Chapter Twenty-Two
V iv had written to her aunt and to her family and packed all that she thought might be of use to her in Weymouth. Two trunks had been sent ahead. She would never wear her fine London clothes at home, but her mother and sisters might cut up her gowns for new ones for themselves. The letter to her aunt had required several attempts as Viv had dissolved into a watering pot with each early draft.
She had had to take herself to task and list Lark’s acts of perfidy before she could manage a clean, un-tear-stained copy. Item: he had deceived her from the first moment of their acquaintance, allowing his rough accomplice to make off with her purse. Item: he had given her a false name and lied about his position in the duke’s household. Item: he had prolonged their acquaintance by involving her in a deception of her friends. Item: he had kissed her without meaning anything by it, just as her former suitor in Bath had done. Item: he had stolen the corrected proofs of the book, her only record of the work on which she had placed her hopes.
The trouble with her list was that her heart looked at each of his treacherous acts and saw something different. He had stepped between her pistol and his friend, saving the friend. His spontaneous proposal had saved her for a time from the Strydes. He had ignored whatever real business he was meant to be doing to show her London as she had not seen it. He had challenged her and laughed with her. He had told her the name his friends called him. He had kissed her as if he meant it. He might not be a duke’s secretary, but he was clearly a duke’s intimate friend.
Her poor heart had been knocked about between the two ways of seeing him, like a sack of potatoes in a farmer’s cart jolted and bruised on a rough road. In the end, the theft of the proofs settled it. He was a thief, he stole things, purses, notebooks, pearls, perhaps even the ring he’d offered her. And if he read those proofs, and she knew he would, he would see how Lady Melforth had betrayed Viv. He would think Viv a rare idiot for believing that she, a dead man’s unwanted daughter, a girl from nowhere really, from an obscure seaside town long past its moment as a fashionable resort, could take on the great metropolis and tell its stories. It had all been vanity. She truly deserved her fall.
Her letter home had been easier to write as her family had never heard of her false betrothal. A reply came from her mother in Pippa’s handwriting saying that she could have her old bed in the room she had shared with Pippa and Charlotte.
Resigning before being sacked was small comfort. Since that day the Strydes had made themselves quite at home in the upper rooms, and Viv had moved like a ghost, nearly invisible as she went about her few tasks, using the servants’ stairs, speaking little, and eating her meals in her room. Only Jenny seemed to notice Viv at all. And in the morning, she would leave for home.
Jenny found her in the stillroom, the perfect refuge for a ghost, where she was in nobody’s way.
“Miss, an invitation ’as come for you.”
“Thank you, Jenny. Set it on the table, and I’ll get to it when I can.”
“It’s quite posh, miss, with a crest and all.”
Viv went on mixing a cordial for Lady Melforth. Now that she was leaving, she wanted to be sure that a good supply of Newberry’s headache cordial was on hand. She had no confidence in a nurse of the Strydes’ choosing. They would favor someone stern and of their moral leanings, but also cheap, and they would not look for a woman capable of compassion.
Out of the corner of her eye, Viv could see Jenny hovering, looking for a place to put the card. Viv set aside her work, wiped her hands on a towel, and came around the big table. “I’ll take it, Jenny, if you’re worried about setting it down among the herbs and such.”
“Thank you, miss. It’s from a duchess.”
Viv accepted the card. It was indeed from her grace, the Duchess of Wenlocke. For a moment a flutter of hope stirred in her. Then she recollected herself. The invitation came from her other life, the one she had led before she learned Lark was a pickpocket, before she knew he’d lied, before he’d stolen the proofs. In that life, she would have eagerly torn open the envelope and lost herself in anticipation of what to wear and whom she would meet. She was grateful to the duchess for the distinction of a personal invitation, and not as a lady’s companion might expect, a mention of herself as part of the household invitation.
But that life had ended. In her new life, the invitation meant nothing. Viv would be with her family in Weymouth long before the duchess’s dinner party.
“Will you go, miss?” Jenny asked. “Everyone says the duchess has great kindness.”
“I’m sure she does,” Viv answered, “but I must return to my family.”
“Oh miss, must you leave? Nothing will be the same without you.”
Viv shook her head. “If I tried to stay, I would be sacked.”
“We will all be sacked soon, miss, and whatever will we do? Mr. Haxton may find another situation, but I’m sure no one will want me.”
Viv tucked the duchess’s card into her apron pocket, took Jenny by the shoulders, and looked into the round, sweet face. “You must go to an agency, Jenny. I’m sure Haxton knows some very good ones.”
“But if you leave, miss, the mistress will die, I know she will, and if she dies, ’er ’orrible Stryde cousins will turn us all out at once.”
“You are probably right about the Strydes, Jenny, but not about her ladyship. Her low spirits make her case seem desperate, but it’s not. She has you and Sarah and Mrs. Brandle and Dr. Newberry to look out for her. She won’t die. Once her spirits recover, she’ll go along much better. You will see.”
“Oh, I hope so, miss. She used to laugh ever so much. Do ye remember?”
“I do, Jenny.”
“And, she doesn’t anymore. ”
“It is the shock of learning about her illness, Jenny. You must give her time to discover that she can get along quite well in spite of it. You can help her by being your usual self.”
“Me, miss?”
“You, Jenny. You go on doing for her with your quick cheerful ways, and you’ll see.”
“Thank you, miss, for saying so, and for telling me to find an agency. I won’t forget, miss.”
*
Not an hour later, Viv was summoned to Lady Melforth’s room. The closed curtains gave the room a stale and gloomy air. Her ladyship looked small and lost in the great bed, and white as if she had already died. Viv arranged the pillows and set a fresh draught of cordial at her ladyship’s side.
“Will you take a drive this afternoon, Lady Melforth?” Viv asked. For days it had fallen to her lot to promote the disagreeable, as she could not be sacked twice.
“I will not. I dislike riding with Eustacia excessively. She stops to introduce me to every horrid acquaintance of hers from the Anti-Vice Society. It’s like going about London in a green shoe blacking van with T HE T RAVELING V ISCOUNTESS writen large on the sides.”
Viv sympathized, but she was unmoved by the rebuff of her suggestion. “Nevertheless, those rides lift your spirits. If you won’t go with Mrs. Stryde, you must take advantage of my aunt Louisa’s offer of her landau. We can easily send to have it brought round, and I’m sure Sarah is willing to go with you. Dr. Newberry particularly encourages those rides to reduce your tremor.”
Viv crossed to the window and drew one of the curtains aside, letting in a shaft of brightness.
Lady Melforth held a hand in front of her face, blinking in the light. “Hah. Newberry is as bad as the other fellow. They won’t leave me in peace to die.”
“You are hardly in peace, ma’am. Nor are you dying. You are simply wallowing and refusing to confront this palsy and deal with it as both Newberry and Dr. Pridmore believe you can.”
“I didn’t summon you to preach to me, miss,” said Lady Melforth. “Your pickpocket has been arrested.”
Viv’s heart plummeted briefly. She froze, unable to recall what purpose had taken her across the room. In that dreadful moment of understanding who he was and what he’d done, she had wished him arrested. Now that the anger had left her, her heart was undefended against the softer feelings she had for him. She hated to think of him arrested. “Did you bring charges, ma’am?”
“I most certainly did. The fellow denies them, of course, says he never touched any book of mine. It took three constables to subdue the big lout.”
“You don’t mean Mr. Larkin then?” Viv unfroze and drew aside the second curtain.
“No, not Larkin, the other one, the one Haxton chased away.”
“Rook.” Oh dear. Viv thought of Rook, the poor man Lark had betrayed. Of course, Rook had not taken the proofs. He’d had no idea they were there on the steps, no notion of their value. He was an easy target for the police because he looked the part of a ruffian.
“Rook? That’s the man’s name. Suits him, I suppose.”
“So, you’ve not recovered the proofs?” Viv dared to ask. She didn’t see how the proofs could matter to Lady Melforth. If Dodsley needed her approval, he would send another copy. “No.” Lady Melforth’s voice shrank.
The fear in the small voice tugged at Viv, but she refused to bend. “Are you worried that Dodsley won’t go ahead with the printing as planned? Surely he has your approval.”
“I wanted…to look them over one more time to make sure Dodsley got everything right.”
Viv held her breath. Perhaps her ladyship regretted what she’d done. Perhaps she had acted in anger and haste and would change her mind. The trouble with betrayal was that though one should hate and despise one’s betrayer, one did not, or not entirely. The betrayer had stopped loving or caring and turned away. Some vital element, which had come from them, had been withdrawn, which one still needed like air, so one gasped for it.
Lady Melforth threw off the coverlet. “No matter. Call Sarah. I will go out. Send for Louisa’s landau.”
At the door, Viv turned back to say, “You will climb volcanoes again, you know, ma’am.”
“Hmmph. You are too bold for your own good, miss.”
“If I am, you taught me to be so.”
*
Viv returned to her work in the stillroom. An hour later, she was finishing up and putting away the bottles of cordial when Newberry walked in.
“I hear you convinced my patient to take a ride today. How did you find her?”
“She looks worse than she is. Her spirits are low. Can you limit the Strydes’ visits?”
“Her dear family members?” His voice had a disdainful edge to it.
“You’ve known for months how her cousins affect her.” Viv closed the cupboard door, turned the little key. Newberry stood between her and the hook on the wall where the key belonged.
“If her spirits are low, her disappointment in you is a large part of that.”
“Tomorrow I’ll be gone. You need no longer worry about my influence on her spirits.”
“You could apologize before you go.”
“To whom? For what?” Viv could not hold back the sharpness of her tone.
“For your lack of caution and sense in bringing Mr. Larkin here and entering into a betrothal with him. I knew he was hiding something, but really, Viv, to take up with a common pickpocket?”
“I seem to have disappointed your expectations.”
“Not mine alone. The expectations of any gentleman of proper feminine behavior. How can a decent man have any regard for you?”
Viv’s temper was stirring, flickering to life, and she tried to tamp it down. Newberry said only what the world thought of Lark and of her. “I suppose you’re right, and only a pickpocket could care for a woman of my sort. ”
“I don’t understand. Why did you choose him when you—”
He did not say that Viv might have had him. He was very handsome. At one time he had seemed to see her as an equal, and she had thought him the sort of man for whom she might come to feel an attachment, kind, principled, and caring. Maybe Viv was mad, but she thought her common pickpocket had a more generous idea of feminine behavior, and more genuine regard for women as rational creatures and independent beings. “Did you come to quarrel with me?” she asked.
“No. At least I didn’t intend to quarrel.” He ran a hand through his curls. “I thought we were…partners in our care of her ladyship. She has been good to me, good for my practice. She helped me to establish myself among people who matter. And I know she’s been good to you, teaching you how to tell stories and put a guide together.”
“I have much to thank her for, and I hoped you and I might part as friends.”
“Hoped?”
Viv raised her brows. “It’s more difficult to part as friends if you blame me for the effects of her illness and disappointment.”
He started to reply, stopped, and gave a rueful laugh. “I don’t understand you, Viv, and I don’t understand how I ended up on the Strydes’ side of the aisle, as it were.”
“I know.” She did. While she had been seeing London through different eyes, the eyes of her betrothed, Newberry had been seeing it more and more from the Strydes’ view. She knew London was bigger than he thought and that it was more dependent on people who were not the right sort of people, people on other streets who had other stories to tell. “I’ve made up some jars of cordial, and trained Jenny to make more. If you rely on Jenny and the staff and don’t let the Strydes take over, Lady Melforth will do quite well.”
She offered her hand. He took it and looked as if he might say more. Viv gave him no encouragement. He bowed and took his leave.
She was free of everything that kept her in London. She had done the work entrusted to her. She had learned lessons in humility as well as boldness, perhaps not all the lessons she needed to learn. She reflected that her family’s household in Weymouth would teach her more. She had had her hopes dashed and her heart broken. Now she had only to pick herself up and go on. She hung the key to the stillroom cabinet on its hook and closed the door.