Greygallows (2 page)

A slight pang went through me; but my inclination to weep was checked by my aunt's appearance. She had relaxed in the privacy of the coach and was sprawled across the opposite seat, her ruffled skirts filling it entirely. One beringed hand rested on her ample bosom, as if she were short of breath; and indeed she must have been,
after compressing her girth into the iron-bound stays. The look on her face was unnerving. It was no more hostile than it was kindly; it held instead a cool appraisal, the sort of look I had seen on Miss Plum's face as she tried to decide which dress material to purchase.

After a long moment my aunt nodded slowly.

'I suppose something can be made of you,' she said. 'Your fortune, of course, will be a vast help.'

'My fortune,' I repeated stupidly.

'Come, child, don't look so vacant. You must know you are an heiress. You should have known, from the way that fat old woman fawned on you.'

'I knew there was enough money,' I said, resenting the reference to Miss Plum.

'Enough!' My aunt's laugh was like a dog's bark, sharp and explosive. 'Ten thousand a year is enough for most tastes, certainly.'

'Ten thousand,' I said. 'It sounds quite a lot.'

'Indeed,' said my aunt, with a snap of her teeth, as if she wished to seize on the ten thousand like a bone. 'Enough to enable you to be choosy. You can buy yourself a pretty husband in today's market, with that amount.'

'Buy—'

My aunt emitted another barking laugh.

'Bless the girl, must you repeat every word I say, like a parrot? Why did you think you were taken out of school? Why am I, do you suppose, inconveniencing myself to sponsor you this winter in London?'

'I am too old, now, for school,' I said. 'I thought perhaps you wished to form a family circle, since we are the only ones left.'

If I had ever harbored such an illusion, I no
longer did; every word, every look, of my aunt's made her feelings painfully clear. I cannot say the realization came as any great shock to me, but deep in the back of my mind a wisp of hope had lingered through all the years of her neglect. I could not help wishing there were one person who loved me.

To show my hurt would have been stupid. I was actually more angry than hurt. Though a boarding school is a comparatively innocent place, it is not without malice, and I had learned some things not in the course of study. I said, in my sweetest voice,

'Now that you are elderly, Aunt, I had hoped to be a dutiful niece to you in your declining years.'

My aunt contemplated me with an unchanged face.

'It is truly remarkable,' she said softly, 'how much you resemble your mother. My dear late sister.'

Despite the softness of the words and the voice, a little shiver ran through me. My emotion must have shown in my face, for my aunt smiled maliciously.

'No, my love, our present association is for your benefit, not mine. That old busybody Beam proposed it, but I must confess he was probably right; it is dangerous to put these things off too long. The possibility of scandal ... Lud, there's that vacant look again! You can't be that innocent, surely; have there been no elopements, no flirtations, at that school of yours?'

Chaperoned as we were, there had been flirtations. The tall, older girls walked at the end of the line when we went out. Thus placed, far from Miss Plum's observation, they had opportunities
for exchanges of glances and notes. But I had no intention of admitting these encounters, or of mentioning Margaret's unfortunate affair with the curate. My aunt's avid, amused expression filled me with disgust. So I remained silent, and after a time she went on,

'Well, well, be innocent if you like, it is a desirable quality in a young girl. But you must have some suspicion of what goes on between men and women? You have heard tell of the institution of marriage? Don't put on airs with me, miss; you must know the future intended for you, it is the only one possible for a girl of fortune and family. I've taken a house for the winter, in the West End—you won't know it, provincial as you are, but it is
the
fashionable district—and if we can't manage a spring wedding, it won't be for lack of effort on my part.'

'Your part,' I repeated; and felt myself flushing angrily as she grinned at me. 'I have nothing to do with it, then?'

'Not a great deal,' she said indifferently. With a frown she studied my new frock, which Miss Plum had selected so carefully. 'To judge from what you are wearing, your wardrobe must be frightfully
demode.
But that can be remedied. Not that your appearance matters, except to me; I cannot be embarrassed by appearing in public with a frump. You might be a blackamoor or a hunchback, or both, but with ten thousand a year—'

'I am coming to hate those words,' I interrupted rudely.

'You would be very stupid to do so. They represent your position in the world.'

'My father's position.'

'Not at all.' My aunt chuckled. I preferred her barking laugh; her chuckle was fat and cruel. 'If your father had not regrettably passed away in his prime, you would have very little left. Fortunately for you, he died before he could squander the prize money he had won in the war, not to mention your mother's sizable inheritance. You inherited also from your father's elder brother, whose children all died in infancy, and from your grandparents. Yes,' she said, with ghoulish deliberation, 'you are rich because many people died untimely deaths. A pretty thought, is it not, to found your fortune on a dozen graves?'

In that year of 1842, there were only a few hundred miles of railroad in all England, and people of fashion shunned the trains because of their dirt and discomfort. It was a long day's drive by coach from Canterbury to London. The drive was not so unpleasant as I had feared. After her burst of spleen, my aunt relaxed and proved to be an entertaining companion. She regaled me with anecdotes about the great city and its inhabitants. Some of the stories were funny, some were dramatic; but all were malicious. I pretended a vast sophistication, which amused Lady Russell very much, but secretly I was shocked at some of her tales, especially those that criticized the young Queen.

Miss Plum was devoted to her Majesty; the parlor was overcrowded with lithographs and sketches showing the sovereign's pretty pouting face and dainty little figure. When she married her handsome cousin, Prince Albert, our schoolgirl
hearts fluttered romantically, and we all swooned over the Prince's delicate moustaches and tall, manly form. We welcomed the birth of each royal child with loyal enthusiasm. No one could say that the Queen shirked her duty; there were already two infants, one for each year of her marriage.

After Miss Plum's adulation, my aunt's remarks struck me as blasphemous. She admitted that the Prince was a well-made fellow, but claimed he was a horrible prig. The court was already suffering from his dull, sanctimonious habits. As for her Majesty—I realized how carefully Miss Plum had censored the reports that filtered into our secluded world. For the first time I heard the nasty rumors about the Queen and her minister, Lord Melbourne.

There were horrid little verses about 'Mrs. Melbourne.' Other verses accused the Queen of being fat; of wearing the 'britches,' as they put it; and of other qualities my aunt did not quite dare voice aloud. She repeated the lines, but camouflaged their significant words with a mumble and a leer. I can still recall one relatively innocuous couplet which concerned the effect on the Queen of those beautiful moustaches of Prince Albert's:

'...
that dear moustache which caused her first to

feel, And filled her bosom with pre-nuptial zeal!'

I restrained the indignant comment that came to my lips, but my aunt saw my look of outrage, and it re-doubled her mirth. She guffawed till she was breathless.

By midafternoon the effect of an
ample
luncheon overcame her enjoyment of baiting me, and she fell into a doze. She really was a hideous sight as she snored, openmouthed and asprawl across from me. I concentrated my attention on the view from the window, but it was not until evening that I saw a sight that made me exclaim. My cry woke my aunt, who thrust her head out the window to see what had excited me.

'Yes, yes,' she mumbled irritably. 'It is St. Paul's. Thank God we are almost there. I am half-dead with fatigue. Now, girl, don't gawk. It is not modish.'

I couldn't have stopped myself from gawking if I had cared about being modish. I had heard of London for so long, from the lucky girls whose parents lived there, and who visited them on holidays. The metropolis of two million souls, the largest city in the world; with its amazing gas-lit streets and fine buildings, with pleasure gardens and palaces and magnificent churches. There were lions and tigers in the Surrey Zoo, and a tortoise so gigantic it could carry children on its back. I was too old for that now (there was a pang of regret in that admission); but I yearned to see the panorama that showed the Great Fire. Amelia had seen it; she had cried out and tried to run away, it looked so real, but her papa had laughed, and held her. And the Queen. Perhaps I might see the Queen...

I must have spoken aloud. There was a vulgar snort from my aunt.

'You'll see her Majesty and your pretty Prince. And all the royal whelps as well. Lud, they say she is breeding again.'

She condescended to comment on some of the sights as we passed through the crowded streets.

The rattle of the wheels grew deafening as we passed from country roads to cobblestones, but it was the roar of voices that dizzied me. Everyone seemed to be shouting. I had never seen so many people together in all my life. And such people! There were servants in gilded liveries; young men with muttonchops whiskers and tall hats; workmen in shirt sleeves and little paper caps; vendors crying their various wares; beggars...

I pulled my head back in the window, and my aunt, following my repelled gaze, laughed aloud.

'You'll see worse before you've been in London a day. What, are there no beggars in Canterbury?'

'His face,' I whispered. 'That great red ... And his eye—the one eye—'

'All false,' my aunt said cheerfully. 'The scar washes off at night, you may be sure; if the fellow washes, which is not likely.'

'And the man with no legs?'

'Tucked up under him on that little platform and strapped tight to his body. Don't be so gullible.'

She pointed out a tall, melancholy-looking man in a blue swallow-tailed coat and tall hat and trousers which had once been white. He was harassed by a crowd of grinning urchins, whose comments I could not make out.

'One of the Blue Devils,' my aunt remarked. 'Lud, girl, haven't you heard of Bobby Peel's boys? He had great plans for putting down crime in the streets, but you can still have the shoes stolen right off your feet walking down Oxford Street.'

I went back to my gawking. The streets were handsome, with beautif
ul houses and tall trees. The air rang with a din
of hammering and
pounding, and buildings were going up everywhere. When I commented on this, my aunt snorted. Every change in the city was a source of aggravation to her.

'More and more people, more and more dirt and crime,' she grumbled. 'The city was well enough fifty—that is, some years ago. Now they are destroying all the old landmarks just to make a mess. They've torn down the old Royal Mews for this new square, with Nelson's Column, as it's to be. The shops are fine, but—faugh, girl, get your head in and put up the window. The stench is enough to make you sick.'

I obeyed without demur. We had come into a section of narrow streets whose old houses leaned on one another like crippled beggars. The smells were concentrated and remarkable. Miss Plum's drains were not the best in the world, but I had never encountered anything like this.

Gathering dusk and the dusty window made it hard to see out now, and after my initial glimpse I was not eager to do so.

'Why do we come this way?' I asked my aunt, who was waving a bottle of scent fastidiously before her nose.

'Oh, these sections are all around,' she said indifferently. 'One can hardly avoid them.'

'It is so dark. Where are the gaslights I have heard so much about?'

'You don't suppose they would waste them in this street, do you?'

'This sort of street is where I would suppose they are most needed,' I retorted. 'Crime flourishes best in darkness, surely, and the wealthy and wellborn do not commit crimes.'

The dusk was deepening; my aunt was only a lumpish shadow across from me. I heard her laugh.

'I must present you to my Lord Ashley,' she said mockingly.

'A pretty husband, to be purchased for ten thousand a year?' I suggested, with equal asperity.

'It would take more than ten thousand a year to buy the Earl of Shaftesbury's heir, even if he were single,' my aunt replied coolly. 'Lower your sights, my girl; our family blood is not distinguished enough for such gentlemen. But you would get on with him; Ashley is a fiery reformer, always ranting about the rights of the poor.'

'I am no reformer.'

'I trust not. It ill becomes a woman of breeding to take any stand on politics, much less such an unpopular stand as radicalism.'