“He’ll catch cold at that,” predicted Mr. Tisdale. “He’d do better to concentrate his efforts on men who are able to vote.”
“Perhaps I misunderstood,” Daphne conceded doubtfully. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about politics. In any case, if they make too much noise, you must tell me. We cannot allow him to disturb our residents, no matter how much he may be paying Mama.”
“Are we the only residents, then? Me, and this Mrs. Jennings and Mr.—Nethercoast, was it?”
“Nethercote,” she corrected him gently. “But the three of you are not the only ones, for the curate also lives with us, and a solicitor’s apprentice moved in about six months ago. Those are our only permanent residents. The others are usually men who have business at the mill—not mill workers, you understand, but men who have come to repair the equipment, vendors of dyestuffs—that sort of thing.” In fact, the most recent of these had attempted more than once to catch her alone in the corridor and kiss her, but that unpleasant incident was none of Mr. Tisdale’s business. She wondered if he were the sort of man who would try to corner a defenseless young woman, and wondered which would be the greater disappointment: to discover that he was, or to deduce, in the absence of any definitive evidence, that he was not.
They had by this time reached the room that bore on its paneled door a small plate reading “Pennine.” Daphne turned the key in the lock and opened the door, then stepped back to allow him to survey the room that was to be his home for the foreseeable future. It was small, as she had said, but it had its own fireplace, and the narrow bed boasted a headboard of burnished brass. He set his valise down beside a chest of drawers positioned adjacent to the window, which looked out over the front of the house.
“There are larger rooms, but they are all occupied at present,” Daphne offered apologetically, although precisely what she was apologizing for, she could not have said.
“This will do well enough,” he conceded, withdrawing a coin purse from the inside pocket of his coat and counting out sufficient coins to cover the first week’s lodging. “Now, is there somewhere I might find a drop to tide me over until dinner?”
“The Red Lion is not far away—perhaps a quarter of a mile,” she said, gesturing in the direction he must travel to find this establishment.
“But not here?”
“My mother and I are not running a tavern, Mr. Tisdale,” she informed him, very much on her dignity. “You may have coffee with your breakfast, half a glass of wine at dinner, and one cup of tea in the afternoon, if you should happen to be here when it is served.”
“No, of course not. I beg your pardon. Now, if you will excuse me, I will see you at dinner,” he said, and betook himself from the room.
But Daphne stood in the middle of the Pennine Room for a long time after he had gone, gazing speculatively at the door through which he had passed.
6
For I must to the greenwood go,
Alone, a banished man.
ANONYMOUS, The Nut-Brown Maid
THEODORE WAS SURPRISED and not a little indignant to find, upon his return from the Red Lion, that his valise still sat on the floor beside the chest of drawers, exactly as he had left it. A moment’s reflection, however, was sufficient to remind him that he no longer had a valet to see to the unpacking of his bags. Heaving a sigh, he picked up the valise and put it on the bed, then set about removing his clothes to the chest of drawers. By the time he had finished this task, it was time to wash and change for dinner. No, he amended mentally, not change. He hadn’t brought a set of evening clothes with him, and even if he had, he would have looked a pretty fool, togging himself out in full evening kit to dine with a collection of shabby-genteel mushrooms. He’d have to settle for brushing what dust he could from the tailcoat he’d worn on the stage—an unprepossessing garment of brown serge, fully ten years old and bearing a small round hole, almost like a bullet hole, near the top of one sleeve—and washing his face and hands before putting it back on to wear to dinner.
Alas, the pitcher on the washstand was empty—as he discovered when he attempted to pour hot water from it into the ceramic bowl provided for that purpose—and he glanced about the room in vain for a bellpull with which he might ring for a servant. He stepped out into the corridor, and almost collided with an elderly man in an old-fashioned bag wig, who cradled a pitcher to his chest with one hand while he fumbled for his room key with the other.
“I say,” Theodore addressed this worthy, his eyes alighting on the pitcher, “Have you hot water there?”
“Eh?” asked the old man. “What’s that?”
Clearly, this was the deaf Mr. Nethercote. “Hot water?” Theodore said again.
“No,” his fellow houseguest informed him in the too-loud accents of the hard of hearing. “If you mean Miss Drinkard, she ain’t my daughter.”
“Not daughter; water,” reiterated Theodore, raising his voice to match Mr. Nethercote’s in volume. “Is that hot water in your pitcher?”
“Lud, no! If I were any richer, d’ye think I’d be living here?” retorted the old man, eyeing Theodore with disfavor. “Besides, ain’t the sort of thing ye ought to be asking a stranger. Not much for manners, are ye?”
“All I want is some hot water!” shouted Theodore in some exasperation.
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” grumbled Mr. Nethercote. “You want hot water, you’ll have to go down to the kitchen and get it.”
Muttering under his breath, Theodore returned to his
