3 Great Historical Novels Read online

  ‘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.

  Rhia sat down at the breakfast table. Mrs Blak
e had left a copy of a broadsheet, the London Globe open on a page that she presumably thought would interest Rhia. This was clearly not a household that disapproved of women reading the papers. The page was divided into narrow columns of print so minuscule that it was almost illegible. She bent over it. A commodious property was being let in Regent’s Park, complete with chaise house, water closet and counting house. It would cost one hundred and fifty guineas for five months. A parish in Limehouse was seeking to contract a butcher who could supply mouse buttocks, maiden ewe and ox beef without the bone; suet included. A respectable officer’s daughter could teach the globes and French grammar and the rudiments of Latin. This lady was apparently qualified by accomplishments and education. Rhia sighed. What chance did she have against a respectable officer’s daughter?

  She felt a cold breath on the back of her neck, as if a door had opened behind her. She turned, but directly behind her was only the photogenic drawing of tall, pale tree trunks, like the columns of a classical temple. Yesterday, she had imagined she’d seen a shadowy figure amongst those unearthly trees. She’d been overtired of course, and besides, who’d ever heard of an apparition in a painting. Of course it wasn’t exactly a painting, though it was very like one. Perhaps it was all those pictures of the Holy Virgin on the wall that had thrown her. Their presence unnerved her almost as much as the trees did. She turned her back firmly on the photogenic drawing, and the Madonnas, and saw a man standing in the doorway watching her. A real man, not an apparition, though she was beginning to worry that she might not be able to tell the difference. He was a smiling, boyish man with very blue eyes. She had no idea how long he had been there.

  ‘You must be Miss Mahoney.’

  ‘And you must be Mr Blake.’

  ‘Please call me Laurence. Antonia does. Quakers don’t believe in formalities.’

  ‘Then I suppose you should call me Rhia.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Laurence, beaming.

  ‘But I thought it was impolite in London to call a stranger by their first name?’ This was just the kind of etiquette she had been dreading.

  ‘Then we must pretend that we are old friends.’

  Rhia laughed. She liked Laurence Blake immediately, with his carelessly tied cravat and crumpled shirtfront. He held a top hat in one hand, as though he was on his way out. With the other hand he attempted to smooth a hillock of dark blond hair.

  ‘I hope I am not disturbing you,’ he said, suddenly awkward.

  ‘Oh, I’m pleased to be disturbed. I might otherwise be forced into looking for a position.’

  ‘I see,’ he said, though he didn’t look as though he did. ‘If you need further assistance in the matter, then perhaps you will permit me to join you for breakfast.’

  ‘But the table is laid for you.’

  ‘That’s because Beth is a gem, even though she is constantly grumbling about not being a downstairs maid or a housekeeper. I was going to visit the stationer in Cornhill, but it can wait. Besides, it is raining.’ He sat down opposite her, his very blue eyes hardly leaving her face. ‘Might I enquire what profession will be so fortunate?’

  Rhia sighed. ‘I am to be a governess.’

  Laurence chuckled as he poured her coffee from the samovar. ‘Surely it will not be so awful?’

  ‘No, it probably won’t.’ She buttered another roll, feeling self-conscious. She searched for something else to say. ‘Mrs Blake says that you make photogenic portraits. That sounds far more exciting.’

  ‘Oh it is, and I’m a fortunate fellow to have made a career of something so jolly agreeable.’

  ‘Is your studio close by?’

  ‘I’m using one of Antonia’s rooms for now.’

  ‘Then you are making portraits in this house!’

  ‘Why yes.’ He looked pleased by her enthusiasm. ‘I am recently arrived in the capital from Bristol, you see, though I used to visit regularly. In fact, it was your uncle who urged me to come to London when Josiah … died.’ His lips twitched for a moment and he lowered his eyes, but he recovered his humour quickly. ‘Antonia is quite a devotee of photogenic drawing. Now tell me, Miss Mahoney – Rhia – how does London seem to you?’

  How did London seem? She considered this. If London were a cloth …

  ‘Like devoré, I think.’ Was this being too clever? Did Laurence, too, think this unattractive in a woman?

  ‘Devoré?’

  ‘A cloth whose pile is—’

  ‘Ah, I do know what devoré is, but only because the weaves that allow light to filter through make extremely good subjects. Antonia likes experimenting with lace, for example; it is very photogenic, as we say.’

  ‘Then Mrs Blake also makes photogenic drawings?

  ‘Indeed. But tell me why London is like devoré.’

  ‘It is as rich as velvet, but in parts the bare cloth is exposed.’

  ‘Poetic.’ Now he was looking at her as though she were some specimen beneath a glass.

  ‘Can you really make photogenic drawings of cloth?’ she asked.

  ‘Would like to see one?’

  ‘Oh yes!’

  ‘Then you shall, as soon as I return from the stationer.’

  Laurence drank his coffee in a gulp, bowed flamboyantly and was gone.

  Rhia coiled a strand of hair around her finger thoughtfully. It felt coarse and reminded her that she had still not bathed. She went looking for the kitchen.

  Beth seemed proud to inform her that there was a ‘bath room’, and led her to the back of the house. It was a recent addition at Cloak Lane, the maid explained. The piped water came into Mrs Blake’s basement and it was carried upstairs and heated in coppers, then transferred to the porcelain bath. No wonder Beth wanted Mrs Blake to employ a downstairs maid.

  The bath was of such a dimension that a small body could easily recline, and the room was warmed by a rotund iron stove in the corner. A brass rail was fixed to the green-tiled wall near the stove and draped with a white linen bath sheet.

  Inside it, Rhia sat with her knees to her chest. It felt strange being in a room that contained only a bath. She felt acutely aware of her naked, honey-coloured limbs. Did she feel this way because of Laurence Blake? He had looked at her as though she was something unfamiliar. He thought her uncultivated. He would marry a pale English girl with a demure smile.

  The steam hanging in the air reminded her of the Atlantic fog that had wrapped itself around the Irish Mail as it carried her away from Dublin. She hugged her knees more tightly as though to protect herself against homesickness. But now the green tiles reminded her of the Wicklow forests, and she could feel their clean breath in her lungs as though they had taken root in her; inhabiting her blood and bones.

  She heard Laurence return, and she held her breath, listening. Did he hesitate outside the door? Surely not. His boots tapped briskly up the stairs. She heard more footsteps and a soft rap on the door and then Beth’s voice. ‘Mr Blake says go up when you’re ready. He’s on the second floor at the back.’

  Rhia dried herself and dressed hurriedly, and dried and braided her hair in front of the fire before she went in search of Laurence. The second floor was laid out like the rest of the house, with a landing and housemaid’s closet in the centre and two large rooms either side. He was in the south-facing room. The room had little furniture, and a large Turkish rug covered the dark floorboards. The rain had pattered rhythmically on the windows all morning, but now sunlight fell across a long table that stood against the wall. Laurence’s tall frame was bent over its surface and he straightened when she came in, his hair falling into his eyes. Rhia could not decide if he was handsome or not. She assumed that his gaze was presumptuous, but it didn’t bother her.

  ‘Ah, Miss Mahoney. Rhia. Welcome to my calotype workshop!’

  ‘It sounds like a torture chamber.’

  ‘On the contrary, calotype, in Greek, means “beautiful picture”. Come and see for yourself.’

  There was a row of pictures on the table, and they cer
tainly were beautiful. Disturbingly so. Somehow this science or wizardry could conjure the membrane of a leaf; the delicacy of a piece of lace and, most extraordinarily, a number of miniature portraits of sombre-looking gentlemen. These, Laurence explained, were a new enterprise: calling cards; an idea he had picked up in Paris where, he said, the personalised calling card was de rigueur. The shadowy lace fichu, the scallop of crochet and the broderie anglaise, he said, were Antonia’s.

  ‘But how is it done?’ Rhia breathed. She was unable to take her eyes from the pictures. They looked as though they were rendered, oh so delicately, with the steadiest hand and the finest black and brown ink.

  Laurence looked pleased. ‘It is, supposedly, a secret,’ he stage whispered, though she could tell it was one he had no intention of keeping. ‘Fox Talbot has patented his calotype process, so one must apply for a special licence to be able to make a certain type of photogenic drawing. He has discovered the means by which one can make several copies of a picture, using a single exposure. I don’t expect you to know what any of that means, but perhaps you would like to watch me transfer an image.’

  It was true, Rhia had no idea what he was talking about, and she could only nod and sit down on a stool by the table. Transfixed, she imagined how these motifs might look printed onto linen but then remembered that, here, she was no longer the daughter of a linen clothier. Who was she, then? She concentrated on the motifs. They would look even better printed onto silk, but she was not the daughter of a mercer, either.

  Laurence was explaining how the paper that he had brought back from the stationer must first be treated to make it ‘light sensitive’, and that this chemical process must be undertaken at night and by candlelight to achieve greatest success. He had some paper that was treated already. ‘It is best to use a parchment with a smooth surface,’ he said, as he took a sheet from a writing box, ‘and to keep the treated paper away from the light. You will soon see why. I will show you a simple experiment. The more complex transfers, such as portraits, require the use of a lens and a light box.’