The Dowry of Miss Lydia Clark

by Lawana Blackwell

  Her little memory lapses had nothing to do with the devastating news he had just dropped into her lap, so why did he feel compelled to deliver another lecture at this moment? But in the interest of harmony, she merely replied, “I never forget the name of anyone who’s important, Quetin.”

  “But you never know when someone might turn out to be important.”

  “I’ll try to do better,” she promised, not for the first time.

  “Good.” He glanced away for a fraction of a second. “And you’ll leave Wednesday.”

  Noelle’s breath caught in her throat. “In two days? But I can’t possibly be packed by—”

  “I’ll have a trunk sent around. Just pack what you can. Four months isn’t forever, you know.”

  “My furniture?” She had just refurbished the flat only six months ago, filling the four rooms with elegant Louis XIII reproductions.

  “You’ll have no need of it in the lodging house where I’ve made arrangements for you to board. I’m keeping the flat, so it’ll be here waiting for you.” His brow furrowed thoughtfully. “But perhaps you should give me your jewelry to store in my safe. You’ll have scant need for it in a country village, and you don’t want to concern yourself about some chambermaid rummaging through it when you aren’t in your room.”

  Noelle lovingly touched the emerald bracelet on her wrist, a birthday gift from Quetin just three months ago. The gold metal felt lustrous against her skin. Give up her jewelry, even for four months? “I could bring a box and key…”

  “Too risky. Just keep out the costume pieces, if you wish. That’s all you’ll need.” He narrowed his eyes with mock severity. “Unless you plan to bedeck yourself with jewels and flirt with other men while you’re there.”

  “I just may,” she murmured coyly, wishing she felt as lighthearted as the tone of her words. She could tell by his expression that he was growing weary of having to reassure her. He would leave if she became too taxing. You have to be brave, she told herself. Well, she could do that. She managed to give him a smile. “I’m sure it will work out just fine, Quetin.”

  Cocking an eyebrow again, he said, “You mean that?”

  Would it do any good if I didn’t? “Yes. I suppose one can endure almost anything for four months.” But a little sigh escaped her. “Did Mr. Radley tell you the name of this…this village?”

  Quetin nodded. “I believe it’s called Gresham.”

  “Well, I think it’s ludicrous,” Valerie Bradburn, tall, pale and lithe, said as her red-tipped fingers snapped and shuffled the playing cards that evening. “So she expects to waltz into town and become a grand dame of society? I’ve seen the woman before—she’s a cow!”

  Gathered at Noelle’s dining table for a game of Speculation were her only female friends, each who had arrangements with other members of Parliament. Of the three, only Valerie had once been married. Titian-haired Geneva Hunt, who sometimes drank too much wine and then wept over her mistreatment by the aunt who raised her, actually kept company with a member of the House of Commons, but Noelle thought no less of her for that. In fact, the only one of the three she had less than amiable feelings for was Meara Desmond, seated across from her. Dark and full-figured, with the amber-spoked eyes of a cat, the Irishwoman now wore the infuriating expression of someone who is harboring an amusing secret and not inclined to share it.

  One would have assumed that Meara wouldn’t feel so smug, since her benefactor, Lord Ogden, was stricken with palsy and had to leave London for Norwich. No doubt he still provided for her financially, but the word was that his health was failing rapidly, and Noelle couldn’t imagine his widow continuing Meara’s support.

  Just the notion of Lady Ogden writing out monthly cheques for her husband’s former mistress made Noelle smile to herself. But then considering the fact that Lord Ogden was a repulsive-looking man with foul breath and a ridiculous powdered wig, perhaps Lady Ogden would feel beholden to Meara after all.

  “Noelle, what’s the name of that town?” Geneva asked while peering thoughtfully at the three playing cards fanned covertly in the palm of her hand. Her words were already beginning to slur. Another half hour and she would be relating how she was forced to scrub chamber pots or polish floors because her aunt considered her no more than an unpaid servant.

  Not tonight, Noelle pleaded silently, in spite of her fondness for Geneva. There was enough misery in the present to be mulling over the pain of the past. In reply to her friend’s question she said, “Gresham.”

  “Gresham.” Valerie shook her head and snapped a card, facedown, upon the table. “How far away is it?”

  “About eight hours I suppose, taking into account stops at every little depot along the way.” She sighed. “Quetin has promised to visit as often as he can get away, but it’s going to be at least August before I see any of you again. I’ll be so lonesome!”

  Over the rim of her wine glass, Meara’s cat-eyes gave her a genuinely sympathetic look. In her soft Irish brogue she said, “There, there, Noelle. You’ll have your fellow lodgers to keep you company.”

  “Well, the very thought of it makes me want to weep,” Valerie declared loyally. “I wish we had more time to spend with you before you leave. But Lord Paxton will want you all to himself tomorrow, no doubt.”

  Noelle, in fact, did have doubts about that, for he had not mentioned doing so. But she could not admit those doubts, even to Valerie and Geneva. They were friends, yes, but still practiced a good deal of one-upmanship over who was pampered the most. How could she now admit to them her fears of late that he was growing bored with her? It’ll be good, my being away, she tried to reassure herself while staring blankly at the trio of cards in her hand. In her absence he would see just how tightly their lives were connected and how much he needed her.

  Chapter 11

  As Noelle had feared, Quetin did not come the next morning when the trunk he sent for her arrived. She had little opportunity to brood over it though, as she had to keep a constant eye on Nelda to see that she folded her clothes correctly. Only a half dozen times did she peer out the window and try to catch sight of Quetin through a drizzling rain.

  By midafternoon she knew with all certainty that she would not see him until tomorrow. She dismissed Nelda for the day—not out of consideration, but because she feared the girl would attempt to lift something from the trunk if left alone. Exiting the apartment building, Noelle scanned both directions for a passing hansom. Finally she gave up and walked a quarter of a block to a hansom stand. “Cheapside,” she told the driver. “The cigar store across from the Bow Church.”

  The horse worked its way methodically down the cobbled streets in a tedious file of carriages, cabs, omnibuses, and carts. It seemed that everyone in London but her had some purpose to attend of his own choosing. She, on the other hand, felt like a leaf at the mercy of a capricious wind. She had no more control over the events that were now propelling her toward an unknown future than did the horse in harness over which direction he would take. It was an unsettling and frightening place to be.

  As the hansom carried her past Sir Robert Peel’s statue where Newgate flowed into Cheapside, she could see the steeple of Saint Marylebow’s off to her right, soaring above the rows of houses huddled against it on either side. The driver reined the horse in front of Wetherly’s Imported Cigars, as instructed, and hopped down from his precarious perch behind the passenger seat to assist her to the walkway. For that courtesy Noelle added threepence to the two-shilling fare and then walked over to stand under the awning of the cigar shop. Better to stay in the shadows, even though the street traffic constantly interfered with her view of the narrow, three-story brick building to the right of the church. The vicarage looked the same with its wrought-iron fence separating the walkway from a tiny garden. The shutters were new, yet still the same olive green as before. It seemed to Noelle that if a person were to have to replace shutters, one would want to try a different color. But then, there was the risk that some of her father�
�s parishioners would disapprove of the change.

  To say that the church was important to her family would have been an understatement. Just as it towered over their home physically, it overshadowed every waking moment and activity. Plans were made with the unsaid understanding that her father may or may not be present. Countless times his place at the dinner table had been empty because he was off ministering to some other family. Usually it was to provide solace during time of illness or bereavement, for the parish of Marylebow was an old one, with many elderly parishioners. Noelle spent her childhood envying the members of her father’s congregation for their access to him—she was twelve or thirteen when it occurred to her that she also was a member. That revelation had only intensified the abandonment she felt.

  Fat, sparse raindrops began pelting the canvas above her. She was glad for the rain, for that lessened the chance that someone would leave the house and spot her. Of course it would take a blizzard to stop her father from his missions of mercy. She had heard that Aaron, her older brother, married last year. And Oswald married three years ago. That left only two sisters and a brother at home. Young or old, they were cut from the same cloth. Pious and industrious, content with their Sunday leg-of-lamb and Wednesday roast beef, piano lessons and choral practices, latest issues of Sunday at Home and, for the younger ones, Sunday Scholar’s Reward.

  The cobbler’s children have no shoes, Noelle thought, for most activities even bearing the name “Christian” had not provided the spiritual nurturing she had thirsted for after coming to a personal faith at the age of eleven. Be a good example was the only catechism she absorbed. So when she found that harder and harder to do, it became easier and easier to push God to the back of her mind.

  She had never felt she fit in her family anyway. And especially not after she left home three years ago—only weeks after she had met Quetin in a millinery shop, where he was purchasing a hat for a woman who would soon become his former mistress.

  The notion that one of their daughters was a kept woman was too much for Noelle’s parents. When her father stoically informed her that she was no longer welcome beyond the threshold, the reason he gave was that she would be a bad influence upon her younger sisters. But Noelle suspected the chief reason was fear that his parishioners would find out and perhaps demand of the diocese a less tainted-byscandal minister.

  “Do you require assistance, miss?”

  Noelle turned to the man standing in the doorway behind her. Mr. Wetherly, she recognized, the proprietor of the cigar shop. “No, thank you.”

  Instead of returning to his business as she hoped he would, he raised his balding head to peer at her through the spectacles perched upon the tip of his nose. “Miss Somerville? Is that you?”

  “I’m afraid you’re mistaken.” Noelle turned her attention again to the building across the street. She heard the door close behind her. The thickening rain blended outlines of the passing vehicles with the gray of the street. Still, her eye caught movement at a second-story window. The drapes were parted, a shadowy figure lowered the glass and then disappeared as the curtains fell back into place. A lump welled in her throat. It could have been anyone—a housemaid, her mother, or one of her siblings. Whoever it was, Noelle had the feeling this person was the last tenuous link she would ever have with her family.

  A hackney cab approached. The mackintosh-clad driver spotted the handkerchief she waved, reined his horse to a stop, and held an umbrella over her as he assisted her from the walkway to the carriage.

  Back at her flat, Noelle stood on tiptoe and stretched to reach into the back of her armoire. She brought down a biscuit tin she had taken a fancy to as a young girl. It had been given to her by their housekeeper when the last of the PEEK, FREAN & COMPANY ANGEL CAKES were consumed. A classroom setting was portrayed upon the lid in vivid colors and gilt, showing students studying a map that illustrated that four hundred million Peek, Frean & Company biscuits and pastries touching each other would stretch from pole to pole.

  She went to the window seat and opened the lid for the first time in over a year. Inside were such treasures as a redbird feather she had found in the vicarage garden, assorted Sunday School merit ribbons for memorizing scripture passages, a pair of velvet doll slippers, a paper doll of a much younger Queen Victoria, a needlepoint bookmark her sister had given her for a birthday, and a tarnished silver whistle from a Christmas stocking.

  Carefully Noelle unfolded a yellowing advertisement she had cut carefully from a discarded magazine at the age of nine or ten. Above the words touting the merits of TRUESDALE & COMPANY, Tea, Coffee & Colonial Merchants was an idyllic portrait of a family gathered in a cottage garden. The father was playfully hoisting a young child above his head while at his side a boy patted the family dog. Before the wooden gate stood the smiling mother, arm outstretched to receive a posy from her little girl.

  It was a scene Noelle had studied often during her childhood. She 123 had envied the little girl holding the posy, and even the rosy-cheeked boy with the dog, for they appeared to be so cherished and happy. Children were listened to in that cottage garden, and not only when they were reciting, but also when they wished to talk about the happenings of their day, their fears and friendships, likes and dislikes. Many daydreams had carried Noelle to that special place, which she came to think of as Truesdale.

  But as she grew older, she came to understand that Truesdale did not exist. She would never visit there. The parents and children and even the garden were created by an artist’s brush. As cynicism began to take root in her heart, she wondered if the artist had even known such a family. Perhaps the reason he had managed to portray them so skillfully was because he, like Noelle, had wished such people to be real.

  Because she was allowed only one trunk and would be returning within four months, she had not thought it important to bring the tin with her. But now she couldn’t imagine leaving it behind. If she had to live among strangers, at least she would have something of the familiar with her.

  Wrapping her arms around her knees, Noelle turned to the window and watched rivulets of water join other rivulets to run down the pane. Beyond, she could see umbrellas bobbing up and down on the walkway. People hurried beneath them to homes and shops and businesses, unaware that they were being stared upon from a thirdstory window by the loneliest woman in London.

  “But surely he could have managed an hour,” Noelle sniffed Wednesday morning to the man seated across from her in the private coach moving toward Paddington Station. Mr. Radley was one of the last people she would choose to confide in—his bulbous nose had pores the size of billiard pockets, and his small weasel eyes seemed to be constantly watching for an opportunity to advance his own interests. But he was the only available ear, and her disappointment was so overwhelming.

  “There, there now. Some unexpected debate on Irish land reform came up. The Irish Republican Brotherhood are making threats again.” The solicitor reached forward to pat Noelle’s knee. “I assure you that he was just as crushed as you are. And he’ll certainly visit you as soon as possible.”

  Noelle wiped her eyes with her handkerchief again. “So you saw him this morning?”

  The weasel-eyes blinked. “This morning?”

  “When he said he couldn’t get away.”

  “Oh yes. This morning.” Changing the subject, he said, “By the way, the proprietor of the lodging house, a Mr. Jensen, assumes you are a widow.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  He waved a hand. “Just a little invention to evoke sympathy for your cause, Miss Somerville. There was no guarantee that we could procure a room on such short notice, you see.”

  “And…” he went on with a leer in his little eyes, causing Noelle to turn her knees sharply to the side against the seat when he seemed to be on the verge of patting them again. “People in villages tend to be more straightlaced than Londoners. Were they to know your real…ah, situation, they would likely invite you to leave. So I would advise keeping up the charade
.”

  Noelle steamed inside at the whole notion, but it would do no good to complain to the man across from her whose company was becoming increasingly more disagreeable. She would certainly complain to Quetin on his first visit about his choice of a solicitor. Surely with the whole of London’s legal expertise from which to choose, he could do better than Mr. Radley!

  A more practical matter suddenly occurred to her. “Quetin didn’t give me any money last time we spoke. How am I to pay for my lodgings?”

  “That has been taken care of for the next four months, Miss Somerville.”

  “And what about the other things I’ll have need of?”

  “I’ll make mention of it to Lord Paxton. Surely he’ll send a cheque by and by.” Leaning forward again, he told her, “But I might be inclined to lend you a bit, if you’re in desperate straits.”

  A shudder of revulsion snaked down Noelle’s spine. “I will never be that desperate, Mr. Radley.”

  He grinned and settled back into his seat. Noelle actually found herself relieved when the coach reached its destination and she was able to set foot on the ground. Paddington’s platform was a sea of people boarding and detraining, meeting and seeing off, while behind it a great black locomotive bearing the title London & Birmingham Railway in silver letters sent a blast from its shrill whistle.

  “Your train should arrive in half an hour,” Mr. Radley said when the whistle was silent again. Behind them, the solicitor’s coachman had set down her trunk and was now engaged in seeking out a porter. When he returned with one some five minutes later, Noelle held out a gloved hand to her obnoxious companion.

  “Thank you, Mr. Radley, but you needn’t wait.”

  He shook his head while clasping her hand. “Lord Paxton has commissioned me to take care of you, Miss Somerville. I cannot in good conscience shirk my duty.”