Long Acre Read online

  ‘Oh, I am so glad to hear you say so, Miss Lucas! I have been much exercised in my mind, to see if I could fathom how I had offended you! I knew you had no other friends in London, and I just could not understand when Mrs Miller kept barring my way — well, how are you? Are you well? I know from Mr Caspar that your brother is doing splendidly — ’

  ‘Oh, he is, he is,’ Amy said, and sat down, indicating the chair on the other side of the fireplace to her guest. ‘And I — well —’ her face slipped into lines of sadness and she allowed her shoulders to slump a little. ‘I have been, I cannot deny, very weary. I am more than grateful to Mrs Miller for her care, but you know, looking after a captious invalid — and Fenton is very captious — can be so wearing!’

  At once he was all concern, and she realized that he was about to sweep forwards to kneel before her and offer his undying care and total responsibility for captious Fenton and any other rub that should ever appear in her way, and hastily changed her performance to become the Brave Little Fighter Against Adversity. ‘— but no need to fear — I am able to manage! I always have managed, and I shall now! So — tell me of your own affairs, Mr Foster! What has passed with you since we last met?’

  ‘Well — ’ he looked at her a trifle sternly. ‘Well, I cannot hide from you the fact that Mr Caspar was — well, to say the truth, his rage was monumental! He spoke to me most sharply of the way I had aided you and hidden you there at Nellie’s, and for a day or two I feared I was to be sent about my business, with my studies uncompleted, and I could not imagine what my Mamma would say, for it has taken much of her slender resources to see me as far as this on a surgeon’s career —’

  Amy stopped acting, all at once, and sat and stared at him with her eyes wide and her lower lip caught between her teeth as he went on.

  ‘— and I was most set about for that time, and came to see you twice in the hope you would intercede for me, for I knew Mr Caspar held you and your brother in some regard, for had he not arranged to help you, and set you up in lodgings here? All the hospital knew of it. But you would not see me, so — ’ he shrugged, and looked down at his hands on his knees.

  ‘Oh, I am sorry, Graham! I have been so selfish and unkind, thinking only of myself —’

  ‘No, I understand now — it was your brother’s fault, not yours.’ He looked at her with his eyes glittering with emotion. ‘You could not be unkind or selfish if you tried, Miss Amy — Miss Lucas. I know you could not, for you are as sweet as any angel —’

  ‘Oh, please, do stop!’ Her discomfort made her face flame crimson, and on Mr Foster the effect was electrifying and once again he moved as though to hurl himself at her feet to pour out all his feelings, his devotion and his plans for a shared future, and with the readiness born of many similar experiences with lovesick young men she jumped to her feet and moved away to stand beside the window.

  ‘Oh dear, it is getting very dark and it is snowing again — I do so hope Fenton will be safe, and not slip on the icy ground! It would be dreadful were he to damage his leg again,’ she murmured and then turned back to him with a brilliant but somehow remote smile on her face.

  ‘But tell me, Mr Foster, is all well now? I am sure Mr Caspar, who has been so kind to us, could not punish you for being equally kind —’

  ‘No, you are right, Miss Lucas.’ Mr Foster seemed to have gathered his control together and was now able to speak with some dignity. ‘Indeed, you are right. He is a most kind and thoughtful man. He has assured me that I shall not be punished further and that Mr Lackland, the senior surgeon, you know, will not hear of — of what happened with you. And that I am able to complete my studies and take the examinations set by the College. So, I have no more fears in that direction. He has gone further, however. He tells me you and your brother have been invited to spend the thirty-first of December evening at his house, and has asked me if I will arrange to bear you both there. He — he —’

  He suddenly went very red, as he wondered whether to tell his beloved, standing there with her head on one side and waiting for him to finish what he was saying, the truth of the matter; that Mr Caspar had said to him, ‘That young lady is very charming, Mr Foster, very amusing and quite a little heartbreaker, I believe! If you are a fool, you will allow her to break your heart. If you have any sense, you will enjoy her company, and keep your feelings well under control.’ But he decided not to. Instead he went on, ‘Mr Caspar told me that his wife has bidden you to be her guests but had given no thought to the matter of your transport. So, I am here to offer my services, if you should wish them.’

  ‘Oh, are you going to the party too, then, Mr Foster?’

  ‘I? Dear me, no! Of course not! I am but a medical student, Miss Lucas. Mrs Caspar would never dream of inviting me to her house! No, it was just that — well — ’ He reddened even more, if that were possible. ‘Well, I asked Mr Caspar if there was aught I could do to help you — er — and your brother of course — and he told me of this. So, if you wish, I shall come here on that day at half past six, with a carriage, and convey you both to Tavistock Square. And I will wait for you, if you wish, to bear you back again.’

  ‘But — Mr Foster — you are not a coachman! I could not allow you to so — so demean yourself as to —’

  ‘It would not be demeaning in any way, Miss Lucas,’ Mr Foster spoke with great earnestness. ‘It would give me much pleasure. At half past six, then, I shall be below with my equipage. I have arranged the hire of a coach from a nearby manufactory — it will be my pleasure to take you to your party, indeed it will.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Even before they left the house the snow was lying thickly in Long Acre and covering the roofs and chimneys with a layer of whiteness that transformed the normal sootiness of London into a fairytale beauty. Amy, standing poised on the doorstep, peered out from beneath her cloak hood and would have clapped her hands in delight, had they not been securely muffed.

  ‘Oh, it is quite, quite beautiful! And just like home! I do love snow so much, don’t you, Mr Foster?’

  Mr Foster, his hat brim weighted down with slush and blinking as the icy drips ran down his forehead to paint his nose as red as Mrs Miller’s sitting-room, said earnestly, ‘Indeed, yes, Miss Amy. It is delightful!’

  ‘You’re mad, man!’ Fenton said gruffly from behind Amy. ‘The stuff is wet and cold and very disagreeable! For Pete’s sake, Amy, do make a move and don’t stand there mopping and mowing. It’s freezing out here!’

  So Amy, stepping out as prettily as she could, moved forwards and then stood hesitating on the edge of the pavement, for the snow was thick and would clearly go well over her dancing pumps if she ventured further. Mr Foster came towards her, and with only a momentary hesitation set one arm round her shoulders and the other round her hips and, lifting her clear, carried her to the waiting carriage, much to the admiration of Mrs Miller and Miss Emma who were watching the young Lucases’ departure from the parlour window above.

  He settled her with much fussing of carriage rugs and hot bricks, and Fenton followed her in, making some play of his limp. In fact his leg was coming on very well indeed, his daily exercise and basic good health and strength having combined to ensure a rapid recovery, but he felt a limp added an air of romance to his posture and was quite enjoying cultivating it. Certainly Miss Emma was most touched at the sight of him, almost falling out of the window in her efforts to catch one last glimpse as he disappeared.

  Mr Foster, with equal reluctance to leave Amy’s side, at last could fuss no longer and closed the carriage door upon his precious charge and climbed up into the box to pick up the reins, heavy and slippery and difficult to control because of their coating of ice, and stamping his feet against the step, shouted at his horses. They, moving slowly because of the heavy calico bandages around their fetlocks as well as the depth of the snow, tossed their heads and with much jingling of harness, the equipage set off.

  Amy peered out of the window with great joy, watching the snow-f
lakes tumbling wildly against it, and snuggled deeply into her rug, curling her toes against the warmth of the brick Mr Foster had set so solicitously beneath her feet.

  ‘He really is the kindest young man, is he not?’ she said. ‘I cannot imagine how we would ever have got there tonight without him, for Mrs Miller says all the jarveys put their cabs away in such weather, and no one stirs abroad who has not his own carriage. I am so grateful to him — he is a little tiresome with his lovesickness, I know, but such a good friend to us — ’

  ‘Good friend he may be — but he’s like to prove a considerable nuisance if you don’t watch it,’ Fenton said, and rubbed his window to clear the haze and peer out. ‘Every time you so much as look at him he falls half into a swoon — he’s a damned good driver, mind you. The roads are hardly fit to pass and he’s going great guns! We’re almost at Oxford Street, so far as I can tell — ’

  They were, and now they could see that already snow was drifting up against the shop fronts in great piles, as the wind blew steadily and sculpted the thick flakes into valleys and dales that made London look almost like a remote country village. To Amy and Fenton, well used to the heavy snows of their native Massachusetts, it was not particularly surprising, but to Londoners, few of whom could ever remember seeing so severe a winter, it was a source of much amazement.

  As Amy and Fenton found when they arrived, only ten minutes later than they had hoped, at Tavistock Square. Mr Foster, much emboldened by his previous efforts to carry his beloved (the memory of which had made the hazardous journey from Long Acre a dreamy delight), seized her again and bore her over the wide snow-choked pavement to the flight of carefully swept steps that led up to the house, leaving Fenton to struggle after him as best he might, and set her down reluctantly, his face glowing with effort and with cold and with emotion.

  ‘I shall return to collect you at one o’clock, Miss Amy,’ he said a little breathlessly, ‘but do not hurry yourself to leave if you do not wish to. I shall be happy to wait.’

  She peered up at him in the dim light that was thrown from the house windows behind them. ‘But where shall you go? You cannot stand about all these hours! You will need some food — and the horses, too. They will die of cold if you keep them waiting so —’

  ‘It is most kind of you to care, Miss Amy, but I have made arrangements, I do assure you. There is a livery stable across the square where I and the animals will be warm and comfortable. I have some studying I can do while I wait, so it will not be wasted. And it is, as ever, my pleasure to take care of you —’

  ‘Are you quite sure?’ she said anxiously, and turned to Fenton, now shaking snow off his hat. ‘Fenton, should we not perhaps ask our hostess if she will —’

  ‘I am sure Mr Foster will take excellent care of himself, Amy. Hey, Foster? The way these women fuss! Why, you’d think you were some sort of milksop, wouldn’t you, to listen to her?’

  Mr Foster, whose spirits had lifted sharply at the thought that Amy might ask for hospitality on his behalf, nodded at once.

  ‘Of course, I shall be perfectly well!’ he said earnestly. ‘You are kind to be concerned, but do not, please. I shall be in excellent comfort, I do assure you — ’ and he turned and went clumping down the steps, already covering again with a layer of snow, as the big door opened and a butler appeared to bow them in and imperiously call up a maid from the area below the steps to come up and sweep again.

  Amy, once inside, sighed with sheer pleasure as she looked about her. A handsome house, with its marbled floor in polished black and white squares, its heavy mahogany staircase, its panelled walls covered in gilt-framed and heavily varnished paintings, it breathed of comfort and money and success, and she warmed to it. The only aspect of contact with her Boston uncles that she missed was life in houses such as this. Their homes had been as richly comfortable, as secure and as arrogant in their awareness of the status of riches as was this establishment and for Amy it felt very like home.

  Her sense of the familiar affected her more than she realized, making her seem very relaxed and self-assured, and she turned as a door opened on the far side of the hall, and stood looking inquiringly, her head on one side, and her hands clasped lightly in front of her.

  The woman who came through the door stopped and stared at the girl standing there so comfortably. At her dark curly hair, simply dressed in a very beguiling way so that her wide brow bore a few pretty tendrils, at the elegantly long waist and curving back in its plain but well cut deep blue gown, and above all at the face, with its wide heavily lashed grey eyes and pointed chin. She was quite extraordinarily pretty, and also had something more than mere prettiness; there was an invitingness about her, a potential for sensuousness that even another woman could recognize. And envy a little, even a woman who herself had always been regarded as exceedingly pretty and was now considered to be one of the most beautiful women in her social circle.

  Amy, for her part, saw a handsome women of below middle height — perhaps an inch or so shorter than herself and of between thirty and thirty-five years, wearing a gown of a deep amber colour that perfectly set off her creamy shoulders and the rich curves of her breasts. She wore her hair, which was as dark as Amy’s own, dressed sleekly above her wide grey eyes, and pulled back into a heavy knot at the nape of the neck, and bound with fillets of gold lace. On the bodice of her gown she wore a diamond brooch of great splendour and her waist was encircled with a gold lace girdle on which was a smaller but no less beautiful diamond buckle. She looked very expensive, very assured and very very beautiful, and Amy felt some of her own self-assurance drain away as she stared at her.

  Not so Fenton. He too looked at the woman standing in the doorway and assessed her very quickly indeed, and with a tiny jerk of his head that sent the errant lock of hair that had flopped over his brow back into place limped forwards with an inquiring smile on his face.

  ‘Mrs Caspar?’ he said. His voice was low, and even to his sister’s ears seemed to sound very American. At home in Boston he never used quite so marked a twang in his speech, much preferring the English sound that was customary among his mother’s family, but now — she smiled a little. He had been scathing enough about the Boston hostesses who lionized visitors, and here he was making sure that his London hostess would be given value for her efforts to do the same.

  ‘It is most good of you to invite us both, strangers as we are. We can’t pretend we weren’t rather lonely, so far from home at this festive season of the year. We much appreciate your husband’s kindness to us in both taking care of me in my need, and in thinking of our general welfare as he has.’

  He was by her side now, and after a moment she smiled and held out her hand. ‘You are very welcome, Mr Lucas,’ she said. ‘I have looked forward to meeting you both —’ and then reddened. Fenton, with only a hint of theatricality, had bent and kissed her fingers.

  ‘Miss Lucas — how kind of you to come out on so disagreeable an evening!’ She turned to Amy as Fenton relinquished her hand. ‘It must have been a most unpleasant journey for you —’

  ‘I’m charmed to be here, Mrs Caspar, and the journey was far from disagreeable. We had the help, you see, of — ’

  ‘I trust your other guests have not suffered from the journey, ma’am?’ Fenton said and she turned back to him and smiled up into his face.

  ‘Why, I cannot say as yet! Hardly anyone has managed to arrive at all! We must wait and see how — ah! There, I think are some arrivals. Well, I think we shall not stay here in the hall, but leave Tansett to deal with them. Come up to the drawing-room, and tell me about yourselves. Once everyone is here, we will have little time to talk, I think.’

  Fenton held out his arm and she took it, and then turned to his sister, crooking the other elbow, and she too accepted his offer, and they went up the stairs, the two gowns, one amber and one blue, bobbing on each side of their limping escort.

  Felix, standing in the hall below and kicking snow off his shoes with one gloved hand looke
d up and saw the blue-gowned figure and wondered who she was. Phoebe, of course, he knew well, even when she was wearing a new gown as she was tonight. He would know the curve of that neck anywhere; but this other one —

  She turned her head and looked down and he saw wide eyes, a trifle worried, he thought, in expression, and curly dark hair which lay over a broad brow in a very charming way, and involuntarily he smiled, and the girl in blue allowed her lips to tremble into a slight smile in return.

  And then the trio disappeared at the bend of the stairs, and Aunt Martha behind him said, laughing. ‘Dear boy! I think I shall fall over, my shoes are so coated with snow! Will you — ah, that’s better!’ as Felix bent and used his glove to remove the last traces of snow from her foot, much to the butler’s disapproval.

  ‘My dear boy, what a night! I said we were mad even to think of coming!’

  He shook his head and smiled down at her as he relinquished his coat to Tansett. ‘Now we are here, I agree! We would have been much wiser to remain safe and snug at home in Bedford Row. But I am glad we came. And it was not so far, after all. Come, aren’t you happy to be here?’

  She looked up at him and laughed again. ‘Yes, I suppose I am! Though to make such efforts to see one’s relations, when one sees them as often as we do — it is quite absurd. Well, let’s go up to the drawing room, and drink some of Freddy’s excellent punch and find out what the family gossip is — and here are more arrivals! We are not the only mad ones tonight! Good evening to you, Abby, my love! And Gideon! And dear Isabel. You look charming, quite charming, doesn’t she, Felix? As always! We are going upstairs at once to warm our icy bones with punch. Be quick, now, all of you — ’