Friends and Lovers (7 page)

“Surely you do not plan to deprive them of an education?” he asked, with a startled stare. "They would be at classes either here or at home. What is the difference?”

“The difference is that I planned to teach them myself.”

“You have mastered Latin and Greek, have you?” he asked ironically. “Higher mathematics, history, French... An amazing accomplishment, when one considers your sister was as ignorant as a swan.”

“Hettie was no more ignorant than any other lady of her class. Gwendolyn will not be a student of Latin and Greek, unless you plan to turn her into a blue philosopher, some sort of intellectual freak,” I answered hotly.

“I do not consider accomplishments freakish, in either a lady or a gentleman. I have a theory that ladies can profit from higher learning quite as well as men. Their education is sadly neglected. A smattering of literature, a daub of poorly-pronounced French, water colors, and stitchery. That is poor preparation for life.”

“Nearly as poor as Latin and Greek, for a lady who will live out her life in England.”

“You know my views in this matter—the larger matter of where they will live. I can offer them everything; you—practically nothing. You mentioned taking it to the courts. Save your time and money. You’ll catch cold at that. You will gain nothing but my ill will. One hesitates to throw his charity in the face of its recipients, but you are of course aware who provides this home in which you live.”

“This dismal, mouse-infested, dark, and draughty cottage in which we live is well paid for at ten guineas a year,” I answered, with more anger than common sense,

“You would think otherwise if you tried to hire an alternative accommodation. It is a charming spot, every detail of the place authentic. You are outstandingly fortunate to have the privilege of living here.”

“A privilege we share with two dozen mice in the thatched roof.”

“The occupant has some responsibility too. It is possible to be rid of mice, by a judicious use of traps and poison.”

“Yes, or by a good dry slate or shingle roof.”

“Out of the question. The thatched roof is the making of the place. It would lose ninety percent of its charm if I changed the roof. Well, can we consider the matter resolved, then? I keep the children, you visit them when you wish, at your own convenience and their availability, giving due consideration to their studies.”

“The matter will not be resolved in this high-handed fashion, milord. That is an ultimatum, not a compromise. Outside of your wealth and social position, you have little enough to offer. By your own admission, you consider them a nuisance. You spend more than ninety-five percent of your time away from the Manor. They would be abandoned to servants.”

“Lady Menrod is always at home, at the Dower House. Naturally I shall hire governesses, tutors, whatever they require. As they grow older, they can accompany me on some of my trips. They might profit from a summer by the sea, at Brighton.”

“If you really want to do what is best for them, you would let them stay with Mama and myself, where they would be every hour of every day with family who love and care deeply for them.”

“Miss Harris, there is no if about it. I
do
plan to do my best for them. I can do better than abandon them, to use your hard word, to a crotchety spinster and a widow, who have never been beyond ten miles of home. You know nothing of the world. Your interests are confined to this neighborhood, your few friends such people as Mr. Everett.”

“There is nothing wrong with Mr. Everett. As we are getting right down to brass tacks, Menrod, shall we take a look at
your
friends? Much of the society at the Manor is not suitable for children to meet. The whole neighborhood knows you had Mr. Kean and a bunch of actresses there last year. Women of that sort...”

"They were employees, hired to entertain my guests.”

“Yes, your
male
guests, and there was more than theatrics going on, to judge by local gossip.”

“When you base your opinion on
gossip,
you make rational conversation difficult.
Facts
are what we are both interested in, I hope. You may be sure a gentleman never entertains his lady friends in the nursery, at any rate.”

“Leaving the actresses aside, and omitting what rakes and scoundrels you associate with beyond this neighborhood, we are still left with your mistress. Mrs. Livingstone, I believe, is the woman’s name?”

He turned a furious eye on me, his head jerking up, to allow him to look down his sliver of a nose at me. “Have you something against Mrs. Livingstone?” he asked.

“Yes, the fact that she is your mistress, an extremely loose woman. Of more interest is the light the alliance sheds on your own character, for I cannot think that even you would be so low as to take the children to her. When a man is so steeped in lechery he must provide himself with a fancy at hand for the few days a year he spends at home, it stands to reason he is equally well provided for in those places he spends most of his time. A string of women stabled like horses across the country must cause the most lax judge to open up his eyes.”

“Are you daring to question my character?” he demanded, jumping to his feet and bumping his head on a low-hanging pot of ivy.

“I am stating a well-known fact. If it impugns your character, you must not place the blame on
me.
You did not hesitate to call me a crotchety, insular, ignorant spinster. We shall see which impediment the judge considers more serious:
my
lack of knowing Latin and Greek, or
your
lack of morals.”

“You are extremely foolish to come to cuffs with me, Miss Harris. If you are serious about wanting custody of the children, you had better hire yourself the best lawyer you can afford, and be prepared to curtail your expenditures accordingly. They don’t come cheap.”

One says the stupidest things in the heat of argument. I chanced to think of Mr. Everett, who must surely have as much money as Menrod, and was much more eager to spend it. Though I would not take a penny from him, I used his name in vain, or implied it at least. “You are not the only one wallowing in gold,” I said airily. “I have wealthy friends who would be happy to help with the finances.”

“A lady who accepts gifts of money from a man is hardly in a position to dredge up the word
mistress
as an insult against others,” he pointed out.

“Unless the man has offered her marriage,” I shot back unwisely.

“If you think for one minute I would let that commoner be father to Peter’s children, you are insane,” he said. “Good day.” He stepped out the door.

It had been an upsetting interview. With my nerves in tatters, I did not notice at first which door he was walking through. Not till he was actually into the hall did I recall the surprise awaiting him there. I heard an anguished howl, not unlike the squeal emitted by a stuck pig. It was Menrod, catching his first glimpse of the brass railing, the white paint, the gold rosettes.

“What have you done? What is this—
abhorrence?”
he demanded. His face looked like a death mask, save that the eyes were wide open.

The fire screen cut down on the light coming from the front of the house. He pushed it aside, to stand staring in horror at the work, while I swiftly considered whether to tell him it was a mistake that would be undone at once, or to claim purposeful authorship of the foul deed. My own mood was angry enough to consider the latter, but in the end I told the truth.

“There was a little mistake,” I said mildly.

“A little mistake? A
little mistake?
No, madam, there was a gross crime perpetrated against architecture, art, and history. I’ll sue him, I know who is responsible for this heinous—
thing.
Not even you, with all your lack of taste, your yellow tables and chairs and your potted weeds, could have devised anything so ugly. This is the work of Everett. Don’t trouble to deny it. I have seen Oakdene. I recognize his hand in this. How
dare
you despoil this gem of a cottage?”

Without another word
_,
he stalked out the door, to encounter two men carrying in a bolt of red carpet for the stairs. He knocked it out of their hands, making some loud but indistinguishable sound of threat. Whatever he said, it had the effect of getting the red carpet back onto the cart that stood at the door.

Mama, who has the magical ability to disappear at times of turmoil, came tripping down the stairs. “Was that Menrod?” she asked fearfully.

“It certainly was.”

“Did he see the stairs?”

“Yes, he saw them.”

“I suppose he doesn’t care for them.”

“He spoke of suing Mr. Everett.”

Menrod did not carry out his threat to sue. Instead he went storming down to Oakdene to ring a peal over Mr. Everett. That same day, the carpenters returned to remove the abhorrence. Mama, with tears in her eyes, asked if she might have the bannister and railings and gilt-trimmed panels for a souvenir, as they were bought and paid for (but not by us).

“They will be here, if Mr. Everett finds a use for them at home,” I told the workers. No doubt they would end up on his attic staircase.

A piece of wood of the proper age and size was found hidden on some wall at the church. Menrod worked some trick to get it removed to the cottage, and boarded back up the stairs with it. Mama repined loud and long; I was happy the thing was done without resort to law.

One legal case was enough to handle at a time. I did not draw back from the battle for custody of the children. It had become a feud, a battle of wills and wits between us. I was required to resort to an inferior lawyer, owing to my shortage of funds, as I naturally had no intention of dunning Mr. Everett for help.

My man was named Mr. Culligan. He had done work in London for ten years, which led me to hope he knew what he was about. He had a dingy office on a second story of a side street in Reading, to which I went with my mother. It had been necessary to talk her back into wanting the children. This was accomplished by their absence. Menrod did not bring them to see us again, nor did we take the drive up to the Manor during the dispute.

Judicious repetitions of his wretched character were less effectual than the boarded-up stairs in gaining her support. She had taken such a fancy to the brass dragon that she was very much vexed to lose it. A man who would condemn her to a lifetime of dark stairs was obviously no fit guardian for Hettie’s children.

Two days after Menrod’s visit to the conservatory, we took the drive into Reading. Mr. Culligan was a tall, extremely thin man with ginger-colored hair. He had a prominent nose, splotched with broken veins, and a narrow face. He wore an outdated jacket of some cheap blue material. His cuffs were frayed, his watch chain pinned to his waistcoat, his boots down at the heels, but he seemed capable enough despite these signs of poor business.

Customers do not run to the door of any but local-born professionals in Reading. It would be his London sojourn that accounted for his scarcity of clients, but I knew Menrod would hire a top city man, and did not want a country bumpkin pitted against him.

I outlined the situation to him, making much of Gwendolyn being my name-child, and the closeness between her mother and myself. He asked me three times whether I was quite sure there was no will leaving the children in Menrod’s guardianship; when I convinced him there was not, he wished to know whether there was something which might be considered a letter of intent, a letter from Lord Peter in which some intimation had been given that Menrod was to consider himself their custodian. Knowing what a poor correspondent Peter was, and feeling it unlikely Menrod would have kept any chance missile that happened to infer anything of the sort, I told him no. He clucked and shook his ginger head, and finally advised me not to sue for custody.

“The courts will favor his lordship,” he said comprehensively. “He is a man, a peer, in a position to do everything for them.”

“He is a lecher,” I declared, equally comprehensively.

His greenish eyes widened at this telling speech. “Ah—a bad character. This is more like it,” he said, rubbing his hands together in glee. “We will need some evidence,” he went on. “Could you just give me some names and places of abode?”

I found myself reluctant to utter the name of Mrs. Livingstone. Not that she is any great bosom bow of mine; I do not know the woman but to nod to her on the street, after having met her there so many times over the past few years, yet it seemed a hard thing to blacken her character. “Any number of women in London,” I said, hoping to dismiss the evidence in this vague way.

“That’ll cost us something, to go to London and have him followed. It is the client, that being yourself, Miss Harris, who will be paying rack and manger for either a hired snoop or myself.”

“Why, that is not necessary, Wendy,” Mama objected. “There is Mrs. Livingstone living in state in that grand brick house on the river, not a mile away from here.”

I opened my mouth to shush her, but Culligan’s hand was already flying across the page, while he mentioned it would be better still if we could give him another name or two. “I don’t know that
one
mistress would blacken his character, him being a bachelor, you see. It might be what you call an extenuating circumstance.”

“Might
be?” I asked. “Don’t you know for sure? You are a lawyer.”

“Each case is unique. I have never had one just like this before. It is his lordship being a lord that clouds my understanding. Not to say the law is different for the rich and titled, but if he managed to get a jury of his peers, you see, they would certainly see nothing amiss in a bachelor having a fancy. They would think him a rum touch if he had not. If you could tell me something in his background that is
really
wicked, we would have a stronger case. You wouldn’t happen to know if he molests children—that would be an excellent point. Or we could use beating his servants, insisting on having his way with the serving wenches—any sort of perversion in particular would be entirely helpful to us.”