Through a Glass Darkly: A Novel (25 page)

* * *

   It was the day of Christmas Eve. Saylor House was bustling with servants cleaning floors, polishing furniture and silver, with delicious smells of roasting capon and goose and turkey from the kitchen. Various sets of small tables were being moved into the great parlor and the hall and laid with heavy damask trimmed in lace and china plates and silver forks and spoons and knives and cups and saltcellars. It would be a late supper, at eight, and then the adults would stay up toasting the evening and watching the yule log burn. Barbara and Mary were to retire early. Barbara sat now in the conservatory. It comforted her some to be among her aunt's many blooming plants, the small, miniature orange trees, the lemon trees, the lilies and roses. They were kept blooming by many little charcoal braziers the gardeners fueled constantly. It was an example of the abundant wealth of the Tamworths, that they could keep a room at summer's heat in the dead of winter, when outside, people were too poor to afford shelter from death from the cold. Passing days had not diminished her heartache. It was a constant in her life, the one thing she could count on. The pain was there before she finally, after tossing and turning and crying, fell asleep, and in the morning, as soon as she opened her eyes, she could feel it fall on her heart. It was a heavy thing, like a cannonball. It made her heart flutter irregularly, so that she always felt breathless. She wished she could go back to those days—they now seemed so far away—when she had lived happily at Tamworth, Roger no more than a golden dream that had nothing whatsoever to do with her real life. How amazing that a few sentences by her mother had started her on a path to such pain.

   She wandered to the glass doors that overlooked the back gardens. Today, no gardeners were visible. She could see no one raking leaves and debris from the gravel paths, no one filling the flowerbeds, eternally mixing the soil so that it might be moist and open for spring seeding. Suddenly, she wanted to walk in the garden, feel the cold air on her cheeks, breathe something other than the air of Saylor House. She was confined to the house, but surely she could sneak a few moments in the garden.

   Furtively, she glanced around her, but there was no one in this room or in the garden. Everyone was busy preparing for this evening. She fastened one of the cloaks kept hanging on pegs and opened the door and stepped outside and took a breath of crisp, clear, cold air. It hurt her lungs. And it felt good, except it made her a little dizzy. She had no energy, no spirit these last days. She felt empty, listless, tired. She was always crying or sleeping. She still could not eat much. Everything churned inside her. She had managed two cups of tea and toast this morning, but it was not enough; she had already lost several pounds.

   She walked a little more briskly down the gravel paths. Ah, fresh air, like freedom. It gave her a new strength. She felt she could walk all the way to Tamworth. How she longed for it, for her grandmother and those she loved. She was walking along a path that paralleled the garden wall. On the other side, she could hear sounds from the street, a street vendor calling, "Buy my ropes of hard onions," and the wagons and carts going by, the drivers urging their horses on with curses. On her side were evenly spaced holly shrubs, painstakingly clipped and trained to resemble candelabra. Their dark, shiny green leaves were heavy with bright red Christmas berries. She walked by the gate, her thoughts on Roger, on her pain. She stopped. In her mind now was the gate she had just passed. There was no lock on it. Usually all the gates to the gardens were locked, so that passersby on the street could not come in. During spring, when the gardens were glorious with lilac and tulip trees blooming, with apple and pear trees blossoming, with daffodils and tulips and hyacinths, with rows of tender spring roses, the gardens were open to the public on select afternoons. They were allowed to stroll through them until dusk, when the gatekeepers rang a bell to warn that the gates would soon be locked. It had been her grandfather's way of sharing some of his wealth with the people of London, and the tradition had been carried on by Abigail and Tony.

   Barbara found herself standing at the gate. She had an impulse to open it and go out. Before the thought was complete in her head, before she could list the reasons why she had to stay in the garden, she was on the other side, standing on the cobbles of the street, separated from oncoming wagons and carriages by the wooden stiles sticking up out of the pavement. The stiles made a barrier against the street traffic behind which a pedestrian might walk. Ahead of her was a tavern; its sign hung suspended over the street by several branches of iron. There was no wording on the sign, just a painting of a king in a red coat with gold buttons and a golden crown. The name of the tavern was The George. The shops were open, though they would close early. She could see gloves and ribbons mixed with Christmas ivy and holly in a shop window. A young apprentice boy stood near the entrance calling for passing people to come inside and buy his master's superior product.

   She started walking. She had a confused idea of where she was; she had never been out alone, and never on foot. But it was good to walk up and down the streets, to look into the shops, to smell baking bread and roasting meat, to look up at the huge signs hanging overhead, the painting on them bold and colorful to attract the eye, to listen to the street vendors. "Buy a new almanac." "A brass pot, an iron pot to mend." "New river water." To watch the sedan chairs and carriages coming by. To see other young girls like herself, obvi ously maidservants, bustling by on errands. Everyone smiled and called out, "Compliments of the season!" Several apprentices offered her free merchandise from their master's shop for a Christmas kiss. She had not felt so carefree since coming to London. She would just walk a little farther, then turn around, go back, slip through the garden gate. No one would ever have to know.

   She realized she had walked into one of London's squares, those fine, open spaces surrounded by handsome town homes. They had begun to be developed in the reign of James I, when many noblemen, and a few London bankers with connections to the court, saw a profit in developing the fields around London and Westminster. Each one in its time drew tenants and surrounding shops and buildings, and as time passed, grew slightly unfashionable as another one took its place, all moving steadily out of the City of London and into Westminster, where the monarch lived. Now she was standing in the most fashionable, St. James's. She recognized it immediately by its central fountain. She walked across the cobbles to number seventeen, Roger's town house. I shall simply wish him a happy Christmas, one part of her was saying, while another part cried, what are you doing? But she knew. She knew what she was doing.

   She lifted up the heavy brass doorknocker with its lion's head and pounded it confidently against the door, which opened. In front of her stood a stately man with a neatly tied black wig. A crest was embroidered on his dark coat. What have I done? she thought wildly.

   She lifted her chin and said, "Lord Devane, please. Tell him it is Mistress Barbara Alderley." (To her dying day, she would never know what possessed her that fatal Christmas Eve; what made her ignore every rule of her upbringing and of society to call, without a chaperone, on a single man.)

   Cradock, Roger's majordomo, pursed his lips. He was too experienced not to know that she was who she said she was, but he was distressed by the lack of a maid or relative with her, and even if she were not who she said she was, Lord Devane would be angry with him for leaving her outside on the step. Lord Devane was noted for his courtesy and his hospitality, and as his most important servant, Cradock had a duty to represent those qualities.

   He bowed to her. "Come in at once, miss," and she followed him inside into a narrow hallway with a staircase ascending on the left-hand side, and two sets of doors on each side. Through the doorway to her right, she could see servants smoothing white damask tablecloths across tables. The chimney, which was in direct line of vision with the door, was wreathed with holly and ivy and had fat white candles set amid the greenery. It was Christmas Eve and he was giving a reception, and here she was. She was a fool, but she followed Cradock's gesture toward a door on the left.

   "If you will wait here, Mistress Alderley, I will inform Lord Devane. May I offer you refreshment?"

   "No," she whispered. The enormity of what she was doing made her feel faint. She was in a small parlor that reflected Roger's wealth and taste. It was called the Neptune Room because the patterned paper on the wall featured Neptune, his beard crusted with starfish and sea horses, rising from a cresting blue–green wave and blowing a golden horn while dark dolphins rose out of the waves. Every few feet of the wall was broken up by intricate, tiny fish and shells forever twisting in ribbons of wood. Armchairs of different sizes, their arms and legs carved in the shape of twisting, snakelike dolphins, were pulled up to five small card tables set about the room. In the center of each card table was a white candle surrounded with a rosemary and ivy wreath. Barbara sat down on the edge of a chair and tried to catch her breath. Her heart was beating so fast that she felt dizzy. What on earth was she expecting Roger to do—elope with her? Out of the question for her and for him. An elopement brought scandal and disgrace. Of course here she sat, doing something only slightly less scandalous. Please, please, please, she thought, and did not know what she was pleading for.

* * *

   Cradock knocked on the library door.

   "Come in," called Montrose, who sat at his desk rechecking the seating arrangements for dinner. White lounged in a chair near the fire rereading Alexander Pope's
Iliad,
the literary rage of the year.

   Montrose made a hissing sound as Cradock whispered to him, and White looked up from his book to watch his friend return to his desk, frown and shift a stack of invitations from one corner to another—an unnecessary gesture and one that gave him away. Cradock left the room.

   "What is it, Francis? Tell me. I know you. You are bursting with news." (If anything, for all his stuffiness, Montrose was a bigger gossip than White.)

   Montrose could not contain himself. "There is a young woman downstairs." He paused a moment for dramatic effect. "A young woman without a chaperone who says her name is Barbara Alderley.

   White's mouth fell open. Everyone in the household, from the kitchen maid to Cradock, knew that Lord Devane's marriage plans had soured. And White and Montrose both knew he had invested quite a bit of money in plans, surveys, permits, and loans to Lady Alderley. Even his renowned charm could not hide the fact that he was tired and shorter-tempered these days.

   "But why did Cradock come to you instead of—"

   "Responsibility."

   White understood at once. Great houses, staffed by many servants, were hotbeds of dodging responsibility.

   "Carlyle!" he exclaimed after a moment. "It has to be one of his tricks! Think, Francis. Remember when he paid two whores from Shoreditch to call and insist they were ladies–in–waiting to the princess with a personal message to Lord Devane? We lost him for days." He jumped up and grinned at Montrose, like a mischievous boy. "Let us both go downstairs and examine her. If she is genuine—which is impossible—I will tell him for you. I take full responsibility." He darted from the room.

   With a sigh, Montrose followed him.

* * *

   At the light, neat sound of a knock on the door, Barbara jumped up, her heart choking her. She was having trouble catching her breath. The sight of two strange young men, both now staring at her as if she were a freak at a country fair, made her feel faint. The room was too hot, she was going to fall—

   White caught her just before she toppled to the floor. Neither he nor Montrose thought it a joke anymore. It was obvious that this thin, pretty girl was someone respectable. What she was doing here without a chaperone—and looking like death—was something neither man wished to know. Everyone was in trouble. Lord Devane should have been summoned at once. White helped her sit down and patted her hand. She put the other one to her head.

   "Who are you?" she said.

   White bit his lip. "Go upstairs at once and fetch Lord Devane," he ordered Montrose, who was rooted to the floor. The urgency in his voice propelled Montrose out the door. It was only as he was knocking on the door to Lord Devane's bedchamber that he remembered that White had said he would be the one to tell Lord Devane, that he would be the one to take full responsibility. Before he could run back down the stairs, Justin, Roger's valet, opened the door. Like a man going to his doom, Montrose went in.

   "I am Caesar White, Lord Devane's clerk," White said to Barbara. "And that was Francis Montrose, his secretary. Forgive me, Mistress Alderley, but you look ill. Is there something I can get for you?"

   Barbara pulled her hand out of his. "Go away," she said. She felt so ashamed she thought she would die. She was in Roger's town house, and she had no business being there, and now two young men besides the majordomo had seen her, and she was in the worst trouble she had ever been in in her life.

* * *

   "It is private, sir."

   Roger signaled for Justin to leave the room. He had been dressing for the reception he was to hold this evening, and he wore a pale blue satin coat that matched his eyes. He looked extraordinarily handsome.

   "Mistress Barbara Alderley is in the Neptune Room, sir. Caesar is with her."

   Roger's eyes widened. He stepped closer to Montrose. "What do you mean, Mistress Alderley is in the Neptune Room? Is this someone's idea of a joke? Carlyle—"

   "I wish it were, sir. There is more, sir." Montrose swallowed. "She is alone, sir."

   "Alone!"

   Never, in all the years that Montrose had worked for Lord Devane, had Lord Devane shouted at him. He shouted now. "Why was I not informed immediately?"