Reputation

by Lex Croucher

  ‘It is gorgeous,’ she said sadly, fumbling with the clasp to undo it, ‘but . . . it’s not quite right.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Frances. ‘It’s perfect. Buy it, or I shall.’

  ‘I’ll not stop you,’ Georgiana said, attempting to sound indifferent.

  She wanted that necklace so much it burned in her chest, but short of offering to sweep Basil’s shop for a thousand years in an exchange of goods for services, she had absolutely no way to pay for it.

  ‘Fine, fine. I’ll take it,’ Frances said, almost as if it were an inconvenience to her.

  Georgiana had never begrudged her friend her wealth, but shopping with her was bringing to light all sorts of feelings that would have been better left buried.

  Frances led them out once her purchases had been wrapped up, and they stepped back up into the carriage and on to their next destination, Georgiana suddenly wishing for the day to be over as soon as possible.

  In the next shop, it was a fan. In the one after, pearls – strings and strings of pearls, enough pearls that Frances probably could have wrapped them all the way around the perimeter of her house and still had some to spare. Jonathan wasn’t quite as bad, but he bought two hats at the millinery, and teased Georgiana when she wouldn’t even entertain trying on gloves with lace so delicate that it looked as if they’d be torn asunder by a medium-sized sneeze.

  At the jeweller’s, Georgiana grew bored of watching Frances try on ring after ring and drifted to the window, where she watched an old man sitting in the neighbouring doorway raising his hands to beg to passers-by with no success; eventually Georgiana went outside to give him a meagre handful of Mrs Burton’s coins. Jonathan and Frances did not seem to notice she had gone; when she returned, she saw that Frances had happily parted with more than fifty pounds in her absence.

  Frances seemed to wear herself out in a few hours, having gone on to purchase six different types of fabric for dresses and then insisted on the driver carting it around after them until she could find six hats and pairs of gloves to match. She directed the carriage to the assembly rooms for some luncheon, and the man receiving guests almost tripped over himself in his haste to get her situated when he saw her coming. The room was grand but hot and airless, with circular tables crammed with people taking up every inch of space, and the sound of laughter and chatter echoing around the domed ceiling.

  ‘Oh, it’s nightmarish in here this time of year,’ Jonathan said, wrinkling his nose in disgust. ‘Have them seat us outside, Franny.’

  ‘We’ll get dusty,’ Frances protested, but Jonathan would not give in, and Georgiana was so overwhelmed by the noise that she backed him.

  They ended up sitting on a covered terrace that looked out across the square. The public house at the other end was very lively, and Georgiana found herself watching a group of young men and women of about her age standing outside. They did not have fine clothes or hats – she was sure that present company would find them deeply uncouth – but they all seemed rambunctiously happy, sharing jokes and laughter and drinks, while she sat self-consciously in a dress half a decade out of fashion and listened to Frances talking about the differences between sapphire and royal blue satin, as if it mattered one jot.

  ‘Have you ever considered,’ Georgiana said suddenly, interrupting Frances mid-sentence, ‘the plight of the poor in town? You don’t see it so much out near us, but look – here, poverty is everywhere. We could do something about it. Start a collection, perhaps, or raise funds through an event. Do you not think it our duty?’

  They both looked at her for a long moment.

  ‘No,’ said Frances, and that was that.

  They were just finishing up with luncheon and making to leave when Jonathan, gazing out over the square in the natural lull that followed a hearty meal, put his glass heavily down on the table and clapped a hand to his mouth as if he had seen something dreadful. Frances had not seen his face change, but Georgiana foolishly asked, ‘What, Jonathan?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing,’ he said unconvincingly, shooting her daggers.

  ‘What is it?’ Frances asked, following his gaze, which kept flicking back over to the public house seemingly against his will.

  It took a moment, but then Georgiana realised what he had seen. Jeremiah Russell had just exited the pub, and he was not alone. There was a tiny, pale blonde girl on his arm. She was not richly dressed – far from it, she looked poorer even than Georgiana – but Jeremiah was looking at her as if she were the loveliest thing he had ever laid eyes on. She had a round face and enormous eyes, and when she widened them, as she was doing now while Jeremiah whispered in her ear, she was a delight to behold to all – except the three of them watching in horror from the balcony.

  Frances was gripping the flat top of the stone railings with both hands, looking as if she were about ready to launch herself over them. She took a deep, pained breath and let go, sitting back in her seat.

  ‘Are you . . . Franny, are you—’

  ‘Am I what? It doesn’t mean anything, Jonathan. For all we know that’s a cousin, or . . . or a family friend, or his shoeshine.’

  Georgiana did not imagine it was customary to meet one’s attractive female shoeshine in a pub in the middle of a Monday afternoon, and from the look on Frances’s face, she didn’t really believe it either.

  They couldn’t help but look back, and therefore saw Jeremiah saying his goodbyes to the girl with a kiss to her hand, lingering for far too long. She stood and watched him as he stepped up into his carriage and was borne away through the streets, and then she turned and went back inside.

  ‘Do you think – do you think she’s a whore, Franny?’ Jonathan asked gently.

  ‘Oh, there’s no doubt in my mind that she is, regardless of her chosen profession,’ Frances spat back, gathering her things. ‘Come on.’ Her tone did not allow for argument.

  Jonathan and Georgiana followed in her wake, darting nervous glances at each other as they pressed through the crush of the assembly rooms. Once they had exited, she headed straight for the public house.

  ‘Is this really advisable?’ Jonathan asked, dashing in front of her and pressing a hand to her arm.

  ‘Get out of my way, Jonathan.’

  There was no stopping her. She shrugged him off and stormed into the dingy establishment, looking around with the utmost disgust, as if she had entered a well-inhabited plague house. It all seemed rather inoffensive to Georgiana; there were small groups, mostly men, drinking ale and talking idly at tables and at the bar. Now, of course, they were all staring at their new and vastly overdressed company.

  ‘You,’ Frances said imperiously to the barman. ‘Have you seen a ratty sort of blonde girl? She just passed through here.’

  ‘A ratty . . . ?’ he looked positively bemused, and Frances rolled her eyes.

  ‘A young lady,’ interjected Jonathan before she could do any further damage. ‘About yea high, in a grey dress. Have you seen her?’

  ‘Well . . . that sounds like Miss Annabelle Baker. She’s taken a room upstairs.’

  ‘Annabelle Baker,’ Frances repeated, as if the name were something sour in her mouth.

  She turned on her heel and marched back outside as if she were steam-powered, leaving Georgiana to call out feeble thanks to the man before following her.

  The silence that followed was excruciating; Georgiana could almost feel it, a tangible and suffocating presence in the air between them. Once in the carriage, Georgiana tried to reach for Frances’s hand, but was rebuffed. She asked if she wanted to talk about it.

  ‘No,’ Frances snapped, turning to look out of the window.

  She must have been hurt, but the only evidence of it that Georgiana could see was the rigidness of her frame. Jonathan did not even attempt to get her to speak.

  Georgiana did not know how to help somebody who so thoroughly did not want to be helped; none of them spoke another word the entire carriage ride home.

  Chapter Eighteen

 
T

  he prospect of a dinner party that Thursday with friends of the Burtons’ should have been an excessively dreary one, but Georgiana was secretly a little glad of the reprieve from Frances and her silent fury; and besides, she felt she owed Mr and Mrs Burton one – or two, or ten – so she tried to bear it without complaint, only rolling her eyes once or twice as a small treat to herself when Mrs Burton rattled through the prospective guest list all the way through both breakfast and luncheon. Mr Burton escaped at the last minute by claiming stomach trouble, refusing to meet Georgiana’s eye when she attempted to give him a sharp look, and so the women of the house set off alone.

  The estate they drew up to was not as large as some of the houses Georgiana had seen of late, but it was classically built and rather beautiful, and Mrs Burton had led her to believe that their hosts for the evening – and more importantly, their sons – had the potential to be somewhat tolerable. Georgiana’s parents had not attempted to make matches for her, apparently assuming that at some point Georgiana would simply snare a passing man in the street or perhaps spontaneously evaporate instead, and it seemed that Mrs Burton was trying to make up for lost time.

  The Taylors had three sons. One was married, with his wife on his arm, but the other two were bachelors, and the younger kept trying to catch Georgiana’s eye from the minute she entered the front hall. He was not overly handsome, but not some sort of gargoyle, either; what was uniquely alarming about him was how fervent and frequent his gaze was. She felt he was somehow already conveying the most lamentable parts of his personality from a distance, without needing to say a word. Any moment he would gather up the courage to cross to them and be introduced by his parents, who were currently engaged in conversation with Mrs Burton, so Georgiana took the opportunity to flee before he could set his mind to it. She walked with purpose down the hall and stumbled upon the darkened dining room, where places were set for at least twenty.

  Guests were still arriving and mingling in the hallway and the parlour, but the clamour was reduced to a pleasant murmur here. She closed the door behind her, and then turned to press her back to it, sighing with relief – and was surprised to find that she was not alone.

  A man of around sixty sat at the table, reading a book by the light of a single taper burning dangerously low, clearly not without trouble; he was squinting down at the words, totally engrossed, and didn’t seem to notice her enter.

  Georgiana was just turning to leave quietly when he spoke, making her jump.

  ‘Before you go, my dear, would you bring me another candle?’ His voice had been weakened a little by age, and he spoke with kindness rather than command.

  ‘Of course,’ said Georgiana, rushing to do so.

  As she set the candle down, she noticed a robust walking stick by his chair and thought she understood why he may have chosen to sit down to dinner before called to.

  ‘Ah, thank you,’ he said, with a sigh of contentment, pushing his glasses up his nose with gently quavering hands. ‘It is a love story, you see. It’s rather hard to understand whose heart is pounding with ardent desire if you can barely make out the words.’

  Georgiana laughed out loud in surprise, then quickly stopped herself, to avoid the risk of seeming rude.

  ‘Is it your preferred genre?’ she asked, not wanting to butt in, but simultaneously not wishing to leave the peace and sanctity of the room a moment sooner than necessary. ‘I greatly enjoy romances, but have yet to find a man who’ll admit to feeling the same.’

  ‘I must confess, I am rather fond of them. I flatter myself that I’m quite a prolific reader, but I often find that tedious philosophical musings on the meaning of life leave one a little cold. Life is difficult enough, after all, without dissecting it and agonising over the pieces. You can count on a romance. The path to a happy ending is often littered with scorned and deceased lovers, of course, but if you stick at it, you’re usually rewarded with a wedding in the end.’

  ‘May I sit?’ asked Georgiana. ‘I don’t mean to intrude. If you tell me you are far too caught up with your reading I shall not be offended in the slightest, and shall leave you to your imperilled lovers.’

  ‘No – of course, of course, sit.’ She drew up the chair next to him. ‘I take it as a great compliment that a young lady should choose me for her companion when I am sure there are many diverting gentlemen vying for your attention out in the hall.’

  ‘If I may speak frankly,’ Georgiana said, sighing, ‘I am here to avoid such attentions. I should much prefer to sit with you and discuss the love affairs of others than risk the horror of starting one of my own.’

  He laughed. ‘Then tell me, Miss . . . Oh, forgive me, I haven’t asked your name.’

  ‘Miss Georgiana Ellers, sir.’

  ‘Ah. Do tell me, Miss Ellers – who is your favourite heroine? And after her many terrible and inevitable mistakes, did she get what she deserved in the end?’

  When the time came for dinner, Georgiana and her new friend had been happily discussing books for so long that she had almost forgotten their true reason for being there. A few people began to enter the room, but she didn’t notice; she was still talking enthusiastically about the literary works of Samuel Richardson when a hand fell onto her neighbour’s shoulder, and she looked up mid-sentence.

  ‘Mr Hawksley?’ she cried, unable to contain her surprise, and her companion beamed at her.

  ‘You are acquainted with my son! How wonderful,’ he said, clasping Mr Hawksley’s hand with his own.

  ‘Your son?’ Georgiana repeated stupidly.

  She was not sure why she was so surprised at the discovery that this man was Mr Hawksley’s father – they did not look alike, although there was a certain air of quiet contemplation about them both. She couldn’t help but instantly recall in vivid detail all the daydreams she’d indulged in recently; the letters, so improper between two people who had never so much as been formally introduced. Faced with a flesh-and-blood father in front of her very eyes, it all suddenly seemed inappropriate in the extreme. She was sure that the gentle, genial Mr Hawksley senior would be horrified if he knew what she had been picturing every night as she struggled to fall asleep. She blushed, and the older gentleman gave her a knowing smile, which instilled a very illogical, but no less pressing, fear in her that he might be able to read her mind.

  ‘Ah, yes – I am Mr James Hawksley. Miss Ellers and I have been discussing literature, Thomas. But I have taken up far too much of her time – I see it is time to be seated for dinner, and our hosts have gone to such efforts to mark our places.’ He gestured to a meticulously calligraphed name card, and Georgiana wanted to kick herself for not noticing sooner that his identity had been clearly labelled right in front of her the entire time. She thanked him, very flustered, and left them to find her place.

  Of course, when she did, she realised with a start that the name card to her left read Mr Thomas Hawksley in careful, slanting script. Her heart started to beat indecently fast, seeing his name in such close proximity to hers. This revelation was marred only by the fact that Marcus Taylor, the youngest son she had been expertly avoiding, had been seated on her other side. Mrs Burton was practically miles away, down at the other end of the table.

  Mr Taylor immediately introduced himself, and Georgiana turned to him and tried very hard to focus on what he was saying, painfully aware of Mr Hawksley’s presence behind her as he took his seat. Unfortunately, Mr Taylor was not a particularly gifted or subtle conversationalist.

  ‘I do like your dress,’ he said, not pausing to swallow his mouthful of soup before speaking, which resulted in some unseemly dribbling. ‘Mother told me all about you, of course, and she was right – you are not unpleasant on the eye.’

  Georgiana could have sworn she heard a quiet exhalation of laughter to her left, but it quickly seemed to turn into a politely cleared throat.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Taylor. This house is lovely.’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes – it won’t ever be mine, though,
’ he said, suddenly glum. ‘I won’t fare badly, but yes, youngest of three, you know. Still,’ he added, brightening up considerably, ‘my eldest brother Samuel will inherit, but he also has the most frightful wife, so there you go. You cannot have it all. With the right sort of wife, one might not notice the dreariness, or the lack of grounds, or . . . or the small cupboards of one’s house.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Georgiana. ‘You have quite a lot of soup on your chin, Mr Taylor.’

  ‘Oh! Do I indeed?’

  He dabbed ferociously at himself with a napkin, and Georgiana was relieved beyond measure when the woman seated on his other side asked him what was in the soup he had so thoroughly decorated himself with. She took the opportunity to turn to Mr Hawksley, who also seemed to be enjoying his soup; he was currently smirking into it.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ hissed Georgiana in an undertone.

  ‘It is funny,’ he said quietly, taking another spoonful of soup.

  Georgiana noticed that he seemed to have no problems feeding himself without spillage, and then wondered if her expectations had been far too drastically lowered by previous company.

  ‘Your father seems wonderful,’ she said, eager to change the subject.

  To her dismay, his expression turned quite serious, and he studied his spoon thoughtfully for a moment before looking up at her and answering.

  ‘He is. I have not seen him laugh with someone as he was with you for quite some time.’

  ‘Is he . . . ill?’ asked Georgiana, hoping this was not too much of an intrusion.