Chapter Five
Dear Judge Bonner,
I am writing to you on behalf of a Mrs. John Marithorpe, née Augusta Smith, a woman of Brighton, who was been unjustly accused of a theft that she could not possibly have perpetrated. I presume this is a simple case of mistaken identity, and that you will immediately release the woman into—
Lucy swallowed. Was she really about to do this?
—and that you will immediately release the woman into my custody, as you did with Mr. Bernard Dixon.
Mrs. Marithorpe is a woman of good repute who has fallen on hard times. I myself have known her for a twelvemonth and have found her in that time to be honest, forthright to the point of directness, and hardworking. The very idea that she would pilfer a bolt of red silk—
The letter was not a difficult one. Outside of the mention of taking accused criminals into her personal custody, it was the sort of thing Lucy had written before, after all, and it was very comfortable here in her father’s study.
The room faced west, which meant in the mornings, like now, it was lovely and cool. The seat by his desk was very cozy too.
Lucy looked down at her progress and bit her lip. It was always difficult to know precisely how thick to lay it on, but as Judge Bonner had proven himself to be utterly heartless, that probably meant it was not possible to lay it on enough.
Poor Mrs. Marithorpe has seven children, all of whom rely upon her, as their father died in a fishing accident last winter. I beg of you, Judge Bonner, to find it within your heart not to orphan these poor defenseless children and to give them back their mother, who is entirely innocent.
I remain, your respectful servant,
Lucy Chance
She had prevaricated over respectful servant because she had a great deal of strong emotions directed at Judge Bonner and none of them were that respectful.
Still, Lucy had not attended that finishing school for nothing, and she knew the appropriate way to end a letter.
Blotting it carefully, then folding the two sheets of paper into the envelope, Lucy smiled and picked up her pen once more to consider her list.
Mr. John Acres
Mr. Gareth Forthright
Miss Esme Prickle
Mrs. John Marithorpe (Augusta Smith)
Mr. Charles Hedges
Miss Mildred Sharpe
There. Another soul hopefully saved.
Lucy picked up a fresh sheet of paper, glanced once more at her list, and started to write.
Dear Judge Bonner,
I am writing to you on behalf of a Mr. Charles Hedges, a man of Hove, who was been unjustly accused of a burglary that he could not possibly have perpetrated. I presume this is a simple case of mistaken identity, and you will immediately release the man into my custody.
Maybe she should not have made her letters so similar, but truly, Lucy was starting to run out of ways to write ‘They’re innocent, you fools!’ without insulting the intended reader.
Honestly, it was enough to make one’s blood boil.
How on earth could Mrs. Marithorpe have stolen that fabric?
She had been working in the poorhouse on that very afternoon, and the modiste was at least a mile away.
No one had seen the woman there on the day of the theft—but she had been seen admiring the bolt the day before.
It was preposterous!
And Mr. Charles Hedges—to be sure, he had once committed a burglary, but that had been five years ago and he had been almost a child then. The man had married since and had a child of his own. Lucy had met them both in the room they rented, and Mrs. Hedges had been half-sick with worry.
Fury burned through her veins as she thought of them. Here she sat, in one of the many rooms in the Lindow Chance townhouse in Brighton, one of their many homes, and they hardly used this one!
And there had been poor Mrs. Hedges and her young daughter, the cupboards bare, a worn rug on the carpet, and desperate hope in their eyes.
I remain, your respectful servant,
Lucy Chance
It took her but a moment to fold the letter, slip it into the envelope, and tick off the name from her sheet.
Mrs. John Marithorpe (Augusta Smith)
Mr. Charles Hedges
Miss Mildred Sharpe
Just one more, and she could check on her other charge. Mr. Bernard Dixon.
Lucy had known fiery heat would burn through her at the very thought of the man, and so she attempted not to think too much about him at all. The trouble was, he was so very…present.
Oh, he kept out of the way of her family. Her parents had inquired delicately whether or not he had left, and Lucy had been forced to admit that the man mostly kept to his bedchamber.
Which was, in and of itself, odd.
And not because she wanted to see him, Lucy told herself firmly as she pulled a fresh sheet of paper toward her, stretched, and wiggled her fingers to put a bit more life into them, and started writing her final letter of the day.
Dear Judge Bonner,
I am writing to you on behalf of a Miss Mildred Sharpe, a woman of Hove, who was been unjustly accused of solicitation that she could not possibly have perpetrated—
No, she did not want to see Mr. Bernard Dixon. Definitely not.
But he intrigued her. There was something about him so…so different from the others.
Lucy had met near a hundred people who had been wrongly accused of a crime they had not committed, and they all had one thing in common.
Dread.
They feared what was to come. They knew that the wrong judge, the wrong jury, a solicitor who did not adequately argue their case, and their lives would never be the same again. They knew it could end for them in a moment, rendering all their hopes obsolete as transportation or worse beckoned them.
But not Mr. Bernard Dixon. The man did not appear to fear anything, and he had been far too cheerful at the prospect of being sent thousands of miles away on a ship with no proper medicine or food to a climate that, from all Lucy had read, was most inhospitable.
And another thing. When he had said—
“There you are.”
Lucy started, not bothering to cover her letters, for the entire family knew what she did—but finding herself staring not into the eyes of her father, mother, or brother…but their unplanned guest.
Dixon.
“Dixon,” she said blankly.
“Lady Lucy,” he said with a grin, inclining his head. “I was looking for the library but appear to have myself turned around.”
The words had slipped out before she could stop them. “What do you want the library for?”
It was perhaps no surprise that Dixon stared in utter confusion. “Why, to breed pigs, of course.”
“‘Breed—breed pigs’?”
He was laughing—he was laughing at her! “To read books, Lady Lucy. What did you think I wanted to do there?”
All Lucy could do was stare.
What had I thought he wanted to do there?
In truth, she had no idea. The idea that the man could read had never crossed her mind.
So few people could read, even with the efforts so many were making with schools for the poor.
It was rare, indeed, that a man of his age, and he had to have been older than her, perhaps as old as her Cousin Thomas, would have had the schooling necessary to read.
And to read for pleasure?
Heat burned her cheeks and Lucy swallowed down her embarrassment as she said hastily, “Yes, well, if you need any recommendations—”
“You presumed I could not read,” Dixon said with a delighted smile, stepping into her father’s study with pinched lips, as if holding back more laughter.
“No, I didn’t,” said Lucy automatically, shame burning within her.
“You assumed that I, as a criminal of the lower classes—”
“Working classes,” Lucy corrected. “There is no lower class. That smacks of privilege.”
The dancing mischief in Dixon’s eyes were most unfortunate. “I’m sorry, Lady Lucy, sitting at your father, the Earl of Lindow’s, study, are we talking of privilege?”
It was not shame that crackled down her spine now, but irritation. “It is not my fault how I was born,” she pointed out sharply.
But Dixon was not cowed. He closed the door behind him and moved to sit in the chair opposite her on the other side of her father’s desk. “I suppose not. Just as it is not my fault that I can read.”
Oh, this man is exasperating. “I did not say that.”
“Though it is true that I need not have actual books,” Dixon continued, leaning back quite comfortably in the chair and grinning. “I have spent the last few days reciting poetry in my bedchamber. It has been quite entertaining, though I say so myself.”
Lucy blinked. Perhaps she had fallen asleep at her father’s desk. That had to explain why this man was here, intruding so definitely, and why he was saying such nonsensical things that she could not understand.
Bernard Dixon? Criminal—reciting poetry?
The twinkle was still there. “You don’t believe me.”
Shame branded her again. “I didn’t say that.”
“‘Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! And again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.’”
Lucy stared, enchanted. The man spoke with such feeling, such eloquence, his tongue never grasping for the subsequent word, the poetry merely pouring out of him.
Wordsworth. One of her favorites.
Dixon’s teasing air diminished as he continued, his great presence pouring instead into the poetry. “‘—Once again—
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
’Mid groves and copses.’”
There was a lilting accent there, Lucy could not help but notice; one from the north, something she had never heard in Dixon’s voice before, but poetry as usual had drawn the truth out of its speaker, as it always did.
One could not hide with poetry.
She sat, transfixed, as Dixon’s gaze drifted away from her toward a place she could not see. A place that he had been, clearly, and loved. And had lost.