Romantic Rebel (2 page)

The day I received Mr. Pepper’s letter, I began keeping a sort of combination diary and Common Book, in which I jotted down a few thoughts each night before retiring. So little written by a female pen has been recorded for history. Many years hence, when my bones had turned to dust, some scholar might want these insights into the mind of an enlightened lady of the early nineteenth century. I sat with pen poised, waiting for the important images of the day to rise to the surface.

I wrote: I have cut the cord tying me to Nesbitt Hall and a life of docile servitude to Geoffrey Nesbitt. The beginning of a new life. Henceforth, I am a free agent. I shall do no man’s bidding. Point to ponder—why has it taken me so long? We are all victims of habit and that tired old tyrant, Tradition.

It was a short entry, but to the point. I was tired and went to bed.

Chapter Two

I awoke in the morning to the unwelcome sight and sound of rain pelting against the windowpane. It seemed an inauspicious beginning to my new life. Superstition, however, is for the ignorant, and I considered only the practicalities involved. Annie and I must put off looking for rooms till the rain let up. My letter to Mr. Pepper could certainly be delivered, rain or no. And I trust he was eager enough to see me that he would send a reply by return messenger.

I went to Annie’s room, cheerfully calling, “Good morning.”

She greeted me with a surly look and a waspish “What’s good about it? I’ve been up for hours. How on earth does a body get a cup of tea in this place?”

“Ring for one next time, goose! I am ready for breakfast. Shall we go below?”

We descended in state to the lobby, where half a dozen patrons examined us as if they had never seen two provincial ladies before. I heard one young lad, not older than five or six, whisper to his mama, “Isn’t she pretty?” and honored him with a smile. His nanny glared at me as though I were a lightskirt, but I think it was my elegant bonnet that incurred her wrath. She was done up in oxidated bombazine and a plain black round bonnet herself.

We hired a private parlor, and over breakfast we drew out our well-worn newspaper and settled on three sets of rooms to examine as soon as the rain let up. As if eager to see us move on, it stopped by the time we left the parlor.

‘The streets will be sopping wet,” Annie cautioned.

“We can hardly trail around town in clogs. Wear your second-best slippers. I intend to.”

I had seen Bath twice before on visits to my aunts in Scotland, but it never looked so beautiful to me as it did that morning, all washed and shining in the sunlight. I think Bath must be one of the loveliest cities in England. It is shaped like a bowl, of which we stood at the bottom, gazing up at the steep tiers of the downs, with lovely Palladian buildings nestling amongst the trees. The peaceful Avon circles it all like a ribbon on a gown. It immediately flashed into my head that a description of Bath would make an interesting article for
The Ladies’ Journal.

This same lovely geography makes walking deuced difficult, of course, but it was not our intention to do much climbing up the steep hills. The three marks on our map were centrally located. Until I could afford to set up a carriage, we must reside close to the city’s creature comforts. After a dismal hour of looking at one set of rooms after another, each dingier and more expensive and offering less in the way of amenities than the last, we agreed we must give in and look up the hill, a little farther away from the Roman Baths.

“But first we shall visit the Pump Room,” I decided. “It is all the go, Annie. A sort of meeting place, like High Street at home, only enclosed.”

“Don’t expect me to drink those stinking waters, for I shan’t.”

“I’m sure they serve tea, if you are determined not to look after your health.”

“There’s nothing amiss with my health. It’s my head I should have looked at, letting you drag me here.”

Annie had her tea, and I rather wished I had followed her example. The water tasted wretched. I cannot believe anything so vile can possibly do a body any good. But the scenery at least was unexceptionable. The classical architecture of the Pump Room is one of the sights of Bath, along with the Cathedral and the Municipal Building. It was very handsome inside, with the fountain and grand Tompion clock watching over all as it ticked away the seconds of our lives. A lively array of visitors promenaded all around, stopping to chat to friends.

After tea we joined the promenade, and received our fair share of quizzing by the gentlemen. It was clear at a glance we were not in London. The costumes were elegant enough, but of a noticeably provincial cut. My own blue ensemble was as good as anything in the room. Papa was never clutch-fisted when alive, which made his will all the harder to comprehend.

When we had had our fill of the promenade, Annie said what had to be said. “Shall we have another look at the advertisements, and see what other rooms are available?”

“Yes, but let us go back to the hotel for lunch first. Perhaps Mr. Pepper has replied to my note.”

There was a letter awaiting me, urging me to go to see Mr. Pepper at once. This buoyed my spirits remarkably. I waited only to eat, brush my hair, and change into my best slippers, for the streets were quite dry by this time, and I was eager to make a grand appearance. Annie insisted I could not visit a gentleman alone, even if it was business, and as Bath was rather old-fashioned, I agreed.

I was glad she was with me when the cab headed across the bridge to the wrong side of Bath. I pulled the check string and stuck my head out the window. “There must be some mistake!” I exclaimed. “The publishing house cannot be here. It looks like a farming area.” The rough road was filled with cattle, and such buildings as there were differed widely from the Palladian beauty of Bath.

“Temple Back is yonder, north of the Cattle Market,” he replied. I had no recourse but to let him proceed, slowly, with the cattle taking precedence. Mr. Pepper’s letter said Temple Back.

After a long, jolting, expensive drive, we were deposited at the door of a weather-beaten old barn of a place. I could scarcely believe my eyes when I saw a small placard proclaiming Pepper Publishing Company. I felt I ought to give back the five guineas and let Mr. Pepper buy a gallon of paint. In my heart I knew no hero dwelt within those walls.

The exterior alerted me not to expect anything in the way of grandeur, or even much of respectability, inside. It was a dusty, rambling, ramshackle building, with a flock of dirty urchins darting about the halls. One door stood open, and a little white-haired gnome of a man in spectacles, wearing a blue jacket with the elbows worn shiny, peered out.

“You’d be Miss Nesbitt, then?” he enquired in an accent from the east side of London.

“Yes, I’m looking for Mr. Pepper.”

“You’ve found him. Come in, come in. Don’t mind the dirt.”

With sinking heart I entered his squalid office, Annie clutching my elbow. We stared around with wide eyes, as if we were at a raree-show. He had a battered old desk, piled high with papers, a chair behind it, and another chair in front. The walls were grimed with age and dust. No picture enlivened the vast expanse of grayish-yellow paint. There were not only rolls of dust, but actually pebbles on the carpet, along with a wizened rind of orange and some strange black pellets, which I originally took for the droppings of a rabbit, but eventually discovered to come from his pipe.

“Sit yourselves down,” he offered, and wheeled his own chair out for Annie. I sat in the other, and very nearly fell off. One leg was short, but he jammed a book under it and it stopped jiggling. Mr. Pepper, my hero, leaned against the desk and smiled, while examining me closely.

“I’d a notion you’d be a deal older, and uglier,” he said.

All I could think of to reply was “Oh.” He certainly excelled my expectations on both counts. I presented Annie, who was rigid with disapproval.

“Not that it matters,” he assured me. “You have the gift, and that’s all I’m after. A fine, impassioned piece of prose you sent me, Miss Nesbitt. I’m ready to take anything else of the sort you have to offer.”

This, at least, was what I had hoped to hear, and I began to recover. “I brought a few things with me.” I opened my folio and handed him the two essays residing there. One was on the arrival of autumn in the country, with florid descriptions of changing colors and some analogy to life’s passage. The other was a brief history and description of the old Perpendicular Church in Milverton, which has some fine wood carvings.

He glanced at them briefly and looked at me, bewildered. “But these are pap,” he said simply.

“What do you mean? They are elegant descriptions of...”

“This isn’t the sort of thing I publish at all, Miss Nesbitt. Your other piece, now, that was more like it. There are half a dozen magazines putting out this sort of drivel. I print a few of them. Not publish, mind, but print. This building is an old printer’s workshop. I began my business doing the printing work for books and magazines. I came to realize the better blunt was in publishing, so I’ve hired a few sharp pens and began publishing my
Ladies’ Journal
some years back. It’s a comer, Miss Nesbitt, aimed at ladies like yourself, who want more from life than to be chained to a stove, rearing children. I thought from your article you were a modern, enlightened lady.”

My hackles rose gently and I said, “I am.”

He hopped up on the edge of his desk and with feet dangling from incredibly short legs, he smiled down at me. “I saw in you the logical successor to Mary Wollstonecraft—the lady who wrote
The Vindication of the Rights of Women
in the last century. There is a beacon waiting to be taken up, Missie, and a fortune for the lady who has the wits to grab it. There is a growing legion of women like yourself, fed up with being treated as ladies.”

This was hardly the way I would have described my views, but I listened avidly. Having burned my bridge behind me, I had little choice. When he shoved a magazine under my nose, I felt myself slipping back into my dream world. It was the October issue of
The Ladies’ Journal,
ready for distribution. Emblazoned on the cover in large black print was the title of my essay, “A Daughter’s Dilemma,” by ?. He had changed Anonymous Lady to that coy question mark. Somehow it hinted at a great mystery. A question mark could be anyone. A royal princess run amok, Lady Caroline Lamb, Madame de Stael. The possibilities were endless, and intriguing.

That the article was so prominently displayed did not suggest it was written by an unknown provincial like myself. The cover was illustrated in a cheap and garish way that shocked me. A buxom young woman, who would never in a million years be mistaken for a lady, was bursting free from chains, as well as from the top of her gown. In smaller print there was a lure to draw in the reader. “What does a young, beautiful lady do when she is thrown penniless into the world?”

I heard a sharp gasp and Annie exclaimed, “Oh dear!” in shocked accents.

“This is not the way your magazine looked last month, Mr. Pepper,” I said weakly.

“No, it is changing every issue, following the trend suggested by my readers. It began with the sort of stuff you just handed me—pretty descriptions and poems and fashions and recipes. Other publishers are doing that better than I can, so I have opted for a different tack. You will be familiar with Mrs. Speers. She is my top writer, to judge by the letters. She writes in your vein, but not nearly so well. She writes about the downtrodden plight of ladies today.”

The name was familiar. Her marble-covered novels littered the shelves of the lending library at Milverton. “I thought she was a novelist.” And not one of my own favorites either.

“She used to scribble gothics, but she has run dry in that line.”

“Do you feel there are enough ladies interested that you can make a go of this?” I asked doubtfully.

“You’d be surprised how many there are, and where they are hiding. Everyone from mousy housewives in the provinces to bored peeresses have written praising me.” He glanced carelessly at the litter of papers on his desk. A quick peep showed me there wasn’t a letter amongst the lot. It was proofs for his magazine that were strewn about there.

I was quite simply struck dumb at what he was suggesting. My fit of anger had been dissipated by pouring out all the spleen in that one essay. To have to rehash the same thing, month after month, seemed impossible. Yet to walk away with no possibility of future earnings was even worse. London had rejected my first essay. I knew the two efforts Pepper was holding were uninspired. I hadn’t even enjoyed writing them. What to do?

“Think about it,” he said. “I know you have it in you to be a literary star, Miss Nesbitt. It is infamous the way you were left out of your da’s will. Aren’t you interested in righting such wrongs as you see about you?”

“Yes.”

He tossed up his hands. “There you are, then. Let me see anything you write. The payment will rise as you pick up your audience. I don’t waste money on overhead, as you can see. After we have a collection of a couple of dozen essays, I see it going into a proper book. Anything in the way of fiction on the subject will be welcome as well. I have a line of ladies’ novels—cheap gothics for the most part, but once you are established, I will put you out more handsomely.”

My mind was reeling with such future glory. A star in the literary firmament, collections of my essays. No wonder if I sat mute. It was Annie who got us out of the office.

“We’ll let you know,” she said, and rose huffily to her feet.

Pepper hopped off the desk and walked us to the door. “Are you staying in town a spell, ladies?” he asked.

“Yes, I am moving to Bath,” I replied.

“Ah, excellent! I do like to have my writers about me. I have persuaded Mrs. Speers to move here as well. A widow lady. I am calling on her this evening. She would be thrilled to meet you, Miss Nesbitt. She admired your essay violently. ‘I wish I had written that!’ she said when I showed it to her. She is a widow lady, turfed out of her home like yourself when her husband cocked up his toes and died.”