Enchanted Summer: (Regency Romance) (17 page)

“It doesn’t help for you to weary yourself further with blame. I beseech you, try to sleep a little. Liddell says we’ll be reaching London in about three or four hours. There—he is back with our tea. After you take your tea you must promise you will try to sleep. I can’t bear so see you so distraught. At least Bella is alive. Worse things could have happened. You must have faith that everything will be resolved.”

The three young people had their tea with freshly-baked scones. After that they settled on the cushions to catch a few hours of sleep before they arrived in London.

Celia closed her eyes as Henrietta did and next she opened them when the noises, acrid smells and coal smoke of London cut through her consciousness.

The first thought in her mind was like a dagger that slid through layers of sleep and brought back reality and the calamity that was now her grim companion.

CHAPTER 19

The noisy London streets through which they drove seemed unreal to Celia and as strange as streets in a dream. Little progress could be made through the waist-high fog and the coach had slowed almost to a halt, the wheels turning slowly as it cut through unkempt crowds of vendors and beggars. Coal chimneys spewed forth endless smoke that stung her nose and dark clouds hovered.

It had been many months since they had left their neighborhood at Spitalfields. After the bucolic quiet of the countryside the confusion merely added to the tumult in Celia’s mind.

She recalled that time at the beginning of their stay at Rook’s End when she had spent a few days in London with Ellen and Robert. London with them had seemed dreamy, romantic; their presence softening the city’s hard edges of which she was now painfully aware. But now, when reality and tragedy had struck so close to her loved ones the city seemed alien and menacing and she was aware as never before of her own mortality.

She saw beggars yelling and slamming against their carriage, gutters flowing with filth as the stench of unnamed odors reached her nostrils and children that tore at the heart begging for a crust of bread.

“This is the worst part of London,” said Liddell. “I’m always uneasy passing through this section. The law is nowhere to be seen. I think the Magistrate’s runners are afraid themselves of having a knife stuck in their ribs or their pockets picked.”

A man in rags and with a deformed face pressed against the window of the carriage as it slowed even more and he demanded money from them.

Liddell threw him a coin, more to get rid of him than for any feeling of compassion. “These rats would as soon pick your pocket than beg for money,” he said. “One and the other are the same to them.”

“Those children look so hungry,” said Celia, reaching for her purse. She threw a handful of coins to them and saw with horror as they fought each other viciously for them.

Tears slid down her cheeks as she stared at the children who were dressed in filthy rags and whose faces were ravished with hunger and disease.

“Traffic seems to have bottled up a block down,” said Liddell. He alit from the carriage and went to consult with the driver. Soon he was back.

“It’s all right now; we’ll be moving faster. I think another road to London should be built which did not go through such a sewer as this.”

But even the better streets of downtown London swarmed with beggars. Celia, overwhelmed by her troubles was now keenly aware of human misery of any form and realized that these people, dressed in better clothes, with a roof over their heads and food at their tables would not have become the human discards they now were. She felt saddened by the sight, for she remembered that Uncle Worth was the only thing that stood between her family and a similar fate:
the workhouse
—that horrible place of last resort!

No words in the English language brought a worse fear to her than those. That her family was ever close to the brink sent shivers to her in the late-spring day. The fear of destitution that had kept her awake night after night and had been her shadow during the day. Their small trust dwindled as their quarterly stipend, inadequate ten years before, was now sadly meager to face the increasing prices after the war’s end. She had discussed this with Fred and Fred told her that he had inquired about employment at one of the local mills. He was certain he could be a supervisor but such a post would not be offered to him because of his young age.

But now that Henrietta’s father had been made manager of an estate,  he told Celia, perhaps some kind of work could be found for him at the estate Mr. Epson managed. Celia thought about employment for herself as a governess but felt that the wage was meager because room and board counted with the wages.

* * *

Liddell installed them in a farmer’s hotel close to the lodgings he occupied in London in one of the main avenues overlooking the Thames and after partaking of a quick meal with them took off, assuring them that he would soon find out Jack and Bella’s whereabouts.

Celia regained a little of her spirit with the warm food and the hot tea and she and Henrietta sat at the window to await Liddell, both girls hoping he would bring back good news. He had a trust-inspiring air and such an unconscious faith in his abilities that he transmitted them to the girls.

They looked out to the River Thames, the water rippling under the lights that had started to go up, with their elbows on the windowsill.

“Are you feeling better, Celia?”

“Yes, a little. I am so grateful for you and Liddell’s help. I know that you were not happy having to leave your mother. But what would I have done without you?”

“Oh, Mama is much better,” Henrietta said quickly, “I didn’t mind leaving her this time. Aunt Martha and Aunt Tillie are to stay with her until I return. And Papa was to arrive the same day we left.”

“You’ll see, everything will work out,” she added. “Everything always looks darker when you don’t have information, Celia. Once we are apprised of the exact circumstances and of Jack and Bella’s whereabouts the outlook will be a lot more cheerful.”

“I wish I could have your faith,” Celia said with a long sigh. Celia had a grey almost desperate look in her eyes. “I can’t seem to shake a feeling of doom; that nothing will ever be as it was again.”

“Nonsense, of course it will be.”

The hours crawled by. Celia slept a little and awoke with a start by sounds from the street. It seemed everywhere there was movement of some kind. Carriages came and went and the racket of hawkers, horses and people reached a high pitch so that she went and shut the window. These noises would be forever linked in her mind to this dreadful day of waiting.

And when long shadows of twilight began to fall on the street and the noises became more muted Liddell knocked at the door. His knock was urgent, anxious and he called out to them in a nervous voice. The girls had been reclining in the bed asleep and awoke with a start. They scrambled from the bed and both ran to the door at once.

“I have found them!” Liddell announced breathlessly.

“And you have spoken to them?” Celia’s voice shook.

“I dared not,” Liddell replied. “They know me only as a stranger. I have not even laid eyes on them but I have been assured by the hotel keep. In truth, they have not even disguised their names…”

“I thought I had better come back and fetch you,” Liddell went on. “Celia is the only one with any authority in the matter. But we must leave at once. We have no way of knowing if they are to remain there or if they intend to leave. We must not waste a minute. The hotel is not as nice as ours, even though this one is no beauty and it’s at some distance from here.”

The girls wasted no time in getting their wraps and they were off in little time.

Over the busy streets once more, Celia’s heart beat unbearably to the clop of the horses hooves over the cobblestones and she felt a pressure on her chest. Phrases tumbled on each other in her mind, phrases with which to greet Jack and Bella. She replaced scolding with entreaties and switched back again when their behavior brought to her a sense of outrage.

All three were silent inside the hack; a heavy pall enveloped them at the nature of their mission. They had never been in a situation even remotely similar and were like actors on the stage who have forgotten their lines.

Finally, Liddell said, “I believe you should go in alone once they open the door, Celia. Henrietta and I will wait just outside. I think we should give them some privacy in their discourse with you. After all, I don’t know either of them and Henrietta does not know Jack at all.”

“I think you’re right,” Celia agreed, her voice barely audible. She did not object to Liddell’s plan even though she feared what she might find.

* * *

“We’ve arrived at their hotel.” Liddell exclaimed. Liddell’s horses had been left in the mews near their hotel, to be fed and rested, so the hired hackney coach they had boarded came to a halt and Liddell jumped out and helped the girls down. “Remember, we will be right outside the door, if you should need us, Celia.”

“I shall call you as soon as it can be managed,” Celia replied.

Celia walked with Liddell and Henrietta into the small hotel lobby. The hardwood floor was roughly painted rather than varnished and there was a smell of stale cabbage in the closed air. It was not a large or even a nice hotel, but it was not dingy either. It seemed the kind of hotel farmers with their families patronized when they had no relatives in the city, similar to the one they were staying at but smaller and rougher.

The man at the desk greeted them with solicitude, recognizing Liddell, who an hour before had tipped him so that he would not alert the elopers.

The man, balding, stout and with a red face glistening with sweat, stopped his chore, for he had been mopping the floor. He ran a cursory eye over the girls’ clothes as if assessing the kind of tip he was going to receive. His face was friendly but his words disturbing.

“I have not seen them myself as a couple, only Mr. Longard.”

“You did not see Miss Bella?” asked Celia.

“I saw a lady with ‘im when he first registered—hum, two days ago, and she answers to the description you gave me, sir,” he said to Liddell, “but a brief glimpse is all I’ve ‘ad of ‘er. The gentleman came down often, though—the first day. Restless he was. But yesterday or this morning I ‘ave not seem ‘im at all.”

“So they may not even be there?”

“They must be there,” the man said. “Why else would they ‘ave paid a whole week in advance?”

“We’ll soon find out,” said Liddell. “Come this way…” he led the girls up the stairs and to the rows of rooms through corridors illuminated by dim sconces at long intervals.

“This is it—twenty-five,” Liddell said in a whisper. He paused at the door, breathed deeply and then knocked.

There was no answer. Celia’s heart sank at the possibility that they had left. Liddell waited a few seconds and then knocked harder, Again, no sound from within.

They waited a few seconds. Then a voice:

“Is it you, Jack?”

“It’s Bella!” Celia said, turning to Liddell.

“Bella, please open the door. It is I, Celia.”

“Oh, Celia…” Bella unlocked the door and opened it wide. She then rushed into her sister’s arms and dissolved in a river of tears.

“Where’s Jack?” Celia asked as Bella continued to cry on her shoulder. She glanced above her sister’s shoulder around the small empty room.

“He’s…gone!” Bella said through sobs.

“Gone!”

Liddell ushered Henrietta into the room and closed the door.

“Where has Jack gone to?” Celia asked her sister, who still clung to her as if to a lifesaver.

“Gone since the day before yesterday.” Bella gasped the words through sobs.

“But why?”

“Oh, Celia, I was terrified of going downstairs. I kept hoping Jack would be back…”

“This is outrageous,” said Henrietta.

“He left you here alone for the last two days, Bella?” Celia asked.

“Yes.”

“But why didn’t he at least send us a missive so that we could come fetch you? Did he give you a hint of his intentions?”

“He said if he should not come back for any reason I should take this money and go back to—Shelton. I thought he was joking,” Bella said as she lifted the bank notes that were folded and lying on the nightstand and dropped them listlessly.

“What did you do here alone the last two days?” Henrietta asked.

“I cried, mostly. I haven’t had anything to eat at all except a meat pie and milk Jack left here before he…he…”

Bella turned from Celia to Liddell, who was a total stranger to her as she talked. Her large blue eyes were filled with tears and her thick lashes glistened with them. Her dark luxuriant hair, tossed and unkempt fell down her back in a cascade of curls. She was wearing a sky-blue gown and a white shawl and looked like the statue of the Virgin Mary, standing in a pool of light.

Liddell stared at her transfixed.

Celia, distraught, measured not her words, forgetting Liddell was in the room.

“Did—did that first day that you arrived, Bella, did Jack spend the night in this room?” Then realizing the import of her words Celia blushed as she stole a look at Liddell.

“He spent the day only,” said Bella, wiping the tears that flowed freely from her eyes. “At first he was all right. He was merry and happy and made plans for us to travel on to the Scottish border, to Gretna Green. Then he began to brood and paced the floor endlessly. He talked to himself a lot about money. ‘Where will I get the money?’ he would ask of no one over and over.

“Then he left before nightfall, while I was taking a nap.”

Liddell, who had been holding his breath even as Celia, now let out a sigh.

“Well,” said Celia with relief, “we can thank the Lord for that, at least!”

“He must have grown fearful of the consequences of his act,” said Henrietta, instilling a practical tone into the drama that had unfolded in the small hotel room.

“Get your things together, my sweet,” said Celia, as if coming out of a dream. “We are taking you away from here at once. You can tell me more on the way. I cannot bear to be in this place one more second.”