Simon Hawke - A Mystery Of Errors

Elizabeth had never heard him exchange a tender word with her mother. She had never seen any sign of physical affection pass between them. She had never seen them kiss, or caress, or hold hands, or even hug. And yet, for all that, her mother seemed to consider it a good marriage. Well, Elizabeth thought, if theirs was a good marriage, she would hate to see a bad one! Whatever became of love? Beyond romantic poetry, it seemed to have no currency. From what Elizabeth could see, a good marriage was really nothing more than a sound business transaction. And Elizabeth was not interested in going into business.

As she walked through the cobbled London streets, all around her, she saw people whose lives were a constant, desperate struggle merely to survive. These were the honest, working class people of London, skinners and saddlers, cutlers and tanners, ropemakers and weavers, coopers and costermongers, and cobblers and simple unskilled laborers mingling with beggars and trollops and cut-purses and alleymen… all of whom people like her father and Anthony Gresham never even deigned to notice as they drove through the city streets in their fancy, curtained coaches. These people were the lifeblood of the city, and yet, they did not impinge upon the world of her father and of the upper classes, which gave them no more thought than a carter would give his dray horse. And even there, she thought, the dray horse would fare better, because the carter knew his livelihood depended on the animal and thus he cared for it, whilst the prosperous middle and upper classes cared nothing for the lowly worker, save for how they could use him most profitably, and with the least amount of inconvenience to themselves.

Her tutor had been right, she thought. We have forgotten how to feel. The poets were the only ones who knew the true depth of the human soul. There was no honor in the upper classes, but only avarice and selfishness and sloth. The true beauty of the human struggle was to be found within the breast of the working man, those tireless toilers all around her who would wither and grow old before their time, assuming they survived the next Plague season. Elizabeth sighed. Her father had discovered what sort of things her tutor had been teaching her-doubtless, one of the servants had been directed to report to him-and the man had been dismissed. She missed him. He was the only one who had ever truly understood her.

“ Elizabeth!”

She glanced up at the sound of her name and saw the open carriage that had just passed her stopped in the middle of the street. And standing up in it was Anthony Gresham!

“ Elizabeth? It is you! What are you doing there, walking through the streets unescorted?”

“And pray tell what business would that be of yours?” she asked, as she approached the carriage.

“Well, quite aside from looking out for a lady’s welfare, as any gentleman should do, I could say that as your intended, it is very much my business, since it would appear that I am still your intended. And this despite the agreement we had made.”

“ ‘Twas not I who did not honor my agreement,” Elizabeth replied, tersely. She resumed walking, holding her head high.

“Indeed? Well, ‘twas certainly not I.” He stepped down from the coach and caught up to her. “As it happens, I was just on my way to see you to demand an explanation.”

“Demand’?” She could feel the color rushing to her face. She wanted to throw herself upon him and pummel him to the ground for the insufferable way that he had treated her, but she was not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her lose her temper and act like the very shrew that he was trying to make her out to be. “Demand an explanation? You dare, sir, to take such a tone with me after the dishonorable way that you have acted?”

“My dear lady, if anyone has acted dishonorably in this matter, then ‘twas certainly not I!”

“Oh, indeed? Are you implying then that I am the one who has acted dishonorably?” She simply could not believe the sheer gall of the man! She was so angry, it was all that she could do to hold herself in check.

“Well, what do you call it when someone makes an agreement with you and you break it?”

“I? ‘Twas I who broke the agreement?” She stared at him with disbelief. “You astonish me, sir. You truly do. Your arrogant effrontery seems to know no bounds!”

The carriage, driven by the despicable Drummond, followed them slowly down the street. Within moments, however, a carter and a coach had come up behind them, both drivers shouting angrily at being blocked. Drummond immediately started shouting back at them and a furious argument ensued.

“Drive on, Andrew!” Gresham waved Drummond on before a fight could erupt. “I shall escort Miss Darcie home and meet you there!”

“I may not wish to be escorted by the likes of you, sir!”

“Be that as it may, I shall escort you nonetheless,” Gresham replied, taking her by the arm as Drummond used his whip and the carriage passed them, pursued by the oaths of the following drivers. “ ‘Tis neither safe nor proper for a young woman to be abroad all by herself.”

“Please let go of me, Mr. Gresham,” she said, twisting her arm out of his grasp. “You are entirely too familiar for a man who impugns my integrity.”

“As you wish,” he said, holding up his hands as if in a gesture of surrender. “However, if my familiarity offends you so, I must admit to being somewhat puzzled as to why you would wish to marry me.”

“Marry you!” She stopped, staring at him wide-eyed. For a moment, her mouth simply worked as if of its own accord as she struggled vainly to find speech.

“Aye, marry me. The very thing you had told me that you wanted to avoid, if you will recall our discussion at the playhouse.”

“Indeed, I do recall it very well, Mr. Gresham! Good day!” She turned and walked away from him, forcing him to run several steps to catch up to her again.

“It would be good evening,” he replied, “and the hour grows much too late for you to be walking home alone, howsoever undesirable my company may seem to you.”

“Rest assured that it is as undesirable as it is possible for it to be.”

“So you say. Nevertheless, I fear that I must inflict my company upon you for a while longer, long enough, at least, to see you safely home and perhaps receive the explanation that I came for.”

“An explanation? You ask me for an explanation?” Elizabeth replied, in a tone of outrage. She felt so furious she was trembling.

“You think that an unreasonable request?”

“Unreasonable, unwarranted, and utterly unfathomable!” she replied.

“Understood,” he replied. “Which is to say, I understand that you feel that way. What I do not understand is why.”

“Why?” She rounded on him with astonishment, startling him so that he almost tripped. Involuntarily, he stepped back away from her, apparently genuinely puzzled by the intensity of her response.

“Indeed,” he replied, looking confused. “Why?”

“You dare to ask me why?”

“Apparently, I do,” he said, wryly. “I wonder if you dare to answer.”

She shook her head and took a deep breath, then lit into him like an alley cat pouncing on a rat. “Oh, this is intolerable! This is simply not to be borne! You make me out to be a liar, come to my home and utterly humiliate me, deny the agreement you have made, and pretend that we had never even met, so that even my own mother is convinced that I have made the whole thing up, and then you have the unmitigated gall to act as if I were the one who broke faith with you\ How in God’s name can you stand there and look me in the eye and pretend to be an innocent when ‘twas you all along who set out to undermine my honor and my reputation, to make me out to be some shrewish liar and manipulative prevaricator whom no man in his right mind would wish to marry, so that my father, fearing to see all his efforts come to naught, would then increase the size of my dowry, paying you a small fortune to take me off his hands!”