Chapter 2: Friendship Becomes More

If the calendar was not cooperating with George’s desires, the weather was. It was bitter cold with a biting wind driving light snow when he drove toward l’Ecole Gallienne. He knew that nobody could see what was happening under the shell top of a curricle at night, and damn few in daylight. Girls, though, felt that they could be seen when they could see. A porter was outside the school blowing a whistle to summon hackneys. One of those was turning the corner as George stopped in front of the porter.

“Please tell Miss Slater that her ride is here.”

“Miss?”

Of course, she went by her first name in the school. “Miss Esther.”

The porter went inside. He came out with three girls. Two of them entered the hackney, while Esther came over to his curricle. He raised his cloak with his right hand while holding up the lap robe with the other. That chilled his whole body, but the goal was worth the cost. When she got in, she sat on the cloak. He covered her with the lap robe and held it against her shoulder with his right hand. That put his arm around her. He drew down his left hand, conscious that his forearm had pressed against her breast momentarily through the robe and multiple layers of clothing. He took up the reins and flicked them to urge the horses forward.

“It is bitter cold,” he said.

“That it is,” she said, and shivered. The motion in his arms felt delightful.

“Is there anything I can do to make you warmer?” Which question should establish that his arm around her, which felt almost like a hug to him, was merely a means of warming her.

“No. You are very kind.” She snuggled against him. The warmth was welcome, but that was not the only feeling she was experiencing. That other feeling was even more pleasant, but somehow it frightened her as well. The thick lap robe covered her right shoulder, but her left side was covered only by her cloak. For that matter, he was much more at the mercy of the elements than she was. His left arm was outside both the lap robe and his cloak. The low top sheltered them as well as it could, but the wind blew up under it. He took a fairly direct route to her street, arriving before she was ready to leave the shelter of his arms. But he stopped nearly before they had crossed the last street before her house. She looked out, barely seeing the horses’ tails. She could see each lighted window of the houses, but the spilled light seemed to illuminate only the snow blowing outside them. The gap in such windows revealed the street.

“Esther,” he said. It was the first time she had heard him use her name. She looked at him.

He kissed her, dropping the reins to hold her face in his kiss and hugging her with his other arm. She felt the warmth of the kiss, then fright, then a surge of some other emotion. Despite the chill surroundings, warmth surged though her. She stopped pressing his arm away. She relaxed into his kiss. She loved this feeling. Then it was wrong, less the kiss than her response to it. She stiffened and pushed his arm away again. This time, he released her. She sat facing straight forward and breathing the icy air deeply. After a moment, he flicked the reins. The horses moved forward. She could hear him counting houses until they got to hers. He pulled the horses to a stop.

“I believe this is your house,” he said.

“Yes. You really can only see the pattern of windows. If it is not, I shall only be next door. Thank you for the ride.”

“Thank you for your charming company, Miss Slater. Merry Christmas.” George had needed to plan out her response in order to plan out his actions. The planned response was nothing like the real one. At first, as he had expected, she had struggled against his embrace and his kiss. Then, as he had dared hope, she had responded to the kiss. She had kissed him back, or as good as. Clearly, this was her first kiss. She had not even opened her mouth when he licked her lips. When she stiffened again and pushed his arm away, he had braced for the slap. A girl from whom you steal a kiss must slap you. Then she must run to mother. He had stopped the carriage far enough away that a sensible girl -- and he considered Esther Slater sensible, if somewhat odd -- would have time to decide that telling mother would have no benefit. But Esther had neither slapped him nor run to mother. Neither had she given the slightest indication that a second kiss would be welcome. She had merely thanked him for the ride. He watched her to the door, or at least watched the house front until light spilled out from the doorway. Probably that was unnecessary. Street villains would be warm inside on a night like this.

Still, the evening had been a puzzle as well as a pleasure. He drove back to his apartment and sent Nicholas out to care for the horses. He joined his landlords for dinner. Anyone addressing Lords on a night like this would be even stupider than the usual speaker, and lonely. The night was spent in remembering, cursing, and wondering. He remembered the sweetness of the kiss. She had responded. That made him curse himself for an ass, an observation he had often made before. Esther had responded to him; had he exercised a little patience, she would have been prepared to accept him more fully. Instead, he had pushed himself upon her. Her company had been so pleasant, and because he had faced being deprived of it for a mere three weeks, he had lost it forevermore. He wondered what she would do, and how her parents would respond.

He could see four possibilities. She could tell her mother who would tell her father. She could tell her mother who would decide to not tell her father. She could tell one or more of her friends, which would be foolish; it was certain to get back to her parents who would ask why they were not told. Sensible people, however, did foolish things. He might be less sensible than Miss Slater, but he had done a much more foolish thing than gossiping. Finally, she might tell nobody and deal with the situation herself. If she told her family, would they confront him? Could they even find him? His location was far from secret, but it might well be beyond the reach of a cloth merchant, although an intelligent one would inquire of the tailors who were his customers. And did Miss Slater even know his name? They had been introduced, but weeks ago. George did not think himself a particularly brave man, but he felt that returning to the scene of the crime was preferable to hiding. It was much preferable to the family seeking him through Lady Dorwich. Determined to return to the school grounds at noon the next day, he turned in. For all his worrying, it was an early and remarkably dry night.

Esther went to bed soon after evening prayers. Her body lay quiet while her mind churned. If Lord George had betrayed her, that was what Father had always told her about the aristocracy, and it was a minor betrayal. He had done her favors without any promise. He had taken a kiss, which was not the worst thing he could have taken. Had she done favors for him, instead, that would have been a greater betrayal. He was a roue, but not a liar. They had sung hymns together -- well, he had encouraged her to sing hymns -- that was some sort of claim to Christianity. On the other hand, she knew that the aristocracy -- most Anglicans, for that matter -- had only the show, rather than the substance, of religion. The disappointment was less that Lord George was not what he had claimed but that he was not what she had imagined. Father had been right.

The real betrayal had been hers. She had accepted the kiss, had enjoyed the kiss. The warmth of his lips had flowed all the way from her lips down to her belly. And she had welcomed his arms around her. They had made her feel warm, emotionally warm in the cold curricle. She had responded to that embrace and that kiss. And her response was nothing like the rejection it should have been. She stiffened her resolve to reject any kisses from the wicked earl in the future. In that resolve, she finally fell asleep. In her sleep, she dreamed of the kiss; and this kiss was not rejected. Indeed, the kiss went on and on and her response was warmer and warmer. She woke on Saturday shocked at herself. How would she report this tonight at Class Meeting?

The morning was stinging cold but clear and still. Father took her to school in the carriage on his way to work. The weather, not her behavior, was the subject of school talk. When school broke at noon, several girls were asking for hackneys. She, on the other hand, thought the weather fair enough for walking. Then Lord George offered her a ride. She walked to the curricle.

“Milord,” she said, “I shall not get in this carriage unless you promise to act like a gentleman.”

George was totally shocked. He had imagined many responses, including her father emerging to challenge him and her calling the watch -- which was unlikely to be within hearing in daylight -- cold daylight. This was one response he had never imagined.

“I promise to act like a gentleman the entire ride.” He shifted all the way to his right and swept back the lap robe. She got in. When he started to adjust the lap robe, she spoke again.

“I shall tuck the lap robe around myself, thank you.” The ‘thank you’ did not sound like an expression of gratitude. George freed up the section of lap robe which was bunched around his right hip to give more to her. She not only wrapped it around her left side, she thrust her hand down between them so that there was a double layer of lap robe between her thigh and his. George flicked the reins, and the horses moved off.

“Would you like to sing one of your hymns?” he asked. If could not have the pleasure of her touch, he could have the pleasure of her voice.

“Is not this profession of Christianity, milord, terribly hypocritical considering how you behaved last night?”

“You were the one who said that she enjoyed singing hymns. Do you know any secular songs?” George thought her position quite extreme, even from one who attended chapel rather than church. He would grant that he had wronged her, although a much lesser wrong than kissing her in public. He did not see, however, that he had done a wrong. After a minute, she began singing “Frere Jacques.” When she repeated it, he took up the second voice. They continued the simple round in duet until they reached her house.

“Thank you for the ride, milord,” she said.

“You are quite welcome, Miss Slater. Thank you for the song. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.” Esther went into her house. She had prevailed, and he had made not the slightest advance towards her. Why was she disappointed? Still, he esteemed that kiss -- a kiss which still disturbed her -- of not enough importance to warrant an argument. She was adamant in her refusal, but that refusal would have been a greater triumph had it discomposed him.

After dinner, housework, and supper, it was time for the class meeting. Others spoke of their spiritual and moral struggles and (occasionally) triumphs. “How about you, Esther,” asked Mrs. Jennings. “Have you continued to gobble candy?”

“No, Mrs. Jennings, but do not celebrate just yet. Yester evening, I was given a ride home from school by a man. He kissed me, which is his wrongdoing. But I enjoyed it. And that is my wrongdoing.” There was a moment of silence, during which the two youngest girls looked at her somewhat wide-eyed.

“Well, girl,” said Mrs. Brown, “have you ever had anyone warn you of the moral evils of eating cinders?”

“Why no!”

“That is because you would not enjoy it. We only have moral warnings about what we enjoy. Now you know that kisses can be quite enjoyable, just as candies are. Are you going to be the sort of woman who takes her pleasures even when they are wrong? You controlled your desire for candy, which is fine in moderation and only sinful in gluttony. Now you must learn to control your desire for kisses, which are fine from the man to whom you are married, but evil from a stranger.”

“We are to go on to perfection,” Mrs. Jennings said. “That means controlling all our desires. I have not reached perfection yet. If any of you have done so, tell the superintendent, not me. As another point, all of you girls should be very careful of accepting rides. I will not say that Esther was not careful, but she clearly was not careful enough.” Then she went on to another member of the class.

Esther had thought deeply about expressing her problem, but -- in Mrs. Jennings turn of phrase -- not deeply enough. Mrs. Brown’s comments seemed to express the opinions of the married women. There had been nods and anyone was free to differ. But Esther’s problem was more spiritual than moral. She not only had enjoyed the kiss, she wanted more of them. She resented Lord George’s indifference towards continuing his lecherous pattern. By kissing her, he had expressed that he regarded her as cheap. By stopping kissing her at her first request, he had expressed that he regarded her as of little value. If she did not want him to repeat the first offense, how could she complain of the second? And she wanted that kiss to be her last from him; she wanted that more -- or maybe almost as much -- as she wanted him to kiss her again.

As a woman near-grown, Esther was let off the duller parts of housework so that she could help in the kitchen. That meant peeling a lot of potatoes, and a little learning of recipes. Even so, it was better than dusting and much better than shoveling out the stalls in the stable. The Slaters paid a cook, two housemaids, and a coachman-groom. That did not relieve the children from work; it merely gave them expert supervision. Father would grant that his six days a week in the office was much more pleasant work than his employees toil on the power looms. Nevertheless, it was toil; and he expected his children to toil as well. While Esther peeled potatoes or whipped cream with a fork, she turned her problem over in her head. Probably, Lord George had forgotten her; but her problem was the way she remembered him.

George, as a matter of fact, had not forgotten Miss Slater. Until she resumed walking home from school, however, he could imagine no way to renew their acquaintance. If listening to her hymns struck her as hypocrisy, what would she say about his attending her chapel? Not that he knew which chapel she attended. There were too many Methodist groups in London.

In any case, he returned to Glassmere for Christmas. His mother was there, and Lionel and Anne traveled with him. He would leave Lionel and Anne at Stroud Hall on the way back. They would spend January with her family.

As for his dealings with Miss Slater, his most recent encounter was still puzzling him. The future was equally dim. He could listen to her sing for six days a week until the end of the school year. That was assuming their time together raised no questions. She had obviously not told her parents, unless they approved. But they could not possibly have told her to demand that he act like a gentleman. They might consider her becoming a peer’s mistress a social step up despite Anne’s and Lady Dorwich’s aversion to the idea. (George had no concept of either the Slater family’s religion or of its wealth. He would have been dumbfounded to learn that Esther’s father disposed of significantly more annual income than did George himself.) Were they favorable, they would not have bade their daughter oppose his advances. Were they opposed, they would not have permitted their daughter to get close enough to extract any promises -- much less permit her to ride with him. George had no idea what a class meeting was, much less would he dream that Esther would have told a class meeting what she had not told her mother.

But, of course, her parents’ ignorance was a fragile reed. Even if Miss Slater were an expert liar unsuspected by her parents, and George guessed that she was no sort of liar, they need only look out the window when he drove her home. One of her schoolmates need only gossip in the wrong place. George could not believe the freedom that her family accorded Miss Slater. A debutante of her age could not ride, let alone walk, in London without a trusted escort. On the other hand, he understood that this freedom was limited. Were he to invite her to his apartment for dinner, the refusal would neither come personally from her nor be courteous.

And what did he want from this relationship? A mistress? Not really. She looked like she would be a delight in bed, and he would love to own that hair and run his hands through it every night. Were she his mistress, she would never even trim it. But he was more interested in listening to her, and he suspected that her innocence was part of her charm. That innocence was not a challenge. He wanted not to conquer it but to participate in it. And, of course, it was decades too late for him to participate in any sort of innocence. Be as that might be, he could listen to her innocence. He might, had he patience enough, kiss those innocent lips again. That depended, of course, on their meetings being kept secret.

George attended church every Christmas and Easter. That year, as most Christmases he remembered, the choir of the village church sang Adeste Fidelis. The priest was happy to lend him a copy of words and music. Anne, who sang and played the harpsichord well and happily, played the tune until he could sing the hymn solo without accompaniment. To get this aid, he stayed two more days than he had intended at Stroud Hall on his way back. The Tarletons welcomed his extending his stay; the entire family enjoyed hearing Anne play.

He returned to London on a Saturday. That Monday, he was outside l’Ecole Gallienne at six o’clock. When the first girls came out the door, one called back: Esther, your carriage is here.” They walked off giggling. Esther looked less amused.

“I shan’t get in, milord, until you promise to act like a gentleman.”

“I shall neither kiss you nor adjust the lap robe around you this entire week,” he said promptly.

Esther could not decide how she felt about this answer. In the first place, that meant that she had won; she had precisely the promise that she had requested. It was more than she had requested, really. In the second place, she was disappointed that kissing her mattered so much less to him than being kissed by him had mattered to her. She had struggled with her emotions for the past three weeks, and he agreed without a moment’s hesitation. In the third place, he had spoken about ‘this entire week,’ which implied that he planned to have her in this carriage that week. It was the first time he had spoken about any future day. She got in and adjusted the lap robe about herself.

“You know,” he said as the curricle went forward, “I am not a gentleman. I am a lord.” Here he was playing with words. ‘Lord’ and ‘gentleman’ were different orders of society. The second word, however, often was used to include the first. ‘Behave like a gentleman’ was a term well understood to describe a certain standard, with no claim that most gentlemen met that standard. “A lord keeps his word, but he does not apologize for kissing lovely girls.” He had complimented her and -- were she subtle enough to note it -- warned her. “You have entertained me with hymns that I do not know, and we have sung a duet. Do you know this song?” He began Adeste Fidelis, expecting her to join in. At the end of the second verse, he stopped.

“No. I have never sung it. I am no papist.” He saw his error. He thought anyone who celebrated Christmas would know that carol, and he would gain a duet and impress her with his knowledge of church music. Instead, he had offended her.

“Once, all of Europe worshiped Christ in Latin. There were many beautiful hymns. Now, Englishmen worship him in English. Some of the hymns remain. They are still beautiful.”

“People should know what they are saying. How can you worship God sincerely if you do so in a language which you do not understand?” she asked.

“But I do know what those words mean. Perhaps the choir which sang them at the Christmas service did not, but I did when I heard them. So did my brother. So did some others -- probably including Anne, whom you have met.” Did Anne know Latin? She and Lionel sometimes spoke French to one another.

“What did it mean, then?”

“Come, faithful people, come to Bethlehem. It was not sung to mean something, but to be beautiful. If you knew what the Latin meant, however, the message is a Christian message.”

“English words are better,” she said decisively. “They can be beautiful, as well. But, while you are listening to that beauty, you hear a message that you understand.”

“Is not beauty by itself enough? Might I not simply look at you without hearing any message?”

She blushed, glad that they were in the dark so that he could not see. Suddenly a theological argument had become a claim that she was a beauty.

“Beauty is a good thing,” she said, “although your standards of beauty are suspect. But you have six days to appreciate beauty. On the Lord’s day, you should hear a message about the Lord.”

“I shall think about that,” he said. Indeed, it had roused ideas already. “Meanwhile, this is your street.” He turned into it and soon stopped at her walk.

“Thank you for the ride, milord.”

“You are welcome, Miss Slater. Until tomorrow.”

Tuesday, George called to Esther from the curricle. She climbed in, and he handed her the lap robe to adjust around herself. She did not bother to push it down between them. He flicked the reins before resuming the discussion from the day before.

“You think it evil to have beauty without reference to The Lord on Sunday?”

“Not evil, but...”

“Then would it be better on other days to have some mention of The Lord adorning one’s appreciation of beauty?”

“Certainly,” she said. She was absolutely convinced that mention of God improved any situation. “Not taking His name in vain, of course.”

“Of course,” he said. “So that, were I to appreciate the beauty of your voice, my appreciation would be more worthy were you singing hymns instead of secular rounds?” She saw his reference immediately.