Where Love Shines (7 page)

Louisa brushed the tiered ruffled skirt of the new day dress she had ordered during their three-day stopover in Paris on the way home. “Oh, you mustn’t say that. We must always carry with us the inspiration of having worked with Miss Nightingale to save our dear boys. And every woman knows there will always be nursing to do—for our families, for those on our estate—” She paused in some confusion. “—that is, for those with estates—and always charity work for others,” she finished in a rush. It was clear that Louisa had little thought for anything but returning to her family in Surrey.

And Felicia evidenced even less doubt about the life she was returning to. “My last letter from Papa was to inform me that he has agreed to allow Mr. Murray Relyea to make his addresses to me. What do you think, Jennifer? I have a great fondness for St. Marylebone, but it is rather out of fashion now. Would it not be better to be married at St. George’s Hanover Square?”

Jennifer was glad that Louisa answered for her, giving enthusiastic support to the superiority of St. George’s. This was a topic that would have greatly interested her less than a year ago. Now, however, she had no opinion. Here was another evidence of how much she had changed in these few months. What would Mr. Arthur Nigel Merriott think of her now? Indeed, what would she think of him? And having changed so much, would she be expected to change again?

She was still worrying later when the train steamed into the Tooley Street Station in Southwark. It didn’t take long for her to spot the familiar figure among all the others waiting on the platform—of stocky build, medium height, but looking rather taller in his high top hat and sober but well-tailored dark suit. Arthur Nigel Merriott had come to meet her. He handed her down from the door of her car and took her hand luggage from her. His thick sandy eyebrows shaded his brown eyes as his square muttonchop sideburns curled forward with a smile of greeting. “Your parents were so kind as to allow me to meet your train. Although why you didn’t come by private coach, I don’t understand. One might be required to sit by anyone on a train.” He signaled a porter. “Where are your trunks, Jennifer?”

“No, Arthur, this is all.” She had to say it three times before he realized that she had only the two small bags. “I have not been on a pleasure cruise to require a steamer trunk,” she reminded him.

“Yes, my dear Jennifer, I am aware of that.” He led the way from the platform at a brisk pace. “But now you can put all that behind you. Of course, I’m certain it couldn’t have been all the
Times
made it out to be. But you must have seen some rather unpleasant things. I still don’t understand why you took it into your head to go all the way out to Turkey when there is so much to be done here. But never mind that now.”

He hailed a hansom cab, and they were soon trotting briskly northward—as briskly as the congested traffic on London Bridge would allow.

“Mother wrote in her last letter that you have been appointed to the Factory Inspection Commission.”

Arthur never needed encouragement to talk about his work. One of the things Jennifer appreciated most about him was his willingness to discuss such matters with her. Certainly her father would never talk to her mother about such unsuitable topics as politics or his work in the bank, and he never gave her mother or herself anything but the society page of the newspaper to read.

Arthur, however, was far too passionate about his work to curb his enthusiasm, even in the face of society’s demands that the weaker sex be spared such sordid facts. “Oh, you have no idea what work there is to do. The two hours a day of schooling provided for factory children is more often directed by anyone available at the moment—whether or not they can read or write themselves—than by any proper schoolmaster. And even the youngest children are required to work fourteen hours a day or more. If England is to remain the leader of the industrial world—”

“But, Arthur, what has become of the Ten Hours Act? I’m certain I remember that it passed long before I left.” Jennifer blinked in confusion. It seemed as if she had been gone ten years rather than ten months.

“Quite right, quite right you are. It passed in substance. But the factory owners have found a loophole. They work children in relays, often requiring six-year-olds to remain at the factory from six in the morning until ten at night, with a few spare hours in the middle, which are of little use for recreation or education. And there has been almost no reform in the potteries. Workers are the foundation of industry. We weaken that foundation by being careless with this resource.”

The hooves of the cab horse rang briskly on the paving stones, mingling with the cries of costermongers hawking their wares amid the bustling throng of shoppers. Jennifer gazed at the banking houses of the city, the smart shops of New Oxford Street, and—once the congestion of Oxford Circle was behind them—beheld again the quiet elegance of Regent Street. She leaned back against the black leather upholstery of the cab with a sigh and felt herself relax as the familiar sights of Portland Place drew closer.

“‘…Tribes who killed unwanted babies or sacrificed their children to Moloch were merciful compared with Englishmen of the nineteenth century.’” Arthur’s impassioned voice suddenly penetrated Jennifer’s consciousness.

“What did you say, Arthur?”

“I was quoting one of the earl’s speeches for the Ten Hours Act—one of his finest, I believe. I’ve got it all by heart. ‘For we, having sucked out every energy of body and soul, tossed them on the rubbish heap of the world—a mass of skin and bone, incapable of exertion, brutalized in their understandings, and disqualified for immortality.’ And disqualified for further work, I should have added had I been making the speech.”

The cab came to a stop before Number 7 Portland Place, and Jennifer saw her mother coming out the door to meet her. With a stifled sob, Jennifer barely waited for the butler to open the cab door before she sprang down. “Mama, I had forgotten how beautiful you are!”

Mrs. Neville returned her daughter’s embrace and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before suggesting they go inside where they would be unobserved. But Jenny was right. At barely over forty, with only a few gray hairs highlighting the rich brown hair beneath her lace cap and dressed in a deep violet dress with a wide crinolined skirt, Amelia Neville retained much of the beauty that had made her the belle of her coming-out season a generation earlier.

They entered the parlor decorated in rich shades of deep green and plum, with its dark wood furniture heavily carved and upholstered in thickest velvety plush, its mantel, piano, and tables draped with silk-fringed scarves. To Jennifer it seemed as cool and quiet as the heart of a forest where the sun never truly penetrated. Nothing could have been further removed from the plains of northern Turkey. Jennifer sank thankfully into a chair overhung by a verdant potted palm and accepted a cup of tea from the tray brought in by Hinson, the butler. She was home.

Arthur passed the tray of cucumber and cress sandwiches. “You can have no notion, Jennifer, of how needed our factory inspections are. I have witnessed children with a whole alphabet of deformities brought on by the iniquitous demands of their labors.” Arthur placed a cheese and hazelnut sandwich on his own saucer before sitting down. “The side alleys of our cities are thronged with the dirtiest—”

“It was so kind of you to fetch Jennifer from the station, Arthur, dear. I know your support must have meant a great deal to her after such a fatiguing journey.” Mrs. Neville took a sip from her flowered china cup.

Arthur’s thick sandy eyebrows underwent a strange pattern of contortions as Mrs. Neville’s hint registered with him. “Ah, yes. I was delighted to be of service. But, of course, now that you’re returned to us, Jennifer, my dear, we shall have plenty of time to discuss all these matters. Indeed, Ashley—er, that is, the Earl of Shaftesbury—is to make a public address on the topic soon. You will doubtless wish to hear him. Perhaps you would allow me to accompany you, Mrs. Neville?”

By the time Arthur left them after his third bow, Jennifer couldn’t decide whether to scream or to cry. “Dear Arthur—such energy, such dedication, such goodness. It’s quite exhausting to contemplate. If there were a dozen like him in the city, I’m sure the worst rookery should be swept clean in a matter of months. I do admire him so much.”

“Indeed, my dear. Arthur is the finest of men. He’s assured to go far, especially with the earl’s support. I’m certain his future wife—whoever she may be—will find herself Lady Merriott one day.”

“Yes, Mama. That had not escaped my consideration.” But Jennifer laughed as she said it. She had learned months ago at Scutari that laughter was often the best release for the feeling of having been run over by a steam engine.

“But you must not be too quick about taking up your charity work again. You look woefully drawn.” Mrs. Neville examined her daughter’s hands. “My goodness, you look as if you’d been scrubbing with the housemaids. It’s no wonder Mary Stanley returned after only a month of nursing. Why didn’t you come then, too? I’m sure if we’d known it would be anything so difficult, your father and I would never have permitted you to go out to Scutari at all. There are plenty of good works to be done right here in our own city.”

“Yes, Mama.” Jennifer pushed her teacup aside. Her head was beginning to ache.

“Fortunately, I have a fine new cucumber and rosewater cream from Fortnum’s. You must use it faithfully. A lady can never take too much care of her skin. And we will begin our calls next week. It is well I had the foresight to refuse all invitations for this weekend. We will visit my dressmaker in the morning.”

“Yes, Mama.” Whether it was due to the rigors of the past months or from the specter of returning to a never-ending round of afternoon calls and dinner parties, Jennifer’s head felt as if it would split apart.

By the end of the following week, however, the cucumber and rosewater cream had done much to restore Jennifer’s work-roughened hands, and her wardrobe had been brought up to date by three new gowns from the patterns of Swan & Edgar.

And yet she had done nothing to grasp the vigorous new life she had envisioned for herself on the deck of the
Hansard
. She, indeed, was much changed, as she had foreseen, but her family was not. And she was also very tired. It had been much easier to stifle her own desires and slip back into old routines than to strike out in the bold new directions she had envisioned.

Today, however, would be different. Today Mrs. and Miss Neville would attend the Society for Doing Good in All Souls Parish. Jennifer felt an upsurge of fervor. Now she would begin her work. She would undertake a bold new cause whereby she could help improve London as decidedly as she had helped improve Scutari. The Barracks Hospital had been but a training ground.

“Come along, my dear, or we shall be late. Lady Eccleson does not like to be kept waiting in her own parlor.” Mrs. Neville pulled on her gloves and picked up her parasol.

Jennifer knew that no matter how flushed with crusading spirit she might feel, she must be the obedient daughter in her father’s home. She carefully tied the mint-green ribbons of her straw bonnet and lifted the full skirt of her new green walking dress as she hurried down the stairway to the marble-floored entry hall where her mother waited.

Mrs. Neville directed her carriage driver to take them to Manchester Square at the top of Duke Street. “And hurry,” she added. Lady Eccleson ruled the compassionate societies of the parish with an efficient, never-wavering devotion to the bodies and souls of the “less fortunate.” And one did not demonstrate true Christian concern for God and the poor by arriving late to one of her committee meetings.

Fortunately, Mrs. and Miss Neville were not late. Two seats in the parlor remained unoccupied, however. Lady Eccleson regarded the vacancies with a scowl and then turned to her guests. The coils of silver hair over each ear gleamed beneath a lace cap as white as the ropes of pearls adorning the neckline of her black dress. “My niece and her children always stay with me when they are in London. Charlotte and her daughter will join us shortly, I have no doubt. Now.” She peered at the assembled committed through her lorgnette as if calling Parliament to order. “There is good to be done.”

The Misses Bales, sitting across from Jennifer on a love seat, turned from their giggling and gossiping to present serious faces to the room. Well into middle age, the sisters still tortured their blonde hair into ringlets and wore the ruffled styles of their girlhood. Mrs. Biggar, just beyond Mrs. Neville, smoothed the skirt of her bright blue dress—a shade far too overpowering for her diminutive size—and looked, as if for support, to her husband. Col. Biggar’s white hair and mustache shone in contrast to the dark wood of the carved oriental screen behind him. His stiff military bearing bespoke the glories of Waterloo and the rigors of India. As he adjusted his monocle, it was clear he was prepared to give equal service to this new call to arms.

“It has come to my attention that we must form a new committee.” Lady Eccleson cleared her throat. “While we have been seeing to the needs of the poor and fallen in Whitechapel, Dockland, and Limehouse, Satan has crept in the back door and established a bulwark on the very doorstep of our own parish. I have written a letter to the vestry committee of All Souls to draw its attention to the drunkenness and growing number of houses of ill-repute springing up around us. I hardly need to point out that such behavior is not seemly in one of the most genteel parishes in London.”

Lord Selbourne, a dark-visaged, square-jowled man at whose home in Portland Place many such committee meetings were held, agreed vigorously. “Indeed, the vestry has received a letter of complaint signed by 248 members speaking against these gross outrages upon decency and morality and continual disorders that give great scandal, offence, and disgust. A complaint has been filed with the Metropolitan Police.” He paused and observed the nods of approval around the room. “Our concern must be twofold: to wipe away this plague spot from our very doorstep, while at the same time contending for the faith, without which all social progress will be barren and fleeting. We must declare war upon the sin, while demonstrating the love of God to the sinner.”