The Linnet Bird: A Novel (24 page)

I sat down across from him, putting my elbows on the table and leaning forward, twining my feet around the legs of my chair. I knew Mrs. Smallpiece would go into one of her lectures if she were to see me in such a definitely vulgar position, but she wasn’t here. There was no one in the upstairs library at this time of evening but Shaker and myself. “What was it like? Was it as wicked as one hears?”

He smiled. “It was new and exciting. I felt quite alive. My friends and I roamed about day after day, taking in the sights. One of my friends is an artist; he did a series of sketches. He gave me some. I can show you when we get home.”

“Would you go back, then?”

His smile faded. “I think my days for adventure may be over.” He crossed his arms, tucking his trembling hands under them, a gesture he did unconsciously when he spoke of himself. “And what of you, Linny? Do you still dream of America?”

I shook my head. It seemed so far from here, farther even than it had on the streets. “I can’t imagine it now, although I’m not sure why,” I told him. “And yet . . .”

“And yet what?”

“There is something inside me, especially when I read these”—I put my hand atop the book that lay on the table between us—“that makes me feel unsettled. As if there is something, just beyond my grasp, waiting for me.”

Shaker looked at my hand, my fingers caressing the moiré cover. Then he looked up at me. “I believe these longings are the feelings that accompany youth, Linny. But perhaps, perhaps when you . . . if you . . .”

“Perhaps what?” I prompted when he didn’t continue.

He stood then. “Nothing. I sometimes speak without thinking.”

“You don’t,” I said. “I’ve never heard you say anything that wasn’t well thought out.”

He gathered up his books, fussing with them now. “We’d better hurry or we may miss the last carriage.”

I followed, wondering what he had been about to say.

A
LTHOUGH
I
WAS NOT ALLOWED
into the Club and News Room on the main floor of the Lyceum, which was for men only, I would peek in to the high-ceilinged room with its spacious windows facing Waterloo Place whenever I had the chance. Usually this was on my way to the basement to fetch more ink or paper, or to use the marvelous new apparatus in a room discreetly marked Ladies’ Cloaks—a toilet with a flusher, operated mysteriously by one swift tug on a rope that hung from the wall. What a luxury! I often lingered in the lavatory longer than necessary, pulling the rope for the sheer pleasure of watching the water swirl to some distant and hidden place. I couldn’t help but smile as I compared this method to my days of emptying the stained and chipped chamber pot out of our window and directly into the court on Back Phoebe Anne.

In the Club and News Room I saw men relaxing in the comfort of deep leather armchairs, enjoying a cigar and coffee or tea. Some read crisply ironed copies of the
Liverpool Mercury
or the wide range of other newspapers and periodicals available. Others quietly discussed the imminent arrivals and departures from the port. Many club members, I realized, were wealthy shipowners. A number of them had also been customers of mine at one time or another, although I had no concern of being recognized—or even noticed.

There was also a lecture hall with grand double doors on the main floor. Elaborately lettered signs, designed and produced by Mr. Worth, stood on easels outside the doors, advertising upcoming lectures on arts, literature, or sciences that were made available to members and their guests.

It was a beautiful, gracious place. Spending my days at the library and my evenings in the genteel house in Everton under Mrs. Smallpiece’s strict tutelage, I knew the old Linny Gow was growing smaller and smaller, replaced by one who moved through the world with much more assurance. And how did I feel about the new person I was becoming?

I often felt a quiet sense of accomplishment, a warm glow that I might, after all, become the kind of young woman my mother had so often envisioned. And yet this was accompanied by a strange and troubling sensation of loss. I no longer shared the easy laughter and camaraderie of the girls on Paradise. I had become less spontaneous, more tightly reined. Perhaps I saw myself as less genuine. There can be no going forward, after all, without the look back over one’s shoulder.

My life was becoming, I realized, both comfortable and predictable. I met Shaker’s two friends, both pallid and serious but courteous young men, one of whom appeared tongue-tied in my presence. They accepted me as Shaker’s cousin. Every fortnight they arrived at Whitefield Lane for dinner. The meal was always solemn and rather stuffy with Mrs. Smallpiece present, but eventually she would grow weary and retire to her room. Leaving Nan and Merrie to clear the table, the four of us would retire to the drawing room, and it was here, after Shaker and his friends had a few glasses of spirits, that the evening became informal. The more talkative of the two young men regaled me with stories of Shaker as a boy and I saw a mischievous side to Shaker those evenings that I quite enjoyed.

I kept my head about me, making sure I didn’t get too caught up in the stories and laughter, aware that I had to stick to my created background. Shaker was very cognizant of this, too, I realized, often mentioning some fact about my fictitious father—his uncle—that made the story more true for me. There were odd and startling moments when I actually believed I was indeed a Smallpiece by birth.

I had, I told myself often, been given a chance at a better life, a life that anyone from a back court off Vauxhall Road would be eternally grateful for. I no longer had to spend long hours each night being cold or wet. I didn’t have to squat over a chipped basin before the sun rose each morning, removing a slimy piece of sponge soaked with foul spunk. I didn’t have to worry about being torn open by a man capable of growing to the size of a horse, or being bitten or slapped or pinched to help a customer grow stiff. My skirts were no longer urinated or vomited on by those reeling with drink, and my pay was given to me in a folded paper, instead of tossed onto the filthy street for me to scrabble for among dog dirt and gobs of shining spittle.

I had enough to eat. I had any book I desired at my disposal, and time to read. I had my own clean bed.

Why, then, could I not be content? Why then, did I continue to be plagued by despair, by thoughts that flew out beyond the Lyceum and the house on Whitefield Lane? My dream of America had died, and although it no longer held a fascination for me, I still imagined myself in an unknown life—completely different from one that Liverpool, with its fog, gulls, and gray shifting light over the stretching windswept emptiness of the water, had to offer. And I was restless and uneasy with my past, the old horror of what I’d done, the old troubling nightmare still haunting me from time to time.

Why could I not accept what had been offered by Shaker as a gift, be content with this life—no, this charade—as Miss Linny Smallpiece?

Chapter Fourteen

I
MET
F
AITH
V
ESPRY THROUGH
C
ELINA
B
RUNSWICK.

Celina was dark haired and not extraordinary in any way, but her bright blue eyes fringed with heavy dark lashes had a certain attractiveness. Shaker and I were leaving the library one evening, about two months after I came to live with him, when we came upon her, walking arm in arm with her father down Bold Street.

“Miss Brunswick, Mr. Brunswick,” Shaker said, stopping before the couple, tipping his hat.

“Good evening, Mr. Smallpiece,” the young woman said and then she stared at me, two spots of color appearing high on her cheekbones.

“Hello, Geoffrey,” the older gentleman said.
Geoffrey?

“We haven’t seen you about for quite some time,” Miss Brunswick said, her eyes flickering between Shaker and me. “I am sure you’ve been missed at a number of functions over these last few months.”

“Yes. I’ve been . . . busy,” Shaker said. “Allow me. Mr. Brunswick, and Miss Celina Brunswick, it is my pleasure to introduce you to Miss Linny Smallpiece, late of Morecambe.”

“Miss Smallpiece?” Celina asked. Her voice was cool as she took in my unfashionable outfit. She wore a long smoky blue pelisse—the color setting off her eyes—and her hands were hidden inside a fisher fur muff. Her hat had a matching fur trim. I knew by both the cut and the fabric of her clothes that they were expensive. “She’s a relation, then?”

“My cousin,” Shaker said, and the tightness in Celina’s jaw relaxed just the tiniest bit. “She has suffered a loss—her father—and has come to live with my mother and myself. She works with me now in the library.”

“She works?” Celina said, then graced me with a small smile, looking at the books under my arm, tilting her head and reading their titles aloud with a questioning lilt. “
Letters on the Improvement of the Mind,
by Hester Chapone? And Hannah More’s
Search After Happiness
?” She raised her eyes to meet mine, a challenge in them that I didn’t understand. “Very ambitious reading. May I take it that you are an admirer of the Bluestockings, then, Miss Smallpiece?”

I smiled uncertainly.

“My cousin enjoys a wide variety of reading,” Shaker said, coming to my rescue. “I can’t say that your choices apply solely to women of pedantic literary taste, do they, Linny?”

“No. Certainly not,” I responded, careful to match my intonation to Celina’s, although my throat was flanneled with nervousness. “Yet I must admit that yes, I do have a high regard for the Bluestockings’ fearlessness in flouting public opinion on the expected confines of the female. Oh—that appears to be our carriage,” I added, as the carriage rumbled by. I wanted to get away from this woman with her superior air and critical expression.

“Yes. We should hurry. It was a pleasure to see you again, Miss Brunswick. Sir.” Shaker again tipped his hat.

Celina gave me a long stare from beneath half-lowered lids, and then the four of us parted company.

“She knew,” I whispered to Shaker once we had taken our seats in the carriage and were heading in the direction of Everton.

“Knew what?” he asked, opening the cover of his own book.

“About me. She knew, immediately, that I didn’t belong.”

Shaker closed the cover. “Nonsense. You answered her admirably, if a trifle stiffly. Although she did appear less friendly than in the past. I’ve known her for over a year now. We were introduced at one of the lectures—on botany, I believe. Miss Brunswick is very interested in flora and fauna.”

“She certainly appeared interested in me as well,” I said, then added, “Geoffrey.”

Shaker gave a wry smile. “It’s my Christian name. But anyone who is comfortable with me calls me Shaker, as I told you.”

“I think Geoffrey quite suits you. Distinguished,” I said, opening my book to read for the rest of the ride home, but I noticed, before he turned back to his book, that he had colored.