Page 18 of The Rake's Daughter
After distributing the dog leads between the three of them, Jeremiah led them out the front door and down the street. At the corner, Clarissa glanced back. “It’s amazing. If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t have any idea that there’s a beautiful garden behind all these houses.”
Jeremiah took them to a nearby park, larger but not as pretty as the one behind Lady Scattergood’s house. They strolled along, unable to walk very fast as the dogs insisted on sniffing everything and “christening” every second tree they passed. Jeremiah lagged behind, dealing with “the necessary.”
“I can see why the dogs were banned from the garden,” Clarissa murmured.
“Not exactly a glamorous job, poor boy,” Izzy agreed.
“Oh, it’s not so bad, miss,” Jeremiah said, overhearing. “Better’n sleepin’ in the streets, which is what I was doing when Lady Scatters found me.”
“In the streets?” Clarissa asked. Entering a railed park, they unleashed the dogs to let them run freely.
He nodded. “Yeah, me mam was dead, I was just a nipper, and things was looking pretty grim. The old lady saw me from her carriage—she used to go out more in them days. She reckoned I fainted, but I never did. I just, um, felldown. Nothin’ to eat for a few days. Made me dizzy it did. Anyway, she had her coachman pick me up outta the gutter and she took me home, give me a bath—just like the dogs. She reckoned I had fleas. I probably did, too—and told me I weren’t never going back to the gutter.” He grinned. “I know she seems a little bit cracked, but she’s got a heart of gold, I reckon.”
“And now you work for her,” Izzy said.
“Yep, and I get as much food as I can eat, and these fine clothes”—he smoothed the sleeve of his smart olive and silver-gray livery—“and a bed of me own to sleep in. Wiv sheets and all. And all I got to do is walk the mutts twice a day and clean up after them, and run any errands people want. Old Treadwell—’e’s the butler—is teaching me to read and write and figure—they’re training me to be a footman or summat.Andon top of all that, I get paid a bob a week.” He glanced at one of the dogs. “Whoops, there goes Minnie.” He darted off to do the necessary.
Izzy looked at Clarissa. “Now I like Lady Scattergood even more.”
“Yes, she sounds very kind.”
“Unlike her very annoying nephew.”
“Yes, he’s rather cold, isn’t he? And he won’t even try to help us with the situation with our Studley Park people.” Clarissa wrinkled her nose. “ ‘Not my concern,’ he says, but Nanny and the others gave our family years of service. And now they might simply be turned off without even a pension. It’s perfectly shaming.”
“I know.” Izzy knew she shouldn’t feel guilty about it, but she did.
“If the cousin doesn’t take them on, they’ll never find another position. Who would employ an elderly nanny who falls asleep during the day?” Clarissa sighed. “I think we’ll have to forgo the new dresses and other things we planned on. I couldn’t possibly enjoy a shopping spree knowing that Nanny and some of the others could be left destitute.”
“It’s my fault,” Izzy said.
“Of course it’s not. It’s Papa’s fault. It was his responsibility.”
“Yes, but it’s because the servants never gave me up to him. He’s punishing them for their disloyalty.”
“Nonsense, they were completely loyal.”
“Toyou, not to him,” Izzy pointed out.
“No, they were loyal tous. Or, if you want to get pedantic, to me as the daughter of the house and later to you because they liked you. And because they know you are truly Papa’s daughter.”
Izzy pulled a skeptical face and Clarissa laughed. “Well, all right, they didn’talllove you—especially when they didn’t know you at first, but even though some of them really didn’t approve, they still helped me to keep you.”
Izzy nodded. “I know.” It was true that some of the servants liked her, but some of them, well, the way they saw it, she was no better than they were—worse, even, because they at least had been born in wedlock. And to their way of thinking Izzy had no right to be there, living in the big house and hobnobbing with the master’s daughter as if they were equals.
It was out of loyalty to Clarissa that they never betrayed Izzy’s whereabouts to her father. Clarissa could have had them dismissed if they did, and they knew it. But fear and envy didn’t make people kind. It was only when they found themselves alone with Izzy that they let her know it. Clarissa never knew about it. Izzy never let on. It would only have upset her.
Clarissa continued, “In any case, Papa has failed in his responsibilities yet again, and I cannot let it pass. I will write to his cousin and ask what he plans to do. I’m not sure how much is left of my quarterly allowance, but perhaps there will be enough to tide them over until we can sort things out.”
“And if the cousin won’t employ them?”
“Then I will write to my trustees and see if they will cover Papa’s responsibilities.”
Izzy gave her a skeptical look. “They won’t.” Clarissa’s trustees were almost fanatical in ensuring not a penny of her money went to her father, and she was certain covering his responsibilities to his servants would come under the same heading, even though he was dead.
They walked on. Izzy glanced back to see where Jeremiah was and said in a low voice, “Lord Salcott tried to bribe me earlier.”
Clarissa turned to her. “What?”
