“Then mornings before breakfast will have to do, won’t they? The vestry is never locked—as you are well aware. If you pace yourself at forty a day, your task will be completed by Friday. And if you will not share the responsibility for this prank, you will not share the work. I want every one done in your hand.”
Hugh swallowed. “Yes, Sir.”
The vicar nodded. “You may go.”
“Yes, Sir.” He rose from the chair. “Thank you for not sending me home.”
“You’re welcome, Mr. Sedgwick.”
Hugh was turning again for the door when the vicar’s voice stopped him. “Oh, and Mr. Sedgwick?”
“Yes, Sir?”
The vicar quirked an eyebrow. “I plan to continue hanging my vestments in that room. If you happen to be tempted—”
“I’ll not be tempted, Sir.”
****
Neville Broughton was waiting in the sitting room of Hugh’s apartment. He sprang from the armchair. “Will you be sent down?”
“No.” Hugh hung his hat on the rack by the door. “But I’ll be inscribing hymnals all week.”
“You don’t say! He wasn’t angry?”
“Oh, he was angry all right.”
They had been friends since boarding school at Harrow, and joked that they could read each other’s thoughts. Hugh could clearly read self-preservation in Neville’s. His friend proved just that a moment later by saying, “Did he ask if anyone else was involved?”
“I didn’t tell.”
“But of course you wouldn’t.” Neville smiled at him. “Well, at least the best part remains.”
“What do you mean?”
He pulled a stack of pound sterling notes from his trouser pocket. “Twenty-five! Everyone paid up.”
“Good.” Hugh took the money and slipped it into his coat pocket.
He had been beckoned to Reverend Leigh’s study just before lunch, and his frayed nerves had his stomach demanding food. But when he took the Gregor’s Scottish Shortbread tin from the mantelpiece, it rattled with loose crumbs.
Neville shrugged at his questioning look. “I didn’t finish lunch, for worry over what would happen to you.”
Hugh tossed the tin onto his study table. His nerves jumped at the clatter it made. “I’d rather have a sandwich anyway. No, some soup would be better.”
“Then let’s make way to Boswell’s.” His friend clapped him on the shoulder. “You’ll treat, of course, now that you’re suddenly wealthy.”
“You’ll be buying,” Hugh said, taking up his hat again. He thought about the morning hours he would be spending alone with hymnals. “You’re getting off cheap. And we have to make a stop in the chapel first.”
He had to chuckle at the mock whimpering noises Neville made as pound notes began slipping through the slot in the poor box. It wasn’t as if either of them even needed the money, for both received more than generous allowances from wealthy fathers. There was just something about ill-gotten gains that made them more attractive. But in this particular instance, he was glad when that last pound disappeared.
A woman was exiting Boswell’s Student Café on Petty Curry just as Hugh and Neville arrived. Hugh stepped up to hold the door. “Thank you,” she said, and was followed out by three younger women who also thanked him. Hugh smiled at the sight of some red curls beneath the brim of a brown hat. The Girton girls from the train had visited his thoughts more than once since the beginning of term. Perhaps God has forgiven me after all, he thought.
****
Catherine’s next conscious thought was to wonder why no one was answering the door. She opened the eye not pressed into the pillow and stared at vaguely familiar pink flowered wallpaper. School, she remembered, raising her head and pushing away the covers.
The knob turned, and then Peggy stuck her head inside. “Catherine?”
“You’re back?” Catherine asked, still stupefied by sleep.
“Oh dear. I woke you? It’s half-past five, so I assumed . . .”
“I’m glad you did. I didn’t want to sleep the night through. Do come in.”
Peggy had apparently not stopped at her own room, for her wrap of black knitted yarn was still about her shoulders, and she still wore the hat that matched her brown faille gown. Her cheeks were so flushed that her freckles seemed to fuse together. “You’ll never guess who we met in Cambridge.”
“Don’t make me guess, Peggy,” Catherine pleaded, slipping out of bed and scooping her dressing gown from the back of her chair. “My mind’s not ready for work.”
“Oh, you poor dear. But don’t put that on. You need to dress for supper. You can’t live on biscuits and toast.”
Catherine nodded and took the gown she had worn to church from her wardrobe. “Whom did you meet?”
“Hugh-from-Saint John’s! After church, Milly talked Helene and me into steaks instead of tea room dainties. She bribed Miss Scott into chaperoning us by insisting on paying for her meal. Well, Miss Scott said a place called Boswell’s was reputed to have the best in town.” She wrinkled her nose. “Between the two of us, mine was overcooked. But guess who should happen by as we were leaving?”
“Hmm. Hugh-from-Saint John’s?”
Peggy laughed. “His surname is Sedgwick. Like the Tea Company, which his family owns, by the way. He was with his friend Mr. Broughton. You know, Neville-from-the-train. We chatted for some five minutes. Miss Scott didn’t raise an eyebrow, as it was obvious we were acquainted. He, Mr. Sedgwick, that is, asked how we were adjusting to college. He also said that St. John’s is staging a production of The Man of Mode on the thirteenth, and that we should see it. Bellair is his part—don’t you think he fits it perfectly?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Catherine replied after pulling the dress over her head. “I’ve never read The Man of Mode.”
Peggy rolled her eyes. “Heaven forbid you should read something without high adventure. Mr. Broughton may be the more handsome, but he has the personality of moldy cheese—he jabbed Mr. Sedgwick in the ribs, hinting of some prank they had played, until Mr. Sedgwick told him to stop. Then he—Mr. Broughton, that is—boasted to Milly of his father’s horse-breeding farm in Hammersmith.”
“Yes? Was she impressed?”
“Hardly. She looked at him as if he were something she scraped from the bottom of her shoe. You know that look, don’t you?”
Catherine grimaced. “I do.”
Absently Peggy picked up Catherine’s comb from the top of the chest of drawers, then put it back again. “As good as it was of Miss Scott to allow us to chat, I wish she hadn’t been there. Perhaps Hugh would have asked permission to write me.”
“You would really wish that?”
“Insofar as it’s against the rules for him to visit, it’s better than nothing. You’ve fastened the wrong button there.”
Pressing chin against bodice, Catherine pushed the button through the loop. “But you’ve ridiculed him for the train prank to anyone who would listen.”
“Not ridiculed . . . related. It’s an amusing story.” She sighed. “I wish he weren’t a senior. He’ll be gone by summer.”
“But he surely lives in London if he took the train at King’s Cross. Perhaps we’ll happen upon him again sometime, and he can pretend to be Hamlet.”
“Hamlet.” Peggy smiled. She stepped close enough to seize Catherine’s hands. “Miss Scott said she would chaperone a group to see The Man of Mode. You’ll come too, won’t you? I won’t be so nervous if you’re there. And if we have a small group, it won’t seem as if I’ve set my cap for him.”
“Then I’ll come,” Catherine told her.
“Thank you!” Peggy gave her a quick embrace, her face glowing again. But by the time Catherine finished combing her hair, Peggy had stalked into the sitting room to drop into the cushions of the upholstered chair. “What good will it do? I’m not the sort of girl men of that sort are interested in anyway. No doubt he would have been interested in Milly, had his friend not laid claim to her
right away.”
“What do you mean . . . not the sort of girl?” Catherine moved over to kneel by her side. “You’re a lovely young woman, bright and witty.” She thought it best not to remind her of a certain Londoner who wrote every week.
Peggy’s hazel eyes glistened. “You don’t read about bright and witty girls in fairy tales, Catherine. The prince fell in love with the sleeping beauty before he knew if she even had a mind. Before he heard her speak. She could have believed the earth was flat and had a grating voice for all he knew.”
“Then he was a simpleton, wasn’t he? If I had a brother, I just know he would be terribly in love with you after an hour in your company.”
Her friend made a face. “You’re just saying that to cheer me. I appreciate your kindness, but—”
“But it’s true. And who knows? Perhaps when Mr. Sedgwick sees you at the performance, he’ll reflect upon how much he enjoyed the encounter and write to you.”
“I doubt that.” Still, Peggy gave her a grateful look. “But it doesn’t cost anything to hope, does it?”
Catherine patted her arm. “Not a penny.”
Seven
“They should starve out every last one,” Sidney, Lord Holt muttered the following day, halfway through the Times account of how the Irish Land League was inciting tenant farmers not to harvest crops for absentee landlords. All the London newspapers were shrill with the tension in Ireland. Fortunately, in 1877 he had discerned the scent of trouble in the wind and sold off the Kilmaine estates that William III had awarded one of the Holt ancestors almost two centuries earlier.
There are enough sound businesses to invest in, he was fond of telling fellow members of the Brookes’ Club. I’ll not be subject to the whims of potato diggers.
This astuteness in financial matters came as naturally as his talent for sketching, his ear for fine music, and eye for fine poetry. Unlike his late father, who had entrusted his financial holdings to a solicitor, Sidney studied daily, educating himself over new innovations and trade opportunities. Such as the London Telephone Company, in which he owned ninety shares of stock. There were little more than two hundred telephones in London to date, but he was confident that one day in the future even the meanest cottage in England would boast one.
He could even foresee the time when houses such as his, in the aristocratic neighborhood of Belgravia, would have two, perhaps three. Why not? If men could stretch a cable across the Atlantic, they could do anything.
At the sound of a soft click he lowered the newspaper. Incredibly, a maid walked into the room, closed the door behind her, and walked over to the fireplace. She began moving bric-a-brac about on the chimneypiece without so much as a glance in the direction of the sofa. A coal ignited in Sidney’s chest, burning hotter with every twitch of the feather duster in her hand.
Finally, deliberately, he cleared his throat. The girl jumped, glass tinkled against hearthstone.
“Oh, m’Lord!” she cried, hand to throat as she gaped at him. She fell to her knees and began picking up shards of what once was a statuette of Venus, as if by hastening she could make the damage undo itself. “Oy didn’t know you was back!”
He had indeed just returned last night from a week of fox hunting on the family estate in Northamptonshire. Still, rules were rules.
“Abigail,” he said.
“It’s . . . Alice, beggin’ yer pardin, m’Lord,” she corrected meekly, the cockney accent so thick that he could almost imagine the smell of eel pie and mash in the room. Tears glistened in eyes the color of faded brown cloth. She swiped the edge of her hand beneath her nose. “And Oy’m terrible sorry about breakin’ the missus’—”
“Enough, Alice.” Folding the newspaper, he forced himself to draw in a calming breath. “What is the rule about the morning room?”
She sniffed, lowered her eyes.
“Well . . . ?”
“We ain’t to come in ’ere if the door’s closed, m’Lord,” she replied in a small voice.
“And was the door closed?”
“Oy can’t as recall, m’Lord. Me . . . mind was filled wiv uvver things.”
“Indeed?” He tapped the dimple in his chin with the tip of a long finger. “Weighty matters, I should think. The harvest troubles in Ireland?”
“No, m’Lord.”
“Hmm. Mr. Laveran’s discovery of the malarial parasite, no doubt.”
“Malar . . .” The girl’s eyes faded even more. “It’s me sister Bessie, m’Lord. She’s took up wiv a married ’ackney driver and me mum’s beside herself wiv—”
Sidney waved a hand. “Pity, but unfortunate things do happen. Do you know the reason you’re not to come near the door if it’s closed?”
A hesitation, and then, “Because you’re readin’ newspipers, m’Lord?”
He winced. “Not newspipers, Abigail. Newspapers.” His long hand automatically touched the stack beside him. Illustrated London News. The Sun. News of the World. “And reading requires concentration. Unlike dusting, which—as you’ve demonstrated—can be accomplished even when the mind is preoccupied.”
“Yes, m’Lord,” she replied with eyes lowered again.
“I do hope you mean that. You’re forgiven this time, as you’re so new with us. But if it happens again . . .”
Her lace cap bobbed up and down, but then she reconsidered and shook her head. “It won’t happen, m’Lord!”
“Very good.” He nodded toward the open door. “Now, leave.”
She looked down at the broken pieces still on the hearth. “Now?”
“I didn’t stammer. Did I?”
“But the—”
“Just because you cannot speak English is no excuse for not understanding it. And do close the door behind you.”
With what bits of Venus she had already gathered in her open palms, the maid rose from her knees and hurried to the doorway, pausing long enough to catch the knob with a forearm and pull the door closed. Muffled sobs mingled with muffled footsteps, fading into silence. Or at least relative silence, for his thirteen-year-old half brother, on a one-day school vacation for Founders Day, must have gathered up into the garden every lad from Belgrave Square.
He had no more raised the Times to eye level when a knock sounded again. “Enter!” he barked, vowing to send packing the servant who stepped through the doorway, regardless of rank or years of service. Everyone in the household knew full well that the morning room was his sanctuary. The chintz-covered sofa, soft with overstuffed plush arms, was perfect for studying the newspapers with his feet propped upon the ottoman. And the window overlooking the garden was raised enough to allow fresh chill air to mingle with the warmth the coal fire produced. Only today the air was accompanied by the hoots from the terrace.
The doorknob turned. His mother stuck half her body through the opening, as one tests the temperature of a pond with one’s toes.
“Mother . . .” he sighed.
“Forgive me, Sidney. Have you a minute?”
“Whether I have or haven’t, you’ve interrupted my concentration—you and that son of yours. Can’t you send him and his friends out to the Square or the Park?”
That pained look crossed her face, but she moved on into the room. Harriet Godfrey was still a handsome woman at forty-seven, her cheeks soft though a fair amount of grey dulled the brown hair. “I’m sorry, Sidney, but they’re still muddy from yesterday’s rain.” She took a step toward the window. “Shall I close—?”
“Then it would be too stuffy . . . wouldn’t it?” he said. But he restrained himself from pointing out that he was well within his rights to demand some consideration, having inherited the house at age nine when his father, a judge in the Court of Exchequer, died of chronic bronchitis and heart failure. But his mother had wept the last time he said so, causing him to feel guilty for the rest of the day.
Aside from occasional trespasses upon his privacy and noises from his half brother, he was content to allow her second family to share the house, situated
a stone’s throw from Buckingham Palace and Green Park. Henry Godfrey’s wages as director of the Midland Railway Company took care of household expenses, so that Sidney’s sizable inheritance was allowed to accrue interest in stocks, India bonds, and similar securities. Mother’s expertise in running the household spared him from having to give a moment’s thought to domestic affairs—Abigail notwithstanding. And fortunately, Edgar spent the better part of his days in school.
“Well, what is it?” he asked, feeling the coal in his chest reignite. “If it’s about that clumsy little skivvy . . .”
“I beg your pardon?”
Sidney glanced at the hearth, where shards of glass caught sunlight from the open window. “Never mind.” Why expend the energy explaining if it wasn’t necessary?
“You’ve a telephone call,” she said.
“Yes?” He got to his feet, dropping his folded newspaper onto the stack. “Well, why didn’t you say so?”
She stood with hands clasped, posture strained. “I wish you would ask that . . . Lady Kelly to be more discreet, Sidney. What if your brother had answered?”
Half brother, Sidney corrected silently halfway across the room. “Really, Mother, you’re supposed to allow Rumfellow to answer the telephone. You don’t answer the doorbell, do you?”
“Well, no.”
“The telephone is simply another entrance to the house,” he shot over his shoulder from the corridor.
“Yes, but about Lady Kelly . . .”
He hastened on as if she had not spoken, down the staircase and to the parlor just off the entrance hall. The Gower Bell candlestick telephone occupied its own small table at one end of the sofa. With one hand he picked up the corded earpiece from where it rested on the marble top, with the other he lifted the body of the telephone.
“Leona?” he said, settling into the sofa cushions.
The silence that followed caused him to wonder if the connection was still there. And who could fault her for hanging up, with his mother taking her own sweet time toddling up to tell him?
“Sidney?” came through, tinny and weak so that he had to press the earpiece into his ear. “You’re back?”
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