The Penny Heart (10 page)

Mrs Quin bustled back into the room and began to dress her face. Gone were the worst of the bran-specks and flaking red sores. Instead, she had the prettiness of a portrait on an enamelled tin; a smudgy confection of pink and cream. ‘A rosy blush,’ Mrs Quin said benignly, ‘is the fashion nowadays.’

While Mrs Quin deposited her half a crown in a locked trunk, Mary slipped a bottle of Pear’s Almond Bloom and a tin of White Imperial Powder into her skirts. The pilfering gave her a jolt of pleasure, a secret thrill; to possess those lovely, lovely things for free.

She went alone to the vast room where the second-hand clothes were kept. Later, she thought it the happiest hour of her life. There were silks and brocades by the yard, and pile upon pile of hats, wigs, cloaks, and masks. After two years in wretched rags, even the linen shifts felt as soft as thistledown. She whirled from one delight to another – clutching lace, burying her nose in furs, holding flashy paste jewels next to her new-bleached skin.

Catching her reflected eye in the mirror she laughed out loud, her red mouth wide and knowing. She put aside a few carefully-chosen costumes and elbow-length mittens. Then, finally, she chose a few costumes of a particular nature: shiny satin, ebony black.

Lastly, she gathered the garments she would wear for her journey: a grass-green woollen gown and a lace cap and apron. The effect was somewhat grand for a domestic servant. Her auburn locks were pinned tightly, her figure flattered by a frilled muslin kerchief, crisscrossed in an ‘X’ over her breast. Pulling out a few auburn tendrils from her cap, she adjusted her bodice to show a little more flesh. Then she grew very still, and smiled slowly into the empty space before her.

‘How do you do, sir,’ she said with a graceful curtsey. ‘Now, what pretty dish might you care for tonight?’

7

Greaves, Lancashire

Summer 1792

~ To Roast Larks ~

Put a dozen larks on a skewer, tie to the spit and dredge and baste them; let them roast ten minutes. Take the crumbs of a halfpenny loaf with some butter the size of a walnut; melt and stir them about till they are brown, then lay them around your larks with a little melted butter.

The Lady’s Magazine, 1792

A formal card, an invitation to call at Huxley House, was delivered to my door the following Sunday. It was addressed to myself alone, Mr Croxon no doubt having warned his family of my father’s habits. Only after much re-reading of this handwritten proof did I confide in Anne. Sitting in her tiny parlour, I announced my news. Though at first astonished, Anne jumped up and took my hands and kissed me with baffled pleasure. She puzzled over the name of my prospective groom. ‘Mr Michael Croxon? Mr Croxon’s eldest? To marry – you?’ The question hung in the air. ‘Grace, did you say you have not yet met him?’

‘I am to meet him on Sunday. All my hopes rest upon it.’

A shadow of worry crossed her face. ‘Still, you must be cautious. He may not be agreeable to you.’

‘I so much hope he is. I pray for it.’

‘You do?’

‘Consider what a chance this is for me.’

‘Yes, and if it is the same Michael Croxon I have seen about the town – goodness, he is handsome.’

We both suddenly laughed like girls. ‘Is he? I cannot quite recollect him. Handsome and willing and keen to make his fortune. So why should I be cautious?’ I quipped.

‘And how does he mean to make his fortune?’

I sketched the Croxons’ plan to use my inheritance. ‘I do not deny that my land is attractive to them,’ I admitted. ‘But Anne, if that means he will marry me? It is a stroke of extraordinary good fortune.’

‘Yes, but that is all the more reason to make careful enquiries.’ She looked at me with shrewd appraisal. ‘Surely this land of yours is not so valuable that—’

‘That what? That he would want even me?’

‘Grace.’ She grasped my sleeve to prevent my standing to leave. ‘I am full of joy for you. It is only that – I care for you, for your happiness.’

Anne smiled at me, but I saw strain in it, and was peculiarly vexed, as if she took pleasure in picturing obstacles in my way.

The closer the meeting drew, the more trepidation I felt. At night I lay awake, plagued by fears of the worst kind: if I found my suitor entirely unappealing, might I still marry him, simply to leave Father? Or might Michael Croxon take one look at me and reject the whole plan? By the morning of the visit I found myself cursed with a rash, my face and hands scabbed and itchy. Anne had suggested I buy a new gown, but my father had no money to give me. Thus I was forced to choose between my threadbare grey plaid or the superior silk of my mourning gown, bought when Mother died. I tried on both until I was sick of the pair of them, and then, idiotically pulled on the antiquated silk with a pair of workaday shoes. At the appointed hour a grand carriage rolled up to the door of Palatine House, causing quite a stir amongst the children of Wood Street and their curtain-peeking mothers. Once inside, I sat in a sort of dumb terror, all my old fears of speaking in company tormenting me.

Huxley House was three miles out of town, a square-fronted redbrick villa, built on a fine grassy eminence. It was all in the modern style, with a carriage drive curving to a brass-knockered double door. Glancing up at the rows of pedimented windows, I wondered if Michael stood watch for me as anxiously as I awaited him, but on the doorstep only a pair of mute servants swung the doors aside. Then Mr Croxon ushered me into his drawing room, where Mrs Croxon waited, greeting me with unveiled scrutiny. I thought her a woman straining to impress, dressed in a flimsy muslin costume, almost immodest on a buxom woman of more than forty. The Croxon’s drawing room was so heavily gilded that it shone brassy yellow, commingling queasily with the purple sateen upholstery. I sat where I was bid on the edge of a striped sofa, feeling giddy with nerves. When tea was served I faced another trial, as my hands shook so violently I dared not drink. ‘Purchased from Mr Wedgewood’s shop in London,’ Mrs Croxon boasted, caressing the lid of the sugar bowl. I made no reply, much regretting my decision to wear my outmoded black furbelows and crucifix, the many mirrors confirming I looked like a relic of a bygone age.

‘Ah, here is Michael.’

Somehow I rose and reluctantly offered my itchy fingers. I found myself standing before a young man with tawny curled hair and – the phrase was the most apt way to describe him – the face of a sad archangel in an Italian masterpiece. When he extended his hand to greet me, I trembled in his grasp. He was paler than is ordinary, his dark eyes a beautiful forget-me-not blue. I searched his face and found even his few flaws attractive – a somewhat brutish break to the symmetry of his nose only added interest, and the downward turn of his well-formed lips lent him a poetic look. I was a little taller than him, but that was no fault of his. As we stood together, I was engulfed in a sort of delicious agony.

He ushered me to sit close by him; we were both stiff-mannered, but who would not be, under such testing circumstances? Like his parents, he was dressed in high style; a silver-stitched waistcoat, with the lapels turned up in a flourish, and a snow-white neck cloth, ornately knotted. I found it hard even to look at him; he was a dazzling apparition.

‘But now, Miss Moore, that is enough of me. What of yourself?’ He lifted his eyes courteously to my overheated face. I noticed shadows, almost bruises, beneath them, that only made his expression more melancholically handsome. ‘How old are you?’

Breathlessly, I told him I was twenty-two years old, very anxious he should not consider me an old maid.

‘I see,’ he said with a charming little lift of his brows, as if this were not so very bad.

‘You run a household?’

‘Only for my father,’ I said earnestly. ‘But the house is rather large.’

‘Good. And you have instructed domestics?’

‘Well, when my mother was alive. Yes.’

‘Your land. It is in a fine position.’ As he spoke, he patted his hair, releasing a pleasing scent of pomade.

‘I have never seen it, sir.’

He gazed at me quizzically, almost as if I spoke in jest. ‘No matter. You have not been out much in society, I believe. I like that, Miss Moore.’

I was grateful when this scrutiny ended at a summons to the dining room. To my dismay, we were at once served a dish of larks, a species of bird whose joyful song often brightened my solitary walks. I toyed politely with the tiny pin-boned carcass, but lifted none to my mouth, unable to stop my ears to the sound of bones being crunched between Mr Croxon’s teeth.

As for Mrs Croxon, she began to lament the absence of her younger son, Peter, whose portrait made a pair with Michael’s, one on either side of the chimney breast. According to the artist, he appeared to be a younger, more wide-eyed version of his brother.

‘I cannot believe he has not come home on his birthday, when cook has gone to all this trouble.’ Mrs Croxon impatiently beckoned the maid to serve us another unappetising dish.

Michael directed a mutinous stare at his mother. ‘He is out trying his luck with Miss Brighouse and her ten thousand pounds, at Bleasedale, Mother. A slight to both myself and Miss Moore. But it is hardly out of character.’

‘Now, Michael,’ barked Mr Croxon.

The visit was brought to an early close by Mrs Croxon’s insistence that the carriage must take me home at once, so it might then be sent for Peter. In the entrance hall we stood in awkward silence until Mr Croxon turned to his son. ‘Michael, what do you say?’

Michael made a brief bow and smiled beatifically in my direction. ‘Grace, I trust you will be good enough to visit us again, next Sunday.’ At my blush, Mrs Croxon nodded with a knowing smile.

Back in the welcome peace of my chamber at Palatine House, I threw myself down on my bed, and allowed my true emotions to surface. The Croxons were a little odd; I was not easy with their showiness. But what did I care for them? Michael had made an instant and violent impression upon me. I no longer need worry that my suitor was not to my taste. As I lay daydreaming, it was as if a secret dam had burst within me; my throat and chest were crimson with pounding blood. Was it possible to fall in love at first sight, as the old ballads called it? There was not a single doubt in my mind from that very first day. I wanted Michael as my husband; I had set my heart upon it.

Over the next three weeks Michael’s attraction worked even more powerfully upon me. Between visits I drew his portrait from memory a dozen times, tracing his cheeks, his brow and his jaw in pencil; then painting a pale wash of flesh tones over each sketch, creating a series of icons to my saviour. I knew Anne would have been horrified if she had ever seen my bedroom wall, covered with images of Michael’s masculine beauty. I hid the pictures for fear of seeming rather – peculiar, I supposed.

A month to the day, Mr Croxon made a brief visit to Palatine House, at which, I understood, my father’s formal agreement was obtained. The following Sunday, the scene was set for me to meet alone with Michael in the gilded drawing room. After his mother had simpered away, he led me to a window. I was almost faint with anticipation.

‘Grace,’ he said; then swallowed nervously, making me feel even more anxious. ‘You will marry me?’

I looked up into his face, unable to read his pallid gravity. My eyes took a draught of his lips and long lashes – then I quickly looked away. I nodded and whispered, ‘Yes.’ It was done, it was over. I had secured Michael Croxon as my husband. The whole affair seemed remarkably easy, compared to Anne’s protracted years of courtship

For the latter part of my visit, the senior Croxons raised toasts to our nuptials, and Mr Croxon spoke enthusiastically of Michael’s plans to build a cotton mill on my land. Much was made of the large income it would provide for us. It was heartening enough, but I thought it rather dull talk for a newly betrothed couple.

‘As for a new home, we’ve found a grand place for you over Earlby way,’ announced my prospective father-in-law. ‘Delafosse Hall is a substantial residence on three hundred acres. Been empty a fair while, but it once belonged to the Blairs, a very noble family. What do you say to that?’