“What kind of good would salt on the windowsills do if the evil spirits are upstairs?”
Alf shrugged. “I suggested holy water but Sadie says that’s papist. About the Bell, Kate told Sadie that Sam still needs to pay rent even though it’s unusable.”
“That can’t be right.”
“I reckon landlords do a lot of things that aren’t right, and even more if they have a tenant who looks like Sam.”
“Sam let me think he had the repairs underway.”
“He’s proud, though.”
Hartley was surprised to realize that he didn’t feel hurt by Sam misleading him. He understood the urge to hide behind a protective screen. He just wished he could figure out how to offer a kind of help that Sam would agree to accept.
Upon receiving the pram, Hartley wrapped the baby in approximately seven shawls and took her for a walk in the park. It was the middle of the day, right when Hyde Park was busiest with the very people who had shunned him, but he was too preoccupied with worries about the infant catching cold to think overmuch about the whispers and stares of the beau monde. Indeed, the child finished the outing tucked warmly inside Hartley’s coat.
When he came home, the kitchen was warm and steamy and scented with cooking. Alf chopped nuts while Sadie ground something with a mortar and pestle. The light slanted feebly through the high window, making Hartley wonder when it had last been cleaned. The house was acquiring the slight shabbiness of a well-worn coat, and he found that he didn’t mind.
“Is that nutmeg?” he asked Sadie, gesturing at the contents of the mortar.
“No,” Sadie said, looking up from her work only long enough to smile at Hartley and coo at the baby.
“Smells like nutmeg,” Hartley said to the child he was cradling in his arms.
“It’s mace,” Alf said. “With nutmeg she uses that thing that looks like what a carpenter uses to smooth the wood. And why are you making such a nuisance of yourself? Go upstairs and comb your hair or something.”
Hartley instinctively patted his hair and saw Sadie stifle a smile. “Oh, sod off,” he told Alf.
“The boot boy next door is collecting bets on which of us is the baby’s father,” Alf said. “Seven to one odds it’s you.”
Hartley nearly choked on the piece of bread he had stolen from the chopping board. “I beg your pardon?”
“Settle down,” Alf said. “The butler already told him it was bad form to gossip. But he also said that having a yellow-haired upstart—that’s you—living with his mistress and the child he got on his mistress—that’s Sadie and the baby—is bringing down the tone of the neighborhood. We’re gentry here, Mr. Sedgwick, and we won’t tolerate none of that.” These last words were delivered in a tone that was clearly meant to ape the neighbor’s slanderous servant.
“Unbelievable. Which neighbors? Immediately to the left? I’m going over now to give that fellow a piece of my mind.”
“Does that mean punching? Because you can’t go around socking other people’s butlers.”
“Don’t care. How dare he—how dare he—speak of Sadie like that.” He put his gloves on and adjusted his collar. “If he were a gentleman and had spoken that way about a lady—which Sadie is, of course—I could have called him out.”
Sadie looked up from her nutmeg or whatever it was in order to exchange a look with Alf.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hartley demanded. “Do we have secret glances now? Seems unfair.”
“If you went around making a fuss, everyone would know for sure you had gotten that baby on Sadie,” Alf pointed out.
“True,” Hartley conceded. “I do wish everyone could make up their mind about which direction my dissipations take me.”
“Whatever Sadie told the constable must have done wonders for your reputation. At any rate, you do remember you hollered at me for hitting someone who said ugly things about Sadie not a month ago.”
“I’ve grown older and wiser, and I seem to recall that it was Sadie who did most of the yelling in that situation. Sadie, do you really not mind? That people think the baby is mine?”
She frowned. “It doesn’t matter to me in the least. The question is whether you mind.”
“Are you kidding?” Alf asked. “This is the best thing that could have happened to him.”
“Be nice to Hartley,” Sadie admonished.
Hartley was taken aback and more than a little gratified to hear Sadie use his first name, even though not long ago he would have considered it the height of impropriety. Probably Sadie would have, too, come to think.
“Oh, I nearly forgot,” Alf said, his mouth full of a roast potato he grabbed from a pan warming by the stove. “You have a visitor waiting for you in the library.”
“A visitor?” Hartley repeated, and for a mad moment thought it might be Sam.
“It’s not him,” Alf said quietly.
Hartley tamped down his disappointment. When Sam had left, they had agreed to take a few days to themselves. Sam needed time to sort out the Bell, he had said, but they both knew that they were at an impasse regarding what to do next. Hartley knew he couldn’t go on living essentially below stairs in his own house; Sam couldn’t continue sleeping in the wreckage of his old pub. It was all very fine to say that they meant to go on together, but they were at a loss as to what their first step ought to be.
Hartley opened the door to the library, where he found his older brother sitting in the chair by the fire, a newspaper open on his lap, a valise on the floor beside him. “Ben,” Hartley said, shutting the door behind him. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to pay a visit,” Ben said, lowering the newspaper and attempting to fold it. “Didn’t you get my letters?”
Hartley thought of the stack of unopened letters on the table in the hall. “No,” he lied.
“I hadn’t heard from you in weeks. And while you don’t owe me letters—you don’t owe me anything, Hart—I did want to check that you were alive.”
Hartley shrugged. “I’m alive,” he said, holding his arms out to his sides as if to say Behold.
Ben frowned. “You left before we could talk about what happened.”
Early that summer, when Hartley had realized that Martin Easterbrook knew the truth of Hartley’s relationship with his godfather and wasn’t going to balk at telling the world, Hartley had gone home to visit Ben so he wouldn’t be taken by surprise by the news.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” He didn’t think he could endure a sermon on sacrifice and personal harm endured for the greater good of the family.
“You don’t need to say anything. I just wanted you to know that I’m grateful for what you did—getting that man to pay for our school fees and Will’s commission—but I’m so sorry that you were in a position where that seemed like our best option.”
Hartley frowned. He had long since accepted that all his efforts at establishing his brothers had backfired spectacularly. And yet, despite all this, none of their lives were tragic. Indeed, Hartley had known something with Sam that he hadn’t thought he’d ever deserve. He had other things, too, more tangible assets: the house, his small income, a solicitor who seemed terribly concerned that Hartley knew something about the contents of a certain lacquered cabinet.
“Oh!” Hartley said.
“What’s wrong?” Ben asked.
“Nothing,” Hartley said, a plan starting to come together in his mind. “I’m just counting my blessings. How is Father?” he asked brightly, trying to change the subject, and knowing Ben would take the bait.
Ben made a sound of exasperation. “He went walking and didn’t come back for three days. Drove his wife half mad with worry. We sent out a search party, but then he wandered home again. He had gotten as far as St. Johns in the Vale!” He shook his head. “And he had my dog with him.”
Hartley suppressed a smile at his brother’s outrage. Their father’s vagueness sent Ben into a fury, but Hartley understood that Alton Sedgwick simply did
n’t occupy the same world that the rest of them did. He was selfish and solipsistic, but not out of any ill will toward his fellow man. He simply forgot other people existed and might have thoughts and desires of their own. Ben, who was in the habit of noticing what other people needed and going out of his way to seeing that those needs were provided for, couldn’t understand that their father’s selfishness wasn’t personal. Hartley, who for so long had tried to ignore other people as a matter of policy and self-preservation, had once rather envied the older man’s obliviousness. It was a lot easier to live with oneself when one disregarded other people’s interests. Hartley doubted he’d be able to go back to his old ways, now that he had developed this habit of caring about people. He could foresee that his future was going to involve a great number of inconveniences, if he had it his way—if he could find a way forward with Sam.
“Oh, that reminds me.” Ben reached into his satchel, producing a sheaf of papers. “I have letters for you. This one is particularly good. It contains four pages of creative invective against yourself from Miss Dacre. It seems you promised her and the boys a ride in your curricle but scarpered before you could deliver. She proposes three crown and a calico kitten as just compensation.” Ben’s face lit up with obvious affection for his captain’s children. During Hartley’s visit, he had been rather startled to find his older brother smitten with another man. And one had to wonder about Will. Perhaps he’d write to Percy and Lance and see if this was a hereditary quirk of the Sedgwick constitution.
“You look well,” Hartley said. “Domestic bliss and apostasy suit you.”
“You don’t,” Ben said, squinting at him. “You look like you haven’t slept in weeks.”
“I haven’t,” Hartley said. “The cook had a baby.”
Ben tilted his head. “And?”
“And the baby is loud and likes to be walked back and forth in front of the cabinet clock in the front hall at the most unreasonable hours. I can’t expect Sadie to do it all herself, in addition to cooking my meals, can I?”
“No,” Ben said slowly. “But I daresay nearly everyone else you’re likely to meet would expect precisely that, especially as it sounds that there’s not a, ah, Mr. Sadie.”
“Yes, ha ha, very droll. I assure you that if you’re about to engage in any comedy about my becoming a radical, Will has gotten there before you. Repeatedly. Do restrain yourself. She’s my friend.”
“Duly noted.” Ben took a sip of brandy and regarded Hartley closely over the rim of the glass. “I take it back. Maybe you do look well after all.”
Sam was at the Fleet Market selling slices of pie for a penny each when he saw a familiar face: a tall trim woman with a basket in one arm and a baby in the other.
“Sadie?” he asked. “Is this your usual market?”
“It certainly is not,” she said. “It took a fair amount of doing to find you, I’ll have you know.”
“You really wanted some of that pie, did you?” he jested.
“I do not want your pie, Mr. Fox, although it does smell very tasty. I want to know why you let Mr. Sedgwick think you were able to repair the Bell. I just walked past it and there’s no sign of work being done, nor is there likely to be. Do Kate and your brother know you turned down good money?”
He hadn’t told them. Kate would have thought him an utter lunatic for refusing Hartley’s money, and Nick wouldn’t have understood how Hartley came to offer money to Sam in the first place. “I didn’t mention it.”
She sniffed. “Do you realize that for him to pay for repairs to the Bell, he’d have had to sell his house?”
Sam nearly dropped his knife. “Really?”
“And you know what that place means to him, don’t you? On the way here I posted a letter for him. It was addressed to an estate agent. He’s been asking Alf and me questions about what parts of London we would find convenient. He thinks he’s being discreet about it, too, the dear. I do believe he means to sell the house one way or the other.”
Sam had been certain that Hartley would cling to his old life, to the trappings of gentility, everything that separated them.
“There’s something else,” she said, rummaging through her basket. From beneath a heap of potatoes she produced a box about the size of a loaf of bread, made of polished cherrywood. Holding the baby against her shoulder with one hand, she opened the lid of the box with the other, leaning close so only Sam could see the contents of the box. Inside was a bright silver cup nestled in ivory satin lining. “It’s a christening cup,” she said. “Hartley got it for the baby. See,” she added, as if she had proven something.
“It’s really lovely, Sadie,” he said, because she plainly was waiting for him to say something.
“Of course it’s lovely. And it cost upward of five guineas, I daresay. The point is that he got it for my baby. For my baby. A child with no father and no background. Five guineas. He tried to tell me that the point of it was for the child to have something to pawn if she hit hard times, which is eminently sensible but a banknote would have done just as well.”
Sam nodded. The truth was that Hartley hadn’t bought that bauble simply to present his housekeeper with something that could be pawned. He had chosen something fine, something that everyone who saw it would admire. Each time Sadie looked at it, she’d be reminded that somebody thought her baby was worth something.
“My point is that he’s trying to do good. Maybe he hasn’t quite got the hang of it yet, but he’s making an effort. And if giving my baby pricey silver cups and offering you money to fix your pub is the best he can do right now, I think we ought to encourage him.”
“What’s that about?” Nick asked, coming to stand by Sam as Sadie left. “Somebody offered to pay to fix the Bell? And you turned them down?”
Sam couldn’t meet his brother’s eye. “That’s hundreds of pounds, at least. I can’t just take that kind of money.”
“Why not?”
“You don’t understand the situation,” Sam said feebly. “Money changes things.”
“Sam, you pillock. You give away money, not to mention food and drink, every day.” Nick faced Sam, his eyes lit with a shrewdness that Sam didn’t see often. It was easy to forget that Nick, for all his easy optimism and bluff good nature, was as canny as anyone needed to be. If sometimes he didn’t see things, it was because he didn’t think it was any of his business. “And you know what? You’re right. Money does change things. You and I have been doing business side by side for years and sometimes when I’m running short you cover the balance.”
“You’re my brother,” Sam protested.
“And when Kate and I get married, you know that money will be involved in our setting up house together, right? She makes a fair bit and guards it like a dragon sits on its hoard. That’ll be something we have to deal with down the road, and she and I both know it.”
“That’s different,” Sam said, and the words didn’t have the ring of honesty even to himself.
“I’m trying to figure out who you know who has a couple hundred pounds to throw around. There’s only one person I can think of, and he walks around alone with five guineas’ worth of buttons, all hours of the night and day. But if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine by me, I suppose. I’ll just ask this. Does this person mean you harm?” Nick asked.
“No,” Sam admitted.
“Does he want something from you that you don’t want to give?”
Sam’s face heated. “No.”
“Then if he’s offering help, and you need help—and you do, Sam—then don’t you think it’s a bit of a slap in the face to refuse? You love the Bell. You did good work, work that you believe in. If you walk away from help, I’ll think you’re soft in the head.”
“But—”
“You know I’m right,” Nick continued. “Now go take a walk or something. I’ll finish up here.”
Sam went to what used to be the Bell and headed for the pump in the back, where he washed himself off in bracingly co
ld water and dressed in a clean shirt. As he looked at the wreckage of the taproom, for the first time he let himself take stock of the damage. There was no way out of this on his own. As far as he knew, he was still on the hook for this quarter’s rent. He had enough saved for now, but soon he’d need to ask for some of Nick’s earnings. But if he went to Hartley for help, he’d want to offer him something in return—not to make it fair, not to make it an even trade, but because if Hartley had been willing to give up his house for Sam, then Sam needed to find a way to prove that he could throw his lot in with Hartley as well.
Chapter Twenty-four
“I was thinking,” Hartley said, patting the baby’s back as Sadie toasted some bread for him, “I ought to hire a maid. It’s a lot of work you’re doing in addition to taking care of the baby.”
She blinked at him over her shoulder. “I am the maid.”
“Balderdash. You’re the cook. And, well, it seems a dreadful imposition to ask you if you’re my friend, when we both know that I pay your wages, and it isn’t as if you could just tell me to bugger off, but I do think we have an understanding that is probably uncommon in most establishments.” The baby made a purring sound that probably indicated indigestion. “Baby agrees.”
He had been thinking about his family a fair bit these past weeks, and even more since Ben’s arrival the previous day. Maybe it was the smell of milk and nappies that set him off, but every time he shut his eyes he remembered his own mother cradling one of his younger brothers. He remembered Ben hanging out the washing when he could hardly reach the line. He remembered his mother and Will’s mother sewing by the fire while his father read aloud; he had always known this was a highly anomalous household arrangement, but was it any stranger than his current living situation? Whatever it was, it had been a family, and perhaps this was too.
She turned away from the fire and looked at him carefully, and it occurred to Hartley that she probably had more experience with friendship than he had. She couldn’t possibly have less. “Why do you think I’d tell you to bugger off?”
A Gentleman Never Keeps Score Page 22
