Chapter 15 #2
“No.” She found herself suddenly laughing, and how impossible that had seemed only fifteen minutes before! “No. I understand it. I think I really do.”
“She really does,” Miss Sedgewick confirmed to Mr Simmons. “And I’ve called this meeting to initiate her into our club. She has very good reason to join.” Then, to Lucy’s horror, she began to tell Mr Simmons exactly what Jack had proposed in Hyde Park.
When it was done, Mr Simmons, now redder than Lucy felt even herself to be, nevertheless turned grave eyes on her with a quiet sympathy that seemed to lay all her secrets bare. “I am very sorry.”
She stammered some reply, hardly knowing where to look.
“So you see why we must do something, George,” Miss Sedgewick said. “You know how Jack gets when he has the bit between his teeth. And he’s far too hardheaded to respond to gentle handling.”
“If only he were a horse,” Mr Simmons mused, “but it isn’t legal to whip him, alas.”
Lucy was shocked into another laugh, and Mr Simmons met her eyes with a smile before continuing more seriously. “I can talk to him. I’ve been trying to explain for five years that he doesn’t need to protect me.”
“Does he listen to you?” Lucy asked, as curious as she was hopeful.
“Never,” replied Mr Simmons with smiling emphasis.
“And his guard-dog instincts are even more heightened in our Lucy’s case,” observed Miss Sedgewick.
“I have already told him no,” Lucy began, “and…and if you speak to him too, surely he will give up the idea?”
The others exchanged a look that showed clearly how doubtful they found that.
“But what can I do?” said Lucy in despair. “I cannot, cannot let him tell people we are engaged. It would be…be awful beyond endurance.”
Mr Simmons nodded heavily, that sympathetic understanding back in his eyes.
Lucy toyed with her gloves, with a fold of muslin on her skirt, feeling these people understood her far better than she wished.
She glanced up to find Miss Sedgewick looking from her to Mr Simmons and back again with an incredulous smile.
“My dears, how has it possibly not occurred to you what the obvious solution is? You both wish to escape the mantle of Jack’s protection. What better way than to do so together? You should get engaged!”
They both stared at her in horror.
“I—”
“We—”
“Another ruse, of course,” she explained, laughing at their expressions. “Tell Jack that you are engaged. And then he’ll have no right to interfere in either of your business.”
Lucy looked at Mr Simmons, sure her face was quite as ridiculously stunned as his.
“It’s…” he began.
“I…” she tried.
“It’s a stroke of genius,” Miss Sedgewick said firmly.
Lucy kept looking at Mr Simmons, and he kept looking at her. She saw the slow change in his expression, the thoughts that crossed over it just as they crossed over hers, the head-shaking smile that crept into his eyes… They both laughed.
“Preposterous!”
“We can’t!”
“But imagine his face when he hears the news,” Miss Sedgewick said, “and tell me you wouldn’t love to see it.”
That wasn’t the compelling argument she intended. Lucy winced at a stab of guilt. Mr Simmons frowned, and they both looked away.
She instinctively felt that such a ruse would hurt Jack, and that was something she never wanted to do, not really, even if she felt she could sometimes quite cheerfully smack him. But why would it hurt him? asked a voice she often tried to deny. The only answer was one she didn’t believe.
“Can you tell me honestly,” Miss Sedgewick addressed Mr Simmons, more serious now, “that you don’t believe the cure might be worth the taste of the medicine?”
Mr Simmons glanced at Lucy, then away.
“Remember the conversation we had moments ago,” Miss Sedgewick pressed him as he got up and took a few paces to look out of the window, clearly tempted by an argument Lucy did not understand.
“You believe as I do: that all he needs to do is open his eyes. Can’t you imagine the good that a short, sharp shock might do him?
How many times, I wonder, have you yourself forcibly dunked his head in a water trough to clear it? ”
Mr Simmons gave a short laugh. “When he’s drunk, yes. And not half as many as I’ve wished to. Or as he’s needed.”
“He needs waking up, George. He needs to see clearly.”
The room was quiet for a moment as Mr Simmons silently fought his internal battle. What on earth had the two of them been discussing before her arrival back at the house? Whatever it was, she felt uneasy.
Mr Simmons turned back to the room. “It is not my decision to make. It’s for Miss Fanshaw to choose.” He bowed towards her. “I am at your service and will willingly aid you in whatever you desire.”
Lucy grew hot at having two pairs of eyes upon her.
“Come now, Lucy,” teased Miss Sedgewick, “if there’s anyone who appreciates a good prank, it’s Jack Orton.”
“But not at his expense.”
“Ah-hah, but isn’t it high time the tables were turned?”
“I would… I would put a frog in his water jug,” Lucy admitted, half laughing, half frightened at the growing urge she was doing her best to resist. “But to do this!”
“The frog can be arranged,” George said with a smile. He gave another bow. “Happy to be of service.”
“But it isn’t only for Jack’s benefit that we do this,” Miss Sedgewick said, “but for yours. And George’s. In fact, I hardly see what concern it is of Jack’s at all.” There was a dangerous twinkle in her eye as she fixed Lucy with a look. “Do you?”
“I…”
How to answer that? What business was it of Jack’s?
What business who she married—or pretended to marry?
Or what she did with her life at all? He was even trying to interfere in her dream of being a professional painter, and all because he thought her too young, too na?ve to understand how to navigate her own way in the world.
Becoming someone’s wife would teach him, wouldn’t it?
It’d show him she was a grown woman, not the little girl he’d once known.
And besides…why should her pretend engagement to Mr Simmons do anything other than surprise him?
He’d ignored her for seven years, he’d made it very clear he saw her as nothing but his old friend, the amusing pet of his boyhood.
And a sham engagement was only what he himself had suggested—he could hardly object—but this would save him all the trouble and gossip of acting the part himself…
When Lucy thought back to the two men who’d visited only that morning, to the way their eyes had measured her, she could easily imagine it a hundredfold. Almost everyone she’d met on her walk with Miss Sedgewick had weighed and watched her in a similar style.
True, not everyone would be angling for her supposed fortune themselves, of course, but they’d still be avid spectators, studying and gossiping over every man she met or spent any time with.
All she wanted was to meet men like Mr Thornton and Mr Cotton and speak of art and work without the world’s eyes upon her.
Her aspirations would take her frequently into men’s worlds. Perhaps some protection might be wise.
She looked at George… He was a very kind man…but it was a great deal to ask.
“If…if it would benefit you, Mr Simmons?” she began hesitantly. “And if it is just a prank…it cannot do any great harm, can it?”
“No harm at all!” cried Miss Sedgewick. “And, if I’m right, possibly a great deal of good.”
Lucy and Mr Simmons exchanged a look. A shy smile. Miss Sedgewick clapped her hands.
“Excellent. And now that’s decided, let’s move onto plan number two: A frog in Jack’s water jug…”
They all laughed. And that was good. It made Lucy believe it really was all just a joke.