Reputation

by Lex Croucher

  When Georgiana was seven, she had picked up an unsupervised embroidery needle and attempted to imitate her mother, pushing it through a half-finished blanket so forcefully that she had driven it into the palm of her other hand. She had been absolutely hysterical with pain and horror, running through the house screaming for her mother and father, until she discovered them sitting in the drawing room, books in their laps, looking slightly annoyed to have been interrupted.

  Upon realising the source of all the fuss, her father had removed the needle without ceremony, pressing his handkerchief to the puncture wound and attempting to send her on her way.

  ‘I was trying—’ Georgiana had explained through hiccuping sobs, ‘I was trying to – to help Mama, with the blanket.’

  ‘Oh, Georgiana,’ her mother had said disappointedly, picking up her book. ‘That’s not at all the right needle for working with wool.’

  Georgiana had spent her entire life looking for something more than calm, measured practicality from her parents, and was furious with herself for still being surprised when she did not receive it.

  I have shot five gulls so far, and hope to shoot many more.

  No word for the best part of a month, and her father thought that the hunting of seabirds merited a lengthier mention than any sort of affection for his daughter. He didn’t want Georgiana back, not at all – but he was in desperate need of Richard II.

  Sudden, molten fury flooded her veins, and she got to her feet and crossed to the bookshelves, searching haphazardly, almost manically. When she found what she was looking for in the section her uncle had set aside for her books, she pulled it out and stared at it for a moment.

  Damn Richard II. She didn’t even consider it a particularly good play, as the Richards went.

  Georgiana seized a thick handful of pages and tore them out in one quick motion. She watched as the fine yellowed paper fell to the floor, and then she set about shredding the rest of the book in a frenzy, not stopping when a page sliced a thin cut up the length of her hand, continuing until all that remained was the hard cover and a pile of kindling.

  Regret found her, then, as was inevitable. Destroying a book felt like sacrilege – as if she had laid her hands on something that ought to have been untouchable. She should have kept it instead and read it often, taking delight in it, enjoying it all the more because she could read it while her father could not.

  It was far too late for that now. She sucked the blood from her hand, feeling quite exhausted and very small, only just managing to keep her tears at bay. Picking up the debris helped, focusing her mind on a task, and she was careful not to leave a scrap of evidence behind. She gathered everything up and took it to the kitchen, offering it to Marjorie to be burned. The older woman looked at her askance, but said nothing, studying Georgiana’s expression for a moment longer before taking the pile of paper and pressing another biscuit into her hand in its place.

  When the Burtons returned from their walk, Georgiana was still in a foul mood. She handed the letter to her aunt without a word and went to bed, leaving her to read it for herself.

  Mrs Burton came to find her later, knocking and then immediately pushing open the door with a look of such kindly sympathy on her face that Georgiana wanted to scream. Her aunt sat down on the edge of her bed, which creaked in complaint, and patted her arm fondly.

  ‘Your parents . . . They are not much for words of affection,’ she said gently.

  ‘You can say that again,’ Georgiana said into her pillow. ‘“I seem to be missing my copy of Richard II ”.’

  ‘Ah. Yes. Well – have you seen it? It doesn’t seem to be in the library.’

  ‘No,’ Georgiana said guiltily, before sitting up to look at her aunt. ‘I do not begrudge them the move, Mrs Burton, and I am glad my mother’s head is better and of course I am grateful to be here, but would it have been so difficult to pretend they missed me? Just a little?’

  ‘No, it would not,’ said Mrs Burton, with a sad sigh.

  ‘I imagine if I turned up unannounced, they’d panic and shoot me on sight, like one of those poor seagulls.’

  ‘Probably not, dear,’ Mrs Burton said unconvincingly, and then she drew Georgiana into a crushing hug. It felt startlingly unfamiliar to be loved this way, so physically, so fussily, and she was embarrassed to find that her eyes were slightly wet when she drew away. ‘You’re not having too dreadful a time here, though, are you? I hope you know that your uncle and I are very happy to have you. We shall arrange some more outings – and you said you had a lovely stay with the Campbells.’

  ‘I did,’ said Georgiana guiltily.

  She had given her aunt a very warped version of the truth, telling her that she had spent her trip dining with the Campbells and enjoying rousing games of chess by the fire, omitting the fact that this had all taken place half-dressed and fully inebriated. As kind as her aunt was being, it seemed the perfect moment to bring up the cottage party Frances had mentioned, and she winced internally before adding yet more lies and half-truths to her score sheet.

  ‘Actually, Mrs Burton, the Campbells are travelling out to the country soon and they wanted to invite me along . . .’

  Mrs Burton listened as Georgiana falteringly – and falsely – explained the nature of the trip, and then smiled, squeezing her niece’s hand.

  ‘I think that sounds splendid. Just the thing to get your spirits up. In fact, let’s go into town tomorrow, and pick out some lace to brighten up one of your old frocks,’ she said, fingering Georgiana’s sleeve.

  Georgiana pulled away, nettled at the implication that her dresses needed improving, worrying that perhaps Frances and her friends might think the same. All the guilt at her deception was pushed immediately from her mind.

  ‘Fine, fine,’ she said to Mrs Burton, who looked a little crestfallen as she left the room.

  As morose as she felt about what a few lengths of lace could possibly do to improve her apparently dismal ward-robe, Georgiana perked up as the carriage travelled into the town; the cottages and hedgerows gave way to rows of narrow houses, pressed so closely together that she couldn’t imagine how the people inside them had space to breathe. They were all carved out of matching honeyed stone, with pretty window boxes full of pansies and daisies the only bright splashes of colour among all the brown. There were so many people in the streets; they were surrounded by the shouts of street vendors, the smells of sewage and horse dung, and the sight of crowds walking under parasols and dodging carriages like theirs as they crossed the street without a thought for their personal safety.

  They spent a very long time in the haberdashery, Mrs Burton showing Georgiana so many almost identical samples of lace that she started to see intricate patterns on the insides of her eyelids every time she blinked. Eventually her aunt consented to her going to sit outside on a bench in the shade, as long as she stayed in full view of the shop. Georgiana hurried away before Mrs Burton could change her mind, revelling in the sudden freedom.

  The town had two intersecting and well-stocked high streets, meeting in the middle where the most popular shops, inns and the imposing assembly rooms were arranged around a wide, cobbled market square. Georgiana had been warned by her aunt during the carriage ride – three times, in fact – that the public house on the very corner of the square was patronised entirely by ruffians and rogues, and that to venture down the length of street that followed was tantamount to a death sentence.

  Looking at it now, Georgiana suspected her aunt was exaggerating somewhat; there were a few older gentlemen who looked rather shabby conversing on the corner, and a woman farther down the street who seemed to be begging with little success. As Georgiana watched, a very well-dressed woman partially hidden by a parasol bent to drop a handful of coins into the beggar’s outstretched palms; she looked down at the money and then back up at her benefactor, smiling, but then faltered. Her smile became a scowl, and to Georgiana’s confusion, she spat at the feet of the woman as she hurriedly walked away.

/>   As the woman drew nearer, a manservant following closely behind with his arms piled high with packages, Georgiana realised with a start who it was: Lady Campbell, her face oddly blank, eyes fixed ahead without seeming to see anything at all.

  ‘Oh,’ said Mrs Burton’s voice from behind Georgiana, thoroughly startling her. ‘Isn’t that . . . ? Lady Campbell!’

  Before Georgiana could stop her, her aunt was waving Frances’s mother over. The determined blankness of her expression immediately smoothed over into a polite smile, and she stopped to greet them both.

  ‘We have not met properly, of course, but my Georgiana is quite taken with your Frances,’ Mrs Burton said, beaming. ‘It was so kind of you to have my niece to stay.’

  Georgiana immediately felt very sick, imagining all her lies laid out before her as if they were being presented in a court of law. She very much suspected that Lady Campbell had no idea Georgiana had crossed her threshold, let alone pulled a drunken Frances from the lake or heard a domestic quarrel that was definitely supposed to be private.

  ‘Please do let us know if we can ever repay the favour in kind.’

  ‘Ah . . . yes,’ Lady Campbell said, frowning slightly as she glanced at Georgiana, who must have looked petrified. ‘It was no trouble. She can come again any time.’

  Georgiana tried not to breathe an obvious sigh of relief, and simultaneously attempted to convey silent thanks to Frances’s mother, who seemed utterly uninterested; she was already looking beyond them, as if a more arresting thought had occurred to her.

  ‘Well, we shan’t keep you,’ said Mrs Burton, sensing that she had already lost her audience. ‘Good day, Lady Campbell.’

  ‘Good day,’ she repeated, already walking away.

  Mrs Burton immediately started to extol her virtues and examine every aspect of their conversation forensically, but Georgiana wasn’t listening; she was watching two ladies step aside to allow Lady Campbell into the millinery. They were polite enough as she nodded her thanks, but as soon as she was inside, Georgiana saw them whispering furtively to each other as they hurried away.

  Mrs Burton steered Georgiana back to their carriage, which was waiting for them five minutes away; when they passed back through the square on their way home, Georgiana glimpsed Lady Campbell through the shop window, sitting upright and expressionless as the milliner brought her hat after hat after hat.

  Chapter Nine

  T

  he last time Georgiana had visited a country fair she had been twelve; it had been held at her father’s school, and a boy called Tommy Hannock had kicked her in the shins and called her a ‘slug’ because she’d beaten him in the archery contest. It seemed unwise to her that he had chosen to insult her when she was still holding a weapon in her hand, especially a weapon she had just proven she was far more adept than him at using – but with regret, she had not shot him.

  When Frances had invited Georgiana to the fair on the last Sunday of June – via a scrawled note on Saturday evening, followed early next morning by Frances herself showing up in her carriage and asking Mrs Burton with a wink if Georgiana could come out ‘to play’ – she had thought it a surprisingly wholesome activity, by her friend’s usual standards.

  As it turned out, being an adult at a fair meant that drinking was acceptable – perhaps even required – and Georgiana entered in high spirits already, having prepared for the afternoon at Frances’s house, along with Cecily and Jane. Lord and Lady Campbell were both once again mercifully absent. Jonathan sent a note of apology, saying that he was engaged elsewhere, and that even if he weren’t, he would certainly pretend he were to avoid attending a country fair. Christopher’s whereabouts had, in Frances’s words, been ‘impossible to pinpoint’.

  ‘It’s a girls’ day!’ Frances had said happily beforehand, as they sat in her garden drinking something Cecily had concocted that tasted like rubbing alcohol and elder-flower. Jane had been in a better mood than usual, and had braided flowers from the Campbells’ gardens into their hair, so that the four of them looked like a gaggle of pagan fairies. They had skipped church in favour of readying themselves, and Mrs Burton probably would have called for a vicar post-haste had she seen them out without their gloves or bonnets, but she and Mr Burton had set off mid-morning to visit his sister some twenty miles away, so Georgiana did not have to worry that they might make a surprise appearance and catch her running about like a fair-weather heathen.

  There were a number of stalls and games set up in the grounds of St Anne’s, bordered on all sides by elm trees shedding the last of their papery seeds like confetti. Children dressed in their Sunday best tore up handfuls of grass and threw them at one another, giggling madly and chasing each other between the tables. A strongman was challenging passers-by to have a go with his mallet. There was even a band – although calling it a band may have been a little charitable, as they all seemed to have fashioned their instruments themselves out of scraps of wood and tin.

  ‘Jane loves the fair,’ Frances was saying teasingly, and Jane elbowed her in the side.

  ‘I’d love it a lot more if you’d stop badgering me,’ she replied – but she was smiling, and Frances was smiling back.

  Georgiana had no idea what had brought this on, and found it a little unnerving, but it certainly made a change from Jane’s usual dour looks and pessimism, so she endeavoured to make the most of it.

  ‘George, I’ll give you a pound if you can knock his head off,’ Frances said, shading her eyes with one hand and pointing with the other at a stall where the primary objective seemed to be to knock apples off things, with the application of slightly smaller apples. The centre-piece was a scarecrow with fruit balanced precariously on his hessian head, and the prize was a basket of straw-berries so red and ripe they looked fit to burst. Baskets sat either side of the stall, overflowing with yet more apples for sale.

  On the whole, Georgiana thought they had rather overdone the theme.

  One pound was an unthinkable amount of money to throw away on a bet, but Georgiana suspected that to Frances, it was such a trifling number that she expected all involved to forget about it immediately afterwards. She strode up to the stall and paid a few coins to play, and the boy minding it gave her a little pile of yellowing apples. Pulling her arm back, closing one eye and attempting to aim, she snapped one at the target and missed spectacularly. The others cheered – Frances and Jane sarcastically, Cecily with all sincerity – and Georgiana felt herself getting a little hot under her dress, shrugging and self-consciously unclenching her mouth.

  She missed twice more, getting increasingly frustrated. She could see that Frances was losing interest now, whispering to Jane and looking about for something else to do. Georgiana narrowed her eyes at the scarecrow as if it had personally affronted her, and gave the last throw her all; this time she hit it square on, but the apple did not fall. Instead it broke in half, and it became clear that a stake had been driven through it, keeping it firmly in place and making the game completely impossible to win.

  Georgiana turned to look at the others in open-mouthed disbelief, pointing at the broken apple. For a moment it looked as if nobody was going to take up her cause, but then Frances saw what had happened.

  ‘Cheat!’ she cried.

  The boy looked up from where he had been idly quaffing ale and eyeing up passers-by. When he saw the state of his apple, he quickly removed it, studied it, then put another in its place, driving it hard onto the stake to trick the next unsuspecting customer.

  ‘You can’t do that! I want my strawberries!’ Georgiana said, alcohol fuelling a level of rage that seemed entirely proportionate in the moment.

  Frances was now standing beside her with her arms crossed.

  ‘It says “knock it down to claim a prize”,’ the boy said, grinning infuriatingly, pointing to a sign that did indeed say just that.

  ‘But it’s impossible to knock it down! It might as well say – I don’t know – “fly a lap around the fair to win a prize”.’


  ‘Yeah, well. Doesn’t, does it?’

  Jane advanced on him, looking menacing.

  ‘How much do I win if I knock your head off?’ she hissed, and he looked so astonished to be spoken to in such a way by someone like Jane that they all burst out laughing.

  ‘Come on, George. Let’s leave this man to his illustrious career as an apple-herder,’ Frances said, hooking her arm in Georgiana’s and pulling her away. The boy sneered at them as they went, and Georgiana was gripped by a strong desire to throw every single one of his apples at him.

  ‘He should be . . . I don’t know . . . Thrown out of the fair. Banned from – from all apple-related activities for life,’ Georgiana said, drunk and wounded, and Frances patted her on the arm consolingly.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I know what’ll cheer you up.’

  Cecily and Frances were bartering with the man selling wine. He was around five-and-fifty, a little rounded at the middle, and clearly having the time of his life as they flattered him, fluttered their eyelashes and employed every last excruciating drop of their womanly charms to get him to hand over a case of his best for half the asking price. Georgiana assumed they must have been doing it just for the fun of it, as they had no need of discounted wine from a man who had scratched his crotch twice since the haggling began.

  Jane, meanwhile, was a short distance away, deep in conversation with the man running the pie stand, which was odd in and of itself. Georgiana doubted Jane had ever eaten a pie in her life, and these were thick-crusted, greasy things, with no telling what might be inside them. Cecily and Frances left the wine merchant – blowing him a kiss as they did – and as they all approached Jane, she shook the pie-seller’s hand and turned to them with a very serious expression.