by Jaima Fixsen
“Definitely smaller,” Aunt Yates said, frowning as she remembered Mary had required new dresses again last month to accommodate her rounding bosom. “She played the pianoforte so beautifully. She was very musical.” She cast a glance at Mary. “Why all the questions?”
“There’s so much I don’t know,” Mary fixed her eyes on the tines of her fork, lying idle at the edge of her plate. “I don’t even know what her name was, or why she chose mine or—”
Papa cleared his throat. “She was called Lydia Blair. I chose the name Mary. She was the one who insisted we tack on Gabriella.” Mary felt a warm flush that vanished when her father set down his napkin and rose from his chair.
“Must you go?” She was still short of answers and intended to have them, never mind Aunt Yates’s darkening frown.
“I haven’t time for questions, and I’ve eaten enough for tonight.”
Mary resisted the impulse to bite her lip. This was no time to turn coward. “Papa, you’ve had my whole life to tell me.”
“She’s gone. There’s no need to dwell on it. Not healthy for you.” He studied her now, instead of his pocket watch. “Are you keeping up with your calisthenics?”
Something hummed in Mary’s ears. She wasn’t going to be fobbed off. “No. And I won’t. The exercises make me feel ridiculous.”
His mouth vanished behind his moustache.
“Don’t trouble your father, Mary. I’ll tell you what I remember,” Aunt Yates said.
Mary spun to face her aunt. “Yes, but will it be true?” It seemed too convenient her mother had such musical talents. Aunt Yates had never mentioned the fact before. “You’ll just say whatever you like, trying to goad me into correcting the deficits you see in my character.” She hated the pianoforte, and if Aunt was going to chastise her for neglecting it tonight, when all she’d done today was nap and embroider—
“Mary! Apologize to your aunt.”
“Why?” Mary pressed her hands on the table. “Tell me I’m wrong. Was Mother musical? Truly?”
Aunt Yates fumbled for her handkerchief, colour staining her cheeks.
“As a matter of fact, she wasn’t,” Papa began.
“I’m not six years old.” Mary pushed to her feet.
“Enough!” Papa’s voice echoed off the walls. “Your aunt’s motive was good. You needn’t distress her. Go to your room.”
Mary clenched her hand, holding back the claws she felt unsheathing beneath her skin. “No.”
“I’m warning you—”
“What will you do? Strike me? Bellow until you break the chandelier? Afterward you can soothe yourself with a glass of wine and go out to your club to complain about daughters and hysterical patients and reformers set on ruining England. And you can go on ignoring me, like you have for all these years!”
A muscle in his cheek twitched.
“I don’t have to listen to you,” Mary said, furiously even. “Tell me or not, whatever you like, I don’t believe you. Order me to my room or march me up the stairs yourself, you won’t be able to make me stay. You do not deserve my obedience or my loyalty.” She was finished here; there was nothing more to say.
“Mary! Don’t you walk away from me!”
Mary looked over her shoulder, burning him with a glance. “You could have so easily had both.” For precious little, but she was done selling herself cheap. It was her turn to slam a few doors.
Victors camped on the heights. Of that, Mary was sure. She refused to go to her room, so she took possession of her father’s library, exultation and apprehension prickling her skin. She half expected Papa to come after her, but instead he began a shouting match with Aunt Yates, crushing her shrill protests that she couldn’t be blamed, that raising Mary was impossible with her fragile health. Papa, in a voice to shake the rafters, insisted it was entirely her fault Mary was totally unmanageable. If she had taken more trouble in Mary’s education, garnered the energy to see her bestowed in an appropriate social sphere, none of this would have happened.
When Aunt Yates erupted into hysterics and fled to her room, Mary heard her father march past the library and slam the front door. Aunt’s hysterics kept on for a quarter-hour afterward, but soon subsided.
She’s found the laudanum, Mary thought.
There was a tap on the window glass.
“Miss Buchanan?”
It was Samuel Brown. Mary hurried to the window.
“I saw you sitting there. Is—is everything all right?”
She almost laughed. It was such a funny question. “You overheard?”
“Just a little. Only because I was outside, and one of your dining room windows was partly open.”
“The whole street must know, then.” Mary found it didn’t bother her.
“He discovered you?” He looked worried. And sad.
“Would you like to come in?” Mary asked. It felt silly to stand at the window, and inviting him in was so wickedly intriguing it made her breathless. In this reckless mood, she felt ready for anything.
“Better not,” he said.
“I’ll come outside, then.” She had no shawl, but it was warm for a September evening. Chin high, Mary followed Samuel to his terrace and took the chair beside him. He extinguished the half-smoked pipe resting on the table, apologizing.
“I don’t mind.” His tobacco smelled differently than Papa’s.
He wove his fingers together and rested them on the table. “I knew this might happen. Neil warned me of it. If you need to stop drawing, I understand.”
“He doesn’t know,” Mary said, but Samuel didn’t hear her.
“It was selfish of me to consider what you might suffer on discovery. If he hurts you—”
“I’m not hurt.” She would be once her pulse and breathing slowed, but from lacerated feelings, not a physical bruise. She’d been a fool, making up excuses for them. They were supposed to love her but did not. What of it? She knew now and was free of all the duties and constraints that had made her careful before. It didn’t matter what had become of her mother. “It’s all right. He truly doesn’t know. The quarrel wasn’t politics.”
He tilted his head, as if surprised there could be anything else.
“I wanted information about my mother,” Mary explained.
“What did you want to know?” he asked.
Mary lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “Anything really. I had no specifics. At least now I have one. She named me Gabriella.”
He smiled. “Flighty name for a lady like you.”
“Don’t you like it?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I’m used to Mary. Good, determined name, at least the way you wear it.”
It was a compliment, the first that was hers alone, and not belonging to some drawing. Mary didn’t know what to do and ended up blushing. At least it was growing dark.
“Well, I think it’s ridiculous I didn’t know until now. Not asking things—it just makes it worse, not better.”
He made some noncommittal noise that made her swing her gaze back to him. If they were on the topic of questions…Mary considered for only a moment. She’d already jumped one hedge, might as well hurdle another. “Do you ever talk with Mr. Murray about your wife? He told me she was his sister.”
Though surprised, he recovered quickly. “We do. Sometimes.”
“He says you blame yourself for it.” He was very still, so Mary added, “But that you shouldn’t.”
“He’s a good friend. The best I’ve ever had.”
“Did your wife help you with your work?” She could ask such things tonight, when her blood was hot and rushing. Tomorrow, well, who could say? She wanted to know, and in this mood, he might tell her.
“Oh, yes. She was a wonderful listener.”
It wasn’t quite what she’d meant, but he didn’t seem to notice any difference.
“We lived in Kent, but I was often in London, writing. She loved to paint. The pictures in my front hall are hers.”
“They�
��re very fine,” Mary said. “What happened to her?”
He studied his hands for a long time. “You’ve heard of Captain Swing?”
“I’m not sure he’s real,” Mary said.
Samuel grimaced. “I suspect he’s many people, not just one. But his message speaks to the displaced labourers.”
“The machine breakers. I know.”
“There’d been trouble in the neighbouring counties but nothing nearby. And I had meetings with friends in London. Elspeth didn’t care much for politics. She always remained at home. She waved me off from the door of her painting studio.” His eyes veered away to the dark-veiled lawn. “She was tidy about everything but her own appearance, you know, painting in a great wide smock, her hair bound back by a ribbon but always escaping in all directions. I never wanted her to be hurt.”
“Of course you didn’t.”
He shifted again in his chair. “Often she worked into the night. She’d forget the time when she was working, as did I. Sometimes when she’d finally finished with her brushes she’d just hang up the smock and curl up on the sofa in her studio. It was her special retreat, converted from an old dairy shed. We put it together ourselves that first summer.”
The memory drew him away to a place Mary couldn’t follow, but he didn’t linger, returning with a long-drawn breath. “That day an estate a few miles away turned off most of its hands. The men had no place to go and little money. Harvest was poor and soon it would be winter. They were angry. Desperate. They broke the new machines that were to replace them and fired the barns. After that, what else could they do? They knew the militia was coming.”
Something in her face changed him. The story became softer. Gentler. “I’m quite sure they never meant to harm her, but when you have nothing to lose…” He shrugged. “They couldn’t have known when they set fire to an old dairy shed that there was someone inside. It was old, and with all the oil paints and turpentine, the place went up like tinder.
“Neil says I couldn’t have stopped them even if I’d been there. But—well, she shouldn’t have died. Not so young. Not alone.”
Mary pulled the blanket closer, imagining all he hadn’t said—a shouting mob, torches bobbing in the night, a blistering rush of heat as flames licked up the walls that trapped you. No wonder neither of them could forget. A death like that didn’t leave a neat, smooth scar. “Do you miss her?” Mary asked, her voice just above a whisper.
Samuel stretched his head back and looked at the sky. When he brought it down, his eyes were right on hers and steady.
“No. You see, I have never wanted to forget. When I despair that the bill will never pass, I think of Elspeth and remind myself it must. Worse will happen if we fail.” He gave an apologetic smile. It was a handsome one, but made her shiver. “You see why I had no scruples about recruiting you. Neil says I am too single-minded in the cause.”
Mary shook her head to dislodge the lump in her throat. “No. But then, I don’t mind. I feel it too. How important this is,” she added quickly. To make it safer, she smiled. “You were late today with your notes. Usually you have them out well before dinner.”
Twenty-Two
When Mary finally took herself to bed she had more to think on than Papa and what he was going to do with her. Come morning though, it was her largest concern. Admonishing herself not to be a coward, she arrived punctually at breakfast. Papa was seated already, but Aunt Yates didn’t come. Mary filled and emptied her plate.
“I haven’t dismissed you,” Papa said when she rose from the table. Mary sat down again, listening impassively as the waves of his tirade surged against the walls. He finished with, “You’ll keep to your room today. Not a toe outside your door!” and stomped off to compose himself before his first patients arrived. He left to pay house calls just before luncheon. Aunt Yates hadn’t come downstairs at all. Mary felt no qualms—Papa’s wishes were unimportant. After a quarter hour, she would go out.
“You’ll look in on her every so often?” she asked Annie.
“Same as always,” Annie said and passed her a letter for Ben.
Mary visited Mrs. Chin and went to hear a speech at the Lyceum. She bought herself a pair of brown gloves and helped Cook dish up dinner before taking her place in the dining room. She ate alone. When Papa arrived home and came to investigate the light still burning in his library, Mary perched serenely in the chair nearest the window, a book on her knees. He opened his mouth to blast her, but she was the first to speak.
“You might be a little more considerate of Aunt Yates. She kept to her bed all day.”
“I can see you didn’t,” he snarled.
“I had things to do.” Mary didn’t elaborate. If Papa cared to ask, she might tell him where she’d been. Or not. “Do you propose to punish me?”
His mouth worked.
“I suppose you could lock me in, but eventually I’d tell the neighbours,” Mary told him.
“What neighbours? What concern is it of theirs?”
“They probably couldn’t do anything for me,” Mary conceded. “But just think how they’d enjoy talking about it at dinner. And if I felt very badly used, I could always scream. The patients who call will think you’ve taken up dentistry.” She smiled long and sweetly, closed her book, and glided out, the last test. He made no move to grab her. Upstairs in her room, she leaned against her door, relaxing her grip on the book. It was dull, square and fat, the right heft for a defensive blow she hadn’t needed. All day she’d weighed the chance of him striking her. Of course, just because she hadn’t goaded him to it yet didn’t mean it was impossible, but she breathed easier now than she had this last hour, reading the same pages over again and understanding nothing. She’d pushed him, and she’d meant to, but if his only reaction was furious bluster, it would be foolish not to do as she pleased.
Mary tested her freedom again the next day, buying an emerald green pelisse that could never have come out of her allowance. Papa didn’t notice, but then she’d had short skirts and her hair in braids for years longer than she ought. Aunt Yates eyed it suspiciously but wasn’t speaking to her. Mary hoped it would last.
Every day, then every other, Papa ranted, demanding the usual obedience. “I’m not a prisoner you can keep in the house,” she told him. Aunt Yates whined, Papa breathed smoke at the mere sight of her, but they had no sword to compel her. They did not like her, so she did not need to pretend to care.
September marked the Coronation and the third reading of the Bill, which passed and went up to the House of Lords, who gnawed it over and voted it down by a margin of forty-one votes. Samuel sat on his terrace with his head in his hands, and the newspapers were printed with borders of black. There was marching in the streets and reports of fires consuming all of Bristol. Order was restored by the militia, who reported an official death toll of twelve, though Samuel had journeyed there and his notes suggested the true figure was more than a hundred. Mary, who hadn’t known of the trip until after the fact, held her tongue and was glad he was safe.
Papa growled and paced and talked of taking them away from London. Fearing she’d be sent away, Mary argued that London was safer than Bristol and Derby and Nottingham. Aunt Yates doubled her laudanum intake and took to her bed, but was most troubled by a story that onlookers had thrown mud at the Duke of Cumberland, so it was impossible to take her seriously.
“I suppose there’s no sense in leaving yet,” Papa conceded.
Lord Grey, backed by the House of Commons, persuaded the king to prorogue parliament and by November they had a tenuous peace, enough that Mary ignored her aunt’s prophecies of disaster and resumed daily walks. Sometimes she just walked, other days she walked and took hackneys, but she always went somewhere. She walked through Westminster and along the Strand, pausing at the windows of the offices of the Times, wondering what Mr. Barnes would do if she went inside and introduced herself. She attended lectures and gazed at the forbidden sculptures in the British Museum. By the time she left, she had suffic
ient poise to look as long as she pleased without a hint of a blush. Mary marked her birthday with a stroll across New London Bridge, trying not to mind that when Aunt Yates wished her many happy returns, she’d gotten her age wrong. She was nineteen, not eighteen, now.
The bridge was wonderful, even if Aunt Yates’s memory wasn’t. Mary stood amid the passing crowd, wondering what the banks of the Thames looked like when nothing was here but grass and trees, river and sky. It was so long ago, she could scarcely imagine. Why, the Tower had stood nearly nine hundred years—almost as long as the laws they would change. It will happen, Mary told herself. It must.
She should incorporate the new bridge into a cartoon. Here, in the middle of it, she couldn’t appreciate the elegance of its five arches spanning the Thames, but she had gotten a good look on her approach. It must be something, dreaming up a bridge as massive as this and seeing it put together piece by piece. She would think up a topic—or a person—for each of the supports. Her head was full of ideas when she turned round and started for home.
She was careless that evening and left out a newspaper. Aunt Yates found it, and waved it, sobbing, before Papa.
“We’ve nurtured a snake in our bosom,” she moaned.
“I won’t have that rag in my house,” Papa warned.
“I’m interested in politics,” Mary said, “And the reporting in your paper is biased and inferior.” In the blazing row that followed, Mary proved she knew more of the Reform Bill than he did, correcting him on the number and nature of the proposed amendments.
“I won’t have it!” Papa yelled. “Defy me and you’ll be out in the streets!”
This threat was new. Mary wasn’t sure if Papa meant it or if he was merely raging, but she took herself and her newspaper off while Papa sulked in the best armchair. Best to be prepared. She sat down in the parlour, grimly tallying her age and earnings against her experience with the household ledger. It was chancy, but if she kept on working for the Times and lived very cheap, she could manage, at least to start. It made her feel both terrified and invincible.