by Joan Smith
I could hardly listen to his chatter. I kept seeing that saucy madonna, smiling at me in a knowing way surely never used by any madonna. It excited me strangely, touched off some responsive chord in that muddled mind of mine. I wanted to get away and think. I was little enough addition to the polite tea table chatter. We soon left, with Mr. Gwynne urging us to return, promising to show us more treasures, scattered about in rooms abovestairs.
“So you’ve been to Italy as well as Germany,” Sir Ludwig said as we went down to the carriage. “I hope you hadn’t come directly from one of those foreign shores before you fell off that stage, or we’ll never find out who you are.”
“I’m not sure about Germany.”
“It don’t rain in libraries, where people look at pictures of houses, Miss Smith. What is it about this madonna has you excited? Is it the thing’s age?”
“No. No, it’s not that.”
“Is it very valuable?”
“If it were all put together. . . but it’s not that. It’s more the mystery of it. The fact of its being broken up and the pieces scattered.” But of course it wasn’t that, either.
“What interests me is how our friend Lippi convinced a knowing gent like Cosimo he was painting anything other than a trollop. It must be a sacrilege to give a madonna so much the appearance of a baggage.”
“Cosimo was strangely tolerant of Fra Lippi’s pranks. He stopped locking him in his studio when he sneaked out the window on a sheet. But he was ill employed to do sacred paintings.”
He shook his head as we entered the carriage. “I feel it bizarre you remember such obscure facts, and can’t recall your own name. We’ll put notices in the papers, giving a description of you and where you are to be located.”
“No!”
“Why not?” he asked, blinking.
I felt deeply troubled, agitated to the marrow of my bones. “Not yet,” I prevaricated.
“My dear girl, if you come from some far distant corner of the kingdom such as Cornwall or Scotland, we will never learn who you are. It must be done. Too much time has been wasted already.”
“It can’t do any harm to wait a few more days. Let me think—try to remember. Please!” There was a wildly desperate note in my voice. I heard it with wonder, and so, I fear, did Sir Ludwig. I couldn’t help it. I was afraid.
“Have you been telling me the truth?” he asked baldly. “Are you in some sort of trouble? Have you done something foolish—stolen something?” His hands gestured vaguely to denote his inability to categorize my crime.
“No! I don’t think so. It’s not like that. It’s worse than that.”
“Good God, you haven’t killed someone!” he shouted.
“Don’t be absurd.” But I felt a moisture spring out on my forehead and between my shoulderblades here in the cool carriage. I nearly fainted for the awful feeling of doom that came over me. I felt weak, trembling. Was it only Fell’s ‘fear of the unknown’ that distressed me so?
Sir Ludwig said no more on the matter, but tucked the blanket around me to stop my shivering. “I had planned to go on into the village and pick up some newspapers. It would save having the horses put to again. You have no objection? There might be some mention of you.”
“Please do it,” I said, recovering rapidly at this indication he would not blazon my story across the news sheets.
“If you remember anything, anything at all, tell me. I cannot believe you have run seriously afoul of the law. Darting away from home for one reason or another is more like it. I want you to promise you will tell me.”
“I will.”
I don’t know what he could have been thinking. My reactions certainly indicated guilt. “We’ll speak of other things,” he went on. “This distresses you too much. You will be wanting to pick up a few personal items in Wickey I imagine. Why don’t you do that while I arrange to have newspapers sent to me?”
“I do need things, but I have no money.”
“You can repay me when you discover your family, if it will make you feel better.”
“What if I never do?”
“Then you will have a long time to work off the debt,” he pointed out reasonably, refusing to comfort me with sympathy. I had never found the German people to be overly encumbered with sympathy. Their loud voices might give rise to the notion they are emotional, but the voice is more likely to be raised in anger, or even cheer. Not sympathy.
“Your sister will not require a governess for the rest of her life,” I returned, taking up his practical tone.
“By the time Abbie is popped off, Annie will need a keeper. You must allow me to apologize for her. She was a dear when she was more herself, younger. She still is at times, but she becomes senile, or mischievous. I’m not at all sure she couldn’t keep herself under better control if she wanted. It must be wonderful to be able to blurt out whatever is in your head, and know you will be excused for it, however outrageous.”
I had not observed Sir Ludwig to use much restraint on his tongue, but I didn’t feel like an argument. “Does she really believe in ghosts?”
“Only since she discovered it irks me.”
We were driving past my Damascus again, and again I looked at the place helplessly. “You wouldn’t—you couldn’t possibly have been coming to see me that night you got down from the stage?” he asked, frowning. “I am a mile farther away than Gwynn, and as you were not going there—is it possible you were en route to Granhurst? The house seemed familiar to you . . .”
“I don’t think so. Were you expecting someone?”
“No. When you run out of sane ideas you start coming up with nonsensical ones. Now what was a well-traveled lady with a good knowledge of art doing on the stage to Winchester—or possibly on to London. More peculiarly, why did she get off that stage, in the middle of a storm?” We sat in silence for a long minute. “I wonder if you weren’t going to anywhere in particular, but getting off the stage because of some danger there. Maybe you recognized someone on it—or took the notion that whoever was going to meet you represented danger . . .” He looked for signs of acceptance of these theories.
I regarded him disconsolately. “Well, dammit, there must have been some reason!” he shouted, turning German on me again. “The only thing that has interested you in the least is that painted door. Is it possible you were going to see it?”
This I could credit. I had strong feelings about it, but the facts didn’t bear me out. “Gwynne says not.”
“We should have asked him if he was in contact with any lady about it. We didn’t ask him that specifically. I’ll go back later, or send him a note.”
We reached the village and had the carriage stabled at the inn. It was my first public foray into Wickey. I had met several of the inhabitants at the rectory, but never gone out. Knowing I was a subject of lively gossip, I was reluctant to venture into the shops. Some of these feelings must have been evident on my face. “Do you want me to go with you?” he asked.
“No thank you.” His presence while I purchased undergarments and personal articles would be no better than facing the hordes of Wickey alone.
“I’ll tell them at the drapery shop you are with me, and are to use my account, to preclude any unpleasantness on that score,” he mentioned. Harper’s was called a drapery shop, but had expanded over the years to include a great diversity of articles. It was the only large shop in Wickey, actually.
Sir Ludwig was greeted by a servile clerk, fawning on him and doing everything but licking his boots. He was a good spender, then. The clerk prepared to attach himself to my elbow once our business was explained. Kessler got rid of him very effectively. “That will be all, thank you,” he said, and turned away from the man to give me instructions. “Don’t feel obliged to restrict yourself to navy bombazine, Miss Smith. Buy something to do justice to your silken petticoats, and your Continental travels.” He left before I could fashion a setdown to this piece of impertinence. Knew very well he had been bold too, to judge from the haste with which he remov
ed himself from my tongue.
The shop held only one other customer, a woman not known to me, though she suspected my identity. When I saw her whispering in the corner with the clerk I made sure her suspicions were being confirmed. But as she contented herself to spy on me from an aisle away, I ignored her. I also took my host’s advice. I bought a dainty pair of patent slippers that fit beautifully. I was surprised to find such a good quality in Wickey. I also bought the necessary items of undergarments and a bolt of pretty green shot silk, with gold for piping and buttons. Reckless with Kessler’s credit, I helped myself to a nice paisley fringed shawl to pretty up my navy bombazine till the green should be made up, and got some tortoiseshell combs and ribbons of various colors for my hair. The cosmetics counter lured me into other purchases—a bottle of Denmark lotion, a new soap from Austria that had to be whipped up like cream before it was applied, a box of powder, a bottle of scent. Not the average purchases of a governess, but surely required to match my petticoats. Imagine, my petticoats were a subject of local gossip! How Ivor would hate it, I thought with a smile, then came abruptly up against this new name. Who was Ivor that he should care my petticoats were discussed? No face, no relationship followed the name. A father, brother, beau, husband? No—I wore no wedding ring. Fiancé, perhaps? A fiancé would feel a proprietary interest in his bride’s petticoats.
Sir Ludwig was back in three-quarters of an hour, before I had half finished looking around, with a load of newspapers in his arms, and the word that he had left an order for future issues at the office of the stage. “All set?” he asked briskly.
I had some thoughts of picking up a pair of galoshes, new gloves and several other trifles, but a glance to the mound of items to be presented to him, sitting on the counter already wrapped and a bill beside them, caused me to reconsider. “All set,” I answered. “Those few things there.” His eyes widened at the sight, and I thought it a good time to rush on with my single piece of memory, to distract him.
“Oh, by the way, I have remembered something,” I said, piling his arms high.
“I can’t carry any more. We’ll have to come back,” he said, impatiently.
“No, it’s not that! I remember Ivor.”
“Ivor who?” he asked with interest. The trick worked nicely. He hardly glanced at the bill before nodding at it and saying to the clerk it was fine.
“Well I haven’t remembered his last name yet.” I dashed ahead to hold the door open. “But when I thought of everyone talking about my petticoats, it suddenly struck me that Ivor would not like it. He must be someone close to me. A fiancé, I thought he might be.”
“Maybe a brother.”
“Possibly, but would a brother care about that?”
“I would dislike to have Abigail’s petticoats discussed in quite the public way yours have been.”
“Isn’t it horrid? A person has absolutely no privacy when she is in such a position as I am. I daresay the whole village will know before nightfall that I bought two ells of green silk, and a bottle of Denmark Lotion.”
“Several other items as well,” he pointed out, shifting the load. I took some newspapers that were slipping from beneath the bags.
“I—I had no hairbrush, you see, only a comb Miss Wickey lent me, and my shoes were too big, and one can’t hobble along on one pair of stockings or—or other things that have to be washed so often.”
“Very true. The town will now have the satisfaction of knowing what goes under the petticoats, and what you wear to bed.”
“You’d think people would have better things to do than gossip so.”
“The cats haven’t been so happy in an age. The McCurdles will be in despair to have missed your shopping spree. I fancy Miss Gretch is on her way there now to report. She was in the shop I noticed.”
“Odious people will always talk and make a to-do over nothing. It is always like that.” My companion discerned no importance in the speech, but I suddenly knew this was not the first time I had been gossiped about. I was used to it, in fact. I had been held up as a bad example before. I was becoming immensely interested in myself, quite as a separate entity from Miss Smith.
“Let’s get home. I’m starved,” Sir Ludwig said prosaically.
“After that huge breakfast?” I asked, with more than polite surprise in my voice. It was time to begin the family’s diet.
“I don’t call that a huge breakfast—only gammon and three eggs.”
“And four muffins! But then you are a large man,” I added, hoping to imply he was larger than was pleasing. He was not fat to be sure, but there was a certain bulkiness that could be trimmed to advantage. I always preferred lithe, elegant gentlemen.
“Thank you,” he answered, mistaking it for a compliment! It was a little early in our acquaintance to disillusion him, and a poor time too, with his arms holding my shopping. “You ought to eat a little more,” he suggested, with a speculative glance over the parcels at my cape, which was all concealing. If he had a memory at all, he knew what was beneath it. He had looked hard enough the night before at the rectory. “You are a little thin.”
“I was considering going on a diet,” I answered, astonished.
“The proper diet will build you up. You don’t require more than ten pounds to be the right size.”
I was too nonplussed to reply, but with a memory of his preferred painting, the bulging Rubens lady, I think he had a poor notion of what ten pounds would do to my figure. Fifty was more like it!
Chapter Five
When we sat down to luncheon, it was clear Cousin Annie was also starved, and bent on satisfying her hunger with nothing but bread and sweets. It was quite simply frightening to watch her make a meal of bread and honey, while meat and cheese sat on the table, untasted. As she was on the downward path to senility, I did not feel she required all the tact and respect accorded to the normally aged. I judiciously slipped the honey beyond her reach; when she asked for it, I passed along the cheese instead, as though by error.
She smiled at me indulgently. “That is cheese, Rose,” she told me. “I want honey.”
“So much of it is not good for you,” I told her, and continued pressing forward the cheese.
She first shot an angry glance at me from those bright blue eyes, but I smiled blandly, and then a crafty look came over her face. “If you say so, Rose,” she said, and took a slice of cheese. She informed Abigail in a loud aside, “We must humor her, poor thing, till she gets her mind back.”
With this idea in my pocket, I quite insisted she try a slice of the mutton. In this, too, she humored me, as I humored her by calling it bacon, which sent her off into trills of delighted laughter. “Have some bacon, Lud,” she said, passing the mutton along to him with a broad wink.
“Sir Ludwig has already had bacon,” I told her, with a look to his plate, where a thick slice still sat. Encouraging him to eat more was a mile from my mind. But he had not tumbled to my hint, and took another slice, which I could not well prevent.
I concentrated on Annie during that meal, with good success. Under my eye, Abbie too was eating heavily, but till I got to know her a little, I would wait. Kessler regarded me closely, first with surprise at my gall, but as he realized it was working so well, the surprise turned to tolerant amusement. At the meal’s conclusion he said to me, “If you call the French lesson German you will induce my sister to partake of it as painlessly as Annie the mutton.”
As it turned out, it was less painful than that. Of course it wasn’t much of a lesson. At no time was it la plume de ma soeur sur le bureau de mon frère. Nor did we get right down to nasty irregular verbs and subjunctives, but conversed in French, with myself correcting her pronunciation and vocabulary, also her ideas, upon occasion, though to be sure this had nothing to do with French. Had she ever been exposed to French haute couture, however, she would not have expressed such a lively appreciation for a ghastly cerise gown with black ribbons. We had our lesson over my purchases and her fashion magazines. And why
not? A lady is as likely to be discussing fashions as any more serious matter in either French or English.
The precise matter under discussion was a pattern to go with my green shot silk. Abbie’s selection of a gown with a plunging neckline and no sleeves was a trifle risqué for a sometime governess. I chose, instead, a modest model that I fully intended garnishing with all manner of lace and ribbons. It was an afternoon gown, fitted, with long sleeves. I had no pattern of any kind, but allowed myself, in my eagerness to get on with it, to be convinced none was necessary. Abbie measured me, thus providing an excellent chance to review our numbers in French, along with various parts of the anatomy. I also expressed, in English to be sure she didn’t miss the point, horror at the largeness of my dimensions, which were a good several inches smaller than her own. I expostulated on the impossibility of appearing elegant with a full figure.
“Lud likes a well-rounded figure,” she told me. “He thinks I am just right, and he used to call me scarecrow when I was thinner.”
A bit tricky convincing her her brother was old-fashioned, but a conscientious pointing out of the slender models in the magazines who looked so well in the gowns made her bite her lip in indecision. “I mean to shed five pounds in any case,” I concluded.
“Maybe I should, too,” she decided. It was a start.
I wondered during the afternoon how Annie was amusing herself. Abigail, with whom I nearly instantly achieved a first-name basis, told me it was her custom to either sleep or talk to Adeline. Talking to Adeline indicated she was prowling in my room, but with my precious purchases still in bags before me on the table, there was little enough mischief she could do there. I didn’t give a thought to Sir Ludwig. A man would have his own business to attend to, but when he entered the parlor where we worked some hours later, it turned out he had devoted himself to my problem. He was carrying the armful of papers purchased in Wickey.
“I don’t see anything about you in here,” he said, dumping them on top of my green silk. “Maybe you’d like to have a look later.”