Tea with Mrs. Nettle

“You will stand at my right hand,” said Lady Halewood, “and you will hand nobody anything. If a shawl is wanted tonight, Pruett may fetch it. I have had her practising.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You are in the grey. Good. It is the one they know. I will not have you in anything new, as if you had been paid.”

It was a quarter to nine on Thursday. The session had been opened at Westminster that afternoon, and half of London had dined early in order to be somewhere afterward. The two drawing rooms in Hill Street had been thrown into one. The candles were lit, and the tall footman stood at the head of the stairs in black gloves.

Hester stood where she was told. She had two sheets of thick letter-paper pinned inside her pocket, and her spectacle case beside them.

She had not been first. That still galled her. She had told a man at a desk that she would print her own name before anybody could print it for her, and a morning paper had beaten her by four days, with dashes. On Tuesday she had sat between Lord Corsley and an empty chair. The Dean had sent his excuses at six o’clock. Lord Corsley had eaten for both, and had asked her twice whether she meant to put in the turbot.

On Wednesday she had walked to Crane Court without her veil. The Notebook for Saturday was four lines long, and it ended in a name. Mr. Garrow had read it and grunted, and then he had opened his drawer and shewn her a letter with a red seal.

“It came on the Tuesday of last week, by the post,” he had said. “It is why I gave you your column. I was not told to shew it to you and I was not told to hide it, so I have done as I pleased. His man came here himself on the fourth and took the hundred guineas back, out loud, in front of Tibbs. I have never seen a compositor look so relieved to be poor.”

She had read the letter standing. It had no clause in it that she could have cut, and nothing in it asked for her thanks.

She had known by then about the thirtieth of December. She had found it in a green book at her mother’s kitchen table, four leaves on from the page that had ended everything. I will not have her think her safety was a bargain. She had sat a long while over that. She had told him that he held a trial and never let the prisoner know. It was true. But the judge had torn up the only sentence he had power to pass, a full day before she spoke, and had said nothing of it then or after. She could not leave that out of the reckoning because she was hurt.

So she had sent it back to him, with the date. She had also written Nothing for me, and she had meant it.

“Sixty,” her godmother said. “I asked ninety. Thirty have a cold. I have written down which thirty.” She planted her cane. “Brome wrote to me yesterday, begging me to un-ask one of them. He says it is three votes if the man is seen in this room. I sent the letter round to Brook Street, so that there should be no mistake about the price. I do not know what he will do. Stand up straight, child. Here is the Admiral.”

They came up the stairs in black and grey, by twos and threes, and every one of them looked at her.

She had stood in this room four hundred times, and had never been looked at in it. It was as bad as she had always supposed. Admiral Bellamy bowed to her godmother and then stared at Hester as if a chair had spoken. His hand went up to his wig. Lady Merrow gave her godmother two fingers and Hester nothing at all, and went to the far sofa, where she began to talk behind her fan. Old Lady Jane patted Hester’s arm and said loudly that she had always thought the Bishop’s gravy very well put.

Lord Penmoor asked her, quite kindly, whether she had ever written anything about him. She said that she had once mentioned his watch-case. He was so pleased that he took it out.

“The Earl of Wardlow,” said the footman.

The room did not go silent. Sixty people cannot manage that all at once. But the talk dropped by half, and she heard the Admiral say “By God” to nobody.

He came in alone. He was in black, and he looked thinner than he had at Scarrow. He bowed over her godmother’s hand.

“Lady Halewood. I had your card, and the enclosure.”

“And you have come. I see that you can read.” The black eyes went over him. “There is tea. I do not promise you conversation.”

He turned to Hester. She had curtseyed to his waistcoat fifteen days ago. Tonight she found that she could not keep her eyes there.

“Miss Ludlow.”

“My lord.”

“I gave your brother a message.”

“He gave it. He also told me about the cake.”

One corner of his mouth moved, and was still. He did not stay beside her. He bowed and crossed the room, through people who drew their skirts aside to watch, and took a cup of tea to the mantelpiece. He stood there with it, tall and slow and quite by himself. He had stood in that place in May, two days after his bill was lost, and said a foolish thing about a hatpin.

She had told him to do nothing for her, and he was doing nothing. He was fifteen feet off, where everyone could see that he had come. Mr. Brome had put a price on that, and he had been sent the bill beforehand.

She had been calling him Lord Wardlow in her head for sixteen days. It had never once sounded like him.

The room filled. Lord Tarrant came, and looked at the Earl and at her and blinked a good deal. Lord Corsley came and went straight to the cake. By ten there was a crowd about the tea table, and the stares had worn down to glances. Her godmother was saying something cutting to Lord Dunmere about the price of sea-coal.

Nobody was announced. The footman at the head of the stairs said, “My lord, her ladyship has not—” and was walked past.

Lord Halewood stood in the doorway, settling his cuffs.

He was as well dressed as ever. He looked about the room with his pale eyes until he found her, and he smiled. Then he came forward to the tea table, and took a cup from Pruett’s tray, and raised his pleasant voice so that it carried to the windows.

“Ma’am, forgive me. I was not asked, but a man may surely call on his own stepmother. What a charming party. I wonder, do you all know that you are drinking tea with Mrs. Nettle?”

Now there was silence.

“There she stands, at Lady Halewood’s right hand. She has stood behind your chairs for two years. Lady Merrow, your gowns. Admiral, your wig. Every word of it went to Fleet Street at two guineas a week. And lately she has found a better market, in Derbyshire, with a noble earl who—”

“Lord Halewood is right in the first part,” said Hester. “I had sooner tell you the rest myself.”

Her voice had come out level. She had not expected it to. She took one step forward from her godmother’s side, and sixty faces turned.

“I am Mrs. Nettle. My name is Hester Ludlow. It will stand at the foot of the Notebook on Saturday, spelled out, so that nobody need trouble with initials again. I have written about most of the people in this room. I heard what you said because nobody lowers his voice for a companion. Most of what I printed was true, and a good deal of it was unkind. You may each settle that with me as you think fit.”

Lady Merrow’s fan had stopped.

“Two paragraphs were false. One said that Lady Cecily Calver was seen where no lady should be. The other said that Lord Wardlow had bought a share in a sweeping-machine. I unsaid both on Saturday. I told you then that they came to me unsigned, in one hand, and that I should say whose hand when I could shew it.” She unpinned her pocket. “Lord Halewood asks whether you know with whom you are drinking tea. I should like you to know one thing more.”

She took out her spectacle case. She had never worn them outside her own bedroom and Mr. Garrow’s office. She hooked the steel over her ears before all of them, and unfolded the first sheet.

“This came to the office of the Weekly Lantern on the second of May last. ‘Mrs. Nettle may care to know that Lord W—, who is so warm a friend to the climbing boy, has lately bought a share in the patent of the very machine his bill would oblige every householder in England to employ.’ Ten days after, the bill was lost by five votes.”

Lord Tarrant had opened his mouth, and shut it.

“This came on the ninth of June in the year seventeen. I have Lady Cecily’s leave to read it. ‘Mrs. Nettle may care to know that Lady C— C—, who is to marry Mr. D— in the autumn, has been seen on each of the last eight evenings leaving a house in Half Moon Street, alone, toward eleven o’clock. The house is let to single gentlemen.’ Each word of that is true. It leaves out a dying nurse in the attic. Whoever wrote it had counted the evenings.”

She laid both sheets on the tea table, among the cups, and smoothed them flat.

“The fault of printing them is mine, and I have said so. The hand is not mine. On Christmas Eve I saw four lines of verse written in it, before eight people. I say that it is Lord Halewood’s. Anybody may look.”

“May they?” Lord Halewood had not put down his cup. “Two scraps of paper with no name to them, out of a libeller’s pocket. Who is to say that she did not write them herself this morning? I told a friend of mine that nobody would take a scribbler’s word. I am gratified to see her try it.”

It was the weak place, and she had known it. She had nothing with his name at the foot.

Somebody was coming across the room.

He had set his cup on the mantelpiece. He did not look at Lord Tarrant’s corner as he came, nor at Lady Merrow’s sofa. He did not look at Hester to see whether he might. He walked straight through sixty people and stopped at her side, on the right, where he had sat for a fortnight with an inkstand between them.

He took a folded letter from his coat, worn at the creases, and laid it open beside her two.

“This was written to my sister on the twenty-second of April, 1817. It is an offer of marriage, and Lord Halewood’s name is at the foot of it. She refused him by the same post. She has lent it for tonight. Lady Halewood, you know your stepson’s hand. Lord Tarrant, you were told a thing about me in May. Come and see who told you.”

He had said all that without a pause. Hester heard it, and her breath caught.

“There is one thing more, and then Miss Ludlow may go on. Mrs. Nettle wrote about me for two years. She said that I spoke too long. I did. She said that I could not get to the end of a sentence. I could not. She was right about me in everything but two paragraphs, and those two were Lord Halewood’s.”

Lord Halewood laughed. It did not ring as it had in the gallery.

“Very pretty. And what did the lady have for her change of heart, Wardlow? Shall I tell them what one could see from your terrace?”

“I shall tell them. On the second of January I asked Miss Ludlow to be my wife, and she consented. On the fifth she gave me back my word, because I had done her a wrong, and she would not marry a man who had done it. So she printed her retraction after she had refused the coronet. Any man here who thinks that she was bought may work that sum for himself.”

He had not looked at her before he said it. He had not known how she would bear to have it said. His left hand hung open at his side.

Lord Tarrant had come to the table. He bent over the three sheets with his glass. Lord Penmoor looked over his shoulder, and the Admiral over Lord Penmoor’s.

“It is the same,” Lord Tarrant said slowly. “The capital. And that tail. Good God, Halewood. I voted on this.”

“Lady Cecily Calver,” said the footman at the door. “Mr. Brome.”

She was in black silk, very small on Mr. Brome’s stout arm, with her fair head up. She had not been in a London drawing room since the July of the year seventeen. She stood a moment on the threshold and let them look. Then she came up the room.

Lord Halewood was directly in her way. He made his graceful bow.

“Lady Cecily. This is an unlooked-for—”

Her hazel eyes went over him, and did not stop. She might have been passing a hat-stand. She walked by within a foot of his sleeve without turning her head, and curtseyed to his stepmother.

“Lady Halewood. I am late. I beg your pardon.” Then she put up her face and kissed Hester on the cheek. “Hester. Have you read them? Good. I should have liked to hear it.”

A lady by the window turned her shoulder to Lord Halewood, and then Lord Penmoor turned his back. It went round the room quickly.

“Everard,” said Lady Halewood. She had not looked at the letters. She had not needed to. “You were not asked. You have had the house for four days in the year these eighteen years, because your father wished it. You have now had the last of them. James will find your hat.”

He stood with the cup still in his hand. He looked at the table, where his own name lay under a candle next to two notes that had cost him two sheets of paper. He looked for a face that would meet his, and there was none. He set the cup down. Nobody spoke. His step went the length of the carpet, and out, and down the stairs, and the street door closed.

The talk came back all at once. Lady Merrow rose with her husband and one other, and went out without a word to anybody. Mr. Brome watched them go and moved his lips, counting. Lord Corsley asked whether there was more cake.

“Hester,” said her godmother. “I do not arrange marriages. I told you so. I have, however, left my shawl on the half-landing, and Pruett is busy.”

Hester took off her spectacles. Her hands had begun to shake now that it was over.

“My lord, I believe that it is the heavy one. Will you help me to look?”
***
The door of the drawing room stood wide behind them, with the whole party in view. The footman had gone down to the hall. On the half-landing there was a window, and a chair with a shawl over the back of it. She did not pick it up.

“You were told to do nothing for me,” she said.

“I did nothing for you. You had read them. You had said whose they were.” He stood two steps below her, as he had on another staircase, so that their eyes were level. “It was my sister’s letter and my bill. And the fault I spoke of was mine, so it was mine to tell. I could not stand at a mantelpiece and hear him call you a scribbler. If that is a breach of the card, I have broken it.”

“Mr. Brome says three votes.”

“They went out with Lady Merrow. I saw him count.” He drew a breath at a full stop. She saw him do it. “I shall have to speak well enough to get them back. I have a good speech.”

“Did you know how I should take it? What you said about the fifth of January?”

“No.”

“Or how the room would?”

“No. I had crossed the carpet before I had built a sentence.”

She found that she was smiling, and that her eyes had filled.

“I read your book. All of it, even the larch. I read the twenty-seventh again, and then I read the thirtieth.” She pressed her hands together. “I must ask you one thing. It is the place where I always stop. In the chapel, that Sunday, you smiled at me. What was that?”

He waited. It was a short wait.

“Halewood had laughed at me, and you had not. You looked as if you had all morning. I was glad of you. I knew whose pen you were, and I was glad of you in spite of it, and it shewed. That was not a test. The hill was a test, and the stairs. I have no better name for them.”

It was what she had needed, and he had not dressed it. She let out her breath.

“I told my godmother that I did not see what you could ever do that would let me sit easy across a desk from you. I have just watched you do it. You came here with the price in your pocket. You stood by me when you could not tell whether I wanted you there, and you said the worst thing about yourself to sixty people without once looking to see my face.” She put her hand on the rail. “You have stopped waiting to be sure.”

“I am sure of very little tonight. I am sure of you. I was sure of that on the twenty-seventh, if I had had the sense to read my own page.”

“Then I have a question. I gave you five terms in a gallery. I ought to have had a sixth. Whatever you know of me, you say it within the hour.”

“Within the minute.”

“Mrs. Nettle goes on. On Saturday she has a surname.”

“I shall take in two copies.”

She had made a great many sentences in her life, and this was the shortest that had ever frightened her. She put the verb where her father would have had it.

“Adrian. Will you marry me?”

He did not pause, and his hand did not close.

“Yes,” he said.
***