Angel in Scarlet (18 page)

Although the ice remained and it was still cold, the sun began to shine in February, sparkling brilliantly on the ice. I came into his room one afternoon to find him sitting up in the big chair by the fire. Marie had been with him earlier, and he was wearing his favorite tan frock coat and a neckcloth of faded yellow silk. His hair was neatly brushed, gleaming pale silver gold in the sunlight slanting through the windows. His cheeks were soft pink, his gray eyes sad yet full of warm affection as he watched me set down the tray I'd brought.

“My,” I said, “you're all dressed, and looking quite handsome, I must add.”

“In your honor, Pumpkin.”

I was puzzled. “My honor?”

“Unless I'm terribly mistaken, today is your birthday.”

“I—why, yes, I suppose it is. I'd forgotten all about it.”

“You're eighteen years old today,” he said. “I'm sorry I don't have a present for you, Pumpkin, but I—uh—” He paused and smiled a wry, gentle smile. “I've had very little opportunity to shop of late.”

“Having you look so fit and handsome is the best present I could possibly have,” I told him.

I poured him a cup of the hot raspberry tea Doctor Crandall said was so good for him. The cup rattled slightly in the saucer as he took it from me. He was still very weak, and he looked unusually weary, as though getting into his clothes had sapped what little energy he had. I adjusted the blanket over his knees, put another log on the fire and then sat down across from him.

“Would you like me to read to you?” I asked.

“Not—not this afternoon, Pumpkin. I'd rather just—chat for a while. It's been a long time since we've had a really good talk.”

“We'll have lots of them,” I promised. “You're getting so much better you'll be—why, any day now you'll be in your study, working on your history again. You'll be able to finish it at last.”

He shook his head, and a sad smile rested briefly on his lips. “I fear not, Pumpkin.”

“You will,” I assured him. “I know you will.”

“I'm never going to finish it. I never started it.”

“But—”

“Dreams,” he said quietly. He shook his head. “I had such dreams, my darling, but I fear I hadn't the determination, the stamina, the will. All those years shut up in my study, and what do I have to show for them? Notes. Thousands and thousands of notes. I realized a long time ago it—it was too late, but I continued to pretend. I continued to dream.” He paused, gazing thoughtfully at the fire. After a moment he sighed. “Dreams aren't enough,” he added.

“Father—”

“Remember that,” he told me, and there was quiet urgency in his voice. “Dreams aren't enough. You must follow them through. And you will, Pumpkin. You have character and intelligence and spirit and you'll never be satisfied with hollow self-delusions. You'll never use your dreams as an escape, as I did. You'll look life in the eye. You'll never make—compromises.”

“You didn't either,” I protested. “You—you were a marvelous teacher who inspired hundreds of boys. You—you're loved and respected by everyone in the community. You made a great contribution.”

“I settled for less, my darling. I gave up. I gave in. That's something you must never do.”

He looked at me with those sad, resigned gray eyes, and I could tell he expected some kind of reply.

“I—I won't, Father,” I said, trying to sound bright. “I'm going to make you proud of me. I promise.”

“You will, Pumpkin. I—I feel sure of it.”

He smiled a weak smile then. I could tell he was too tired to talk any more. I asked him if he wanted more tea, and he shook his head and asked me to send Marie in to him and asked if he might have a birthday kiss before I left. I went to him and leaned over and kissed his cheek. He reached up to touch my hair, ever so tenderly, and then he put his arms around me and held me to him.

“Take care, my darling,” he whispered.

I fetched Marie, and she went to him, and I knew. I found myself waiting, consciously waiting, my throat tight, a strange, tremulous feeling inside. I prowled restlessly around the house, unable to concentrate, and after a while I went into the kitchen to prepare dinner and heard my stepmother call out and I stood there in front of the stove clutching the handle of a saucepan, and I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe. If I made the slightest movement I would fall apart, I would start sobbing and never be able to stop. Several minutes passed and then Solonge stepped into the kitchen and took the saucepan out of my hand and put her arms around me, and I clung to her and sobbed and tears too long unshed spilled down my cheeks.

Somehow I managed to get through the next four days. I seemed to be in a trance, functioning correctly, doing everything I should do but completely unable to associate myself with any of it. It was happening to someone else and I was watching it from afar. I remember the church and the organ music, and I remember all the people who came to speak to us and tell us what a wonderful man my father had been. I remember Eppie taking me into her arms and wailing, and I remember the churchyard and the ice and that long black hole. I remember them lowering the coffin into it, and I remember Solonge holding my hand so tightly my fingers felt broken. It was all happening to someone else, so I didn't give way. I told my father good-bye and dropped the first handful of dirt onto the coffin, and people said I was being very brave and talked about how well I was holding up.

My stepmother was calm and efficient, making all the arrangements, attending to all the details before and after the funeral with superb control. She showed no outward signs of grief, but her face was lined and she looked older, despite the makeup. In her widow's black she received all the people who came to pay their condolences and had a conference with the lawyers and received the new schoolmaster who was interested in buying our cottage, should she be interested in selling. It belonged to her now, as did all my father's possessions, and she was my legal guardian until I turned twenty-one: She busied herself making inventories, black skirt rustling crisply, and I felt something like a stab wound when she sold all Father's books to a dealer who quickly carted them away.

A week after the funeral a majestic black and silver carriage drew up in front of the cottage and a footman in white velvet livery held the door open as a tall, lean gentleman with silver hair and goatee stepped out. I was watching from a window upstairs, and I knew at once who he was, for he was exactly as Solonge had described him. He wore white satin knee breeches and a matching white satin frock coat with huge diamond-studded buttons. The long white satin waistcoat beneath was embroidered with tiny silver and sky blue flowers. Fine white lace cascaded from his jabot and spilled over his wrists. If the Duke of Alden intended to impress my stepmother, he was certainly dressed for it. I went downstairs in time to see Marie usher him into the front parlor. He had not asked to see Solonge.

He and Marie were closed up in the parlor for over three hours, and it was after six before he left. Marie stood in the hallway, watching through the open door as his carriage pulled away. There was a very determined expression on her face, and her green eyes were full of greed. I could easily guess what the Duke must have proposed to her, and, seeing that venal expression, I knew she had already reached a decision. If she couldn't marry her girls into society, she would settle for something less respectable but far more remunerative. Somehow that didn't surprise me. I felt I was beyond surprise at that point. She and Solonge had a furious argument that night. I learned the results of it the following morning.

“Well, girls,” Marie said at breakfast, “it seems we'll shortly be on our way to London.”

Janine yawned, too sleepy to show much interest. She gazed at her coffee cup with limpid blue eyes, silvery-blonde hair spilling to her shoulders in a luxuriant tumble. Solonge gave her mother a sharp, resentful look, and Marie smiled a tight smile. That avaricious gleam in her eyes was even more apparent this morning. She looked hard, very hard indeed.

“All the arrangements are being made,” she continued. “It will take a few days to settle things up here, and then we can leave this dreadful place forever.”

Solonge came up to my room a short while later. I was sitting in front of the window, gazing out at the sun-splashed ice, seeing the past. I heard the rustle of her yellow silk skirt and smelled her exquisite perfume, but I didn't turn around.

“You're going to do it, aren't you?” I said.

“I haven't much choice, love. Your father left no money at all. What we'll get from the house and the furnishings wouldn't last a year, not with four of us to provide for. According to
Maman
, it's my duty to come to the aid of my poor, penniless family.”

“I see,” I said.

“
Maman
drove a very shrewd bargain. Not only will the Duke keep me in most lavish style, but he'll also set her up in her own business. It seems she's finally found her calling.”

I turned to face her at last. “As a procuress for her own daughters?” I asked.

It was a bitter remark, and it hurt, I could see that, but Solonge didn't reply, not at first. A faint smile curled wryly on her lips. The beautiful, vivacious girl with piquant features and lively green-brown eyes had grown up into a worldly, disillusioned woman, and I knew she was lost to me, too. She would move in a different world, and she would no longer be there with her caustic remarks and bitchy affection. That saddened me.

“I intend to see that you're taken care of,” she said quietly.

“I can take care of myself!”

“Yes,” she said, “I imagine you can, when the time comes, but for now don't—don't judge us too harshly, love. Life isn't always as clear cut as it might seem.”

And so, ten days later, I found myself saying goodbye to the empty cottage where I had spent my first eighteen years. I wandered through the bare rooms. All the furnishings had been sold at auction, and the new schoolmaster and his wife would be moving in tomorrow, bringing their own things. It was very cold, for the fireplaces were empty, too, and I shivered in my long blue cloak. I stepped into the small, sun-filled study where I had spent so many hours with my father and whispered a final good-bye, and then I went out to the coach where Janine and Marie were waiting, our bags strapped securely on top. Solonge had departed two days earlier with the Duke of Alden.

I climbed into the coach and closed the door. In a few moments we were bowling down the lane, Marie lost in speculation, gloved hands folded neatly in her lap, Janine already beginning to grow drowsy. As we came to the main road and rounded a curve I glimpsed Greystone Hall in the distance, rooftops bleak above the bare trees. The new Lord Meredith was rarely there, preferring the distractions of London, and his aunt was living permanently in Bath, drinking more than ever, it was said. I thought of the surly stableboy who had stolen the heart of a saucy child and broken it five years later, and my eyes were dry. I felt a hard resolve inside. There would be no more tears. The past was behind me now, and an uncertain future loomed ahead. I was going to face it squarely in the eye, and somehow, I knew not how, I was going to keep that promise I had made to my father on the last day of his life. I was going to make him proud of me.

Book Two

Angela

London

Chapter Seven

Church bells pealing woke me out of a sound sleep, and I rubbed my eyes, sitting up against the pillows. There were so many marvelous bells in London, I reflected, each with its own distinct sound. Marie said they drove her crazy, pealing all the time, but then the only sound Marie liked was the clinking of gold, and there had been plenty of that particular music these past two years. A shrewd, crafty businesswoman, my stepmother. There was no denying it. The terror of the Royal Exchange, constantly expanding, and in more ways than one, I thought uncharitably, visualizing my stepmother's new girth. The dress shop the Duke of Alden had set her up in had been a huge success, particularly with me working like a slave behind the scenes, but that hadn't been enough for her, no indeed, not for the new Marie.

Sighing, I climbed out of bed, performed my ablutions and began to dress. The bells had stopped pealing now, but through the open window came the rumble of traffic, the cries of street hawkers, the hooting of barges floating up the Thames. London was never silent, but one soon grew accustomed to the constant noise, just as one grew accustomed to the smells. Stinking, it was, the fetid odors enough to knock you down till you learned to ignore them. Didn't notice them at all now that we'd been here so long. Well … hardly at all. I put on the ruffled white cotton petticoat and slipped the new sky blue linen frock over it. It was printed with tiny amethyst flowers and miniscule brown leaves. With snug waist, modestly low bodice and small puffed sleeves, it was a fetching garment, and at least it was
new
. After dealing with used clothes so many months I was able to appreciate that.

Six months after our arrival, with the dress shop doing a brisk business, Marie had decided to sell used clothes as well, eventually ending up with four separate stalls. Kept me busy, that did, for guess who sorted the old clothes and took them to the stalls? I ran one of them, too, learning to barter sternly with foul-smelling fishwives who avidly pawed over the faded silks and napworn velvets. Marie had made a huge profit from those stalls, and without any help from the Duke. Didn't satisfy her though. Not Marie. She was restless, bored with the dress shop and stalls and looking for new horizons. Gambling. That's where the real money was, she declared. If she could run her own gambling house, she'd make a fortune.

Mr. Theodore Gresham had been most helpful there. Stout, middle-aged and beginning to go bald, Mr. Gresham was a textile merchant who had stores in the Royal Exchange and all over England. Marie had met him several months ago and had promptly noticed his interest in Janine, who had done nothing but sulk and complain ever since we arrived in London. Solonge was living in splendor with her own town house, with three carriages, a magnificent wardrobe and more servants than she could count, not to mention her dazzling collection of jewelry. It wasn't
fair
, Janine pouted. Mr. Gresham was decidedly plebeian, not an aristocratic bone in his body, but he was even wealthier than the Duke, and he and Marie soon came to terms. Mr. Gresham agreed to invest an enormous amount of money in Marie's new venture, and Janine finally left the nest. As his business required several long buying trips a year, Janine was able to nap to her heart's content, and in surroundings even more luxurious than her sister's.