Chapter 5 #2
“I am his ward, one he inherited from his father, who cared for me and my young brother, Samuel.” “Cared for” was an exaggeration, but she mentioned Samuel on purpose, knowing it was the next question.
“How odd that no one should know of you until after the late earl’s death.”
Meg lifted her palms as if it were an unsolvable quandary.
Some said she was Lord Halverton’s mistress, though how anyone could imagine such a thing given his apparent infatuation with his wife, she could not understand.
Others guessed correctly that she was his father’s love child.
Few imagined the devastation Lord Halverton had suffered upon discovering his immaculate father had kept a string of mistresses.
“Very kind of you to visit, Mrs. Bosket.” Meg led her to the door with a promise to complete the changes to her gowns within the week.
At Meg’s knock, Grace opened the door to Mr. Sloan’s house, pink and laughing. “You should have seen it, Meg. A stray cat slipped in, and the old man barked at it like a terrier.” She wiped her eyes and sobered.
“The bread you left to rise is overflowing onto the counter.” Meg stepped into the small entryway. A warm scent put her at ease.
“I’ll see to it. Keep your eye on the old man until his son returns.” Grace took her mantle from a hook and shut Meg in the Sloan house.
“Deborah?”
Meg found an old man lounging in an oversized armchair, his bald, age-spotted head glistening in the firelight. Graying fabric stretched across his lap as he plied his needle haphazardly.
“Master Sloan, put that away. It’s Sunday. Set aside your work and rest.”
He looked up at her, a smile in the watery blue depths of his gaze. “You are right.” He dropped his work in a basket. “But who are you?”
“I am your neighbor, Margaret Cooper.” She removed her cloak and draped it over a chair. He would not remember this conversation. “Your son is my master. I apprenticed to him a few months ago.”
He started. “My Peter?” He blinked. “A female apprentice? Not in my day.” From his sewing basket he withdrew a yellowing bit of muslin and began stitching again, grumbling about women stepping where they did not belong.
Meg let go of the offense with small effort. Surely Mr. Sloan would return soon. She could wait a few minutes.
She stepped farther into the room. A sweet, powdery fragrance hung in the air.
Hawthorn blossom? The modest parlor defied itself with swaths of richness: heavy damask curtains, silk upholstery, fluffy decorative cushions, everything trimmed and tasseled.
Despite the finery, someone had created a space that made Meg want to remove her shoes and curl up beside the fire.
Over the hearth hung the portrait of a fair young woman, a gray kitten curled in her lap.
Meg moved to add a log to the fire and examine the painting more closely.
The late Mrs. Sloan? Her son shared her regular features, but there was a challenge in this woman’s eyes, as if someone had caught her doing something she shouldn’t and she did not care.
Meg thought she might have liked her if she’d had the opportunity to meet her.
Meg perused the shelves: a book of poetry, a Bible.
She opened a sketchbook and thumbed through various designs, some for embroidery, others apparently patterns for stamping fabric, each element drawn separately so they could layer into a larger print.
She thought she’d seen Mr. Sloan sketching in a similar book in his office.
The drawings were good—imaginative and compelling.
Some mimicked chinoiserie with pagodas and birds; others contained elaborate florals that swirled over the page and onto the next. Were these all Mr. Sloan’s work?
“Do you play chess, Miss?”
Meg clapped the book closed and returned it to the shelf. “I do not, but I should like to learn.” He had either forgiven her intrusion into tailoring or forgotten it entirely.
A chess table stood in the corner. Meg pulled it near and sat across from him as he explained the restrictions surrounding each piece.
“I won’t remember,” she interrupted. “Let’s begin, and you can instruct as we play.”
His rheumy eyes smiled. He was quite old. His son must have been born when he was in his fifties.
“Tell me about Deborah,” she said, pushing a piece two spaces forward and mimicking her opponent.
“Where is she? I expected her home hours ago.”
She evaded the question. “I have yet to meet her.”
“She is lovely. The best, kindest woman. But she’s been ill. Why must a soul so tender and good suffer? She goes about visiting, feeding all quarters of the town like a bread monger.”
“How did you meet her?”
He sat back and clasped hands over his chest, his long beard brushing his fingers. “We were Romeo and Juliet with a happy ending. Her father was a dyer.” He gave her a look as if she should understand something.
“The tailors and the dyers did not get on?” she guessed.
He blew air between his lips. “To state it mildly. They cheated us, used shoddy fabrics and cheap dyes. Who received blame when coats and gowns shrunk and faded? The tailors.
“I was raised to despise their family. We attended different churches, socialized in separate groups—so how was I to recognize the enemy?” A smile grew, the dimples mirrored in his son peeking through his bearded cheeks.
“I went to Stinchcombe to visit a cousin, and Deborah was in the carriage. Lightning struck at the sight of her, and I dared not speak. But she prattled to her friends the entire journey until I felt I knew her. No woman had thus far tempted me, though I was near forty. Married to tailoring, I was.”
After a silence, Meg asked, “Well? What happened next?”
“Happened? Was I saying something?”
“You saw Deborah in a carriage but were too timid to speak to her.”
“Ah, yes. I did not disembark in Stinchcombe but followed her all the way to Bristol. Before we parted, Fortune smiled upon me, and I found her apart from her friends. I confessed my folly. She invited me to visit during her holiday, so I remained a week, neither of us thinking what would happen upon our return home.” He scratched his chest. “She had a lovely face, but it wasn’t just that.
I knew her happiness was my own. Of course, our parents opposed the match.
Tailors and dyers are not always friendly, you know.
But after a few months proving our love, our families saw we were in earnest and gave up the dispute.
Our marriage bound the guilds and silenced not a few quarrels. ”
A fairytale, not the sort of relationship Meg knew.
But this romance ended in tragedy: intense love followed by gutting loss.
Even when this man could not remember his wife was gone, he was restless without her.
An ache wrung Meg’s heart for what he’d lost, a nostalgia as poignant as her childhood longing for a father. Was there a balm for such sorrow?
“What is this?” Mr. Sloan became aware of the board. “We are in the middle of a game. Your move, Miss…”
“My name is Margaret. But remind me, where can these little finials go?”
“Pawns. Are you stalling for time?”
She laughed. Again he explained the rules, and several minutes passed before she understood her position well enough to move.
Mr. Sloan’s fortune in having so agreeable and patient a father touched a sore thread in Meg’s chest. Perhaps his father’s character partly explained his easy manner.
She could not alter her parentage, but hard work and whatever lessons appeared along the way might stand in for the affection she had been denied.