The comment was so unexpected that she almost laughed aloud.
Polly entered the shop last and closed the door. “Sally!” she called. “It’s us.”
Sally, a stout woman missing most of her teeth, squinted at St. Just in astonishment.
“This is a friend of mine,” Arabella said. “He’s coming with us today and needs a change of clothes.”
Sally’s sparse eyebrows rose as she examined St. Just from head to toe. Her gaze lingered on the hat of felted beaver fur with its tall crown and slender brim, the exquisitely tied neckcloth, the ebony-topped cane.
“I want him to look disreputable.”
“Disrepu’ble?” Sally went off into a cackle of laughter. “He’ll never be disrepu’ble, that one.”
“Do your best, Sally,” Arabella said, biting back a grin at the expression on St. Just’s face.
She and Polly changed quickly in the back room, while Sally selected clothes for Adam St. Just. When they emerged he was standing, waiting, a bundle of clothing in his arms and a pair of worn boots held in one hand. He didn’t appear to have been offended by Sally; he looked bemused, but not affronted.
“A han’some one, he is,” Sally said once St. Just had entered the back room, digging Arabella in the ribs with her elbow.
TEN MINUTES LATER St. Just emerged. His appearance was entirely altered. He wore trousers that were ragged, frayed, patched, and stained—as well as too wide in the leg and several inches too short. His shirt was of coarse, discolored cotton; an over-large and threadbare Benjamin coat with put-out elbows and shiny cuffs hid most of it. A filthy muffler, tied around his neck, and the pair of battered boots with splitting seams completed the ensemble.
Arabella covered her mouth with a hand.
St. Just had seen her amusement. His lips twisted wryly. “Am I disreputable enough?”
Arabella cleared her throat and turned to Polly. “What do you think?”
“He needs a hat.”
Sally produced one with a low and lopsided crown. The wide brim was visibly greasy.
St. Just accepted the hat with a grimace of distaste. He placed it gingerly on his head.
Arabella bit her lip. She felt a pang of sympathy for him—but also a spurt of mirth. Was it wrong of her to find his discomfort so amusing? Probably.
She observed him critically. He looked as rough as it was possible for a gentleman to look, but even so . . . “Slouch,” she said.
St. Just rounded his shoulders.
Arabella nodded. “And now, if you could walk a little . . .”
St. Just obliged, taking a turn about the shop. Coats dangled about his ears, in danger of swiping the shabby hat from his head. Despite the hunched shoulders, he still moved like a gentleman.
Arabella exchanged a glance with Polly.
“Different boots,” Polly said firmly. “Much bigger.”
Wearing boots that were several sizes too large, St. Just’s walk became shambling and graceless. Clump, clump, clump he went down the narrow aisle.
“Perfect!” Arabella said.
His glance was wry. “I’m glad you approve.”
THEY LEFT THROUGH the back door, stepping out into the dank, noisome alleyway behind the shop. A rat scuttled into the shadows.
“Walk between us,” Arabella said. “And don’t speak to anyone.”
They walked quickly, hurrying through the warren of streets, skirting piles of refuse and splashing through dirty puddles. The noises of the slums filled her ears: shouts, crying children, yelping dogs—and at one point, a lullaby sung by a young woman on a doorstep, holding a baby wrapped in a shawl.
Smells mingled in her nostrils, the fragrance—to use St. Just’s word—of tanneries and breweries, foundries and slaughterhouses, the fetid odors rising from the piles of refuse, the whiff of open gutters.
Miss Smell o’ Gutters, Arabella thought, glancing at St. Just.
There was no longer any wryness in his expression. His face, below the greasy brim of his hat, was grim and his arm under her hand was tense.
In Berner Street, Polly knocked on the door of Harry’s house.
“Is this where you used to live, Miss Knightley?” St. Just asked in a low voice as they waited on the doorstep.
“No. We were in one of the rookeries.” She glanced at him. “Much worse than this.”
St. Just looked around at the soot-stained brick buildings, the boarded-over windows and cracked panes of glass, the rivulet of filthy water running down the middle of the street. His mouth tightened, but he said nothing.
The door opened. Harry stood there, big and fair-haired and broken-nosed, precisely as St. Just had described him. “Pol!” His welcoming smile vanished. “Who’s this?”
“This is Mr. St. Just,” Arabella said.
“St. Just?” Harry subjected Adam St. Just to a thorough scrutiny. Arabella had no doubt that he saw the smoothly shaved jaw and the manicured hands. “One o’ the nobs?”
“Er, yes.” She wondered if St. Just had ever heard himself addressed in quite that way before. “He knows about Tom.”
Harry glanced sharply at her. “Told ’im, did you?” She read disapproval in his face, heard it in his voice.
Arabella shook her head. “He guessed.”
Harry’s attention swung sharply back to St. Just. “Did ’e now?”
“May we come in? Mr. St. Just is interested in the school. He says he would like to contribute.”
Harry’s eyes narrowed. “He sez, does ’e?”
St. Just spoke for himself: “I am quite serious, Mr. Higgs.”
The two men matched stares for a long moment, taking measure of each other. Harry was apparently satisfied with what he saw, for he gave a short nod and stepped back from the doorway.
THEY TALKED FOR more than an hour, in the small parlor with its lumpy sofa and scarred wooden furniture. Tess joined them, blushing prettily when St. Just rose and bowed to her.
If St. Just was uncomfortable in the company of persons of such low class, he hid it well. He asked a lot of questions about the school, and listened intently to the answers. There was no condescension in his manner, no disdain, no contempt. He looked as at ease as if he sat on a giltwood chair surrounded by peers of the realm.
At the end of the visit, Harry and St. Just
