Death and the Visitors, page 19
“What’s wrong?” Jane asked. “You’re shivering, Mary.”
“There are so many people here,” she said, hugging herself.
A gust audibly rustled the branches far overhead. “I wonder if these trees fall in storms,” Jane said. “They seem rather stunted.”
“You’ve nothing to worry about this evening.” Shelley put his arm around Jane. “Not from a falling tree, at any rate. Nothing bad of that sort happens in June.”
“Do you want to live in London, Mary?” Robert asked.
“I thought you didn’t have to go abroad to get a Scottish legal education in this century,” Mary said. “Of course, with work on my novel, my head is often in the past. Please explain the current procedure to me.”
“To be an advocate in Scotland, one has to pass the Civil Law trial and the Scots Law trial.” Robert struck a pose. “There are universities in Edinburgh and Glasgow with the studies one needs, but I thought you were happy here in London. Your letters to Isabella have been full of adventures.”
“Full of murder,” Mary said. “Can you not be a law clerk in Dundee?”
“It’s not a very large place,” Robert said. “My sister Christy said your father’s house was enormous. I thought I might clerk here for a time.” Color bloomed in his cheeks. “Then I might have a question for your father, if everything works in my favor.”
Mary swallowed hard. Her moths had transformed her stomach into an aching, dark pit. None of this was as she had expected it to be. He didn’t want to marry her and return to Dundee? She had no place to run for herself and Jane? Faith, his plan reeked of good sense for a young man of seventeen. Too young to wed. Her family had misunderstood him, she could see that now. His plan was better than hers.
Shelley rubbed his hand down her arm. She relaxed it, discovering how tightly she’d been cradling her ribs. “There now,” he said gently. “I said I’d keep you safe and I will.”
She let out a long breath, forcing her shoulders down. Her neck instantly loosened. “How can you in this crush?”
“As long as I stay close, no one can grab you,” Shelley said. “You’ll let me stay close, won’t you, Mary?”
She took a long look at him. His eyes, so clear and reflecting the blue sky, seemed in their purity almost to be dazzling her with a light beaming right up to heaven. “Yes, Shelley. I don’t want to be stolen away to Russia.”
His lips quirked. “No, your French isn’t good enough. But Jane, on the other hand—”
Mary giggled. “Yes, her French is infinitely superior. I don’t know why. I don’t have her musical talent either.”
“Nor do I. Our gift is for words, and hers is for sound. She is not the same as us.”
“No,” she agreed. “But we are the same, you and I.”
His smile broadened. “Never forget that, Miss Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. We are the same.”
* * *
On Thursday morning, Polly had charge of the dirty breakfast dishes in the scullery while Mary peeled potatoes in the kitchen. She snatched her hand away when her knife slipped, then put her injured finger in her mouth before examining it.
Thankfully, she realized she’d only scratched it. Idly she wondered how long it would take to die if she’d chopped off her finger. The body could not survive without blood. Was it the vital substance the natural philosophers spoke about that was necessary for life? But people died all the time full of blood. She could smell it in the trimmings of tough mutton waiting next to the potatoes, ready to be chopped into smaller pieces and fried with butter, wine, and vegetables before they were added to her shepherd’s pie, a recipe she’d learned in Scotland. Robert would appreciate the effort.
She caught the sound of her own breath. Oxygen, another vital substance, one that animal nature could not live without, based on the way they hanged people outside Newgate Prison. No one was building gibbets for hanging days for anything less than judicial murder.
What was a kiss but an exchange of vital substance? She licked her lips as she thought of kisses. She ran her tongue over her lower lip, soft and supple now that the winter was over, with its chapping winds and coal fires that ate at the back of her throat and dried her flesh.
Did Shelley want to kiss her? What of Robert, with plans that seemed to include an education before the marriage proposal she had expected? Tingles raced up her spine, making her shoulders twitch. Even she had noticed the fullness of the poet’s pillowy mouth, compared to Robert’s firm, well-colored line. Did it matter, the shape of a mouth, when it came time to bestow a kiss?
She put a hand to her mouth. Her lips were none too full either. Why would either of them want to kiss her?
With that horrid thought, she returned to her potatoes.
* * *
An hour later, she left Polly to finish the cookery and went up to the bookshop.
“Here to give me a break?” Jane asked, not looking up as she idly turned the page of Lord Byron’s The Corsair, a dish of cherries at her elbow.
Mary snatched them away. “Where did you get these? Don’t you dare get stains on The Corsair. That book, unlike many of our others, will sell.”
Jane’s lips were stained red by the fruit. “Mamma gave them to me. She walked by with a bag of them when she came in from a morning call.”
“I hope it was about translation work. Papa is still poring over that Swiss book.”
“I think she went to advance some money against the loan to that moneylender Mr. Hogan.” Jane turned a page. “The money from Charles’s big sale.”
“I hoped she could pay it off.”
Jane snorted, and they both laughed. “No dowry for you, Mary dear.”
“I don’t think Robert’s aim was quite as Papa thought,” Mary said carefully. “Where is Robert this morning?”
“He probably went out to look for a place with some solicitor or other,” Jane said. “When he left, he said he’d be back for tea.”
“I expect you are right.” Idly Mary picked up one of the fat, glossy red cherries and took a bite.
“Are you just going to stand there?” Jane asked. “You could dust, at least. Or straighten the pencils.”
Mary shrugged and finished the fruit around the seed. “You do it. It is hot in the kitchen. I need to cool down. Maybe I’ll go into the garden for a few minutes before I return to my pie.”
The front door opened with a bang. Heavy footsteps sounded on the floor. Jane frowned and turned toward the bookshop door. “Someone sounds angry.”
“More than one someone.” Mary set down the cherries and went to the door. In the front hall, three men stood. She recognized the trio from their previous visit. John Cannon and his lackeys.
Before she could back up and report to Jane, Cannon strode toward her. “Where is your father?”
“Up in his study, I assume,” she said. “What are you doing back here? It’s only been a week.”
“Yes, a week without any further word from Godwin. What happened to my dinner invitations?”
One of the large-bodied younger men snickered, then froze when Mr. Cannon glared at him.
“The table is not as fine as it once was,” Mary said boldly. “Now that we no longer have a French cook. You should be happy that the household is spared the expense.”
“There are many, many foreign dignitaries in London now,” Mr. Cannon said. “I expect your father must have some news.”
Mary froze. “Is he feeding you names of people you might be able to lend money to?”
The moneylender snorted. “As if I would lend money to anyone but an Englishman I could find to pay his debts. No, but I can find money for such people, if they give me proper inducement. Your father was supposed to send word of any good candidates, in return for a bit of patience on my part.”
“It’s been very quiet here,” Mary said. “Just a visitor from Dundee, but he’s young and poor.”
“Then I’ll need another installment on the loan,” Mr. Cannon said. “If your father isn’t going to be any use to my business, I have no patience for him.”
Why had Mamma chosen today to give money to Mr. Hogan, who’d always been far more lenient than Mr. Cannon?
Jane came out of the bookshop and marched up to them with an odd sort of look on her face. “How much will it take to make you go away?”
“Why, miss?” Mr. Cannon asked, a bit of spittle appearing at the corner of his mouth. “Do you have friends in high places?”
“Will five guineas buy us another week?” she asked, her eyes bulging a bit in their sockets.
Mary gasped. Had she made some good sales in the bookshop this morning? She didn’t hear much upstairs noise when she was by the kitchen fire.
“Fifty,” Mr. Cannon said, pursing his overfed lips.
“I have five to make you leave right now,” Jane said, pointing to the door. “Look, you are blocking our trade.”
The door opened. A young boy, around Willy’s age, stared at the two large guards, then reached for his younger sister.
Mary stepped through the guards. “Come in, please. I’m sorry the doorway is blocked.”
“I-I’ll come another time,” said the girl, just a little older than Fanny, who was probably their governess. She put her hands on the pair of children’s shoulders and marched them away.
“Take this five,” Jane said, thrusting a twist of paper into Mr. Cannon’s hand. “Before you destroy our business for the day.”
Mary blinked at the clink of coins. How easily Jane handed over money she had no right to command, in order to make Mr. Cannon leave.
The moneylender regarded Jane coldly even as his fist closed around the coins. “How about I run upstairs and talk to your father? If you are good for five, what might he have weighting down a pocket?”
Mary pushed in front of Jane. “Please don’t disturb him. He’s working on a translation. He needs to make money to pay you.”
“You protest rather too much, my dear.” The moneylender smiled nastily at her, exposing a blackened incisor.
“Jane emptied the cash box belonging to the bookshop for that money. It’s the morning take. The Corsair has been selling well,” Mary said, grabbing fictions from the air.
“Maybe we’ll stop by every morning, and pick up the next five guineas,” Mr. Cannon said.
“I can come by,” one of his lackeys said, speaking for the first time. “I don’t live far out.”
“Not bloody going to happen,” the moneylender shouted. “I’d never see all the coins.” He shoved the bookshop money into the inside of his shirt and stretched out his neck until he seemed to hang over Mary like a vulture. “How about this? Your father has twenty-four hours to give me five hundred pounds or he is going to debtors’ prison.”
Mary shuddered back, stumbling into Jane as Papa came onto the landing. Had he been listening before he decided to come down?
“Do not threaten my daughters, Mr. Cannon,” he said calmly, his natural nature undisturbed. “They were merely trying to help me.”
“I hope you have a quick turnaround on that translation, Godwin.” Mr. Cannon set his thumb and forefinger alongside each of his nostrils and blew. “I’ll be back tomorrow for my five hundred pounds.” He made a circle with his forefinger and his men opened the door for him, then departed behind him, rattling the house as they slammed the door again.
“He blocked a governess and two children from coming in,” Mary reported.
“Did we have a good morning in the shop, child?” Papa asked, only looking at Jane. “Did you sell a few volumes?”
Jane shook her head. Papa frowned but didn’t ask questions. “I need to go back down to finish the meal,” Mary said, inching away.
“Listen, girls,” Papa said. He ran one hand over his balding pate. “You’ve developed a good rapport with Princess Maria. You are going to have to ask the Russians for help despite their violent behavior.”
“Why?” Mary gasped over Jane’s shocked squeak.
“Because,” Papa said. “Jane saw them selling jewelry, showing they will have funds at this moment. Their master has come to town now, you know. We need to get them to help us before they have to spend the money or even turn it over to the tsar’s men.”
“Are we that desperate?” Mary asked. She twisted her hands over her apron. “What if they don’t let me leave?”
“I’ll bring a knife and poke them if they try,” Jane said fiercely.
“Oh, you, you have the heart of a rabbit,” Mary said. “I’d like to see you commit an act of violence.”
“Don’t even dream of such a thing,” Papa said. “Take Mamma with you. They won’t dare try anything with her there.”
Mary had to agree that Mamma was more fearsome than any knife. “They might be too busy to let us in.”
“What if the tsar is there?” Jane asked.
“At the hotel? Nonsense,” Papa said. “You go over there this afternoon and beg them for help. Any amount will do, but try to get the five hundred. I’ll see you at lunch.” He climbed the stairs, holding onto the banister.
Mary detected weariness in his steps. “He has no intention of paying any calls himself.”
“Not until we’ve done what he wants with the Russians,” Jane agreed.
Mary regarded Jane. What had she been up to? She lifted her chin and spoke into her stepsister’s ear. “Where did the money come from, Jane? Have you been stealing from the bookshop again or doing something else underhanded?”
Jane pulled her back into the bookshop. “The bookshop is not involved.”
“If you didn’t raid the cash box, where did the guineas come from?”
Jane pulled the box from under the counter and opened it. When she shook the contents, the dull glint of shillings showed in among smaller coins, but no guineas appeared. “Not here.”
“Then what?”
Jane shook her head.
“I wish you wouldn’t refuse to explain.”
“What does it matter?” Jane asked. “It only bought us one more day.”
Mary crossed her arms. “I’m terrified to go anywhere near the Russians, for fear of being kidnapped. I don’t want to spend my life in some prince’s harem, or whatever they keep their women in. It all sounds very well in books, but that’s because someone is on their way to rescue one.”
“I promise to protect you with my very life,” Jane said solemnly.
“That’s all well and good where you are concerned,” Mary snapped, “But what about Mamma? She’d probably be happy to sell me for five hundred pounds.”
“I doubt it.” Jane’s lips quivering with laughter. “Polly can’t manage the entire kitchen by herself.”
Chapter 15
Jane
“I cannot believe that we are returning to the Pulteney Hotel,” I groused as I trailed behind Mary and Robert after luncheon that afternoon.
Charles had thrown a minor fit when Mamma told him he’d have to man the counter at the bookshop that afternoon. I didn’t have to wonder why. I’d seen the sticks and small bones on the floor in the warehouse. He spent much of his time gambling back there with the clerk and the porter instead of working.
I wore my newest white muslin. Mary had on her ghastly tartan dress, which admittedly was her newest and one that Robert might appreciate. Over that she had donned a gray pelisse which at least broke up the loud pattern. Robert looked very nice for a provincial Scotsman, his hair damp from a quick washing.
“We don’t have much choice, for Papa’s sake,” Mary said.
I shuddered as we came to the end of the last street. “Don’t forget that we could be kidnapped at any moment, Robert.”
“I won’t let anything happen to either of ye,” he said, grinning at Mary.
Somehow, I doubted he’d fight to the death for my honor, for he hadn’t even glanced in my direction. He led us across the street, weaving between two carts and a carriage as if he was city-born. We scraped the road detritus off our shoes as best we could at the edge of the pavement, and then a footman was opening the door of the hotel for us.
We went to the front desk and asked a clerk, who wore such fine clothing that I wondered how he could afford it, to have a note brought upstairs to see if we could be received. Now that the tsar and others were in town, according to the papers, we didn’t know if any Naryshkins would be available to us. Although they wanted something from us, if they hoped to take Mary to be the Russian prince’s concubine instead of Fanny.
He passed our note to a porter, then told us we could wait in the lobby. A hum filled the space, imbuing the large room with an energy it hadn’t had during our last visit. Dozens of people were moving around. I heard French and German, easily recognizable, along with other tongues. We English were outnumbered.
Did Papa really think Robert a sufficient guard for us in a place this full of foreigners? Or was he being as careless with us as he was with money? Worried for Mary’s safety, I took her arm and led her to a bench along the wall, then sat with her, trying to be inconspicuous while Robert stood in front of us.
“Look at that coat,” Mary whispered a minute later as a woman passed by, covered in green silk and sable.
“She must be another princess,” I said back, marveling at the luxurious high-collared coat, which was admittedly all the beauty the older woman possessed. She had a sharp-cut, cruel sort of face peeking out of her bonnet, like you’d expect on one of those Roman emperors’ wives of yore.
“A member of one of the traveling parties, surely,” Mary agreed. “That coat is much too warm for June. She must be damp to the bone underneath.”
“It’s probably too valuable to leave in her room,” Robert said, turning toward us.
The uniformed hotel employee who had been sent with our note arrived through an archway, accompanied by the sallow-faced woman I recognized as the princess’s maid.
“Come with me, please,” the maid said in a heavy accent.
