Chapter Five
Despite having held an officer’s rank, I had seldom ordered other people about while in the military. I’d roamed the countryside on reconnaissance or been given staff work. In battle, I’d been sent where I was needed.
I thus had little experience with keeping subordinates occupied. My domestic staff was experienced enough to execute their duties without my hovering, and my men of business knew better than to bother me over details.
Arthur had tasked me with taking charge of Leander’s situation. Not only was I to learn the truth of the boy’s provenance, but also to see the child comfortably settled into a new life. The particulars of that challenge eluded me, and when baffled by life or my fellow humans, I knew of only one sure tonic, that being the company of horses.
“We’re off to Tatts?” my tiger asked. Atticus’s age was difficult to determine. He might be as young as nine, possibly as venerable as twelve, though he had an innocent faith in life that argued for lesser years.
“Pony shopping. Not the most agreeable task, but preferable to many.” I’d come home from my call upon Newton, unsure of next steps, though avenues of investigation were multiplying like spectators at a street brawl. A hearty nuncheon of sandwiches and soup hadn’t yielded any insights, other than that the heat was making sleep difficult.
“You ain’t driving no pony gig, are ya, guv?” Atticus skipped along beside me as I headed down the garden path to the mews. He was happy for any occasion that allowed him to sport about in his yellow-and-black-striped jacket, though the boy had once vowed that he’d never wear livery.
Foolish child.
We all wore livery. Newton wore the livery of the struggling playwright. I wore the livery of the ducal spare. Mrs. Danforth wore widow’s livery, and Miss Dujardin had adopted the plumage of a governess.
“I will purchase a pair of ponies capable of going in harness together, but I do not aspire to hold their ribbons. Cook can take them to market if she’s not of a mind to walk. You will learn to drive them.”
Atticus vaulted the garden gate as nimbly as a goat. “I don’t know how to drive.”
“You are a tiger. Occasions will arise when you must take my vehicle home because I’ve been invited to supper at the club, or I’ve crossed paths with an old friend, and keeping a team standing about for hours would not serve.” I’d been living in London for more than a year, and not a single invitation to club or pub had come my way.
“A gentleman never neglects his cattle,” Atticus muttered. “Will I learn to ride?”
I passed through the gate and latched it behind me. “Of a certainty, and if you can ride a pony, you can ride the most fractious hell beast ever to don bridle and saddle. Ponies aren’t mean by nature, but they are small and nimble. They’ll send you top over tail just because a patch of grass caught their fancy, and falling off such a small creature is easier than falling off the much larger horse.”
“If you say so. Will you ride His Grace’s gelding when the dook’s off traveling?”
“I might, and the grooms certainly will.” Or would they need me to remind them of that duty? Arthur’s looming departure had fallen largely into the category of things I’d think about later, but later was becoming sooner. “You might, as well.”
That silenced the lad. Arthur rode an impressive bay, who stood a couple inches taller than Atlas’s seventeen hands. Beowulf was mannerly, but spirited. He did not suffer fools, much like his owner.
“The grooms are saying you’ll look after things when His Grace travels.”
“That’s the general idea.” My curricle awaited us in the alley. Like all well-trained steeds, Atlas could go in harness or under saddle, but I’d asked to have a more sedate creature put to for this outing. “Up you go.”
Atticus scrambled to his perch behind the bench.
I climbed aboard and took up the reins. “Jameson, my thanks. We’re off.”
The groom who’d been holding the horse stepped back and touched a finger to his cap. “Best of luck, young Atticus. Mind you don’t bolt off with his lordship.”
“Atticus, onto the bench with me,” I said, giving the horse—a stalwart cob by the name of Beecham—leave to walk on. “I will get us onto the street, and then you will take the reins.”
Atticus stayed right where he was. “You want me to drive ?”
“A tiger is capable of handling a team. He’s not merely a human hitching post. Beecham is an old hand at London traffic. I’m here to guide you, and we aren’t going far.”
Atticus gave me the sort of look the housekeeper assayed when I’d forgotten to wipe my boots. “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout how to drive.”
“It’s simple. You tell the horse to get to work. If you need to turn him, apply a direct rein. If he’s to halt, you say whoa and follow up with a little, gentle reminder on the ribbons. Ask nicely and give him a moment to consider what you’re requesting. Nobody respects a ham-fisted coachy. Surely you’ve picked up that much?”
Atticus had probably sorted out gee , haw , whoa back , and steady on , but theory and practice could be miles apart.
“Not used to sitting up here,” he said as I guided Beecham into the flow of traffic on the street. “Don’t know as I like it.”
He did, however, take to driving Beecham with an instinctive knack, both for respecting the beast’s common sense and for maneuvering the vehicle smoothly. Turns could be challenging, but Atticus apparently had the sort of mind that grasped spatial questions easily.
He was no sort of rider yet, which was why I’d brought him along to try out the ponies. Bouncing about on their backs, reins held wide, no style at all… He was the perfect test of a creature’s patience and kindness. I chose a pair who’d be largish for Leander, but then, the boy would be on a lead line for some time.
An hour into the exercise, Atticus was already becoming at home in the saddle, which had also been one of the outing’s objectives.
I dealt with payment while Atticus scratched hairy ears and stroked muscular necks. I needed to find a calling for the lad, and the stable might serve. On the return journey, I allowed Atticus to manage the whole route, including the turn into the last alley.
He brought the curricle to a stop precisely by the mounting block.
“Well done,” I said, climbing down. “In future, I will alight at the front door, and you will drive the curricle around to the mews.” I conferred with the groom, alerting him to the impending arrival of the two ponies. I further suggested the ponies not be allowed to share a stall, lest they become soured on the company of any other equines.
Atticus was listening, of course. He had a fine talent for eavesdropping.
“Jameson, were you on hand five or six years ago?” I asked.
“Aye, milord. Been on the duke’s staff since I come up from Sussex ten year ago. Me uncle serves at the Hall.”
The smile was the same, though the uncle was a good thirty years older. “One suspected a relationship. Were you assigned Town duty the year without a Christmas?”
“That I were. His Grace said we was to have the Christmas pudding and the goose and the whole bit, but it weren’t the same as being with everybody down home. Haring all about Town in the mud and sleet… I didn’t care for it a’tall. We none of us did, and I daresay the duke dint neither.”
“Lord Harry came home on winter leave that year.”
“Aye, and we was all that glad to see him. He didn’t bide with the duke, but we saw plenty of ’im.”
“Lord Harry resided on Dingle Court. I don’t suppose you recall who was assigned to his mews?”
Jameson took off his cap, scratched the back of his neck, and gazed down the leafy tunnel of the shaded alley.
“We took turns. Old Belcher slept over the stable, and he did the muckin’ and waterin’ and such, but if his lordship wanted a coachy, and the duke’s man were busy, we took turns. Belcher’s been gone two year or more.”
Not what I’d wanted to hear. “What of the household staff? Are you in touch with any of them?”
Another squint and a scratch. “Lord Harry’s cook were a fine figger of a woman. Coulda tossed me like a caber, though she wasn’t stout. She were that formidable. She’s on staff with the Duchess of…”
I waited while Jameson did his own version of paging through Debrett’s.
“Lives over on the street with all the hydrangeas, drives matched grays, dotes on a mastiff the size of a ellie-phant.”
“Her Grace of Ambrose?”
“Aye, that’s the one. Her Grace loaned the cook to Lord Harry because Cook wanted to bide in Town over the winter, and the duchess wanted to spend the holidays in the country.”
Progress, yet again. While I’d not been puzzling over Leander’s situation for long, the matter had admitted of more questions than answers. A short chat with Helvetica Siegurdson might reverse that trend.
“You’ve been very helpful, Jameson. If you recall anything else about that winter, about Lord Harry’s comings and goings, who called upon him, or who might have caught his appreciative masculine eye, please do let me know.”
Jameson put his cap back on. “Beggin’ milord’s pardon, but the half of London wearin’ petticoats generally had Lord Harry’s eye, and maybe a few other parts of ’im too.”
“He was a flirt, but my interests lie with the ladies who inspired him to more than flirt.”
“I’ll give it a think.” Jameson touched a finger to his cap and sauntered off. He’d likely give it a think over a pint down at the corner pub, get the other lads to thinking, and who knew what intelligence their recollections might yield?
Beecham had been unhitched from the curricle, and Atticus held his reins while two grooms backed the curricle by hand into a carriage bay.
“You’re doing up the nursery,” Atticus said. “Chambermaids is all aflutter. Say only married fellows need nurseries.”
Atticus was keenly attuned to anything that might topple him from his post. Were I to marry, a wife might take him into dislike or find fault with his manners. The duke, jaunting off to the Continent, was clearly not of a mind to take a bride.
“You heard me asking Jameson about Lord Harry’s winter leave.”
“I did.”
“Lord Harry might have left a son behind. The boy needs a home.”
A groom came to take Beecham into the stable, to remove the harness and give the horse an entirely unnecessary brushing down.
“If I was grandson to a duke,” Atticus said, “wouldn’t be no maybes about it. My ma would make sure of that, and a lordship would do right by me, or she’d know the reason why.”
“You’re saying Lord Harry would have married any woman he got with child?” What an exalted view Atticus had of aristocratic honor.
“Not marry. Don’t work like that ’zactly, but he’d have provided. But then, maybe Lord Harry’s lady didn’t know she had a problem until himself was halfway back to Spain. Babies take forever to get born, and there was a war on. You’re bringing the lad home?”
“In less than a fortnight.”
“Well, he’s not allowed to be your tiger, guv. That post’s taken.”
A groom from Tatts appeared at the end of the alley, leading two shaggy little equines.
“Those ponies are your responsibility, Lord Tiger,” I said. “Jameson will show you how to go on with them if you have questions, but for starts, get them bedded and settled, see they have hay and water, and give them a decent grooming.”
“Both of ’em?”
“Ponies don’t groom themselves.”
Atticus positively swaggered up to the fellow from Tatts. “I’ll take ’em from here.”
The groom handed over lead ropes, caught the coin I tossed him, and winked. The ponies might not be in the most educated hands ever to wield a curry comb, but they would want for nothing.
I, on the other hand, had been presented with yet another question that wanted for an answer. Atticus was correct that Leander’s mother might not have realized she was with child until Harry had left Town, but that possibility made it all the more puzzling that she’d not come to Arthur or the old duke for support.
Vexatious conundrums on every hand.
I had made it halfway across the garden when a banshee standing perhaps five feet and two inches in heeled slippers shrieked at me from the alley.
“You ain’t gettin’ me son, be ye milord or mister. Leander is my boy, and the likes of you isn’t to have ’im.” She stormed through the gate and clattered up the walkway. “You ’ear me? Doesn’t nobody ignore Clothilda ’ammerschmidt or they’ll be sorry they tried.”
Miss Hammerschmidt had troubled over her appearance. Her paint was subdued and applied with a skillful hand. Her heeled slippers might be two sizes too large, but they matched and were reasonably clean. Her clothing fit her, and while not in the first stare—or the second or third—her attire was clean and modest.
Her hat, however… Clearly, that article had been fashioned by Miss Hammerschmidt to attract notice. Three birds—a robin, a cardinal, and a miniature facsimile of a dove—nested among silk foliage and a profusion of roses. Ribbons of green, pink, and white trailed down to curl about Miss Hammerschmidt’s ample bosom, and a green, pink, and white beaded reticule in the shape of a duck completed the ensemble.
“Miss, you have the advantage of me.” I kept my tone merely curious, lest Miss Hammerschmidt’s pique give more volume to her declarations. Town was less crowded during summer, but by no means deserted.
“Your bruvver done took advantage of me more like. Now you want to snatch me boy, and I’m not ’avin’ it.”
I put her age at about five-and-twenty, hardly venerable, but no longer of tender years. Nor did I make the mistake of concluding that a lack of Oxford diction meant a lack of brains.
“Shall we sit?” I gestured to the grouping situated in the shade of the terrace. “And perhaps you won’t mind if I ring for some lemonade? The heat works up a thirst.”
She settled herself with regal dignity on a cushion, reticule perched in her lap. “Suit yerself.”
I retreated to the house, found a footman, asked for a tray, and requested that he take up a post on the terrace near the door.
“Now, then,” I said, returning to my guest. “Might I sit?”
She looked puzzled, then waved a hand.
“You claim to be Leander’s mother?”
“I don’t claim to be ’is mum, I am his mum. Lord Harry fancied me when he were home on leave. Nature took its course, and now you want my boy.”
I asked the only relevant question. “Can you prove Leander is your son?”
“He’s got red hair.”
Miss Hammerschmidt was acquiring aitches, now that she’d been civilly received. “So did every fifth infantryman recruited from Scotland. That proves nothing.” Miss Hammerschmidt’s own tresses—gathered in ringlets and cascading over her right shoulder—appeared to have benefited from a liberal application of henna.
“Ask anybody,” she retorted. “Lord Harry were keepin’ company wiv me the whole of his leave. Took a fancy to me, like I said.”
“His lordship took many fancies in his day. Did you sign a contract with him?”
“Be ye daft? I was dancing for me supper. He seen me ankles, and that were that.”
“What about baptismal lines for the boy? Did you keep them?”
“I give Leander to the wet nurse, and she saw to the baptizing. I sold the baubles Lord Harry give me to pay for that. I had to get back to work, didn’t I?”
The tray arrived, which was fortunate, because Miss Dujardin’s theory—that Martha Waites had been fostering Leander—had just acquired a few supporting possibilities. Not facts, but not complete fancies either.
I offered my guest a tall glass of cool libation garnished with sprigs of lavender. Miss Hammerschmidt watched me set the lavender on a saucer before she did the same with her own. I offered her the sandwiches—she took one—and I took two, while her gaze went longingly to the plate of biscuits and orange slices.
“Are you telling me,” I asked, “that between Harry’s gifts of appreciation and your own enterprise, you’ve been supporting the boy since birth?”
“I took up me needle and make decent money at it. I know the theater and how to whip up a costume. I can sew a straight hem in five minutes flat, and I mean sew it, not just baste it up to last through the scene. I stay away from the gin—mostly—and keep to me place. I get plenty of work.”
Newton’s comment, about the poor woman being clever with a needle, came back to me. “Did Alexander Newton tell you I was making inquiries?” I offered her the sandwich plate, her first sandwich having been consumed, and she took two more.
Her table manners were acceptable, though she’d draped her napkin over the duck reticule rather than set the thing aside. Poor woman learned more than stitchery at a young age.
“Newton? Alex?” She took another sip of lemonade. “You know him?”
“I had occasion to call on him earlier today. He and Lord Harry were friends.”
“Harry were friends with everybody. He wore a jovial nature like Garrick wore regimentals in the role of Captain Plume.”
Plume, a Restoration comedy figure, was as lascivious as he was clever. A surprisingly apt comparison, and Miss Hammerschmidt had avoided implicating Newton directly. Plenty of brains, despite the diction.
“But Harry was intimate exclusively with you?”
She nodded, which set her aviary bobbing. “That were the deal. He were in Town for the winter and didn’t want to bother with settin’ up some fancy light-skirts when he’d just be leaving come spring. We had a fine time. I had Leander the next autumn. Then back to work I went.”
“Did Harry know he had a son?”
She broke a biscuit in half, which attracted the notice of a pigeon, or perhaps the pigeon was fascinated by his artificial brethren nesting on her hat.
“I ain’t—I’m not—sure. I sent word to him through the regiment. I can read and write some, but Harry never wrote back. Newton says Harry were on maneuvers a lot, not in one place, but how did Newton know that, ’less Harry had written to him?”
I poured her more lemonade. She was trim, and the day was growing increasingly warm. Rain on the way, according to Newton’s little weathercock.
“Did you ask Newton to pass your news along to Lord Harry?”
The remaining portion of the biscuit received the whole of her focus. “Alex don’t always bide in Town. Sometimes, if one of his plays is rehearsin’ in Dublin or Edinburgh, he leaves London. Or sometimes he goes home to the countryside when he’s skint. By the time he knew what was afoot, Leander was already here.”
Mostly to give Miss Hammerschmidt time to finish the plate of sandwiches, and also because I could not dismiss her story out of hand, I reviewed her version of events.
“You and Harry had an exclusive, if short-lived, affair for the months of his winter leave at the end of 1810 and beginning of 1811. He bid you a fond and lucrative farewell, disappeared back to Spain, and you realized thereafter you were with child. Throughout the second half of your pregnancy, Alexander Newton was from Town, so you had no effective way to get in touch with Harry. Do I have this right?”
She nodded as she chewed.
“Leander arrives, and by then, you’ve built up enough work as a seamstress that you no longer dance, but you do work hard. You send the boy out to a wet nurse, and then your old friend from backstage, Martha Waites, offers to foster the boy.”
“Right.” Her nod was vigorous enough to have the robin bouncing into the cardinal. “Martha took him in. She had a bit from her husband and her dowry, and I added some for the boy each month. A widow gets treated better if she has a child, and Martha and her man never had none. She took a shine to Leander right away, and when the wet nurse give him back to me, Martha said she’d take him on.”
“Please do finish the biscuits. The footmen will just gobble them up otherwise.”
She took the last two.
“If Leander is Harry’s son, and you are Leander’s mother, what objection do you have to Harry’s family looking after the boy?”
“No objection a’tall, but if you’re so all-fired determined to finally take a hand in the lad’s upbringing, then it’ll cost ya. The sweeps will pay good money for a healthy little boy. I might have nothin’ to prove he’s mine, but you got nothin’ to prove he’s yours. I have friends in the penny press, and I got friends— good friends—in polite society.”
She let the threat of scandal hang in the humid air while she polished off the last biscuit. The problem was not that Harry had had a by-blow, but that Harry and his family had made no provision for the boy for five years .
Though her threat was flawed: Where had this outrage on Leander’s neglected behalf been as Martha Waites had been dying of consumption? Where had it been when Harry had been lauded as a fallen war hero? Miss Dujardin’s version of events certainly varied from Miss Hammerschmidt’s, but then, Miss Dujardin had been late to the party, arriving only after Leander had been weaned.
As for Miss Hammerschmidt… If her protectors in polite society were fellows of such impeccable lineages and fond devotion, why were her shoes two sizes too large?
I set those questions aside and considered what else I knew of Harry’s circumstances. Harry might well have disported with both Martha and Clothilda, and though Clothilda had borne the child, Martha might have somehow got wind of Harry’s arrangements to support the boy.
Martha might perhaps have assured Harry that she—parson’s daughter, lady fallen upon hard times, respectable-ish widow—would see the money used for the child rather than for Clothilda’s bonnets. Clothilda, relieved to be free of Leander, might have handed over the boy along with the occasional coin, and…
That was all just a little too farfetched to merit much consideration, particularly given that Clothilda had had several years to come forward on Leander’s behalf. Arthur was frequently in Town on parliamentary business, and while His Grace was formidable, Clothilda, in her way, was equally impressive.
“You understand that before I can make any offers, I must confer with the duke?”
Her shoulders relaxed, her chin came up. “That one. He weren’t the duke when Harry was on leave, but Harry didn’t have much time for him. Said the heir has one job, and his older brother wasn’t seeing to it. Harry never wanted to be the duke. He did the pretty, but he liked his freedom.”
The implication being that Harry had preferred the joy to be found in Clothilda’s arms to all the wealth and privilege in the world.
And that was likely true—also irrelevant. “You are correct that we have no record of Leander’s birth or baptism, but was the child given a baptismal name?”
She set the table napkin beside her cup and saucer. “A middle name? Harry, o’ course. You nobs like that, putting the same name on every generation. It’s a wonder you ain’t all called Moses and Adam. I figured a wee lad ought to have some reminder of his old pa, and Harry’s a fine name.”
“And the name of the wet nurse?”
The briefest of hesitations, then Miss Hammerschmidt popped to her feet. “Mary Smith. She left Town when Leander were two. I have no idea where she got off to. Probably back to Ireland.”
I rose, intent on escorting my guest to the door, so to speak. “And where can I find you, Miss Hammerschmidt, should we need to chat again?”
She scrutinized me, and a seamstress could deliver a minute visual inspection. She either concluded I was sincere in my inquiry, or she decided I wasn’t worth flirting with.
“Drury Lane. You lot go to the country and the seaside in summer. We’re in rehearsals, painting sets, sewing eighteen hours at a stretch, and sweating like plow horses. Costumes don’t make themselves.”
“You’ll be hearing from me shortly.”
“You got one week, and then I’m makin’ some noise. Depend upon it.”
I walked with her to the gate. “Tell me, how did you learn that I was inquiring into Leander’s circumstances?” Newton might have sent word to her, but that would have been fast work, even for London theater gossip. Then too, she’d nimbly dodged this question when I put it to her earlier.
“Martha said I could have her dresses, and I told her the same. When you ply the needle for your living, you won’t never be rich, but you’ll dress better than some. The house is dark today, so I dropped by that la-di-da widow’s place to get what’s mine, but the dresses has already been given to charity.”
“Sold on Rosemary Lane?”
“Bet your fancy boots they was. That Danforth woman got no respect for the dead, and them dresses brought a pretty penny too. Housekeeper told me you’d been coming to call, asking questions about the boy.”
I bowed Miss Hammerschmidt on her way, assured her that she would hear more from me within the week, and watched her clatter down the alley’s cobbles.
Atticus did likewise from the stable door.
“Follow her,” I said. “Discreetly.”
Atticus winked, tossed me the curry comb, and sauntered along in Miss Hammerschmidt’s wake.
With Arthur and his dear friend getting ready to decamp on extended travel, I could not countenance scandal for the convenience of a scheming seamstress. She’d spun a fine yarn, one that was likely half true.
But she’d also lied. The boy knew his name, while Clothilda Hammerschmidt, his putative devoted mother, clearly did not.