Cynthia Bailey Pratt Read online

  Min would want to put it aside against the day when her mother could no longer work. Amabelle would think of a clever place to hide the fortune. Neither of them knew that their mother had saved nearly this much already, shaving a penny here and there. This nest egg had been mostly achieved by going without meals.

  As Mrs. Pierce walked, she found herself wondering just how far off that rainy day of unemployment was. She knew what to dread. One day, she’d be unable to work as hard, despite the strength of desperation. The governors of the museum were kindly, yet they’d not keep her an hour past her usefulness. Then she’d be like the other old women she knew—living alone, struggling by on bread and tea, threadbare clothing creating an outward show of dignity with nothing behind it, no one caring whether she lived or died. Dreadful as that picture was, she could bear it better than becoming a burden to her children.

  “But what can I do?” she asked plaintively.

  Were those footsteps behind her? Mrs. Pierce didn’t stop to look about her. She hurried on, making good time despite corns and bunions.

  When she’d reached this point before, her thoughts had become so mired in fear and misery, she would always head to the nearest pub rather than face her future. Now, though, a new idea popped into her head as though a seed long planted had suddenly sprouted beneath the caress of a warm breeze.

  No one can sack the mistress, she thought.

  It came as such a startling revelation that she stopped in her hurried pace to examine the idea. She said it aloud, slowly, “No one can sack you if you’re the top of the heap.”

  Then she laughed at herself and walked on. “An’ wotcher goin’ t’do? Wave a magic wand and make yerself inter a fine laidy?”

  As though from quite outside herself, though still inside her head, Mrs. Pierce heard, “Take this money. Rent some shop on the street and advertise for men and maids to come work for you. Guarantee their honesty and see to it that they are well-trained. You know what salary a really well-trained parlormaid can ask an’ get?”

  “Who’s going to train ‘em, then?”

  “The workhouses already train young girls to sew and cook. How much harder can it be to teach them some manners befittin’ a chamber or parlormaid? You can do it. You know how.”

  That was true. She hadn’t always been a charwoman. She’d started in good service and had given satisfaction until she left to be married. “But...” She could think of half a dozen objections to the plan.

  She walked through a street of shops, closed now, their shutters up. Looking at the signs above the doors, she wondered how they all had started in business. One sign was especially handsome—a board covered in shiny green paint deeply scored with gilded letters.

  Blinking at it, Mrs. Pierce felt as though she were visited by a revelation. Aloud, slowly, she said, “Mrs. Pierce's Dom’estics. Mrs. Pierce’s Domestics. By the Day, the Week, or the Month.”

  Chapter Seven

  The large wheels of the cab had scarcely completed one revolution away from the constable before Julia sat back in her own corner. “That worked,” she said.

  Simon, a trifle unnerved still by the way the warmth of her body lingered against him, said, “That was clever. How did you think of it?”

  “I remembered that love is an excuse for all sorts of bad behavior. For instance, I adore Egyptology. That is my only excuse for taking you by surprise today.” She looked down at her hands, then glanced sideways at him.

  In the mobile lights and shadows of the cab, Simon was tantalized by a glimpse of beauty hitherto unseen. Julia was the kind of woman whose beauty depended very much upon lighting, her mood, and the eye of the beholder.

  Right now she sat in the corner looking at him with eyes as deep and mysterious as Cleopatra’s. A stray beam of light moved across her mouth like a finger brushed sensuously over yearning lips. Another gleam highlighted her throat and the lobe of her ear, just those places most likely to be kissed in the throes of passion.

  Simon moved restlessly on the seat, reminding himself in a fierce mental whisper that she was just another difficult woman. “My mother knows, of course, that I had invited a certain Miss Hanson to see my exhibition.”

  “You told her about me?” She smiled, pleased.

  Reluctantly, Simon admitted, “She has seen your letters.”

  “She has? I have never shown yours, not even to my father.”

  Simon found himself responding to the very slight tinge of hurt in her tone. He’d never been particularly sensitive to the emotional shades of a woman’s voice; they seemed to start shrilling about the silliest things. Yet he hastened to justify himself. “I did not show them to her. She found them while—ah!—looking for stationery in my desk.”

  “Did she think my letters were blank pages?”

  “Are you suggesting my mother was prying?”

  “Of course not,” she said, very softly.

  “Well, she was. I thought your letters were safe enough, locked in a drawer, but Mother is very clever when she wants to find something out. I keep them in a locked box at the office now.”

  Suddenly he heard a muffled laugh. On being pressed to tell what was so funny, Julia said, “I am only thinking ... you must have told her I was an old woman. What will she say when she sees me?”

  Simon felt he had a very good idea, but he could hardly say so. He was having enough trouble adjusting to the idea that he’d just told her, to all intents and purposes a stranger, that his mother had snooped through his desk. He did not tell her that he’d been kicking himself ever since for not keeping Julia’s letters at his office in the first place.

  Yet why should he feel that the letters of an elderly woman needed protecting from prying eyes? After all, they were not love letters. He could not remember Julia ever having written a word that could not have appeared with the greatest propriety in the London Times.

  “I’m afraid that she will think I have been deceiving her, that I knew all along that you were young and...” He swallowed the word “pretty.” “Mother likes to think she has the complete confidence of her children. My sisters tell her all the details of their lives; I do not.”

  “Being away so much.”

  “As you say, I am only home now in the hot seasons. I’ve only missed two years of excavation while seeking new patrons.”

  “Will you be able to go again in the autumn? Did Lord Quarterfoil agree to fund another expedition?”

  “I doubt I’ll have any trouble finding money for the coming season. I’m known as a lucky ‘digger’ now, thanks to An-ket.”

  “Thanks to An-ket,” Julia echoed. She turned her head away to look out the window, leaving Simon only her back to gaze at. He’d never known how eloquent a back could be. He almost wished that he were her brother so that he could put a comforting arm about her waist. He had often offered an absorbent shoulder to his sisters, of whom he was genuinely fond, when the burdens of their lives grew too heavy.

  He moved a trifle closer to Julia. “Tell me again what you saw and heard.”

  “You still won’t believe me.”

  “Let me judge. I was angry at Dr. Mystery before and some of my anger turned toward you. I’m calmer now. Please, let me judge.”

  She drew a deep breath and faced him. Her eyes widened slightly and he realized he’d moved even closer to her than he’d intended. To cough and hasten away would be to make something perfectly natural seem sordid. So he stayed right there and said, “Speak softly. We don’t want the cabbie to overhear.”

  This time he listened closely to more than her words. He heard the throb of sincerity in her voice and saw no hint of either mischief or madness in her eyes. When she spoke of the threats of Billy the Wall, he unknowingly sought to take her hand. Her fingertips were slightly rough, like his own, and returned his strengthening pressure. In the close darkness of the hackney, near enough to her to feel her breath on his cheek, he could not assert that she lied or recounted only a dream.

  When she fin
ished, he said, “I believe that you believe. I can’t say more than that.”

  “Then I am happy.” With head bent, she withdrew her hand from his.

  Something thudded on the roof of the cab. “Ho! ‘Ow long d’ya h’expect me to wait!”

  As if awakening from a daydream, Simon started and stared out the window. “We’re here,” he said.

  He opened the door with a latchkey. The hall was deep, with rooms opening to either side. Diminished jets of gas gleamed in the dark rooms like cats’ eyes shown up by a passing lantern. Julia received an impression of spaciousness perfumed by the gas and by flowers.

  Simon said, “I suggest I show you straight to your room. Explanations and introductions can wait ‘til the morning.”

  “That’s best. May I suggest you leave a note for your mother? It would be impolite to leave her uninformed until presented with me over the breakfast table.”

  A merry, youthful voice said, “But I cannot wait so long! Please, darling, introduce me now.”

  Mrs. Archer was much younger in appearance than Simon’s age had lead Julia to believe possible. She stood at the top of the stairs, enveloped in what seemed to be several yards of foamy white tarlatan. Though entrancing, it seemed a strange choice for the mother of four grown children. A broad piece of the fabric had been thrown over her head like a mantilla and her hair was an even brighter gold than her son’s, though without the accompanying tan of his skin.

  She walked down the stairs with a queenly grace, her right hand floating above the stair rail. Stopping in front of Julia, she said, “Aren’t you pretty, my dear. Simon, who is she?”

  “Mother, may I present Miss Hanson? Due to an unfortunate confusion, she has nowhere to stay tonight. I have offered her our guest bedroom for the duration of her stay.”

  “Naturally! What else was left for you to do?”

  Julia hardly had time to wonder what exactly was meant by that before Mrs. Archer turned her limpid blue eyes on her. “How perfectly dreadful to be homeless in a great city like London! You must have been so frightened!”

  “Not at all, Mrs. Archer. And your son quite mistakes the matter. I hope not to impose on you beyond tonight.”

  “Oh, but the night is half over already! You’ll hardly catch a wink of sleep. I know that I need all the rest I can find.” She covered the daintiest yawn Julia had ever witnessed.

  “I’m terribly sorry we woke you, Mother. We were trying to be quiet.”

  “I’m sure you were, my dear love. I do hope you shan’t wake your sisters. Poor lambs were so tired, they went to bed at nine o’clock!”

  “Then we must be especially quiet,” Julia said. “I should not like to disturb them.”

  “I believe in plenty of sleep for young girls, Miss Hanson. Nothing is more injurious to a girl’s freshness than late hours.” As if in echo, somewhere a clock tinged twice.

  “Mother,” Simon said.

  Mrs. Archer could not repress a smile as she looked on her son, even though she must have been displeased with him. Julia couldn’t really blame her for her cattiness. No mother would welcome her son coming home past midnight with some female he’d just met. She might be anything from a prostitute to a poisoner.

  Simon said, “As it is so very late, you should go back to your bed. I will show Miss Hanson up.”

  “No, no, no!” Mrs. Archer showed none of her teeth when she smiled, nor did her cheeks crinkle. Julia noticed for the first time that her hands were encased in soft leather gloves, undoubtedly some sort of beauty treatment. Mrs. Archer was evidently anxious to preserve her beauty, which, showing itself still so strong, must have been remarkable when she’d been younger.

  “Simon, this isn’t some savage, backward land! What kind of hostess do you think I am? Besides, she will need various things that you cannot give her. I shall have to wake Maria to help her.”

  Though tired, Julia could not imagine waking some poor exhausted maid simply to help her with her shoes and buttons. “You needn’t disturb anyone. I’m used to taking care of myself.”

  “Of course you are! But coming into a strange house like this is fit to disorder anyone.”

  “Mother,” Simon said again, with an edge to his voice.

  Gaily, Mrs. Archer sang, “That’s enough talking, don’t you think? Come with me, Miss Hanson.” Mrs. Archer started up the stairs. “Good night, Simon. Don’t dawdle about downstairs the way you always do. I’ll come in for just a moment before I go back to bed, shall I?”

  Julia stayed a moment more by the foot of the stairs. She felt, perhaps falsely, that the time they’d spent in the cab had brought them into the sort of accord they should have had all along. He had seemed the man she’d come to know through his letters: kind, intelligent, and sympathetic. She wondered what he thought of her now, and did not dare to have hopes.

  “Thank you for everything, Mr. Archer,” she said. “Though I disagreed with you, I see now that you were right to bring me here with you. Returning to my inn so late would have brought me more notoriety than I want.”

  “You’re quite certain you are well?”

  She smiled happily under the lurking humor in his eyes. “Perfectly well. My admission of being wrong is not a sign of illness.”

  “Though unusual,” he said softly. “But you are nothing if not unusual,”

  “Come along, Miss Hanson, do.”

  An hour later, she lay awake in the very pleasant room to which Mrs. Archer had conducted her. Simon’s mother brought her a pitcher of water to wash with and a crisply ironed nightgown to sleep in. She made no more sweetly caustic remarks, merely wishing Julia a good sleep for what was left of the night.

  The nightgown was too short, leaving her ankles and some of her calves exposed, but it would not have mattered were it not for the fact that Julia’s stomach began rumbling noisily. She’d been so eager to return to the museum before it closed that she’d not thought to eat dinner, and the fly-specked boiled eggs and soda bread at the public house had not tempted her.

  After an hour, she sat up. She did not know at what hour the Archers breakfasted, but it could not be less than six hours away. Remembering the proverb. “He who sleeps, dines,” she’d tried to nod off but her own internal noises had kept her awake.

  She slid out of bed, determined, despite the laws of hospitality, to seek out food. Perhaps there was a bowl of fruit in a drawing or dining room. What she wouldn’t give for a ripe pear!

  Pressing one hand against her stomach to stifle it, she opened her door and peered out into the upper hall. She would not have been at all surprised to find Mrs. Archer sleeping across her doorstep. Obviously, Mrs. Archer was concerned that Julia had designs on her son, a fear that was entirely warranted, little though she knew it.

  Julia wondered which of the doors opening off this hall was Simon’s. Sending him a silent wish for pleasant dreams, she headed down the stairs, her bare feet sinking into the pile of the carpet.

  Halfway down, she hesitated, thinking she really ought not to have left her room. If anyone saw her, how very odd she would look in her too-short gown, and how lame an excuse hunger would prove! An extra loud gurgle from her stomach sent her onward.

  Stealthily, she turned up the gaslight in each room and scanned it quickly for fruit, nuts, or even a peppermint drop. She’d settle for pemmican and hardtack! There seemed to be a few crackers behind a set of decanters in the dining room, but the glass-fronted cabinet was locked. Disappointed in the public rooms of the house, she made her way very reluctantly toward the door at the back that concealed the servants’ hall.

  The scullery window was open a few inches at the bottom, sending a cool breeze to dally with her exposed ankles. In the light that came through there, Julia spied a biscuit barrel and seized upon it thankfully. The three rusks she found at the bottom saved her life.

  She heard a sudden clatter and turned sharply around, the last, illicit biscuit clasped in her hand. But it was only the household cat clambering in thro
ugh the open window. It had knocked over a pail. “You startled me!”

  The cat said, “You startled me!”

  * * * *

  “She came all that way quite alone? How shocking! Oh, Simon ... you don’t suppose she has run away from home!”

  “I haven’t asked her that, Mother. It would not surprise me in the least.”

  “What a hurly-burly thing to do! Dear me, how wicked! To cause such anxiety... I’m proud to think that no daughter of mine would ever behave in such an underhanded fashion.”

  “If you are imagining Miss Hanson climbing down a drainpipe in the dead of night, you are indulging fantasy too much. It would be more in keeping with her nature, as I have come to see it, that she ordered up a gig to drive her to catch the Mail, had the maid pack her baggage, and drove off in broad daylight. Who would have the audacity to stop her?”

  “So headstrong! So unfeminine!” Seated in his bedroom chair, his mother pleated the folds of her wrapper in her agitation.

  “Yes, she is headstrong.” His reverence for the truth would not permit him to lie to his mother, so he stopped there.

  “Thank heaven she is so ordinary-looking,” his mother said.

  “Would you say so?”

  “Oh, my dear! All that reddish hair! Like a wild beast looking out from a bush! And did you notice her hands? So brown and coarse!”

  Simon looked at his own hands, tanned and callused from working in the field, and wondered where Julia did her practice excavations. He had no doubt that she worked thus somewhere. He had noticed that Julia did seem to have rather a lot of hair, imperfectly controlled. He’d glimpsed sparks of red among the rich brown waves but, like her beauty, it changed with every alteration of the light.

  “And her complexion is not good. No wonder she is yet unmarried! She must be almost thirty.”