“They must have been expensive,” Rose said.
“Absolutely. But I examined his thoroughly, and they seemed a simple enough design to build myself. In fact, I thought of improvements.”
“Of course,” Mum put in.
She thought her son-in-law was brilliant. In fact, she’d originally told Violet that Ford was too intellectual for her. Funny how wrong she’d been about that, but it had been just as well. Mum was somewhat renowned as a matchmaker, and although Violet and Ford had turned out to be perfect for each other, if she’d tried to match them up, their marriage would never have happened.
The three Ashcroft sisters loved their mother dearly, but they were determined to avoid becoming yet another of Mum’s touted successes.
Lily was watching, in fact, to see if Mum would try to match Rose with Rand. They were an obvious fit, after all, and at nineteen, Rose was becoming rather desperate. When their older sister Violet had turned but eighteen, Rose had pronounced her an official spinster.
But if Mum tried to push Rand on her, Rose would surely go looking elsewhere. And Lily would be honor-bound to help. The girls had a long-standing pact to save one another from their mother’s matchmaking schemes.
Inside the guest chamber, everyone including the cat squeezed into a tiny room that Ford had hired a man to construct in the corner—while Ford was an accomplished inventor, he was less inclined to anything requiring sweat or a ladder. They all gathered around the water closet and peered down at it in wonder.
It was a padded box with a round opening in the top, rather like a close-stool. But instead of a removable chamber pot inside, there was a permanent alabaster bowl. “Back here,” Ford pointed out, “this copper pipe leads down from it.” The pipe disappeared into the wall. “The system works as a siphon.”
They all nodded, since he’d explained siphons to them years ago, along with other scientific marvels.
“I suppose it empties into the river?” Rose asked, demonstrating her intelligence.
“It does. And there will be more pipes—eventually all over the house. I mean to put a water closet in every bedchamber. And my laboratory.”
Leaning to pick up Beatrix, Lily hid a smile. Her brother-in-law all but lived in his laboratory.
Another pipe ran up from the back of the seat, ending at a tank affixed to the wall. “The water,” Ford said, gesturing toward a third pipe that disappeared into the ceiling. “It’s fed from a cistern on the roof.”
“How does it work?” Lily asked.
“Well, first you use it—”
“No need to demonstrate that,” Rose rushed to say.
“Of course not.” Ford gave a good-natured roll of his eyes. While Lily suspected there’d been a time he’d looked askance at Rose’s outspoken nature, he’d long since reconciled himself to her.
Rose was Rose, and all the family knew it.
“After you use it, you pull on this lever.” Ford grabbed a handle attached to the tank. “It releases the water to wash the waste out to the river.”
He pulled, and there was a rushing sound. Startled, Beatrix leapt from Lily’s arms and streaked from the room.
Nearly bumping heads, everyone leaned over the alabaster bowl to watch the water flow down the pipe.
“Goodness,” Lily said. “It’s wonderful. There’s nothing to take out, nothing to clean.”
“As though you’ve ever scrubbed a chamber pot,” Rose teased.
“Oh, hush.” Lily playfully shoved her sister’s shoulder. While it was true they had no lack of servants at Trentingham Manor, that was beside the point.
Used to their squabbling, Ford simply pushed back up on the lever. “When it’s clean, you stop the water.”
“That’s it?” Mum asked.
“That’s it,” Ford said with a smile. “To deal with the, um, unpleasant odors in the pipes, I’ve curved the one below the bowl into an S shape. Clean water fills it and forms a seal.”
Mum beamed. “Brilliant, as usual.”
“Very convenient,” Rand allowed.
The demonstration over, they all squeezed through the narrow doorway into the pale green bedchamber. Luggage—Rand’s, Lily assumed—sat in a corner. “Why did you build the first one in here?” she asked Ford.
“I wished to make certain everything worked right before I started punching holes in the walls of rooms we regularly use.” He waved them back toward the corridor. “Come along, now. I want to show you the pipes outside, and others are waiting for a demonstration.”
“Everyone will want to see it, I’d wager.” Rose maneuvered to descend beside Rand. “I wish they’d all leave. I cannot wait to use it.”
Rand appeared to be smothering laughter.
Mum sighed but let the improper comment pass. “Me, too,” she whispered to Lily as they followed the others downstairs.
“Me three,” Lily whispered back.
Once outdoors, Ford hurried them through the garden and around the side of the house. Bright new copper pipe shone in the sun, making its way down the white wall before disappearing into the ground. A tidy trail of newly turned earth traced the pipe’s path to the nearby Thames.
Amusement glittering in her eyes, Rose raised one perfect brow. “I see you’ve become handier with a shovel.”
“Harry did the digging,” Ford said, referring to his ancient man-of-all-work—and apparently either taking Rose’s observation as a jest or failing to recognize her subtle sarcasm.
Probably the latter, Lily decided. Violet’s husband was rather oblivious.
An orange kitten came up and wound around her legs, ducking beneath her skirts to tickle her ankles. With a giggle, she bent to fish it out. “This is all so very clever,” she told her brother-in-law, smiling as she stroked the tiny creature’s fur and felt it begin to purr. “Can you put some water closets in Trentingham, too?”
“And have pipes running down the outside of the house?” Now Rose’s perfect brows drew together. “That wouldn’t look well at all.”
Mum shrugged. “I could accept the unsightliness for the convenience.”
“Father would never allow it,” Rose said.
To the contrary, Lily doubted their father would even notice—he rarely took note of much beyond his beloved flowers. If a thing didn’t grow, he wasn’t apt to pay it
