Without a Summer (3 page)
Beside Jane, Vincent emitted his trifling whine, audible only to her ears. Jane raised her hand to stop her mother’s effusions. “We had thought only to take Melody with us. You would not wish to leave Papa all alone, and he can hardly leave, with all the work to be done around the estate.”
“It is true, my dear. I would be intolerably lonely if you were to go as well.” Mr. Ellsworth caught his wife’s hand. “It has been too long since we had the house to ourselves.”
“But she must have a chaperon! How can Melody go if I do not accompany her and protect her from improprieties?”
Jane smiled, more than ready with an answer for that objection. “That is no trouble at all. As I am a married woman now, I am more than able to act as Melody’s chaperon.”
She had the satisfaction of seeing her mother unable to protest. More to the point, Vincent stopped holding his breath.
* * *
It was nearly another
month before they were able to make the move to London. There were terms to negotiate with the Baron, a house to rent, trunks to ship, and finally their own travel arrangements to make. Though the snow had abated, the roads remained clogged with mud and would be slow going for a hired carriage. Even as the calendar had turned to April, the weather remained tenaciously chill. Snow still capped the hills as though it were January. It was a great relief when they clattered onto the London pavement and saw the great buildings crowd around them. Everywhere they looked, people thronged the streets, wrapped up against the cold.
Glass-front shops lined the roads and displayed their merchandise to tempt passersby inside. The more garish establishments had façades smothered in glamour to draw shoppers’ attention. Grocers set out winter greens and squashes under awnings that dripped on the unguarded. Carriages, hacks, and swells on horseback crowded the streets. Melody pressed her face against the glass and exclaimed at it all.
Jane leaned against Vincent with some satisfaction that the novelty had already begun to revive Melody’s spirits. She had been to London before, but there is a distinction between coming as a child with one’s parents, and arriving as a young lady who was Out for the Season. A very great distinction indeed. Jane’s father had given her some banknotes before they left with instructions that she was to buy Melody some new dresses and any other fripperies she desired. This was a task that Jane would undertake with pleasure.
Their carriage slowed. Outside, Jane could hear a clamour of voices. After a moment, the driver turned the horses and drove them onto a side street. Through the window, she glimpsed the road they had been on. A mob of people clogged it, shouting and dragging a large wooden frame out of a building. A man raised a sledgehammer over his head and dashed it into the side of the frame.
“What is happening?” Melody changed sides of the carriage and gave the street her attention.
“From the looms, I would guess they are Luddites.” Vincent lowered the window and the unintelligible rumble became a roar. He leaned out to address the driver, but his words were lost among the voices of the crowd. After a moment, he pulled his head back in and fastened the window. “Just so. He has another route that will take us around the disturbance.”
When they had been in London last, working on His Royal Highness’s commission, Jane could not recall this sort of disorder in the city, though she would grant that they had been busy the entire time. “Is this common?”
“Not in the City. I have read of disturbances in the North, but did not know that they had been felt in London.”
Jane cocked her head. “What are Luddites?”
“The followers of a imaginary man.” Melody leaned closer to the window. “They claim to follow Ned Ludd, but there is no evidence that there is such a man. They are largely weavers who have lost their place to the new weaving machines, but others who oppose progress support them.”
Jane could not help but be astonished. “How do you know that?”
“La! It was in the papers.”
As the carriage went over a bump, Jane swayed against Vincent’s side. “Those were looms, then?”
He nodded. “I cannot be entirely unfeeling toward their complaint, but at the same time, we do live in the modern age.”
“I do not care for modern times, then.” Melody settled back in her seat with a decided flounce. “If they make people act like madmen.”
“More than mere modernity can induce madness.” Vincent glanced out the window as the carriage turned onto a smoother street. “Ah … this is ours. Look—”
Anything further he might have said was lost as Jane and Melody crowded to the windows to look out. The carriage filled with cries of “That shall be our baker!” and “What cunning hats!” and “Is that a bookseller?”
“That is not just a bookseller; that is our home.” As the carriage pulled up in front of a handsome red brick building, Vincent opened the door and stepped out.
The façade was striking, with a total of five bays, three that projected slightly toward the street while the two end bays jutted forth almost like towers framing the building. The whole structure rose four stories above the foundation, with a multitude of narrow windows. The house had been divided into three addresses at some point, with the one in the centre being taken up by Beatts and Co., Booksellers, and the one to the right being occupied by McGean’s Cloth, Laces, and Ribbons. They were to occupy No. 80, on the left.
Jane and Melody followed Vincent out of the carriage as a footman came out to help the driver with the trunks they had brought with them from Long Parkmead. The housekeeper who came with the establishment met them at the door.
Mrs. Brackett was an older woman with iron-grey hair pinned up severely.
“Welcome, Sir David, Lady Vincent.” Her gaze landed on Melody and she gave an approving nod, as though glad to have a young lady under her care. “And Miss Ellsworth. It is a pleasure to welcome you to Schomberg House.”
Mrs. Brackett led them through the front door into a wide marble hall. Even divided as the house was, it still opened on to parlours to either side and had a stair going up farther. The small staff that had come with their terms for taking Schomberg House gathered in the foyer, at attention. With the house, they had acquired a cook, two housemaids, and the added luxury of a footman who could double as a valet.
It was a smaller staff than they had at Long Parkmead, but more than Jane had managed when they last lived in London. Then, they had been so consumed by work that they had one small apartment and only kept a maid-of-all-work. Here, though, Jane planned to entertain when they were not working, in the hopes of finding a suitable match for Melody.
Her sister was alight with wonder, sighing over all the accoutrements of the foyer as though she had never been indoors before. In truth, the furniture the house came with was clean but a little shabby, as though the previous occupant had used it harshly in spite of Mrs. Brackett’s efforts. Still, the side tables had arrangements of evergreens in the absence of flowers, and the paintings on the walls were of very good quality.
“Thank you, Mrs. Brackett. Would you see that our trunks are settled?” Vincent pulled off his greatcoat and handed it to one of the maids.
“Certainly, Sir David.” Mrs. Brackett nodded to the staff, dispersing them back to work. “Shall I show you to your rooms?”
“If you would do that kindness for Miss Ellsworth.”
The sound of her name called Melody out of her raptures over a folding screen in the corner. “But what are you going to do?”
“I want to show Ja—” He paused and corrected his address in front of the staff. “I have something to show Lady Vincent. You do not mind?”
Jane supposed that she would have to become used to calling him Sir David as well. If they were to use their position to make a good connection for Melody, then they could not continue to act as simple artisans. The staff would talk, and that news would circulate through society as gossip, even if no one admitted to gossiping with their valet or maid.
Melody shook her head and turned in place. “I shall have quite enough to do with settling in. Oh, what a delight!”
With a short bow of thanks, Vincent motioned Jane to the next flight of stairs. She paused only long enough to make certain that Melody truly was comfortable before following him up to the first story and again to the second. They went up again to the third floor. Vincent paused outside a wide door. “I hope you like this.”
Jane raised her brow in question.
In answer, he threw the door open. The whole of the top story was taken up with a wide room bright with skylights and surrounded by windows. The effect made it seem open and airy, as though they were outside. The broad wood beams of the floor were stained here and there with paint, but it did nothing to mar the sense of wonder that the room provoked.
“What … how? What is this? Vincent, why did you not tell me?”
He laughed and spun her around in a circle. “When I was a pupil at the Royal Academy, a picture dealer had his establishment here. I visited many times.”
“You told me as much when we saw it on the list of properties to let. But the studio?”
“I wanted to surprise you. And look.” He led her over to a corner, where a tube projected up out of the floor. Atop it was a bell, with a string that ran down into the tube. “Do you know what this is?”
Jane had only seen engravings, and never been in a house that still had a
boucle torsadée
installed. “A speaking tube? Truly?” In the 1740s, these had been all the rage in wealthy homes and allowed near instant communication within the household through the use of glamour. A long thread of glamour ran through the tube and could be set to spin, carrying sound from one point to another. Since the sound ran continually, a glamourist would have been stationed in an operator’s booth in the servant’s quarters to start and stop the
boucle torsadée.
Bells like this one signalled the glamourist. They had gradually fallen out of favour as the fashionable set realised that it was just as easy for the servants to eavesdrop as for them to send orders to the kitchen. Between that and the maintenance the glamour required to continue working, people had returned to using servants. The only vestige that remained in most of those homes were a system of bell pulls. Jane bent over the tube to peer down it. It had been filled in at some point, no doubt to prevent drafts. “Did it still work in your college days?”
He shook his head. “The glamour frayed long before the picture dealer took over the house. We toyed with trying to get it to work again, but most of the tubes were blocked, and the
boucle torsadée
requires a clear line of sight to function. The operator’s station is a linen closet now, but this artefact … It makes me think of what glamour
could
do, if we could but think of new methods to try.” He slipped behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Do you see the possibilities here, Muse? A place to practice our art uninterrupted. We might continue to explore glamour in glass.”
“Without fear of explosions?”
He chuckled and spun her in his arms. “Well … perhaps none of glamour.” Vincent reached back with his foot and kicked the door shut.
The Baron of Stratton lived in an impressive house facing Whitehall. Rising four stories above the street, it had elegant Corinthian columns supporting the façade of the building. The good proportions continued on the interior, with a broad stair hall that rose to the first story. As they were led through the halls, the art and furniture gave every indication of a patron with excellent taste. This gave Jane significant relief, because it increased the likelihood that they would not be asked to create an insipid glamural.
Lord Stratton met them in a formal library and proved to be an older gentleman with thinning hair who ran to stout, though no more than might be expected of a man in his fifth decade. He smiled and greeted them with hearty enthusiasm, coming around his large desk to shake hands with Vincent.
“Well, you certainly waste no time. I appreciate that, so I will try not to waste yours either. Lady Vincent, would you prefer to wait here while I show your husband the ballroom?”
Jane was beginning to suspect that they would have this conversation with every client who commissioned them. “Thank you, but no. It will be easier to do my work if I see the location as well.”
“Ah. Of course. Sir Lumley had mentioned that you assisted Sir David.”
Vincent, bless him, cleared his throat and corrected the Baron. “My wife is my creative partner, not my assistant. We work in full concert on all of our designs.”
If this surprised Lord Stratton, he did not betray that beyond a slight rise to his brow. Instead, he bowed quite properly to Jane. “You have my apology, madam, for the presumption. I should have known better, truly, as you will see when you meet my wife. She is also my partner in all things, and I commend you for what must be a happy marriage.”
Jane liked him better at once.
The ballroom to which they were led had been decorated with glamour in an older style. It had a profusion of poorly rendered cherubs in the corners, and fairly dripped with flowers growing in the most unlikely of arrangements. As was the fate of glamours, the various threads had frayed and degraded over time, leaving the illusions faded and thin like ghosts on the walls. This made the artifice of the glamour conspicuous, and seemed to be a postscript to the room, rather than an enhancement of its natural qualities. The modern vogue in glamour was one that endeavoured to present an authentic representation of nature, seen through an artist’s romantic eye. As daily life kept people indoors, the practice of bringing the natural world inside, even in an illusion, gained popularity.
In the centre of the room, looking up at a musicians’ gallery, stood an unprepossessing woman of middle years. She was above average height, with a figure grown thick, but still quite proud. Her hair was a cream colour that looked as if it had once been red. Upon hearing them enter, she turned, her face lit with a smile, blue eyes glimmering merrily. She came forward as their employer introduced them to Lady Stratton.
