Page 44 of Dark Tides
“No Followers,” said the cook as he knocked on the kitchen door. “No gentlemen callers. And who comes courting at dawn?”
“I’m Sarah’s brother,” Johnnie said humbly. “May I see her for a moment?”
The cook swung open the door and the millinery assistants and senior girls, sitting at their breakfast at the big kitchen table, all turned around and stared at the handsome young man on the doorstep, and then, like a flock of startled pigeons in the corn, flew out of the room, abandoning their plates.
“I didn’t mean to disturb…” Johnnie said, weakly.
Only Sarah stayed and she came to the back door. “They’re man-mad,” she told him. “They’ll all be running off to pull out their curl papers and get properly dressed. If you stay long enough they’ll all be back.”
“But it’s only me, why bother?” he asked as she came out and closed the kitchen door behind her. The two of them sat companionably on the stone doorstep, looking over the tidy yard, the delivery horse nodding over the half door, the groom filling a bucket at the pump.
“Thruppence a day for a junior, tenpence a day for a senior,” she said. “The only hope for any of us is that a man sees us and proposes marriage and takes us away from here. There’s no way to make a living out of feathers and glass and straw unless you own the shop.”
“You don’t want to train for another trade?” he demanded anxiously. “You know Ma can’t afford new indentures.”
“No,” she said. “Though I’d rather be in a real business and not women’s trade. For some reason they’re always paid cheap. But I won’t get stuck here, hoping for a man to rescue me. I’ll find a way to set up on my own, or I’ll find a patron and make headdresses and hats just for her. The court is full of women who want their own look. All the new actresses want to stand out. I don’t have to marry some fool to save me from this.” She thought for a moment. “If I could do exactly what I want, I’d go and buy the silks and lace where they’re made, off the loom. Think of that!”
He was troubled. “But where’s that? Constantinople? India?”
She shrugged. “Just a dream, a milliner’s dream. Anyway, why’re you here so early?”
“I came to see if you’ve learned anything more about Sir James? His credit’s good, I asked Mr. Watson last night. Sir James is well known as a man of means, he’s an investor in the East India Company, you can’t do that without a fortune behind you, and his credit’s solid. Owns half of Yorkshire, and a good property in London, and he has money with the goldsmith’s too.”
“Was he in exile with the king? Was he a royalist?”
“Aye, he’ll have paid a huge fine to settle with the parliament commissioners so he could get his lands back. Then when the king came in, he’ll have got it all back again, rewarded for loyalty. He’s a wealthy man: clever enough to be on the right side at the right time. He was a royalist until the last minute, turned his collar, and then turned it again.”
“So how does he know our ma?” she asked. “And what did he have to do with our grandma?”
“He was Uncle Rob’s tutor,” he reminded her. “But that doesn’t explain why he’s so close to the widow. Walking out with her on a Saturday afternoon? They looked like they were courting when we met them on the quay.”
“No, he just looked awkward,” Sarah said astutely. “I bet she looks like she’s courting with every man she meets, she’d look like that with a bargee. She’s just one of those women who always look as if everyone’s in love with her. I don’t think he’s running after her; I think boot’s on t’other foot: she’s got her eye on him.”
“You can’t know that! What d’you think she wants?”
“I can’t tell. She’s so pretty mannered all the time, I can’t tell where the real woman starts and stops.”
“She’s very…” Johnnie had no words for Livia’s relentless allure. “She makes me feel… There’s something about her.”
“Something expensive.”
“She makes my toes curl,” he confessed. “She looks at me and I can’t think what to say.”
“She makes my claws curl,” Sarah replied acidly. “I know exactly what I’d say.”
He laughed at her. “I’d like to hear it!”
“What d’you think she came here for, if not to marry someone rich?” Sarah demanded.
“Well, she’s got a catch if she can net Sir James. Do the milliners know anything against him?”
She shook her head. “No mistress. They’d know that in the sewing room the moment he ordered a lace collar. You know, he might be what he says he is: an old friend of Uncle Rob’s and a country gentleman.”
“Then what does he want with us?” Johnnie asked. “For we are neither.”
“Can’t we ask Ma?”
Johnnie looked awkward. “I s’pose so—but I always feel when we ask her things it’s as if we’re missing a father,” he said. “As if we’re saying she isn’t enough. Like we’re blaming her for what happened. Like we want a father instead of her.”
