Chapter 15
Fifteen
London was big, busy, noisy, and dirty—everything I’d ever been told and more.
The streets were packed with people, horses, and carriages at all hours of the day and night.
There were many smells, most of them bad and came from unmentionable sources, and there was a perpetual haze of smoke, as there were so many houses and they all had cook fires.
London was ugly and impressive, exciting and frightening all at once.
Lord Brookhaven, Lady Derringer, Samuel, and Annabelle accompanied me to London in Lord Brookhaven’s largest carriage.
The children had to leave their puppies at Lowndesbury House, which they mentioned a few times during the trip.
But their excitement about going to town and traveling excited them so much that they eventually wore themselves out after a few hours of asking questions and talking of all the things they might see.
I told them a story that I’d just begun to work on, and they fell asleep, Annabelle with her head on my lap and Samuel wedged between Lord Brookhaven and the side of the carriage.
When we reached London, we left the children in the care of their nursemaid, who had traveled in a separate carriage with a few other servants.
Lady Derringer made no move to exit the carriage, saying, “Mr. Sullivan has gone ahead of us to find some houses for you to consider. Would you like to go see one?”
The house Mr. Sullivan had found for me was grand and spacious, with a beautiful, intricate staircase and marble floors, located in what seemed a very wealthy part of London.
And it was only a few houses away from Lord Brookhaven’s house, on the same street.
Mr. Sullivan told me the terms of the lease.
Lady Derringer raised her brows. “It sounds fair. What do you think, William?”
“Hmm, yes, very fair.” Lord Brookhaven wandered to the window looking out on the street.
The drawing room and dining room were spacious. There was a small sitting room as well, and enough bedrooms that I could invite Hattie and Susan and Millicent to stay at the same time.
I spoke up. “I’ll take the house.”
Thinking about being able to introduce Hattie into society, to give her a holiday away from teaching school and to expose her to London and parties and dancing filled me with joy.
Had we not always dreamed of attending balls and parties?
And now that I had inherited a fortune, the best way to become the kind of woman Lord Brookhaven could marry without being looked down upon was to join London society.
Besides, I’d enjoyed Lord Brookhaven’s house party—well, everything except being treated as if I were beneath them. Would the people in Lord Brookhaven’s set still treat me that way? Or would my fortune be enough for them to accept me?
I managed to push any fears away . . . most of the time.
I never imagined I’d be so fortunate as to be wealthy, but especially not without a husband. How many young ladies married so that they could be independent and secure? And here I was an heiress with my own fortune, beholden to no man. It was a heady feeling indeed.
The next two days were a whirlwind as Lady Derringer and Mr. Sullivan guided me through all the transactions, including purchasing a new carriage and horses, hiring servants, and choosing a lady of good character and reputation to be my new chaperone and companion.
We settled on a Mrs. Phyllis Drake, a widow.
She was genteel and enjoyed many connections from growing up the daughter of a baron in London.
Her marriage to Mr. Drake had been rather tragic, as she had no children who survived infancy, and when her husband died, he had left her virtually penniless after some disastrous financial investments.
But she seemed a rather cheerful woman in spite of her unfortunate circumstances.
“This is what we must do, first and foremost,” Mrs. Drake said when we were alone. “We must call on some of my old acquaintances, and we must have some new clothes made for you.”
She looked at my frock as she said this. It was an old one that I wore to church in Milford on Sundays, my best dress until Lady Derringer had new dresses made for me, but I could see that it would not do for someone who now wished to be accepted by the upper classes of society.
For someone who was hoping a certain earl would ask her to marry him.
This was my secret. Did Lady Derringer suspect it?
She’d given no indication that she did, although she sometimes looked back and forth between the earl and me in a way that made me think she noticed something.
But I had told no one except Hattie, and only in a letter and only in a cryptic way that hopefully no one else would understand.
And Mrs. Drake was in my employ, and Mrs. Southey had once told me that one should never confide in one’s servants.
She’d said, “If I had to dismiss a servant for any reason, then gossiping about me and telling my secrets would be her only way of getting revenge. So it is always better to keep one’s distance. ”
I’d written to Hattie as soon as I got the news about the fortune, and she had promised to come to London for a visit at the end of the week. I was also hoping to write to Millicent and convince her to visit.
On our first outing to the shops, we had just stepped down from our hired carriage when a little boy approached us with his hand outstretched, palm up.
“Please, mum, can you spare a farthing?”
“Get away from her, you little beggar!” Mrs. Drake cried. She shooed him with her hands, waving at him as if she were trying to ward off a dangerous animal.
The little boy’s expression barely registered the rejection as he turned and bolted away.
“I could have given him a coin,” I protested to Mrs. Drake. “He was only a little child.” His face was streaked with soot, and his clothing looked as if it hadn’t been washed in a long time. His eyes were a bit sunken, as if he was not getting enough to eat. How much had the poor child suffered?
“He has a handler, you can be sure, Miss Robbins. You don’t know this, for you have spent your whole life in the country, but thieves and beggars are aplenty in London.
You’d do well to send them away immediately.
Giving them money only encourages their thieving.
” She shook her finger and said adamantly, “Drive them away on first sight.”
I wanted to say, How could giving money to them encourage thieving? I’d think it would be just the contrary. But Mrs. Drake was already opening the door to the nearest shop.
Perhaps she was right, that I was from the country and therefore knew nothing about how things worked in London.
But I was certain I’d be thinking about that little boy for some time and feeling guilty that I hadn’t given him something.
After all, hadn’t Jesus said, “Whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me”?
I vowed to do better if I was given another opportunity to help a child begging on the streets.
We went to several dress shops, and I ordered four new dresses, feeling a lump in my throat at the price I was paying for finery and frills when there were children begging in the streets.
But I didn’t particularly wish for Lord Brookhaven to see me in the same dresses his aunt had paid for.
I wanted him and the rest of London to see that I was an independently wealthy woman now, an heiress who could afford her own clothes—and her own place in society.
“Mrs. Drake, I will not call on anyone else today, nor possibly ever again.”
After three straight days of calling on Mrs. Drake’s high-society acquaintances, I declared a halt to the humiliating practice.
“But my dear Miss Robbins, why?” she said, looking aghast, with her hand over her heart.
Because most of the people we called on were either rude to me or sent their servant back to tell us that they were not home.
The only person I wanted to call on was Lord Brookhaven, and when we had called on him the day before, his servant took my card and said Lord Brookhaven wasn’t at home.
When I asked to see Samuel and Annabelle, the servant said they were instructed by Lord Brookhaven to allow me to visit the children any time I wished.
So I spent an hour with them, listening to them tell me what they had been doing, asking them what kind of outing they’d like to go on with me.
I was even able to tell them a short story I made up about an orphan boy living on the streets and begging for coins who was adopted by a wealthy duke, and the boy never had to go hungry again.
Hannah came then to give them their midday meal, and I left, promising to take them with me to the park very soon.
“More often than not,” I said to answer Mrs. Drake’s question, “the people are not home, or as is often the case, are only pretending to be away from home. And when they are home, they look at me as if I am some kind of bug to be examined, or as if they are suspicious of my intentions.”
“What a thing to say!” Mrs. Drake’s pressed her hand to her chest and raised her brows at me.
I was beginning to wonder about Mrs. Drake. Would she really pretend she hadn’t noticed the way the fashionable ladies looked at me? They always asked questions such as, “Who are your parents?” “Where is your family estate?” “How long have you been out in society?”
The answers were that my parents were of no consequence, there was no family estate, and I’d never been formally introduced into society. When I told them those things, I was met with cold stares. Although there were one or two mothers of younger sons who gave me a look of potential interest.
After three days of that, I was done.