I was completely at ease with my hostess after five minutes, though I found it hard to reconcile this cheerful woman with the heroine of Mr. Beam's tragic love story. After the little maid had left I commented on her willingness and on the excellent care she gave the house.

  'My aunt is always complaining about her servants,' I added, with a world-weary sigh. 'It is difficult to get good ones, they are so often dishonest and lazy.'

  A slight shadow crossed Mrs. Scott's face, but she only smiled and said nothing. Jonathan answered me.

  'Servants are usually dishonest and lazy when they are treated as if they were. Little Lisa has good cause to laugh and be grateful. If you had seen her when she came here—'

  'Jonathan—' his mother began.

  'Mother! I know you do not like to have your kindness mentioned, but I will give you your due.' Jonathan turned to me. 'Lisa's brother was one of those muddy sweeps you saw today. He was twelve when he was killed by a carelessly driven coach, and he was supporting three younger sisters on his pitiful pay. "Support" is perhaps too broad a term; when Lisa came here she looked like a skeleton with skin stretched tightly over it.'

  'She is a workhouse child?' I exclaimed. 'That pretty, bright—'

  'She was not pretty and bright when I found her. She and the two younger ones were curled up like starving kittens in a box under some stairs. They were naked except for the mud that coated them. They had sores—'

  'Jonathan!' I saw then why Mrs. Scott had her son's respect as well as his love; her tone would have stopped a howling mob. 'You are upsetting Miss Cartwright,' she went on, more gently. 'And, so long as we are complimenting one another, you must have your due. It was Jonathan who saw the boy struck, Miss Cartwright, and who tried to save him. He lived long enough to tell Jonathan of the girls; and my son carried them here. Like so many good acts, it brought its own reward. Lisa is my faithful little helper, I do not know how I would manage without her, and her younger sister is doing well with a friend of mine.'

  'You said—you said three sisters,' I muttered.

  'We were not able to save the youngest,' Jonathan said expressionlessly. 'She was only four years old.'

  The biscuit I was nibbling tasted sour. I put it down on my plate; and Mrs. Scott, who had been watching me, leaned forward and patted my hand. After all, there was a resemblance between mother and son; they had the same eyes, deep and dark and full of feeling.

  'It is too bad of Jonathan to distress you,' she said gently. 'But if there are more of us who feel as you feel about the miseries of this unhappy nation, perhaps one day we can cure its ills.'

  'We? What can a woman do to cure a nation's ills?' I said bitterly, remembering my troubles. 'We cannot even rule our own lives.'

  'That, too, will change one day, if we work for it.' Mrs. Scott leaned back in her chair. Her face had lost its childlike charm; it was the face of a prophetess, quietly inspired. 'Change does not come of itself; it must be earned, and fought for.'

  'Are you—forgive me—one of the reformers I hear about?' I asked.

  Mrs. Scott's sternness dissolved in a sputter of laughter.

  'I don't look like a crusader, do I? Women had nothing to do with the Crusades, my dear; we are far too sensible for such wasteful extravagance! If you remember your history—'

  'But I don't,' I said meekly. 'We only read little excerpts from history books, the parts that were morally improving. How did you learn so much?'

  Mrs. Scott flushed prettily.

  'I read a great deal,' she said. 'We women may not go to universities, or study with well-educated tutors, but books are open to all. After Jonathan's father died—really, there was nothing else for me to do to fill my time. I could not busy myself with embroidery and visits, they bored me so. Now you will think me a bluestocking!'

  'I think you are a darling,' I said impulsively. 'But you are clever, and I am not.'

  'When I first began to study for myself, I thought I was very stupid! The mind must be trained by exercise, like the body. But even the great Socrates maintained that women should be educated as men are, since they have the same capacities.'

  I glanced at Jonathan and saw that he was beaming proudly. He caught my eye and flushed—I knew now where he had inherited that easily roused blood—and drew his watch from his pocket.

  'We must go. I promised Mr. Beam to return his ward by five.'

  The sun was still shining when we came out of the house, but the air seemed very cold. When the door closed I felt the strangest pang; it was as if I were being shut out—no, not out, shut m, into a cold, dreary prison.

  'She likes you,' Jonathan said, settling down opposite me. 'I could tell.' My headache was back, worse than ever. I felt oddly desolate and cold, and my whole body ached___I snapped back at him like a virago.

  'I am so glad she approves. I see now where you derive your radical ideas!'

  Jonathan's face whitened as if I had struck him.

  'And that is all you can say, after hearing her?'

  I shrugged, and winced; the slightest movement hurt, and the pain only increased my insane anger.

  'Your dreadful tales of poverty are very moving, but you can hardly expect me to take them seriously.'

  Jonathan's lips tightened. Throwing open the window, he put his head out and shouted at James, who was waiting for orders. The coach started off.

  'Do close the window,' I said angrily. 'It is freezing cold.'

  'The day is mild, in fact,' Jonathan retorted. 'I have directed your coachman to take a different route back to the office. You may find the sights more interesting than those you saw when we came.'

  I leaned back in the corner and pulled my cloak about me. I huddled down inside it, shivering, and Jonathan's angry face relaxed a little as he watched me.

  'How can you?' he burst out suddenly.

  'How can I do what? Resist your mother's charm?'

  'No. You cannot hurt me there. I know her worth too well; and so do you, despite your rudeness. Don't you know what they have been doing, in Mr. Beam's office, while we were sent away to amuse ourselves like children? Will you let them pack you away and deliver you, in a tidy box, as if you were a doll? Or—or do you want to marry him?'

  I was so surprised I almost forgot my aching head and limbs that felt as if weighted with lead.

  'It is no concern of yours whom I marry.'

  'No,' Jonathan said bitterly. 'I am a poor clerk; I have no title and no beauty. Whereas he ... don't you know the sort of man he is? Has no one told you of his past?'

  Now I felt ill in earnest. I had no need to question him; my widened eyes and increased pallor did that for me, and he was only too willing to talk.

  'He killed a man,' Jonathan said. 'He was sent down from the university for that, in his youth. Oh, it was a duel, of course—one of our brutal, acceptable customs. But the other man had never fought, never been trained in the use of arms, and Clare knew it when he challenged him. He could have wounded the boy, or disarmed him. He is a first-rate swordsman. But it seems that the boy's sister—'

  'Stop it,' I cried. 'Stop, I will not listen!'

  All at once the stench from the open window struck me like a blow in the face. I turned my head. I thought for a moment that I had fallen asleep and was in the grip of a nightmare.

  Jonathan's hand closed over mine with bruising force. His face was transformed, his eyes were glittering feverishly.

  'Look well,' he said. 'You laughed, once, when I spoke of this. Perhaps the reality will not seem so amusing.'

  The street was so narrow there was scarcely room for the coach to pass. It was unpaved; the wheels squelched through mud and slush and the accumulated refuse of centuries, releasing miasmic gases that made the head swim. The blackened, ancient houses leaned crazily on their rotting foundations, their upper stories almost meeting. The rays of the setting sun, which shone with a lurid red light through the narrow gap above, had brought the dreadful inhabitants of these hovels out into the air.

  They clustered in the dark slits of doorways like maggots. Swathed in tattered rags like bundles of refuse, they watched us pass, and their faces might have been stamped out of a single mold—pasty white, except where they were disfigured by scars and sores.

  One woman, sprawled on a stoop, held a half-empty bottle. Her face, at least, was cheerful, but her idiot grin was even uglier than the hatred transfiguring the other faces. Her bodice was open to the waist; a naked infant hung at one breast. As we passed by, the child lost its hold and fell, rolling in the foul gutter; the mother laughed and raised the bottle high, so that the liquid spilled from her gaping mouth and dribbled down into her bosom.

  Then a face was thrust up against mine, obscuring the woman's terrible laughter. It was a man's face, bearded and filthy, the mouth open in a shout that showed rotten stumps of teeth. His voice was hoarse and broken; it shouted words I did not know, but which needed no translation; the tone carried the meaning enough.

  I have a dim recollection of Jonathan's hand thrusting the screaming face away, and closing the window, and that is all I recall, until I came to my senses to find that the coach had stopped and Jonathan was holding me in his arms. My face lay against his breast, and his hand was on my cheek.

  'Burning hot' I heard him mutter. 'My poor little love ... I didn't know ...'

  'Where are we?' I mumbled.

  'At Mr. Beam's. Lucy, why didn't you tell me you were ill? I would never ... Only a moment, my darling, I will find your aunt ... a doctor...'

  I was too dizzy and spent to remonstrate; and he was too distraught to be sensible. If he had stopped to think he would have left me in the coach while he went to fetch my aunt. Instead, he scooped me up into his arms and ran up the stairs with me, bursting into Mr. Beam's office like a wild bull. I heard a great explosion of voices and then saw my aunt's face bending over me. Her concern appeared genuine, but I was not deceived; a dying girl is worth nothing in the marriage market.

  'In heaven's name, you young blackguard,' she exclaimed. 'What have you done to her?'

  It was typical of my aunt that she should blame my illness on the person closest at hand, and poor Jonathan was so overcome by remorse that he had not sense enough to deny the ridiculous charge. Still squeezed in my arms, I heard his agitated voice babbling about Seven Dials and his efforts to arouse my social conscience. I muttered fretfully, but no one heard me. Then I cried out in earnest as hard hands grasped me and tore me away from Jonathan's arms. The rough handling shook me awake; huddled in an armchair I saw more clearly.

  My aunt was kneeling at my side and Mr. Beam, like an animated thundercloud, glowered impartially on all. The center of the stage was held by Jonathan and Clare. It was Clare who had taken me from Jonathan, and now he confronted the younger man in an icy rage that quite transformed his handsome face. He looked like a devil. Jonathan, shriveling in the consciousness of his own guilt, cowered before him.

  I had doubted Jonathan's story of the duel, but I could not do so any longer. Clare's expression was all the proof I needed. I knew what was going to happen; I knew I must prevent it, somehow, but I could not seem to move.

  Clare struck Jonathan across the face. Jonathan staggered back. There was blood on his mouth, but he did not lift a hand to defend himself. I heard Clare's voice, quiet and deadly.

  'Your seconds will call upon me?'

  'I will not fight,' Jonathan said. The blood dripped down onto his cravat.

  'A coward as well as a bully,' Clare said.

  'Call me what you like. I will not fight you.'

  Clare's hand lifted, to strike again. I had to do something; I could not see Jonathan murdered, as that other unfortunate boy had been. Mr. Beam stood like a statue; why did he not intervene? My aunt would not; she would like to see Jonathan hurt. Their faces looked so strange, as if I saw them for the first time, with the masks of convention stripped away and their true characters exposed—the solicitor's essential coldness, my aunt's malice, Clare's murderous violence.

  'Stop it,' I croaked, and tried to rise. My limbs would not obey me; but the ugly, naked faces all turned toward me. Then blackness swallowed them up.

  When I awoke the room was dark except for the feeble glow of a rushlight. It shone on the face of my maid, who was slumped in a chair by the bed. She was fast asleep, her mouth hanging open and her cap askew.

  I was in my own room, then. I felt quite well, except for an odd feeling that 'I' was located a little outside of my body.

  'What day is it?' I asked.

  Mary started violently.

  'What ... what?' she mumbled, and then came wide awake. 'Oh, miss! How do you feel? You fainted; they brought you home in—'

  'I know that,' I said impatiently. 'What day is it—what hour?'

  She answered; and my heart sank down into my toes.

  It was ten o'clock on the evening of the same day. At midnight Fernando would be waiting with a carriage, so we could elope.

  If I had been unconscious for a few more hours, I thought irritably, then I would not have this choice still before me. I had to decide what to do, and I had to decide quickly.

  There were only three courses open to me—life with my aunt, with Clare, or with Fernando. Existence with Lady Russell would be one of petty tortures, penury, and monotony. Clare was more to be dreaded; today I had seen him without his mask, and the face he had kept hidden from me was as frightening as the rumors had implied. They were cruel people, all of them, even Jonathan, who babbled love and tormented me with hideous sights. Fernando was gentle and kind; he would take me away from the hard, cruel people, away from the city that bred such horrors as I had seen. If I did not go with him, I would have his death on my conscience.

  So really, there was no choice.

  Feeling quite sensible and collected, I made my plans. It was necessary to lull Mary back to sleep. That would be easy; I knew her weakness. I suggested that a sip of brandy might help me sleep. She fetched me the bottle my aunt kept, ostensibly, for gentlemen visitors; after I had sipped a little I pretended to fall asleep, and my eyes were hardly closed before Mary had the bottle to her mouth. An hour later she was snoring.

  As soon as I got out of bed I discovered that my feeling of well-being was illusory. I had to creep about the room, supporting myself by the furniture as I gathered together a few garments and trinkets. My cloak was so heavy, I thought I would never get it around me. Mary had left a little of the brandy; I drank it, and felt stronger, but even more peculiar than before; 'I' seemed to be hanging somewhere in midair, watching curiously as a pale girl in a blue cloak stumbled toward the door like a crippled animal.

  It took hours to negotiate the stairs, or so it seemed to me. I crept down backward, on all fours. The hall was dark; my aunt had a great fear of fire and would not allow a candle or a lamp to be left burning. I had to undo the bolts and chains of the door by feel, like a blind creature.

  When the last bolt was drawn, I sat down by the door. I was feeling very strange by then; I think I had forgotten why I was there. After a time a sound roused me from my half-doze; it was a sly, scratching sound, such as a dog might have made. I remembered the wild stray dogs that infested some of the streets and came awake with a start of terror. Then I remembered. Fernando. He must be waiting.

  I pulled myself to my feet by means of the door handle and then found, to my disgust, that I could not make it turn. Fernando must have heard me; the handle turned in my hands, and the door opened—a bare inch, before it caught, held by the topmost chain, which I had forgotten to unfasten.

  'Lucy?' It was Fernando's voice. 'Lucy. It is you?'

  'Yes.'

  'My heart! Undo the chain, my dearest love.'

  'Yes.'

  I stood on tiptoe, stretching as high as I could reach, and wondering whether my head was really going to roll off my neck, as it felt. I could not reach the chain. Fernando was hissing and sputtering outside; icy air poured in through the open crack.

  'I must get something to stand on,' I said clearly.

  'Hush—not so loud!'

  I took hold of a heavy carved chair and dragged it to the door, ignoring Fernando's croaks of protest. The problem was to open the door. I really could not be bothered with lesser details, when it took all my energy to concentrate on the main issue. Standing on the chair I undid the chain and let it fall.

  The door opened in a soft rush, and Fernando was at my side.

  'We must hurry! They may have heard you, you made enough noise for—'

  He broke off with a little shriek. I turned.

  In the door to the parlor stood my aunt, wearing her frilled nightcap and crimson wrapper. In one hand she held a lamp; in the other, my late uncle's pistol. It was pointed straight at us.

  'Stand back, Lucy, away from him. And you, sir, do not move. I was brought up in the country and have a number of skills a lady is not expected to learn.'

  I don't suppose the sense of her threat ever reached Fernando; he was simply paralyzed with terror. I sat down on the chair, not because I wished to obey my aunt but because my knees would no longer hold me up. I was shivering violently. The door was wide open and the air was cold enough to freeze one's bones.

  My aunt inspected us in a leisurely fashion. She had not recognized Fernando at first; as she did so, a particularly unpleasant smile narrowed her eyes.

  'I should have known,' she said softly. 'This is a nice return for my care and devotion! If I had not been awake, worrying about my poor sick niece, I would not have heard your clumsy preparations to leave. You stupid young jackanapes, did you think you could make off with the girl and her money? I would have had her back, in whatever condition you chose to leave her, before you had gone twenty miles. You have saved me a short journey, but you'll find yourself in Newgate all the same. There are laws to deal with villains like you. As for you, my girl...'

 

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