“Why do you assume all women are weaklings?” she said.
“Because they are,” he said. “I can pick you up with one hand. Can you pick me up, even using both hands?”
“That’s not the only kind of strength,” she said.
“She’s a lady’s maid,” he said. “She’s at the top of the female servant ladder. No heavy lifting necessary.”
“She’s up at all hours and out in all weathers,” Sophy said. “When she isn’t dancing attendance on her mistress, she’s mending and cleaning and taking things out and putting them away. If milady falls ill, it’s her maid who does the dirty work of nursing her while doctors and mothers give orders. The maid runs up and down stairs all day and night, fetching and carrying. She’s keeping an eye on the lower servants, making sure everything done to or for milady is done properly. No weakling would survive for half a day.”
Longmore stared at the horses’ heads. He’d never thought about the woman who looked after his sister, beyond noting that she was plain and her expression reminded everybody of a bulldog.
“I’ll give you that she’s strong,” he said. “The fact remains, she’s only one female.”
“A formidable female,” Sophy said. “Lady Clara was in more danger from Lord Adderley than she is from naval Lotharios in Portsmouth.”
“Clearly, you’ve had little to do with naval men,” he said.
“How little you know,” she said.
So it seemed.
“Enlighten me, then,” he said.
“I’m a dressmaker,” she said. “A milliner. Everybody knows we’re fair game.”
“You don’t seem to know that,” he said. “You’re deuced uncooperative.”
“I spoke ironically,” she said.
“Better not,” he said. “Goes right over my head.”
“Furthermore, I have powerful reasons for being uncooperative, which I explained to you last night. Don’t tell me you didn’t understand.”
“I wasn’t completely listening,” he said.
“You’re going to make me hurt you,” she said.
“You’ll need a brick,” he said.
“My aim is excellent,” she said.
They passed through the Cobham Gate, where they learned—in case they’d any doubts—that the cabriolet had passed the day before.
The sun was lowering toward the horizon. It would set near eight o’clock. They had a long drive to Portsmouth, more than fifty miles. Thanks to the time of year and the moon, it wouldn’t be an altogether dark journey, if the weather didn’t turn on them again.
He wasn’t going to stop this time, even if a hurricane blew their way.
He looked at her. Her hat had deflated somewhat. The ribbons were limper and the flowers not as sprightly as before. No wonder, after she’d tried to beat him with it. He smiled, remembering.
She was an amazing antidote to gloom.
“Tell me about the naval men,” he said. “Did you spill hot tea on them? Trip them over their own swords?”
“Did you know you could kill a person with a hatpin?” she said.
“I did not,” he said. “Do you speak from experience? Have you murdered anybody? Not that I’d dream of criticizing.”
“I’ve only ever wounded anybody,” she said. “It’s amazingly effective. There was a captain who screamed like a girl and fainted.”
“A pity you hadn’t the training of my sister,” he said.
“A few tricks wouldn’t do her any good,” she said. “She’d need a lifetime’s experience—and even then she might have fallen into the trap. Adderley is a beautiful man, and he has a winning manner. But Lady Durwich thought your sister was trying to make another man jealous—that, or she was upset with somebody. Maybe she was jealous—and it was a case of ‘I’ll show you’ or ‘Two can play that game’ or—”
“Is it always like this?” he broke in. “Does your busy mind never rest?”
“If not for imagination, Marcelline, Leonie, and I wouldn’t be where we are today,” she said. “You don’t need to think of such things. Men rule the world, and the world is made for the convenience of aristocratic men. But women need to imagine, to dream. Even Lady Clara. We taught her to dream a little and to dare a little—and I refuse to feel guilty for that—but I was a sort of Pygmalion, wasn’t I? And I should have—”
“Classical allusions,” he said. “Clevedon does it all the time. Now you. Which one was Pygmalion?”
“The sculptor who created the beautiful statue, and—”
“That one, right. She came to life.”
“Yes.”
“How do you know these things?” he said. “Where does a shopkeeper find time to learn who Pygmalion was? Where does she learn to write overwrought prose?”
She turned the politely interested look upon him: the look that made a blank of her almost-beautiful face. “It’s not marvelous to you when a gentleman can speak, read, and write three or six languages, make speeches in Parliament, perform chemical experiments, write botanical papers, and found or help direct half a dozen charities? Don’t you ever wonder where any gentleman finds the time to do all that? I certainly do. Take Dr. Young, for example.”
“Never heard of him.”
She enlightened him.
The fellow had died a few years ago. He’d been a prodigy. A physician at St. George’s Hospital. Active on the Board of Longitude, the Nautical Almanac, the Royal Society. Wrote about geology and earthquakes, about light and life-insurance calculations and musical harmony. Even helped decipher the Rosetta Stone.
Longmore’s mind returned to the conversation with Lady Durwich and what she’d said about the wild DeLuceys. He remembered Lady Lisle, who’d spent most of the years since her marriage traveling in Egypt with her husband. A charismatic female, too, who exuded a similar energy . . .
He turned to study Sophy . . . and discovered Fenwick hanging over the hood.
Longmore scowled at him. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Listening,” the boy said. “The fings you nobs talk about.”
“Things,” Longmore said automatically.
“Things,” Fenwick said. He rested his folded arms on the hood, making himself comfortable. “It’s like listening to stories. What was the one about the pig man?”
“Pygmalion,” she said. She went on to tell the story, not sparing adjectives and adverbs. The telling took several miles. Then she launched into other tales: Atalanta and the apples, Icarus and his wings, and thence to Odysseus and his wanderings.
Listening to her now was a different experience from reading her stories about clothes. When she spoke, she took on the characters’ personalities. She held spellbound not only the boy but Longmore as well, and he forgot Lady Lisle altogether.
No one would ever mistake Lord Longmore for an intellectual prodigy. Still, being a simple man, he could take hold of a notion and not let go of it. Sophy had dealt with Lady Durwich’s reference to the DeLuceys easily. Distracting Longmore wasn’t difficult, either.
She knew he wouldn’t care at all about her being a Dreadful DeLucey. He wouldn’t care that the Noirots were equally disreputable. The trouble was, since he didn’t care, he mightn’t think it important enough to keep to himself. If she could drive it out of his mind—where, she reasoned, there wasn’t overmuch room—he was less likely to speculate aloud to any of his friends.
The Odyssey got them through the next two changes. Then Longmore decided she looked tired and hungry. As they consumed a hasty meal at an inn, he told her to rest. “The moon’s been up since early afternoon,” he pointed out. “It’ll set in the early-morning hours. I need to concentrate on driving—and the fantastical adventures of Greek heroes are too distracting. And Fenwick needs to sleep.”
He kept the horses to a steady clip, and let them gallop on the flat stretches. Now and then he’d point out sights along the way, some ghostly in the moonlight, like the Devil’s Punchbowl, or gibbets on the side of the road.
But for a good part of the journey they drove in an easy silence. Twice she woke, and discovered she’d fallen asleep on his shoulder. This was no small feat. Even with excellent springs and scrupulous maintenance, no carriage ride was perfectly smooth.
The second time she woke, and hastily drew away, he laughed and said, “I knew you were tired.”
“It’s the rocking,” she said.
“You might as well sleep if you can,” he said. “We’ve a distance to go. I only hope we can reach Portsmouth before the moonset. I’m not looking forward to navigating streets I don’t know in the predawn dark.”
Chapter Ten
Happy, indeed will the visitor be who is so fortunate as to be on the Platform when a first-rate man-of-war is sailing out of the harbour. He will then enjoy one of the grandest sights in the world, in beholding the majestic castle gliding along the water, and hearing the astounding sound of her guns, when in passing she salutes the garrison flag.
—The new Portsmouth, Southsea, Anglesey & Hayling Island Guide, 1834
The moon was setting by the time they reached Portsmouth. Still, all Longmore had to do was keep to the main thoroughfare. Along the High street were many prosperous-looking establishments. For lodgings he had a choice between the Fountain and the George, the two major coaching inns. He decided on the George, because the Royal Mail set out from there. Too, it was the one recommended to Clara’s maid.
After sending Fenwick to gossip with the servants and stablemen, Longmore took Sophy into the inn.
He was sure he’d be relying mainly on Fenwick at this point, since the landlord of a busy town’s busy inn—still awake and bustling even at this hour—probably wouldn’t remember the two women. If Clara behaved as she’d done previously, she’d have kept in the background, letting Davis hire the room and arrange for meals and such. Plain women tended not to make an impression.