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He took the little volume from her and glanced at the spine. ‘Shakespeare and his sonnets for an old lady?’
‘Most certainly,’ his wife said. ‘I will love them until I die, and surely I am not alone in this. Have you read them, sir?’
He wished she would call him Charles. ‘Not in many years,’ he told her. ‘I am not certain that Shakespeare wears well on a quarterdeck.’
She surprised him then, as tears came to her eyes, turning them into liquid pools. ‘You have missed out on so many things, haven’t you?’ She had hit on something every man in the fleet knew, and probably few landsmen.
‘Aye, madam wife, I have,’ he said. He held up the book. ‘You think it is not too late? I am not a hopeless specimen?’
She dabbed at her eyes, unable to say anything for a moment, as they stood together in the crowded bookshop.
He took her arm. ‘Sophie, don’t waste a tear on me over something we had no control over. I saw my duty and did it. So did everyone in the fleet.’ He paused, thinking of Lord Brimley’s young son, dead these many years and slipped into the Pacific Ocean somewhere off Valparaiso. ‘Some gave everything. Blame the gods of war.’
She is studying me, he thought, as her arm came around his waist and she held him close. I try to comfort her and she comforts me. Did a man ever strike a better bargain than the one I contracted with Sally Paul? Bright handed back the book. He gave her a shilling and returned to the post chaise, unable to continue another moment in the bookshop and wondering if there was any place on land where he felt content.
Maybe he was not so discontent. He watched his wife through the window as she quickly paid the proprietor, shook her head against taking time to wrap the sonnets in brown paper and hurried back to the chaise.
‘I’m sorry to delay you,’ she said, after he helped her in. ‘I don’t intend to be a trial to a punctual man.’
He held out his hand for the book. ‘Do you have a favourite sonnet?’ He fanned the air with the book. ‘Something not too heated for a nice old lady?’
To his delight, she left her seat on the opposite side of the chaise and sat next to him, turning the pages, her face so close to his that he could breathe in the delicate scent of her lavender face soap.
‘This one,’ she said. ‘Perhaps Mr Brustein will want to read this one to her: “Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws, and make the earth devour her own sweet brood…”’ She shook her head. ‘It’s too sad.’
He brushed away her fingers and kept reading. ‘Sophie, you’re a goose. This is an old man remembering how fair his love once was, but that doesn’t mean he’s sad about the matter.’ He kept reading aloud, thinking of the woman beside him, wondering how she would look in twenty years, even thirty years, if they were so lucky. I believe she will look better and better as time passes, he thought. ‘Sophie, Mrs Brustein cannot argue with this: “Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong; My love shall in my verse ever live young.”’
Charles looked at his new wife, the hasty bargain he made without much thought, beyond an overpowering desire to keep his sisters from meddling in his life. Shakespeare could say it so well, he told himself. You will always be young, too.
She looked at him in such an impish way that he felt the years fall away from him, too, much as from the sonneteer. ‘There, now,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t Shakespeare read better at forty-five than he did when you were ten and forced?’
She was teasing him; at the same time he was wondering if he had ever felt more in earnest. I will frighten her to death, he thought. This is a marriage of convenience. ‘You know he does!’ Charles handed back the book. ‘You and Mrs Brustein can sniffle and cry and wallow over the verses, and I doubt a better day will be spent anywhere.’
Sophie tucked the book in her reticule. He thought she might return to her side of the chaise, but she remained beside him. ‘Perhaps when we finish the sonnets, we will graduate to Byron. I will wear thick gloves, so my fingers do not scorch from the verse,’ she teased. She nudged his shoulder. ‘Thank you for buying this.’
‘Anything, my dear wife, to further our connections in the neighbourhood,’ he said. ‘After years of riotous living coming from that house we laughingly call home now, we have a lot of repair work to do.’
As the chaise stopped in front of Madame Soigne’s shop, he knew he had been saved from blurting out that he would prefer she read to him. A man can dream, he told himself, picturing his head in Sophie’s lap, while she read to him. A pity Shakespeare never wrote a sonnet about old admirals in love. No, well-seasoned admirals. I can’t recall a time when I have felt less ancient.
She hesitated in the doorway, hand on the doorknob, and looked back at him, which must have been his cue to join her and provide some husbandly support.
‘Cold feet, madam wife? I expect you to spend lots of money. In fact, I am counting on it.’
Still she hung back. ‘A few days ago, I didn’t even have any thread to sew up a hole in my stockings.’ She let go of the doorknob. ‘You know, if I go to a fabric warehouse and buy a couple of lengths of muslin, I can sew my own dresses.’
Charles put her hand back on the doorknob. ‘You don’t need to! Don’t get all Scottish on me.’ He turned the knob and gave her a little boost inside, where Madame and her minions stood. From the look of them, they had nothing on their minds except the kind of service it was becoming increasingly obvious that his wife was not accustomed to. Sophie looked ready to burst into tears.
He took her about the waist with his hooked arm, which gave him ample opportunity to tug off her bonnet with his bona fide hand and plant a kiss on her temple. ‘You can do this. Be a good girl and spend my money.’
He left her there, looking at him, her face pale. He turned to the modiste, who was eyeing Sophie with something close to disbelief. ‘She’s Scottish and doesn’t like to spend a groat. Whatever she agrees to buy, triple it.’
‘Charles!’
He liked the sound of that. He tipped his hat to her and left the shop.
Chapter Ten
When he returned, all measured for shirts and trousers and coats, Sally was waiting for him inside the shop, calmer now and drinking tea. She watched him through the window with Madame Soigne.
‘I don’t know how one man can appear so pleased when he knows I have been spending his money,’ she commented.
The modiste looked through the window, where the admiral was getting out of the post chaise. ‘How can you tell he is pleased?’ she asked, squinting. ‘He looks rather stern to me.’
‘The way his eyes get small and kind of crinkle,’ Sally said. ‘The lines around his mouth get a little deeper.’
‘If you say so,’ Madame replied dubiously. She brightened. ‘Bien, you would know, would you not? He is your husband, and you have had years and years to study him.’
Good God, Sally thought, setting down the cup with a click. I have known the man three days and she thinks we are an old married couple? This is a strange development. ‘I…I suppose I have,’ she stammered, not sure what else to say.
The door opened. She felt a curious lift as his eyes got smaller and he smiled at her. He nodded to the modiste. ‘Did she spend lots and lots of my blunt, Madame?’ he asked. ‘Mais oui! Just as you wished,’ the modiste declared, and ticked them off on her elegant long fingers. ‘Morning dresses, afternoon dresses, evening dresses—she would only allow one ball gown—a cloak, a redingote, sleeping gowns, a dressing gown…’
‘When might these garments be ready?’ He handed over a wad of notes so large that Sally couldn’t help a small gasp.
Madame tittered and accepted the king’s ransom gracefully. ‘Oh, you seamen! I will put all my seamstresses to work. Soon, Admiral, soon!’
Bright bowed. ‘Madame Soigne, if you had been Napoleon’s minister of war in the late disturbance, he would not have lost.’ He held out his hand to Sally. ‘Come, my dear. We now have to search for enough domestics to puff up our consequence in the neighbourhood. Madame Soigne, we bid you good day.’
There didn’t seem to be any point in sitting across from him, not when he held her arm and plopped her down beside him. Besides, she had a confession. ‘I had better make a clean breast of it,’ she told him, as the chaise pulled away from the curb. ‘Madame Soigne also sent for a milliner and a shoemaker.’
‘I am relieved to hear it,’ he remarked. ‘I call that efficiency.’ He must have used her wry expression as an excuse to keep his arm around her. ‘You sound like a tar on shore leave! Spend it all in one go and chance the consequences!’
‘I call it a huge expenditure,’ she lamented.
He refused to be anything but serene. ‘Sophie dear, your duty is to rid me of sisters. That is no small task and it will require ammunition. You are dealing with ruthless hunters, who will stop at nothing. I consider you a total bargain.’
She looked at his face, noticed the crinkles around his eyes. ‘You are quizzing me! I think you are shameless.’
He threw back his head and laughed. ‘You think I exaggerate?’
‘I know you do,’ she said, trying not to smile. ‘Were you this much trouble in the fleet?’
‘This and more, but I achieved results,’ he assured her. ‘I do believe I will add to your duties, as well, my dear, since you feel I have done too much by clothing you in a style to suit my consequence. You’re going to be charming the Brusteins with Shakespeare and helping slap my house into submission. Yes, you may find me something to do, while you’re at it. Can you see me sitting on my thumbs this winter?’
‘I cannot,’ she agreed. ‘I believe I will earn that wardrobe!’
He hugged her tighter, then released her. ‘Laugh like that more often, Sophie. It becomes you.’
‘I am not so certain I had much to laugh about,’ she said frankly.
‘Then maybe your fortunes have turned,’ he said, equally frank.
Maybe they have, Sally decided, after luncheon at the Drake. She knew they had, when they came to the employment registry, and there sat the same pale governess she had shared the bench with only days ago. I could still be sitting next to her, she thought, giving the woman a smile.
Her smile turned thoughtful. She took her husband by the arm, which made him look at her with an expression that made her stomach feel deliciously warm. She walked him outside, grateful they were much the same height, so there was no need to tug on his sleeve like a child.
‘Charles.’ His name still sounded so strange on her lips, but she knew he enjoyed it. ‘Charles, that lady is an out-of-work governess. She came with me on the mail coach from Bath, and see, she is still sitting here.’
‘Times are hard,’ he pointed out. ‘After the tailor measured me—Lord, but he got personal with my parts—I walked down to the harbour and found any number of seamen begging, or leaning against buildings and trying not to beg. Peace is well enough, I suppose, but it certainly throws people out of employment. Do we need a governess? Is there something you are not telling me?’
Sally knew he was quizzing her, but she felt a wave of guilt pass over her, as she wished it was not too late to tell him her former name. He was teasing her, but his eyes were kind. All I can do is go on, she told herself.
‘I know we have no need of a governess! When my clothing comes, I will need a dresser.’ She leaned closer to him, not wanting to be overheard. ‘May I at least ask her if she is interested in the position? I know how she feels, sitting there. I wonder if she is as hungry as I was.’
‘Certainly you may ask her.’ He walked a few steps with her, away from the registry. ‘And you might as well know I hired several of those seamen on the docks to help Starkey do whatever it is he does so well; peel potatoes for Etienne, if he needs it; and assist my new steward in ridding the house—our home—of cupids in flagrante.’ He patted her hand. ‘I suppose we are both easy marks. Too bad I didn’t know about this character flaw in you sooner.’
She leaned against his shoulder. ‘Yes, Admiral! I suppose one of us should be surly and grim, to make this marriage a success.’
‘Admiral, is it?’ He winced elaborately, then grew serious. ‘Sophie, there were months on end, maybe years, when I was grim. As for surly, you may ask any number of my subalterns. I hope those days are over. I know how much those men on the docks sacrificed for England. It gave me a real pleasure to hire them.’
She nodded. ‘Then I suppose we are two fools. I will go ask her.’
‘Suppose she cannot iron or make good pleats?’ he asked, back to his light-hearted remarks.
‘Then you will have to love your useful wife wrinkled,’ she retorted, pinking up as she said it. ‘I can show her how to iron,’ she added honestly. ‘I have never had a dresser.’
Her name was Amelia Thayn. After a long look at Sally, during which her eyes filled with tears, she nodded. ‘Lady Bright, I am no expert with clothing. I am a governess.’
‘I know that. I have never had a dresser before. I suggest that we will figure this out as we go along. And if you wish to keep looking for governess positions, while you are working for me, I have no objections.’
‘You would do that?’
‘Of course she would. My wife is kindness personified.’
Sally looked at the door, where her husband stood. So are you, she thought. ‘It seems only logical,’ she told Miss Thayn. ‘I know you would rather be a governess, but these are hard times.’
They settled on a wage, and Sally left Miss Thayn there to collect her thoughts while she spoke with the employment agent about an upstairs maid, a downstairs maid, a maid of all work and a laundress. He promised to select the best he had and send them to her tomorrow. When she returned to the antechamber, the governess was ready to go.
‘I owe a shilling to the landlady at the Mulberry Inn,’ she said, keeping her voice low, as red spots burned in her cheeks. ‘There is also the matter of…of several books I have pawned.’
At least you were not sleeping in churches, Sally thought, as they stood in the antechamber, as close to tears as her newest employee.
Admiral Bright came to her rescue. He handed several coins to Miss Thayn, who stumbled over her gratitude. ‘Call this a bonus for coming to work in a den of iniquity! Settle up your affairs and come to the registry by nine of the clock tomorrow. This post chaise will conduct you and our other female workers to our house. You will be in charge.’ He turned to Sally. ‘My dearest, explain our home to this nice lady while I talk to the coachman.’
She did and was rewarded with a faint smile. ‘The house is being painted, but it will require more paint in more rooms, I fear,’ Sally concluded, as the admiral returned to them and helped them into the post chaise. ‘Now we will take you to the…the Mulberry, you say?’
‘I can walk there, I assure you,’ Miss Thayn said.
‘What, and not allow us to puff up our consequence?’ Bright said. ‘Really, Miss Thayn!’
Subdued into obedience by the admiral’s natural air of command, which Sally knew she could never hope to alter, should she be given that task, Miss Thayn unbent enough to lean back in the chaise. She closed her eyes and gave a long sigh that sounded suspiciously like profound gratitude.
They deposited Miss Thayn at the Mulberry and listened to more profuse thanks. When they started east towards the coast, they passed a shabby inn rejoicing in the name of the Noble George. Sally took her husband’s hand. ‘Please stop here a moment.’
The admiral leaned out the window and spoke to the coachman. ‘Now what, my dear?’ he asked. ‘It must be something clandestine. You’re looking rosy again, Lady Bright.’
‘Charles, you are the limit,’ she said. ‘When I was looking so hard for work myself, I came here to ask if they needed kitchen help.’ She put her hands to her warm face. ‘The landlord was a horrible man. He leered at me and told me if I wanted to work in his kitchen, he would turn out his little pots-and-pans girl and make room for me, if I wanted to supply other…services.’
‘Bastard,’ the admiral said mildly. ‘I’m only being so polite because you really don’t want to hear what I’m actually thinking. Shall I call him out and hit him with my hook? A few whacks and he would be in ribbons.’
‘No! I want to hire that child to help Etienne. No telling what other demands that odious man has placed on her.’
‘How old do you think she is?’
‘Not above eight or nine.’
‘Good God. I’ll go in with you,’ he said, his face dark.
He did, glowering at the landlord in probably much the same fashion he had cowed faulty officers, during his years as admiral. Sally felt considerable satisfaction to see how quickly the man leaped to Admiral Bright’s mild enough suggestion that he produce the pots-and-pans girl immediately, if he knew what was good for him. As she waited, and the landlord hemmed and hawed, and looked everywhere but at the admiral, Sally reminded herself never to get on the ugly side of her husband.
When the girl came upstairs, grimy and terrified, she seemed to sense immediately who would help her, and slid behind Sally, who knelt beside her. The landlord tried to move forwards, but Charles Bright stepped in front of Sally and the scullery maid.
‘That’s far enough,’ he said. His voice was no louder than ever, but filled with something in the tone that made the landlord retreat to the other side of the room.
Slowly, so as not to frighten the child, Sally put her hand on a skinny shoulder. ‘I am Lady Bright and this is my husband, Admiral Sir Charles Bright.’
The scullery maid’s mouth opened in a perfect O. She gulped.
‘I have been hiring maids to work in my house. I need a scullery maid, and think you would suit perfectly.’
‘M-m-me?’ she stammered.
‘Oh, yes. You might have to share a room with another maid in the servants’ quarters. Would that be acceptable?’
‘A room?’ she asked, her voice soft.
‘Yes, of course. Where do you sleep now?’
The little girl glanced at the landlord and moved closer to Sally. ‘On the dirty clothes in the laundry,’ she whispered.
Sally couldn’t help the chill that ran through her spine. In another moment, Charles was beside her, his hand firmly on her shoulder.
‘We’ll do better than dirty clothes,’ he said. ‘What’s your name?’
She shrugged, and scratched at her neck. ‘General, they called me Twenty, because they thought I wouldn’t live too long in the workhouse.’
Sally bowed her head and felt Charles’s fingers go gentle against her neck.
‘We’ll find you a good name, Twenty,’ he said. ‘Will you come with us? Don’t worry about him. Look at us.’
‘I’ll come,’ she whispered.
‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Now, is there anything you want to fetch from your…from the laundry room? Lady Bright will go with you, if you’d like.’
‘Nuffink,’ was all Twenty said. She tugged at her over-large dress and patted it down with all the dignity she could muster. ‘I’m ready now.’
‘Very well, my dear,’ Charles said, his voice faltering for only a split second. ‘Go with this extra-fine lady to the chaise out front. I will have a few words with your former employer. Go on, my dear.’ He glanced behind him at the landlord. ‘I promise not to do anything I will regret.’
That worries me, Sally thought, If you thrashed him, I doubt you would regret it. She shepherded the scullery maid into the street, quickly boosting her into the chaise, where she looked around, her eyes wide.
‘Cor, miss,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve never ridden in one of these!’
‘We’re going a few miles away to my husband’s estate, where you will work for a French cook. He will treat you very well. So will we.’ Sally could barely get the words out, as she watched tears slip down the child’s face, leaving tracks through the grime.
She smelled abominably, but Sally hugged her and sat close to her. In a few minutes, her husband joined them. He sat opposite them.
‘Twenty, I asked your former employer for your back wages. He was a little forgetful at first, but eventually he remembered that he owed you this. Hold out your hands.’
He poured a handful of pence in the astounded child’s hands. They spilled through on to her dress, which she stretched out to receive them. ‘When we get home, I will ask Etienne to find you a crock to keep them in.’
She nodded, too shy to speak, and edged closer to Sally, who put her arm around the girl. Finally, it was too much, and she burst into noisy tears. Disregarding her odour and dirty clothes, Sally pulled her on to her lap, whispering to her until she fell asleep. When she slept soundly, Sally put her on the seat and rested the scullery maid’s head in her lap.
‘That landlord told me she hadn’t earned a penny because she kept breaking things and stealing food,’ Charles said, his voice low. ‘Perhaps Wilberforce should look closer to home, if he wants to see the slave trade.’ He leaned forwards and tapped Sally’s knee with his hook. ‘You’re quite a woman, Mrs B.’
She looked at him, shabby in old civilian clothes years out of fashion because he had never been on land for most of two decades. His hair could have used a barber’s shears, and he probably hadn’t been standing close enough to his razor this morning. There was steel in him, and a capability that made her want to crawl into his lap and sob out every misery she had been subjected to, like Twenty. All those years at sea, spent protecting his homeland, seemed to be reflected in his eyes.
‘Thank you,’ was all she said.
Starkey was aghast to see what they had brought home with them, but Etienne didn’t bat an eye. In no time, he had water heating for a bath. When the water was ready, and Twenty eyeing it with considerable fear, he appeared with a simple dress.
‘This was in a trunk in the room I am using,’ he said. ‘Here are some shears. Hold it up to her and cut it to size. That will do for now.’
‘Etienne, you’re a wonder,’ Sally said, as she took the bit of muslin and wondered which Fair Cyprian had worn it.
Twenty’s protests died quickly enough, when she saw there was no rescue from a bath, followed by a pine tar block that barely foamed, but which smelled strong enough to drive away an army of lice. Her hair was already short. Trapping the towel-draped scullery maid between her knees, Sally trimmed and then combed her hair until it was free of animal companions.
Dressed in the hand-me-down, Twenty stood still for a sash cut from a tea towel, and then whirled in front of the room’s tiny mirror. She stopped and staggered after too many revolutions, and flopped on the bed, giggling.
‘I’ll have something better made for you soon,’ Sally told her.
‘I couldna ask for more, miss,’ she said, and it went right to Sally’s heart. I’m not sure I could, either, she thought.
There were two small beds in the little room. While Sally made up one, over Starkey’s protests that he could do it, Twenty sat at the table in the servants’ hall and ate a bowl of soup, not stopping until she had drained it. Sally looked over to see Etienne struggling with his composure as he handed her a small roll, and followed it with two more. When Twenty finished, she yawned, moved the bowl aside and put her head on the table. In less than a minute, she slept. She woke up in terror and cried out when Starkey picked her up, but settled down when Sally took her in her arms and carried her into the little room. She sat beside the bed until Twenty slept.
‘She doesn’t have a name, Etienne,’ Sally said, when she came into the servants’ hall. ‘She is your pots-and-pans girl. You should name her.’
‘Vivienne, after my sister?’ he said decisively. ‘Vivienne was her age when she died. It is a good name.’
‘Very well. You can tell her in the morning.’
She went upstairs slowly, tired in body, but more in mind. Etienne said he would bring supper soon, but she craved company more than soup or meat. She looked in the sitting room and up at the ceiling, which had been painted a sedate soft white.