Chapter 3 #2
Hope gave the candles one last dip, their balsam scent filling the kitchen.
This was the final batch, and Hope worried that she’d left the making of them too late.
The first few batches had sold well, but Christmas was around the corner, and if bad weather kept people indoors until then, the last batch might not sell at all.
“When will Mr. Penrose come home, Mama?” Holly carefully folded a round piece of newsprint into quarters, then eighths. She’d been at her project for more than an hour, covering the worktable with the results of her handiwork and the floor with bits of paper.
“This is not his home, Holly. If he found more work, he might not be back for some time. He might also have decided to bide elsewhere.” To give up on his house-swindling scheme, if any such scheme he’d had.
As much as Holly wanted to attribute such mischief to him, Mr. Penrose seemed lacking in any capacity for mischief at all.
“But what about his things, Mama?” Holly took up Hope’s cutwork scissors and began snipping. “His good boots are here and his satchel, and I am making snowflakes for him.”
Which explained Holly’s particular diligence, of course. “He’ll send a ticket porter for his effects, if need be.” With luck, Hope would never see him again.
The thought should have brought relief, except that Mr. Penrose had been intent on procuring food before he’d been swarmed by Gabriel’s gang.
“If we made snowflakes out of linen,” Holly said, “we could starch them, and then they would last forever.”
“If we made snowflakes out of linen, they’d be harder to cut out and more expensive. We would have to content ourselves with three or four and not the vast snowbank you’re making of The Times.”
“My hands get dirty from the newspaper. Linen would not get my hands dirty.” Holly held up her latest creation, a delicate octagon of more holes than paper. “When will Mr. Penrose be back?”
“I can’t speak for him, but we might see him soon.” The morning was gone, though the day was so gloomy that the sky gave no clue as to the hour as snow continued spitting down.
“Can we go out now that the candles are done? I’ve made enough snowflakes.”
Holly had made dozens, with the same sort of patient focus her father had turned on one invention after another.
“A short constitutional only,” Hope said.
“The walkways are all but cleared, thanks to Gabriel and his friends, but the snow hasn’t stopped.
” The cleared walkways were also thanks to Mr. Penrose.
As best Hope had been able to tell, he’d organized the boys and let the neighbors know that a shoveling brigade was available for hire.
Then he’d joined the ranks and done the lion’s share of the work.
Kind of him, also shrewd.
“Is Gabriel a first name or a last name?” Holly added her latest creation to the stack on the mantel, where Heifer could not turn her hard work into playthings.
“I don’t know which sort of name it is. You might ask him. It’s a good name. Let’s get into our boots.” Hope was not going in search of Mr. Penrose—if he was gone, so much the better, really—but by dint of two hours’ hard work by the parlor windows, she had a sampler to deliver.
On earth peace, goodwill toward men. Hope bore Mr. Penrose no goodwill whatsoever if he sought to steal the last asset she had to sell. Once the mortgage was cleared, the house wouldn’t bring much, but some of the furnishings were valuable, and Hope had learned to live frugally.
“Are we looking for Mr. Penrose?” Holly asked when her boots were laced and her cloak wrapped around her.
“We are not. He is a grown man and can find his own way.” Though London had probably changed a great deal during his absence, and travel was wearying. He might be lost.
“But what if he slipped in the snow and banged his head and doesn’t know where he is?”
Hope wrapped Edwin’s old scarf around Holly’s neck. “You are fanciful. If he did not slip on snowy streets when he was navigating them by dark of night, he’s unlikely to slip on cleared streets in broad daylight.” Then too, Edwin’s old boots were sturdy.
Mr. Penrose was not sturdy. He needed more meat on his bones, and he needed for that half-wild, distracted light in his eyes to fade.
“I wish we could go sledding.”
Once when Holly had been four, Edwin had taken her sledding in the park. The memory had been trotted out with every snowfall since his death. Another reason to dislike snow.
“The snow is too deep for sledding, though many will have their sleighs out in the next few days. Where are your mittens?”
Holly extracted them from the pockets of her cape and pulled them on. They were too big for her, but warm enough for present purposes.
“Where are your mittens, Mama?”
Sitting in a shop window in Petticoat Lane. “My gloves will do if I keep my hands in my pockets. Let’s be off, shall we?”
“And maybe we will find Mr. Penrose!” Holly clearly wanted to, but then, she had a trusting heart and few enough distractions in life.
The thought of her in service, made to drudge fourteen hours a day, no fresh air, no impromptu walks…
Hope would gladly take on that burden for herself if it meant Holly was provided for, but a little girl deserved better.
Perhaps Orson and Alma might relent, but surely it wasn’t yet time to seek last resorts such as that?
We haven’t much, but we still have authority over our time. A significant boon. Hope collected the finished sampler that she’d wrapped in newspaper and twine and prepared to be politely relentless.
Some enterprising soul had broomed off the area steps, another boon. Arriving to Mrs. Colchester’s door with wet hems would have earned Hope a polite frown and a few disparaging comments about the weather taking a toll on fashion.
Mrs. Colchester would also frown at Holly and frown at the sampler. She would damn the latter with faint praise and the former with outright criticism, but if she paid in coin, Hope would count the outing successful.
“Mama, your hands aren’t in your pockets. You should have worn your mittens.”
“My hands are full of Mrs. Colchester’s sampler.
We’ll deliver it while we’re out and about, shall we?
” No sign of Gabriel’s minions or Mr. Penrose, though a few pedestrians were taking advantage of the passable walkway, and a lone sleigh glided up the street, bells jingling in rhythm with the trotting horse.
“I don’t like Mrs. Colchester.” Holly tried to catch a snowflake on her tongue. “She doesn’t like me either.”
“She is not the most warmhearted soul. I try not to judge her for that.” Mr. Penrose wasn’t warmhearted either, but Hope found his company easier to bear than Mrs. Colchester’s.
Holly twirled on the walkway, tongue out, eyes closed. “I love snow.”
“I love you.” Loved the girl’s energy, joy, and curiosity, even as all those qualities also frequently left a mama exhausted and bewildered.
“Love you too, Mama. Will Mr. Penrose be home when we get back?”
“I don’t know.” He came from means, based on the quality of his attire and his public school diction, except that he hadn’t had sufficient coin to buy a loaf of bread. “We might not see him again, Holly.”
“That’s not fair. He came from the east, and he’s a stranger, and he came bearing gifts.”
“What gifts?” An eviction notice was not a gift. He could not legally evict them—only the bank could do that—but widowhood had given Hope a rapid, disconcerting education on how cold the comfort of legalities could be.
“He shoveled our walkway and got Gabriel’s troupe to do the rest. That’s a gift.”
Probably as great a gift to Gabriel and his little thieves as it was to the neighborhood. “I want to think well of Mr. Penrose, but we don’t know him, Holly.” An echo of the same criticism Hope had faced when accepting Edwin’s suit: But, my dear, we don’t know who his people are.
Even wanting to think well of Mr. Penrose was a problem, but widowhood had also disabused Hope of the habit of self-deception.
“I do think well of him, Mama.” Holly stopped at the foot of Mrs. Colchester’s steps. “I do not think well of Mrs. Colchester. She only pretends to put pennies in the poor box.”
Hope had seen that little ruse. Mrs. Colchester would make a quiet show out of fishing in her coin purse for tuppence and then examine the specimen she found before brushing her gloved hand over the slot in the top of the poor box.
Close scrutiny saw the coin returned to the purse as soon as Mrs. Colchester enjoyed the safety of her pew.
She knelt while replacing the coin in her purse, the better to hide her miserliness.
“Mrs. Colchester is a widow,” Hope said, staring up at a door graced by a wreath Hope had made herself. “She must be mindful of her coin, and she’s probably worried that she’ll be judged for not being able to make a contribution.”
Mrs. Colchester had the funds to make a regular donation, but she lacked the requisite generosity of spirit.
“I will tell her to pay you, Mama. You made a very pretty sampler with doves and roses and everything.”
“That won’t be necessary, but thank you.” The part of Hope’s heart that was still prone to wishes and wondering begged providence to deliver her from the next quarter hour. “Holly, you remember the rule?”
“Seen and not heard. I’ll be good, Mama.”
And the child would earn stale shortbread for her virtue. “I will be good too.” Try to be, but meek gratitude for a pittance here and there was becoming harder and harder to make convincing.
“Mama! It’s Mr. Penrose!”
Holly spun again and nearly came to grief. Mr. Penrose managed to catch her flailing arm without dropping the sack he carried in his other hand.
“Careful, child, or your mama will have scolds to fire off for the next five years, and they will be justified.” He spoke lightly, but not lightly enough.
“I was happy to see you,” Holly said, a slight mulish angle coming into her jaw. “We don’t want to call on Mrs. Colchester, but she owes Mama money for the sampler.”
“Hollister Ann,” Hope said, heat creeping up her neck. “One does not bruit one’s business about in the street.”
Holly looked from one adult to the other. “What’s ‘bruit’?”
“Bruit means,” Mr. Penrose said, “to bray and roar and have no care for privacy or discretion. I passed a chorus of girls bruiting their holiday glee to the skies.”
Holly repeated the word silently.
“You are delivering the completed sampler?” Mr. Penrose asked.
“We are. You’ve been shopping.” And he’d been on the way to the house with his treasures. Hope was unaccountably, embarrassingly glad, which would not do at all.
“Noon has come and gone, and I’ve not yet had my midday meal. Why don’t you ladies take the food home with you, and I will deliver the sampler? How much does Mrs. Colchester owe you?”
Hope named an embarrassingly small sum. “But you cannot deliver this to her like some ticket porter. She will be full of questions and draw all the wrong conclusions.”
Mr. Penrose plucked the sampler from Hope’s hands and passed her the sack, which was blessedly heavy.
“If she wants to pepper me with questions, she will have to order another sampler. I am merely making a delivery to ensure the customer has the goods by the agreed-upon date. The snow is picking up again. I’ll see you back at the house.”
He bounded up the steps with enviable energy. Hope considered telling him that if he meant to impersonate a ticket porter, he’d do so more effectively at the back door, but no kitchen maid would have payment on hand, and neither would the cook or housekeeper.
Not in Mrs. Colchester’s demesne. The front door was the portal to payment from the butler or—Mrs. Colchester would be curious about the fellow delivering the finished work—the lady of the house herself.
“Come on, Mama, or we might lose our way in a terrible storm.”
“You would vanquish the elements themselves, Hollister Ann.”
Holly took Hope’s free hand. “Papa used to talk to me like that. ‘Here there be dragons!’ There are no dragons, though.”
Oh, but there were, unfortunately. And there were terrible, sudden storms, and as Mr. Penrose doffed his hat and was admitted to the Colchester abode, Hope had the sense just such a tempest was bearing down directly upon her.