Great Historical Novels (10 page)

True or not, this seemed harsh. ‘And so will any discerning tailor be disadvantaged, not to have good quality linen to cut,’ she retorted.

‘There are other cloths, Rhia. New blends of fibres are being machined all the time now.
Progress
is the word you will hear more than any other in London. Besides, the loomed linens are not so poor in quality as your father would have us believe. The trade is changing. The world is changing.’

Rhia did not want to be thought old-fashioned, but she didn’t believe, either, that there was no place for tradition in the new world of the machine. She might have pressed her argument further, but the streets had changed again. She sensed that they were passing through an important part of the city.

‘This is Cornhill.’ Ryan named the quarter as though this was explanation enough for its vibrancy. The street was pulsating with hurrying clerks and gentlemen wearing polished
leather hats and top coats with fur collars. Whatever its industry, the quarter clearly had a vital purpose.

The landau turned into a narrow, shadowy road, aptly called Cloak Lane, and stopped outside a flat-fronted red brick terrace. They were only a hatch of streets away from Cornhill. Of course! Mrs Blake lived in the City of London. They had just passed through the banking district. She felt a small thrill to be lodging so close to the heartbeat of the capital.

The subject of Antonia Blake had not been raised at all during the journey from Euston, but now that she was to meet her puritanical hostess, Rhia felt her nervousness return. Ryan patted her hand absently. ‘You will never meet a kinder soul than Antonia. Did I tell you that her husband’s cousin is also lodging at Cloak Lane? He is a professional portraitist.’

‘A painter!’

‘No, not a painter. Laurence Blake is thoroughly modern. He makes photogenic portraits.’

Before she could reply, Ryan was reaching for the door knocker. It was the wrought head of a mythical beast with a ring through its nose, and the first sign that the Blake household might not be as ascetic as Rhia had expected.

She braced herself as the door swung open.

Cambric

Antonia frowned as the front door hinge creaked. It was an unsettling sound; she must remember to drip a little linseed onto it. She completed the last neat column of entries swiftly as she listened to the arrival of the Mahoneys.

‘Good morning, Juliette!’ Ryan boomed his greeting with unnatural cheer, no doubt in response to Juliette’s dour airs.

‘Morning, Mr Mahoney sir. Miss.’

Antonia stood. She smoothed her skirts and patted her hair and stepped into the hall. She waited for a moment in the shadows, not wanting to interrupt before the moment was right. Juliette was holding a ruby red cloak; but Rhia Mahoney was obscured behind her. The colour of the cloak spoke volumes about Antonia’s new lodger.

‘Mrs Blake says you’re to go straight to the morning room where it’s warm. She’ll be with you presently.’ Juliette took Ryan’s top coat and then showed them inside.

When Antonia stepped into the morning room, Ryan was warming himself by the fire and Rhia was examining the photogenic landscape on the wall with her back to the door. It was the work of one of Laurence’s colleagues. Rhia turned. Antonia was surprised. Rhia looked nothing at all like her uncle; her features were strong and dark; not pretty, but striking. She was small. Elfin, almost. Her gaze was a little too direct to be entirely respectful or genteel. In fact, if Antonia
didn’t know better she would describe those dark eyes of hers as fey.

Ryan made introductions and Rhia gave the landscape a parting glance before stepping forward and extending her hand, which Antonia took.

‘Do you like the photogenic drawing?’ she asked, not knowing what else to say. ‘Isn’t the paleness of the trees eerie,’ she continued. ‘Don’t you think?’

‘Yes,’ Rhia agreed, though she seemed almost suspicious when she glanced back to the picture. What a peculiar creature she was. She tore her gaze away and looked around appreciatively. ‘It is a pretty room,’ she said. ‘How clever to paper the walls in such a warm colour. It’s just like a field of wheat with the sun on it.’

This pleased Antonia. She had taken great care with the room. It had seemed necessary to redecorate it after Josiah’s death. The walls were amber with a pale lemon leaf pattern, and were hung not only with photogenic drawings but also – most recently – with several of the Madonnas from her collection. Josiah had not approved of icons. The French oak armchairs by the hearth were upholstered in bright saffron. The breakfast table was set back a little from the front window and laid with delicate white china. The morning room now felt lit by the sun even when only thin winter light strained through the lace curtains.

Antonia took in Rhia’s travelling costume at a glance. Stylish but not showy. She imagined that she herself seemed out of place in her own pretty room. Her usual sombre grey was so dark that it was almost black, relieved only by a white collar. Her brown hair was, as always, parted in the middle and pinned back in a neat, net-covered mound. She thought fleetingly of a time when she had worn cloths that rustled and
whispered, when pearls had clicked softly at her neck. It surprised her, to be reminded of her former self. Was Rhia Mahoney going to bring ghosts into the house?

Antonia forced a bright smile. She was the benevolent hostess. ‘I expected you a little later, but then, I should have remembered that your landau is as swift as a racing chariot, Ryan.’ Ryan bowed and smiled. He was as debonair as ever, even though he looked dreadful. Too much claret at his club last night, no doubt. He was uncharacteristically quiet.

Antonia took Rhia’s arm and guided her to the breakfast table. ‘Come! You must be hungry and weary after your long journey. How wonderful it is to finally meet you. I confess that I have heard much about you from your uncle, so I feel that I know you a little already. I’m so pleased to have you here, Rhia.’

‘It was kind of you …’ Rhia seemed to be struggling to find something to say and Antonia realised with relief that her guest must feel just as awkward as she did.

‘Not at all. I am in dire need of companionship. It is a blessing to have Laurence, though he is often abroad on business. Silence only echoes silence, and having empty rooms seems a crime when so many are homeless.’

While they were talking, Juliette, silent as an apparition, had placed bread baskets and cut glass pots on the table. It was a simple breakfast of preserves, baked white bread and dark continental coffee. While Rhia buttered her bread and sipped a glass of coffee, Antonia considered an appropriate topic for conversation. She could tell that Ryan was preoccupied, which improved the choice considerably.

‘What a charming dress. You look rather like a forest nymph in that mossy green.’ She suspected that the fashionable panel of white cambric in the corsage had been inserted, but one did
not speak of frugality in London. Rhia’s dark eyes lit up mischievously.

‘The forest nymphs I have seen wear little more than bracken and spider’s webs,’ she said. She took another bite of bread and marmalade and was talking again before she had finished chewing; ‘I’ve not narrowed the sleeves enough, but the cambric is Mahoney.’

Antonia felt like laughing. Was this lack of decorum an Irish trait – or just Rhia? She knew next to nothing of Celtic customs; Ryan was so thoroughly a Londoner. Whatever had she got herself into? If this was to be an adventure, then so be it. She was sorely in need of one. ‘I wondered if it was Mahoney cambric. I was dismayed to hear of your family’s misfortune. I have, in the past, bought Mahoney linen myself. The quality was always the best available. Cloth itself is the better half of the entire business of fashion.’

Rhia looked pleased by this, and nodded in agreement. ‘Isn’t it just? Some of the styles I’ve seen this morning surely serve only to inform the world that one can afford a lady’s maid. Who could fasten herself into such a narrow bodice?’

Rhia would be an entertaining companion, but Antonia was still vaguely unnerved by her. There was something a little
wild
lurking beneath her élan; and she had only been half-jesting when she made the forest-nymph remark. She smiled, though, and pursued the topic. ‘Our sex have, sadly, been led to believe that a true lady is helpless. Yes, it is impossible to be fastened into stylish underclothing without a maid, and without stylish underclothing, a lady is not an acceptable shape—’

‘Unless she go hungry,’ Rhia enthused. ‘I know Dublin girls who won’t eat another potato until their corsets can be laced to sixteen inches. Someone should tell them that the children of
farmers have nothing but potatoes to eat and are as thin as a rail.’

Rhia was clearly not amongst the potato-starved, she had flesh in all the right places and was in the process of buttering her third breakfast roll. Antonia was relieved that they had found some common ground, even though it was at the expense of Ryan’s interest. He had been listening with dwindling patience and now he was restless. He rose to his feet.

‘I leave London this afternoon. There is a new cotton mill in Essex that I want to inspect. I’ll be away for a day or two. You two have much to discuss. I’ll call later in the week, Rhia.’

Antonia was reminded of something. ‘Before you go, I have some shipping documents that are perplexing me. I am attempting to understand Josiah’s methodology, Ryan. Would you cast your eye over them? If you haven’t the time, I can ask Isaac.’

‘But of course, by all means. Then you are planning to keep the business going? Surely you do not intend to trade on your own, Antonia?’

‘Eventually. Why not?’ She did not say that she had not yet found the strength and faith that she knew it would take; or that she was praying for courage.

Ryan looked bemused but had no reply. Rhia looked full of admiration. Antonia turned away with a small smile.

From Josiah’s office, she could hear snatches of the conversation in the front hall. Rhia said something in a soft voice, to which Ryan replied, ‘Don’t object when someone offers you money, my dear! I only wish I could give you more, but I’m in rather a fix at the moment.’ Antonia was surprised. She had always considered Ryan Mahoney to be a cautious investor. Perhaps he was not suffering from an excess of claret after all. She rolled up the document and tied it with a ribbon, then
bustled down the hallway so as not to surprise their private conversation. She handed Ryan the scroll. ‘I might be being obtuse, but it appears from this ship’s log that the
Mathilda
is still in the dry dock in Calcutta.’ Ryan frowned at this and then looked as though he was going to say something but thought better of it. He put it in his coat pocket thoughtfully, then smiled briefly, though his eyes were already distant.

‘Good day to you both. Enjoy London, Rhia.’

Antonia stood at the door with Rhia, who was leaning in the doorframe as though it were supporting her. She clearly needed to bathe and sleep.

They both waved as Ryan’s landau pulled swiftly away, his hair lit from behind, like one of her Madonnas.

Devoré

The ivory brocade around the bed was swaying gently as though a draught had passed through the room. Rhia examined the embossed pattern sleepily. The arabesques danced and shimmered with the light behind them. It gave her an idea.

Yesterday, after breakfast, Mrs Blake had disappeared into the depths of the house, leaving Rhia to wash and unpack. A buxom girl called Beth, who was much more jolly than the thinner maudlin one, had offered to draw her a bath, but Rhia was too bone weary to bathe. She lay down on her bed and instantly fell asleep. The first time she woke it was dark, and she listened to the city; peddler’s bells and hooves on cobbles and carriage wheels creaking. She wrote a line or two to Mamo, describing the household, and must have fallen back to sleep in the early hours of the morning.

Now she pulled back the bed curtains and tried to judge the time by the angle of the sun glancing off the rooftops. She looked around the room, appreciating all over again the dark Oriental furniture against the pale biscuit walls. It was just as cosmopolitan as it had seemed yesterday. The chest at the foot of the bed was engraved with characters like those printed on the wrapping of China silk. Josiah Blake had probably travelled regularly to the Orient if he was in the cotton trade. What manner of man had he been and how had he died? She had
meant to ask Ryan about Antonia’s husband, but he had been in such a strange mood that she’d forgotten. The room, Rhia decided, had the qualities of the mistress of the house; plain but elegant, restrained yet worldly. At some time during the morning her fire had been lit and her washbasin filled with clean water. Her gaze came to rest on a clock on the mantelpiece. It was past ten! She had probably missed breakfast. She hurried to wash and dress and took the stairs two at a time, almost colliding with an abandoned bucket and mop on the downstairs landing.

The table in the morning room was laid for two. Perhaps she was not too late after all. As soon as Rhia entered, Beth bustled in, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘Morning, miss. Mrs Blake’s already abroad. She and Juliette are making their visits. She says to tell you she’ll be back at tea time.’

‘Their visits?’

‘That’s right. They collect cloth for the convict ships, from shops and such.’ Beth lowered her voice. ‘And they visit
prisons
.’ She paused for effect and arched an eyebrow. ‘You wouldn’t catch me walking free into Millbank or Newgate.
Evil
places.’ She shivered melodramatically. ‘Anyway, your breakfast is on the table. It’s only bread and marmalade and such, that’s what Mr Blake has –
young
Mr Blake that is, of course, because there’s no other, not any more … But I can cook you eggs or porridge if you prefer.’

Rhia could tell Beth didn’t want to cook either eggs or porridge. ‘I expect you’ve better things to do,’ she said.

Beth looked surprised, and then pleased. ‘Well, yes I have,’ she said importantly, and disappeared quickly before Rhia could change her mind.