by Joan Smith
It had been an upsetting interview. With my nerves in tatters, I did not notice at first which door he was walking through. Not till he was actually into the hall did I recall the surprise awaiting him there. I heard an anguished howl, not unlike the squeal emitted by a stuck pig. It was Menrod, catching his first glimpse of the brass railing, the white paint, the gold rosettes.
“What have you done? What is this—abhorrence?” he demanded. His face looked like a death mask, save that the eyes were wide open.
The fire screen cut down on the light coming from the front of the house. He pushed it aside, to stand staring in horror at the work, while I swiftly considered whether to tell him it was a mistake that would be undone at once, or to claim purposeful authorship of the foul deed. My own mood was angry enough to consider the latter, but in the end I told the truth.
“There was a little mistake,” I said mildly.
“A little mistake? A little mistake? No, madam, there was a gross crime perpetrated against architecture, art, and history. I’ll sue him, I know who is responsible for this heinous—thing. Not even you, with all your lack of taste, your yellow tables and chairs and your potted weeds, could have devised anything so ugly. This is the work of Everett. Don’t trouble to deny it. I have seen Oakdene. I recognize his hand in this. How dare you despoil this gem of a cottage?”
Without another word, he stalked out the door, to encounter two men carrying in a bolt of red carpet for the stairs. He knocked it out of their hands, making some loud but indistinguishable sound of threat. Whatever he said, it had the effect of getting the red carpet back onto the cart that stood at the door.
Mama, who has the magical ability to disappear at times of turmoil, came tripping down the stairs. “Was that Menrod?” she asked fearfully.
“It certainly was.”
“Did he see the stairs?”
“Yes, he saw them.”
“I suppose he doesn’t care for them.”
“He spoke of suing Mr. Everett.”
* * *
Chapter 6
Menrod did not carry out his threat to sue. Instead he went storming down to Oakdene to ring a peal over Mr. Everett. That same day, the carpenters returned to remove the abhorrence. Mama, with tears in her eyes, asked if she might have the bannister and railings and gilt-trimmed panels for a souvenir, as they were bought and paid for (but not by us).
“They will be here, if Mr. Everett finds a use for them at home,” I told the workers. No doubt they would end up on his attic staircase.
A piece of wood of the proper age and size was found hidden on some wall at the church. Menrod worked some trick to get it removed to the cottage, and boarded back up the stairs with it. Mama repined loud and long; I was happy the thing was done without resort to law.
One legal case was enough to handle at a time. I did not draw back from the battle for custody of the children. It had become a feud, a battle of wills and wits between us. I was required to resort to an inferior lawyer, owing to my shortage of funds, as I naturally had no intention of dunning Mr. Everett for help.
My man was named Mr. Culligan. He had done work in London for ten years, which led me to hope he knew what he was about. He had a dingy office on a second story of a side street in Reading, to which I went with my mother. It had been necessary to talk her back into wanting the children. This was accomplished by their absence. Menrod did not bring them to see us again, nor did we take the drive up to the Manor during the dispute.
Judicious repetitions of his wretched character were less effectual than the boarded-up stairs in gaining her support. She had taken such a fancy to the brass dragon that she was very much vexed to lose it. A man who would condemn her to a lifetime of dark stairs was obviously no fit guardian for Hettie’s children.
Two days after Menrod’s visit to the conservatory, we took the drive into Reading. Mr. Culligan was a tall, extremely thin man with ginger-colored hair. He had a prominent nose, splotched with broken veins, and a narrow face. He wore an outdated jacket of some cheap blue material. His cuffs were frayed, his watch chain pinned to his waistcoat, his boots down at the heels, but he seemed capable enough despite these signs of poor business.
Customers do not run to the door of any but local-born professionals in Reading. It would be his London sojourn that accounted for his scarcity of clients, but I knew Menrod would hire a top city man, and did not want a country bumpkin pitted against him.
I outlined the situation to him, making much of Gwendolyn being my name-child, and the closeness between her mother and myself. He asked me three times whether I was quite sure there was no will leaving the children in Menrod’s guardianship; when I convinced him there was not, he wished to know whether there was something which might be considered a letter of intent, a letter from Lord Peter in which some intimation had been given that Menrod was to consider himself their custodian. Knowing what a poor correspondent Peter was, and feeling it unlikely Menrod would have kept any chance missile that happened to infer anything of the sort, I told him no. He clucked and shook his ginger head, and finally advised me not to sue for custody.
“The courts will favor his lordship,” he said comprehensively. “He is a man, a peer, in a position to do everything for them.”
“He is a lecher,” I declared, equally comprehensively.
His greenish eyes widened at this telling speech. “Ah—a bad character. This is more like it,” he said, rubbing his hands together in glee. “We will need some evidence,” he went on. “Could you just give me some names and places of abode?”
I found myself reluctant to utter the name of Mrs. Livingstone. Not that she is any great bosom bow of mine; I do not know the woman but to nod to her on the street, after having met her there so many times over the past few years, yet it seemed a hard thing to blacken her character. “Any number of women in London,” I said, hoping to dismiss the evidence in this vague way.
“That’ll cost us something, to go to London and have him followed. It is the client, that being yourself, Miss Harris, who will be paying rack and manger for either a hired snoop or myself.”
“Why, that is not necessary, Wendy,” Mama objected. “There is Mrs. Livingstone living in state in that grand brick house on the river, not a mile away from here.”
I opened my mouth to shush her, but Culligan’s hand was already flying across the page, while he mentioned it would be better still if we could give him another name or two. “I don’t know that one mistress would blacken his character, him being a bachelor, you see. It might be what you call an extenuating circumstance.”
“Might be?” I asked. “Don’t you know for sure? You are a lawyer.”
“Each case is unique. I have never had one just like this before. It is his lordship being a lord that clouds my understanding. Not to say the law is different for the rich and titled, but if he managed to get a jury of his peers, you see, they would certainly see nothing amiss in a bachelor having a fancy. They would think him a rum touch if he had not. If you could tell me something in his background that is really wicked, we would have a stronger case. You wouldn’t happen to know if he molests children—that would be an excellent point. Or we could use beating his servants, insisting on having his way with the serving wenches—any sort of perversion in particular would be entirely helpful to us.”
“No! Good gracious, no! He is not a monster of depravity. He is only inconsiderate of the children’s day-to-day comfort. I do not want you asking such questions as that of his friends.”
“I deal subtle-like,” he assured me.
I next mentioned Peter’s inheritance of ten thousand pounds, which would provide them a more comfortable home than Lady Anne’s cottage, lest Menrod use that against me.
“Aha!” Culligan said, his lips splitting in a smile. “It is their blunt he’s after. That is an excellent point. Would you happen to know if he’s ever got money from anyone else by these underhanded means?”
“Certainly he has not! It is n
ot the children’s money he is after, either. That was not my meaning. Really, I think you are going at this the wrong way, Mr. Culligan. I do not want Menrod traduced so wantonly as you are doing.” I was beginning to consider dropping the case entirely, or the lawyer, at least.
“Now I see you are vexed with me,” he said. “You must not think because I speak very frankly to you within these walls that I will shout the same questions about the countryside, Miss Harris. Client privilege—what you say to me here will never be uttered by me outside. It is my duty, as your lawyer, to do my best to win the case for you. You may be sure Menrod is following the same course with his man, in having your character looked into. It is the normal way of going on. Law is a messy business, but we’ll wrap the whole up in a clean linen when the time comes to go public. Don’t take another pique, but I really must enquire whether there is anything in your own background that don’t bear scrutiny. No liaisons, never run afoul of the law, paid your debts all up proper, and so on, have you?”
“My character is good,” I said, incensed, though I knew the question was necessary.
“We owe the greengrocer two pounds,” Mama reminded me.
This naive statement convinced Culligan we were a pair of angels. He went into a merry peal of laughter. It was a long, distasteful interview. I was told to go through my correspondence with Hettie, for I had kept her letters, and discover whether there was anything indicating I should be the children’s guardian in case they were orphaned. I knew there was nothing of the sort, but he insisted I check.
I felt as though I had been rolling in a gutter when we finally got out into the clean sunshine. There was something depraved about the visit.
“You did not tell him about the stairs, Wendy,” was my mother’s first comment. “That shows a bad streak in his character, to make Mr. Everett take them out, when they were so much better than the old.”
“I fear that is a mark against us, rather than Menrod. We agreed not to change his house, and we broke our agreement. I will find those demmed old pokers and tongs this day, and restore them as well.”
“This is not the time to take up swearing, my dear, when that wretched man is having us investigated. We did not give our usual plum cake to the church bazaar last Christmas, either, when Mrs. Pudge had the cold. That is bound to come up, and cause a scandal. But then, your papa was a minister of the church, the best man who ever drew breath. That will have some weight in our favor. Three livings—a very successful minister.”
Three livings was the very thing to turn the common folks against us, smacking of privilege and even of a grasping nature. Every minutia of our simple lives was put under scrutiny, the process continuing long after we got home.
“Are we to have control of the kiddies?” Mrs. Pudge asked when we were admitted.
“I fear it will be a long process,” I told her. I was coming to see it would also be expensive. Culligan would wear a new shirt with unfrayed cuffs now, if he wished, and a proper chain and fob for his watch too.
“Never worry about it, Miss Wendy,” she said, taking pity on me in my affliction. “I have been looking it up in my Psalter, given to me by your dear papa, and have found succor. The wicked man, in his pride, may persecute the poor—aye, boast of his heart’s desire to get hold of our children, but he'll never do it. God that sits in His heaven won’t allow it. He shall laugh at the ungodly. Our Gwen and Ralph will be laying their dear little heads to rest here before you can bat an eye.”
“I hope so, Mrs. Pudge.”
“I’ll bring you both a cup of tea this very instant. You look as worn out as a pair of old shoes. I would have had it ready for you, but that old devil cat of Menrod’s has been chasing my Lady again, the bounder. Something is wrong with the world when I have to keep her locked inside the house to preserve her from the scoundrel. Speaking of which, Mr. Everett was here. He left you off a note.”
She brought the note with the tea. Both were delightful. The note informed us that Menrod was seen passing Oakdene in his traveling carriage, obviously en route to London. Some fine-honed questioning in town had confirmed this suspicion, which he knew would be good news for us. He added that the children were not with him.
I sat right down at my desk and wrote to Culligan, telling him that already Menrod had abandoned the children. When Pudge returned from delivering the note for us, he had a reply from Culligan, a letter containing such an outrageous and brilliant idea that my opinion of the man rose higher. It was couched in confusing legal jargon, as so many of his speeches were, but the gist of it was that I should kidnap the children, bring them to Lady Anne’s cottage, while I had the chance. He assured me I would be immune from legal action, as Menrod had no more real right to them than I. Till custody had been granted by the court, the children were in fact wards of the court. In a prosaic vein, he added that possession was nine points of the law, though he could find no actual precedent in his books for this common knowledge.
Mama was extremely doubtful about the wisdom of this course, but when both Mrs. Pudge and her husband lauded it, she was talked around.
“Didn’t the good Lord send an archangel to lead the baby Jesus away from Herod?” Mrs. Pudge demanded of Mama. There was no denying such an oft-told tale. “Miss Wendy will lead those innocent babes of Miss Hettie’s home to safety too. We’ll have all the heathen in derision by the time he gets back, with the doors barred,” she added, causing some little doubt as to who were the heathens in the case.
To tell the truth, I felt as guilty as one when I drove up to Menrod Manor and presented myself to the butler under the pretext of taking Gwen and Ralph for a drive.
“Lord Menrod did not forbid it, I trust?” I asked, with a smile. “He assured me I might see them as often as I wished. He would not have hired a governess yet, I assume, so they will not be at their books.”
“Oh, no, Miss Harris, not yet. He has gone up to London for the purpose,” the butler told me.
“Did he say how long he would be gone?”
“He will return as soon as his business is complete—a few days, he mentioned.”
“Who is looking after the children in the meanwhile?”
“Mrs. Butte, the housekeeper, has them in her charge. They are with some of the servant girls at the moment, having a game of skittles.”
The children were not so happy as one could have wished to be taken away from their game. “Good afternoon, Auntie,” Gwen said. Ralph said nothing. He crossed his ankles and stuck his thumb into his mouth, a trick I had not noticed before. I told him to remove it and get his jacket to come with me for a drive.
“Where are we going?” Gwen asked.
“To visit your grandma,” I answered.
“Does she have some cakes today?”
“Of course she has. If you are very good, we shall give you some.”
The bribe got them out the door without resorting to violence, though Gwen had the poor manners to mention twice more that she was enjoying the game of skittles very much, and winning too.
They were made as welcome as the prodigal son at the cottage, where Mama and Pudge awaited their arrival. Mrs. Pudge was even then laboring over a plum cake to please them.
“May we have the cake now?” Gwen asked, when she had been seated for two minutes.
“It is only three o’clock,” I pointed out.
“You said we could have some, Auntie,” she reminded me.
Ralph stuck his thumb in his mouth and rested his head on the upholstered arm of the chair he sat in. “That is no way for a little gentleman to behave in company,” I told him.
“Ralph is hungry,” his sister told me, wearing a sly little smile. Hettie had used to have a very similar expression, which had faded from my memory over the years. Nature is kind; she lets us hold onto what is dear, and fades the less beguiling memories.
“Then Ralph shall have an apple,” I answered.
“Uncle Menrod lets us have cake,” she answered.
“Does
he give you sweets whenever you want them?” I asked, thinking I might have a bit of poor rearing practice here for Culligan to use. A despicable trick, I know, but this was war.
“No, he doesn’t,” Ralph said dismally. “He makes us eat gruel for breakfast, and beefsteak for lunch. It will make us strong.”
“Can we play skittles till teatime?” was Gwen’s next speech.
“We do not have any skittles, dear. Would you like to look at some books instead?” I asked.
“I don’t like books. Have you got any more of Mama’s dolls?”
“No, I gave you her only doll. Do you like to draw?”
This proved acceptable. For full five minutes she sat and drew, insisting at every stroke of the pen that we all gather and admire her squiggles. The child was deplorably spoiled; she required a firm hand, and I had one ready and willing to trim her into line, but first I must cozzen her along by more pleasant manners. After ten minutes, Mama had the inspired idea of sending her to the kitchen to help Mrs. Pudge make the cake. I breathed a sigh of relief to see the back of her, tossing her curls as she hastened out.
My interest then turned to Ralph. “Can I go to the stables?” he asked timidly.
“Let us wait till after tea.”
“After tea we will be going home.”
“Not immediately after tea. Would you like to stay here tonight, Ralph?” Mama asked.
He considered this a while. “No, thank you, Grandma,” he answered, but not in his sister’s saucy way. “I am learning to ride the wooden horse Uncle Menrod got me. I will go home and ride it after tea. Uncle says when I learn to ride like a proper cavalier, he will get me a real pony.”
“Not for a few years, I hope!” Mama exclaimed.
“Papa was riding when he was four.”
“That is much too young. It is dangerous,” she told him, her cheeks blanching.
“I am not afraid. I am not afraid of anything. Except the dark, and the water. Mama and Papa were killed in the water,” he told us, his eyes shining with fear.