Page 10 of Blueprints, Battlelines and Ballrooms (Tales from Honeysuckle Street #4)
Chapter Six
‘Looking a little rough these days, Mr Spencer. Second best in a fight, or just old age?’
The cat regarded Johannes with narrowed eyes, as if he was offended by the mere suggestion that he would lose a fight or be bothered by old age. Johannes shifted the parcel he was holding to his other arm and scratched between the tom’s ears. To judge by the roaring purr, he was forgiven.
He checked his watch again. She wasn’t coming.
Of course she wasn’t coming. He hadn’t seen Mrs Murray all week, although he’d heard her light laugh and her mother’s chiding float down the hallway.
He’d tried not to think about their last meeting, but now the clock ticked past the hour he’d written on his hastily sketched page, he had to accept the truth.
His drawing, made last Season, had offended her, and she had formed a low opinion of him.
She likely thought him a pervert, or at the very least a reprobate—
‘It’s Saturday afternoon, Johannes. Shouldn’t you be out enjoying the freedom of a single man with half a day off work? You look as serious as a member of Mrs Crofts’s society.’
His sister Rosanna descended the short flight of stairs from her own home at Number 1, then ascended to stand beside him on the parapet outside Number 3.
She’d filled out since her Christmas announcement, and the bump in her middle made the fabric across her stomach stretch smooth, instead of gather loosely.
Unlike their mother, who seemed to battle nausea and fatigue for weeks on end at the start of each pregnancy, Rosanna had sailed through her first few months with barely a hiccough.
‘I am enjoying my freedom. I am meeting a friend. A new friend,’ he mumbled, even as his worries weighed his words. ‘Hopefully. If I haven’t offended her.’
Such a short word… her . Yet the moment it tripped off his tongue, he regretted it. Not only for the way that Rosanna turned to face him fully with bright delight in her eyes—but because Benton Hunter, their neighbour at Number 9, ground to a halt before them that very instant.
‘Her?’ they asked, almost in unison.
Johannes twisted the string on the paper-wrapped parcel. ‘My employer’s daughter. She has not had much chance to see London since she arrived. She’s interested in architecture. I am showing her some interesting examples of different styles.’
Benton burst out laughing. ‘Different styles? Is that what they’re calling it these days?’
Rosanna hummed, but her forehead twisted into a frown.
As the children of parents raised rough, of parents who worked long hours and who were not bound by middle-class ideas on regimented childhoods, Rosanna and Johannes had been given a tremendous amount of freedom.
They’d explored the streets outside the hotel, sneaked into kitchens, played games between ladders and scaffolding, even invented their own language.
Most of the time, he’d count Rosanna as his best of friends, and the rest of the time as his most annoying sibling.
She thought far too quickly and knew him too well.
She could follow a slipped thread faster than he could gather it up and hide it away.
‘You cannot be serious. You are far too young to be courting,’ she said. ‘This is your first proper position. Your employer’s daughter? What are you thinking?’
‘You are not much older than me,’ he countered.
‘Don’t do it, Johannes,’ Benton said. ‘Mixing affairs of industry and affairs of the heart will only end in disaster.’
‘I don’t remember calling an advisory meeting.’ He raised his voice to smother them. ‘I am a grown man, with prospects and steady employment. There is nothing wrong with considering the next stage of my life. Married life seems to have made you happy.’
‘Phineas and I were a happy accident,’ she replied.
‘An accident?’ Benton barked a laugh, as gauche as ever. ‘He was just walking along, tripped, and that happened.’ Benton smirked as he waved at Rosanna’s midsection.
‘When are you heading abroad again, Mr Hunter?’ Her smile was forced.
‘I have decided to stay. I have no fixed date of departure. Enjoy your young years, Johannes. They will be gone before you realise.’ And without so much as a good day, he sauntered across the street to Miss Delaney’s.
‘That was somewhat profound. As far as Benton is concerned, anyway.’ Rosanna turned to observe the diplomat’s departure.
‘How long until an angry husband bashes down his door?’ Johannes asked.
‘The Season starts in a month. A month and a day?’ Rosanna tapped his arm. ‘You aren’t distracting me from this conversation. What are your intentions with this woman?’
‘I enjoy her company. There’s nothing wrong with spending time with someone who understands you.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ve not had much of that.’
‘You’re twenty-two. You’ve not had much of anything. You need to see more of life before you consider settling down.’
‘Because you moved so far,’ he snapped.
‘Marriage did not make my world smaller. Quite the opposite. And I did not chafe before, at least not in the way you do.’ She pushed the door open.
‘You think too much, try to plan too much. Like Benton said, just be young. Enjoy life. Keep things simple.’ Rosanna opened the door.
The cat shot inside, and she followed. With the snip of the door, he was once again alone on the landing, except for a mild flare of annoyance that had joined him.
Simple . Easy for Rosanna to say. The old envy of his childhood writhed in his chest. She’d always fit so seamlessly into life, into the hotel, and now into her marriage and her future.
He’d not ever fit in anywhere. Not with his family, but also not with the other architects who had studied at universities or who’d been articled to architects with established names and solid firms, men with prospects and exciting projects to work on.
Men with upper class connections. Had it not been for a builder that was owed a favour from Mr Goodman, and had that builder not owed his father, Johannes would never even have become his student.
It did not matter how hard he worked at his drawings.
Only money and luck had granted him that opportunity.
Things were different with Mrs Murray. The way she looked at the house plans, the way she spoke about colouring and shading…
she understood so much. An outsider like himself, full of passion and skill.
What was the harm in considering his future—and maybe a future with her?
Living at Number 3, with its noise and a shared room despite being a professional man stifled him, but the alternative of a life alone in a boarding house or in his own rented place did not fill him with anticipation.
But to return home at the end of a workday to her ?
To share a hearth and fire as they discussed his day…
The idea warmed him. He might move on to a grown-up life, not this in-between place that was neither childhood nor independence.
If she came.
Which she likely wouldn’t.
If only he’d burnt that sketch at the end of last summer.
He’d barely finished the thought when a hack rolled to a stop in front of his home.
Excitement propelled him down the stairs a little too fast, for he stumbled over the last one and almost came face to face with the pavement.
The driver opened the door, revealing Mrs Murray inside.
Johannes offered his hand, and she leant heavily against his arm as she clambered out of the carriage.
‘I don’t think I will ever adjust to the cold. How do you manage it?’ She pulled her navy blue coat tighter at the neck, then smoothed its lengths over her grey and green tartan skirt.
‘Good afternoon, Mrs Murray.’
‘Apologies. My mind… I forget pleasantries. There are so many more things in the world to discuss, and I have so few opportunities to discuss them that I often skip that part. Mama is forever clucking at me, but it seems a waste to spend so much energy on manners. Good afternoon, Mr Hempel. I have been looking forward to this all week. Does the society meet at your home? Have I kept the other members waiting?’
Johannes rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I have a confession. The society currently only has two members. You and I.’
Mrs Murray pulled back a little, tensing.
‘I did try to find others,’ he rushed out an explanation, ‘to join. But my sister is only interested in decorating houses, not their construction, and my neighbour Elise has so many other obligations with her fundraising, and my brother… Well, he’s more about sport and being out of doors.
Truth be told, you are the first young person I’ve met who shares my interest so thoroughly.
But if it seems inappropriate if it’s just the two of us, I understand.
I can try to get you an invitation to a talk at the Academy, but—’
‘But they will not allow a woman into their precious sanctum for anything more than that.’ Mrs Murray took out her purse and handed the driver a coin.
He slipped it into his pocket, tugged his cap, then climbed back onto the board.
With a whistle and a flick of the reins, the little conveyance drove away.
‘I did not grow up with so many rules and propriety.’ She snipped her purse shut. ‘My mother seems to be a different person here. Provided she does not discover that the society is on the smaller side, I would love to join.’ She frowned. ‘What exactly does this society do?’
‘Appreciates old and new architecture. I thought we might have an excursion each week and alternate between looking at something old and something new. We can discuss styles, concepts, anything we think of. Anything that we can’t discuss with others, maybe. I thought we might start with the old.’
‘And next week, something new?’