The Linnet Bird: A Novel

by Linda Holeman

  THE COPY OF The Proper Young Lady grew tattered. I had most of it memorized after a few months. How tedious it all was: etiquette for the parlor, etiquette for social calls, etiquette for meeting acquaintances on the street, etiquette for introductions—there appeared to be no end to the rules and expectations. At times my head swam with trying to keep it all straight—when to remove one’s bonnet and when to keep it on, likewise for gloves; never stooping to retrieve something that had dropped but waiting for a person of lesser standing to pick it up and return it; and especially—oh, especially, Mrs. Smallpiece warned me—the strict rules for dining.

  “There is nothing so indicative of good breeding as manners at the table,” she told me. “A lady may dress with style and carry herself on the street with dignity, and may sustain a decent conversation, but if she is not perfect at the table, dinner will betray her. While your manners—although where you learned them I’m sure I don’t know—are passable, they are definitely lacking in finesse.”

  Although wearisome, the lessons were simple things to learn when taken in small doses, and it pleased Mrs. Smallpiece that I responded favorably. As the months passed and I showed her that I was willing to follow her demands, she found less and less reason to berate me. Now and again I witnessed a small, tight smile cross her thin lips when I took over for her, pouring the tea and passing the sugar and cakes to callers on Saturday afternoons, or reading aloud to her in a pleasant voice from A Family Shakespeare—the only other book she was interested in besides her Bible. The book, the complete works of Shakespeare, had, by author Thomas Bowdler, been rewritten with all passages considered improper removed, so there was no fear of encountering any immorality.

  Mrs. Smallpiece also took pleasure in watching me work on tiny, delicate stitches to decorate lawn handkerchiefs as we sat before the fire of an evening. In my hands, damp with the effort of this unfamiliar work, the fabric grew wrinkled and limp, sometimes dotted with tiny pinpricks of blood as the needle stabbed my thumb instead of the handkerchief. And although I found the work numbingly boring, it afforded me a kind of quiet, rhythmic monotony that allowed my mind to wander to places far from Everton.

  Mrs. Smallpiece mistook my bent head as obedience; she thought she was converting me, and there is no one more sanctimonious than one who believes she has turned a sinner into a saint.

  OVER THIS TIME Shaker viewed me as neither sinner nor saint, or perhaps as a little of both.

  Not only did he never call me to his bed, he treated me with an oddly courteous respect. I knew he watched me when he thought I wasn’t looking, and I could tell, from the startled embarrassment on his face and his sudden turning away, that at times he grew aroused being near me. But he never acted in any way but as a perfect gentleman, and although I suspected that his affection for me was growing, I also knew that I didn’t know how to feel anything for a man. I knew men in one dimension, men like Ram Munt and Mr. Jacobs and the unspeakable man in the house on Rodney Street. It was a long and seemingly endless line of men, all alike. I knew Shaker wasn’t like them in spirit, but still, I couldn’t feel anything for him except a clumsy gratitude.

  I had immediately loved my job at the library, surrounded by books, and felt a definite thread of connection between my life as a child, near my mother at the bookbinders, and the life here. Thoughts of my mother came to me often now, along with the comfort of clean paper, the smell of ink, the order of one page after another: it created a deeply soothing quality. I knew she would have been proud of my work. But this life, no matter how I looked at it, was a lie, a posturing and deception. I did not wear the pendant.

  I sat hidden behind a high screen at a desk with my quill and ink and pile of books and recording cards all day, light streaming in from a small window on the wall behind me. I wasn’t to come out into the public area while there were members about, Mr. Ebbington informed me, but as part of the position I would be allowed, like Shaker, to sign out books as if I were a member, once the library was closed for the day.

  I waited for the closing of the library with anticipation every evening. The Argand lights on the polished and gleaming reading tables would be lit, sending soft shadows onto the graceful domed and pillared interior. There were scientific instruments and maps on display, as well as elegant long-case clocks and mahogany barometers. Under glass sat display books with their gold and silver clasps, their precious and valuable bindings in velvet and silk. The library collections, purchased or donated by its members, were wide ranging. I would wander through the sections—History, Voyages and Travel, Sciences, Government, Jurisprudence, Theology, and the largest section, Polite Literature—under which encyclopedias, heraldry, topography, poetry, drama, philosophical works, and novels and tales could be found. I paused among those quiet shelves and held books in my hands, inspecting their mottled or gilded edges, and ran my fingers over their covers. I inwardly rejoiced at the sensation of them, the cotton cloth with their ornamental characters, the embossed books with their patterns in relief, like cameos, and my fingers lingered especially on the costly and elaborate varieties of russian, moroccan, and calf bindings.

  Every week both Shaker and I chose three books to take home with us. While Shaker knew exactly what he wanted, searching out specifically those books dealing with medical science—although he also professed an interest in history—my decision always took much longer. Shaker would wait, reading one of his books, always patient, while I roamed the aisles. At first he had recommended books for me, pointing out volumes of poetry or drama or some of the gothic tales he had once read and thought I might enjoy. But I had spent a long time reading Polite Literature. Now I wanted books that would teach me ever more about the world and its people. I found I was especially intrigued with tales from the Voyages and Travel section.

  “Do you not ever dream of taking a voyage, Shaker?” I asked one evening, laying a book I’d chosen—Boswell’s Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides—on the library table. “There is such a huge world beyond ours here.”

  He nodded. “I often thought of adventure when I was younger,” he admitted. “When my father was alive we would discuss all manner of the world, its many lands and inhabitants. He did encourage me to see more, and before his death I spent one summer in Paris at his urging. I was a little younger than you are now, and journeyed with two other lads.”

  I sat down across from him, putting my elbows on the table and leaning forward, twining my feet around the legs of my chair. I knew Mrs. Smallpiece would go into one of her lectures if she were to see me in such a definitely vulgar position, but she wasn’t here. There was no one in the upstairs library at this time of evening but Shaker and myself. “What was it like? Was it as wicked as one hears?”

  He smiled. “It was new and exciting. I felt quite alive. My friends and I roamed about day after day, taking in the sights. One of my friends is an artist; he did a series of sketches. He gave me some. I can show you when we get home.”

  “Would you go back, then?”

  His smile faded. “I think my days for adventure may be over.” He crossed his arms, tucking his trembling hands under them, a gesture he did unconsciously when he spoke of himself. “And what of you, Linny? Do you still dream of America?”

  I shook my head. It seemed so far from here, farther even than it had on the streets. “I can’t imagine it now, although I’m not sure why,” I told him. “And yet . . .”

  “And yet what?”

  “There is something inside me, especially when I read these”—I put my hand atop the book that lay on the table between us—“that makes me feel unsettled. As if there is something, just beyond my grasp, waiting for me.”

  Shaker looked at my hand, my fingers caressing the moiré cover. Then he looked up at me. “I believe these longings are the feelings that accompany youth, Linny. But perhaps, perhaps when you . . . if you . . .”

  “Perhaps what?” I prompted when he didn’t continue.

  He stood then. “Nothing. I sometimes spea
k without thinking.”

  “You don’t,” I said. “I’ve never heard you say anything that wasn’t well thought out.”

  He gathered up his books, fussing with them now. “We’d better hurry or we may miss the last carriage.”

  I followed, wondering what he had been about to say.

  ALTHOUGH I WAS NOT ALLOWED into the Club and News Room on the main floor of the Lyceum, which was for men only, I would peek in to the high-ceilinged room with its spacious windows facing Waterloo Place whenever I had the chance. Usually this was on my way to the basement to fetch more ink or paper, or to use the marvelous new apparatus in a room discreetly marked Ladies’ Cloaks—a toilet with a flusher, operated mysteriously by one swift tug on a rope that hung from the wall. What a luxury! I often lingered in the lavatory longer than necessary, pulling the rope for the sheer pleasure of watching the water swirl to some distant and hidden place. I couldn’t help but smile as I compared this method to my days of emptying the stained and chipped chamber pot out of our window and directly into the court on Back Phoebe Anne.

  In the Club and News Room I saw men relaxing in the comfort of deep leather armchairs, enjoying a cigar and coffee or tea. Some read crisply ironed copies of the Liverpool Mercury or the wide range of other newspapers and periodicals available. Others quietly discussed the imminent arrivals and departures from the port. Many club members, I realized, were wealthy shipowners. A number of them had also been customers of mine at one time or another, although I had no concern of being recognized—or even noticed.

  There was also a lecture hall with grand double doors on the main floor. Elaborately lettered signs, designed and produced by Mr. Worth, stood on easels outside the doors, advertising upcoming lectures on arts, literature, or sciences that were made available to members and their guests.

  It was a beautiful, gracious place. Spending my days at the library and my evenings in the genteel house in Everton under Mrs. Smallpiece’s strict tutelage, I knew the old Linny Gow was growing smaller and smaller, replaced by one who moved through the world with much more assurance. And how did I feel about the new person I was becoming?

  I often felt a quiet sense of accomplishment, a warm glow that I might, after all, become the kind of young woman my mother had so often envisioned. And yet this was accompanied by a strange and troubling sensation of loss. I no longer shared the easy laughter and camaraderie of the girls on Paradise. I had become less spontaneous, more tightly reined. Perhaps I saw myself as less genuine. There can be no going forward, after all, without the look back over one’s shoulder.

  My life was becoming, I realized, both comfortable and predictable. I met Shaker’s two friends, both pallid and serious but courteous young men, one of whom appeared tongue-tied in my presence. They accepted me as Shaker’s cousin. Every fortnight they arrived at Whitefield Lane for dinner. The meal was always solemn and rather stuffy with Mrs. Smallpiece present, but eventually she would grow weary and retire to her room. Leaving Nan and Merrie to clear the table, the four of us would retire to the drawing room, and it was here, after Shaker and his friends had a few glasses of spirits, that the evening became informal. The more talkative of the two young men regaled me with stories of Shaker as a boy and I saw a mischievous side to Shaker those evenings that I quite enjoyed.

  I kept my head about me, making sure I didn’t get too caught up in the stories and laughter, aware that I had to stick to my created background. Shaker was very cognizant of this, too, I realized, often mentioning some fact about my fictitious father—his uncle—that made the story more true for me. There were odd and startling moments when I actually believed I was indeed a Smallpiece by birth.

  I had, I told myself often, been given a chance at a better life, a life that anyone from a back court off Vauxhall Road would be eternally grateful for. I no longer had to spend long hours each night being cold or wet. I didn’t have to squat over a chipped basin before the sun rose each morning, removing a slimy piece of sponge soaked with foul spunk. I didn’t have to worry about being torn open by a man capable of growing to the size of a horse, or being bitten or slapped or pinched to help a customer grow stiff. My skirts were no longer urinated or vomited on by those reeling with drink, and my pay was given to me in a folded paper, instead of tossed onto the filthy street for me to scrabble for among dog dirt and gobs of shining spittle.

  I had enough to eat. I had any book I desired at my disposal, and time to read. I had my own clean bed.

  Why, then, could I not be content? Why then, did I continue to be plagued by despair, by thoughts that flew out beyond the Lyceum and the house on Whitefield Lane? My dream of America had died, and although it no longer held a fascination for me, I still imagined myself in an unknown life—completely different from one that Liverpool, with its fog, gulls, and gray shifting light over the stretching windswept emptiness of the water, had to offer. And I was restless and uneasy with my past, the old horror of what I’d done, the old troubling nightmare still haunting me from time to time.

  Why could I not accept what had been offered by Shaker as a gift, be content with this life—no, this charade—as Miss Linny Smallpiece?

  Chapter Fourteen

  I MET FAITH VESPRY THROUGH CELINA BRUNSWICK.

  Celina was dark haired and not extraordinary in any way, but her bright blue eyes fringed with heavy dark lashes had a certain attractiveness. Shaker and I were leaving the library one evening, about two months after I came to live with him, when we came upon her, walking arm in arm with her father down Bold Street.

  “Miss Brunswick, Mr. Brunswick,” Shaker said, stopping before the couple, tipping his hat.

  “Good evening, Mr. Smallpiece,” the young woman said and then she stared at me, two spots of color appearing high on her cheekbones.

  “Hello, Geoffrey,” the older gentleman said. Geoffrey?

  “We haven’t seen you about for quite some time,” Miss Brunswick said, her eyes flickering between Shaker and me. “I am sure you’ve been missed at a number of functions over these last few months.”

  “Yes. I’ve been . . . busy,” Shaker said. “Allow me. Mr. Brunswick, and Miss Celina Brunswick, it is my pleasure to introduce you to Miss Linny Smallpiece, late of Morecambe.”

  “Miss Smallpiece?” Celina asked. Her voice was cool as she took in my unfashionable outfit. She wore a long smoky blue pelisse—the color setting off her eyes—and her hands were hidden inside a fisher fur muff. Her hat had a matching fur trim. I knew by both the cut and the fabric of her clothes that they were expensive. “She’s a relation, then?”

  “My cousin,” Shaker said, and the tightness in Celina’s jaw relaxed just the tiniest bit. “She has suffered a loss—her father—and has come to live with my mother and myself. She works with me now in the library.”

  “She works?” Celina said, then graced me with a small smile, looking at the books under my arm, tilting her head and reading their titles aloud with a questioning lilt. “Letters on the Improvement of the Mind, by Hester Chapone? And Hannah More’s Search After Happiness?” She raised her eyes to meet mine, a challenge in them that I didn’t understand. “Very ambitious reading. May I take it that you are an admirer of the Bluestockings, then, Miss Smallpiece?”

  I smiled uncertainly.

  “My cousin enjoys a wide variety of reading,” Shaker said, coming to my rescue. “I can’t say that your choices apply solely to women of pedantic literary taste, do they, Linny?”

  “No. Certainly not,” I responded, careful to match my intonation to Celina’s, although my throat was flanneled with nervousness. “Yet I must admit that yes, I do have a high regard for the Bluestockings’ fearlessness in flouting public opinion on the expected confines of the female. Oh—that appears to be our carriage,” I added, as the carriage rumbled by. I wanted to get away from this woman with her superior air and critical expression.

  “Yes. We should hurry. It was a pleasure to see you again, Miss Brunswick. Sir.” Shaker again tipped his ha
t.

  Celina gave me a long stare from beneath half-lowered lids, and then the four of us parted company.

  “She knew,” I whispered to Shaker once we had taken our seats in the carriage and were heading in the direction of Everton.

  “Knew what?” he asked, opening the cover of his own book.

  “About me. She knew, immediately, that I didn’t belong.”

  Shaker closed the cover. “Nonsense. You answered her admirably, if a trifle stiffly. Although she did appear less friendly than in the past. I’ve known her for over a year now. We were introduced at one of the lectures—on botany, I believe. Miss Brunswick is very interested in flora and fauna.”

  “She certainly appeared interested in me as well,” I said, then added, “Geoffrey.”

  Shaker gave a wry smile. “It’s my Christian name. But anyone who is comfortable with me calls me Shaker, as I told you.”

  “I think Geoffrey quite suits you. Distinguished,” I said, opening my book to read for the rest of the ride home, but I noticed, before he turned back to his book, that he had colored.

  THE FOLLOWING WEEK Shaker suggested that I stay after work that Friday and attend the scheduled evening lecture.

  “I couldn’t,” I responded.

  “Why not? As a member of staff you’ll be allowed entrance. I’m sure Celina Brunswick will be there, so at least you’ll know one person.”

  All the more reason not to go, I thought. “I’ve just . . . I’ve never attended anything like that.” I thought of the lettered sign set up by Mr. Worth that morning. BUTTERFLIES OF INDIA, it announced, and then, in smaller, plainer letters underneath: All Members and Their Guests Welcome. “Would you come as well?”

  He shook his head. “Neither India nor butterflies interest me. But it’s something you might enjoy.” His eyes traveled to the old bonnet of his mother’s I still wore every day.