“Then all I ask of you, in return for your lively companionship, is to indulge an eccentric old woman. My schemes may be fond and foolish, but I crave your trust.”
C.J. fingered her amber cross as though it were a string of worry beads. “You know next to nothing about me,” she protested. Were Lady Dalrymple ever to hear the truth, the countess would be hard pressed to discern which one of them had the wilder imagination.
“You appear to me to be a young person of quality. That satisfies me for the nonce.”
The coach-and-four rumbled up a hill and ground to a halt in front of a huge town house at the edge of the Royal Crescent, the magnificently designed semicircle of elegant residences built by John Wood the Younger only a couple of decades earlier. To reside here was to be in the very pink of fashion.
A uniformed manservant preceded them up a short flight of steps and opened the bright red lacquered door to the entryway. Lady Dalrymple nodded to her footman. “Thank you, Folsom. How is your new son faring?” Even C.J. knew that gentry did not converse with their servants as though they were equals. Either the Countess of Dalrymple was indeed the very avatar of equality or else she was a counterfeit noblewoman and had managed to deceive even the hawkeyed Lady Wickham.
Folsom made a polite bow. Like Lady Wickham’s beleaguered Tony, this man, too, bore the marks of having survived the pox, his pitted face making him look considerably older than she guessed he might have been.
“Jemmy is quite healthy now, your ladyship,” the servant replied in a thick Scots burr. “A touch of the whooping cough, the wife and I were given to understand. Fair racked his little body with convulsions. It was so kind of you to send for your own doctor. The wife and I are greatly in your debt. Your ’umble servants always.” Folsom bowed again to Lady Dalrymple as she passed.
“Saunders,” her ladyship said, addressing the dour-looking maidservant in the process of making every effort to appear as though she were not eavesdropping, “ask Cook to make us some tea. We shall be in the drawing room.”
The maid dropped a quick curtsy and disappeared in a flash of starchy white efficiency. C.J. had never seen an apron quite so bright, and so crisply pressed, and she wondered why Saunders should look so gloomy when the rest of Lady Dalrymple’s staff seemed as content as anyone would be who had been relegated to a life of servitude.
The countess motioned for C.J. to follow her into a large, sunny room. The pale yellow-gold walls were set off by white plaster cornices and elaborate triple moldings, lending the salon the appearance of a Wedgwood vase or—to C.J.—a Sylvia Weinstock wedding cake.
It was all she could do to maintain her wits, for she sensed that she was about to be cross-examined. This is really acting without a net, she thought to herself. Her improvisational abilities were about to be severely tested.
“Is it true that Lady Wickham discovered you, as it were, in the prisoner’s dock?”
C.J. was careful to choose her words, speaking slowly as she formulated her response. “I am afraid so, your ladyship. I had traveled very far to come to Bath, and found myself all at once penniless and friendless. Upon my arrival I wandered the city and slept under a colonnade that night, as I had neither a place to lodge nor the means to pay for it. The following morning, my hunger got the better of my wits, and I plucked an apple from a fruit seller’s cart to satisfy my stomach’s siren song.” Was this a bit too much drama? she worried. C.J. lowered her eyes, genuinely ashamed. “Believe me, your ladyship, I have never stolen anything—ever—before this single transgression, which I freely own I regret mightily.”
“You poor child. If you had only been familiar with our city, you might have known that every morning a public breakfast is offered in Sydney Gardens. I am certain that some charitable soul would have seen fit to feed you.” Lady Dalrymple reached out to touch C.J.’s hand reassuringly. “But good heavens! I daresay the punishment did not fit the crime.” She adjusted her skirts and arranged herself on a settee upholstered in pale green striped silk, patting the seat beside her.
C.J. warily sat. “I suppose I should be grateful to Lady Wickham. After all, if she had not taken me in, I have no idea what might have become of me. Perhaps I would have been sent to a workhouse. Or worse. She treats her servants abominably, though. Can nothing be done about it?” C.J. had indeed been monstrously appalled by Lady Wickham’s cruelty, and her question served very well to deflect attention from herself.
“Eloisa’s methods are deplorable,” Lady Dalrymple concurred. “But her domestics consider themselves fortunate to find a roof above their misbegotten heads. Situations are scarce, particularly in the finer homes, and since Eloisa uses the courts of law as a statute hall, her staff are unlikely to locate such opportunities elsewhere. No respectable servant registry will accept a convict, leaving the poor souls no alternative but to survive by their wits on the streets upon gaining their release.” Lady Dalrymple rose and paced the large, airy room. C.J.’s eyes followed her, affording the opportunity to more fully take in her new surroundings.
A rather large brass telescope faced the south window of the room. In one corner C.J. spied a vividly colored parrot in a gilded cage, and opposite it, a Chippendale-style curio cabinet of brilliant flame mahogany that appeared to be filled with an assortment of exotica from the natural world; odd-looking mechanical instruments, which she could not readily identify; and several crystal balls of varying sizes, displayed on cunningly fashioned tripods.
The parrot cawed
