The Birth of Blue Satan (27 page)

Katy insisted on accompanying him into the shops. At first she watched him negotiate for the fabrics he thought St. Mars would want, but once or twice, as he was dithering over the price a shopkeeper was pressing upon him, he felt her touch upon his sleeve. Turning, he saw her frown and give a tiny shake to her head. With her close, her fingers on his arm, he found he could not go on. He had to step back and let her finish the deal.

By the end of the day, Tom was following her around like a pack mule, loaded with bundles of cloth and fine linens, acquiescing to all her choices. He paid a stout-looking boy to guard their purchases after he loaded them into the wagon. Then, they pressed on to order furniture for his master, “Mr. Brown.”

Even Tom knew that the quality of workmanship here was not up to the standards at Rotherham Abbey, but at least St. Mars’s new mattress would have more feathers than the one he had spent the past few nights on. Katy was having so much fun, he had a hard time convincing her that they had bought enough for one day.

They were walking back to the wagon, when she volunteered the information he had refused to ask. He felt the brush of her fingers in his palm, and her touch sent a jolt deep into his flesh.

With a jerk, he turned.

“I wasn’t always at Lade’s,” she said, indicating her meaning by a sadness in her voice. “My parents sent me to work in a shop at Tunbridge Wells, where all the fashionable people come to take the waters, so I could learn to help them in their shop. They wanted me to marry their apprentice.

“Then, at the Wells I met a man. He told me he was a merchant from London, but he was a thief and I got culled.

“He nimmed a cloak from my master’s shop when he was supposed to take me out for a walk. They said I had stood his budge—helped him do it, you know. They called me his doxy and they nabbed me and clapped me in gaol. But I wasn’t his doxy. I was just a stupid chub.”

Before Tom could cut off these confidences, she went on, “Mr. Lade got out of the clink about the time I did. I couldn’t get no work—no one would have a budge who had bobbed her master. He said he would give me a room and feed me, if I would help him serve and clean and keep his customers happy.

“I haven’t minded it too much,” she said, her gaze on the ground. “It’s better than being hungry or alone. But I would much rather take care of Mr. Brown’s clothes, if you could see your way to helping me get the work. I promise I’ll do as good at it as well as a man would.”

This was not what Tom had been expecting, and relief took him by surprise. He had expected her to offer herself to him. It was what he had feared all day. But, with this fear removed, he felt a confounding sense of shame, as if he were the one who was indecent in some way.

But taking care of St. Mars’s clothes—he couldn’t bring himself to believe that a woman could handle a job always reserved for a man. The very notion was disturbing. Of course, women had always done the wash, but only a man could be expected to keep finery in order. To press his linen and clean his boots.

With Katy’s desperate eyes upon him, Tom tried to shake his head, but he found he could not—not without offering her the kind of comfort he mustn’t give.

“I’ll talk to Mr. Brown,” he said. “I can’t make you any promises, but I’ll tell him how you helped me today and how you used to be in the trade. He has to have somebody he can trust.”

The thought of her spilling St. Mars’s secrets on another man’s pillow caused him to accuse her with an angry look.

Her eyelids flickered with a moment of hurt, before she met his stare straight on. “I won’t go snitching if that is what you mean. I kept Mr. Jack’s secrets, and he didn’t pay me to, that’s for certain. If Mr. Brown will give me this work, I won’t have to keep Mr. Lade’s guests happy no more, and I can be just as quiet as you need.”

The idea that simply giving her another job could keep her from other men’s beds started a fire burning dangerously near his heart.

He turned abruptly away. “I haven’t promised anything. Just that I’ll speak to him, like I said.”

They had reached the wagon, and taking his hint that their talk was over, Katy climbed upon the seat. Tom paid the boy who had watched their wagon, feeling as important as the steward at the Abbey with his new authority to buy things for his master’s house. Then he remembered what sort of house it was, and he recalled he was supposed to get what news he could from London.

He told Katy to wait and went back into the High Street to try to find a chapman in the market place.

Since the imposition of a tax of a half-penny per sheet, cheap newspapers for the poor had almost vanished from the streets. Tom searched for a pedlar who might have a news-sheet disguised as a pamphlet to evade the tax, but there was none to be found. His only recourse would be a bookseller who might have received a high-priced gazette from London.

He made one last trip down the unpaved street to a bookseller’s shop they had passed and purchased a copy of the only journal he could find,
The Political State of Great Britain
, by A. Boyer. Then, as he realized how far he would have to come each time St. Mars wanted the news, he tried to make arrangements for the London papers to be delivered by carrier to Mr. Brown in care of Mr. Lade. The bookseller told him, however, that he would do better to subscribe to the journals through the post.

Minutes later, as he and Katy were making their way back out of town by means of a street paved with ancient stones, Tom noticed a house the corner post of which was covered with public notices. He paused long enough to read them and was aghast when he saw Gideon’s name and description screaming back at him in bold letters from a sign that had just been posted.

Taking a quick look around, he ripped the notice from the post. Tucking it into his shirt, he grabbed up his reins and slapped the mules into a brisk walk.

“What was that for?” Katy asked, looking at him curiously as the wagon lurched onward.

“Just you mind your own business,” Tom said, and he was so upset by what he had read that he managed to return to the Fox and Goose with hardly a thought of her at all.

“Boast not my fall” (he cried) “insulting foe!

Thou by some other shalt be laid as low.

Nor think, to die dejects my lofty mind:

All that I dread is leaving you behind!

Rather than so, ah let me still survive,

And burn in Cupid’s flames—but burn alive.”

The hungry Judges soon the sentence sign,

And wretches hang that jurymen may dine;

CHAPTER 13

The announcement of Isabella’s and Harrowby’s engagement was sent to all the Whig news-sheets and
The Daily Courant
. Harrowby reported that the members of the Kit Kat Club had toasted him on his good fortune. They had drunk to Isabella’s beauty, and Hester would not have been surprised to learn than several ribald jests had been made with respect to Harrowby’s luck.

Harrowby was not remiss in sending a man to measure Isabella’s finger for a ring. She could hardly wait to receive it.

Mrs. Mayfield’s tea dishes and table had never seen so much use, as the number of ladies who came to congratulate Isabella on her extreme good fortune swelled throughout the week. Hester knew it would be useless to remind her aunt how dear tea was when presumably all their financial worries had been solved. She was kept very busy running errands in the City to replenish their supplies, while Isabella and Harrowby paraded their affection in St. James’s Park every evening.

The goldsmith sent word that Bella’s ring would be ready to be picked up on Friday. Harrowby would have gone himself to make certain that it had been properly made, but he received word from the Palace of St. James that the King would be happy to receive him that afternoon. The Princess of Wales invited Mrs. Mayfield and Isabella to wait on her at the same hour. In the wake of such an honour, the ring was almost forgotten.

What they all should wear was the uppermost concern in their minds, and no one remembered the ring until after Harrowby had come, splendidly attired, to escort his bride to her presentation. Naturally, it was Mrs. Mayfield who remembered it as they were leaving the house in a bustle.

“Oh, my ring!” Isabella cried, too. She had been so happy, she had gone through the week without once thinking of it, but now that she was reminded, her mind latched on and would not let go. “How shall we get it today? I do not think I can wait another minute for it.”

“Sorry, my dear. No time to send word to one of my men,” Harrowby said, nearly beside himself with nerves. This would be his first visit with his Majesty as an almost-earl. “Afraid you will have to wait. Can’t be helped.”

Colley handed him his hat, and Harrowby roundly chastised him for ruffling the beaver fur the wrong way.

“Oh, I do so want my ring,” Isabella wailed. Even her oblivious nerves were not immune to the stress of the impending interview. “Cannot something be done? Could one of our servants go?”

“You don’t want a menial fetching an important thing like a ring,” Harrowby said. “Better move along now. Can’t keep her Highness waiting. Or his Majesty. Wouldn’t be wise.”

Mrs. Mayfield had been as anxious for the ring as Isabella herself, perhaps more so, since it would be proof positive of her daughter’s engagement.

“Hester could go,” she said.

Waiting for them both in the open doorway, Harrowby grew so fretful that he agreed. “But you must read the posy, Mrs. Kean, and make certain that all the words are there. These goldsmiths, you know—always trying to cheat a fellow out of his money. There should be —” he counted on his fingers, reciting the words of the posy in a whisper to himself— “there should be six words. If there aren’t, you may tell the fellow for me that he’s a knave and the Earl of Hawkhurst will never give him his business again. I don’t think he will cheat me this time—wouldn’t be prudent in a business sort of way.”

Hester got the name of the goldsmith and his direction in Lombard Street, as they hurried out the door.

The goldsmith’s shop lay farther along Lombard Street than Hester had hoped. She had left the hackney carriage waiting for her at Wool Church Market, so she could walk its length, not knowing where she would find the shop. Even with a footman accompanying her, she felt a bit uncomfortable in this male part of the City, even though she had been to the Royal Exchange many times with her cousin and aunt.

It was somehow more pleasant to be strolling arm in arm with Isabella, when she was certain that all the gentlemen only had eyes for her cousin, than it was to be walking alone several paces in front of a footman, who would not exert himself for her comfort. She attracted more men’s attention than she would ever have believed possible, and she found that she did not particularly enjoy the sensation. Some women might find it amusing to be ogled and to have every one of their features loudly discussed, but she did not. She even reflected that if beauty were not believed to be essential for attracting the one gentleman one liked, then she would give off wishing for it altogether.

She dodged the idle men of business clustered on the footpaths, who seemed reluctant to let her pass, and the frenzied stockjobbers who ran up and down, darting into the coffee-houses dotting both sides of the street. She walked past St. Mary Woolchurch and the entrance to Exchange Alley across the street, hoping soon to be greeted by the sign of the Seven Stars.

She had almost made it to the entrance of the George-yard and could see the coaches and horsemen passing in and out of it, when she spotted the sign. The shop was small and dark, with stout shutters to close it up at night.

She had no note from Harrowby to allow her to take the ring, but the goldsmith, Mr. Shales, was willing to let her have it, as long as she signed his receipt. She told him to present his bill at Hawkhurst House. Then she asked to examine the ring before he wrapped it up. He showed it to her, proudly awaiting her approval.

As she had promised, she counted Harrowby’s words worked into the gold. There were, indeed, six. Since the posy had presumably been written by Harrowby, she would not at all have been surprised to find that it read, “Two made one. Great good fun!” But, instead, the couplet was a standard, “Two made one. By God alone.”

His words would have been unobjectionable if Hester had any reason to believe that God had had anything to do with the engagement. Mrs. Mayfield seemed to have had a larger hand in it than God.

Chastising herself for having thoughts that some might have considered blasphemous, she told Mr. Shales that the ring was lovely, glad that she did not have to read him Harrowby’s lecture. She took the package he handed her and walked back into the street.

By this hour, the daylight had started to wane. Hester told the footman to follow her back to Wool Church Market, and she started off at an eager pace. If she got back to the house before the others, she could have a little time to herself.

She needed to think about her plans. She was not sure she wished to stay on with her aunt after all that had occurred. She knew she would feel guilty for benefiting from St. Mars’s losses. She didn’t see how she could continue to serve her aunt and Isabella and be polite to Harrowby who had so willingly seized his cousin’s property. She did not have any ideas about whom else she might live with, but she felt painfully compelled to make the effort to find someone.

Lost in thought, she retraced the length of Lombard Street sooner than she realized. She looked up to see the market place just ahead. Glancing back over her shoulder to make certain the footman was still with her, she didn’t watch when she stepped in front of the traffic coming from Sherborne Lane.

A man bumped roughly into her, and she dropped her parcel. As she reached after it with a cry, afraid that a pickpocket might have jostled it from her grasp, she encountered the thick, knobby wrist of the man who had stopped to pick it up.

His hand was quickly covered by the fall of long lace of his cuff. Reassured by this evidence of a gentleman, she nevertheless glanced up to see whether he intended to return her property to her, and was surprised and relieved to see that the hand belonged to Mr. Letchworth.