“I dislike to call uninvited.”
“We are not so niffy-naffy in our manners. All my writers are one happy family. You will meet a half dozen of them at Lily—Mrs. Speers’s do this evening. She enjoys throwing literary soirees. Bring along your chaperone if you dislike to come alone,” he suggested with a quick glance at Annie.
I felt a pleasant humming of the blood in my veins at the words “literary soiree.” It was the very sort of thing I had hoped to become involved in. Lily Speers was not a writer whose novels received wide critical acclaim, but certainly she was popular and prolific.
“Do you have her address?” I asked.
“I have one of her cards here somewhere,” he said, and began rooting through his pockets, which held a whole packet of cards. It occurred to me that I must have new cards and stationery printed up as soon as I had found myself a set of rooms.
Mrs. Speers’s dog-eared card was eventually found and handed over. I put it in my purse and we left, with every expression of pleasure at the visit, and assurance of meeting that evening at Mrs. Speers’s house.
When we gained the fresh air and sunshine, Annie rolled up her eyes and said, “We’ll catch the coach back to Milverton tomorrow. You won’t want to have anything more to do with the likes of Pepper.”
Her imperative glance told me she expected a battle, and I was happy to oblige her. “Nonsense. What does it matter to us if he chooses to live in a pigsty? We’ll never have to come here again. It leaves all the more money to distribute to his authors.”
“Aye, and have their works put out into the world with naked women on the cover. Your papa would roll over in his grave if he saw it.”
“He’s not likely to see it, is he, Annie? Ah, excellent! The cab waited for us, and I didn’t even ask it to.”
“How could it leave, when the road is full of cows? We shall be here all night.”
After I had won the argument about remaining in Bath and continuing to write for Mr. Pepper, our talk turned to finding rooms. Annie was so disgruntled that I decided to put it off till tomorrow. With the lure of riches and stardom reeling in my head, I felt it not an extravagance. And besides, I wanted to spend some time planning my outfit and hairdo for Mrs. Speers’s literary soiree.
Chapter Three
As the rising star in Mr. Pepper’s literary firmament, I felt I had to dress the part. Not for me the modest frumpiness of Miss Burney or Jane Austen. I had seen pictures of Madame de Stael and Caroline Lamb, and was undecided which style to follow. A long examination of my face in the mirror hinted that the somewhat gamin charm of Lady Lamb was not for me. A turban, on the other hand, a la Stael, might add an aura of distinction.
That I did not possess a turban caused a delay, but by no means a deterrent. My elegant rose silk shawl, shot through with gold threads, would provide makeshift headgear till I could purchase a real turban. Lacking a proper brooch to tether the ends, I borrowed Annie’s paste circlet of diamonds given to her by her niece last birthday. I seemed to recall that in the picture of Madame much admired in
La Belle Assemblée,
she wore an extremely décolleté gown to very impressive effect. Lacking her thoracic development (and a very low-cut gown) I settled for my green sarsenet. My shawl-turban usually provided warmth with that particular gown. As I possessed no suitable substitute, I decided to leave my arms bare, and hoped that Mrs. Speers kept a warm house.
My entire toilette was accompanied by a threnody from Annie, who insisted God in his heaven had nothing better to do than devise some hideously cruel fate for my waywardness. She courted redemption by wearing black, even if she was going to a party. I hoped it might be mistaken for a lack of interest in fashion, but really she looked like a carrion crow.
E’er long, the crow and the peacock were heading below stairs to our waiting hansom cab. I gave the driver the address, Lampards Street, and he moaned. “I’ll try if I can coax my nags up the hill,” he said in a voice that suggested it was downright cruel of us all, and not likely of success either.
The nags set out briskly enough, but as we began to scale the heights, our speed slackened noticeably. We were going so slowly as we crawled up Russell Street that there seemed a very real possibility we might have to get out and push. Eventually we were deposited at the doorstep of a large and fairly impressive-looking mansion, done in the Palladian style. Lights beamed from a dozen windows on three floors, giving a cheery aspect.
“You see what can be wrought by the power of the pen, Annie,” I said, examining the house. “With luck and diligence, you and I may inhabit such a mansion one of these days.”
“Make sure you don’t build it atop a mountain like this one” was her sulky reply.
“But only look how lovely the view is,” I pointed out. Below us spread the city, with lights gleaming like fireflies in the blackness of a summer garden. “By day it must be stunning. I shall compliment Mrs. Speers on her location.”
“I doubt that poor team will ever stagger back down the hill without breaking their knees. With all the good flat land around, whoever decided to build a town in such an unlikely place?”
“I believe the Romans are responsible,” I replied tartly, and headed to the door before she lured me into her bad mood.
The first intimation that all was not of the first stare chez Mrs. Speer was the squid-faced female servant who answered her door. In such an establishment, I expected a proper butler. The awful thought flashed into my head that till I had prospered beyond five guineas, Annie would be opening our door to my callers.
The girl, who had no more notion how to answer a door than a yahoo, curtsied, grinned, and said, “La, more company! Come in and join the squeeze, ladies, but don’t expect to find a chair.”
On this peculiar greeting we entered. The girl pointed to a table in the hallway, which was piled high with coats, curled beavers, walking sticks, gloves, bonnets, and pelisses, and disappeared without announcing us. Annie and I exchanged a blank stare and removed our outer garments. We stood in the hallway, peering into a brightly lit and noisy saloon, where perhaps two dozen people stood, holding glasses and shouting at each other at the top of their lungs. None of them, including the hostess, paid the slightest attention to us.
Annie looked at me, picked up her bonnet, and said, “If we hasten, we can still catch the cab.”
A line from Shakespeare’s
Julius Caesar
darted unbidden into my head. “‘Ambition should be made of sterner stuff,’ “ I said, and took a deep breath preparatory to announcing myself. It seemed an absurd thing to do, but how else was I to call the hostess’s attention to our arrival? Surely a self-announcement was better than none.
I stood a moment, scanning the crowd. I need not have worried I was going a bit far to turn my shawl into a turban. I would have felt undressed without it. Every single lady in the room wore a turban. Nine tenths of them were topped off with towering plumes. None of the ladies carried shawls, and Madame de Stael’s décolleté would not have rated a second glance.
There were jewels aplenty, but even at a distance of three or four yards from the closest gem, I detected a noticeable lack of luster. Paste! If that red stone the size of a greengage plum had been a real ruby, it would be famous throughout the land.
After this observation, I turned my attention to the black jackets. There, too, things were amiss. The white shirtfronts and cravats did not sparkle as freshly laundered linen should. The jackets of the elders did not so much cling to shoulders as sag wearily from them. The younger gentlemen with some interest in fashion had their shoulders wadded out to ridiculous widths. Their hair was curled artfully over their foreheads, and one wore an outmoded pair of breeches and silk stockings. It was a parody of a polite party that called up, for some reason, the progress of Hogarth’s rake.
I couldn’t decide whether to laugh and join them or grab my pelisse and run out the door. Before any decision was taken, Mr. Pepper shot out from behind a laughing group and headed for me. I was surprised to see he owned a decent evening suit, and had a fresh shave. A statuesque lady of magisterial bearing tagged along behind. She wore a shiny green satin turban with white feathers, a huge brooch of strass glass, several square inches of gooseflesh, and a green gown. I judged her to be a well-seasoned forty-five or -six, under her orange rouge.
Without waiting for introductions, she seized my two hands and pulled me against her ample bosoms. An awful stench of lavender and gin engulfed me. “Miss Nisbitt. How I have bin looking forward to meeting you. Arthur has told me all about you,” she said in some strange accent that resulted from trying to hide the bells of Saint Mary le Bow by pursing her lips daintily. I escaped her clutches, and saw she was smiling at Mr. Pepper, presumably Arthur.
I presented Miss Potter, who was welcomed with a glancing nod, before Mrs. Speers, the lady in the green turban, clapped her hands and called for attention. A few curious heads turned to examine me while I was presented as “the lady we have all bin on nittles to meet, Miss Nesbitt.” I shall not continue with her accent, but if you picture her lips pursed up as if she had sucked a lemon, you will have an idea how she spoke.
The lackluster eyes took a quick, disinterested glance, and returned to their shouting. “We shall escape this mad throng and have a quiet little cose,” Mrs. Speers decided.
On that speech, the hostess deserted her party and led me to a morning parlor, where she called for wine and biscuits. I looked helplessly over my shoulder at Annie, and saw that Mr. Pepper was endeavoring gallantly to entertain her. At least he was handing her a glass of wine. What they would have to say to each other I could not imagine.
There was a grate in the parlor to which we went, but no fire in it. I felt goose bumps rise on my arms, and hoped the wine would allay the cold. It did not, nor did it provide any other pleasure. It posed as sherry, but tasted like turpentine. After the first sip, Mrs. Speers wisely set hers aside and called for water. What came was a colorless liquid bearing the telling aroma of juniper.
“Call me when Paton arrives, Sal,” she said to the servant, the same one who had admitted us to the house.
“What a lovely big house you have, Mrs. Speers,” I said, rather wondering why we were sequestered in such a cubbyhole of a parlor.
“There is no investment like real estate,” she assured me. “When Gaby died—that is my late husband—he said, ‘Lily, scrape up every penny you can lay your hands on and buy yourself a house. You will always have a roof over your head, and will never starve to death when you have a house with rooms you can let.’ And I followed his advice.” She took a long draught of her “water” and smacked her lips.
“I expect that was some time ago?” I queried politely.
“Oh my yes, a dozen years. I have grown rich since then. I have rooming houses sprinkled all around the country. I keep a room in each for myself, which makes traveling so much cheaper. I wrote
Angelina
in Newquay—in Cornwall, you know. I needed the stormy sea and cliffs and whatnot for that one. And
Marie Claire
was written in Brighton, for she was an orphan from the Revolution.”
“These are your gothic novels, Mrs. Speers?”
“Indeed they are. I wrote two dozen of them, and very profitable they were too, but I have taken up
serious
writing now.”
“Indeed! For Mr. Pepper, you mean?”
“Pepper?” She stared, offended. “Certainly not, though I scribble up the odd article for him. Seven guineas always comes in handy to buy knickknacks.” Her eyes slid to the juniper water. “No, I am writing a biography of my heroine, Madame de Stael, Miss Nisbitt.” Her voice was beginning to slur.
I had rather wondered that Mrs. Speers did not resent my rising star at
The Ladies’ Journal,
and I now had my answer. I also had an idea what price to demand for my next essay. It seemed shockingly high. Throughout the conversation, Mrs. Speers’s eager desire to meet me did not lead her to ask any questions, or even give me much chance to volunteer any information. Her real interests were twofold: herself and Madame de Stael, in that order.
When she next stopped to take a tipple, I put the pause in her monologue to good use and enquired, “What sort of article do you think Mr. Pepper wants?”
“Just the sort of thing you wrote before. That will go down very well, my dear. All about how men abuse us and steal our money under the guise of marriage, and leave us to educate ourselves. They take all the good jobs. Why should not Madame de Stael with all her learning and nobility and experiences, be an ambassadress, I should like to know?”
“Why indeed? But about my writing—to go on writing the same sort of thing time after time ...”
“It is what he wants. Millie Pilgrim writes on the plight of governesses and house servants. Her article on how the lords of the manor prey on innocent young girls was very effective. Next month she is doing nursemaids. Elinor Clancy, a vicar’s orphan, writes of the situation of ministers’ female children. There is more goes on in a rectory than counting prayerbooks! She knows of a vicar in Northumberland who has never opened a Bible. He has a daughter write all his sermons while he takes the bows and collects the money. That is the sort of thing we expose.”
I felt quite at a loss. “I have no experience of that sort, I’m afraid.”
She grabbed my hand and laughed gaily, “Oh, my dear! That is not what
you
shall write! You are so refained—I noticed it at once when Arthur showed me your essay. All done in lovely copperplate writing, and with such faine grammar. You are to write of life from the real lady’s point of view. You will add a touch of class to the magazine. Such things as forcing daughters to marry for money, and how husbands squander their wives’ blunt on other ladies—that sort of carry-on must be exposed. Surely you know of many such cases outside of your own, and if not, you must use your imagination. No need to mention any names at any rate, and go making enemies in high places. It will be the makings of you—and your friends need never know, for you will remain a question mark. My suggestion, by the by. Do you like it?”