Chapter 2

I am from humble, he from honored name.

—Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well, I.iii.152(c.1602)

All was confusion for a minute until the half-drowned young lady pushed the other away. "I'm all right, Aggie. I'm all right. If you don't choke me now."

"I can't help it!" wailed the one called Aggie, "What would Mrs. Wolfe and your sisters have said, if I took you away to Bognor to murder you?"

"Doubtless they would have had a word or two for me as well," put in their young man with a mirthless smile.

"Well, whatever they might have said to either of you," said the victim hoarsely, "you needn't fear it now, because this gentleman saved me."

"What?" Dashing an arm over her eyes, the one called Aggie turned to regard Clayton, only to have mutual recognition shortly dawn upon them both.

"Why—it's you! That is, the man from Bognor Street who unwound Joanie's blanket, is it not?"

Though momentarily nonplussed, he managed a bow. Great heavens! If this was the young mother of the twin girls, then the young lady he had saved must be—

All at once he remembered his own condition and thought he was not, perhaps, setting his best foot forward. Not only was water still streaming from him, but he was hardly more clothed than the other young man. While many men at Bognor bathed entirely nude, thankfully Clayton had been unaware of this custom and had left his trousers on, as uncomfortable as they were when wet. The other young man was himself appareled in linen drawers alone, though without the least sign of embarrassment, and John could not guess at the trio's relationship.

"It—is," he admitted. "That is—I am. What a—er—pleasure to meet you again."

"Pleasure? What a word for it!" she said ruefully. "If it is so, you must enjoy playing the white knight." Turning back to the other young man, she lay a hand on his shoulder. "Tyrone, it is the gentleman we told you about. Our neighbor in Spencer Terrace." With a smile, she shook out her sodden bathing dress where it clung to her and curtseyed in response to his bow. "Sir, we are now twice in your debt. Nay—a hundred times! For what is Joanie's blanket compared to our Beatrice? How can we thank you enough for your quick thinking and your courage today?"

"I am relieved the young lady is unhurt," he replied. He ventured another glance at the one in question. "At least—I hope you are unhurt, miss."

She returned an unsteady smile, tugging on what remained of her flannel shift to cover herself more adequately. "Yes. That is—no. I mean—I am unhurt. Thank you. A little scared, but unhurt."

"It would be unnatural if you were not scared," he said.

"Unnatural and downright amphibious," declared the young man Tyrone, now recovered enough to give the young lady's hair a teasing rub. He then sprang up to make his own bow, for all the world as if they met in a drawing room, rather than half-clothed in a confined bathing machine. "Under the circumstances, sir, when you have saved not only a beloved blanket but also the very life of one of our party, it seems ridiculous to stand on ceremony. Therefore, I will play master of ceremonies and introduce myself as Tyrone Ellsworth of Hollowgate, Winchester. This is my wife Mrs. Ellsworth and my sister Miss Ellsworth. To whom do we owe everything, if we might ask?"

So this Ellsworth and the lady he had saved were brother and sister? That is, not man and wife or man and betrothed? A glow filled Clayton's chest which he did not care to examine, but his answering smile was genuine. "I am John Clayton of—well, I suppose you might say of London, though in truth I seem to have spent my time almost equally in various other places in the kingdom."

"Are you a soldier, then?" asked Mrs. Ellsworth.

Before he could reply, the shivering Miss Ellsworth blurted in a rasp, "We did not really think you a smuggler or a spy, Mr. Clayton. It was a little joke I made with our maid Fussell, I'm afraid, because she said you were always at home and always writing letters. It served me right that she then repeated it to her cousin, your maid." The speech nearly finished her and brought on another round of coughing, but she was relieved to see the remembered gleam in his eye, and when he answered, there was no resentment in his voice.

"Well, if I were a smuggler or a spy, Miss Ellsworth, you would understand why I should deny it outright, even when accused. You would understand why I might declare, in fact, that I am neither soldier nor smuggler nor spy, but rather an engineer."

"An engineer?" chorused his auditors.

"Yes." His mouth twitched. "Or so I say. But it is too long a tale to tell here, when everyone is wet and beginning to shiver." Mrs. Tyrone Ellsworth was indeed bundling her sister-in-law in a shawl, and Clayton did not suppose it could be a very agreeable process when one still wore wet clothing.

"A good point," agreed Tyrone Ellsworth. "Your tale must wait a little longer, sir. But what would you say to joining us for supper? This very night?"

The briefest pause followed, but then Clayton gave a nod and began to retreat toward the door. "Thank you. I would like that."

"It is done, then. Come at seven. You will find us at Number Four, Spencer Terrace." Laughing, he gave his forehead a damp smack. "But I forgot. You already knew that."

After returning to his own bathing machine to change into dry clothing, Clayton made his thoughtful way past the subscription room and library to the High Street, whose winding ascent skirted the Chapel House built by Bognor's founder Sir Richard Hotham, before ending in the princely Crescent. He was pleased to note that he was no longer short of breath, as he had been when he arrived a fortnight earlier, plagued by a lingering autumn cough. However, it had not been ill health alone which confined him to Number Five, Spencer Terrace, the previous two weeks. The Cumberland Arm project had been in a delicate place, with one of the landowners threatening defection over an eleventh-hour adjustment to the route. Hunched at his desk, Clayton wrote letter after letter, evaluating candidates to be his undersecretary and resident engineer, calling in favors, wheedling or remonstrating or reasoning as the situation demanded. If his health improved simultaneously, it was merely the work of time and silence, for there had been no occasion for other means to be tried.

Still less had there been time for loneliness.

As an engaged man, it would not have been unseemly if many of the letters flying to and fro passed between Clayton and his intended bride, yet there had been only one interchange. One reproachful note, written out by Miss Croy but in truth dictated by Miss Brand, had wrung from him a brief but courteous response. The couple had been too much apart the last two years of Miss Brand's schooling for Clayton to have acquired the habit of seeing her or even communicating with her regularly. Which explained why he did not miss her. Why he rarely missed her. Even when he felt a pang, as when he supposed Tyrone Ellsworth and his sister Miss Ellsworth to be sweethearts, it was more a vague awareness of vacancy in his life than a yearning for Priscilla Brand in particular.

And yet he must have been lonely without realizing it, for inexplicable eagerness filled him as he anticipated the evening's supper. While meeting and assisting the pretty Mrs. and Miss Ellsworth the previous afternoon had provided a fillip of novelty to his day, this was something else altogether. What a morning! As if his first cold sea bath would not have been memorable enough—to have screams pierce the air—to feel his heart race and his breath halt—to struggle over and plunge beneath the foaming waters with no clear idea of whom he might find or how he might help. To seize upon the victim and feel panic animating the slender form, hands clutching at his arm, his hands, his chest, his neck, for purchase. And then, to wrench the poor creature to the surface again and find—to find he had fetched up—Clayton flushed in remembrance. It had been like thrusting his hands blindly into dark waters, only to emerge with a sea nymph in one's arms. A mermaid. Water streaming from her flawless skin and darkened hair, her torn shift clinging. He had not recognized her as the same tidy, proper young lady of the day before. Again, the handful of others he had saved from calamity as Donald Brand's resident engineer came to mind—those victims of carelessness, drunkenness, faulty equipment, faulty construction, or countless unpredictable perils of chance or nature—no other rescue had affected him as hers did.

It was to be expected therefore that he should look forward to the evening.

When the housemaid Molly's head popped up in the stairwell some hours later, she was astonished to find the tenant standing at the window, gazing out into Upper Bognor Street, instead of in his usual place, seated at his desk as if he and the chair had been carved from one block.

"Oh, sir," she panted, more and more of her becoming visible as she climbed up with his dinner tray. "Have you been waiting? I'm sure it's the usual time. And if you aren't wanting to stay at your desk, I can set you a place in the dining room."

"What? No, Molly. Set it down there. I'll get back to work shortly, but before I do, I have a few questions for you. Tell me—it was your cousin Fussell who works next door, was it not? I confess I did not attend as closely as I might have, but she was the one who said her new tenants thought me a smuggler or a spy?"

Molly's round cheeks blushed even rosier than exertion had made them, and John thought she looked like an especially ruddy apple. Everything about her was round and fresh, perhaps because her hair was snowy white in contrast. "Now, sir, there was no harm meant, you know. Annie—Fussell—and I like a good chat, and I'm sure the young lady in Number Four meant no mischief. It's only that you do spend a great deal of time working and writing, writing and working, and people will talk."

This drew a grin from him that quite transformed his sober features. "Why, Molly, you speak as if these ‘people' talking were nothing at all to do with you. But, come. I'm not cross. It happens I met the neighbors by chance yesterday and again while out this morning, and they have invited me to supper, and I figure I may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. Meaning, I may as well spy on them in truth and learn what I can before I go."

"Oh! You met them, did you? Well then, sir," the maid rejoined eagerly, "my cousin tells me it's a husband and wife and the gentleman's younger sister. They're all from Winchester and rich enough. The gentleman manages an estate there for his older sister, but Annie says it must be more to keep him occupied or to help his sister, for they—the Tyrone Ellsworths—could easily afford a place of their own. He was rich to begin with, and his wife was a great heiress."

Instead of appearing pleased to discover he had fallen among wealthy gentlefolk, as Molly would expect any young man to be, Mr. Clayton's brow knit.

"As grand as all that, you say? And does—the younger sister—live with the Tyrone Ellsworths in Winchester?"

"She has been living nearby with her stepmother. Stepmother of her and the brother, that is. But her stepmother and stepfather have gone on their own trip—a belated wedding journey—so Miss Ellsworth chose to come to Bognor instead of staying with other family members. It seems she's the only one still unmarried, so maybe they thought to find her a husband at the seaside, but anyone could have told them it would have been better to take her somewhere more fashionable. Apart from you, sir, there aren't terribly many young or eligible gentlemen to be found in Bognor after the summer months. Yes, indeed. I warrant those Ellsworths will gladly latch on to you!"

Despite the maid's confidence, Clayton grimaced at such a prediction.

No doubt some would have deemed this an appropriate moment for him to mention that it made no difference whether the Ellsworths latched on to him or not, for he was already engaged, but the fact remained unspoken. Not because he intended to masquerade as a single man, to be sure, but because he thought it unlikely that people like the Ellsworths would consider him an eligible parti in the first place. What, an educated, wealthy, landed family from Winchester to ally itself with a self-taught man who must work for his living? And not always "clean" work at that, done in a spotless office in spotless attire. Not at all! While he might spend hours in meetings and answering correspondence, it was not the least bit unusual for Clayton's work to take him down into the excavations as well, to ensure the puddling rendered the channel watertight, or to replace the crank of the steam engine's fly-wheel shaft when the engine-man was too drunk or too absent to do so himself.

No.

There was no need to "warn" the Ellsworths off. The very idea was presumptuous. After the supper, if they had not already recovered their equanimity, they would probably deem him amply repaid for his services and content themselves thereafter with a nodding acquaintance. The thought of him needing to burst in at Number Four, declaring with might and main that, no no no, they must not "get ideas" about him, was more than presumptuous—it bordered on ridiculous.

Therefore, in answer he only said lightly, "I think not, Molly. Winchester is a lively enough place. Miss Ellsworth must have her choice of suitors there."

Wagging her apple head, Molly lowered her voice conspiratorially. "You would think, sir. Especially since Annie says she's a pretty thing. Pretty and rich! A girl like that should only have to snap her fingers. Which is why there must be something we don't know. Illness, mayhap? Or a secret sweetheart? Or unracketed love?"

That brought a chuckle. "Poor Miss Ellsworth. I hope it is merely youth and disinclination which prolongs her inexplicable singleness, and not the dreaded ‘unracketed' love. But remind me never to tell you or Annie Fussell anything. If this is how you speak of her, what have you two been saying of me—unmarried at eight and twenty as I am?"

But Molly was not abashed by this, and she waved a casual hand. "You've been married to your work, sir. That's plain. But it's a shame, I say, and if you and Miss Ellsworth happened to take a liking to each other, why that would be two birds with one stone."

"So enterprising of you, Molly," he declared, seating himself on the sofa and pulling the tray nearer. "Not only do you build fires and make beds and sandwiches, but you matchmake into the bargain. But suppose I were to come to fancy you—you wouldn't wish that ‘unracketed' love on me, would you?"

"Oh, go along with you, sir," Molly returned with an elderly giggle. With a bob she retreated, treading heavily down the stairs to share Mr. Clayton's joke with the footman.

Promptly at seven Clayton descended the few steps of Number Five, Spencer Terrace, to climb the corresponding set at Number Four. He was admitted by an ancient manservant whom he knew to be called Pidgeley and led to the drawing room where the three Ellsworths awaited him.

"Clayton!" cried a smiling Tyrone Ellsworth, coming forward to grasp his hand after bows and curtseys had been exchanged. "You are very welcome here. We have spoken of little but you since you last saw us, and it was all my wife could do, to persuade me to leave you in peace until the appointed time."

"I am glad to be here," he replied, unable to prevent a start of surprise. If they had indeed spoken of him all day, had it not at all tempered their enthusiasm for him? Perhaps he ought to mention his lack of formal education and the puddling in the ditches after all, and straight off, before they all found themselves in an awkward position.

Before he could make up his mind to do so, however, Ellsworth's wife came forward and tucked a hand in her husband's arm. "You must pardon our effusiveness, sir, but what would have become of our beloved Beatrice, if not for you? Such a service you rendered! How, how can we ever thank you enough?"

"Please!" He held up his hands against this deluge of gratitude. "Again, I rejoice that I was on hand, Mrs. Ellsworth. Let us say no more of it."

"Or the next time he might just let me drown," spoke up Miss Ellsworth playfully from her place beside the fire.

The wringing wet, shivering nymph of the morning was vanished, and before him stood again the neat young lady of the blanket-and-cart episode, as tidy as the gossiping Fussell and Molly had judged her. Her brown tresses, dry once more and neatly wound up, were shot through with gold and held in place by a silk bandeau which shaded from sea green to greenish-grey, a hue taken up again in her hazel-and-brown eyes. With her regular features, smooth complexion and light figure, she was altogether pleasing to Clayton's eye, and he found himself remembering the maids' conjectures. Was there some secret sorrow which had prevented her marrying? He could hardly credit so lovely a creature suffering unrequited love.

In the directness of his gaze her own faltered, and she addressed her next remark to his neckcloth. "If you would endure just one more word about the matter, Mr. Clayton. I promise you it will be the last. From me, at least. But I was—so discomposed this morning that I could not speak plainly. I do thank you for coming so quickly to my aid. I'm afraid I had quite lost my head."

"Anyone would have, under the circumstances," he answered gravely.

"That may be, but—I hope you will forgive me if I—choked you or scratched you in my panic. No—please—do let me say it all! I was very frightened. So frightened that I think I will be content the rest of our visit to admire the sea from the shore. But—thank you for your quick actions, sir."

He bowed again, even as Mrs. Ellsworth moved to put an arm about her sister-in-law. "Indeed, Mr. Clayton, to keep her safe, we might just wrap Beatrice in cotton wool for the remainder of our stay."

"I hope you will not, Mrs. Ellsworth," he answered, making a deprecating gesture with his hands. "Not that I wish Miss Ellsworth any harm, of course, but I have been thinking myself today about the incident and have arrived at conclusions of my own." He waited until they had all taken their seats again before continuing. "In fact, Ellsworth, I wonder if I might prevail upon you to do me a favor."

"Anything," said Tyrone at once. "Anything at all. At least, anything in my power to do." He made a dramatic sweeping motion with his arm. "‘Whatsoever thou shalt ask of me, I will give it thee, unto the half of my kingdom.'"

"Gracious," chuckled Aggie. "Let us hope Mr. Clayton's request will not be as bloodthirsty as Salome's, then."

"It is nothing like that, madam," he assured her, sitting forward. "In fact, if Ellsworth does grant this favor, it would not cost lives but rather save them. Which is to say, Ellsworth, I wonder if you might teach your sister to swim."