Angel in Scarlet

by Jennifer Wilde

  Not that Janine minded, I thought as I moved down the small enclosed stairway to the basement. Gresham made very few demands on her, his pride of ownership much stronger than his libido.

  “Good morning, Miss Angela,” Bennett said as I stepped into the kitchen. “Although it isn’t rightly morning, now is it? Well after eleven by my clock. Almost noon. No one gets up early around here.”

  “We stay open quite late,” I reminded him. “Is that fresh coffee?”

  “Just made it. Made some honey and cinnamon rolls, too. Your favorites. Could I persuade you to eat a decent breakfast? Wouldn’t take me any time to make some eggs, some bacon, some stewed mushrooms.”

  I shook my head. “Just coffee, Bennett, and one of the rolls.”

  “You’ll eat two,” he said sternly.

  Tall, lean, with a fierce demeanor and gruff manner that belied his genial nature, Bennett was our cook—Marie referred to him as “the chef”—and he was a treasure. Though born in Liverpool and as English as fish and chips, he prepared the fanciest French meals with the flair and aplomb of a native Parisian, meeting even Marie’s exacting standards. Bennett had his own quarters behind the kitchen, with his own private entrance from the mews, while the other servants Marie employed had tiny rooms in the attic. I was surprised I wasn’t up there as well.

  “Is my stepmother up yet?” I inquired.

  “Came storming in here half an hour ago, out of sorts because the liquor supply is low and the wine merchant hasn’t called, upset because the new playing cards haven’t been delivered, distressed because one of the footmen had to oust Lord Brock last night when that young gentleman got altogether too rowdy. Her usual charming self,” he added.

  Bennett was an independent soul, confident of his skills, and he was completely unintimidated by his dragon of an employer, nor would he take any guff from her. Marie tolerated his “insolence” because she knew full well he would be impossible to replace.

  “Here’s your coffee, Miss Angela. See that you eat both these rolls.”

  “They look delicious, Bennett,” I told him.

  “Bound to be,” he said. “I made ’em, didn’t I?”

  I had to smile at that. Bennett permitted himself a wry grin.

  I carried coffee and rolls into the adjoining lounge where the girls took their breaks, gossiped about customers and flirted with any male employee who happened to be around. With its pale lime green carpet, ivory walls and sofas and chairs done in flowered pastels and beige, it was a pleasant, comfortable room with a number of low tables finished in ivory. Gentlemen not playing at the tables frequently came down to smoke, enjoy their drinks and compare winnings and losses. Sinking into one of the chairs, I leisurely sipped my coffee. It was delicious, strong as could be, and the rolls were delicious, too. I wondered what Marie had planned for me today. Would I be doing book work or running errands or supervising the maids? Marie’s Place must be spotless every night, the chandeliers carefully lowered on their chains, fresh candles inserted in the holders and pendants cleaned. I usually ended up doing half the work myself.

  “Here you are!” Marie exclaimed, marching into the room. “I sent one of the maids up to fetch you and she told me you weren’t in your room. I suspected I’d find you lolling down here.”

  “Lolling away,” I admitted.

  “Don’t be impertinent, Angela!”

  I longed to stick my tongue out at her, but I didn’t. Marie resented the “responsibility” I represented, and I resented her tyranny, but open hostility between us was rare. Much easier to endure, ignore and count the days. I had determined that a long time ago.

  “I’ve had a dreadful morning,” she declared. “The wine merchant hasn’t delivered the new stock. We’re almost out of fresh playing cards—the printer promised they’d be here. And on top of that Blake took it upon himself to throw out one of our very best customers last night.”

  “Lord Brock? I heard about that.”

  “Such a charming lad,” she remarked. “Blake is paid to keep order, but he was entirely too rough with Lord Brock.”

  “That charming lad tried to rape Jen in the foyer, I understand. So unpractical of him.”

  “Unpractical?”

  “For ten pounds he could have taken her upstairs and had her without any fuss at all.”

  Marie didn’t care for that observation at all. Her green eyes glittered dangerously, but she held her tongue, marching across the room to pour herself a brandy from the decanter on one of the tables. She had become quite fond of her brandy these days. Fond of her food as well. Once slender, my stepmother was now frankly stout, her hair dyed a brassy, improbable red and stacked atop her head in a tumble of curls that fell coyly across her brow. Her face, once so sharp, was now decidedly plump, jowls very much in evidence, and the black satin beauty mark she stuck on her cheekbone didn’t help at all. In her black silk dress and diamond earrings, she looked coarse. She looked like what she was, I thought.

  “What goes on in those rooms is none of your affair,” she informed me in a sharp voice.

  “Definitely not,” I said.

  “You’re growing quite impossible, Angela!”

  “I’ll try to be better,” I promised.

  “Are you mocking me?”

  “Of course not, Marie. I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  She gave me another of her dangerous looks and finished her glass of brandy, then ordered me to follow her up to her office. I obeyed, dutiful as could be. Her office was the very heart of Marie’s Place, a huge iron safe standing in one corner, bills and receipts piled in neat stacks on top of the desk, each to be scrutinized with an eagle eye. Marie ran her domain with the stern precision of a general, and she brooked no insubordination from her troops.

  “Sally was late again last night,” she complained. “I intend to dock her salary. That’ll teach her.”

  “Maybe so,” I said.

  “Jen tore her gown last night. Those gowns cost me a fortune! She’s going to have to pay for it herself.”

  “Why don’t you send the bill to Lord Brock?”

  “I’m in no mood for your sarcasm, Angela! Here’s five pounds. I want you to go to Underwood’s print shop off Fleet and pay the man for the cards, and if they’re not ready you’re to stay there and stand over him until he has them all printed up.”

  “Certainly, Marie.”

  “We’ll need them tonight. Don’t come back without them!”

  “I wouldn’t dare,” I said sweetly.

  Marie scowled and waved me out of the office, and I put the five pounds in my pocket and left, delighted to see it was a lovely April day with the sky all cloudless and blue. Not that you could see that much of it with rooftops crowded together and slanting out over the streets, sometimes almost touching in the middle. A housewife on one side of the street could borrow a cup full of sugar from her neighbor across the street simply by reaching out the front window upstairs. Needn’t go out at all. Must be real handy in inclement weather, I reflected as I strolled down the street.

  I kept close to the wall to avoid being splattered by the slops frequently emptied out of the windows above, and often I had to duck to avoid crowning myself on the painted wooden signs, that hung over the pavement in front of shops. London was a fascinating maze of streets and alleys and courts and squares, all jumbled together with no apparent rhyme or reason. Had to know your way around if you didn’t want to get lost. Had to keep your guard up, too, with pickpockets and rogues abounding on every side. Young women, in particular, were tasty prey for villains with evil intentions, but this young woman knew how to handle herself on the streets. Learned it early on, I had. If a scathing remark didn’t do the trick, teeth and claws and a knee to the groin were invariably discouraging.

  No villain tried to accost me today, although a husky butcher’s apprentice gave me a lewd grin and a drunken old fop in a soiled blue satin frock coat attempted to block my way as he ogled me through his quizzing glass. I gave the but
cher’s apprentice a stiff middle finger and shoved the old fop out of my way. A shower of water and potatoe peelings rained on him from above as he stumbled into the edge of the street. A trio of gin-soaked fishwives applauded drunkenly, and one of them snatched his wig. Turning a corner, I noticed that bright yellow daffodils were blooming in the tiny park across the way, blue hyacinths, too. Lots of flowers in London, which was surprising with all the soot, smoke and cinders in the air.

  I strolled on, moving down a busy thoroughfare now. Street hawkers shouted their wares, lustily proclaiming the virtues of roasted nuts and nice fresh oranges and sausage rolls fit for a bleedin’ king. Carts, carriages and drays rumbled down the cobbled street, creating a perpetual congestion, and there was an occasional sedan chair, too, the bearers shouting angrily as they made their way through the tangle. Street sweeps darted hither and yon with straw brooms, sweeping up the dung, and dogs barked. As I moved along, a horse reared in the street and a small cart overturned, a barrel of eels tumbling off and splitting open on the cobbles with a noisy bang. Traffic was momentarily stalled. Pandemonium prevailed.

  Whips cracked. Horses neighed. A fistfight broke out between the driver of the cart and a burly footman who leaped down from one of the carriages, both of them yelling furiously. A swarm of urchins spilled into the street, snatching up the eels, and a plump dame with a beauty patch stuck on her rouged cheek pulled back the curtain of her sedan chair and peeked out to see what was causing the delay. Another exciting drama taking place right before my eyes. Happened all the time in London. Never knew what you were going to see. The color and noise and vitality of this huge, bustling metropolis was always fascinating, I thought, watching as impatient drivers bounded down to set the cart back up and separate the fighters. The footman’s jacket was torn, the cart driver’s nose bleeding profusely. He scrambled back up onto the seat, clicked the reins and drove on, leaving pieces of barrel and flopping eels to be ground under the wheels of vehicles that followed.

  Underwood’s print shop was in a dingy court off Fleet Street, crowded between a stationer’s and a shop with windows displaying heaps of dusty pottery, a cat snoozing contentedly amidst them. A bell over the door jingled as I entered Underwood’s. The place was filled with dust and clutter, boxes of paper stacked against the walls, ink-smeared rags on the floor, but there was a wonderful smell of glue and grease and old linen. Underwood’s was shabby, true, but the work produced in its back room was of the finest quality. The playing cards we used had glossy blue backs, bordered with a rim of silver, a silver M in the center of each. Elegant, indeed, and designed by Underwood himself, a cantankerous old recluse who, it was said, hadn’t left the back room in over a decade. Slept on a pile of rags beside his printing press, he did, food and necessities brought in by a series of assistants.

  “May I help you?” a hearty voice inquired.

  His current assistant stepped through the curtains leading to that mysterious back room, a tall, muscular blond with merry brown eyes and a most engaging grin. He wore a thin black leather bib apron over his coarsely woven white shirt and tan cord breeches. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, displaying forearms and biceps, and a wave of that thick blond hair dipped down rakishly over his forehead. His eyes filled with male appreciation as he studied me, and his grin broadened. I rarely saw that honest, good-natured appreciation in a man’s eyes. Couldn’t help but be flattered.

  “I’ve come for some playing cards,” I said. “I’m Angela Howard.”

  He arched an inquisitive brow, still in the dark. I could hear the printing press grinding away in the back room, its clatter punctuated by an occasional hoarse oath.

  “Marie’s Place,” I added. “Two dozen decks of playing cards were to have been delivered today. My stepmother sent me to see about them.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Her!”

  I smiled. The youth smiled, too, and then, his voice full of apology, informed me the cards wouldn’t be ready for several hours. My distress was clear, and my expression caused him no small amount of concern. He explained that they were terribly behind, with a huge number of back orders to fill, and I gave him a woeful look and said I quite understood. He took a deep breath, made a decisive nod and promised me he would get right on them himself.

  “Tell you what,” he added, “since you’ll have to make another trip and as you’ve gone to so much trouble already, why don’t we take a pound off the price? My way of making it up to you for the delay.”

  “That—that would be very generous,” I replied, thinking hard. “I wonder if it would be possible for you to give me a receipt for the full amount? I’d be ever so grateful.”

  He gave me a conspiratorial wink. “Sure thing,” he said, and a few minutes later I left the shop with a receipt for five pounds, a pound to spend as I pleased and a promise that the cards would be ready by five o’clock this afternoon. Pulled a fast one on Marie, I had. Didn’t feel the least bit of remorse, either. My stepmother would undoubtedly have the vapors and go into a swift decline if she knew someone had done her out of an entire pound, but I had bloody well earned it. I had earned myself a holiday, too, and I had the whole afternoon to do whatever I wished. Might go gaze at Westminster Abbey. Might stroll through the park and throw bread crumbs to the ducks. Might even visit one of the waxworks that were so popular—Mrs. Salmon’s was said to be a wonder, with all the Kings and Queens in full regalia and hair-raising tableaux featuring savage aborigines.

  I’d love to see the aborigines, but first, of course, I must pay a visit to Miller’s on Fleet, just a short walk from here. Rarely had more than a few pennies to spend there. Who knew what treasures I might find today, with a full pound in my pocket? I turned onto Fleet and hurried past the booksellers’ shops and printing establishments and cozy-looking coffee houses. Newsboys raced past, waving the latest broadsheets, shouting the news. Poets and journalists stood in front of doorways, ardently discussing literary matters. Plump gentlemen in wigs and frock coats idly examined the volumes piled up on tables in front of the bookshops, but I wasn’t going to waste my time looking for bargains, not when Miller’s was up ahead.

  Miller was an enormously fat, lethargic chap who loved to read and, as a youth, hadn’t been able to afford new books. Coming into a small inheritance some years ago, he had decided that there might be a great many people unable to buy new books, a great many others who would eagerly sell volumes they had already read, and he had gone into the used-book business, eventually opening the shop that had become a mecca for book lovers of every stamp. Miller sold everything, the finest classics, the most sensational thrillers, journals and magazines, too, all for a fraction of their original cost. Shopgirls flocked to Miller’s to find vicarious romance for a few pence. Scholars searched industriously through the dusty stacks hoping to locate a rare tome long out of print. Oliver Goldsmith was a regular customer, and even the great Dr. Johnson was said to frequent the place on occasion, though he had harsh words to say about the dog.

  The smell of dust and mildew assailed my nostrils as I stepped into the shop. Strong enough to knock you flat, it was, but that was all part of the charm. The gloom, too. The front windows were so dirty only feeble rays of sunlight seeped in, and Miller had a terror of candles. You had to be really passionate about books to frequent Miller’s, for the shop was like a labyrinth, shelves covering all the walls and most of the floor space with only tiny aisles between. Books everywhere. Cramming the shelves. Piled on the floor. Stacked on the wooden steps leading up to a gallery that was itself so stacked with reading matter one feared it would come toppling down on one’s head. The dog Dr. Johnson so detested thumped its heavy tail and yawned lazily as I came in. As big as a pony and as shaggy as a sheep, it was curled up comfortably on a nest of yellowing medical journals, its head resting on a battered copy of Dr. Johnson’s famous dictionary. Perhaps that was why Johnson detested the beast, I thought, smiling to myself.

  “Hello, Hercules,” I said warmly. “Remember m
e?”

  Hercules thumped his tail a couple of times, yawned again and settled his heavy jowls on the enormous compilation of words. I entered the maze of bookshelves and was soon caught up, my eyes greedily searching out titles. Greek drama. Latin grammars. Volumes of sermons. Books on crime and punishment and botany and boats and every subject imaginable. Novels by the thousands, blood-and-thunder thrillers brazenly sharing the shelves with the finest prose, tepid romances leaning timidly against the bawdy works of Fielding and Defoe. Stacks of books on the floor made progress hazardous, but I moved deeper into the maze and soon came upon Miller himself, lolling heavily in an overstuffed chair with bottom sprung and nap threadbare, the poems of John Donne in his hands.

  Miller looked up, blinked and shifted position, no more eager to stir himself than Hercules had been. Round face pasty, spectacles covering watery blue eyes, thin brown hair splayed over his brow in a monkish fringe, Miller brushed a fleck of lint from the lapel of his rumpled brown frock coat and adjusted his soiled tan neckcloth. A cup of cold tea sat on a stack of books at his side in a chipped saucer, a half-eaten bun beside it.

  “Miss Angela Howard, isn’t it?” he drawled lazily. Miller remembered the names of all his customers, even those, like me, who rarely came in and weren’t able to spend much. “Haven’t seen you in a while,” he continued.

  “I’ve been very busy,” I replied.

  “Browse on,” he said, waving a plump hand at the shelves. “Ring the bell up front when you want to pay.”