Once More, Miranda

by Jennifer Wilde

  The petticoat clung to my bosom and waist like another skin, caressing me softly, the skirt flaring out wonderfully. The frock had a low-cut bodice and short, puffed sleeves, and it was a bit snug at the waist. The very fall muslin skirt belled out over the one beneath, both of them rustling as I whirled around like a dancer. If th’ girls could only see me in such duds! Real silk! Sprigged muslin! I danced around for a few minutes and then settled on a chair to pull on the stockings. They were, alas, too large, and Bancroft’s man hadn’t purchased any garters. The shoes were too small, pinching my feet dreadfully. Who needed shoes and stockings anyway? I put them aside and sat happily in front of the fire, letting my hair dry. It felt soft and feathery as the heat did its work.

  Imagine me sittin’ ’ere snug as could be in front of a fire, wearin’ silk an’ muslin. It wudn’t to be believed. The logs had all burned down, glowing orange and red, flaking into ash, coals glowing, too, glowing like rubies, the heat warming me all over. I ran my fingers through my hair. All dry now, feeling like silk itself. Wonder if ’e ’ad a brush? I got up and wandered into a third room, larger than the kitchen, not nearly as large as the one I had left. A gigantic bed with ornately carved headboard and posters, another wardrobe, a dressing table, both carved like the bed. Old wood, blackened with age, lovely just the same. More books. More dust. More litter.

  There was a brush on the dressing table. There was a huge mirror hanging on the wall above it. Blimey! Who was that stranger? Who was that girl with fresh, glowing skin and radiant blue eyes and hair shinin’ like dark coppery-red fire? Couldn’t be Randy. Couldn’t be. I gazed at the reflection, amazed at what I saw. It was a bloomin’ aristocrat with them high cheekbones, that straight nose, those full pink lips. I tilted my chin haughtily, lowered my lids, made an exaggerated curtsey. Beat anything I ever seen, it did, and the street urchin stuck her tongue out at the snooty miss in the glass.

  I brushed my hair until it fell in rich, lustrous waves that gleamed with dark highlights. Putting the brush aside, giving the stranger a final glance, I went back into the front room, heated the mulled wine and, fetching the pewter mug Gordon had chucked across the room, filled it with the warm, cinnamon-spiced grog. It was heavenly, made me feel all cozy inside, made me feel kind of dreamy and drifty and nice. I sat down on the disreputable blue sofa. The springs twanged. Dust flew as I settled back on the plump blue cushions. The lazy brass clock over the mantel continued to tick. It was after ten o’clock. Bancroft and the Scot must be enjoyin’ themselves at The Red Doe, brawlin’ an’ carousin’ with th’ wenches, probably, just like all th’ other men.

  I yawned, dreamy as could be, ever so snug nestling against the cushions. I had a delightful glow inside from the wine and longed for another mug, but I was much too comfortable to get up and fetch it. Leaning my head back, I gazed up at the skylight, the sky a velvety black beyond the glass, stars blinkin’ an’ blurry. You’re a lucky lass, Randy, I told myself. It idn’t goin’ to be so bad ’ere. You’ll ’ave clothes to wear an’ food to eat an’ a nice warm place, an’ if it don’t work out, you can always go back to your trade. Th’ Scot’s mostly ’ot air, mostly bluff an’ bluster. ’E ain’t really so fierce.

  My eyelids were growing heavier and heavier. I fell asleep, waking with a start an hour later at the sound of footsteps pounding on the stairs. I sat up and rubbed my eyes as the key turned in the lock. Bancroft came in first, looking flushed and merry and not entirely sober. His fine velvet coat was rumpled, his neckcloth loose. Dark gold hair unruly, brown eyes sparkling, he burst into song, bellowing out an extremely bawdy ballad with great gusto. Cam Gordon came in behind him, slammed the door, scowled and clamped his right hand over Bancroft’s mouth.

  “Jesus, Bancroft, you’ll have me evicted! A man who can’t handle his port should never touch the stuff.”

  Bancroft removed the hand from his mouth, gave Gordon a surly look and told him he was an uncouth bastard who didn’t appreciate fine music. Gordon frowned, not nearly as put out as he pretended to be. He gave his friend a rough shove that was more affectionate than anything else and, when Bancroft started to topple over, grabbed his arm and held him upright.

  “Man’s a bloody financial genius and can’t drink a few glasses of port without losing his head,” Gordon grumbled.

  “I haven’t lost my head! I just feel good. Wouldn’t hurt you to loosen up a bit yourself, you dour, bloody Scot! Always scowlin’, always mutterin’ threats and makin’ fierce noises. Bosh! You don’t fool anyone.”

  “You’re drunk, Dick.”

  “Secret meetings with those other Scots, hatchin’ dangerous plans—you’ll get yourself hung yet, Cam Gordon.”

  “Shut up.”

  “There isn’t a Scot alive who wouldn’t love seein’ Cumberland blown to bits, but most of ’em have enough sense to just—”

  “Shut up, Dick!”

  His voice was thunderous. Bancroft was immediately contrite. Gordon shook his head, exasperated, then helped his friend into a chair and stalked into the kitchen and began to bang pots around. Bancroft rubbed his eyes and blinked and after a moment looked up and saw me sitting on the sofa. His eyes widened. He rubbed them again, unable to believe what he saw, then took another look.

  “Cam!” he yelled.

  Gordon came tearing back into the room, alarmed.

  “What is it!”

  “You tell me,” Bancroft exclaimed, pointing.

  Cameron Gordon looked at me. No expression whatsoever registered on that sharp, angular face. He might have been looking at a stick of furniture. Bancroft shook his head as though to clear it and climbed unsteadily to his feet, brown eyes alight with appreciation.

  “Venus herself has stepped down from Olympus to grace your humble abode, man. Have you ever seen such a vision?”

  “You need coffee, Bancroft. I’ll make us some.”

  “Look at that hair, it’s like dark copper fire. Look at that face, sheer perfection, man, and the body! I know I had ’em assign the article of indenture to you, Cam, but I’ve changed my mind. I want her myself.”

  “You already have a maid, Bancroft.”

  “Who’s talking about a maid? I want her for my bed, man!”

  “You ain’t ’avin’ me, you blitherin’ sot!”

  Bancroft grimaced as though in pain. “Ow! That voice. Do you think we could cut her tongue out, Cam?”

  “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with my voice!”

  “Sounds like a cat screechin’,” Bancroft said. “Such noises coming from such a lovely throat. Let’s do it, Cam. Let’s cut out her tongue, then I can take her to the best places and pass her off as a duchess.”

  Gordon gave him an exasperated look and returned to the kitchen. Richard Bancroft grinned at me. I stood up, smoothing down my skirts, preening just a little for his benefit. I didn’t like what he’d said about my voice, hurt my feelin’s real bad, it did, but it was impossible to be angry with him. He was a great, amiable pup, full of nonsense and handsome as could be in a jolly sort of way. A girl could certainly do worse, I thought.

  “Shoes an’ stockin’s don’t fit,” I told him. “Shoes’re too small, stockin’s too large, an’ there ain’t no garters.”

  “The dress fits divinely,” he assured me. “You’re a raving beauty, lass. Who’d have thought it under all that grime.”

  “The dress is completely inappropriate,” Gordon said, returning with a pot of water and a tin of coffee. “I don’t know what your man could have been thinking. She’s going to scrub floors, scour pots, empty slops, not decorate a drawing room.”

  “A delightful decoration she’d be, too,” Bancroft said. “My drawing room could use a little sprucing up, as a matter of fact.”

  He set the pot of water on the glowing coals and placed the tin of coffee on the edge of a table, then turned to look at me with a close, scowling scrutiny, eyebrows pressed together, blue eyes fierce, the heavy black wave dipping over his brow like an inverted ‘V.’ He wasn
’t at all pleased by my transformation, I could see that. For some reason it disconcerted him, made him uneasy. Peculiar chap, this one, full of dark moods and contradictions, impossible to figure out.

  “You didn’t empty the bath water,” he said curtly.

  “I’ll do it first thing in the mornin’.”

  “You’re going to work hard, wench.”

  “I—I know that, sir. I will, too. Just wait an’ see.”

  “I should take you back, let them hang you.”

  “I’m sorry I bit your hand,” I told him.

  “You’re my property now, wench, my responsibility. You try anything like that again and I’ll take my belt to you. I mean it.”

  He did, too. His voice was cold and flat and scary. I lowered my eyes demurely, trying to look repentant. I could feel the force of his stare, and I could feel something else, too, something I couldn’t define, a strange, disconcerting sensation that was bothersome but not at all unpleasant. I raised my eyes, looking into his. They were a cold, harsh blue, and I felt extremely uncomfortable under that gaze, all the sass and fight gone out of me.

  “I—I’ll make the coffee,” I said nervously.

  “I’ll do it. You go to bed.”

  “I—don’t know where I’m supposed to sleep.”

  He stepped across the room and opened a door I hadn’t noticed before. A short flight of steps led up to a small attic room perched atop the roof, one of the windows looking down over the skylight, another looking out across the courtyard. I followed him up. Moonlight spilled through the windows, revealing a small brass bed, a rickety dressing table with chipped porcelain chamber pot and jug, a chair. There was a candle in the pewter candlestick that set on a small table beside the bed. Cam Gordon opened a drawer and took out a match, lighting the candle. The room filled up with soft golden light, and I saw the quilted white counterpane, the shabby pink rug, the delicate pink and blue patterns on the white chamberpot and jug.

  “It’s small,” he said gruffly, “but the others found it satisfactory enough.”

  It was heaven. It was clean, too, not messy like the rooms downstairs. I gazed around with a sense of wonderment. A room like this, all to myself, with a real bed, a real rug on the floor, however shabby. I couldn’t hide my wonderment, and Cam Gordon, seeing it, scowled again.

  “Go to bed,” he said. “You’ll be getting up very early tomorrow morning. We’ll have to get you suitable clothes—a cotton dress, an apron, a cap, shoes that fit. I suppose you can keep this finery—” He hesitated, the scowl deepening. “Shop probably wouldn’t take it back anyway.”

  He turned and left abruptly, closing the door at the foot of the stairs. I still felt strange, changed somehow, as though something beyond my ken had happened to me. Probably comin’ down with a fever, I told myself. Wouldn’t be at all surprised after traipsin’ all over th’ city in th’ cold. I took off the dress and draped it carefully over the chair, then blew out the candle and removed the petticoat and climbed into bed. A real bed, soft as feathers. Sure beat a pile of rags in the coal cellar. Moonlight streamed through the windows, silvering the walls. Shadows danced on the ceiling. Tired as I was, I expected to fall right to sleep. I didn’t. I couldn’t seem to sleep at all.

  Wrapping the counterpane around me, I stepped over to the window that overlooked the skylight. Peering down through the lead framework of cracked, sooty panes, I could see a section of the room below, the door, the fireplace, the old green chair. Bancroft was sitting in the chair, drinking a mug of coffee and listening none-too-attentively as Cam Gordon held forth. The Scot paced about restlessly, now in sight, now moving out of my line of vision. He seemed to be declaiming, making broad gestures like an actor on a stage, his expression quite savage. Bancroft yawned sleepily, as though he’d heard this particular tirade a number of times before.

  What a strange, unusual man, I thought, returning to bed. Tense. Tormented. Angry. Wrestling with a private demon. Yet I suspected there was another Cam Gordon behind that hostile facade. Bancroft was genuinely fond of him, and he was bound to have good reason to be.

  The moon vanished behind a cloud. The room filled with black, although there was a faint yellow glow coming up through the skylight. I closed my eyes, really comfortable for the first time in memory. I could hear noises from below—voices, footsteps, muffled by walls. Wind swept over the rooftops, whistling loudly, and me snug in my own bed, warm as toast under the covers. Who’d ’uv believed it this mornin’ when I was huddlin’ in gaol. A feather mattress. Clean linen sheets. Two blankets. It was amazin’, that’s what it was. Amazin’.

  Drowsy, I thought of all that had happened to me these past two days. Was it only yesterday morning I had awakened in the coal cellar with the cat prowling hungrily, looking for food? Seemed weeks and weeks ago. Hadn’t a penny to my name then, and now I owned a brand new dress and a silk petticoat, and I was going to have another dress as well and shoes that fit. I’d have plenty to eat, too. Wouldn’t have to steal for it. I’d have to work hard, of course, and cope with that bloody, temperamental Scot, but the prospect didn’t disturb me at all. It seemed … somehow exciting, strangely pleasant. Instead of dreading morning, dreading my next encounter with him, I seemed almost to be looking forward to it. Curious … Curious as could be.

  The noise woke me up. I opened my eyes, disoriented, confused. A door had slammed loudly. Footsteps were moving below. The door to this room was opening now, a tiny golden glow widening, spreading as Cam Gordon came up the steps with candlestick in hand. Bancroft had finally gone and now th’ bleedin’ Scot intended to ’ave ’is way with me. I made a soft, moaning noise, pretending to be fast asleep, watching him cautiously through lowered lashes. He stood at the foot of the bed, holding the candlestick high, looking down at me, and his eyes weren’t at all hostile now. They were, instead, extremely thoughtful.

  Softly brushed by candlelight, his lean, sharp face didn’t seem nearly so harsh. Without that scowl, that deep furrow above the bridge of his nose, without that tight grimace on his lips, he seemed younger and curiously vulnerable, a man wounded by life, nourishing his grief in private. Unguarded, those clear blue eyes were sad, beautiful, and the heavy black wave falling over his brow gave him a boyish look. Cam Gordon gazed at me for a long time with thoughtful eyes, and then he frowned and the furrow reappeared and the harshness returned. He hesitated for a moment, torn, battling with himself, and then he turned and went back down the steps, closing the door quietly behind him.

  I was bewildered. Bothered, too. I lay there in the darkness, trying to figure it all out, trying to understand this trembly feeling inside. I was relieved, sure, I had to be relieved, bloody Scot was as strong as a stallion an’ fierce as a tiger, could ’uv ’ad my cherry easy as pie, but what was this other feeling underlying the relief? Why did I feel … almost disappointed? Must be mistaken. Must be comin’ down with th’ fever. I tried to go back to sleep, but sleep was a long time in coming, and when it did it was filled with dreams unlike any I’d ever had before, delicious dreams, disturbing dreams, dreams that brought a blush to my cheeks when I recalled them the next morning.

  17

  Empty the slops. Fetch the water. Carry the coal. Up the stairs, down the stairs and don’t you dare tarry. I soon learned to hate that bloody stairwell and those endless flights of creaky wooden steps. I knew ’em all. The third step on the second flight screeched like a cat when you stepped on it. The fifth step on the fourth flight groaned like a bogeyman, gave me quite a turn the first few times I put my weight on it. Most people simply tossed their slops out the window, a sensible thing to do, but that didn’t suit Mr. Cam Gordon, no indeed, his new slavey had to carry ’em down and empty ’em in the gutter, a shockin’ waste of energy. How many buckets of water did I fill in the courtyard and lug up the stairs each day? I soon lost count. I came to loathe the sight and smell of coal, great ugly black chunks that weighed a ton when you had to carry ’em by the pailful. Fragile thing like me shouldn’
t ’ave to carry coal, but ’is bloody ’ighness wasn’t about to lift ’is ’and doin’ anything so mundane.

  No, he was too bleedin’ busy sittin’ at the table scowlin’ an’ mutterin’ and makin’ almost indecipherable ink tracks on page after page of blank paper. He’d scribble for a while, curse, wad the page up, glare at the wall and then reach for another page, dippin’ his quill in the pot of ink. He kept at it for hours on end, temper gettin’ shorter, curses gettin’ louder, and me expected to scrub the floors and wash the windows and fight the dust and keep as quiet as a mouse while doin’ it. How can you dust books quietly? You ’ave to slam ’em together real smartlike—bang! bang! bang! Dust fairly flies. He yelled like a red Indian when I did that, hurled a candlestick at me, and when I was cleanin’ out the kitchen cabinet and stumbled and dropped a stack of tin plates he came tearin’ into the room like a wild man, black hair bouncin’, blue eyes blazin’. Thought he was goin’ to kill me for sure that time.

  There were other times when, lost in his work, the whole place could have fallen about his ears without his noticing. His quill fairly raced across the pages then, ink splattering, a lot of it staining the fingers of his left hand. The pile of finished pages on the right side of the table grew admirably tall, all neatly stacked together with a lopsided pewter owl perched on top to keep them in place. When, after a day like this, he finally put quill aside and stood up, stretching his arms, arching his back, he was invariably in a good mood. Cam Gordon in a good mood meant he was merely sullen and quiet, meant he didn’t stalk around like a caged tiger and slam things around and fill the air with horrible threats against bloody publishers who expected bloody miracles and could take their bleedin’ demands and shove ’em up their noses—only he rarely said “noses.”