Page 22 of The Viscount's Pearl
Laurence frowned. “Get on?”
She gestured at the table and its bountiful platters of seafood. “Margate has gone from being a tiny fishing village of no import to a fashionable seaside resort in less than thirty years. Given its proximity to London, it would be even more so were it not that Brighton has the Regent’s favour. The population here has nigh on doubled in the last ten years, all to look after the gentry that come here to be taken care of.”
Laurence shrugged. “I do not see what is wrong with that. They have a fine Assembly Rooms, new shops and houses, all manner of activities in which to delight. They must be much better off.”
She tilted her head. “They?”
“The locals as well as the visitors.”
Frances frowned. “You think a fisherman goes to the Assembly Rooms, that they shop for feathered hats and silk stockings in the milliners, that they can afford a fine townhouse? All of the things you mention are for the visitors alone, or for the few merchants of Margate who have done very well from their patronage, but they had money to invest already, so they were not exactly poor before. The fishermen, the dippers at the bathing machines, the maids who clean the lodging houses and do the laundry, anyone of that sort must watch their little houses pulled down to make way for fine new lodging houses, they must pander to the visitors to earn their wage, and come winter – why, we are all gone, we return to our estates and lock up our holiday homes and they must make do without our money during the hardest part of the year, counting their pennies until we return again.”
Laurence was surprised to hear a woman speak of matters relating to political economy, it was something men might speak of after the ladies had retired to the drawing room and they were left alone with their cigars and port. But she was right, he had not thought of the ebb and flow of a town like Margate. London might ebb and flow but it was always full enough. “What would you have us do, then? Not come here at all? Surely then they would be worse off.”
“I do not think we should stay away. But perhaps spare some thought for whether, when fine new townhouses are built along the promenade, there should also be cottages built for the workers somewhere nearby? Is there a harbour and a beach where the fishermen can safely bring in their catch, or have they been pushed aside for the passenger boats arriving from London and told not to spoil the main beach which is full of fine families strolling and bathing? When Lord Barrington locks upNorthdown House for the winter, he takes the staff with him to his main estate, or ensures they are all paid to work throughout the winter, none of them are dismissed till they are wanted again as many other fine houses do – not the footmen and cook, who are harder to come by, but the laundry maids, the kitchen boys and suchlike, who make little enough as it is. He is a thoughtful master to them but it behoves us all to think of these things, and to take action where we may, rather than to think the world was made for us alone to enjoy.”
Her eyes were bright as she spoke and Laurence found himself wanting to continue the conversation, even though dinner was drawing to a close. “Does Lord Barrington have maps of the local area?” he asked.
“He does. He is very fond of collecting maps and drawings of how Margate has changed in the time he has been here.”
“Perhaps…” He was about to say that he could look through them together after dinner, but he changed his words. “Perhaps you would show them to me?”
She looked at him as though she doubted his sincerity, but then nodded. She took an apple puff, shook her head at the offer of the lemon jelly and, having finished, looked at him expectantly. “Shall we go to the library, then?”
The library at Northdown was better endowed than many great homes, for Lord Barrington was an avid reader and had a fine collection. There was a shelf with a desk nearby set aside especially for the study of how Margate had changed, and here Frances led Laurence, pulling down a few books and then using little weights to spread out several maps.
“This, you see, is Margate when Lord Barrington first came here,” she said.
Laurence leant over the paper. The shape of Margate, with its natural curved bay, was at once recognisable, but as for Margate itself, it was barely there at all.
“Look,” said Frances. She pulled out a drawing, a sketch titled Marcoaet, which must have been made from a boat, for it looked across the harbour and towards the town. But again, there were fewer than thirty houses or buildings, including an old windmill up on the hill and the spire of a church. “By a Dutch artist, van Overbeck. It was drawn sometime between 1663 and 1666. As you can see for yourself, Margate barely existed except as a little fishing village. It was probably only the safe natural harbour that drew anyone to live here at all.” She picked up a quill and dipped it in ink. “Since I was a child, this is a list of all the new buildings in Margate and the ones I can recall that are no longer standing.” She wrote quickly, with an odd letter y to which she gave a curly loop as though it were a whorl on a shell, the list growing longer down the page, an impressive feat of memory.
Laurence was standing very close to Frances and while she spoke had become aware of her scent. Not a perfume, for as far as he could tell she did not wear any, but her personal scent, a waft of salt air and lavender soap, the apples she had eaten and something else that he could not put into words, something fresh and cool. But she was looking at him, waiting for a response.
“Remarkable,” he managed. “How did he obtain it?”
She shrugged. “I do not know. He collects such things. As you can see, there were a few fisherman’s cottages, and then further back some farmhouses. Nothing much more. Before that time it was called Mergate or Meregate. Marsh-Gate because it lay between two tidal streams, or perhaps Sea-Gate. Later as it grew it all merged together and became Margate.”
Laurence re-appraised her as she spoke. He had thought her plain when he had first met her, but she was not, only not given to all the fripperies and furbelows of her peers. He had thought her topics of conversation odd, and they were, but only for a woman, a man speaking as she did would be known forhis scholarly interests. There was something appealing about time spent with her, she was certainly different from any of the women, married or not, that he knew. He had grown to enjoy her company, he realised.
“Show me the later maps,” he said, taking a seat at the desk beside her. “Do you have the drawings of Northdown House when it was being planned?”
The three of them spent a few days happily resuming their daily walks by the sea, though for shorter periods, since it was cold, with the rest of their days in the library, gallery or drawing room. Along the seashore Laurence spent part of the time talking with Lord Barrington and part of the time walking alongside Frances, offering her shells that he spotted and listening to her descriptions of them. By the third day he had proudly learnt the Latin names of at least five kinds of shell and felt himself quite the collector.
On the fourth morning Lord Barrington was absent at breakfast, and Laurence was summoned to his bedchamber by a footman. His uncle lay propped up on cushions in his bed, looking pale, though he smiled readily enough at the sight of Laurence and his voice still seemed strong.
“Laurence, my boy, I am weary today, I shall not be fit for much. Be so kind as to drive out with Frances to some beauty spot or other where she can collect shells. You can take the carriage of course, and one or two of the footmen to look after you. Her maid can go with you if she desires a chaperone, though I am sure I can leave her in your care. A morning outdoors will brush away the cobwebs.”
Laurence bowed and gave orders that the carriage be brought round but Frances, oddly, hesitated at the idea. They had passedan enjoyable evening together, so he was uncertain of the reason for her reluctance.
“Are you concerned that we might be alone, that it might be remarked upon? Your maid can come with us and I can assure you that –”
She shook her head, impatient. “There is hardly anyone about at this time of year and anyway, who cares what gossips think? Besides, Deborah will only complain about the cold.”
“Then you do not wish to go out because…”
“The tide.”
“The tide?”
