With articles for the next two issues of
The Ladies’
Journal
written and sold, I had a little time free to begin my novel. The memory of my villain had faded by slow degrees till it was hardly a memory. No critique of “A Daughter’s Dilemma” appeared in the
Quarterly Review.
It
did
feature a glowing review of the infamous Lord Byron’s latest epic,
The Lament of Tasso.
I wouldn’t pay a penny to buy it, and it was out at the circulating library. From the review, however, I gather it to have enlightened mankind as to the human condition, familiar and of lively interest to us all, of languishing in prison, full of grief for the lost love of a trollop named Leonora d’Este. I rather liked the name Leonora, and planned to steal it for the heroine of my gothic, so I got something out of it after all.
Lord Paton’s visit and several other incidents were discussed with Mrs. Speers. She was available for rational discourse only between the hours of four and six. She worked till four, and imbibed juniper water for the remainder of the day, but till she had downed three or four glasses, she proved an entertaining landlady.
A part of the entertainment was to see how she dressed. She always looked ready for a fancy ball, though she seldom went out. Silks, satins, lace—the woman spent a fortune on her back. She often took tea, at either our place or her own, and she was a mine of gossip, which she called “tips” for a beginning writer.
“You need expect no leg up from Lord Paton,” she informed me stiffly. “It is Byron’s latest rhyme he is puffing off this month, and never mind what atrocities made it necessary for him to run away from England. Those lords stick together like warm wax. You would not want to have anything to do with Paton if he comes sniffing around, my dear. He is a famous flirt, and one in your position ...”
My position appeared to intrigue Mrs. Speers unduly. Annie had let slip that my father was only recently dead. She was busy trying to figure out all the dramatis personae of my first essay, I think, but I gave her no help. She recognized that I was from a class above her own, and approved of me.
“Arthur tells me Paton’s ladybird drives around in a rig pulled by cream ponies, and wearing a fortune in jewels,” she continued when I did not respond to her hint. “Angelina, she calls herself. But she is through with Paton. I hear she has taken on a new protector who is even richer. Lucky wench!”
Annie bridled up and said, “It is odd Arthur did not mention it to me.”
Arthur Pepper, that unlikeliest of all flirts, had become an object of animosity between my chaperone and Mrs. Speers. As sure as he came calling on us, Mrs. Speers would make an excuse upstairs, even if she had to interrupt her writing to do it. He soon overcame that nuisance by calling after seven, when she was too firmly in Juniper’s clutches to mount the stairs.
“Why should he?” Mrs. Speers demanded haughtily.
“Because Lord Paton seemed interested in Miss Nesbitt,” Annie said hotly.
Mrs. Speers smirked indulgently in my direction. “Miss Nisbitt is a very refained young lady to be sure, but Lord Paton will be seeking a wife from the nubility. Someone like Madame de Stael, if she were a little younger and not a foreigner. Her being a foreigner makes her an interesting heroine for my biography, however.”
I wondered what Madame would say if she knew in what passionate prose she was being clothed. Heroine indeed, as if the work were another gothic novel. To my knowledge the only research undertaken was to read the old gossip columns of Madame de Stael’s visit to London, and to study the map of Europe to follow her other peregrinations.
“Anne Louise was born in Switzerland of a very wealthy family,” Mrs. Speers continued. She was ingenious in getting hold of the conversation and pulling it in Madame (Anne Louise to her intimes) de Stael’s direction. “I do hear her papa lent two million francs to the French government some years ago, which no doubt accounts for her being a favorite of Napoleon’s.”
One of the few items of common knowledge regarding Madame was that Napoleon particularly despised her. I had to wonder if Mrs. Speers had bestowed these gems of misinformation on Lord Paton.
“Are you writing anything else for Arthur at the moment?” Annie inquired.
“Now that he has found someone to replace me, I am able to concentrate all my efforts on Anne Louise’s story. Age is getting the better of me, and I limit myself to one work at a time. Such a relief that Arthur has managed to find a genteel young lady to fill the gap. Some of his writers are just a trifle common, I fear. Young Millie,
par example,
did not return home last night.”
She nodded her head wisely. “I’d swear on a Bible she had a gent clambering up a ladder into her room the night before, though they were quiet about it once they hopped into bed. I won’t have
that
sort of carry-on in my house. Damned if I will. Don’t you agree, Miss Nisbitt?”
“I’m sure you are mistaken in her character, Mrs. Speers,” I said. “Millie mentioned she was going to visit her sister yesterday. No doubt she remained overnight.”
“And no doubt her sister—if she has one—was rattling up the ladder at midnight the night before.”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
She simpered knowingly. “It is so refreshing to have a
real
lady to talk to. You never suspect ill of anyone, Miss Nisbitt, even when it is staring you in the face. I’m sure it is no odds to me who the trollop amuses herself with, so long as she pays up regular and doesn’t land a squawling brat in on us. And now I must return to my work. Thank you for the tea, it was lovely, as usual. A new tea set, I believe?”
The heavy crockery had been replaced, along with the addition of a few other refinements, to the detriment of our savings.
“Yes, do you like it?”
“Very genteel, I’m sure. If you’re not using the old one, I’ll just get it out of your way. I have picked up a rooming house in London, and am busy furnishing it.”
Annie and I exchanged an astonished glance. “The gothics,” she explained. “They are still selling as fast as kippers on the street corner. One reads of their demise from time to time, but great literature always endures, don’t you agree, Miss Nisbitt?”
I smiled pleasantly, and made a mental note to step up the pace on my own gothic. In order to catch the right, profitable tone, I borrowed a few of Mrs. Speers’s novels. Outwriting her did not appear to pose a problem. I could invent a gloomy mansion bordered by ancient yews, and a heroine prone to swooning at the slightest provocation as well as the next one. It was the heroine herself that upset me. Could any female really be so foolish as to believe in ghosts? Was sitting around, swooning, the only course of action to occur to her? Such a woman deserved her fate. Yet this was what allowed Mrs. Speers to buy up a rooming house with as little care for the expense as buying a new pair of stockings.
In the above manner we settled into our new life. At times we, probably Annie more than I, felt the loss of what we had left behind. On rainy days, of which there were many as September drew to a close, we felt like badgers in their sett in our shabby little rooms. But Annie had Arthur, I had my career, and we both had the satisfaction of independence.
We also had a flurry of letters from Geoffrey Nesbitt. The first contained an apology, in case he had unintentionally done anything to cause offense, and enquired in polite but stiff words how long we planned to remain in Bath. Our friends were pestering him for information, and he felt uncomfortable having to put them off for so long. Annie had written to him, giving our address. I wrote a reply, stiffer still than his own, ignoring any reference to having taken offense at the theft of my fortune, and informing him that it was not my intention to return, ever.
Three days later I received another missile, informing me that I was behaving irrationally, and asking what I was using for money. I replied that Bedlam had not come after me yet, and I was using pounds, shillings, and pence for money. He took the gloves off in the next one and ordered me home immediately. I mentally composed half a dozen replies of cutting irony, but did not commit any of them to paper. I had decided to ignore Geoffrey Nesbitt. If any more unsolicited letters arrived, I would refuse to pay for them. Let the post office return them for all I cared.
My wrath was poured out in my diary. Here is a sample of it. You can skip over it if purple prose is not in your line. “At what point in history was it decided that females were the inferior sex? In
A
.
D
. 60 Queen Boadicea led an army against the Roman legions. Queen Elizabeth, centuries later, was still able to overcome the bias toward her sex. In two hundred years, we have sunk to mere ciphers. If I should try to gather up an army of women today, I wager I could not raise a single regiment in all the island, with Ireland thrown in. Victory must be achieved more cunningly. The pen is still mightier than the sword. We must take control of the pen.”
Yet what my pen really wanted to write was a gothic novel. My heroine, however, would be instrumental in her own salvation. That would be one little step for womankind.
Chapter Six
We had been two weeks at Lampards Street. Between the exigencies of settling into our new rooms, my writing, the flurry of correspondence from Cousin Geoffrey, and finding our way about town, we had not done much in the way of establishing ourselves socially. We passed as quite the tip of the ton at Lampards Street, where the landlady and all the other denizens treated us with a comical degree of deference. We had made a few nodding acquaintances at the Pump Room, but there were larger fields to conquer, even in Bath. By degrees, Mr. Pepper and I had coerced Annie out of any semblance of mourning. Now it was time to enter our names with the Master of Ceremonies at the Assembly Rooms, and take on a wider society. Our first venture out was to a ball at the Upper Rooms.
During the day there was a flurry of refreshing our complexions with Gowland lotion and lemon water. Our hair was tied up in rags till the curls bounced in joy. Nails were filed and buffed. Gowns were pressed and all the other attempts at elegance attended to. The turban was to be abandoned for this public appearance. Miss Nesbitt would make her bows in an elegant golden gown of corded silk, the skirt rutched up with tiny dark green satin bows.
As Bath had the reputation of a valedtudinarians’ haven, I anticipated a sedate party. Imagine my delight to see the throng of black jackets blocking the door. The heads above them were neither grizzled nor bald, but a pleasing variety of browns, blacks, and blonds. My anticipation for the evening soared as we edged our way into the room. I felt like a heifer on the sale platform, being ogled so blatantly by the mob.
“We shall just find a seat a little farther into the room,” I said over my shoulder to Annie.
We inched forward, with “Pardon me” and “Sorry” sprinkled to left and right as we progressed. There was scarcely a seat to be had, but just before we came to the highest bench, a couple vacated their chairs, and with more speed than grace we beat another pair of ladies to them. I felt rather foolish when I realized one of the ladies was elderly, and rose to offer her my seat.
She was a toplofty-looking dame with a face like a gothic painting, but she smiled with great condescension and accepted the chair. Names were soon exchanged. The lady was a true Lady, one Lady DeGrue, and the young companion was her niece, Miss Bonham. While Annie conversed with the elder, I struck up a conversation with the younger.
The ladies turned out to be regular inhabitants of Bath, and were imbued with its restraint. Miss Bonham, who was not more than a year or two younger than myself, wore her hair parted in the center and skinned back in a tight little ball. She was quite pretty, with regular features, but very shy. Her gown rose nearly to her collarbone, and its adornments were few.
I soon sensed that Miss Bonham was not the sort of person who would appreciate
The Ladies’ Journal.
She was tediously proper, and I did not mention my career. Instead, I spoke of Nesbitt Hall. Naturally my father’s recent demise was concealed. My permanent remove to Bath became a visit, and per force Annie became invalidish.
I trusted Annie was purveying the same story to Lady DeGrue. Before long, Miss Bonham found a partner in an elderly gentleman whom she addressed as Sir Laurence. Lady DeGrue accepted the escort of Sir Laurence’s companion to the card parlor, and I finally got to sit down.
Annie immediately leaned toward me and said, “I hope you did not tell her anything about your writing. Lady DeGrue is a mighty high stickler.”
It was soon sorted out between us that we had both told the same lies. This settled, I was free to cast my eyes hopefully over the gentlemen. Outside of possibly seeing Lord Paton, I had not thought I would know anyone there. I could not decide whether I was happy or otherwise, when Mr. Bellows came bolting across the floor. In case your memory needs refreshing, he is Pepper’s owlish assistant, the man in charge of polishing up the prose of us writers before it appears in print.
He was undeniably a gentleman insofar as speech and manners go, and when that is said, the list of compliments runs dry. His father was a vicar in some village in the north of England. He attended Oxford for a year, after which the money ran out and he had to take work. He was a bookish young man of twenty-two or -three years.
Whatever Pepper paid him, it was not enough to keep up a creditable appearance. He looked and dressed like the impoverished son of a minor clergyman. He was of medium height and less than medium girth, not far from emaciated actually. His bony face, with dark eyes sunk deep into the sockets, always reminded me of a death’s skull when I met him on the stairs at Lampards Street.
The awful idea was taking root that he mistook me for a lady of fortune, and meant to marry me. I don’t know what else could account for his fawning manner.
“Miss Nesbitt! I have been hoping for weeks to find you here one evening,” he said in a solemn voice. “May I have the pleasure of the next dance?”