by Richard Peck
John Thorne saw us off on the ferryboat from Ryde. Traveling over this small expanse of sea was a wonder to me as I bustled about, settling Lady Eleanor and Miss Amanda in the enclosed saloon. But I felt miserable as John prepared to leave us.
He mentioned to Lady Eleanor that a small dressing case of Miss Amanda’s was missing. With a nod to me, he walked back toward the gangplank, and I followed. The dressing case was where he’d left it to offer us an excuse to say our good-byes. He caught me in his arms and kissed me full on the mouth. Then he was handing me the case and striding down the gangplank. I wondered how I would endure a month without him. And what would happen when we were reunited. But I wondered for nothing, because plans I couldn’t have guessed at were already at work well above my head.
The deck lurched, and Ryde fell away. Before I knew it, the ferry was nudging Portsmouth pier, and I was in that other, larger England I had never thought to see.
* * *
I smile to think of it now, but when the train drew into Waterloo Station, I thought the great glass roof of the terminal covered all of London. There were taxicabs, shops, restaurants, even a hotel in the twilight of the vast, smoky station. Then we rolled out of Waterloo in a taxi, and I scarcely dared glance out at all the traffic.
“Oh, do look, Miranda,” Miss Amanda said, pointing to an omnibus. “There’s one of Father’s signs!” And indeed an advertisement on the omnibus read:
TAKE A CUP OF WHITWELL’S TEA:
MORNING NOON AND NIGHT.
In Mayfair we turned into quiet Charles Street and drew up at a town house, one of a long, tight row of houses running to a distant corner. The house was furnished fashionably, but there was little homelike about it, and Sir Timothy himself transferred to his club before the end of that day.
Not that we were short of gentlemen. They called every afternoon, filling the drawing room. Mr. Gregory Forrest called as often, I think, as Miss Amanda allowed. And when I answered the door, I always hoped it would be him. I was absurdly pleased that he remembered my name. Whether I was engaged to John Thorne or not, the thought of Mr. Forrest lightened my step.
My duties were less burdensome than in the country. And my room, at the back and the top of the house, was twice the size of my attic at Whitwell Hall. It was approached through a sewing room that was as good as a sitting room to me. From my window I could see a yard of cobblestones behind the house. Hays Mews it was called, enclosed by brick walls.
Miss Amanda and I were two days in getting her clothes unpacked. I was still curt to her. I couldn’t rid myself of the vision of her dancing with John Thorne. To have a double—an alter ego—is a worrisome thought. But a double that is a mischievous spirit promises more trouble ahead. How strange it is to me now that I didn’t blame John Thorne. But no, I laid all the blame at Miss Amanda’s feet.
In the evening of our third day in London Miss Amanda sent for me and said, “Miranda, I am going to keep a journal. Not a diary of engagements. A proper journal to record my thoughts. Do you not think this an excellent way to occupy my mind?”
“I couldn’t say, miss.”
“I could and do.” She arched her eyebrows. “Writing will clarify my thoughts, and I shall be able to examine my life.”
“Yes, miss.”
“So I ordered a book of blank pages from Asprey’s in Bond Street. It is quite gorgeous, a work of art, with my name in silver leaf.”
Miss Amanda produced the journal, buttery sky-blue leather with silver corners. Amanda Whitwell was embossed on the cover. “Only think, Miranda,” she went on, “what awful secrets will fill these virginal pages. Never dream of peeking at the contents yourself. Perhaps I should have it fitted with a lock. Servants do pry.” With that she gave me a sly, sidelong look, and dismissed me for the night.
* * *
Tired as I was, I knew I wouldn’t sleep. Restless London thundered beyond the sewing-room window. And I heard a motorcar bumping down the cobblestones of Hays Mews. It was the throbbing clatter of Sir Timothy’s Lanchester.
I was at the window as the dark figure of John Thorne climbed down from the motorcar. I flew down the stairs, my heart leaping.
John was just opening the coach-house doors when I crossed the mews and stood silently behind him. He turned suddenly. “Amanda,” he said quietly.
No, I thought, he didn’t say that. I rushed into his arms to stop his lips with my own. “Miranda,” he whispered, and his arms closed around me.
He led me up the iron stairway of the carriage house to the loft rooms above. I stood there, longing to know why John was here, and what it meant for the two of us. “John, do explain!” I said, in a tone I had adopted from someone else.
He looked at me as if a stranger had spoken. “What’s to explain?” he said finally. “Lady Eleanor and the Duchess took it into their heads that they’d sooner be driven about London than hire a car. They sent me a wire, and here I am.”
“The Duchess?”
“It’s only my name for Miss Amanda.” There was defiance in his voice. “The Duchess for all her high-and-mighty ways.”
“Never let her know you call her that!” I was truly shocked.
John shook his head, looked away. “I watch my p’s and q’s around that young lady.”
“Ah, but you’ve not always been so careful,” I said boldly. “You were quick enough to dance with her at the Ventnor ball.”
“You know about that, do you?” He ran a heavy hand through his hair. The look of a sulky boy blurred his manly face. “I wonder what busybody carried that tale. Forget it.” And he took me in his arms again. “It’s no matter.”
“I saw you and Miss Amanda on the dance floor myself. How could you? Have you no pride?”
“Not much,” John said, showing a rock-hard chin. “Besides, when you went out and she came in, I thought ’twas you had come back. She was in my arms before I knew the difference.”
“You’re a liar, John Thorne.” I stepped back from him. “I couldn’t have coaxed you onto that dance floor in a million years. It was the young mistress who called that tune.”
“Have it your own way. When you know more about men than you do now, maybe you’ll find out they don’t take much to being accused of dancing to a woman’s tune—any woman, high or low.”
Especially when it’s what they’re doing, I thought. How could this man, so quick to hurt me, inspire such passion in me? I turned from him and walked out the door.
6
In her busy round of receptions and dinners, Miss Amanda seemed indifferent to my state of mind. Then she startled me by saying, “Mr. Forrest is taking me to the ballet tonight, Miranda. You have never been to the ballet of course?”
“No, miss,” I said, pouring her tea. A little girl’s smile played across her lips.
“You will be going as well. And don’t think I have any devious plan to impersonate you. I refer to the Ventnor ball, a prank that I seem never to end paying for.”
“I’m to go to the ballet as well, Miss Amanda?”
“Yes. You will sit in the gallery, so what you wear need not concern either of us. You have seen nothing of London, and this will be a little treat for you. The Russian ballet is quite new to London. Anna Pavlova is dancing The Dying Swan tonight.”
She seemed about to dismiss me when she said, “And John Thorne will accompany you.”
I went down to the kitchens lost in thought about Miss Amanda’s timely plan. How could she know of the coolness that had fallen between John and me? But I was almost certain that she did. I began to suspect she heard things that only John could have told her. But I resisted knowing why it would suit her to smooth things between us. How slow I was to see her plan unfolding.
That evening I dressed Miss Amanda in her wine satin evening gown, and she had never looked more beautiful. Her black hair, drawn up into a twist, looked nearly lacquered. A touch of mascara on her eyebrow erased the small scar left from her long-ago tumble from a horse. Her mother’s sable-t
rimmed cloak encased her in cloth of gold as thin as tissue.
After she’d gone downstairs to Mr. Forrest, I dressed hurriedly. John Thorne met me in the mews. His hands found mine and held them lightly, inviting me to draw back if I would. Then I was in his arms, and he kissed me with a gentle insistence. He gathered me nearer, gently still, certain of me once again. I pressed my face against him and savored the strength of his body, for he’d awakened something within me.
Our arms entwined, we walked to bustling Piccadilly Street and rode from there on a swaying omnibus. I was reminded of my first day in a motorcar and managed a smile.
“And what’s brought the ghost of a grin out of all your solemnness, then?” John asked, quick to notice.
“I was remembering my first ride in Sir Timothy’s automobile the day of the hunt. How far I thought I was from the ground.”
“Ah, you were bright green with fear, and no mistake,” John said, nodding wisely.
“I never showed it!”
“But you quivered from top to toe,” he said. “One day I’ll have you out in Sir T’s auto alone. Then I’ll show you what life’s like at thirty miles an hour.”
“Never!”
His arm slipped around my shoulders. “Or better yet, we’ll have our own motor one day.”
“An automobile of our own?” I said. “When I am Miss Amanda and you are the king of the Belgians!”
“Ah, not so long off as that,” he said, after a quick look at me.
When the bus swerved to a stop at the Palace Theatre, we descended into a crowd of ladies encrusted with jewels and gentlemen in tall silk hats and white silk mufflers. I clung to John’s hand as we climbed the stairs to the gallery, high under the dome of the theater, and fought our way toward the crowded front row.
The orchestra was suddenly gathered up by the conductor’s baton into a swell of music unlike any I’d ever heard, waves of sound that made my heart soar. This was the music of the sea, with the tides ebbing and flowing, and I left Miranda Cooke behind in all the smallness of her days and ways.
The curtain rose then upon a porcelain figure, Anna Pavlova. She looked more bird than woman, more goddess than human. I sat swaying in the rhythm of her art. At the end, when the swan she had become fell dead on the stage, I wept.
I must have left the theater in a spell, for I cannot remember what more might have passed between John and me. Certainly we must have returned quickly to Charles Street, but my thoughts didn’t turn on him or on Miss Amanda in that scrap of time that was mine alone.
* * *
First and last, Miss Amanda loved a sly game. I might have known she was about to reveal some news, for she summoned Miss Sybil Ward-Benedict up to town as her audience.
Miss Ward-Benedict arrived at midmorning and asked to be shown straight in to Amanda. I left them to their reunion, returning only at eleven with coffee and biscuits. Miss Amanda was saying, “I am quite done in with London and cannot face the real Season next summer.”
“Then I shouldn’t go through with it if I were you,” Miss Ward-Benedict said gruffly. She was no lover of London. “I shan’t.”
“No, I suppose you won’t, Sybil. But when I say that I cannot face a Season next year, I mean that I will not face it, and I’ve taken steps.”
I felt Miss Amanda’s eyes on me as I poured the coffee. “You see, Sybil, I have decided to become engaged to Mr. Gregory Forrest.”
Miss Ward-Benedict barely covered her surprise. “So, it’s to be Forrest, is it? Has he spoken to your father?”
Miss Amanda hooted. “Oh, Sybil, nobody has spoken to Father in years, on any subject! But you may be sure that Gregory has spoken to my mother and she has spoken at length in reply. I shall be more than glad to put an end to all this underground maneuvering.”
“Ruddy odd reason for marrying,” Miss Ward-Benedict remarked thoughtfully. Then she said, pointedly, “When is it to be, Amanda? You won’t convince me that you’re serious unless you can name a date!”
Miss Amanda shifted uncomfortably in her bed. “I haven’t set the date. As I’m to marry an American, I might well slip away to New York and be wed there, to deprive my mother of her hour of triumph!” Miss Amanda’s eyes glittered, then darkened. “There is another wedding to be worked out before mine. Perhaps two of them.”
“Whose, for heaven’s sake?” Miss Ward-Benedict demanded.
“It seems that one of our downstairs maids—Betty—is pregnant and has trapped a likely man to marry her.” Miss Amanda’s eyes were trained on me. “And I shouldn’t be surprised if Miranda didn’t marry soon too. I suspect something between Miranda and our man-of-all-work down on the Isle. Thorne is his name. And to let matters drag on will simply lead to problems of Betty’s sort—”
“That is surely her business,” Miss Ward-Benedict said, embarrassed on my behalf.
“Please, miss,” I heard myself say. “May I withdraw?”
Miss Amanda sighed. “Miranda, you’re not to take to heart everything I say when I am attempting to amuse. I would be lost without you. I am quite serious when I say I shall want you with me always. I can see no reason why you and I should not have everything that . . . will make us both happy.” And then she dismissed me.
I withdrew, raging at her calculated cruelty. When she’d said that I would remain in her service always, I’d nearly shuddered. But in her thoughtlessness, she had seemed to overlook something. If she went to New York with Mr. Forrest, surely I could not both marry John Thorne and remain with her.
I was so lost in these thoughts that I found myself standing at the head of the stairs. Nevertheless I noticed Mr. Gregory Forrest waiting below. Some secret part of me always longed for a glimpse of him.
* * *
A change came over me during our last London days. I began to think myself very worldly and I became remarkably grown-up in my manner. If I melted in John Thorne’s arms, I melted a bit more slowly. And I came to what I thought were new terms with Miss Amanda. When she raged, I clucked in patient disapproval. When she played the child, I played the nanny. But she could find no fault in me because I grew more silently efficient.
As the days slipped away, Miss Amanda remained serious about announcing her engagement to Mr. Forrest. And the great day came, rather like the breaking of a long fever—a relief to all concerned.
An engagement party was planned for one of our last London evenings. That morning a parcel from Asprey’s came for Miss Amanda. It was a large traveling jewel case lavishly bound in gold. On the lid were stamped a small A and a W, and a central initial more boldly emblazoned: F for Forrest. Inside were a dozen drawers and trays lined in pale suede.
When I went up to see to Miss Amanda’s hair for that evening, I barely knocked before entering her room. And there I saw Mr. Forrest. He stood behind Miss Amanda, fastening a necklace of pearls around her neck, the second of his engagement gifts in a single day.
Mr. Forrest met my eye. He favored me with a crooked smile and then, of all things, gave me a wink. I smiled in return before composing myself.
“Gregory!” Miss Amanda was saying. “What will my maid think to find you here? You’ve no idea how high-minded she is.”
“How can she be less than an angel when she looks so much like you?” he asked, and to me, “I hope you wish us well, Miranda.”
I was too dazzled by him to reply. Miss Amanda turned, and her eyebrows rose high at my silence. She was standing before Mr. Forrest and drew his arms possessively around herself.
“Oh, sir,” I managed, “I wish you every happiness.”
“And maybe you’ll do me a favor, Miranda,” Mr. Forrest said in a voice of genial gruffness.
“Anything, sir,” I murmured, making Miss Amanda smile at how easily I was overcome by him.
“Maybe you can convince Amanda of the wisdom of a short engagement. Persuade her there’s no reason for waiting?”
“Ah, but there are reasons, Gregory!” Miss Amanda cut in.
But Mr. Fo
rrest’s eyes were still upon me, and I met them briefly. From a pocket he drew out a small box bound with a silk cord and held it out to me. “Here, Miranda, a small token of our engagement. It’s a happy time, and you should share it.”
My eyes filled at the goodness of this man, and I envied Miss Amanda. With a faltering hand I opened the box. Inside lay a slender gold chain.
It was more beautiful to me than the rope of pearls at Miss Amanda’s throat. She was much amused as I tried to stammer my thanks.
“Have you something to wear on it?” Mr. Forrest asked.
“Oh, sir, I’ll have my foreign coin put on it. It’s the only other gift I was ever given.”
“And what kind of coin is it?”
I was never without it. From my apron pocket, I drew it out.
“It’s a funny thing to come across this far from home,” Mr. Forrest said when I handed it to him. “An American Indianhead penny. Where did you come by it, Miranda?”
“The Wisewoman gave it to me,” I said without thinking.
“Wisewoman?”
“A fortune-teller,” Miss Amanda said. “You have no idea how superstitious simple people are in this country, Gregory.”
“I doubt Miranda consulted the fortune-teller. It’s surely customary for the client to do the paying.”
“She was a lonely old woman who was being kind,” I murmured, and a bond strengthened between me and Mr. Forrest.
“Was she kind enough to foresee your future?” he asked.
“She spoke strangely,” I said. “I doubt I remember much.”
“I’ll bet you remember some,” Mr. Forrest said, drawing me out. “People do, even when they aren’t believers.”
“I remember one thing very clearly, sir. The Wisewoman said I would marry twice.”
“Marry twice, Miranda?” Miss Amanda laughed mockingly. “My dear, I shall do very well to get you married once!”
