Read Online Friends and Lovers by Joan Smith - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Joan Smith
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if Mr. Everett finds a use for them at home,” I told the workers. No doubt they would end up on his attic staircase.
A piece of wood of the proper age and size was found hidden on some wall at the church. Menrod worked some trick to get it removed to the cottage, and boarded back up the stairs with it. Mama repined loud and long; I was happy the thing was done without resort to law.
One legal case was enough to handle at a time. I did not draw back from the battle for custody of the children. It had become a feud, a battle of wills and wits between us. I was required to resort to an inferior lawyer, owing to my shortage of funds, as I naturally had no intention of dunning Mr. Everett for help.
My man was named Mr. Culligan. He had done work in London for ten years, which led me to hope he knew what he was about. He had a dingy office on a second story of a side street in Reading, to which I went with my mother. It had been necessary to talk her back into wanting the children. This was accomplished by their absence. Menrod did not bring them to see us again, nor did we take the drive up to the Manor during the dispute.
Judicious repetitions of his wretched character were less effectual than the boarded-up stairs in gaining her support. She had taken such a fancy to the brass dragon that she was very much vexed to lose it. A man who would condemn her to a lifetime of dark stairs was obviously no fit guardian for Hettie’s children.
Two days after Menrod’s visit to the conservatory, we took the drive into Reading. Mr. Culligan was a tall, extremely thin man with ginger-colored hair. He had a prominent nose, splotched with broken veins, and a narrow face. He wore an outdated jacket of some cheap blue material. His cuffs were frayed, his watch chain pinned to his waistcoat, his boots down at the heels, but he seemed capable enough despite these signs of poor business.
Customers do not run to the door of any but local-born professionals in Reading. It would be his London sojourn that accounted for his scarcity of clients, but I knew Menrod would hire a top city man, and did not want a country bumpkin pitted against him.
I outlined the situation to him, making much of Gwendolyn being my name-child, and the closeness between her mother and myself. He asked me three times whether I was quite sure there was no will leaving the children in Menrod’s guardianship; when I convinced him there was not, he wished to know whether there was something which might be considered a letter of intent, a letter from Lord Peter in which some intimation had been given that Menrod was to consider himself their custodian. Knowing what a poor correspondent Peter was, and feeling it unlikely Menrod would have kept any chance missile that happened to infer anything of the sort, I told him no. He clucked and shook his ginger head, and finally advised me not to sue for custody.
“The courts will favor his lordship,” he said comprehensively. “He is a man, a peer, in a position to do everything for them.”
“He is a lecher,” I declared, equally comprehensively.
His greenish eyes widened at this telling speech. “Ah—a bad character. This is more like it,” he said, rubbing his hands together in glee. “We will need some evidence,” he went on. “Could you just give me some names and places of abode?”
I found myself reluctant to utter the name of Mrs. Livingstone. Not that she is any great bosom bow of mine; I do not know the woman but to nod to her on the street, after having met her there so many times over the past few years, yet it seemed a hard thing to blacken her character. “Any number of women in London,” I said, hoping to dismiss the evidence in this vague way.
“That’ll cost us something, to go to London and have him followed. It is the client, that being yourself, Miss Harris, who will be paying rack and manger for either a hired snoop or myself.”
“Why, that is not necessary, Wendy,” Mama objected.
A piece of wood of the proper age and size was found hidden on some wall at the church. Menrod worked some trick to get it removed to the cottage, and boarded back up the stairs with it. Mama repined loud and long; I was happy the thing was done without resort to law.
One legal case was enough to handle at a time. I did not draw back from the battle for custody of the children. It had become a feud, a battle of wills and wits between us. I was required to resort to an inferior lawyer, owing to my shortage of funds, as I naturally had no intention of dunning Mr. Everett for help.
My man was named Mr. Culligan. He had done work in London for ten years, which led me to hope he knew what he was about. He had a dingy office on a second story of a side street in Reading, to which I went with my mother. It had been necessary to talk her back into wanting the children. This was accomplished by their absence. Menrod did not bring them to see us again, nor did we take the drive up to the Manor during the dispute.
Judicious repetitions of his wretched character were less effectual than the boarded-up stairs in gaining her support. She had taken such a fancy to the brass dragon that she was very much vexed to lose it. A man who would condemn her to a lifetime of dark stairs was obviously no fit guardian for Hettie’s children.
Two days after Menrod’s visit to the conservatory, we took the drive into Reading. Mr. Culligan was a tall, extremely thin man with ginger-colored hair. He had a prominent nose, splotched with broken veins, and a narrow face. He wore an outdated jacket of some cheap blue material. His cuffs were frayed, his watch chain pinned to his waistcoat, his boots down at the heels, but he seemed capable enough despite these signs of poor business.
Customers do not run to the door of any but local-born professionals in Reading. It would be his London sojourn that accounted for his scarcity of clients, but I knew Menrod would hire a top city man, and did not want a country bumpkin pitted against him.
I outlined the situation to him, making much of Gwendolyn being my name-child, and the closeness between her mother and myself. He asked me three times whether I was quite sure there was no will leaving the children in Menrod’s guardianship; when I convinced him there was not, he wished to know whether there was something which might be considered a letter of intent, a letter from Lord Peter in which some intimation had been given that Menrod was to consider himself their custodian. Knowing what a poor correspondent Peter was, and feeling it unlikely Menrod would have kept any chance missile that happened to infer anything of the sort, I told him no. He clucked and shook his ginger head, and finally advised me not to sue for custody.
“The courts will favor his lordship,” he said comprehensively. “He is a man, a peer, in a position to do everything for them.”
“He is a lecher,” I declared, equally comprehensively.
His greenish eyes widened at this telling speech. “Ah—a bad character. This is more like it,” he said, rubbing his hands together in glee. “We will need some evidence,” he went on. “Could you just give me some names and places of abode?”
I found myself reluctant to utter the name of Mrs. Livingstone. Not that she is any great bosom bow of mine; I do not know the woman but to nod to her on the street, after having met her there so many times over the past few years, yet it seemed a hard thing to blacken her character. “Any number of women in London,” I said, hoping to dismiss the evidence in this vague way.
“That’ll cost us something, to go to London and have him followed. It is the client, that being yourself, Miss Harris, who will be paying rack and manger for either a hired snoop or myself.”
“Why, that is not necessary, Wendy,” Mama objected.
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