Jewel of Gresham Green (16 page)

“Sleep tight.”

Becky yawned. “What will you do, Mummy?”

“Oh, I’ll find something.”

“Will you leave the door open?”

“I will.”

What Jewel found to do was stand before a fireplace begrimed with soot and wonder if she should obey the impulse to clean.

There were three reasons she should. Gratitude was foremost. Secondly, it would prove that she was a hard worker so that Miss Hollis could enthusiastically recommend her to others. Thirdly, she could not stand to be idle for too long.

The lone reason against it would be that her hostess might take offense. Three outweighed one, so she looked through the kitchen cupboard for some rags.

Chapter 13

At seven o’clock in the evening, when Gresham lanes would lie silent, London’s streets were thronged with carriages and coaches, horses and wagons, omnibuses and hansoms. On the pavement, clerks streamed from offices, hawkers sold wares, beggars held out hands, and shop assistants fastened shutters onto windows.

The frantic pace became calmer once the horse-drawn hansom cab turned up Notting Hill Gate onto Pembridge Gardens. The ecru stucco terrace houses presented a unified front of anonymity: three narrow storeys, bow windows, service entrances, and cast-iron railings.

The horse stopped before number twenty-three. Aleda stepped down to the pavement and paid the cabby. A woman answered, wearing black alpaca and a white apron. Olive skin and dark eyes hinted of Spanish ancestry.

“Yes?”

“I’m Doctor Hollis’s sister Aleda. May I speak with my brother?”

The maid welcomed her into a foyer papered with greens and golds. Ahead rose a staircase; to the left, an open arched doorway revealed a drawing room.

“Doctor Hollis is at hospital,” she said with an accent that confirmed Aleda’s guess. “And Mrs. Hollis is at dinner with friends. I think the Grand Hotel.”

Aleda did not give a fig at which trough Loretta dined and could only imagine her friends as shallow and slavish to fashion as she.

“Do you know when to expect Doctor Hollis?”

The maid shook her head. “Would you care to wait?”

“Yes, please.”

“May I take your bag?”

“No thank you.” She set her satchel to the side, out of the way. “I’ll find a hotel after I speak with my brother.”

“A hotel? But Doctor Hollis would expect you to stay here.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

The maid nodded, motioned toward the drawing room. “This way, please?”

To Aleda, drawn to simplicity, the drawing room was as oppressively frantic as the streets, with its floral wallpaper and tables laden with bric-a-brac. She sat on a chesterfield sofa upholstered in tufted red velvet, folded her hands in her lap.

“May I bring you tea?” the maid asked.

“That would be nice,” Aleda replied. “And . . .”

“Yes, madam?”

“I’m quite ravenous.”

“Rav-in-ous? Does that mean you are hungry?”

“No. Hunger means your stomach moans because it’s empty. Ravenous is when your stomach howls like a banshee, and you may just start gnawing on your shoes.”

The maid laughed, a rich sound. “I do not know what a banshee is, but it does not sound pleasant. Cook is out, too, but I will find you something in the kitchen better to eat than shoes.”

“I’ll go with you,” Aleda said. “No sense in your having to go back and forth.”

“Oh, but you must not—”

“I insist.”

“Doctor Hollis has a picture of you in his study,” the maid said, leading Aleda past a dining room and into the kitchen in back of the house.

“He does?”

“When you were a girl. With your sister . . .”

“Grace.”

The maid turned, smiled. “Is it she who married last month?”

“Yes. And we have two stepsisters.”

“One is in Ceylon.”

“Laurel.” She could only have gotten this information from Philip, for Aleda could not fathom Loretta chatting about the peasants related to her husband.

Aleda would have starved rather than ask Loretta for food, but the kitchen belonged to Philip, as well, no matter that Loretta’s parents had paid for it. The fact that the maid was friendly did not hurt.

Aleda asked her name.

“Ines,” she said, pouring Aleda a beaker of milk to accompany a generous slice of cold rhubarb tart.

“This is so good,” Aleda said between bites.

From up front came the sound of the door opening and closing, footsteps. In spite of her professed courage, Aleda froze in mid-chew. Even Ines seemed uneasy.

“I hope I haven’t gotten you into trouble,” Aleda said. But then the footsteps seemed decidedly male. Aleda smiled at the maid, went through the dining room, and called, “Philip?”

There was a pause, and then, “Yes? Is that . . . Aleda?”

They met in the hall. He looked weary, with shadows beneath his eyes, black coat open and white shirt collar unfastened. Every lecture Aleda had rehearsed during the journey, every biting sarcasm died inside, and she threw her arms about him. “Oh, Philip! We need you!”

“Of course I’ll go,” Philip said as Ines sliced another wedge of tart. “I shall speak with Doctor Trask and hopefully be ready for the four o’clock train tomorrow.”

He looked at Ines. “Please pack for me in the morning.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied, handing him the dish. “How long will you stay, Doctor Hollis?”

Philip looked at Aleda. “At least three weeks. I want to see that he’s well recovered.”

Almost weak with relief, Aleda would have gotten up and embraced him again if Ines had not placed another slice of tart in front of her.

But there was a question that begged to be asked. “What of your patients?”

“Saint Bartholomew’s is a teaching hospital. There is no lack of surgeons.” He gulped down a long drink of milk, and said, “Are you settled in? Am I needed to carry any luggage upstairs?”

“All I have is a satchel,” Aleda replied, and traded glances with Ines. “And I’ll find a hotel room.”

“But why?”

“I . . . don’t want to be a bother.” She could not bring herself to say,
Because your wife treated our parents coldly when
they visited and I’ll not allow her to do the same to me.

Philip chuckled. “Bother? You’re my sister. I insist you stay, silly goose. Anyway, it’s dark outdoors.”

She did not fancy waving down a hansom so late, and besides, how long had it been since she and her brother had had time to themselves? If Loretta turned up with her nose in the air, Aleda could stomach it for the short time she would be there.

They sat upon the drawing room sofa later, their feet sharing an ottoman.

“Do you remember when everyone thought the Larkspur was haunted?” Philip asked.

“Jake Pitt,” Aleda said, smiling. “The spirit of some poor knife sharpener who had died there, I think.”

Philip chuckled, then sobered. “Why didn’t Mother telegraph me? Why did you have to come? Not that I’m not overjoyed to see you . . .”

She frowned. How to answer? How would she want unsettling news put to herself?
With all frankness
.

“Because Father forbade it.”

“But why?”

She took a breath. “He said he doesn’t want to burden you. But I believe he resents how you’ve slighted Mother. He’s very protective of her.”

To her brother’s credit, he made no denial. Only sighed and said, “He’s right. I’ve never been good about writing.”

“And that’s your reason?” Aleda said, irritated. “So a wastrel who bankrupts his family is excused by saying he’d never been good at paying bills? A mother with malnourished children may simply declare she was never good at cooking?”

He groaned. “Aleda . . . you cut me to the core.”

“A few lines once a week would work wonders. It’s not the length of the letter that counts as much as the proof that you care.”

“Yes, you’re right. I promise, Aleda. I’ll do better by them.”

But she was not finished. She had gone beyond warming to the subject, to absolute heat. “And with the express train, you’ve no excuse not to make at least an overnight visit. Do they chain you to the surgery table at that hospital?”

“No, of course not.” He swallowed audibly, turned his face toward her. “Believe it or not, sister, I seldom visit because I don’t wish to hurt them. Every time I go alone, I have to make excuses for Loretta. Eventually they’ll assume she doesn’t care for them.”

“Assume?” Aleda barked a bitter laugh.

He closed his eyes for several seconds.

Had she gone too far?

When he opened them again, they stared into hers, shining with tears and misery. “My family . . . all of you . . . you’re an extension of me. And it’s me she doesn’t care for.”

Somehow, this did not surprise Aleda. But she ached for him no less. She threaded her arm through his and rested her head against his shoulder. “Oh, Philip.”

“I know I’ve been a bad son. I promise to do better. But just the act of stepping into this house saps me of strength.”

Aleda hesitated. “But what happened?”

“Well . . . there’s someone else.”

She gasped, raised her head again.

“I don’t mean an affair. It’s someone she has never gotten over.” He blinked, twice, and said thickly, “I do love her, Aleda. How I wish to God I did not.”

Loretta adored Gilbert and Sullivan. Not like stuffy Verdi. Which was why she consented to accompany her friends to the Savoy after dinner, even though she had seen
Princess Ida
twice already. She sang softly, peering from the coach window at the gaslit Strand.

“Whene’er I spoke sarcastic joke
replete with malice spiteful,
This people mild politely smiled
And voted me delightful!”

Wryly, she thought,
That’ll stick in my mind for days.

She loved London, as well, with a passion. The fashions and culture, museums and restaurants, promenading at Hyde Park, rowing in the Serpentine. Friends.

Distractions.

Too soon the pair of horses came to a halt, rocking the coach slightly back upon its wheels. The house looked ghostly in the lamplight. The weight lifted by Gilbert and Sullivan and girlish chatter over dinner settled upon her shoulders again.

Marry in haste, repent in leisure,
she thought.

Haste brought on by pain. Even when she marched up the aisle at Saint Peter’s on her father’s arm over four years ago, she had had to force herself not to look to the row where sat Conrad Lockhart and her sister, Irene.

Six years ago, the young army captain had practically dominated her dance card at Aunt Helen’s birthday ball. Tall and bronze he was, with broad shoulders and high forehead from his English father, sensitive gray eyes and poetic soul from his French mother.

He called at least twice weekly after the ball and wrote her wonderful letters filled with poetry. Her parents permitted them to take unchaperoned strolls up Park Lane, her hand tucked into the crook of his arm. Carriage rides on Rotten Row. He spoke in vague terms of their future, as if reassuring himself that she was of the same mind before approaching her father with a question. She was nineteen, and very much of the same mind.

The question never got asked. At least not in reference to herself. Her sister, Irene, chose that inopportune time to return from Girton College for Easter holiday. Her
younger
sister, eighteen, whose wild brown hair, tanned skin, and tall athletic lankiness were no matches for Loretta’s platinum curls, ivory complexion, and petite frame. Irene, who was too high-spirited to give any man a second glance. Until her eyes locked with Conrad’s.

It was as if a spell was cast upon the sitting room. Loretta had tried to break it, chatting frantically about anything that would jump into her mind. Conrad began inviting Irene to join them on walks, for games of whist in the parlor. And once Irene returned to Cambridge, his visits to the Park Lane house ceased.

The memory of that spring was still a knife in her heart.

She could neither eat nor sleep, losing so much weight that her parents spoke of sending her to a sanitarium near Salzburg. She had protested so adamantly that they abandoned the idea upon her promise to take regular nourishment. It was essential that she stay in London, for surely Conrad would come to his senses. She had to continue her morning watch from the library window so that she could meet the postman at the gate.

A believer since early childhood, she had made promises with God.
Make Conrad love me, and I’ll never complain of
anything again, spend my life helping the poor, read ten pages of
my Bible daily. Twenty!

When Irene returned for summer holiday, she also looked drawn and undernourished. But for a different reason. Letters had traveled almost daily between London and Cambridge. She and Conrad were in love, she admitted tearfully.

Their father had refused Loretta’s demand that he bring charges against Conrad for breach of promise. “There was no overt promise made,” he had said, and then drew her into his arms to add, gently, “You cannot make someone love you, daughter. And if you could, what sort of marriage would that be?”

Loretta was forced to watch the courtship progress. Smile through their wedding, lest tongues wag that she was bitter. Hold back tears as the two stared up into each other’s faces and pledged their troth. Wonder if the stone that had replaced her heart would ever heal.

A few months later, her father brought Philip home to dinner, touting him as the highest-ranked graduate of Edinburgh’s esteemed medical college and the latest member of Saint Bartholomew’s surgical staff. He was neither as dashing nor poetic as Conrad, but he was kind and seemed to enjoy her company.

Her father continued inviting him over, throwing them together. It mattered not at all that Philip’s father, also a surgeon, had died with so much gaming debt that his family lost their home. Here was a balm for her wounds. The agonizing love she carried about for Conrad could be transferred. Or so she thought.

“Mrs. Hollis?”

She broke out of her melancholy thoughts and looked up at Tom, coachman and groomsman, holding open the coach door.

In the foyer, Ines asked, “Did you have a lovely evening, Mrs. Hollis?”