Prudence and the Romantic Poet (The Three Graces #3)

Chapter 15

15

Miss Kimpshott departed for London. Mr Shelbourne withdrew to his cottage bearing his agony, and returned a week later with an armful of poems.

‘Goodness,’ said Prudence, eying the thick sheaf of barely illegible lines he deposited on the kitchen table before her.

‘It is my only relief,’ said the poet, sinking down into a chair.

‘You look dreadful,’ said Prudence.

‘I write through the night.’ He yawned.

‘I shall make you some tea.’

‘Oh, that reminds me.’ He rummaged in the pocket of his greatcoat and pulled out a package. ‘My cousin says to try this. He would like to know what you think of it.’

Prudence felt a little flutter in her stomach at the mention of his cousin. She opened the package to see that it was tea. She sniffed it. ‘Interesting.’

‘He says he shall be in town again soon and shall wait on you to hear your opinion.’

Not even Mr Shelbourne’s sighing could suppress her little smile of happiness as she moved to take down the teapot.

‘Are you remaining in town for a while?’ she asked.

‘For a night or two,’ he said listlessly. ‘I need to make some purchases.’

‘I am guessing you are out of ink.’

‘And paper.’

‘Have you seen anybody in the past week?’

‘Only Green.’

‘You cousin has left you alone all week, knowing you to be in low spirits?’

‘Oh, he calls every day on his daily ride to his project. I don’t count him.’

‘His project?’

‘His house. Though why a man must needs build a house when he has a great manor I don’t know. My cousin is a very eccentric man.’

Prudence could not resist saying, ‘While you are altogether a conventional man by contrast.’

The humour was lost on him. He sighed again. ‘I think I shall give up poetry,’ he said.

‘Do you? And what shall you do instead?’

He shrugged. ‘Take up painting. Or clockmaking.’

‘Clockmaking?’

‘I have always liked clocks.’

She looked closely at him, looking for signs that he had been drinking or taking laudanum.

‘I am not mad,’ he said, meeting her concerned look. ‘Ask Sir Robert if it is not so.’

She smiled, as one would smile at a child, and offered him a piece of plumcake. He accepted the cake, and a second slice, saying, ‘I forget to eat when I go into a writing spell, and then I feel twice as hungry. Where’s Pip?’ he asked, suddenly realising that his boot tassels had not been assaulted, nor was there a little dark creature begging for tidbits.

‘Amos has taken him along on his errands about town. What do you think of the tea?’

Mr Shelbourne took a sip, then shrugged. ‘I can never tell the difference between one tea and another. I don’t think my cousin can either. I think he’s bamming. It’s either good hot tea or bad cold tea.’

Prudence would not pursue the subject with so uninterested a companion, so she kept her thoughts to herself on the pleasant hint of vanilla she could discern. ‘If you have a way with clocks,’ she said, ‘the clock in the dining room will never keep time above two hours.’

‘Probably the regulator mechanism needs adjusting.’

‘Can you adjust it?’

‘Not without the right tools.’ He perked up. ‘There is a set of clockworking tools at my cousin’s house.’

‘At Beech Park?’

‘No, at Brock Street.’ He jumped up, taking up his coat. ‘I shall run up and get them.’

‘Only if it is no trouble.’

‘I shall be glad of something to do.’ He paused, one arm in his coat, one sleeve dangling as a look of anguish passed over his pale, hollow-eyed face. The pang of pain passed, and he pulled on his coat and took up his hat.

Prudence felt a corresponding pang at seeing her friend’s expression. She did think that his feelings for Miss Kimpshott contained a large degree of calf love, but the look of pain he had just experienced was very real. She could not help herself saying out loud, ‘Oh, how dreadful is the uncertainty of not knowing if the one you love feels the same. ’

He looked at her in surprise, and then snatched up one of her hands and squeezed it in gratitude for her understanding. ‘Thank you,’ he said in a choked voice, and hurried away.

A half hour later as Prudence came downstairs from one of the first-floor rooms with Pip at her heels she heard a rap at the front door. She was close enough to the door to call out, ‘I’ll answer it, Pickering, for it is only Mr Shelbourne come back.’

But it was not Mr Shelbourne. It was the unpleasant looking ‘man of business,’ as Pickering called him, who came once or twice a week to see Mr Sealy. He looked her up and down in an insolent manner and then stepped forward as if to brush past her into the house. She moved instinctively to close the door on him to block his entry. He was momentarily surprised into stepping back. She returned his unfriendly look, saying, ‘Can I help you?’

‘Mr Sealy’s expecting me,’ he said, attempting to move forward, but she held her ground. Pip began a low growl.

‘Mr Sealy is unwell. I will have to see if he is awake and able to receive visitors.’

‘He’ll see me,’ said the man pertly, eying her dog with displeasure. She narrowed the door opening a few more inches to keep Pip from darting through it and venting his hostility on the man’s leg.

‘What is your name?’ she asked. ‘I will send it in.’

He glowered. ‘Crofter.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘What’s yours?’

She would not deign to answer. ‘If you will wait a moment,’ she said, I will see if Mr Sealy is awake.’

‘Who are you?’ demanded Crofter, putting a hand on the door and pushing it. This set Pip off into a volley of barking. ‘Get back, you mutt,’ growled Crofter. ‘Bite my ankle and it’ll be the last thing you do! ’

‘It is you who are attempting to trespass!’ said Prudence, her indignation roused. ‘My dog is doing his duty in guarding the house!’

He stepped back, glaring at her and her dog. His eyes narrowed again. ‘Where did that mutt come from?’ he demanded. ‘I had a new ratter just like that who got stolen from me.’

‘Well, this dog is mine,’ said Prudence, pushing the door to close it on him.

‘What’s going on?’ called Pickering, coming out of Mr Sealy’s room and shuffling up the hallway.

‘Oy, Pickering!’ called the man on the other side of the door that Prudence was closing.

‘Crofter?’ called back Pickering.

‘Tell that Miss Princum-Prancum of yours to let me in!’

‘What did he call me?’ said Prudence, scooping up Pip before he tripped up Pickering, for he was darting excitably in front of the door, telling the man on the other side of it what he thought of him.

‘You shouldn’t answer the door to him, miss,’ said Pickering. ‘He’s not fit company for ladies. You didn’t tell him who you were, did you?’

‘I would not give my name to such a horrible man,’ said Prudence. ‘But I would not let him in until I knew if Mr Sealy was well enough for visitors.’

Crofter was banging on the door, and Pip was barking. ‘I’ll deal with him, miss. Don’t you trouble to speak to the likes of him. The master will want to see him. You go off, an’ leave him to me.’

Prudence was glad to leave Pickering to deal with such an unpleasant man. The commotion had brought the servants down from the first floor where they were pulling out the furniture in the drawing room for a thorough clean .

‘Is all well, miss?’ Amos called down the stairwell. Young Sophy came down carrying a pail of dirty water.

‘All is well,’ Prudence called back as she returned to her work. She passed Sophy on the stairs. ‘What’s he doing here?’ said Sophy, shrinking back out of sight as Crofter was let into the house and stomped in his heavy boots down the hallway to Mr Sealy’s room.

‘Do you know him?’ said Prudence.

‘The rent collector,’ said Sophy, craning her neck to see that he had gone by.

‘Is that what he is?’ Prudence said no more. It would not be appropriate to discuss Mr Sealy’s business with Sophy, but privately she was surprised to hear that Mr Sealy’s regular visitor was a rent collector, for she had thought Mr Sealy owned the house. Why he should pay what must be a high rent for a sizeable town house when he only occupied one room was a puzzle.

‘Let me take that,’ she said, putting Pip down and taking the pail from Sophy. ‘I’ll bring up fresh water.’

Sophy thanked her and ran back upstairs. As Prudence passed her uncle’s door she heard raised voices, and though she was not one to listen in on conversations, she paused on this occasion, for she heard the horrible Crofter saying loudly, ‘Who the deuce is that chick-a-biddy with the pert tongue and the toplofty way of talking?’

‘What’s it to you?’ she heard her uncle growl.

‘She does the cooking,’ said Pickering.

‘She don’t talk like a cook,’ said Crofter.

‘What the deuce do I care what she talks like?’ said her uncle irritably. ‘It’s only what the cooking’s like that matters.’ A bout of coughing followed, and Prudence moved away, wondering why Mr Sealy and Pickering did not wish the rent collector to know that she was Mr Sealy’s great-niece .

She returned upstairs. Mr Shelbourne must have become distracted with other things for he did not return that afternoon with the clockworking tools. She heard the door slam about a half hour later, and knew that Crofter had left the house. She put down her cloth, saying, ‘I am going to see if Mr Sealy needs anything now that his caller is gone.’

She was concerned that her uncle would be left vexed by the rent man’s disagreeable attitude. His door had not been closed by Crofter, so she could hear Pickering’s voice as she neared.

‘If you don’t set it up right and tight, he’ll have every ha’penny you’ve got, you mark my words if he don’t. The law won’t hold wi’ a scrap of paper. The law is the law, an’ you got to make it tight and lawful or it won’t stand. If you’re going to be so big a nip cheese as to not pay a green bag to make it lawful then the joke’s on you, for all your nip cheesing will do is make that fellow have his way.’

‘Very well,’ growled Mr Sealy. ‘I’ll write to Rowlinson.’

‘I’ll get your writing gear.’

‘Not now. I’ll write tomorrow.’

‘You can’t put it off—’

Pickering said something more, but Prudence, though strongly tempted to continue listening, rapped on the door, causing the men to fall silent. She put her head round the door. ‘I came to see if you needed anything?’

‘The master is right and tight, miss,’ Pickering said.

‘You wouldn’t like me to read for a half hour before I start the dinner?’

Her uncle waved her away.

‘Is all well?’ she said quietly to Pickering, who had crossed the room to the door and was ready to close it on her.

‘Yes, miss. All’s right and tight. ’

‘That rent collector is a most unpleasant man.’

‘To be sure he is, miss.’

‘Does he have to call in person? I think he upsets Mr Sealy.’

‘The master knows just how to give that ruffian a set down, don’t you worry, miss.’

‘Why did you make a point of not telling him who I was?’

‘You don’t want a grubber like that knowing anything that ain’t none of his business.’

She had other questions, but Pickering was inching the door closed as they talked, so she gave up for the time being and left them.

There were more snatches of conversations overheard as she went about her business the next two days. She heard them because they were heated conversations, bordering on arguments, between her uncle and Pickering. She repeatedly heard the name Rowlinson mentioned, so she knew that it was an ongoing dispute. Finally, when she caught Pickering alone as he came through the kitchen to fetch something, she said, ‘Pickering, what are you and my uncle arguing over every day? Who is Mr Rowlinson, and why do you want him to call and my uncle doesn’t?’

At first she thought he was not going to answer her, but after a moment’s silence he said, ‘Rowlinson be the master’s lawying fella up in town. The master ought to put his business in order, but he’s got this maggoty notion in his brain that the day he signs his will is the day he sticks his spoon in the wall, so he puts it off.’

‘I see.’ She didn’t like to say that surely her uncle had precious little to leave, but then she recalled that even if the house were rented, the furniture might all be his, and was of good quality. And probably there would be some pension arrangement that ought to made for Pickering. This would explain Pickering’s urging for his master to put all in order.

‘What will happen to Mr Sealy’s possessions if he does not make a will?’ she enquired.

Pickering made a gesture of throwing up his hands, as though to demonstrate that all would be thrown away. ‘That shabster Crofter will cart every stick and stone and last farthing away.’

‘Does Mr Sealy owe him money? That is too bad. No wonder he is vexed by his visits. I can imagine him being a dreadful bully to anyone in his power. Pickering, do tell me if there is anything I can do? My sisters will wish to aid Mr Sealy if he is in trouble. I dare say the debt can easily be cleared.’

Pickering regarded her, his jaw working and his head shaking slowly as though he was desiring to say more, but was restraining himself. ‘It ain’t for me to say nothing ‘bout the master and how he’s fixed, miss. I shall keep chivvyin’ like a crooked rib till he does what he knows he’s got to do to make all right and tight. I’ll get that letter out of him for the lawying fella, you see if I don’t.’

Pickering went on his way, leaving Prudence none the wiser.

Another day passed by before Pickering came out of his master’s room and into the sitting room where Prudence sat sewing one afternoon. He waved something triumphantly.

‘A letter, Pickering?’

He showed it to her, pleased with himself. She read the address :

Rudd, Rowlinson & Fidler

Chancery Lane

London

He gave a rare grin, showing more gaps in his gums than he had teeth. ‘Going out to post it ‘afore the master changes his mind!’