by Jaima Fixsen
“No, he was sacked, same as I.”
Mary took a large, scalding swallow. “But—”
“You’ll never guess, because it’s a miracle. Mind, it’s nothing permanent yet, and for now I’m just an assistant.”
Mary waited.
“Ben’s been hired by the Drury Lane players!”
Mary set down her cup. “At the theatre?
Annie nodded. “Isn’t it grand?”
Mary didn’t want to ask if the director had needed a footman, because that was insulting, but the alternative was impossible.
“I said you wouldn’t believe it.” Annie laughed. “They closed the theatres after the Lords voted down the bill, but after a day or two when nothing terrible happened, they wanted to reopen with a patriotic play to rally support for the king. Henry the Fourth, but some of their actors had left the city. They had no one to play Hotspur.”
“Did they use Ben?” It seemed too good to be true, but Annie nodded.
“Yes, and now Ben’s signed on as an actor. I’m just an assistant, but I help my mum with the laundry she takes in and all together we should manage.”
“But how did it happen?” Mary asked. Surely it wasn’t usual for footmen to become actors.
“He’s been thinking of it for a while,” Annie admitted. “Couldn’t help it really, with all the reading Mrs. Chin had him doing. She was always so particular about his enunciation, one minute telling him he wasn’t putting enough feeling in the words and snickering the next, telling him not to overdo it. And Ben’s got an excellent memory. Was no trouble for him to learn the lines. Director wanted to send him to the right-about, but his wife, the wardrobe mistress, said let him try, he was handsome enough it might not matter if he wasn’t any good.” Annie dropped her voice. “She was right. The ladies love him. When this finishes, he’ll play Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet.”
Mary overcome her astonishment enough to congratulate her. “Then—you really don’t need my help?”
“If we do, I’ll let you know. But we’re fine for now.” There was no hiding Annie’s satisfaction. “And I’m so pleased for you, miss. To be with the man you love. It’s better than I could have believed it.”
Mary nodded, glad Annie wasn’t expecting more of a response.
“I shouldn’t keep you.” Annie got to her feet. “Dr. Buchanan doesn’t want me in the house, but I had to come tell you. And thank you, from Ben and myself.”
“Thanks aren’t necessary,” Mary said. “If you ever need me—”
“I will. But come and see the play!”
Mary gave her promise and Annie went. Mary lingered at the table, strangely deflated, as Cook bustled between the stove and the cupboards. “I never thought to see both of you settled so happily,” she said. “You could have knocked me down with a feather when I heard the doctor agreed to your young man’s suit. He’s softening. Happens to some of ’em when they realize their daughters are grown up. And the good thing is, marrying you to Mr. Brown next door will keep you close. That must please your papa, and I’m glad of it, too. He’s fond of you in his own way.” She pushed a plate in front of Mary.
“We have butter again?” Mary asked, surprised.
“Gone marketing twice in the past two days and didn’t run into any trouble. I think we will get through this, my dear.”
“I’m sure we will.” Mary took a bite of the bread in front of her and chewed, rolling it around her mouth. Everything was fine, just not the same as it was for Annie. I’ve got the whole world, she’d said.
“It’s delicious, but I’m not very hungry.” Mary pushed away her plate.
“Go rest. No need for you to wear yourself to the bone.” Cook shooed her from the kitchen. Mary picked up the shawl she’d left in the library and went out to the garden. It seemed the best place to be alone, and she hadn’t gone out of doors for far too long. Wrapping the shawl around her shoulders, Mary sat on the steps and stared at the grass between her toes. She didn’t want the whole world. Just one part of it. One person, is all.
Something hot ran down her cheek. As Mary swiped it away, her gaze fell on her pitiful plot of late-blooming narcissus, deep in the shade beneath her father’s laurels. She ought to have put them someplace better, in the sunlight, not half-choked by weeds.
She’d have to fix it. Mary knelt in the earth to free the stems from the tangle of grass, but found them knotted impossibly together. She was uprooting as many bulbs as she was weeds. Knuckling away the moisture seeping from her eyes, she seized a handful of grass and flowers and tore it loose, refusing to accept horticultural defeat. The roots gave after a satisfying struggle and landed behind her with a thud. Mary reached for another. Dirt sprayed over her arms and—
“Stop! Stop!” It was Mrs. Chin, hurrying over the grass. “What are you doing, Mary?”
“I planted them in a terrible place,” Mary said, trying to hide her damp cheeks.
“No reason to murder them.”
“You sacked Ben.” Mary’s words tasted bitter.
“Because he was meant to be more than a footman,” Mrs. Chin said.
Startled, Mary rolled back onto her heels and looked up.
“Why do you think I listened to all that Shakespeare? Very tedious in the beginning.” Mrs. Chin knelt down beside her and shook off the dirt and grass from one of the mutilated bulbs. “If you replant them, they’ll come back eventually. Very hardy things.” She patted it back in the earth. “What’s upsetting you?”
If she didn’t accept it now, she never would. Mary squared her shoulders. “I’m not upset. Just tired from helping Mr. Brown. He’s been unwell.”
“So I heard.”
“He’s making an excellent recovery,” Mary said, striving for breezy happiness. “Once he is well I’m to marry him. I hope it will be soon.”
Mrs. Chin finished packing dirt around another drooping stalk. “You’re going to marry Mr. Brown.” It wasn’t a question, so it felt unnecessary to do more than nod. Mrs. Chin dusted off her hands and pushed to her feet, reaching her hand out for Mary. She was tiny but strong, and it felt strange when Mary found herself pulled to her feet and looking over her. “Pity. I thought you were more clever than that.”
“Pardon?”
Mrs. Chin was busy brushing off her skirts, but the question goaded her to speech. It began as a barely intelligible mumble, about foolish girls and wasted flowers and grew to sharp impatience. “I don’t understand how you could mangle things so utterly. What happened to Mr. Murray?”
Neil? “I don’t know.” Mary faltered. “He never—maybe he tried, but—we’ve had such a dislike for each other. He doesn’t love me.”
“Of course he can’t now.” She was furious, still beating at her skirts though the grass and crumbs of dirt were long gone. “If he thinks you love Mr. Brown—I wash my hands of you, Miss Buchanan. You made this mess, you can get yourself out of it.”
With a last shake of her skirts she marched to the glass house. Mary couldn’t be sure, but she thought she heard the slide of the lock.
Thirty-Nine
Did Neil love her? She’d never asked, but if he cared why would she have to? He’d spared nothing trying to dissuade her from loving Samuel. If Neil loved her, he was blunt enough to have said something. Some deeply submerged part of her had half counted on him refusing to allow their engagement, or at least to storm up the stairs and have words with Samuel over it. He’d done no such thing.
What could he do? You’d accepted Samuel! Time and again, she’d told him Samuel was all she wanted. Mary’s heart turned over, sick once again with feeble hopes. She went still and waited for the feeling to pass. It ebbed, leaving her limp as a wrung out rag. Then she knew. The question was immaterial. Whether Neil loved her or not, she couldn’t marry Samuel. She didn’t love him enough, and at least she understood how Neil felt about that. Mary brushed off her skirts. Before her resolve failed, she made the long climb upstairs.
His room was quiet. Mary stood be
side the bed, watching him sleep until he woke and smiled.
“You look sad,” he said and motioned for her to take the empty chair.
This was no time for shilly-shallying. “Your proposal was very sudden,” she told him.
Samuel wove his fingers together. “Not as sudden as you think. I’d thought on it before. But you’re young. If you need time to think it over…”
“Why ask me to marry you now, if you’ve thought of it before?” He could have proposed before he was injured. She’d long felt his friendship, that good regard she boasted was all she really needed. She’d never suspected he felt anything more.
Samuel shrugged. “Sometimes I’m shockingly unobservant for a special correspondent.” He smiled. “I saw you better these last few days than I have in a long time. Some things are clearer in a crisis. We’re well-suited, Mary.”
And what if he’d never been hurt? Would they have gone on as before? “I have an entire sketchbook’s worth of drawings of you,” Mary blurted out. “I thought you were like a god.” The admission made her squirm, though part of her was relieved to have it out at last.
“I’m not, but I can’t deny being flattered. And you know better now. We’re equals, Mary. Perfectly matched.” His dark brown eyes were the handsomest she’d ever seen, the kind that pulled you in and made you want to agree with everything. It hurt to look in them, but she couldn’t escape.
“You must have known how I felt.” How could he not, when she’d been so embarrassingly transparent to Neil?
Samuel shifted against the pillows. “I knew you had some partiality. But it’s only been recently that I realized you’ve matured. Enough to think that you felt more than an adolescent passion.”
“Because I can be responsible in a crisis?”
“Partly. Part of it is that you’re very appealing leaning over me, spooning concoctions down my throat.” He looked down at his hands. “I’ve shocked you, but you must know, my dear, there are few men who wouldn’t—”
“You haven’t shocked me.” If he’d felt that way, why hadn’t he reached for her? It was the natural thing to do.
He looked up, relieved. “You see? We’ll rub along quite well together.”
“Yes.” They probably could. Except…“What if I have matured?” She hadn’t drawn Samuel for months now. Her books were full of caricatures of Lord Grey and King William and the Duke of Wellington, of bridges and Roman ruins and the scenery of Bath. She hadn’t drawn Neil. It seemed that if there were a right medium for him it would be clay, a substance she could form without sight, by feel alone. A new work, unfamiliar and dangerous, but something that could be reformed again and again. Clay was forgiving.
“That’s why I permitted myself to ask. I couldn’t marry a girl. You don’t seem one anymore.”
Mary took a breath. “I don’t think I am.” She wasn’t, and it made her sad. She’d grown into someone else, someone who wasn’t in love with Samuel. “I still like you very much,” Mary began. “We could marry, but I think it would be wrong of me.” Wrong for me, but it didn’t seem kind to say that.
Samuel was very still. He might have been mapping the creases on his skin. “What changed?” His face was so carefully blank Mary wished she could run.
“I don’t know how it happened. In so many ways, I think we are perfectly suited.” There would be so much of what she’d dreamed of with him: appreciation, meaningful work, challenge, and comradeship. But she’d had a glimpse into another life, and for better or worse, the man in that one was Neil. She had to try, even if she was chasing a mirage. “It’s—it would be easy to change my mind, what with your head and being afraid of losing you, all while we’re on the brink of revolution. But I don’t think I should.”
He picked up the cup from the table beside him, sipped once, and turned it round for a long time in his hands. When he faced her at last, he almost had a smile. “Put that way, you probably should not. I’m sorry, Mary.”
“So am I. I think I should go. But—but Papa and I will both be in to check on you.”
Gallant to the last, he thanked her and kissed her fingers. “These have been beautiful days for me, Mary.” Seeing her blinking eyes, he squeezed her hand and sent her out the door.
Aunt Yates was gone up to bed. Papa was in parts unknown—all Mary knew was he wasn’t in the library. She ought to tell him. At best he’d think her bird-witted, at worst, inconstant as her mother, and the prospect was daunting and uncomfortable. Papa could wait. There was someone she must tell first, though the prospect terrified her. It seemed an enormous gamble and far too presumptuous, but if there was the least chance that he cared…she must tell him, and hope.
She sat down to write a letter, one that would change Neil’s heart. It was an awful lot to expect from words on paper. After an hour and a dozen spoiled sheets, Mary was desperate. The words wouldn’t come, and everything she wrote sounded stupid. With no one to persuade him, who was to say he’d even open it? And if he did, drowning him with ill-written protestations of love so soon after jilting Samuel would disgust him. No, it was the coward’s way to leave such important matters to the post. Mary tore the sheets in quarters and swept them into the fire. She paced the library, wishing it wasn’t too late to go out. She’d never been to Neil’s home, but she knew the direction and spent the night walking in her mind up and down his lamplit street. At last she crept up to bed and lay until she could rise again and dress herself. She was early to breakfast.
Papa came in looking sharpish, so Mary poured him a cup of coffee at once. He ignored it. “What’s this about Samuel saying you don’t suit?”
“I like him. I don’t love him. I can’t marry him, Papa.”
“Nonsense.” He didn’t like waffling. She should have expected this. “He says his wishes haven’t changed. Once he recovers, when things are more settled, you can—”
“It’s good of him, but I don’t think I’ll change my mind,” Mary said. “After breakfast I’m going to see Mr. Murray. I’ll take a hackney.”
“You’ll take my carriage,” he told her, dumping four lumps of sugar into his cup. He took a swallow the way a lion ripped away the throat of a beast. “Is one permitted to ask why you are going to see him?”
“No.” Mary went bright with shame, but said nothing more.
“How is Mr. Brown this morning?” Aunt Yates said, wafting into the room and onto her chair.
“Stalwart. Humbled. Much improved,” Papa said.
“Excellent.” Aunt Yates didn’t question the unusual descriptors, just reached for the toast.
“Mary tells me she is going out this morning,” Papa said. “Perhaps you would be so good as to accompany—” He broke off as Mary gave an infinitesimal shake of her head. “Never mind.” He returned to his coffee with ill grace and Mary relaxed a fraction.
“Aren’t you hungry, Mary?” Aunt Yates asked.
“I’m afraid not.”
“Have you looked at her?” Aunt Yates asked Papa. “My strengthening tonic—”
“All she needs is a dose of good sense, but she won’t take any of mine,” Papa growled. He reached for the eggs.
Enough was enough. “Give me the eggs,” Mary said.
Baffled, he turned to her.
“You don’t like them.” Mary said.
“That is immaterial.” He lifted the serving spoon.
Mary was on her feet in an instant, slamming the cover over the dish. “They make you uncomfortable and disagreeable. This is foolishness, Papa.”
“Nonsense. Besides, it would be a waste.” He clung to the plate.
Mary tugged harder. “I’ll feed them to Samuel.” He could probably eat two and Papa wouldn’t need to know what became of the others. “Be sensible.”
“Sidney.” Aunt Yates set down her fork. “Do you really not like eggs?” She tipped her head like it would help her see him better.
“They are not my first choice,” her father mumbled.
“Why didn’t you say s
o?” Ignoring her aunt’s astonishment, Mary picked up the dish and sailed out the door, warning them not to expect her until luncheon.
“So many?” Samuel said, when she brought him the plate of eggs.
“I’m sorry,” Mary said, “But I couldn’t leave them with Papa. They give him indigestion. What we really need is a dog.”
Samuel clutched his chest in mock pain. “Mary!”
She grinned at him. “Eat as many as you like and hide the rest in your coffee pot. Cook will know what to do with them. Make sure you take a good breakfast. I want you well and writing again.”
“I submit once again to your will,” Samuel murmured, taking up his fork.
“Good,” Mary said.
“You like the feeling?” Samuel asked.
Mary unfolded his napkin. “I’m starting to believe I could be a tyrant given half a chance. You’re well rid of me, Samuel.”
He smiled at her. “Not so well. But well enough. If you change your mind—”
“I can’t stay,” Mary interrupted him. “I’m on my way out. But I will see you again soon.”
Mary kept a wary eye out the carriage window, nervously smoothing her gloves. She wasn’t sure which she dreaded more, insurrection or confronting Neil Murray. He had to be here. It was true, he relied upon the love of his family, and if by some lucky chance, he was disappointed in her, he might have gone north for a spell to seek relief. But he wouldn’t have left London without telling Samuel.
When they stopped in front of the house Mary inspected herself. Gloves, fastenings, hair, bonnet: all seemed in order, on the outside at least. “Wait here for me,” Mary instructed the coachman. If Neil was out, she might have to await his return, or go after him. Until she knew, she must keep the carriage ready. Neil would be here, though. Fate couldn’t expect her to endure this uncertainty twice. She might not be able to repeat it. “I’ve been such a fool,” she whispered.
If Neil loved her he must have done so for some time, only she’d been too stupid to see. Perhaps with his kiss he’d tried to show her. It had felt—oh, she couldn’t say, only it had felt, and that frightened her, and she’d clung to her dream of Samuel even more. After rejecting Neil in Bath and accepting Samuel right in front of him, she deserved to be sent away with a flea in her ear. The prospect terrified her.