by Lona Manning
“All right,” said John. He was rather relieved, because he was not good at that sort of talking. But Prudence went on talking anyway.
“And you can tell your stupid brother I do not care what he says. Tell him he looks like a baboon himself.”
“Why should you care what he says?” asked John. “He does not know you. I am the one who knows you. I know what you really look like. That—that other is only your skin, not what you look like.”
Prudence looked at him, surprised. Then a slow smile broke across her face.
“Well, since we know each other, I suppose you may call me Prudence.”
* * * * * * *
After a lonely twelve months in prison in York, William Gibson was transferred to London to serve out the final year of his sentence.
Gibson, Lord Delingpole had written:
Do not flatter yourself by supposing I have exerted my influence out of esteem or concern for you—in fact, my chief motive was to exasperate and confound Lord Sidmouth. And you will no doubt be interested to learn I made a point of presenting a copy of your latest novel to everyone at our recent cabinet meeting—a gesture which cost me quite a few guineas. But it was worth it to see the look on Sidmouth’s face.
Another thought occurs—I confidently expect you to put the character of a Home Secretary in your next work—a vile, suspicious, ignorant, and exceedingly ugly man. You could name him Lord Bigmouth.
I charge you to destroy this letter in a suitably dramatic style.
I am, etc.,
Delingpole
Mr. Gibson’s new place of captivity was Surrey Gaol in Southwark, and owing to the great success of his writing, he had more than sufficient funds to rent an apartment set apart from the common cells.
In fact, considering the fame Mr. Gibson acquired upon the publication of Steam & Sagacity, and the equal success of his latest work, Pistons & Pressure, he might be forgiven for thinking that even his enemies would now proudly acknowledge him as an acquaintance. Even the wiry little turnkey who hopped and skipped beside him as he was escorted to his new lodgings, put him more in mind of an obliging tavern-owner with an honoured guest than a jailer in charge of escorting a notorious state prisoner.
“How fortunate for you, Mr. Gibson, that Mr. Hunt has just vacated these rooms!” exclaimed the jailer as he unlocked the door to the apartment which was to be Mr Gibson’s home.
“Very fortunate, indeed, Mr. Ives,” Mr. Gibson mustered a smile. He had to duck his head to enter his new apartment—then he stopped in amazement as he took in the rose-patterned wallpaper, the built-in bookcases and the writing desk. Good heavens, even the ceiling was painted sky blue with fluffy clouds. “I confess, sir, I never imagined anything like this. You say that this was the old infirmary?”
“Yes, but Mr. Hunt had it redecorated specially. And look at this!” Mr. Ives hurried eagerly to the nearest window and pulled on a draw-cord. “These are Venetian blinds—the latest thing.” He rolled the blind up and Gibson looked through the bars at a small courtyard, fenced round with a decorative trellis. “You even have your own private garden in which to take exercise. The bedchamber is through here. Unfortunately, Mrs. Hunt took the carpet away, and the pianoforte,” Mr. Ives added apologetically, “when her husband was released.”
“I shall have to make shift without them,” said Mr. Gibson. “So... Mr. Hunt liked having roses on the walls?”
“You might as well be in the countryside, eh, Mr. Gibson? All yours then, sir, and welcome! And of course, I am at your service, sir, to fetch anything you might need from the shops—or the tavern—anything or anyone you might want. And if I’m not about, there is my boy Tom. Just whistle for us.”
“I was informed I might receive visitors here. I trust that is correct?”
“Oh, certainly! Of course! Of course! Why, Mr. Hunt, he had dozens of folks here, day and evening. We can order in a good dinner for you and your guests, so you might want to lay in some good bottles of wine and so forth. I can obtain anything you need. So then, what can I get for you?”
“Nothing at present, thank you,” said Mr. Gibson, sinking down beside the desk. “Oh! Stay a moment. Ink. And quills. And paper, please. Lots of it.”
He intended to work diligently on his writing. He hardly had any excuse for not staying at his desk.
Mr. Ives stayed in place, smiling fixedly at him.
“Oh, pardon me, sir,” said Mr. Gibson. “Of course.” He reached into his waistcoat pocket, pulled some notes from his wallet and handed them to his new jailer.
“Your servant, sir,” said Mr. Ives.
* * * * * * *
Margaret Meriwether did not scruple to avow to her dear friend Maria Crawford that the dearest wish of her heart was to see her make a second, happy marriage. She wanted all her friends to be as happy as she, if such a thing were possible.
Although Margaret’s husband approved the project as well, being an advocate for matrimony in general, Mr. Meriwether privately resolved to keep a watchful eye on the proceedings. A woman in Mrs. Crawford’s situation could not fail of attracting the intentions of unscrupulous men. Then there was Maria’s romantic history, which suggested she was perhaps over-susceptible to regrettable entanglements. Without due caution, she might ally herself with a fortune-hunter, eager to divest her and her little boy of everything they owned.
Matrimony was indeed Maria’s chief object, although the situation of a pretty young widow with an estate in the country, a house in town and a handsome jointure is not an entirely pitiable one.
The Meriwethers gave such good dinners that Margaret Meriwether found no difficulty in collecting many eligible men to be admitted to her friend’s acquaintance. On one occasion in the new year, there were no fewer than three unmarried gentlemen amidst the dozen guests at the Meriwether’s long table. Mr. Greville had the advantage in being seated opposite Maria; Mr. Fenwick, although placed a little farther away, contrived to draw her attention with his lively manners, and Mr. Orme quietly admired her from a distance.
Mr. Greville was Margaret’s candidate, for he was the tallest and had dark hair, and she thought that he and her friend would look well together. Mr. Orme was favoured by Mr. Meriwether, and was a sensible, honourable and well-educated man. He was, however, an attorney of modest means. Mr. Fenwick, an independent gentleman of fortune, was the first to spark an interest in the lady herself, on account of his cutting sallies and droll remarks.
When the men joined the ladies in the drawing room, and Maria’s three new suitors headed directly to where she was sitting, she had no cause to wish any alteration in her circumstances. Mr. Greville arranged her cushions, Mr. Orme went to fetch her a glass of wine, and Mr. Fenwick made her laugh.
“Where is Greville now? Ah yes, where else would he be,” Mr. Fenwick murmured to Maria later when he had got her alone. “Posing by the chimney-piece, the better to admire himself in the glass. Mark me, my dear Mrs. Crawford, you do not want to place yourself between Mr. Greville and a mirror—you may be trodden upon.”
Maria smiled. “You are very wicked, Mr. Fenwick.”
“There is no denying Greville is a well-looking fellow. I am not half so handsome.”
“But I think regular features are not so important to our sex, as beauty is to yours. I think we ladies value a pleasing disposition above anything else.”
“Ah, you are about to say, ‘I like a man with a good wit.’”
“Well?”
Mr. Fenwick leaned forward, as though confiding something. “All ladies say the same. They all declare the only thing they value in a man is a good wit.”
“And you say we are not to be believed.”
“My dear Mrs. Crawford, I would never suggest you are dissembling, heaven forbid, but forgive me for asserting that you ladies do not always know what you want.”
“Certainly we have no objection if a man is handsome,” Maria conceded with a smile. “But I will maintain, if a woman feels affection for a man, then he
is handsome in her eyes.”
“Ah! May I dare to express the hope that one day, you will regard me as being handsome?”
Maria fluttered her fan. “How do you know I do not already regard you as handsome, Mr. Fenwick?”
Chapter 6: London, Spring 1814
Prudence Imlay could not rely upon seeing John Price at the book shop every Saturday afternoon. She was bursting with excitement to see him today, however, and looked up at the clock on the wall every minute, her fingers sometimes drumming an impatient beat on the counter. There were no customers to distract her, for her father’s book shop was not one of the more successful establishments. The premises smelled of mould and cat dung, especially on rainy days, and the uneven floor was laid with damp, dirty bits of carpet.
But the shop had long been John Price’s quiet refuge from the world, a place where he might disappear between the narrow shelves and read away the afternoon. Sometimes, and only occasionally, he bought a book. At first he was barely aware of the young female assistant who answered his questions. Then he chanced to notice how she always knew instantly whether a particular volume was in stock, and if so, where it was to be found in the crowded establishment. They began to converse about books, and to compare them, and then they started recommending books to each other, and before long, John looked forward to talking to Prudence most Saturdays.
One afternoon John happened to mention his friendship with William Gibson, to Prudence’s very great astonishment. John was never given to exaggeration or falsehood but she could still scarcely believe he knew the famous prisoner. Now, she had no doubt.
At last, the tinkle of the bell over the door announced John’s arrival. He was out of breath, for he had run almost all the way from Wapping Stairs.
“Well?” he said expectantly. “Did you see him?”
Prudence was almost bursting with her news, but she did not relax the rules of decorum she was attempting to inculcate in John for his own good.
“Good day, John. How are you?”
“Ah, right,” said John. “I am well. And I trust you are the same, Miss Imlay—Prudence?”
“I am well, thank you. And now—” she smiled and clapped her hands together with glee. “Yes, yes. I met him! I stood in the same room with him! Oh! But wait, first, I must tell you what happened when I applied at the gate-house. The man said that many people wanted to visit Mr. Gibson, and he looked me up and down, and said, ‘you are not a lady, and you don’t look like a Covent Garden dolly mop, so what is your business?’ And I said I had a gift for Mr. Gibson and a letter from a friend. And so he bade me wait, and then a matron came out, and gave me the queerest look, and said Mr. Gibson would see me, and then—”
“And so you saw him?” John interrupted.
Prudence pursed her lips out in displeasure at the interruption to her story, which she wanted to unfold in her own way. The rapturous sensations arising out of her visit could not, however, be long constrained, and she burst forth with: “I did! He is the most eminent person to whom I have ever spoken! And he is so—ordinary! No, not ordinary—what I mean is, he is very agreeable, no condescension about him.”
“And did you tell him I was sorry that I cannot come to visit with him?” John asked.
“I did, and he said he understood. And I told him I was made to sign a visitor’s book before I could see him, and he said no doubt the names of his visitors were supplied to the Home Office, and so it would not do for a clerk at the police office to be his friend. He was not at all resentful, John.”
John nodded, relieved. “Did he say you could visit him again? Did he like the book we chose for him?”
The book in question was Murray’s Treatise on Atmospherical Electricity.
A broad smile creased Prudence’s face. “You will not believe it.”
“Why wouldn’t I believe it, if you are telling me something that happened?”
“I danced with happiness all the way back home,” Prudence sighed. “Oh—yes, he liked the book. He said it looked very interesting. And he asked where had we got it, and I said, from my father’s book shop and he said, could I possibly assist him—that’s what he said! Could I assist him with obtaining some rare volumes which he wished to consult for his writing!” This last, Prudence almost shrieked.
“So what did you say?” asked John with interest.
Prudence laughed at him. “What do you suppose? I said it would be my honour, and he said, he would pay me for my trouble, and I said, I knew all the booksellers in London, so I knew which seller would be most likely to carry this or that sort of a book, and he said he would draw up a little list of books for me.”
“That should be entertaining!” said John with real feeling. “I wish I had time away from work to go with you.”
“I will ask my father if I might work different hours, and we could go together on Saturday afternoon! I must return to the prison to get the list in a few days.”
The two congratulated themselves a while longer on this happy and interesting turn of events, and then Prudence remembered another part of the conversation with Mr. Gibson she had yet to relate.
“John, he asked me most particularly about your family. Especially your sister Fanny. I said I knew nothing about her. I said I only knew your brother Richard” —here Prudence rolled her eyes— “but I supposed she was nothing like Richard.”
“No indeed, she is not,” John affirmed.
“And he said, he fancied that soon I should come to know more about your family,” said Prudence.
“Why?” said John.
Prudence nodded her head in a pitying sort of way, then exclaimed: “Oh! John, I forgot to tell you about Mr. Gibson’s apartments in the prison. Roses on the walls, and clouds on the ceiling!”
* * * * * * *
Mr. Fenwick had long been Maria Crawford’s preferred escort to the park or the theatre. Those who recalled the late Henry Crawford might have observed that of her three suitors, Mr. Fenwick most resembled her late husband in liveliness of disposition and a talent for pleasing. Yet, after a year’s residence in London, Maria Crawford had still not exchanged the name of ‘Crawford’ for that of ‘Fenwick.’ How this was so, when everyone in their circle was convinced Mr. Fenwick would bear away the prize, deserves some explanation.
Of her three suitors, Mr. Greville, handsome and agreeable, was exceedingly eligible, but excessively vain. His self-regard might not have been an insuperable barrier to their union, but he happened to offend Maria by showing too-pointed attentions to another lady.
The quiet, respectful tributes of Mr. Orme pleased her, but failed to find a way to her heart. However, the demands of his profession meant Mr. Orme lacked the leisure to press his suit as assiduously as Mr. Fenwick.
Mr. Fenwick, very much conscious of being the favoured man, and certain of his eventual success, was not in a hurry to get to the altar. He declared his heart was lost, but he and Maria were enjoying the game too well to put an end to it through matrimony.
Still, Mr. Fenwick intended to be successful in time and Maria intended to have him. But, most unexpectedly, he destroyed his own prospects.
His future happiness with Henry Crawford’s widow was blighted in this fashion: Mr. Fenwick’s wit often took the form of cutting sallies about their acquaintance. Nobody was safe from him—the stray hairs on Mrs. Such-a-one’s chin, or the preening extravagance of Lord So-and-so, were equally food for his drollery. When Maria and Mr. Fenwick rode together in the park, his remarks on the frumps and frights who passed never failed to amuse her, and his drawing-room imitation of Admiral Crawford was inevitably rewarded with peals of feminine laughter. He was as ready to insult their acquaintance as she was ready to listen, and it had become a confirmed habit between them.
It was also his custom to visit Mrs. Crawford’s residence every Thursday morning, her “at home” day, and on the fatal day in question, he expected to be as warmly received as he had ever been. But, by merest chance—it was quite out of the o
rdinary—there were no other visitors in her elegant little parlour. Some had come, others had gone, but at this moment, Mr. Fenwick and Maria were alone together.
Maria made it her policy to never entertain gentleman in solitude, for, after the errors of her past, she was scrupulously careful in guarding her reputation. Her greeting, therefore, was immediately followed by a request that he take his leave.
“Oh, I shall obey your commands as ever, my dear Maria,” cried Mr. Fenwick, “But I should have thought Meriwether and his lady, at least, had been here with you. They always are. You can have no better chaperone than Mr. Meriwether.”
“Mr. Meriwether is at home today,” came the reply, “with his wife. The time of her confinement is approaching.”
Fenwick laughed. “Oh, indeed! Poor old Meriwether, the most uxorious of husbands. His devotion to that little feather-brain is a marvel of the age. There is no fool like an old fool, as the saying goes, and as the saying goes, so goes Meriwether.”
And Mr. Fenwick, intending only to give pleasure to Maria and to leave her smiling, continued with the most lively abuse of Margaret Meriwether—a sweet woman, to be sure, but such a silly creature! Generally overdressed and now, putting on flesh most alarmingly! Ladies of her insignificant stature had cause to be careful about their figures, did they not, least the breadth come to rival the height—and especially a lady so awkward and clumsy as Margaret Meriwether. What a striking contrast was there between Maria’s tall and regal form and her unfortunate little friend. The old saying, one cannot make a silk purse from a sow’s ear came to mind, did it not? Except one might as well omit the “ear,” and just say “sow,” couldn’t one?
Maria smiled—at first—and then as Mr. Fenwick went on, his eyes filling with tears as he contemplated the ridiculousness of little Mrs. Meriwether, she recollected how she and Julia used to laugh behind their fans when Margaret stumbled about the ballroom.
She said only, “I have every reason to love and respect Margaret Meriwether,” and her quiet tone ought to have put so clever a man as Mr. Fenwick on his guard.