When he returned, he handed the glasses of cordial to the ladies, and then addressed Aunt Lucy.
“Mrs. Harrison, you have lived in Bath for many years, I believe? Now that the new canal is open between Bath and Reading, journeys by boat are being offered from the canal junction with the River Avon here in the city to the rear entrance to the Sydney Pleasure Gardens. Would you allow me to escort you and these two young ladies on such an expedition—perhaps later this week?”
“Mr. Hatton, that is most kind. I have been to the Sydney Gardens many times over the years, of course. I am not personally anxious to make a journey on the canal, but I am sure that Julia and Emily would be very delighted to accept your invitation. Is that not so, my dears?”
Emily clapped her hands together with glee, and Julia replied for them both.
“Mr. Hatton, that would an expedition that we could never have the opportunity to enjoy at home. I have not been on a canal, and I have heard a great deal about the Sydney Gardens. We really enjoyed our trip last month to the Vauxhall Gardens with Emily’s cousin.”
“Oh, I did not realise that Lord Brandon had taken you there?” He suddenly appeared very downcast.
“Not Dominic Brandon, we did not meet him in London. It was Freddie, his younger brother, who took time out from his regiment to take us to Vauxhall. That is a very much larger and busier place. I am sure that Sydney Gardens will be very different, but just as enjoyable.”
Mr. Hatton’s mood seemed to lift as quickly as it had fallen, and the arrangements were made for him to call at Aunt Lucy’s house later in the week to walk with them to the beginning of the canal. He continued his conversation with Julia’s aunt for a few more minutes before excusing himself.
Aunt Lucy watched him go, and then turned to Emily.
“I do not know your cousins, but I do think that it might be better if you were more discreet in discussing matters concerning them in front of strangers.”
“Mr. Hatton isn’t really a stranger to you, Mrs. Harrison, and anyway, it’s his own fault if Dominic chooses friends who go round telling anybody and everybody what he is getting up to!”
To prevent an argument developing with her guest, Aunt Lucy changed the subject quickly, and no further private discussion took place that evening.
The boat was full of excited passengers as Mr. Hatton and the young ladies set off on the boat to go through the canal locks at Widcombe. To begin with, they stood together on the stern, but then Emily walked towards the front of the vessel and fell into conversation with a party who was visiting from London.
Julia stood in companionable silence with Mr. Hatton as the horses on the towpath pulled the boat past the rear gardens of tall houses in golden stone on the eastern side of the canal and the view towards Bath Abbey and the centre of the city to the west. As she watched the houses go by, it seemed to Julia that at last there was an opportunity for her to find out what she so much wanted to know.
“Might I ask you a question, Mr. Hatton?”
He turned towards her and nodded, his eyes alert.
“The red shoes—why did you give them to me?”
There was a long pause before he answered her.
“At the time, I hardly knew. It was almost involuntary. And I need not have delivered them in person, of course. But I have had plenty of time since then to think about it, to remember your visit to Norton Place, and you, Miss Maitland.”
There was so much in his green eyes that spoke to her as he continued.
“Only since then have I been able to be honest with myself. I wanted to see your home at Banford Hall and to let you have something very personal to me. I had heard that your parents, perhaps in particular your mother, want you to marry someone quite above my social circle—Lord Brandon, perhaps—and I knew that I might never see you again.”
Her grey eyes looked at him without wavering for a moment.
Then she said, “Men have more freedom than women in such matters, Mr. Hatton, as I have been finding to my cost.”
“True, but I will always be the younger son of a self-made man who made his fortune in trade. The fact that my mother was the daughter of a baronet does not seem to compensate for that.”
“But your father made his fortune by his own efforts—surely many people would say that is praiseworthy?”
“Maybe, but not enough to make me or my brother respectable in the highest circles, removed as we are only one generation from a grandfather who was a small farmer.”
She looked out over the side of the boat, then back to face him.
“I appreciated your gift very much, Mr. Hatton, then and now, and I’m very happy to be able to thank you. I should have done so before. As to the future, so much depends on my father’s health. The doctor has told us that he has serious problems with his heart, and that there is little that can be done. As long as he lives, I should not be forced to marry someone I dislike or despise. But if anything happens to him, my mother might have very different priorities.”
“There must be an expert physician here who could help him? Or someone from London? Sir William Knighton treated my godmother successfully in Bath for her heart affliction for several years with a carefully measured dosage of digitalis, made from the leaves of the foxglove plant. He is very well recommended.”
“Bath and London are a long way from Derbyshire, Mr. Hatton. Papa is not well enough to travel any distance, and the cost of taking a doctor to him would be very considerable, even if that could be arranged.”
“Do you have the red shoes with you?”
“No, sir.” She saw his expression change and he turned his head away. Almost without knowing why, she added, “I could not risk losing them.”
The change in his face was wonderful to see as he looked back at Julia, and he was about to reply when Emily returned, saying that they were approaching the lock on the canal. She stood between Mr. Hatton and Julia as they watched with careful attention the raising of the water and the boat in the confined space of the lock up to the next level of the canal.
“You are interested in how things work, Miss Brandon?” he said. “It seems a very elegant solution to moving the boat around the contours of the hill, and that presumably means less work in digging the canal.”
“Julia would be more anxious than I to know the exact details, Mr. Hatton,” said Emily, smiling at her friend.
“Yes. It’s true that I am more interested in how problems can be solved, Mr. Hatton. So was my brother, for he told me that, without change, there can be no progress.”
He laughed. “Yes, that is very true, although not everyone would agree with you, Miss Maitland. And the next change lies ahead of us, for now we can see the Chinese bridge ahead.”
“Was that made of iron in the foundry at Coalbrookdale started by Abraham Darby? My father has told me about the factory there.”
“Yes, as well as the second and wider iron bridge beyond. And can you see the entrance to Sydney Gardens coming into sight between them, on the left?”
Once disembarked at the Gardens, the three young people followed the other groups of visitors around the gravel walk. Music was being provided by the Pandean Band—several exotically dressed musicians playing pan pipes together with percussion instruments, making sounds the likes of which Emily and Julia had never heard before.
On the other side of the path, there was a sign advertising the new Cascade, with water making a tinkling noise, and appearing to rush down a village street.
“That is powered by clockwork and, if you look closely, the ‘water’ is really moving bits of tin plate.”
“You are very knowledgeable, sir,” said Emily, impressed.
“Perhaps, Mr. Hatton, you might have read about it in this week’s edition of the Bath Chronicle,” said Julia, laughing at their host, and he had to acknowledge that she was right.