Grace Gibson (17 page)

Lord Robert sat in his room on a lone chair and peaceably surveyed his world. In addition to his much-used chair, he had a table, a bed, a tiny hearth, a window, and a door. He felt himself to be the most fortunate of men for that window, and was still, after three months, aghast that he was entrusted with a door. Mr. Hargill, the master of the Warren Street Sponging House, did lock his door at night, but during the day he was left quite alone and free to leave, though the consequences made the notion of unthinkable .

“I don’t need to tell you, your honour,” said Mr. Hargill, “that if you ain’t here when I comes to lock the door, you’ll be hanged when they catch you, and catch you they will.”

Naturally, the room was one of only two in the Warren Street House that were truly habitable, used for the accommodation of the famous or formerly wealthy. There were many unfortunate persons crowded into upper apartments who never saw the light of day and were given only bread and water. The worst of Denley’s confinement was hearing the constant noise of human suffering. Mrs. Hargill’s cooking he found to be mostly disgusting. But he managed to wash down her worst concoctions with his daily allowance of beer, for which he paid a dreadful price.

In truth, a privileged prisoner with suitable funds would normally walk down the street to find better food. But Denley was not anxious to be seen in his present condition; a tendency, he guessed, to indulge his aristocratic pride. He would rather not be the topic of conversation at the butcher’s table, where that man’s wife would no doubt ask for details about all of his diminished looks and address.

Denley was in just such a pose, entirely at his ease with his toothpick, watching a small shrub across the alleyway that was home to a sparrow couple, when a knock on the door surprised him. He supposed his landlord had come to announce some new surcharge for his accommodation, for this was not his usual day for a letter from Eversham.

“Come in, Mr. Hargill,” he drawled, “’Tis you that has the key.”

But to his surprise, instead of Mr. Hargill with his hand out again, he saw the door open on Jim Barry.

“Jim!” he cried, standing delightedly and shaking the young man’s tentative hand. “I cannot believe my eyes. Whatever are you doing in London?” And then, in a different tone altogether, “How did you know I was here?”

“Well, beggin’ your lordship’s pardon, but I came to be of service, sir…that is if you’ll have me. Miss Fanley said as I was in the way-”

“Mary Fanley!” He strode to and fro, and seemed not to know what to do with his arms. After a moment of this, he turned abruptly on Jim. “Tell me, Jim. Did Lord Eversham visit Greenly very recently?”

Jim, relieved to be able to say something enlightening in the awkward business, answered happily that his lordship had been a regular visitor at Greenly for about two weeks. When Denley only glared at him in response, Jim reverted to uncertainty.

“I would be much obliged if you’d have me, your honour, since Miss Mary particularly wanted me to come. I would not like to tell her I was turned away.”

After uttering a string of oaths, Denley stopped abruptly. “Forgive me, Jim. I had thought to spare the Fanleys any distress. I did not want them to know of my…circumstances. But I will take the matter up with Eversham, who apparently went against my wishes.”

He ended in a flattened, discouraged tone.

“I beg your pardon, sir.”

“Well, what nonsense to ask my pardon for Eversham’s gossip. I am very glad to see you, Jim. But are you sure you want to stay here?”

Jim made clear his desire to stay, insisting the accommodations were just what he liked. Even as he talked, he began to clean the hearth and then laid a fire. Once his welcome was assured, he ducked out for a short while, returning with a basket in one hand and firewood in the other. “Miss Fanley sends this with her regards, Sir.”

The basket was set on the table, and while Jim went about his work, bringing water for the pot and other errands of housekeeping, Denley carefully examined the contents. He found a loaf of Sue Wilkin’s sweet bread, a jar of Mary’s gooseberry jam, a tin of tea, a small package of cured Greenly ham, some hard cheeses, two meat pies, a sheaf of paper, ink and quills, and a small package of lavender.

“We will have to hide our riches, Jim,” Denley said that evening as they sat comfortably by the fire. “Mr. Hargill loves to fine his guests for their privileges.” Jim, who had made himself a tidy pallet by the fire and brought in a new mattress for the Marquis, replied that the arrangements had already been made.

Denley grimaced. “Eversham, again? I believe I told him to leave off. I do not want to be coddled, you know.”

“Well you may have told him so, sir, but Mr. Fanley’s not the kind of man to listen to such stuff as that. This ain’t no coddling, beggin’ your Lordship’s pardon. We’s seeing to your basic comforts is all. And you ain’t ’more of a man for resisting charity,’ as the vicar always says.”

This quaint speech caught Lord Robert’s attention. “Are you a regular at church then?”

Jim coloured and shifted around for something to do. “Well, not what one would call a regular, but I’ve heard, you know, the vicar is known to say such things to the poor…not that I consider you to be among them, my Lord.”

At last, the Marquis of Denley signalled his capitulation with a deep laugh. “Very well, Jim. Coddle me all you like. I will bear it like a man of good grace. How is my mountain of a horse?”

That led to the most agreeable evening of Lord Robert’s recent past. He heard many common details about life at Greenly, told in Jim’s endearing country way. The huge horse was now spoiled as a lap dog, what with his special privileges in the stables and Miss Fanley’s taking him all over the county. But like any proper lady, she took Barker along in case she fell off, for she’d never be able to get back up! The young master had gone off to see the world, with as big a grin as you’d ever see on a man’s face. There was some gossip about the other young man who had been staying at Greenly, and then lately with the Himmels — something about his being not who he said he was. The planting was started of course, and Mr. Fanley was in his usual high fettle over it, making a great fuss and riding himself near to death from farm to farm.

These and many other similarly commonplace recollections continued the next day, when Jim shaved Denley and boiled water for a much-needed bath. His clothes were laundered, his hair, once rid of certain creatures, was combed with a scented pomade of beeswax, his teeth were polished with hartshorn tooth powder, and a host of small bites on his person were treated with a tincture from the apothecary.

Lord Robert squinted into the glass of his window for some reflection of his person. “I believe I am much in your debt, Jim, but then again, I cannot see what sort of butchery you have done to my chin. And now, though I am a loathsome correspondent, I will compose a letter to my benefactor.”

This same letter was written almost in the style of any gentleman, at a table by a fire with a cup of tea. It began,
My dear sir, I
beg a thousand and one pardons!
and ended with the following postscript:
If you would be so good as to thank Mary for the basket, and also for the sermon on the subject of charity, rendered to me by Jim Barry. Also, you may want to give her a hint that if Caesar gets any fatter, he will have to have a special saddle made, and perhaps she should give off coddling altogether as it never leads to much good in beast or man…

When Denley’s letter arrived at Greenly, Mary nearly sank from anticipation. Her father would not be back before supper, and she would never read what was not addressed to her. She merely held the note for some time, tracing the hand on the address, and once, though very guiltily, pressing it to her nose. The paper smelled faintly of medicine, which raised a little alarm in her. But she was forced to recollect what she herself had said about the Marquis’ constitution when Mr. Fanley had been apprised of his situation.

“Good God!” he had cried. “In prison? He will die of the smallpox, Eversham. Do you know how much disease there is in places like that? I am sure you do not, living in your better neighbourhoods.”

Mary interceded with her customary self-possession. “But, Papa, consider for a moment what Lord Robert’s general constitution must be. He has himself said he was living a very fast life. No doubt he was in deep with gin, which has killed many a man. And out at all hours, in all weather, bleeding a fortune out of his pockets, fighting and shooting and the Lord only knows what else. And he came here only slightly tired.”

Mr. Fanley gave a harrumph, but her words, applied with her calm amusement, seemed to work on his nerves.

She continued to rally him. “I would say, if my lord would agree, having known him much longer, that Lord Robert has the constitution of an ox…or a mule.”

“Oh, and a temper to match. I would be forced to agree,” Eversham conceded. “He has never been sick a day in his life. Too stubborn by half.”

Mary cajoled her father right out of smallpox fears, and went along addressing, with the aid of Lord Eversham, his every other concern. When all was said and done, Mr. Fanley was philosophical and reconciled. “Well I suppose I must honour him. He wants to make a clean breast of it, I suppose, though it is not what his friends want for him. Mary, see to what he may need, will you?”

“I have already seen to it,” Eversham interjected with dignity. “But he is not receptive to more than a nominal allowance. He believes that anything I send to him will be confiscated, and I am inclined to agree.”

This prompted Mr. Fanley to reply in a fit of indignation. “Well, much you know about it Thomas. Of course he can get assistance! I have read all about this. A great scandal you know, how these sponging houses charge ten times over for every little taper and stick of wood. This is a matter of applying to the person who stands to make the most from it, that is all.”

Eversham looked on the verge of a rare laugh. “Do
you
mean to palm the warden, then?”

“Well of
course
I do.”

This set off an argument as to who exactly had a duty to pay said extortion, which successfully diverted the subject away from the pertinent problem of Lord Robert’s prison term, and left Mary very happily planning what she would send to him for his present comfort. That he was being stoic and apparently irked by the luxuries his uncle offered meant all the more fun for her.

Bringing Denley’s letter to her father at supper, she wondered how he had accepted her offering, imagining he might even be overwhelmed and inclined to think very charitable thoughts of her. But upon the reading of his letter, which was mostly a wonderful and conciliatory attempt to render himself again in Mr. Fanley’s good graces, she was chagrined to read his postscript with its veiled application to stop coddling him. The problem of how to answer was solved by applying to her father to include a post script from her in his reply:
Mary says — I have no idea of what sermon you are referring to, sir. As I recall, of all the homilies exchanged between us, you were the originator and I the humble recipient.

Her father glanced frowningly up at her, but she continued her dictation with an easy laugh he could not resist.

However, be assured that Caesar, who is now, as you will recall, my horse and under my care, seems to have been coddled so long by his former owner that he cannot be treated in any other way.

Denley read this saucy response with relish. He wished for nothing less than a long letter from Mary Fanley, full of all her hard wit and cajolery, to which he would reply in that languid, aristocratic way that infuriated her. But propriety would never allow such a license, and they contented themselves with small, pungent postscripts. Although Mr. Fanley never understood much of what was said between them, and he usually complained at having to be his daughter’s secretary, he was dutiful in the task.

Mary’s world began to colour once more with every passing letter. She loved nothing more than Lord Robert’s casual slights and admonishments, couched in the larger, more comfortable security of their friendship. Once she complained that if she was only going to hear about primogeniture, she would be grateful never to hear any of his letters read aloud to her again.
No doubt,
he wrote back,
you were very sleepy
from having to listen to elevating male discourse without much understanding of what was said.

It mattered very little to her that he was in prison, so long as she could keep him supplied with any number of small comforts. She sent a bar of fine milled soap, two bottles of spiced wine, a woolen scarf, tins of biscuits, and a great deal of simple food. She sent herbs for hanging by the hearth, a sturdy rug such as would be used in an open carriage on cold days, a tin of snuff, and a small book or two. Once she sent him three new handkerchiefs, all edged in lace of her own making. He laughed very long and low upon receiving them, and in his next letter to Mr. Fanley, he had thanked her, adding in his dry way that he only regretted he would be called upon to offer them up, one after the other, for ruination by some female in distress.

Spring passed in Greenly as if tied to the rhythm of the daily post. When there was no letter from Denley, a crumpled, hurried letter would arrive from Will as he made his way through France, Spain and Italy. Though the rain fell incessantly, the country grew blindingly green whenever the clouds parted and let the summer months roll through. And on just such a day, when the sun was high and warm, when roses began to bloom and songbirds began to hatch, Mary besought Barker to saddle Caesar for his daily constitutional ride.

“Where to, miss?” he asked, though he knew the answer already.

“Treehill,” she replied a little consciously. “Today is too beautiful for a short ride to the village.”

So they took off down the lane to the gate house and made the turn toward the wooded vales and glens. Mary had grown to think there never was a more beautiful place in the world, acknowledging to herself that she had never been anywhere at all. Lord Robert’s estate was a little changed now from when she had first seen it in all its native and abandoned glory. There were three tenant farms already, but they were set aside from the road to the great house, and generous in their borders. Her father had predicted next year they would have a respectable yield in barley, though its real wealth would be in cherries, blackberries, and hazelnuts, which had been grown in the district since ancient times. She smiled lightly to think of all her father had invested in this place. He had cultivated his own land to within an inch of perfection, and here, he could once again find much work to be done.

She was in this beautifully reflective state while Caesar ambled along at his usual casual pace with Barker, riding patiently behind. Her groom was not a man who needed much in the way of conversation; she was always glad of his company because of how little he demanded of her. Eventually, she pulled up in the shade of a massive old walnut tree to get out of the sun momentarily and let the horses rest. She looked dreamily behind her down the road, then turned her eyes toward Treehill. There she saw a lone figure, a man on horseback, coming down the lane toward them.

“Whoever could that be?” she asked the groom a little uneasily. They rarely encountered anyone at Treehill.

“Perhaps it is Mr. Tinkerton,” he answered idly.

Mary continued to observe the man, until she said with some urgency, “Barker, put me down please.”

Once she was aground, Mary Fanley began to walk, increasing her pace until she broke into a run. The man pulled up his horse and watched her for a second before he dismounted. He did not walk to her, but let her run full into his arms.

“You beast!” she cried in his waistcoat. “You could have told us you were coming!”

Lord Robert gently pried her away, saying calmly over her head to her groom, who felt obliged to follow her at a trot, “Well, Barker, it appears Miss Fanley is very happy to see me for the sake of her father.”

Barker squinted in the sun. “Is that you sir?!”

“Indeed. Now, be so good as to see to Miss Fanley’s horse while I speak to her.” To Mary, he said more privately, “Really, Rabbit, you cannot fly into my arms on the road. It isn’t seemly.”

She pulled away in a fit of temper. “Oh? Should I have given you a passing nod? Well, forgive me, but you have given me a great shock. Could you not have let us know to expect you…you accursed man?”

“Well of a certainty I could have, and I would have arrived in state to see you and your papa on the steps of the manor house. But I had a wish to see you, Mary, walking down a lane, to come upon you just as I did. You are a sight for sore eyes.”

Her bruised feelings were forgotten “And you? You look well enough, though you are very thin. How are you really? Are you so very torn to pieces?”

He chuckled, tucked her arm into his and walked her back to where Caesar stood waiting. “I wonder how you expect me to answer a dozen questions at a time. But yes, I am very well, thanks to you and all your coddling.”

She blushed and looked away in confusion, while he laughed at her again. Upon reaching her horse, he simply took her as he had done once before, and threw her up in the saddle.

He patted Caesar’s flank and looked up at Mary. “Shall we ride to Mr. Fanley, then?”