Of Moths and Butterflies

CHAPTER ten





RS. HARTUP ARRIVED in the east wing corridor to find Becky and Harriet preparing to enter Mr. Hamilton’s bedroom.

“You’re wanted out of doors,” Mrs. Hartup announced, taking little trouble to hide her irritation. “The rugs from the west bedroom suite must be beaten and aired and returned to the room as quickly as possible.”

“Gina cannot do it herself?”

“Apparently not. She’s been ordered to keep herself out of sight while the nephews are about.”

Becky was indignant. “But Mr. Hamilton’s fire has yet to be laid, and that in his book room as well.”

“I’ll tend to them,” Harriet offered. “I don’t mind.”

“It’ll take you both to finish the rugs before the rain starts, and certainly to carry them back indoors now Mr. Brown and Charlie have gone.”

It was then that Gina stepped into the hallway, having come from her room looking decidedly fresher of face than when she had been seen, a quarter of an hour ago, returning from the outdoors, flushed and filthy.

“Never mind, Harriet,” Becky said, her gaze latching onto the young woman, “I think I’ve got it in hand. You go on ahead. I’ll catch you up.”

Harriet’s gaze quickly shifted between Gina and Mrs. Hartup, but the housekeeper had begun to move off already.

“Go on. I won’t be five minutes.”

Harriet obeyed, following Mrs. Hartup toward the servants’ staircase and tossing a regretful look back in the direction of the corridor.

“Oh, Gina?” Becky said, and saw, as the girl turned, the look of hopeful anticipation on her face.

“I’m in a bit of a bind,” she said with an ingratiating smile. “Your rugs need seein’ to and the fires need layin’, and I can’t do’em both at once. I’ve just got this one more. Would you mind?” And before Gina could answer, Becky placed the coal scuttle in her hand and the ash pail and brushes at her feet.

“But I—”

“Just there,” Becky said, interrupting her and pointing to the door. She turned, then, to follow after Harriet

* * *

Imogen, uncertain what to do and yet not daring to arouse any further ire from the other staff, resolved herself to the task at hand and to doing it as quickly as possible. She knocked at the door and, hearing no answer, opened it.

Indeed the room was empty, but a greatcoat and a travelling bag on the bed provided the necessary proof that this room was intended for imminent use. Of all the positions to be placed in! And this on the heels of Sir Edmund’s warning. She had no time to lose, and so set immediately to work.

Kneeling down before the grate, she took up the brush and pan and began sweeping up as much of the dust and spent coals as she could before arranging the tinder and paper to light. When these had caught fire, she began, very carefully, stacking the new coals. As she might have expected, they flamed, guttered and went out. She tried again, growing more nervous lest she should fail to accomplish her task before the room’s occupant should return. Again, it was the same. Starting over, she replayed the entire process. To no avail. She took a deep breath, released her frustration—or tried to—before preparing to start again. It was then that the door opened.

She stood, nearly upsetting the scuttle as she did, and drawing attention to herself in the process.

The gentleman started and stared. “Miss Shaw?”

“Gina, sir,” she managed and looked away.

She was completely taken by surprise to see him, of all people. To think that it should be he, the charming and somewhat irreverent gentleman she had met in church nearly two weeks ago! His attentiveness then had endowed her with a strange and unfamiliar comfort. But it had also aroused feelings in her she had hoped to repent of. She had tried not to think of him again. She had not been entirely successful. But to find that this was his room, and that she now stood in it…all she could think was to get away.

“Excuse me, sir. I think I should not be here,” she said and moved toward the door.

“Wait!”

She stopped, but he said nothing more and just stood there, alternately looking at her and then off toward some vague object in another direction.

“Is there something I can get for you, sir?”

His eyes met hers then. “No!” And then softening. “No. I don’t… I’m sorry. I cannot quite understand.”

“There’s nothing to understand, sir.”

“But when I saw you before you were—”

“What was I?” she demanded, allowing a challenging air to seep into her voice.

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“No, you don’t. You wouldn’t. I dare say you can’t,” she answered, and attempted once more to take her leave. This was dangerous ground and she knew it. She could feel the palpable tension between them, the tension created by the foolish indulgences of one morning’s otherwise innocent encounter. Oh, what had she done?

“Explain,” he said, stopping her again.

Without turning, she said simply, quietly, “I can’t. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

“Don’t.”

Again she stopped. And waited.

“It’s just… I just…”

Dropping her hand from the knob, she dared a glance in his direction but found she could not meet his gaze for long.

“I saw you. You were,” and a wave of his hand referenced her entire person, as if she had somehow changed her fine visage into something reprehensible, and had done it on purpose to offend him.

“I’m sorry if I gave the wrong impression, sir. It was not my intention. I could not wear my uniform as it belongs to the house and was quite soiled. What I wore that day… It was all I had that was appropriate.”

“All you had?” He cast his gaze, one more time, over the ill-fitting merino she was now wearing and seemed to be comparing it against that which he had seen before, perfectly constructed to fit her frame alone. His tone was suddenly angry. “And so I am to call you by your Christian name and order you about?”

“If that is your wish.”

“It’s not!”

Alarmed by his anger, she replied with cool deference. “Then you are perfectly at liberty to ignore me. Sir.” She reached once more for the door.

He detained her this time with a hand on her arm.

In return, she cast on him a warning look, and he restored the proper distance, though it took him a moment to find his voice. “You were laying the fire.”

Without a word she returned to it.

“No. That’s not what I meant. Please don’t.”

She did not heed him, and he watched her as she piled the coals on too high, veritably choking the flames before they’d been given a chance to properly catch.

“It’s no matter,” he said. “Truly. I won’t need it. I’m not staying.”

“You’re not staying?”

“No. I’m not staying,” he said, frustrated. “And you needn’t look so relieved.”

She brushed aside a stray curl with her hand. The effort left a blackened smear across one cheek.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

“Do what? Sir.” She added the last, as she had done before, as though it were an afterthought.

“Look,” he said, and with a hand on her elbow he raised her from the floor. From his pocket he withdrew a handkerchief. He might have handed it to her. It had been his original intention, but as he continued to examine her face, and the black smudge placed high on one cheek, it seemed to him the easiest thing—quite the most natural thing in the world—to wipe it away himself. He raised his hand. She took a step away from him. He might have insisted. Now he knew she was little more than a servant, he might quite easily insist. But there was something in Gina Shaw’s manner that both drew him on and prevented him, as if she commanded from him, in some odd, unspoken way, his utmost respect. She was hardly the humble submissive. She was proud, determined. The contradiction intrigued and confused him. He handed the handkerchief to her but she would not take it.

“I’ll soil it,” was her objection.

“For heaven’s sake, Miss Shaw,” he said, drawing her toward the washbasin. He filled it and stepped aside, but there she remained, as if she didn’t know quite what to do. Standing still as she was, she provided him with the opportunity of examining her more closely. Her face, her ragged, woollen garment, her besooted apron…then her hands as she held them almost protectively before her. As if she were ashamed of them. And well she might be. He himself regretted to see the signs of ill use, the evidences of hard work recently undertaken, and which had more recently been cloaked by gloves made to fit her hands and no one else’s. What had she been? What could explain such a transformation? And could it be reversed?

Reversed? Great day, what was he thinking! What foolish fancies had he allowed himself to entertain in the weeks that had passed since he had first seen her? The idea that he might make himself familiar to her, that he might encourage her to admire him, that he might have the opportunity, perhaps many of them, to inspire her to smile on him as she had once done, these thoughts had consumed him. But this was hardly the reunion he had imagined. How could he ever have supposed she was merely a servant in his uncle’s house? How was it possible to have been so mistaken? Had she deceived him? Or had he deceived himself? However it had happened, it had been done, and quite completely!

Angry with the lie he had allowed himself to believe, he placed the soap within her reach. And waited. Reluctantly, she washed the soot from her hands—or tried—while he looked on. The smudge on her cheek remained. She had not yet seen it. He adjusted the mirror, and thus prompted, she looked into it.

“Ah,” she said and coloured slightly. “You see, it is a hopeless case.”

Was it, though? She smiled fleetingly, self-deprecatingly. Heaven above, she was beautiful! But what was that to him? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. She was a servant, never to be thought of. Not ever.

“You ought to go,” he said, as if it were she, all along, who had been detaining him.

“Yes, of course,” she said, and left the room with a respectful curtsy that made him want to shake her.

Archer turned with the closing of the door and stared into the not quite empty and still smouldering grate. There he remained. But to what purpose? None. He’d been mistaken. Foolish, certainly, in allowing himself to hope and brood over a woman he did not know and had not been able to discern as one in a station so very beneath his own. Concentrating on that alone, repeating it over and over, he went about that business which had brought him here. He prepared to leave, to return, once more, to Town. After pouring for himself fresh water, he washed his face, his neck, his arms and hands, and stopped. He examined the mirror, not his reflection in it, for even that angered him at the moment. He saw nothing. Nothing but his own foolishness. He remained, thinking. Then, determined not to think, he shook his head and continued. Running dampened fingers through his hair, he attempted to smooth his composure as well. Vainly. He finished washing, and dressed, and stood before the mirror to examine himself once more. Not to think. Simply to assess the success or failure of his efforts. It would do. It would have to do.

He took up his coat and bag and prepared to leave, but found the door an impenetrable obstacle. Unable to even open it, he stood, paralyzed. It was hopeless. It was all entirely hopeless. Overwhelmed by the futility of his frustrations, he turned back toward his bed and threw his coat and bag down upon it.

“Blast it!”

* * *

Imogen returned to the suite of rooms and busied herself until all that was left was to wash the walls before turning the room over to the painters and paperers. It was quite late when she retired to her own room. She readied herself for bed and sat down to read—certainly not to think—but it was impossible to focus. Her gaze wandered aimlessly, blindly, but at last rested on the grey merino dress which she had, a moment ago, laid across her bed. She detested it. How could she admire something so very different from what she had always been accustomed to? Her clothing, though modest, had ever been of the very best in quality, construction and design. But in wearing this, at least she had been reminded of the station to which she had rightly lowered herself, and in which she had believed herself safe. She now reconsidered that station. Had she lowered herself too far?

No. Mr. Hamilton had been displeased with her, as he should be. Better that his disappointment be for so small a thing as this than for learning what she really was. Now she might be sure of her safety. From him, at least. She should be grateful. And she tried to be. But for the first time since she’d left London, she began to regret what she had done. She missed Roger. His absence, her loss of him, was always in her heart, pricking at her eyes in her loneliest hours. But this was different. For the briefest moment she began to regret that she was no longer, could never be again, perhaps never had been—the sort of woman Mr. Hamilton might admire.

Examining her dress still, she leaned forward in her chair and drew her fingers across the coarse wool, over the moth holes, the streaks of soot, the patches worn thin and shiny about the knee, pressed there from long hours of scrubbing floors and tending fires and a hundred other low and seemingly insignificant tasks. But however practical her dress, however appropriate, it was wretchedly unbecoming. She must wash it. Perhaps, if she were to get up an hour earlier she might make the time she had not otherwise been able to find.

She arose to examine her wardrobe, to find there something that would suit in the interim, and was brought once more to a reminder of Mr. Hamilton—his face both pleased and angry—upon seeing the black silk she had worn on the day she had first met him. Never again would she make the mistake of dressing so far above her station. She took the dress down and, finding among her things the thread and scissors and needle she had meant to use before, went immediately to work, detaching the ruffles and frills and pulling apart the skirt that she might remove from the intricately gathered bustle as much yardage as possible. And when, bleary eyed and yawning, she finished, she had a dress she might easily wear when next she had the opportunity to go out. Adorned only by her well-worn and outdated shawl, that which had been her mother’s, there could be nothing to identify her as a woman either above her proper station or suspiciously below it.

Little remained of the lonesome night, and exhausted, she allowed herself a few brief hours of sleep before rising again, very early, to attend to the necessary and overdue washing of her one merino dress.

Only it turned out that it was no use after all. The dress, threadbare, moth eaten, could not bear to be scrubbed and wrung. After all her efforts, after the sacrifice of precious sleep, the dress was ruined. And it suited her just fine.





She was seated on the floor.