by Annis Bell
Verna looked at her warmly. “I’m happy for you. No need to worry, though. I keep my customers’ confessions to myself.”
Hettie giggled behind her hand and looked at a hat.
“That cloth would certainly be suitable. I also have other qualities in that color. Would you like to take a look? When would you be needing the dress?”
“In four weeks, almost,” said Jane softly.
If the unusually short notice surprised Verna, she did not let it show. “That is certainly manageable. I have a new assistant, and she has turned out to be a real stroke of luck.”
While Verna rolled out one length of cloth after another, Jane was painfully aware that the big day was drawing inevitably closer. “Mrs. Morris, no doubt you have heard about the unfortunate girl who was found in the park out at Rosewood Hall?”
The question was rhetorical. Everyone in Fearnham knew about the incident, of course.
Verna ran her hand over a length of silk brocade from Milan. “Oh, certainly. It was very good of you to give the girl a decent burial.”
“Christian duty. But I can’t help wondering where the poor creature came from, where she spent her nights. Have you heard anything? Have any of the farmers mentioned her sleeping in a barn? There are so many possibilities, and the people would certainly have talked about it. Perhaps not with you directly, but . . .” Jane left the question hanging in the air.
“This would be wonderful for the top, wouldn’t it?” Verna held the silk brocade up to the light. “Just around the neck, and we’ll use white silk for the rest. Unless . . .”
Ever since Queen Victoria’s wedding, white wedding dresses had been in vogue, although only very well-off families could afford the luxury. Others chose a more subdued, less sensitive color, or had the dress dyed after the wedding to hide any stains that might appear.
“White like the Queen . . . no, I prefer a cream shade.” The circumstances of her marriage were so unromantic that a white dress would be like putting a crown on the whole farce. “Do the people talk about the girl?” Jane pressed, and pointed to another roll of cloth.
The muscles of Verna’s thin neck twitched, then she rolled out the raw silk. “Also an excellent choice, my lady. Yes, a person should stay true to one’s own style. And . . . yes, a lot is being said. No one really knows anything. There are many runaways. It’s nothing new. Sadie!” she called in a sharper voice.
“I’ll just be a moment, ma’am,” a hoarse voice said from the back room.
“Now!” Verna snapped back.
A gaunt young woman with tired, deep-set eyes and a red nose came running from the back of the shop. A handkerchief poked from her sleeve, and she held the back of her hand over her mouth to suppress a dry cough. Her dress was simple but in good condition, and she had slung a woolen wrap around her shoulders.
“Take that rag off! How many times have I told you not to come into the shop like that!” Verna said brusquely.
“I’m so cold, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am.” Sadie laid the wrap on a stool and turned to Jane with a pitiable smile.
Verna hissed: “What have I told you?”
With lowered eyes, Sadie whispered, “No personal details in front of the customers.”
“You’re not from around here, Sadie?” Jane asked.
“She’s from the same place as me, unless I’m much mistaken,” said Hettie and smiled broadly, ignoring Verna’s disapproving face.
Sadie’s cold made it painful for her to speak, and she murmured, “Millpool, by Bodmin, ma’am.”
She fidgeted at her dress with bony hands pricked all over from sewing. Her hair was thin and brittle. A decent meal and a few days in bed would have done the emaciated young woman good.
“Mrs. Morris has been praising your talent, Sadie.” The seamstress’s assistant widened her eyes with surprise. “I have to be going. Please send a preliminary design over to Rosewood Hall, Mrs. Morris. You have my measurements. If I like it, then you can work according to that.”
“Very good, my lady. Thank you for honoring us with your visit. I will get started on it right away.” Verna Morris held the door open until Jane and Hettie were back out on the street.
When they had walked a few steps, Hettie said, “Ma’am, I am very happy to be with you and not with Mrs. Morris.”
“We’ve both been very fortunate, I think,” said Jane and stopped walking as a hansom cab rolled by. “I would still like to stop in at the chemist’s and pick up some herbs for my uncle.”
The chemist’s shop lay at the other end of the village, and when they arrived a boy in torn clothes came running out of the door and past them. He was holding a bottle of Godfrey’s Cordial in his hands. The syrup, dosed with laudanum, was popular among nannies and mothers. The sweet sleep tonic settled children down quickly if they were upset or simply hungry.
Jane had almost reached the entrance door when, from between the houses beside them, someone coughed and called, “My lady!”
Hettie instantly moved close beside Jane, but relaxed when she saw Sadie shivering in the alley with only her thin woolen wrap.
“You’ll catch your death. What are you doing here?” Jane stepped closer.
Sadie’s lips were cracked and blue. “I ’eard what you asked my mistress. The dead girl was at Salisbury Station. Pete thinks she might ’ave been a stowaway from London.”
“Who is Pete?”
“We were both in the workhouse in Salisbury. ’e was ’ere two days ago to tell me good-bye. ’e’s found work in a cotton mill up north.” Sadie’s voice was husky; she was a picture of deep despair. “I can’t go up there. I’m too sick. My lungs.” She coughed again. “I worked in the textile factories when I was little. I ’ave to be getting back.”
Jane had already fetched five shillings from her purse and pressed the money into Sadie’s hand. “Thank you!”
The young woman stared into her open hand for a moment. Then she closed her fist and pressed it to her chest before hurrying away.
Jane was still thinking about this unexpected news when the coach rolled into the courtyard at Rosewood Hall, where the next surprise was already awaiting her.
9.
Jane had hardly stepped into the entrance hall when she heard Bridget call from upstairs, “Is she there? Send her up immediately!”
Moments later, Milton came trotting down the stairs, but her uncle’s butler also seemed to have been waiting for her, for he appeared from the library, his expression grave.
Hettie helped Jane out of her coat and said softly, “I hope nothing has happened. They all seem very excited.”
Jane thought the same. “What is it, Floyd?”
The butler was still a good five paces from her, and the younger, faster Milton had already reached the middle of the hall.
“Lady Bridget wishes to speak to you, ma’am,” Milton stated in a tone that Jane found altogether too brisk.
What had the servant done to suddenly find himself in such high standing with Bridget and cousin Matthew? Ignoring Milton’s request, Jane turned expectantly to Floyd.
“Your uncle awaits you, my lady,” said the butler.
“Hettie, go upstairs and take a look at the fashion magazine I put out up there. Maybe you’ll find a pattern for Verna,” Jane said, and saw Hettie’s eyes light up. Her maid had a task to complete and would not allow herself to be interrogated by Bridget.
“Yes, ma’am. With pleasure!” With her coat over her arm, she left, and Jane followed the butler without so much as dignifying Milton with an answer.
“But my mistress wishes you to . . .” The servant made another attempt.
Jane turned to Floyd. “He seems unaware of his station.”
The experienced butler nodded and turned briefly back to Milton, who stood below him in the domestic hierarchy. “Dismissed, Milton. We will discuss your disr
espectful behavior later.” Then, to Jane, he said, “I do apologize, my lady, for his importuning you, but ever since the wife of the young lord has been in the house . . . Please, your uncle is in the library.”
Floyd opened the door to the library for her. Warmth and the smell of tobacco rose to meet Jane, and she would have been happy to see her uncle in the company of his old friend if only the mood in the room had been different. Samuel Jones was a London lawyer and notary public. That he had undertaken the long journey out here could not bode well. Jane had known the short, portly lawyer since her arrival in England twenty years earlier. It was he who had met her at Plymouth Harbor back then. His hair had turned white, his high forehead shone in the light of the afternoon sun, and he seemed to have put on a little weight around the middle. But in legal matters, few could hold a candle to Samuel Jones. His reputation for incorruptibility and sharp judgment preceded him.
As she entered, both men rose from their chairs at the large desk. Beside the hearty figure of Jones, Lord Henry looked terribly pale, but Jane hoped that it only had to do with the documents spread out on the table before him. She gave her uncle a kiss on the cheek before turning to receive a warm embrace from Samuel Jones.
Holding her in front of him at arm’s length, Jones smiled and said, “I fell head over heels for you back when you were standing on the quay in Plymouth, all long plaits and with the most pigheaded look in your eyes.” He released Jane and spread his arms wide in admiration. “And now look at this beautiful young woman! And soon to be a bride, I hear . . .”
Embarrassed, Jane moved beside her uncle and looked at the papers on the desk.
“Oh, Sam. Stop all that tomfoolery. You’re as much a geriatric as I am,” said Lord Henry and sank back onto his chair. Rufus lay on the floor behind them, letting out an occasional sigh in his sleep.
The lawyer cleared his throat, straightened the scarf around his neck, and smiled broadly, revealing teeth between which many a haunch of venison had met its end. Like his longtime friend, he was wearing a dark suit.
Floyd placed a chair for Jane beside her uncle and poured her a glass of wine. The men had eaten sandwiches, and the butler reached to offer them to Jane, but she raised her hand to stop him. “Thank you, Floyd. I’m not hungry.”
“Jane,” Lord Henry began, and she could hear the overwhelming emotion in his voice.
Samuel Jones came to his friend’s aid. He placed one hand on the documents on the table in front of him. “I’ve come here to help your uncle make his last will and testament legally acceptable. You know that once you marry you are entitled to your parents’ inheritance, and part of that is Mulberry Park.”
Jane looked at the two men, her eyes wide. “Yes. But you already explained that to me, Uncle.”
Lord Henry nodded slowly and frowned sadly. “I believed that everything was fixed and unimpeachable, but I had not reckoned with my daughter-in-law’s greed.”
The lawyer supported himself heavily on the wooden desk. “Matthew was in here this morning. He has claimed the property for himself unless you pay him back the money that your uncle has put into maintaining the place over the years.”
“I’m so sorry, Jane. I never would have expected something like this from him. I’ve begun to question whether he is a true son of mine. I certainly never raised him to be such an embodiment of selfishness and greed,” Lord Henry lamented, reaching for a small pill bottle that stood beside a water glass.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. Do I have to pay him back for your expenditure? Would I even be able to?” Jane had absolutely no desire to grapple with financial matters that she did not begin to understand. She looked unhappily from Samuel to her uncle.
“Henry wanted you to be aware of what you might have to face. Legally speaking, everything is protected, but Matthew could take you to court, and you never know which judge you’ll find yourself facing . . . Nowhere are more lies told than in court, my dear Jane. This makes it so important that you have a husband who can support you and defend you, a man who will stand by you. Captain Wescott is an honorable man. We are both acquainted with his family, Henry even more than me. But there are secrets in every family, sleeping dogs one would rather let lie because waking them would cause a scandal.” Samuel fell silent and looked to Henry, who had washed down his pill with a mouthful of water.
“Were my time on earth not so limited, I would go on protecting you from any and all hostilities, my dear child, but now it is . . . Wescott is an unconventional, reticent man. I think highly of him, believe me, or I would never have consented to your union with him. His mother was Russian. She died not long after his birth. She was a decent woman, very beautiful, and a scion of the Russian nobility.” Lord Henry paused and searched for something among the papers on the desk. Finally, he found what he was looking for—a sealed document—and pushed it across to Jane.
Jane, surprised, turned the folded sheet of paper, sealed with wax, over in her hands. Her name stood on the front, and that was all.
“Should you ever have any doubts about your husband, then the person whose name and address you will find in this letter will be able to tell you about him.” Her uncle looked at her intently. “Open it only if it is absolutely necessary, Jane. Promise me that, you hear? Promise me that!”
Trembling, she ran her fingers over the mysterious letter. “I promise,” she said in a hoarse whisper.
“Guard the letter well, Jane. I could have deposited it with Samuel, but I wanted you to know that there is someone who will stand beside you when I no longer can, someone who knows Wescott better than his own father. Perhaps you will never have any need to pay that person a visit, but who can see into the future? I don’t even know my own son.”
Floyd had moved away to a vitrine. He seemed engrossed in organizing the books and jade figurines inside. Henry noticed Jane looking at him. “Floyd requested that I ask you whether you might take him over when I’m no longer . . .”
“Uncle, no! Don’t say things like that!” Jane sobbed. Her uncle’s approaching death suddenly hung over the room like a threat.
Henry Pembroke took his niece’s hand in his and held on tightly. “Do him the favor. He will bring a new lease of life to Mulberry Park. No one can do that better than he can.”
“Of course I will do that, but . . .” She looked at her uncle through a haze of tears. “But not too soon.”
The conversation seemed to have made Lord Henry weary, for he closed his eyes tiredly for a moment. When he opened them again, they were dark and without hope. “I have telegraphed Wescott. He will be here tomorrow. There hasn’t been a public announcement, Jane. Forgive me. I know I’m asking a lot of you, but I would like to see you married. Then I can go.”
Horrified, Jane sat up stiffly on her chair and stared at her uncle. “Tomorrow? Already? I have no wedding dress.”
Lord Henry blinked weakly and managed a small smile. “That is not important, Jane, my dear. Please give us another moment alone. I will see you again at dinner.”
Dazed at all she had heard, Jane stood up. She had to hold on to the desk because her knees were shaking. She embraced her uncle and pressed her face into the wool of his jacket, taking in the faint odor of tobacco and the tinge of aftershave, and kissed him on the cheek. Then she stroked his hair and turned away. She held the letter he had given her firmly in her hand. She walked straight to the door and left the library without turning around, for tears were streaming down her cheeks and she wanted to spare her uncle the sight.
Jane ran up the stairs, and from the corner of her eye she noticed one of the doors to Matthew’s and Bridget’s rooms swing open. She began to walk faster, and placed her hand on the knob of her bedroom door.
“Jane!” Bridget’s unmistakable shrill voice rang down the hallway.
Sobbing, Jane pushed the door open, forcing her skirts through, and slammed the door behind he
r. “Hettie?”
Her maid appeared from the next room, a fashion magazine in her hand. “Yes, ma’am?” When she saw her distraught mistress, she cried out, “Oh, no . . . what’s happened now?”
Jane threw herself onto her bed and pushed the sealed letter under her pillow. “Don’t let anyone in, Hettie! I don’t want to see anyone!”
There was a vigorous knocking at the door. “Jane! I know you’re in there! I wish to speak with you!” Bridget demanded.
Hettie positioned herself behind the solid wooden door and said, “My mistress is indisposed and wishes to see no one.”
“Outrageous! But she’ll come down off her high horse faster than she thinks.” With those foreboding words, Bridget’s footsteps moved away.
“What a terrible person the lady is. I’ve stopped even trying to talk to her maid. Rena is a snake, just like her mistress.” When Jane said nothing, Hettie went on chattering. “Would you like some tea, ma’am? I’ll bring you a cup of hot tea. That will settle your nerves. Someone ought to slip the lady a little of that sleep syrup. It would be a blessing for everyone in this house.”
Jane could hear Hettie setting up the teacups next door, and she got up from the bed. She splashed cold water on her face but avoided looking at herself in the mirror. Then she went and sat in the upholstered niche of the bay window. Rosewood Hall had many such bay windows where one could hide away. All you had to do was pull the curtains partly closed, and no one could see you. When she was younger, she had played hide-and-seek with Matthew all over the house. Today, those memories seemed like an imagined dream. What had become of the intrepid boy she had chased around the gardens, studied Latin with, and ridden with across the fields? His father had never denied him anything, had catered to his every whim. The most expensive horses, schools, clothes, travel: Pembroke’s heir had wanted for nothing.
