Chapter Sixteen
Susan could not help wincing at the intake of breath from three people in the room. The bailiff staggered back a few steps, but did not relinquish his grip upon her. His face turned amazingly white and she thought for one desperate moment that she was going to have to guide him to a chair and push his head down between his knees. She was almost afraid to look at Lady Bushnell and Colonel March and speculate what they were making of the bailiff’s reaction, but to her relief, they were staring at each other.
“I... I suppose I was a little shy about mentioning it,” David said after several deep breaths of his own.
His words came out in an adolescent squeak that almost made her giggle, but she recovered quickly enough when the bailiff released her hand and put his arm around her waist instead, gripping her so tight that she feared for her ribs.
“My lady, when we’re married, we’ll be quite able to maintain our care of Lady Bushnell,” the bailiff continued, his voice in its normal register now. “I have a house there, of course, but it’s just as easy for me to move into the manor with Suzie. She’s only a few doors down from Lady Bushnell.”
Uncertain of what to make of Lady Bushnell’s silence, Susan braved another look in that direction. Colonel March grinned from ear to ear, but the widow was as pale as the bailiff. “We... we think it’s an admirable solution to your problem, my lady,” Susan stammered.
“I think you have lost your mind, Miss Hampton, and I don’t mind telling you!” snapped Lady Bushnell.
“Oh, see here now, Eliza!” exclaimed Colonel March. “Miss Hampton seems a sensible chit, and I can personally testify that Sergeant Wiggins is the very man I’d want at my back in good times or crises.”
“Edwin, we are talking about marriage, not war!”
“Funny, so was I, my dear,” the colonel said, unruffled by his lady love’s high-pitched agitation. “Miss Hampton appears to know her mind.”
But Lady Bushnell would not be placated. “Miss Hampton, I cannot imagine you so dead to propriety that you would even for the tiniest moment consider a marriage to a man so socially beneath you! Do you know his background?”
“He has told me,” Susan said quietly. “I have no doubts that despite our very different circumstances, we are quite well suited to each other. And didn’t you just say something about my ramshackle father?” she added, trying, but just not quite concealing, the edge to her words. “Perhaps I will be coming up in the world with this marriage, my lady.”
“Miss Hampton, don’t try me! I suppose you have told your father about this?” she asked, the sarcasm unmistakable in her voice. “Even Sir Rodney must have his limits.”
“I have not told him yet,” Susan murmured. “His reaction does not interest me one way or the other, my lady. I am more than twenty-one and I love David Wiggins, and I think that’s about all there is to it. I believe the issue here is continuity of care for your mother, which we are quite able to provide, especially now.”
Lady Bushnell opened her mouth for more argument, but the bookroom door banged open just then and the housekeeper burst in.
“My lady, this will not wait another minute! The invitations have arrived with an error in your name! Your secretary cannot find the invoice for the champagne and the vintner is threatening to take it all back! The chef tells me that unless the pastry cook stops humming the same nasty little song over and over again, he will resign! And there are twelve for dinner! Twelve!” she concluded, drawing out the word and giving it the worth of three syllables.
The door opened wider to reveal the florist fanning himself more vigorously with his few sheets of remaining paper and the modiste coming at him with the tape measure looped ominously. And jumping up and down behind them all was a little man who spoke only French.
The bailiff released his grip on Susan, crossed the room with some long strides, and said a few pithy words to the mob outside before he shut the door on them. He turned to Lady Bushnell. “My lady, you have too much on your plate right now to have to worry about your mother-in-law, as well,” he said firmly, in what Susan was beginning to recognize as his official sergeant’s voice. “Suzie and I will manage fine with her, and while it may not be a marriage made in an aristocrat’s heaven, we have every intention of being most successful at it.”
Colonel March nodded and gathered his sweetheart to his bosom again, where she began to sob. “My love, she’ll be in excellent hands, and it’s one less matter to concern yourself with right now.” He winked at the bailiff. “We can depend upon these two, especially if Miss Hampton marries the bailiff. How steady can you get?”
After another moment’s melancholy and a series of deep sniffles, and a good blow into her fiancé’s handkerchief, Lady Bushnell looked at the bailiff. “For this summer only,” she said, “and then we will see!”
“We’ll begin the banns next Sunday,” David said.
“Not good enough,” Lady Bushnell said, alert again. “That will take almost a month, and suppose something happens to my mother-in-law before then while March and I are cavorting in France?”
“Really, Eliza,” the colonel protested, his face pink. “We are hardly cavorters!”
“Speak for yourself, Edward,” she said. “I will not have busy-bodies in England saying I was romping about while my mother- in-law—a national treasure, I will remind you—was under the dubious care of a sergeant and a... a Hampton! No, you will marry at once, or this is off.”
The bailiff blinked. “I can purchase a license in our parish after we return, and...”
“No, not soon enough,” the woman insisted. “I want to see you two leg-shackled before another day passes!”
It was the bailiff’s turn to blush. “My lady, I cannot begin to afford a special license. We’ll return to Quilling and get a regular license. It’ll just be a matter of a week...”
“No,” she said, sounding remarkably like her mother-in-law.
The colonel coughed to attract her attention. “My dear, I think we could make a wedding present of a special license to these two.” He touched his pocket again. “I know all about getting these things now, and if the sergeant will come with me, I am certain we can accomplish this. Of course, as it is already nearly noon, we will have to defer the actual event until tomorrow morning. What do you say, Sergeant?” he asked, turning to the bailiff.
If you’re going to back out, now is the time, Susan thought. I know I am not. Let us see if you really meant that proposal two months ago.
“Very well, sir,” the bailiff said. “I’ll do it on the condition that we can be allowed to pay you back someday when we can afford it.”
“Agreed,” the colonel said. “Wait here while I steer my dear Lady Bushnell past the hornet’s nest outside this door.”
The door closed behind them. There was a momentary increase in the volume of misery in the hall, which was stopped by a few emphatic words from the colonel. The voices ceased, and the room was quiet again.
The bailiff remained with his back to her for a few moments. “Collecting our thoughts, are we?” Susan asked finally when the humor of the whole thing grew too piquant to resist.
He laughed then, turned around, his eyes bright, and came toward her. She thought he would kiss her, but instead, he took her by the elbow and walked her to the window, where they both stood, looking out. His arm went around her waist, and he tucked his hand familiarly into her waistband, as though afraid she would try to get away.
“You must tell me something, Susan,” he said after a longish time regarding a gardener pruning an elm across the street.
“Anything, David,” she said, putting her arm around him. “There’s nothing you can’t ask me.”
“I know, and that’s the beauty of it,” he said. “Did you do this because you want to help Lady Bushnell to an extreme degree unimaginable, or because you really mean it?”
She let go of him and stepped away, and he was forced to relinquish his grip on her waistband. Pushing against his arms, she backed him up to the wall as he grinned and let her lead him around. “You are dense, David, so dense. Lady Bushnell has only recently reminded me that I am a Hampton,” she said, her touch gentle on his arms. “I will remind you that Hamptons only do things to suit themselves, and not to smooth the path for others.”
He considered her words. “So I take it to mean that you have every intention of marrying me for yourself and no one else?”
“I do.”
“When did you decide on this somewhat surprising course?” he asked, then put his forehead against hers. “I’ve been on battlefields all over Europe, and I swear I never came as close to fainting as I did five minutes ago!”
She laughed and cupped his face in her hands. “Oh, I wish I had a painting of your expression! How I would love to show it to our children in twenty years or so.”
His arms went around her then, and he held her as close as he could, with a sigh that made her heart flop. “I think I first admitted it to myself this morning,” she whispered into his ear, “when Mr. Steinman gave me that silly metronome.”
“Well, it made me jealous,” he grumbled. “I mean, I’d like to be able to give you things.”
“You will.” She kissed his ear. “Now tell me truthfully how long you’ve been really serious about that proposal.”
He held her off from him then, with another look of real surprise, then pulled her against him so firmly that she knew she should be blushing. “Ever since right before I asked, Suzie, and don’t ask me how I knew I loved you. I just did.”
It would have been a much longer kiss—her brains were starting to sauté—except that Colonel March came back into the room and harrumphed a few times to get their attention.
“David, I am even now fighting a rearguard action with the housekeeper and the pastry chef, plus an irritating fellow who speaks only French,” he said. “Save that for tomorrow and accompany me to Doctors’ Commons.”
“Yes, sir,” the bailiff said, releasing his grip on her. “Can we drop Suzie off at the Steinman Employment Agency on the way?”
“Certainly, lad, but only if you’re sure she won’t accept another position while you’re gone,” the colonel joked. “I’m depending on you two to marry and put my fiancée out of her misery.”
Susan smiled weakly at him. My stars, Colonel, she thought, I can’t even get my lips to work right now. How could I manage a coherent employment interview? She nodded to the colonel and searched about the room for her cloak, which was draped over a chair in plain sight. And now my eyes aren’t even working, she thought as she accepted the cloak from David, who was looking much too self-satisfied for her own peace of mind.
“Doctors’ Commons, is it, sir?” the bailiff asked.
The colonel nodded. “Where you will speak up promptly and tell them what you want, so they won’t think it is I seeking another license and looking like a bigamist. We’ll stop at St. Andrews afterwards, and make arrangements for tomorrow morning, so you will have time to catch the mail coach back to Quilling.”
They dropped her off at the Steinman Agency, where she was accosted by both Steinmans, plied with tea and Viennese pastry, and obliged to divulge all. Her narrative was interrupted by Mrs. Steinman’s “I knew it, I knew it,” and Steinman’s grin that grew wider and wider and threatened to split his face.
“See here, sir,” she said, putting down her teacup in the face of his relentless good humor, “how long am I to believe you have been plotting this?”
“Since I laid eyes on you, Miss Hampton,” he admitted promptly.
“Even if you were fully aware how socially mismatched David and I are?” she accused, amused at his enthusiasm.
He shook his head at another pastry from his mother, who dropped it on Susan’s plate instead, with the admonition, “To keep your strength up, dearie.” He picked up the metronome still on the breakfast table, and set it in slow motion. “Susan, we live in a new age, an industrial age, one where a Jew can run a company without fear of windows broken, or business ruined by rumor or bigotry.”
He moved the weight down and the pendulum swung faster. “It is a modem age; consider yourself a pioneer in it, you and your good bailiff. What else is there to explain?” He looked at her, as if asking himself if he should continue. “And I do owe him.”
“I do not understand.”
“Perhaps you will someday, when you’ve had a little more experience with your bailiff.”
She could think of nothing to add to Steinman’s artless remark, even if he looked like he wanted to say more, which he did not. She knew she had greater explanations ahead of her. Susan nodded to Mrs. Steinman and left the room thoughtfully.
This will not be so easily explained to my father, she considered later in the solitude of her room. She took off her shoes and lay down on the bed, struck suddenly by the thought that she would not have many more days or nights of lying in bed by herself. “I hope you are ready for this, Susan Hampton,” she told the ceiling. She knew she was. Making love with the bailiff, although a new experience, would not be a difficult task. The difficulty lay in the preliminaries; Sir Rodney Hampton should know their plans. “Susan, I am certain your father will not be ready for such glad tidings,” she told herself sternly, “and we aren’t even discussing Aunt Louisa!”
For a long moment, she thought about not saying anything to her father, but knew, in the deepest part of her heart, that such an action would never do. He was sure to find out, and then he would think she was too ashamed to tell him. She turned on her side and rested her cheek on her hands. How sad that I meet the man I love and want to marry and have children by, and I have to worry about what others think. The strange thing is, I do not know if I am trying to protect myself, or him.
It was a sobering thought, and she took it to sleep with her, dreaming of her father searching for her long-gone pearl necklace, and settling for the pence on Lady Bushnell’s eyelids as she lay dead on top of a cotton bale in New Orleans. And there was poor Charlie, tugging at her sleeve, pleading with her not to send him into battle again.
“Suzie, wake up.”
She opened he eyes with a gasp to see the bailiff seated beside her, his hand on her arm. She stared at him, thinking for one terrible moment that he was Charles Bushnell, then she touched his arm to let him know she was awake.
“It looked like a bad dream,” the bailiff murmured, kissing her forehead. “I thought to wake you easy from it.” He must have noticed the question in her eyes. “My dear, I have a lot of experience in bad dreams. Imagine, if you will, a whole regiment twitching and mumbling.”
“It is bad enough that I was dreaming of my father,” she said, drawing up her knees and tucking her skirts about her legs. “I don’t know what to do about him.”
“May I suggest a course of action?” David asked. “I think we need to see him and tell him what we are doing tomorrow morning.”
She sighed, and reached up to touch his hair. “I suppose we must.”
“We must.”
After a brief interlude involving masterly restraint on his part, the bailiff thought it best for him to retreat to his room and put away the special license before it was too wrinkled to read. Susan replaced the pins in her hair, looked in the mirror to note that she would probably never need artificial coloring for her cheeks, and went downstairs to wait for him. Mrs. Steinman kept her company in the sitting room and found time to offer her three kinds of pastries and tea better than she was used to. Susan ate to oblige her, smiling inwardly with amusement as Mrs. Steinman reached over every now and then just to touch her knee and say something low and endearing in a language much like German.
“Mrs. Steinman, how is it that everyone in this household knew my business before I did?” she asked finally, when the pastries were consumed.
“Simple, my dear. You never mentioned the bailiff once in your letter,” the woman replied. “Now, if you did not like him, we would have heard about it. Isn’t it reasonable to suppose that since you said nothing, it was because you didn’t want anyone to think you were interested?”
I learn new things every day, Susan thought as she left the agency with the bailiff. Here I thought I was so clever. She tucked her arm through David’s and looked up at him. “Mr. Wiggins, if, in future, I ever get to thinking I am terribly smart, will you just remind me that everyone at the Steinman Employment Agency, and you, too, I think, knew my own mind before I did?”
“Mrs. Skerlong, as well,” he said, kissing her cheek quickly as they hurried through the after-work crowds. “She muttered something to me about quality not knowing their place anymore, and what did I think of that?”
“And what did you think of it?” she asked, her eyes merry.
He only smiled. “There I have the advantage of knowing something about women, Suzie. I just mumbled something around my oatmeal and kept eating. That usually satisfies women, I’ve discovered. Some want verification more than real answers.”
“I suppose that means that I won’t be able to get away with anything,” she said, softening her words by holding rather tighter to his arm as they hurried to cross Hyde Park.
“What it means is that you’ll be even more creative than most women in getting what you want, which you will get, I have no doubt.” He smiled down at her. “What I don’t have is any illusions about superiority.”
She was still smiling as they arrived at Aunt Louisa’s and the bailiff knocked on the door. The butler opened it, and she thought she saw just a glimmer of surprise and pleasure in his eyes. She couldn’t be sure, of course. This was, after all, a butler.
“Ames, is my father about?”
He opened the door wider to let them in. “He is, Miss Hampton, and may I add I am certain he will be pleased when I tell him you’ve come back. Follow me.” He led them to the door of the sitting room, then stopped and looked at the bailiff, as if puzzled to see him following Susan. “Is there something you need?” He permitted himself the smallest of smiles. “Miss Hampton, I beg your pardon. Are you owing the jarvey?”
Susan looked at him in surprise. “Why, no, Ames.”
The butler appeared not to have heard her. He took a coin from his waistcoat and flipped it at the bailiff. “For your troubles, good man. If Miss Hampton owes you more, follow me belowstairs.”
The bailiff caught the coin, bit it, grinned, then tossed it back to the butler. “Mr. Ames, I’m here with Suzie and we want to speak to her father.”
What happened then was something Susan never expected to see in her life. To her utter astonishment, the butler took a step back, his mouth open in dumbfounded amazement, his eyes wide and staring. “You couldn’t possibly!” he gasped.
She stared at him and then at David, who had no smile on his face anymore. With a start that almost made her shudder, she realized that she had never seen a butler with any expression before. I am so ashamed, she thought, unable to look at either man. In all my years, have I ever thought of butlers as humans capable of expression? And come to think of it, what about bailiffs, and shopkeepers and others who do the work of my class? It was a disturbing realization and it shook her to her marrow.
“Ames, where is my father?” she asked.
With monumental effort, the butler gathered himself together and nodded to her. “If you will wait in here, Miss Hampton, and uh... you, there.” He indicated the sitting room, then started down the hall, picking up speed as he approached the stairs.
“Can I tell you what will be the topic over dinner in the servants’ hall tonight?” the bailiff murmured, more to himself than to her as they went inside.
She said nothing, but walked to the window and stood looking out upon nothing, still ashamed of herself. Joel Steinman is right, she reflected. This is an age of industry, and everything must change, except that I did not believe that the changes would have to begin with me. There will be many who cannot comprehend the changes.
“Suzie?” the bailiff asked, and he sounded uncharacteristically doubtful.
Before she could respond, the door opened and her father came into the room. To her sudden relief, his smile was genuine and brilliant, a brightness to it that she remembered from years ago, when he would return to them on the estate after business in London. “My dear,” he began, holding his hands out to her, “I knew you did not mean to stay away forever. Welcome home.”
He took her hands and kissed her before he noticed the bailiff standing by the fireplace. As Susan watched in shame, Sir Rodney took in the bailiff’s casual stance, clothes, and demeanor, and replaced his genuine smile with the vague one reserved for inferiors. He looked back at Susan with a question in his eyes. “A rustic from the Cotswolds to see you home to London?” he asked her. “That was kind of him, but hardly necessary.”
“No, Papa,” she began, realizing that there was no good way to say this. “May I introduce David Wiggins to you? He is Lady Bushnell’s bailiff at Quilling Manor, where I am working. He and I...” She couldn’t get the words out, no matter how she tried.
“Actually, Sir Rodney, Susan wants to tell you that she has consented to be my wife, and we are to be married tomorrow. We wanted you to know.”
Susan winced. Even the music of David’s Welsh accent could not disguise the plain-spoken words, and the bald fact that there was no other way to make such an announcement, no flowery phrases to make it palatable. She tried to look at him as her father was doing even now, and saw a man in travel-worn clothes, his shoes a little rundown, his hair in need of a good combing. You cannot see him as I see him, she thought with sorrow.
Sir Rodney sat himself down, almost missing the sofa. He opened and closed his mouth several times, then turned on her the patient, wistful look that made her draw her hands into tight fists. “My dear Susan, is it wise to carry a fit of pique to such an extreme? I have won your pearls back, and I feel in my bones that by next Season, you can have a brilliant come out, perhaps even a presentation at court.”
She put up a hand to stop him. “Papa, that’s well and good. I am glad about the pearl necklace, because I would like to wear it tomorrow, and take it with me.”
It was Sir Rodney’s turn to look away in embarrassment. “When I say I have the pearls, well, I have, only I do not have them right now precisely,” he temporized. “They are as good as won back, depend upon it.”
“How many times have they changed hands since January?” she asked, her voice quiet even as she burned with shame.
“Only three times, daughter,” he said proudly. “And I always get them back. You’ll see.” He turned his kindly, patient gaze on the bailiff. “You’ll see how well I can take care of her, once I win them back again. You may go, sir. I’m sure we don’t need you.”
“I think Susan does,” said the bailiff gently, as if he were speaking to a child. “We wanted to let you know about the wedding tomorrow morning at eight in St Andrews.”
There was a long pause. Susan looked hard at the bailiff, willing him to end the interview so she could tug at what remained of her dignity and tow it after her from the room. Sir Rodney came closer to the bailiff, peering at him with curiosity, as though he were another species.
“See here, sir. I could call you out for offering such an insult to my daughter.”
“I would never accept such a challenge because there has been no insult,” David said evenly. “I love your daughter, and I will provide for her.”
Sir Rodney shook his head helplessly. “I seem to have loaned my dueling pistols to someone, anyway.” He looked at his daughter, and she cringed at his desperate expression. “Susan, did we lose those with the house to that Lancastershire weaver?”
“Oh, please, Papa, that’s enough,” she begged. “David, I...”
“Brother, shall I send for the Watch?”
Susan gasped and turned around. Her aunt stood in the doorway, Ames at her shoulder looking wooden in a righteous sort of way.
“That won’t be necessary,” the bailiff said. “Susan and I are leaving.”
“It can’t be soon enough!” Aunt Louisa snapped, turning on her heel.
In another moment, Susan heard her moving quickly up the stairs. Sir Rodney cocked his head to one side and listened, alert for trouble from the look of apprehension in his eyes. He sighed with the relief of a child when a door slammed, and then regarded them again, his expression perplexed, as if wondering what to do.
The bailiff nodded to Sir Rodney. “Grand to meet you, sir. For my part, you may keep the pearls, if you ever get them again. Your need sounds greater than ours. Come, Susan, or we’ll be late for dinner.” He held out his hand to her, and she took it gladly, even if she was unable to meet his eyes. “Excuse us, please.”
He tugged her into the hall, then stopped suddenly as he took her face in his hands. “Save your tears for outside, Susan,” he said softly and kissed her forehead.
By great force of will, she made it to the steps outside, then burst into tears. David kissed her again and stood there a moment with his arm tight around her shoulders.
“Let’s go, my dear,” he said finally as she rummaged for a handkerchief in her reticule. “At least they can never accuse us of not telling them.”
She wiped her eyes, blew her nose, and was about to speak when the second-story window above them opened. She looked up instinctively at the sound and saw Aunt Louisa lean out, a dress box in her hands.
“Don’t leave without all your clothes, Susan,” she said. “You’ll need something in sarcenet and satin for mucking out stables and paying calls on milkmaids!”
“Oh, Aunt, no!” Susan exclaimed as the woman dumped out the evening dresses she had carefully packed away, and her mother’s wedding dress. She stood in dumbfounded, amazed misery as the beautiful fabric rained around her, some impaled and torn on the iron railings by the sidewalk, and others to catch the breeze, to drift and sink into the standing water of the gutter.
Caught by a particularly malicious gust of wind, Maria Hampton’s wedding dress sailed into the street and fell under a carter’s muddy-wheeled wagon. The fabric caught in the spokes, ripped, and dragged behind the wagon as it rumbled down the street.
She felt David tense beside her, and despite her own shame, and the deepest pain she had ever felt, she looked at him. His face was a study in rage, a mirror of the greatest fury she had ever seen before. Her terror increased as he grabbed a silk shawl that drifted past him, twisted it into a rope and turned to go back into the house.
“No!” she shrieked, grabbing his arm and throwing all her weight against him. The window slammed shut, even as she heard the click of the lock on the front door. “No, David,” she repeated, her voice low now, pleading. “No.”
The bailiff looked down at the shawl in his hands and threw it away from him as if it had a disgusting smell. Without a word he took her hand and pulled her down the steps and away from the house. He released her hand and started off at a fast pace. She hurried to keep up with him, heedless of the pedestrians who stepped aside for them, startled by the cold rage on his face.
He stopped finally to catch his breath, sitting on the stoop of a darkened house. She stood a little away from him, not fearful of him, but in such agony over her relatives that if the Lord had seen fit to advertise the opening of a chasm, she would have been the first in line for the drop. The bailiff had the good grace not to look at her, which did more for her immediate peace of mind than anything else could have. Like the man before her, she hardly knew what to think.
“Susan, come here,” he said finally. “Oh, come on, I won’t bite.” He held out his hand.
In another moment she was sitting beside him, his arm around her again. “Forgive me, Susan,” he apologized. “I sent a man to hospital once for less provocation than that woman provided.”
She rested her head against his shoulder. “It is I who should ask your pardon, David. I’m sorry my relatives are so appalling.”
He chuckled, and drew her closer. “I’ll say this only once, Suzie: I was raised better in a workhouse.” He kissed her cheek. “How in God’s name did you turn out so well?”
She thought she was too numb to cry, but she surprised herself.
When the tears ended, she straightened her bonnet and smoothed her skirts about her. I wonder if I will dream about Mama’s dress dragged behind that cart, she thought as she stared into the street, then blew her nose vigorously. “I hope that you have not changed your mind about marrying me,” she said, putting the image of the dress from her mind, even though she knew it was etched on her heart forever.
The bailiff was silent so long that she reached for her handkerchief again, stopping her hand only when he put his cheek against hers. “Your relatives would probably say I have few virtues, Suzie my love,” he said finally, “but I am constant and I know my mind.” He stood up and tugged her to her feet after him, then smiled at her. “And haven’t we just assured Colonel March and Lady Bushnell how dependable we are?”
She nodded, suddenly shy, thinking of tomorrow.
“Then depend upon me, Susan.”