shame if I’d spoilt it. It’s very good. Better than the one I saw in today’s paper.”
Mary didn’t believe her, but… “May I see it?”
“The newspapers are waiting for you on the table. I had Benjamin bring them for you with a plate of sandwiches but you were too busy to notice.” Setting down her pen, Mary went for the news-sheet. The cartoon was well drawn, but difficult to see.
“He uses too many words,” Mary said, then bit her lip at her presumption.
“I’m sure you’re right,’ Mrs. Chin said. “Would you rather keep drawing or will you take luncheon with me?” She read Mary’s face and laughed. “You can do both at once. I won’t mind. I have some work to do, taking care of these violets.”
She got out her tools and set about cutting clippings and placing them in bowls of water while nibbling around the edge of a cucumber sandwich. Mary ate one-handed, working on her drawing.
“Why did you give Mr. Brown a hibiscus?” Mary asked, remembering how Mrs. Chin had offered it with odd certainty, as if she’d expected the gift to loosen Samuel Brown’s tongue.
“Why not? I like them.” Mrs. Chin set a finished clipping aside and reached for another bowl.
“So does Mr. Brown.” Mary toyed with her pen. “How did you know it?”
“Are you accusing me of reading minds?” Mrs. Chin laughed. “That would be convenient, but mostly troublesome I expect. Imagine if I heard everything you were thinking!”
Mary refused to blush or look away. After a lengthy pause, Mrs. Chin relented. “I cheated. I met his housekeeper one day in the street and we ended up walking together to the park. She told me about his wife, how she grew them for her paintings and to set on his desk.”
Servants’ gossip. How ordinary. The disappointment kept Mary from immediately comprehending the whole. Then, “She painted?” Her heart sank as she remembered the pictures on Mr. Brown’s walls. There were so many, and each one was beautiful.
“Very talented, I’m told. Young, too, to marry such a man. Too young to leave him a widower.” Mrs. Chin shook her head and placed a delicate stem in the bowl of water.
“How old was she?” Mary asked. Perhaps there was hope for her. She didn’t do paintings—not like the ones she’d seen in Mr. Brown’s home, but—
“Mrs. Wilkins didn’t say. I think she needed to unburden herself a little. We talked of ourselves too, you know.”
Of course. She should stop sticking her nose where it didn’t belong. Mary looked at her drawing of Lord Grey, wondering what Samuel would think of it.
“Mrs. Wilkins and I have loved in our time, surprising as that may seem,” Mrs. Chin went on. “We can’t only concern ourselves with the well-being of Mr. Brown.”
Mary blushed and reminded herself Mrs. Chin had admitted she wasn’t capable of mind-reading. She didn’t only think of Samuel Brown. There was politics, too. “But you did give him the hibiscus because you knew it was right. That it would help him,” Mary said, unable to phrase it any better.
“I hoped so.”
Mary played with her pen. She was almost too afraid to ask. “Why did you give me narcissus?”
“Smother them or neglect them, they are hard to kill.” Mrs. Chin cast a sideways glance at Mary. “Either way, it seemed like a good choice. Are you watching? Have any come up?”
“Not yet,” mumbled Mary. The inkblot she’d turned into a lily was wrong. She’d been working on it so long the details detracted from the rest of the drawing. Impatient with her mistake, Mary guillotined the drawing with a swift stroke. “The flowers were too distracting,” she said, as Mrs. Chin exclaimed at the destruction. “I’d better start over.”
Thirteen
It could almost be considered an accident. If Mrs. Chin hadn’t said her drawing was as good as the one in the newspaper, Mary would never have considered showing them to anyone. She continued with Mrs. Chin’s botanical drawings, for she liked having a growing cache of secret shillings in an empty ink bottle, but except for those, she only drew cartoons. They weren’t oils of fruit and flowers or landscapes like the work of Samuel Brown’s late wife, but Mary thought he would appreciate them since they had everything to do with his political passions. She read and drew, a plan taking shape, seizing and discarding a dozen different ideas and working up each one again and again until it was perfect.
Mary picked the best one and bound it in cardboard and twine with shaking fingers. As eloquent as she’d become with her sketches, she couldn’t pen an accompanying note. Her courage failed her, but she did scratch her initials into a detail of the drawing. It would have to be enough. Mary pressed a kiss on the packet with her forefinger, tucked it under her arm, and slid it furtively into Samuel’s letterbox. She was back in her own house within seconds, catching her breath, her heart racing.
Mr. Murray was entirely mistaken. She was not an ignorant, hopeless girl.
Whe
n Neil arrived to collect his friend that evening, he found him in the hall examining a cardboard folder. He held it gingerly as if it carried an offensive odour, or was likely to burst into flames.
“Trouble?” Neil asked.
“I’m not sure.” Samuel turned it over again. “There’s no name or direction, not even mine. It must have been delivered by hand.”
“Can it wait? We’ll be late for dinner,” Neil said. Not that he minded. Political dinners were wearing thin. One was the same as the next, and since he’d failed to interest Samuel in their host’s daughters there was little point in all this sauntering about.
“Sometimes I get complaints about my articles, but those go to the office and straight into the fire. I don’t know how anyone would find my house.”
It was unsettling. “Are you going to open it?” Neil asked.
“I suppose I’ll have to,” Samuel said.
“Let me,” Neil said. He’d never dealt with poison pens, but had experience with explosives. Samuel yielded up the folder without a word, and Neil attacked the string. A sheet of paper slipped out and drifted to the floor, landing without incident on the patterned carpet.
“That’s it?” Neil asked. He shook the cardboard, but there was nothing else, not even a note.
Samuel picked it up, his quick glance producing a grunt of laughter.
“Not a complaint?” Neil hazarded.
“No. This is actually very good. Take a look.” He held out a drawing to Neil.
It was a cartoon of Lord Grey and his cabinet hacking away at an old tree. ‘Rotten Boroughs’ was written along the trunk and Wellington and other prominent Tories propped up the dead tree. There were vipers in the ground and cormorants nesting in the branches, with the names of several boroughs written on the nests. Neil barked a laugh.
“What’s that written on Lord Grey’s axe?” Samuel asked, leaning closer for a second look.
“Grey’s family chopper,” Neil read.
Samuel frowned. “I suppose his nepotism shouldn’t escape comment, even from us.”