Lady Disdain

by Michelle Morrison

  “Miss Eleanor is actually Lady Eleanor. She is the daughter of the Earl of Chalcroft. Her parents…ah, weren’t aware she was here in Southwark. Now that they know, I’m sure they’ll not wish her to live here even if she does continue our work. And more importantly, she’s recently become betrothed. I cannot imagine once she’s wed her husband will allow her to continue working.”

  Dr. Kendall hung up the square of linen. “You might be surprised. There are some men who find an independent woman quite appealing.”

  Sarah laughed and then considered that Alex Fitzhugh—Eleanor’s betrothed—had not grown up in the nobility and had forged his own way in business. If any man might be radical enough to accept a wife with her own vocation, it might be he. Still, she didn’t hold out much hope.

  “Well, only time will tell,” she said prosaically. “In the meantime, if you could make up a list of supplies you need most, I will endeavor to acquire them as soon as our funds arrive.”

  Dr. Kendall laughed. “How very English you are, Miss Draper.”

  She frowned. “What did I say?”

  He affected an English accent and imitated her. “I shall endeavor to acquire them.”

  “What should I have said?” Sarah asked, perplexed. She flattened her tone in an attempt at an American accent. “I’ll do my best to get my hands on them?”

  Dr. Kendall laughed again. “Touché.”

  As he saw Sarah out, he said, “One day Southwark will lose you too. You’ll want to start a family of your own.”

  “The people of The Mint are my family,” she said tightly.

  Dr. Kendall started to say something else but Sarah nodded and quickly said, “Good day, Doctor.”

  She felt the rigidity in her body as she wove through the maze of Southwark streets to the plain building in which she had her set of rooms. Once inside, she removed her bonnet and threadbare gloves and shoved open a window to relieve the stuffiness. Her stomach reminded her she’d had nothing to eat since morning but instead of looking for a bit of bread, she stared out the window as dusk settled over the city, softening the broken edges of Southwark and hiding the ugliness of its poverty in the soft periwinkle light.

  She didn’t know why Dr. Kendall’s parting words had upset her so much except that perhaps she was simply a bit emotional from her ruminations about Eleanor’s imminent departure.

  Marriage would never be in her future. A family was an unattainable dream.

  Sarah pressed clenched fists to her midriff as she stared into the deepening gloom. The scent of fish frying from the floor below made her hungry stomach clench, but in her mind she could smell the dusky fragrance of Sweet William and stock in the meadows of her family home as she’d laid in the sun warmed grass staring at the early evening stars winking on and holding the hand of the man she’d thought she would marry.

  Peter Greene was the only son of Sir Nathaniel Greene, the local baronet. Sarah had known him since she was a child, when she was a gangly gap-toothed girl and Peter a pimply faced boy. There had been a small band of children who had played together, exploring Aylesbury Vale until their parents had deemed it inappropriate for boys and girls to spend so much time together. Sarah and Peter had always gotten on particularly well but they’d not seen one another while Peter was away at university and then serving in the Army. In the years he was away, Sarah had lost her coltish clumsiness and her smile had filled in. She’d also stopped climbing trees and making mud pies, though she still took long walks through her childhood haunts.

  The intervening years had matured Peter too. Physically he was broad shouldered and fit. The horrors of war had softened his caustic sense of humor and heightened his awareness of the feelings of others.

  When they met again at a ball the baronet hosted in honor of his son’s return, it was as if all the stars had aligned to create an ambiance tailor-made for the two childhood friends to fall in love.

  Hundreds of candles illuminated the Greene’s house, casting a golden shimmer upon the guests. An orchestra hired out from Oxford filled the air with sweet melodies and enticed dancers to the hall cleared of furniture. Peter wore his dress uniform, scarlet red wool with silver embellishments across the chest and a high stiff collar. Though his beard was clipped close and his hair trimmed neatly, his eyes held a wildness that betrayed his discomfort with the loud celebration and constant congratulations…

  The sound of men yelling at one another in the street below startled Sarah and she leaned out to close the window. She remembered exactly how Peter had looked that night. Remembered how confident she had felt in her gown straight from a London modiste. She’d smoothed her velvet gown and surreptitiously pinched her cheeks to pinken them as she followed her parents across the room to greet Sir Greene and his family. She wondered if Peter would remember her and what he would think of how she’d grown up.

  She was watching him closely and so noticed the tense lines about his eyes ease slightly as her mother introduced her.

  “Sarah Draper? But this can’t be! There are no twigs in her hair and I can spy not a single rent in her gown.”

  Sarah’s mother was mortified at this accurate description of her daughter as a girl, but Sarah laughed aloud.

  “Peter Greene, how have you managed to grow a beard? Did you steal it off a French soldier?”

  Peter’s shout of laughter drew curious stares from around the room, but he ignored them, instead offering his arm to Sarah.

  “Actually it was off a Maratha warrior in India. Perhaps I may share the harrowing tale with you while we fetch some lemonade?”

  It was the most natural thing in the world to place her hand in the crook of his arm and allow him to lead her to the refreshment table. She stared at the lines of tension about his eyes and mouth, noticed when he handed her a glass that his hands shook. They chatted about little things like the temperature of the water in the Arabian Sea (“Like taking a bath! Not at all like trying to dip your toes in the Channel!”) to the status of Mr. Pepper’s ancient nag (“She’ll still try to take a bite out of you even if she can’t see, poor dear”). But throughout their easy conversation, Sarah felt that her old friend was strung as tightly as a violin string. When they’d run out of both small talk and lemonade, Sarah set her cup down and turned to him. She pondered how to gently draw him out but in the end decided on frankness.

  “Now tell me how you really are Peter. Out with it.”

  Peter looked at her with a quizzical smile. “I don’t know what you mean. I’m perfectly—”

  “No you’re not Peter. We may not have seen one another for many years, but I’ve known you since we were five. You are like blown glass, a jostle away from shattering. Talk to me.”

  He started to protest again, but as she stared at him in earnest, his expression crumbled, the smile melting into a grimace. He raised a trembling hand to cover his mouth but his anguish was evident in his tortured gaze. His breath came in rough bellows.

  Shocked, Sarah acted instinctively, grabbing his arm and steering him out of the nearby French door onto the wide terrace. Several people milled about and Sarah urged him around the corner of the house where the only illumination was the sporadic light of the moon as it ducked in and out of clouds.

  Peter walked to the balustrade and gripped it tightly. Sarah stood at his side, unsure if she should touch him, but wanting to help him if she could. He reminded her of a caged animal, desperate for escape. His breath came in short, rapid pants and a fine sheen of sweat covered his face. He scrubbed his hands through his hair, then pressed them into his eyes. After a few minutes, he inhaled deeply and spoke.

  “It was awful. Brutal. The worst.”

  “But I thought you were in the supply—“

  “I was at the front. I lied to my parents so they wouldn’t worry.”

  Sarah gasped and reached a tentative hand out to touch his. He pulled away, startled, then, as if realizing it was her, gripped her hand as if it were a lifeline.

  “They laugh
and comment how clever I was to obtain a safe position in the Army. They never wanted me to join, you know.”

  “I know,” she whispered.

  “And while they think I was filling out requisitions for sides of beef and crates of tea, I was holding my best friend’s innards in my hands while he died in a dusty trench in India.” He paused and when he spoke again, she could barely hear him. “That’s not even the worst of what happened to me.”

  Sarah felt her eyes fill with tears. “And you’ve told no one?”

  Even in the bleached white of moonlight, she could see the bleakness in his gaze.

  “I can’t believe I told you,” he rasped.

  “Of course you did. We shared everything when we were children.” She bit her lower lip, trying to decide how best to help him. “Now, once you collect yourself, we’ll go back inside and you’ll ask me to dance. I promise I’ve learned not to step on my partner’s feet.”

  “I can’t—“

  “Yes you can. Then I shall develop a terrible headache. My parents won’t want to leave, so you’ll offer to escort me home.”

  “But—“

  “We’ll take a maid with us as chaperone.” She smiled. “Can you believe we now need a chaperone?”

  He returned her smile with a shaky one of his own and she was pleased to see that the haunted expression had left his eyes.

  “Then when you return, you can sneak upstairs and avoid the rest of the party.”

  “You’ve figured it all out, haven’t you?”

  “Almost,” she replied. “Tomorrow we shall go for a nice long walk and you will tell me everything.”

  “No. I can’t. There’s too much—“

  “I shall bring my dog Whiskers. You remember him, don’t you? Anything that’s too awful to tell me, you can tell him. Nothing bothers him.”

  “You don’t understand. Talking makes it worse. It makes me want to—to—to do something drastic.”

  “We’ll just be quiet then.”

  He laughed harshly. “That makes it even worse.”

  “Then try talking, Peter. I won’t judge you. Whiskers certainly won’t. But it can’t be good to keep all that grief inside you.”

  He frowned, staring into the darkness. “A man should be able to contain his emotions. I should—”

  “Pish tosh,” she said impatiently. “Let’s meet out in nature. You know how much you used to love being outside when you were a boy. We’ll walk. Perhaps we’ll talk. You won’t be healed then, but you’ll be better. I promise.”

  The shadows in his eyes seemed to recede a bit and he gave her a weak smile. “You’re quite certain for a green girl of eighteen.”

  “How dare you, sir. I am nineteen as of last Tuesday.”

  “I know when you’re birthday is, imp. I was just teasing you.”

  “Good,” she said, because if he could still tease, there was hope for him.

  The following months found them strolling hours and miles around the lush green hills of Buckinghamshire.

  The locals gossiped that they were courting and Sarah would have agreed had they ever spoken about anything but the war. But their walks were spent with Peter talking about everything from how they managed laundry on the front to the Indian soldier he’d had to kill with his bare hands.

  “He wasn’t any older than my cousin Phillip,” he’d whispered in agony. “But I knew if I didn’t kill him, then he would kill me. He was that terrified.”

  Somethings he would whisper to her dog Whiskers while she sat at a distance beneath a tree or walked slowly behind.

  And then one day, he stopped talking.

  They were sitting beside a burbling stream that ran along the back of her family’s land and after he told her about having to eat a rat one dinner, he simply stopped talking.

  “Enough for today?” she asked with a smile. Sometimes he could only bear to revisit his memories for a short time.

  “No,” he replied.

  “No?” She smiled in confusion.

  “That’s enough. I’m done.” Then a smile dawned over his face, one that showed the boyish and relaxed man he had once been. “I’m done with the war. I’m sure it’s not done with me,” he said, a shadow of the attack he suffered that first night flicking through his gaze. “But I no longer wish to talk about it. I think—I think I have to force myself to move on.” He paused, studying her face as if seeing her for the first time. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

  “You’re welcome,” she said, equally quiet. They stared at one another for several moments. She saw the childhood friend he had once been, saw what looked like the promise of a future.

  He moved slowly, lifting his arms to cradle her face in his hands as if she was fragile, might break at the slightest move. She slowly closed her eyes as he drew near and kissed her. Softly at first, but when she leaned into him, he deepened the kiss, nibbling and licking at her lips until they parted and then plundering her mouth with greater ardor.

  From that day on, their walks always led to a secluded place where he would kiss her senseless, lavishing adoration on her mouth, neck, ears, breasts. Then one day, he made love to her in the sheltered green curtains of a weeping willow. Sarah never questioned their actions, never worried for the future. Of course they would marry. They’d known each other their whole lives. Even without the incredible bond of his sharing his war experiences with her they would have ended up together for they had never met another who understood them as well as they understood one another. Announcing a betrothal felt simply like a formality at this point. She knew they couldn’t delay indefinitely, but it was just so delicious to sneak away and enjoy those stolen moments of decadent passion…

  Sarah turned sharply from the window of her flat, a gasping sob escaping her. She pressed a fist to her mouth to prevent any more sounds escaping. She should eat something, she told herself firmly. She was growing maudlin and if she waited much longer, she would develop a headache that would not go away.

  She tore a chunk of bread off the linen-wrapped loaf in her cabinet. She lifted the lid off the pot on the cold stove and found there was still a bit of pea soup left from last night’s dinner. Not bothering to warm it, she simply dipped the dry bread in the soup and ate quickly. How Eleanor would ring a peal over her head for that. No matter how meager their meals, Eleanor always insisted they heat it properly and sit at the tiny, all-purpose table. It was one of the things she would miss most about her cousin—the way she forced Sarah to have a care for herself and find some enjoyment in each day. Without Eleanor’s influence, Sarah knew she was at risk of running herself into the ground with work. Such had been the case before Eleanor had appeared on her doorstep.

  Sara scraped up the last bit of soup with a bread crust. In honor of her cousin, she cleaned her teeth, washed her face, and brushed her hair the fifty strokes Eleanor insisted upon before climbing into bed and succumbing to a restless, dream-filled sleep.

  “Wake up sleepyhead!” Eleanor’s bright voice called.

  Sarah cracked one eyelid and saw that the window showed a sun well up in the sky.

  “Goodness, you’re not ill are you?” Eleanor asked, coming to lay a soft hand on Sarah’s forehead.

  “No, no,” she replied, swinging her legs off the bed. “I just didn’t sleep very well.”

  “Were the Johannsen boys drunk again?” Eleanor asked, lighting a small fire and putting a kettle on to boil. “I vow, I’ve never heard two men sing so loudly and be so off key as they do.”

  Sarah smiled and scrubbed her hands over her face. “No. Just too much on my mind, I suppose.”

  “Shall we make a list?” Eleanor asked. She picked up one of the slim notebooks in which Sarah tracked every penny she spent. “That seems to help settle your mind. Or should I say, you make a list.”

  Sarah took the notebook from Eleanor with another smile. Though her cousin had never told her the details behind it, Sarah knew that Eleanor had difficulty reading. She could write if pressed, and he
r penmanship, while cramped and lacking in punctuation, was surprisingly neat with sharp straight lines of letters completely lacking in flourishes.

  But as Sarah had a trunkful of her own secrets, she had never asked Eleanor about her difficulties and her cousin had not offered an explanation.

  “What are you doing here so early?” she asked.

  “It’s hardly early. It must be near eight o’clock.”

  Sarah looked at her cousin askance. It was true, their day usually began before dawn. Still... “It’s dreadfully early for a lady of the ton.” From her one foray into society at eighteen, Sarah knew it was quite common for debutantes to sleep until noon after having been at a ball until the wee hours of the morning.

  Eleanor waved her hand dismissively. “The past two years have ruined me for sleeping in, I fear. Besides, what use would I be to you, arriving after you’ve already served two meals?”

  Sarah rose and splashed water on her face, washing away the puffy grogginess from her eyes. Stepping behind the dressing screen, she began to pull on one of her two gowns. The brown serge was a far cry from the rich blue satin she’d borrowed a few weeks past, but it hid the magnitude of stains she acquired as she ran the soup kitchen and visited families with her basket of medicines, treating those ailments she was able.

  “You do know that I don’t expect you to continue working with me now that you are betrothed,” she called out as she buttoned up her bodice. “You’re starting a new life and your husband will wish you to be at home.” She emerged from behind the screen to see Eleanor looking at her tousled hair with horror.

  “I told you I didn’t sleep well. And yes, I did brush it last night.”

  “You didn’t tell me you then wrestled a hedgehog. And lost, by the looks of it. Sit,” Eleanor ordered. As she began to comb the tangles out of Sarah’s long dark locks, she said, “I told Mr. Fitzhugh that I intended to keep working here.”

  “You did what?” Sarah said, turning in the chair. Eleanor whacked her lightly on the head with the brush. “Ow!”