Chapter 22

Notwithstanding the interior of the kingdom is almost wholly intersected by canals, this is the only one which, for commercial purposes, has yet been extended to the metropolis.

—Publisher Loongman, Hurst, Rees, The Picture of London for 1813 (1813)

A week passed. Ten days. November passed into December. The Huftons and Beatrice attended a musical evening, a supper, a performance at the opera. Almack's again. They drove in Hyde Park when the weather permitted. They called and received callers. One afternoon they toured Bullock's Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly with the Dodsons and Miss Kempshott, examining stuffed animals on display and paying the additional shilling to venture down a rocky corridor to the Pantherion of tropical plants.

And everywhere they met the same faces, each face a slice of the never-varying whole.

But nowhere in this time did Beatrice see Mr. Clayton. And if he was spoken of by anyone, it was not in her presence. Nor could she bring him up to the Huftons, naturally. And with no sight of him, no sound of him, it was as if he had never existed.

When she could bear it no longer, Beatrice sought relief in pouring out her heart to her stepmother in a letter. She had always been confidential with Mrs. Wolfe, but the time away from home made her dear Mama seem an even safer repository for secrets, far away as she was in Hampshire. But Beatrice's letter must have crossed with Mrs. Wolfe's, for in her own communication Mrs. Wolfe made no mention of the elusive Mr. Clayton, filling the page instead with odds and ends concerning the family. At the very bottom of the page, however, and curving up the margin was appended a sentence: "Darling, Mr. Wolfe says we will come to town with the boys when the short half ends."

With a squeal, Beatrice kissed the sheet and then clutched it to her breast. Her parents and Willsie and Edmund coming? Clattering down the stairs, she found the Huftons in the parlor, Sir John reading, Lady Hufton working, and Marjorie at the pianoforte.

"Lady Hufton," she cried, "did you know my family was coming to London? Not my whole family, to be sure, but Mama and Mr. Wolfe and Willsie and Edmund."

Marjorie left off with a jangle, and Sir John and Lady Hufton exchanged a glance.

"I did know," said Lady Hufton, resuming her stitching. "For my brother Colin wrote to me of their plans."

"Will they stay here?" Beatrice asked eagerly. "And for how long? I know the boys will not need to return for spring term until after Epiphany Day."

"They will stay at Mivart's in Brook Street, not a ten-minute walk from us," replied Lady Hufton, "and as the apartments there are let by the month, I daresay they will be here several weeks."

With difficulty Beatrice stifled an unladylike hurrah! and it only occurred to her later—much later—to wonder at the exchanged glance. Had Lady Hufton begged her brother and his wife to come? Had concern over Beatrice prompted the visit? But she could not bring herself to mind. It only mattered that they were coming.

Lady Hufton would not hear of meeting the Wolfes' coach at the Swan with Two Necks on the day they were expected. "Venture into Cheapside in the evening, when they will merely climb down from one coach and climb into another, to be taken to their hotel? Absolutely not."

Therefore Beatrice was made to wait until the following morning, but her family did not disappoint, appearing in Green Street while the Huftons were still at breakfast.

"Mama!" Beatrice flew around the table into her stepmother"s arms. "Mr. Wolfe. And dear Willsie and Edmund." Her younger half-brother and stepbrother submitted to her embraces, William good-naturedly shouldering the additional burden of his sister's exclamations about how he had grown, and Edmund maintaining his customary silence. But as soon as all the courtesies had been dispensed with and seats found, William produced The Picture of London guidebook to wave at her. "Look here, Bea, Mundo and I spent hours in the coach marking everything we want to see, so we hope you haven't done everything already."

"Unless you happened to place tick marks beside Almack's, Assemblies, and Crushes within Lofty People's Homes, your choices are likely safe," she assured him. "What shall we do first? The Tower? Astley's?"

"Neither, if you please," William answered, skimming through the pages.

"Packet," said Edmund.

"Packet?"

"Voilà!" William declared, thrusting the book at her.

"Passage boat," said Edmund.

With some trepidation, Beatrice took the guidebook, open to a page headed with "The Grand Junction Canal" and read, "‘A passage-boat, or packet, sets out from Paddington to Uxbridge, every morning exactly at eight o"clock, and sets out from Uxbridge, on its return, precisely at four o"clock in the afternoon.'"

"You wish to take a boat ride on the Grand Junction Canal?" she asked, blinking.

Mrs. Wolfe intervened hastily. "It seems your brother Tyrone has been reading everything about canals he can lay his hands on and has created something of a canal fever at home."

"You did not mention this in your letters, Mama." Not that Beatrice was surprised at the omission, under the circumstances.

"He and Aggie talk of making a trip to Basingstoke, to take a packet there on the canal as far as Aldershot, or even Woking!" said William, bouncing a little on his chair. "But then Mundo and I saw this ride and thought a passage boat on the Grand Junction would make Ty eat his heart out with jealousy, for what's old Basingstoke in comparison?"

"Is that the object, then?" Beatrice asked faintly. "To make Tyrone envious?"

"Everyone's in a pother," sighed her stepfather, removing from the window seat to join his wife on the sofa. He rubbed at a smudge on his Hessian boot. "For the more Tyrone read, the more decided he was on purchasing shares in—Mr. Clayton's Cumberland Arm project."

"And then Aggie worked on her father Mr. Weeks and even on one of her brothers-in-law," Mrs. Wolfe hurried to add.

"So then what choice had I, but to be swept away by the same furore?" teased her husband with a mock-plaintive air. "Tyrone may end in bankrupting the county, but at least we will all go down together."

"He exaggerates," Mrs. Wolfe said. "It comes to nearly three thousand pounds, taken altogether, and even if the enterprise fails, I daresay everyone will bear his share of the loss."

"Oh," breathed Beatrice, torn between delight at this unexpected influx of riches and alarm, when she remembered how Mr. Clayton asked that she not canvass Tyrone for funds. Would she have an opportunity to explain that her brother had done it of his own accord, or would this simply add to the reasons Mr. Clayton grew more and more distant and more and more displeased with her?

"So you see," resumed William, "we must go for this ride. It's research. The packet trundles from Paddington to Uxbridge and back—"

(Edmund: "Two shillings, six pence.")

"—Or we might only go halfway, if you prefer, say six to ten miles—"

("One shilling, six pence.")

"—If it's raining or wretched out."

"In any weather, my dear Colin and Mrs. Wolfe, would this be advisable?" Lady Hufton spoke up. Beatrice guessed precisely what troubled her, even if her parents had not then regarded each other speakingly, and she hid her embarrassment by pretending to peruse The Picture of London. But it was Marjorie who put their thoughts into words.

"Ought we to be going anywhere near any canals, when—one never knows what sort of people one might meet there?"

William stared, taken aback by such a ridiculous, just-like-a-girl objection, but a lifted brow from his mother succeeded in making him think twice before he voiced his disgust. Mr. Wolfe, however, said mildly, "Given the proposed size of our party and those who compose it, I don't foresee any danger, but thank you for your caution, my dear Marjorie."

Being no more afraid of her uncle than anyone else, Marjorie persisted. "Sir, I am thinking of Beatrice here, and wanting to spare her distress."

"Are you?" he returned, looking from his niece to his stepdaughter's shrinking discomfiture. Before he could say more, however, Beatrice's chin lifted. Honestly—what point was there in beating about the bush, if everyone (except possibly her younger brothers) knew to what Marjorie referred?

"If you fear we will encounter Mr. Clayton," she said, "I will point out that every time we have seen him in London, it's been in—in some fashionable setting, not—not dockside or anything."

"So far," retorted Marjorie, not at all abashed. "And we haven't seen him anywhere fashionable lately. Nor have we ever been ‘dockside,' so who knows what the man does when he isn't hanging from the coattails of the fashionable."

"Marjorie," remonstrated her mother, even as Beatrice gasped with indignation.

Marjorie sprang up, throwing down her tambour frame. "Why am I the one at fault here? I have not been dangling hopelessly after an engaged man and have been nothing but a model young lady since we came! And yet you and Papa behave as if I must still be watched and warned!" With a last flash from her beady eyes, Miss Hufton growled, "Excuse me, everyone," and stamped from the room.

When the door finished rattling in its frame and Edmund's muted whistle died away, an awkward pause followed. Then Lady Hufton rose. With a quick touch to Beatrice's shoulder, she hurried after her daughter, muttering as she went, "Pardon me. Colin, Miranda—it—is the matter I mentioned in my earlier letter."

Beatrice looked to Mrs. Wolfe when Lady Hufton was gone. Then it was not only worries about Beatrice her aunt had shared in her letters? What concern could Marjorie have caused? But Mrs. Wolfe only clapped her hands, saying briskly, "About this passage boat, boys—does the book say where one meets it in Paddington?"

All the fuss was for nothing, thought Beatrice, when the narrow-beamed packet, operated by crew in smart blue uniforms with yellow capes and yellow buttons, arrived again at the terminus of the Paddington Arm. In hindsight it had been silly to imagine at all that they would see Mr. Clayton. Simply because he worked on canals did not mean he would be found leisurely riding passage boats on an entirely different waterway; nor would Mr. Clayton's proposed project connect directly with the Paddington at all. Indeed, as one of the boatmen pointed out to them, it would be the not-yet-opened Regent's Canal which would eventually complete the connection to Limehouse on the Thames.

"And what of the Cumberland Arm when it is built?" Mr. Wolfe asked him, a listening boy to either side of him.

"That one, when it's built—if it's built—will be a spur off the Regent's Canal, about two-thirds of the way to Camden Town," answered the knowledgeable waterman. "You might have a look yourself where it will branch off, if you were to drive along the New Road and then north up the Portland Road. But Lor' knows when they'll start work again on the Regent's. No, no, it isn't the weather that's stopped them. It's the fighting with Mr. Agar over the land rights, and Homer the superintendent having made off with a good deal of the funds. They'll be having to go hat in hand to the subscribers again, mark my words. But Morgan—that's the chief engineer, you know—aims to open that first leg to Camden Town by next year, come weal come woe. When he gets the say-so again, he'll have the workers back at it with hammer and tongs."

News of the superintendent's scandalous embezzlement had failed to penetrate to Hampshire, so Mr. Wolfe had many questions, but it was William who asked what Beatrice wanted to know: "If people have to raise more money for the Regent's Canal, won't that harm the backing for the Cumberland Arm?"

"There'll be no mixing them up in the minds of them that know," pronounced the boatman, clearly including himself in this group. "Mr. Clayton as is raising funds for the Cumberland is no more like that wily Homer than chalk is to cheese."

The difficulties impeding the construction of the Regent's Canal made new Cumberland investor Mr. Wolfe anxious to see where activity had left off, as well as whether it would delay work beginning on the Cumberland spur, and he suggested they drive out to see for themselves. Of course William and Edmund were all for it, and having had several hours to talk herself into sense, Beatrice made no objections. But once crammed in the coach between Edmund and her stepmother, with William full of effusions and observations about canals and packets and Paddington, she seized the chance to steal a few minutes' private conversation.

"Mama, why did you not write to me about this enthusiasm which has swept everyone up?"

"I could not find the right moment, my dear, when you were so caught up yourself, but with the added complication of your feelings for—him."

"When I suggested asking Tyrone to buy shares, Mr. Cl—he—asked me to refrain, telling me in so many words that he would prefer not to mix friendship with business. I do hope he won't think I defied him, when he learns it has happened all the same."

Mrs. Wolfe squeezed her arm. "Surely he will be so overjoyed he will forgive anything and anybody. You heard the man on the packet—here is the much larger Regent's Canal held up in part for lack of funds! How much more grateful Mr.—he—will be, to be funded in full."

"Perhaps, then, it might make him feel kindly toward me again," Beatrice replied wistfully. "Though our paths may no longer cross in person, I hate to think of him somewhere, out in the world, unhappy with me."

Mrs. Wolfe suppressed a sigh, wishing that, whatever Mr. Clayton might think of Beatrice Ellsworth, it would be far better for Beatrice Ellsworth if she ceased altogether to think of John Clayton. While Mr. Wolfe assured her it would happen with time, Mr. Clayton's reappearance in their daughter's life had dismayed them both.

As if guessing her thoughts, Beatrice continued, "I am sorry my conduct distressed Lady Hufton. Be plain with me, Mama—your visit is not entirely due to ‘canal fever,' is it? Did Lady Hufton summon you to deal with me?"

"We were not ‘summoned,' but I confess I wanted to see you with my own eyes. On the contrary, Beatrice, Lady Hufton said your conduct has been ‘everything she might wish' since she spoke to you and was given your promise. If anything, it is Miss Hufton who occupies her thoughts again. You know, do you not, that she received an offer from Mr. Dodson?"

The wideness of Beatrice's eyes answered Mrs. Wolfe's question, even if she had not admitted, "I'm afraid Marjorie and I have not become particularly close."

"Ah—well. You are two very different sorts."

"But why would Marjorie have refused him? She seems fond of him."

Mrs. Wolfe bit her lip. "She did not refuse," she whispered, though there was no danger of her being heard over the others talking or the creak and jumble of the carriage. "But Sir John would not give his blessing because Mr. Dodson reportedly has some tendencies toward excessive gambling."

Beatrice did not doubt it. Well! This would explain Marjorie's continued ill temper. To be denied again the wishes of her heart, first with the drunken groom and now with the gentleman gambler. One would think Marjorie might relent toward her, Beatrice, in the sympathy of disappointed hopes, but perhaps she feared Beatrice might still somehow snatch happiness from thin air.

The coach carrying them was the only one on the road when they turned away from town to travel along the eastern flank of the uncompleted Regent's Park, and in the wintry, smoky afternoon dimness Beatrice was not the only one to shiver with unease. With the work stopped on the canal, would there be anyone abroad at this hour but highwaymen?

Mrs. Wolfe's lips parted to suggest they come another time—one bright morning, perhaps—when the wisps of fog obscuring Edmund's view from the window parted momentarily and the youth said, "Footpads."

"Colin," breathed Mrs. Wolfe, reaching across the space to grasp her husband's knee, even as the coach slowed.

"Fool," muttered Mr. Wolfe under his breath, referring to the coachman, "if the brigands are on foot, why does he not go faster?" He gave a rap on the roof to express just this, but their driver slowed further, calling to the horses. With a roll of his eyes, Mr. Wolfe grimaced. "Well, Miranda, thank God we're in a hackney with two schoolboys, and because of our outing we're hardly dressed as if we'd come from Mayfair. Let's just hope they won't be disappointed with their takings."

To the party's surprise, however, no shouting followed, and the coachman leaped down to open the door.

"Here's service," remarked Mr. Wolfe.

"This is as far as we go," said the driver, touching his cap when he saw the ladies. "Bit of a to-do here."

One of Edmund's footpads stepped around the coachman to pop his head in, causing a chorus of gasps. "Apologies," he said politely, stepping back when the imposing Mr. Wolfe half rose to prevent his ingress. "But we've closed the road temporarily. A little ceremony to break ground."

Beatrice's gasp of alarm was succeeded by another, though this second one had nothing to do with fear.

"Breaking ground!" she exclaimed. "Why, Mr. Clayton, how marvelous!"