Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

Kitty refused her sister and aunt's invitation to return to the gallery again the next morning. She made her refusal in as sulky a way as she possibly could to ensure that neither pressed the point. Then she lingered over her breakfast, dawdled over her toilette, and generally made it seem as though leaving the house was the least agreeable prospect in the world. It worked; they departed for the gallery without her, leaving behind them the counsel that she ought to find something to do while they were out that would put her in a better humour.

They need not have concerned themselves; Kitty had plans that would raise any girl's spirits—and since her ill temper was entirely fictitious in any case, her humour looked set to become positively jubilant before too long. As soon as she heard the front door close, she abandoned her magazine, snatched up her bonnet and cloak, and hastened to the back of the house, where she knew Annie awaited her.

"They have gone! Time to go!"

The maid finished folding the napkin in her hands and set it on a pile of others, then picked up her own pelisse and bonnet from the chair beside her. "'Tis a relief, miss, I don't mind admitting. I had a hard time hiding from your sister all morning."

"Why were you hiding from Lizzy?"

"She asked me to go with her today. I had to tell her I had other plans, since you asked me not to let on about ours, only then I had to keep out of her way, and I thought she would discover me at every minute."

Kitty grinned and gave an affected sigh of relief. She had originally planned to feign a headache and sneak out of the house to keep her meeting with Sergeant Mulhall while everybody else thought she was resting. She had secured Annie's services as a chaperon for the venture the moment she returned from her outing with Lizzy the previous day. It was a feeble plan, almost certain to be foiled—not least because she shared a bedroom with her sister, and the chances of her absence from it going undiscovered were therefore vanishingly small. She had scarcely believed her luck when Lizzy and Mrs Gardiner announced their intention to go out, leaving her at liberty to come and go as she pleased without disguise.

"Well done for not getting caught—but what a fine adventure!" she cried. Ignoring Annie's muted enthusiasm, she led the way out of the back door. "We had better make haste—'tis almost noon already, and I do not want to be late."

They made their way towards the river, where they crossed the bridge into Southwark and turned eastwards. It was a warm day, and Kitty regretted wearing her cloak, but she refrained from asking Annie to take it, for she was in a far worse state, short of breath and gleaming with exertion—clearly unfit to be burdened with anything to carry. She wondered whether the maid was unused to walking so far, but she ought to be glad to have come with her, in that case, for if she had gone with Lizzy, she would have had to walk twice as far at twice the pace.

After half an hour they were both flushed from the midday heat and fed up with standing about in it. The park—if it could be called that, for it was little more than a stretch of common land in the midst of a tract of dilapidated factories—was teeming with people. Some led horse-drawn carts loaded with goods, others pulled small children along by the hand. The odd few clung wearily to the leading rope of a grazing goat or sheep. It was assuredly not Hyde Park: nobody was there to take the air, which was acrid with smoke and the ever-present tang of sewage from the nearby river; everybody but them was passing through, seemingly with as much haste as they could.

"We might as well have met at Rotten Row. We could have walked to Hyde Park and back in the time we have been waiting here."

Annie nodded glumly and shivered.

"You cannot possibly be cold," Kitty said irritably.

"I'm not, miss. 'Tis the thought of all those bodies."

"What bodies?"

The maid pointed at the ground. "They used to bury people here."

Kitty was more unnerved by this than she wished to be but having already observed that nobody seemed keen to hang about, she felt suddenly anxious that they might know something she did not. She shrugged defiantly. "They bury people in a lot of places."

Annie may have had a response to this, but it was lost to a yelp of fright when a sudden commotion broke out nearby. A dog barked, a child wailed, several people shouted, and a sheep, frightened out of its owner's grip and bleating manically, came charging through the long grass towards them. Annie turned tail and ran. Kitty would have done likewise, but the sheep bashed against her as it barrelled past, knocking her to the ground.

As she lay on her back, staring at the sky, thinking unkind thoughts about her sister for dragging her to the stupid gallery and embroiling her in this whole fiasco in the first place, a face appeared above her.

"May I assist you, madam?"

It was a man, and when he held out his arm, Kitty saw that it was sleeved in scarlet red. That drew her attention to the decorations adorning his breast, and she smiled to herself. Sergeant Mulhall had been well and truly outranked. "Thank you, sir. You are very kind."

Strong arms pulled her up and set her on her feet. "Are you hurt?"

"I do not think so." She began to brush herself off. "Only embarrassed."

"It is not you who ought to be embarrassed, but that oaf, for letting his livestock run amok." The officer pointed to where an elderly gentleman was unsuccessfully attempting to recapture his highly intractable sheep. Not far from him, taking a wide berth around the animal, Annie was making her way back towards them. "That is your companion?" the man enquired.

Kitty confirmed that it was.

"Well and good. If you had been on your own, I would have offered to escort you home, but as it is, I have other business, so your having a friend to accompany you is most advantageous."

"I suppose I might as well go home. I was supposed to be meeting somebody, but he evidently decided he had better things to do, for he has not come." She stopped speaking, for Annie had arrived back and begun fussing at her gown, tutting and shaking her head at the streaks of dust and mud.

"A thousand apologies, Miss Bennet! I ought never to have abandoned you like that."

"It is well, Annie, stop fretting." To the officer, Kitty said, "He was a soldier, too—perhaps you know him?"

The officer was looking at her most peculiarly. "Perhaps I do. Pray, what is his name?"

"Sergeant Mulhall."

It was immediately apparent that the two men were acquainted, for a look of comprehension came over the officer's countenance, and he grimaced as though realising a mistake. "Ah…in that case, I believe I owe you an apology, madam. Sergeant Mulhall is, in fact, my batman. And I am happy to report that he has not deliberately disappointed you. I had an urgent errand that needed running, and I am afraid I gave him no choice but to see to it this very morning. The fault for his desertion is mine entirely."

"Oh, I see," Kitty replied, still disheartened, for the officer's gallant acknowledgement of blame in no way relieved her disappointment. "What a strange coincidence that I have met you in the same place."

"Ah…no. No, not really. Not at all, in fact, for the errand was in a place not far from here. Indeed, I was just on my way to join him."

"I see. Good day then, sir. Come, Annie. It seems there is no point in us waiting here any longer." Kitty curtseyed and turned to leave, but the officer forestalled her.

"I, ah…I do recall him mentioning, though, that he had met a very lovely young lady at the gallery yesterday."

She blushed with pleasure, despite her dissatisfaction. "That was me."

"Well then, he spoke true—you are, indeed, quite lovely. I see now why he was so angry to be commissioned elsewhere this morning. I am sorry for it. Allow me to make amends. What say I tell him to meet you again tomorrow? At the exhibition, at noon."

Kitty let out a little huff of laughter before she could help herself. "Another chance to see him would be most welcome, but if it is all the same, I should prefer a different meeting place. The whole world and his dog are at the exhibition. My sister is there as we speak—for the third day in a row!"

He smiled almost fondly, which was strange. "She enjoys the paintings, then?"

Kitty snorted dismissively. "Nobody really goes there to look at the paintings, do they? My sister certainly has not. She has gone on a fool's errand to scare off some lecherous tomcat."

"She's not?" Annie said with wide-eyed concern.

Kitty nodded conspiratorially. "She has! I heard her whispering to my aunt about it. Apparently, she overheard Lord Rutherford arrange to meet another lady on the couch at the gallery today?—"

Annie gasped. "The cheating brute! Sergeant Mulhall was right about him, then?"

"So it would seem. And now Lizzy has it in her head that she must intervene to save the woman from being importuned."

"Is that wise?" the officer interjected with excessive concern. "If my batman has said this chap is a rotten apple, he must have had just cause, in which case, I cannot think it good sense for your sister to seek out his company."

"I agree, it is quite ridiculous," Kitty replied. "As though she could prevent a practised seducer from doing anything he likes! But you do not know my sister, sir. She is as obstinate as the day is long. Once she has an idea in her head, she will not be moved."

She could have sworn the officer rolled his eyes as he muttered, "Sounds familiar," but after that, he seemed to form a new resolution. "It has been delightful, ladies, but if you are sure you are unharmed, I must take my leave of you now." He touched the brim of his hat and began walking away, calling over his shoulder, "I shall tell Mulhall to meet you tomorrow at the British Institution at noon, madam. Good day."

"But I do not want to go there!" Kitty called after him. It fell on deaf ears; he was walking with long strides and evidently out of earshot already. She let out a growl of consternation and repeated to the maid, "I do not want to go to the stupid exhibition!"

"There are worse places to meet than a picture gallery," Annie replied. " This place, for one."

Considering the corpses lurking beneath their feet, the stains on her gown, the old man still chasing his sheep in circles in the corner of the field, and the complete want of any romantic assignation, Kitty could not but agree. With jaded sighs and a shake of their heads, the two ladies set off in the direction of home.