And Then He Kissed Her Page 8

  She didn’t know it yet, but within a few weeks, Miss Dove would be back at her desk. He just had to hire a temporary replacement for her and exercise a little patience. How hard could that be?

  Chapter 6

  It is not the fairness of the price which matters. It is how much one is willing to pay.

  Mrs. Bartleby

  All Things London

  The Social Gazette, 1893

  If Harry had any doubts about the demise of Miss Dove’s literary career, the following Saturday’s edition of the Social Gazette assuaged them. He shifted the folded-back newspaper from his right to his left hand, continuing to read her debut column as his valet, Cummings, assisted him into his jacket.

  His curiosity satisfied by the first two paragraphs, Harry dropped the newspaper onto the silver tray held by his butler. “Thank you, Jackson. Take it back downstairs and put it with the others in the dining room. I shall be down directly.”

  “Very good, my lord.” The butler withdrew, and Harry turned around, lifting his chin so that Cummings could do up his tie. The proper way to give a luncheon party was just the sort of stuff he’d expected Miss Dove to put in a column, and he could see little help there for the sinking fortunes of Lord Barringer. He and the earl ought to be able to come to an agreement on an acceptable price for the newspaper quite soon. A fortnight, Harry judged as he went downstairs. A month at most.

  “Go to Chelsea for table linens?” his mother’s voice was saying as he entered the dining room. “I don’t believe it. Good morning, dear.”

  “Morning, Mama.” He kissed Louisa’s cheek. “Good morning, ladies.” He bowed to them, noticing in amusement that Lady Felicity seemed to have developed a passionate interest in newspapers, for she held one in her hand this morning.

  “You are in good spirits today, Harry,” Diana commented as he walked to the sideboard.

  “Should I not be?” he asked, helping himself to kidneys, bacon, and toast.

  “You weren’t a few days ago,” his eldest sister reminded him. “Yet today you seem quite reconciled to the loss of your secretary.”

  His grandmother spoke before he could reply. “Harrison, I cannot believe Miss Dove has left your employ.” She shook her head with a heavy sigh. “You shall never be on time for anything again, I fear.”

  “Do not distress yourself, Grandmama. I have not lost Miss Dove.” He took his place at the head of the table. “She is temporarily absent, that’s all.”

  “Only you would refer to a resignation as a temporary absence,” Vivian said, laughing. “You are forever an optimist, Harry.”

  “Why Chelsea?” Louisa asked, reverting to the topic they’d been discussing when he entered the room. “Does she favor a particular shop there?”

  Felicity lifted the folded-back newspaper in her hand, skimmed it for a moment, then nodded. She cleared her throat and began reading aloud to the others at the table. “‘If one is in need of fine table linens, Maxwell’s of Chelsea is an excellent place to acquire them. Their Irish linen is of an unsurpassed quality, and those of a frugal nature may be assured that Maxwell’s is most reasonable.’”

  “Let me see.” Louisa stuck her pair of gold-framed pince-nez on her nose and took the paper from Felicity’s outstretched hand. “Hmm…she says that for decorating the tables at a luncheon party, ivory linen or white are equally acceptable.”

  Harry stopped eating. “Are you reading the Social Gazette?”

  “Yes, dear,” Louisa answered without looking up. “Some woman named Bartleby. Felicity wanted to see which newspaper had so captured your interest that you had Jackson fetch it specially from your plate this morning, though I wouldn’t have thought you interested in luncheon parties and where one ought to buy linens. Hmm…she favors orchids as a centerpiece, which would be lovely—unscented, of course…hmm…place card holders that have the shape of pink flamingos? How charming.”

  Charming was not how Harry would have described it. Downright absurd, he’d have said.

  “Origami, she calls it,” his mother went on, “a tradition from the island of Nippon. ‘Using origami,’” Louisa quoted, “‘paper is folded into the shape of animals or flowers, and provides the hostess with an infinite variety of unusual decorations suitable for any party. At the conclusion of the event, the hostess may choose to give one of the origami decorations to each guest as a parting gift.’”

  “What a unique idea,” Vivian commented, “and very clever.”

  This elicited nods and murmurs of agreement from all the ladies at the table, and Harry felt a glimmer of uneasiness in his gut. “Surely you’re not taking this woman seriously?” he asked.

  “Giving a luncheon party, or any other sort of party, for that matter, is a very serious business, dear.” His mother unfolded the newspaper and turned the page, looking for the remainder of Miss Dove’s column. “One party, properly given, can make a hostess the shining light of the season.”

  “Somehow,” Harry said, “I doubt pink paper flamingos would have much influence upon a hostess’s social status.”

  “Oh, but things like that can be very important, Lord Marlowe,” Lady Felicity informed him. “Because my father is a widower, I act as his hostess, and I can assure you that giving a party requires a great deal of thought and attention. I’m certain Melanie, who acts as hostess for her own widowed father, would agree with me. Clever ideas such as this woman describes can be most helpful in making a social event successful.”

  Melanie, who still seemed to have no ability to speak when he was in the room, could only confirm this with a nod.

  “Girls, listen to this.” Louisa leaned forward in her chair, eager to impart more of Mrs. Bartleby’s wisdom. “She says there is a stationer’s directly across the street from this draper’s shop in Chelsea that supplies beautiful colored papers suitable for this origami business. They can provide instruction on how to make the flamingos, or one can have them made to order in quantity. She gives this stationer’s her soundest recommendation.”

  “Oh, does she?” Antonia sniffed and took a sip of her tea. “And who is this Mrs. Bartleby, that her recommendation means so very much?”

  Harry could have enlightened them, but he had no intention of doing so. If his sisters discovered the Bartleby woman was Miss Dove, they’d rag him endlessly for rejecting her oh-so-clever ideas and for losing her to Barringer. Even though it was only a temporary situation, they’d never let him live it down. Wisely, he kept his mouth closed.

  “What are her connections?” Antonia went on. “Who are her people? I know of no prominent family in Britain with the surname of Bartleby.”

  “Perhaps she is American,” Phoebe suggested.

  “Oh, American,” Antonia said with an emphasis on the second word that made her opinion of both the fictional Mrs. Bartleby and the possible country of her origin quite clear.

  “She couldn’t be American,” Vivian said, gesturing with her piece of toast to the newspaper held by her mother. “An American wouldn’t know the best places in London to shop for linens and stationery, would she?”

  “Regardless of who she is, one thing is obvious,” Diana put in. “We shall be making a shopping expedition to Chelsea today.”

  “Go to Chelsea?” Harry looked at her askance. “Because some woman you don’t even know tells you to go there?”

  “No,” Diana answered at once. “We are going in the hope of finding beautiful table linens.”

  “And so that we may learn to make pink flamingos!” Lady Florence said, laughing. She looked at Harry. “Will you accompany us, Lord Marlowe?”

  He’d rather jump off a cliff. “Alas, Lady Florence,” he said, feigning polite regret, “but I cannot. I have matters of business to attend to. If you will forgive me?”

  With that, he rose to his feet, gathered his newspapers and his morning post, and gave the ladies at the table a bow of farewell. Deep in discussion of pink flamingo place-card holders, shopping expeditions to Chelsea, and the possible
bona fides of Mrs. Bartleby, they didn’t even notice his departure.

  During the two months that followed, Harry’s uneasiness at the breakfast table proved far more accurate than his long-held opinions about Miss Dove’s writing. By the time sixty days had passed, everyone seemed to be talking of her and praising her clever ideas, much to Harry’s amazement and chagrin.

  He had always known Miss Dove was an intelligent woman, but even he hadn’t known the vast scope of her knowledge. She seemed to be a walking, talking Encyclopedia Britannica.

  Mrs. Bartleby knew everything about everything, it seemed. She knew how to get ink stains out of silk, the appropriate way for a young lady to refuse a marriage proposal from a widower, which restaurants were respectable establishments where ladies might dine after the theater—accompanied, of course!—and which bakeries could be counted upon for the freshest tea cakes.

  She assured girl-bachelors that it was perfectly acceptable to walk with a young man along a public street in the afternoon unaccompanied, provided their acquaintance had been of at least several years’ duration, the woman was on her way home from her job, and she was certain of the young man’s respectability and good character. Ladies, it seemed, had less freedom than girl-bachelors, for they were required to have their chaperones present at all times until the age of thirty.

  Mrs. Bartleby did not neglect the male sex in her weekly dialogue. She knew where a gentleman might find the best-made, most comfortable boots. She knew which tobacconists carried the finest cigars, which the gentlemen would, of course, have the consideration to smoke outside. She staunchly defended detachable shirt collars and cuffs as sensible devices for unmarried professional men, but abhorred cuff protectors and dickeys as inventions unworthy of even the poorest clerk.

  The words “Mrs. Bartleby says…” were repeated in so many conversations, Harry felt if he heard them one more time, he was going to go mad.

  In addition to this unexpected and rather nauseating development, Harry had been unable to find a satisfactory replacement for Miss Dove. The day after their altercation at her flat, he had rung up an agency, and since then, a series of secretaries had come and gone from Harry’s offices. Time and again he had been promised someone with vast secretarial experience, but there was always something wrong. One took dictation with all the speed of a turtle, another could not get it through his head that Harry preferred coffee to tea with no milk or sugar, another couldn’t keep track of appointments.

  The latter flaw was the most inconvenient of all, for Harry had somehow mislaid his appointment book. With Miss Dove, the loss would not have been a problem, for she had always managed to know where he needed to be and when, but in this regard, her successors were hopeless.

  The most recent one, a chap named Quinn, Harry deemed the worst of the lot. He had the irritating habit of hanging his head like a whipped puppy every time a mistake was pointed out to him. Still, explaining the same procedures to a new face every other day had grown wearisome for him and the others on his staff, and Harry had reluctantly accepted Quinn as a temporary replacement. But as the days of May went by and Mrs. Bartleby’s popularity continued to rise, Harry began to fear he was saddled with Quinn, or someone equally irritating, for a long time to come.

  As if all that weren’t bad enough, the females in his own house hold had found their shopping expedition to Chelsea and the subsequent advice of Mrs. Bartleby so gratifying that they insisted upon reading her column aloud to each other at breakfast every Saturday morning. They were now planning their lives around what ever new information Miss Dove’s fictional counterpart chose to hand out and spending Harry’s money on what ever she advised them to buy.

  “Diana, today’s column might have been written for you.” Louisa rustled the newspaper in her hands. “Today Mrs. Bartleby discusses the giving of wedding breakfasts.”

  This news was greeted with exclamations of delight by every female at the table. Harry, who was contemplating a ban on reading newspapers at breakfast with the excuse that it was rude, stared glumly into his plate of eggs and bacon and wondered if he should start eating at his club on Saturdays.

  “‘Stand-up and sit-down breakfasts are equally fashionable this year,’” his mother read, “‘although each requires a menu particular to its design.’ Hmm…no hot entrées during a stand-up breakfast, of course. Crab puffs and pâté de foie gras to start, a chilled tomato soup served in teacups to be sipped. That way guests needn’t bother with spoons as they mill about the room—what a sensible idea! And so clever!”

  Harry couldn’t help rolling his eyes, but the women didn’t seem to notice.

  “‘In addition to the customary cold meats and game,’” his mother went on, “‘a hearty salad is always a welcome addition. A chicken salad, for example, with almonds and mayonnaise, is most delicious when served on tiny croissants as finger sandwiches.’”

  This suggestion was met with a torrent of praise, though what was so exciting about chicken sandwiches Harry couldn’t fathom.

  Jackson appeared beside him with the morning post. Harry pushed aside his plate and sorted through his letters, pausing on one with Lord Barringer’s coronet.

  He opened it, and the information it contained was so appalling, he had to read it twice to be sure he wasn’t having a bad dream. Circulation had doubled at the Social Gazette during the past two months, Barringer informed him with obvious relish. As a result, advertising revenues had also increased significantly, and the earl was raising his asking price for the newspaper to one hundred fifty thousand pounds. Barringer was in desperate need of ready money, and time should have made him more willing to lower his asking price. Instead, he was raising it. And why? Because of paper animals and soup served in teacups.

  “Harry, dear, don’t grind your teeth,” Louisa admonished him, then peered over her pince-nez at her eldest daughter. “Diana, Mrs. Bartleby’s menu is an excellent one, don’t you think? Most suitable for your own wedding breakfast.”

  Harry could take no more. “Absolutely not!” he snapped and stood up. “I am not going to sip cold tomato soup out of a teacup, Mama, not even for Diana!”

  With his opinion on that now perfectly clear, Harry tossed his serviette into his plate, thrust Barringer’s letter into his pocket, and departed from the table, leaving nine astonished women staring after him.

  Since he didn’t know what his appointments were and neither, it seemed, did his secretary, Harry decided to go to his club. A gentleman’s club was sacrosanct, the last bastion of sensible men who didn’t give a damn about wedding breakfast menus and which young men the girl-bachelors walked out with in the afternoon.

  Upon his arrival at Brooks’s, he found two of his closest acquaintances were also there, seated at a table in one corner. He crossed the room toward them.

  Lord Weston was the first to see him. “By all that’s wonderful,” he cried, standing up to give Harry a hearty clap on the shoulder, “glad you’re here, Marlowe. We’re having a bit of a dispute, and you’ve arrived just in time to settle it.”

  “Indeed?” Harry greeted the other man at the table, Sir Philip Knighton, then pulled out a chair. “What are the two of you arguing about this time?”

  “I say the four-in-hand tie is still perfectly acceptable, but Sir Philip says it is now comme il faut.”

  “I’m not the one saying so, Weston,” Sir Philip protested. “The Bartleby woman was quite emphatic about it in her column last week. The four-in-hand is out.”

  “That tears it!” Harry jumped to his feet so violently he knocked over his chair. “Damn it all, can’t a man even go to his club anymore?”

  All the gentlemen around him, including his companions, stared at him in astonishment. Harry drew a deep breath. “Forgive me,” he said with a bow, “but I must go. I just remembered that I have an important engagement.”

  He left his club and called for his carriage, but when it came, he waved it away. Instead, he took a long walk.

  He went ov
er everything he could recall of Miss Dove’s manuscripts—which wasn’t much, for he hadn’t read much. And what he had read had so failed to capture his interest that he could only remember a few things. Something about how a girl-bachelor could decorate her flat. Stuff about how to give an Afternoon-at-Home. The proper way for a lady to ride in the park. Just thinking about these topics, and he was already bored to distraction. So what was making her a success? He just didn’t see it.

  That, he realized with dismay, was the crux of the problem.

  Though he could not see the appeal of Miss Dove’s writing, other people did. Somehow, in the space of two months, her Mrs. Bartleby character had become a sensation. How could he have been so wrong about her appeal to the reading public?

  Her accusation came back to slap him in the face. You are too closed-minded.

  Was that true? He had always prided himself on being open to opportunities. Had he somehow become closed-minded without even realizing it? He thought of his editors, of all the manuscripts they had recommended over the years that he had rejected. How many more Mrs. Bartlebys were in the rubbish heap? There was no way to know.

  He had always trusted his instincts, and they had never failed to tell him the truth. His success as a publisher had always come from his ability to know what people wanted to read and providing it for them at just the right time.

  Was he losing that ability? Were his instincts deserting him? Self-doubt, something he seldom had cause to feel, whispered through his mind. Were the qualities that had made him Britain’s most successful publisher deserting him?

  He paused at Hyde Park Corner, where a boy in a cap stood amid stacks of newspapers. Three of his own were there, along with the London Times and the Social Gazette. Harry bought a copy of the latter, found himself an empty bench in the park, and sat down. He read every word of today’s All Things London, by Mrs. Honoria Bartleby.